I've been holding off doing a full swan dive into the iPhone swimming pool, but I don't think I can avoid taking the plunge any longer. When there's this much rumor, innuendo and raw, raucous hype about something this geeky, there's only one thing to do . . .

Aggregate!

We're kicking off iPhone Watch, a daily TechBlog entry that will continue each day this week through Friday, when the Object of Your Desire is actually available.

I'll troll the Net for the most interesting, insightful, funniest, outrageous or just flat out stupid iPhone nuggets -- and I suspect before this hypefest is all over, there will be a lot of the latter.

This will work like the Linkpost, with a new entry each day and additional items as I find them posted at the top.

Buckle your seatbelts, kids. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

? MacInTouch has a nice iPhone FAQ going. It appears to be eschewing rumor for fact. Imagine that!

? CNet's Tom Krazit looks at how Apple's generating the buzz for the iPhone, by relying on its horde of fanboys:

Traditional ways of reaching potential customers are changing rapidly, as any newspaper employee will tell you. Some companies have plunged headlong into a new media frenzy, setting up shop inside virtual worlds such as Second Life or trying to create "grassroots" viral video campaigns.

But a passionate, almost evangelical base of supporters makes any marketing campaign easier. Apple's reliance on a horde of loyal fans thirsty for information is the catalyst for its marketing.

Keep them thirsty, and every drop will feel like a gallon of information.

? Want to bet that the iPhone will be a hit -- or a dud? You actually can. LiveScience reports that BetUS.com -- a gambling Web site based in Costa Rica (online gambling is illegal in the U.S.) -- has odds on whether the iPhone will fly or flop. You can also get odds on:

• Initial iPhones get recalled--30/1
• iPhone sells at least 12 Million units in 2008--5/6
• The screen breaks/cracks like Apple's first-generation nano (iPod)--150/1
• There are mass reports of the battery life being less than the promised 8 hours--10/1
• Someone is trampled while trying to get an iPhone--20/1
• iPhone spontaneously combusts--150/1

? AppleInsider reports that the first shipment of iPhones have arrived in the United States:

People familiar with the matter say the intrinsically valuable freight was carried inbound by a certain Hong Kong-based air courier, which services Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The early arrival is to assure the cargo can clear customs with enough time to handle unexpected delays, those people said.

? TechDigest has a list of the top 10 funny iPhone-related videos found on YouTube, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laughing about it.

? The Boy Genius Report, which has been pretty dead-on about the iPhone for the past two weeks, says the AT&T data plan for it will be called -- you guess it! -- the iPlan.

No, we're not kidding. Although iPlan might simply be used internally to refer to the Apple iPhone data plan, this streak of info came from a pretty high up source of ours, and it looks to be accurate. The iPhone data plan will be around $34.99-$44.99 and feature unlimited data, and either 2000 text messages, or unlimited text messages (we still have not confirmed which, but unlimited text messages would be awesome).

? Don't miss Philip Elmer-Dewitt's roundup of features visible in the 25-minute iPhone guided tour posted last week on Apple's Web site. And he's also got a look at the true cost of an iPhone over the lifetime of a 2-year AT&T contract. ($2,218.12 plus tax, for a 4-GB model with 450 minutes a month)

? From Bloomberg: Can the iPhone ever possibly hope to meet investors' expectations?

? Cult of Mac says Apple employees are no longer being coy about whipping out their iPhones in public, and that people are being hired to wait in line for an iPhone. Is this a strange planet, or what?