They won't let me trash my mansion. Wah!

So the California Supreme Court refused to get involved in my ongoing attempt to demolish my mansion in Woodside. See here. This is mostly due to the freakazoids who belong to this organization who have devoted their lives to thwarting me. And now they're all happy and proud of themselves. These nuts got a court to say that I can't destroy my own house and instead have to find a way to move the house from the location. But they can't come up with any money to move the house. Or a place to put it. Or something. I've even offered to kick in the dough to help make it happen. Still, nothing. Folks, look at this dump. What the hell good is it to anyone? Meanwhile you should see what I want to build there. I've had Frank Gehry making drawings for years. Basically I want him to come up with something like this. But oh no the preservationists won't stand for it! God forbid Woodside should move into the 21st century. Friggin philistines. They're like Microsoft. No taste.

Why is Ballmer so obsessed with the iPhone?

He's taking shots at us again. See here. Says we'll end up with only 2 or 3 percent market share in phones while Microcrap gets 60 to 80 percent. What can I say? I can't force people to buy a better product. All I can do is put it out into the world and hope they appreciate it.

So busy today

No time to blog. I'm sorry. I've been in meetings all day working on FPPs (Fake Product Prototypes) that we'll distribute to different parts of the company so they can be leaked to bloggers like Nick DePlume. Thing is, even with FPPs we don't just slap something together. We put a huge amount of effort into this and treat each one like a real product. Even the engineers who are working on them don't know if they're working on a real product or a red herring. With each one we have a full round of non-thinking meditative evaluations by me and multiple rounds of emergent designs, each of which I say is "total shit" and "shittier than the one before" until finally I just tell them to go with the first model they had all those weeks ago. Anyhoo. I'm looking at a set of fake iPhones here that are just amazing. And yes I know we've already shown off the iPhone but you know what? We're still evolving the FPPs that went with that product and we will continue to develop and refine those FPPs into the future. It's just how we do things here. I've also got a beautiful batch of fake computers in the Stephen Stills conference room down the hall. The bloggers are gonna love them. Peace out.

InformationWeek says Apple is "headed for a fall"

See here. Guy lists 10 reasons why Apple is in trouble. My fave is this:

7) When an online impersonator of the CEO is more interesting than the CEO himself, that's not a good sign. If you haven't read The Secret Diary Of Steve Jobs (fakesteve.blogspot.com), you should. It's not only funny but more than a little insightful on Apple's internal politics.

I'm glad he likes the blog, but I wonder: Why do people keep referring to me as an "impersonator"?

Caption entries

So this explains Chad Hurley

And pretty much all these other Web 2.0 bazillionaires. See here.

Fred Anderson, master of public relations

So Fred puts out his doofus statement to the press about how all the stuff he did was not actually his fault. And guess how the press responds? Well, they're not exactly on Fred's side. See this article by Charles Cooper in CNET with the headline, "Apple's Not Sweating the Scandal." Money quote from Charles is his opening line: "My first and last encounter with Fred Anderson occurred in 1996, when he lied to my face."

Good work, Fred. You've really won them over. So keep running your mouth. Friggin traitor.

Hillary is taking this black thing too far

Look at her. The wig, the hat, the gun, the tight shorts. Honestly, it's ridiculous. And she doesn't just do it in front of black audiences. After the SEC stuff heated up this week I set up a meeting with Hillary -- this was Al Gore's idea -- and asked her, flat out, if she could help me. As you may know, Hillary and I have had our issues (see here) but Al insisted that Hillary was ready to let bygones be bygones. So we set up the meeting and she walks in looking like this. She's like, "Wazzup, playa? HRC in da house what what? You wants mah hep you gots to pay ma bills, pimp! You understand? Send me some money and ah'll see whats I can do." I mean it was really disconcerting.


And here she is taking a swing at Barack Obama and calling him an "ofay" after the debate last night. So yeah. She's scary. To help me with the SEC she wants ten million bucks. We sent her two and we'll see what comes of it. But honestly, I think she's gone off the deep end. Though I must say, she's worked on the butt and it's looking pretty damn good.

I'm on a calendar

This just in from a reader. Apparently I'm an archetypical "visionary" boss.

"I love my job. I hate my customers."

Congratulations, Ed Zander. You're featured on page A1 of this morning's Journal, and the above headline is your money quote in the piece. "I love my job. I hate my customers." With this quote your fate is sealed. They will carve this quote on your tombstone. Here lies Fast Eddie, the CEO who hated his customers.

See the problem is that if you love your job but hate your customers you end up having neither. Which is what is about to happen to you, Ed. Someone is working very, very hard to get rid of you. Put it this way: I hope you've got a food taster. And I'd stay away from parking garages late at night.

Who's out to get Eddie? How did the Journal find all those insiders to say bad things about Ed, and reveal all those insidery stories that Motorola's flacks had to try to defuse with their lame statements? Let me share a little secret with you about how the Wall Street Journal operates. First thing you have to know is that despite its big rep the Journal doesn't actually go out and dig up stories. It sits in New York, like Jabba the Hut, and waits for people to feed stories into its maw. (The implied threat being that if you don't play ball, Jabba will destroy you.)

Now here's how to decrypt Journal stories and figure out who fed them the info. Look way down low in the story, for someone who's barely mentioned. Who shows up at the end of the Zander story? Why, it's Carl Icahn, corporate raider, who's trying to take over Motorola. But if the Journal is to be believed, Mr. Icahn is so disinterested in this matter that the Journal doesn't get to him until the very last paragraph of the story, almost as an afterthought. As the Journal hilariously puts it: "Mr. Icahn says he will closely monitor Mr. Zander's performance and if the company is still struggling by the end of the year, the board should hold management accountable." Ahem.

Also note which people "declined to comment" and which people didn't. For example, Ron Garriques, the guy who used to run the cell phone division but was smart enough to scoot out of Motorola before the poop hit the spinning blades. He's mentioned a lot in the story but every time he is, the sentence ends with "according to people familiar with the matter." Nota bene the sentence that says, "Messrs. Zafirovski and Lynch declined to comment." Why is Mr. Garriques not included in that list of Messrs who wouldn't comment? Garriques is never quoted directly in the story but he's mentioned enough that you know they must have called him. Yet nowhere does it say whether Mr. Garriques agreed or declined to comment.

Ed, you're a street-smart guy from Brooklyn, so I'm sure you've figured this out on your own. Now you're sitting there in beautiful Schaumburg, Illinois, like a clown in a dunk tank, about to take the fall. I guess by now you've also figured out that Apple screwed up the Rokr on purpose so we could wreck your business and pave the way for the iPhone. Sorry brother. It's just business. It's the Valley. Like the guy in the movie says, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

The scene in the Apple parking lot last night

The brown acid was amazing.

Please keep telling me how great Microsoft is doing

Yup, they're shipping loads of copies of Vista into their huge installed base, as one reader angrily pointed out overnight. But please, please don't say you'd rather be working in Redmond than working in Cupertino. We broke through a hundred bucks last night. Even the guys at Forbes have figured out that Microsoft is in trouble. How long till Ballmer leaves? Let's start the clock today.

I told you

Buy, buy, buy. Right? Did you? I hope so. Folks this is not some fluke or flash in the pan. This is a long-term trend with nothing to get in its way. Vista sucks and will continue to suck for the next -- what? Five years? Seven years? Meanwhile, though I send love to my Linux cousins, they're just nowhere near us when it comes to UI stuff.

I wish I could describe for you how it feels to be inside Apple right now. It's just this feeling of unconscious greatness, like those basketball dudes when they're playing out of their minds and every shot they throw up just goes whoosh, through the hoop. Unfortunately you'll probably never experience this, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Trust me, it's mind-blowing. It's like the best acid you've ever done, only it's really happening.

Mac sales up 36%. iPod sales up 24%. This during the post-holiday quarter which is usually pretty drowsy. Sales up 21%. Profit up 88%. The Street was looking for 63 cents and we gave them 87 cents. See the Reuters story here. Money quote: "It blows the doors off. The big news is the Macintosh." Damn right it's big news. We're growing at 10 times the rate of the PC industry. Do you know any other companies in mature industries that are growing 10x the rate of their industry? This isn't a company. It's a friggin phenomenon. Harvard Business School wants to send in a team of nerds to study us, led by Clayton Christensen, but I won't let them because they'd disturb the vibe.

For our full results, see here.

Oops, gotta go. My management team just showed up with a cake. They're going to carry me down to the lobby on their shoulders while chanting:

"Steve, Steve, we believe!
We will never let you leave!"

Then we're going to bust open a keg and totally get hammered. Then we're going to burn Nancy and Fred in effigy.

Radically, transparently stupid

Maybe you've heard of Steve Rubel. He's this smarmy PR guy from Edelman PR who thinks he's Mr. Know It All when it comes to blogging. He's always talking about "radical transparency" even though, let's face it, he makes his living telling friggin lies. I mean, it's what he does. He's the business equivalent of a three-card monte dealer. For him to talk about honesty and transparency is like having Penn and Teller saying they're going to give out programs to the audience that explain how the tricks are done. The truth is, all this "radical transparency" and "naked conversation" horseshit from Rubel and Shel Israel and Robert Scoble is just a way for PR flacks to feel more important than they really are. It's like when people who teach English Composition at universities try to make a big field of study out of what they do, when basically it's just teaching remedial grammar. But I digress.

I just had a meeting with some of our PR team and they mentioned, in reference to my earlier post about PC Mag's Jim Louderback, that Louderback recently has been involved in a kind of funny to-do with Steve Rubel. Apparently Rubel blabbered on Twitter that he doesn't read PC Mag and in fact tosses his copy into the trash when it arrives. Smooth move for a PR guy right? Louderback blasted back here saying that since Mr. Bigshot PR man and blogger Steve Rubel of Edelman PR has so little respect for PC Mag, then he would start ignoring pitches from Edelman clients.

That in turn prompted this hilarious groveling open letter from Rubel to "Mr. Louderback" and everyone at Ziff Davis, which owns PC Mag. It's really a must-read, if only because Rubel is one of these guys who's been going around saying how the mainstream media doesn't matter anymore, and how blogs are displacing all the big newspapers and magazines, blah blah blah ... but here he is taking one deep down the windpipe on behalf of his clients, who no doubt carved him a new one for pissing off PC Mag.

What's really admirable is the ease and style with which Steve Rubel handles the fellatio. No attempt to defend what he wrote. No pretending to have any integrity. Just "whoops, the boss says I gotta reverse myself, and also I have to blow you, so down on my knees I go." Watch the way he handles Jim Louderback's beef bayonet with his lips and tongue, while skillfully tickling the back side of Jim's scrotum and even reaching back with a pinkie finger for the dirt chute. Junior PR people, learn from this. You're seeing a master PR professional at work. This, kids, is how you get to have a title like "svp/me2revolution."

Waterloo, part 2

More thoughts Microsoft's great stumble with Vista. I know this is obvious but the reason this stumble is so damaging today is that really strong alternatives exist, and the alternatives are seen as cooler. Don't discount the cool factor. It's a real thing. And we've got it in spades. Microsoft has become the anti-cool, the platform for losers.

The amazing thing is that Microsoft stumbled now with a bad OS just at the time when it could least afford such a mistake. Back in the era of Windows 1995, Microsoft had the field to itself. Linux was still a baby, and Apple, well, let's say we were wandering in a dark place. And ironically in those days Microsoft was doing decent work. Sort of. Decent for them, anyway.

But now? They're way behind. And people are starting to realize they don't need to put up with crashes, hangs, and all the other joys of Windows. We've been hammering on this message for years now and it is starting to sink in, even with total frigtards. Not only is the Mac operating system cooler, it's also better. Way better. Maybe it's just because I live here in the Valley but honestly if you hang out here you hardly ever see Windows machines and when you do they're the mark of the clueless. It's like an IQ test. You see someone using a Windows machine and it's like seeing those people in the checkout line at the grocery store writing a paper check for twelve bucks worth of stuff. You want to scream at them and go, "Jesus friggin Christ, there's this thing called a debit card, have you heard of it? Or credit cards? Visa? Mastercard? Ringing any bells? No?"

Or, as this guy puts it: "Windows is for grandmas."

Sheryl Crow says she was kidding about the toilet paper thing

See here. She says it was a joke. Just like her career, I guess. She's not however kidding about global warming. She really believes the planet is melting and we're all going to die if we don't do something RIGHT AWAY. Says she's "riding a wave of excitement" after driving around the country talking to dumb-ass college students. I don't know what's worse -- listening to her sing, or listening to her talk. I'm no fan of Karl Rove, but honestly if this ditz and Larry David's greentard wife started hassling me during dinner and lecturing me about "science," I'd tell them to get stuffed too.

Vista is Microsoft's Waterloo

Yes, reviewers and users have always bitched about new operating systems from Microsoft. But this time it feels different. This time I think Microsoft really has blown it, and they know it. Try, if you can, to remember the launch of Windows 95, when the excitement began building six months to a year before the product launched, and when people really did line up at stores to get their hands on it, and early adopters were racing around raving to their friends about all the cool stuff you could do with it.

Then look at the Lee Gomes article in the Journal today. For a free snippet see here. Lee says it took nearly 20 minutes for him to open some "music" (read: porno) folder with 3,500 sub-folders and tens of thousands of files. That's better than on his XP machine, which couldn't open it at all. But on a Mac the same task took 30 seconds.

For more amusement, go read this article by Jim Louderback, a hardcore Windows fanboy. The problems he describes are amazing. You sit there with your jaw hanging open as he describes one nightmare after another. What's most amazing, however, is this quote: "Still, despite the problems, I do love Vista. It's absolutely the wave of the future."

That would be depressing, if it were true. But it's not true. I believe that in ten years we will look back at Vista and say that this was when the tide turned against Microsoft.

Earnings today

It's earnings day and everybody's jumpy. See here.

I know what you're wondering. Should I sell everything right now? Or are you guys going to blow out your numbers, in which case I'll go load up on Apple shares. Well, it's against the law for me to tell you. That at least is what Peter Oppenheimer and the frigtarded lawyers keep saying. Then again, when have I ever listened to lawyers, right? And why start now?

My advice: Buy. Buy, buy, buy. Don't ever bet against El Jobso. Apple is the Sony of the 21st century. Our stock, like our products, is designed to restore a sense of childlike wonder to your life. Get some for your grandkids. And then you know what? Don't listen to our earnings call today. Don't read the earnings report. Don't do anything. Just put those shares away someplace safe and forget about them. Come back in ten years and be prepared to smile.

Kind of Blue

So there's a few albums I always go back to on days like this. "Kind of Blue" by Miles is one. Joni Mitchell's "Blue" is another. I've got the new re-release on 180-gram vinyl, and it's been on heavy rotation here in the Jobs Pod today. It's the only way I can listen to music now that I've smashed my iPod Hi-Fi during a Ballmeresque tantrum this afternoon.

Very ugly meeting in the David Crosby conference room this morning. Jerry York and his friggin dog breath, and all the rest of the board, including the old dude from J. Crew whose name I can never remember. (He slept through the whole thing, as usual.) Al Gore connected in live via an iSight camera and iChat AV software, and once again started talking about how he needs to resign. The merde is hitting the fan, folks. We're putting on a brave face for the public but behind the scenes it's tears of a clown time.

Jon Ive keeps copying my look

Bad enough that he keeps taking credit for my designs. Now he's trying to look like me, only in a more muscled-up and less heterosexual kind of way. Worst of all, people are falling for this baloney. He's been edging me out in some TIME magazine poll of the most influential people in the world. See here. Reminds me of the way John Lasseter keeps going around pretending to be the big creative genius of Pixar. Fair enough, we let him do it, since it looks better for us to have a whole stable of geniuses. But come on. We know who thinks up those characters, right?

Note to readers: You can see the whole TIME mag list here. And you can even tell them what other people should have been on it. Like FSJ for example.

Fred rolls

"Settled" is the word they used in the Journal this morning. See here. But come on. He didn't settle. He flipped. They played him and Nancy Heinen off each other. Made them both an offer. Nancy, being a lawyer, figured she'd be cute and reject the first offer and bump them to something better. Instead, Fred rolled. And now Nancy is going to trial. I just mailed her a pamphlet that shows you how to make a shiv out of a bar of soap.

All this stuff about how the Jobsmeister is off the hook? Fuggedaboutit. Fred is the Big Pussy Bonpensiero of the Apple crime family. He's betrayed us. Note to Fred: I'd stay away from boats if I were you.

Caption contest

This came in from a reader. I have no idea what is actually happening in this photo. But Ballmer sure looks like he's been hitting the hash pipe pretty hard right? And the dude in the middle certainly seems to be in on the joke. For a clue perhaps try looking through this slideshow which is where the photo came from.

Get a Mac, enlarge your penis

We can't guarantee this will work for you. But it might.

I want to feel bad for Nancy and Fred

But honestly, I'm just pissed at them. Why's that you say? Because even now they're completely unrepentant. They have no remorse for what they did. They've put me and everyone else here at Apple in terrible jeopardy. They've caused the whole company to be distracted. And when confronted with what they've done, how do they respond? They point the finger at the Jobsmeister. Lame, lame, lame. Well, the SEC isn't being fooled. See here.

Nancy and Fred, if you'd at least had the decency to admit that you did something wrong and to say that you were sorry, maybe I'd feel bad for you or even lift a finger to help you. But as it is, I'm just too hurt and angry. Really. I feel so ... betrayed. And violated. I mean, I trusted you people. If it's any consolation, Jerry York says you'll do 18 months at the most, and definitely in a minimum security place.

Look, I got hardly any on my hand!

To save the planet, talent-free singer Sheryl Crow advises using only one square of toilet paper per dump. See here. Now I understand why Lance Armstrong ditched her. I wouldn't go near that coochie either. I'm trying to remember if I shook her hand when I met her. I'm pretty sure I did. Oh God. I just threw up in my mouth.

Taking a break for a few days

This weekend is the annual Chechen Hunt here in Krasnodar, and Dasha and Iulia have convinced me to sign up. Which means I'll be away from my dear Mac and unable to blog for a few days. As for the hunt itself, fear not. It's basically a fertility ritual, and no actual Chechens are harmed or killed anymore. It's strictly capture and release, and the "Chechen" roles are played by actors. Mostly it's an excuse to get outside in the nice spring weather and drink too much. I'll have a full report Monday.

Merde! Je suis idiot!

Merci beaucoup to all the readers who wrote in to inform me that the video was in French, not Portuguese. Don't know how I missed that. I'm overwhelmed by your show of support. My bad.

Lord of the Nanos

This video is in Portuguese, which I don't speak. But it's pretty good and I think I get the joke anyway. If anyone wants to send in a translation via email, I'll post it here to go with the video.

How bad is Vista?

So bad that Dell's customers are demanding XP instead. And Dell has caved and started offering XP again. See here. Oh, sorry, Paul Thurrott. Am I being a bully?

Supreme Court bans partial-birth abortions. Vista, however, is grandfathered in.

Now we know why Gates rushed Vista into the market without ironing out all the problems. He wanted to get ahead of this ruling. Users of Debian Linux (shown above, praying outside Supreme Court) say they were "disappointed" by the court's ruling but called it "a step in the right direction."

Microsoft lickspittle says Apple fans are bullies

Microsoft ass-muncher Paul Thurrott posts this item saying that even though Apple fans gloated about the Vista delays, he's not going to gloat about our Leopard delays. Then he goes ahead and gloats. Worse, he actually double-gloats by claiming that he's a better person than we are because he's not gloating. In other words, he's gloating about his alleged non-gloating! Canyoufrigginbelieveit? Not sure it's fair to equate a tiny slip in Leopard with the problems Vista suffered. Anyhoo. Check out the money quote where Mr. Asshat manages to insult Apple fans while at the same time giving himself a great big Microsoft pat on the back for being so fair and above-the-fray:

"I've often argued that Apple made great products but could be a spiteful bully, and that its hard core fans have emulated that style in their dealings with people who disagreed with them. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, I won't stoop to that level. But this is a nice chance for the Apple community to adopt a humbler approach in their dealings with the outside world. Making an operating system is hard, and we can and should cut Apple some slack when there are problems. Maybe Apple and its fans could extend the same courtesy."

Found in the trash at Fred Anderson's house

One of my readers was jogging in Fred's neighborhood and claims he "found" this in the trash. Appears to be the first page of a letter to me. Not sure what to make of it.

I used to think Gates had a weird laugh

Until I heard this. Marissa Mayer is a top executive at Google and she has a very weird laugh. Someone took clips from a speech she gave and strung them together. Enjoy. And yes, this video recently ran here on Valleywag. One of my readers sent it in to me, and I'm posting it for the benefit of those people who don't read Valleywag anymore (ie, everyone).

More iPorn

Reader pal Jon alerts me to this flickr page called "sexy girls and ipods." It's just like the name says. Also check out this person of indeterminate gender and his/her iPod. Much love, Jon.

New tees from the interns

Well Dasha and Iulia are busy as hell here in Krasnodar, dreaming up new products for the Fake Steve shop on Cafe Press. We're printing them up now so that everyone will have time to place orders and get shirts to wear to the WWDC in June. Shown are two new T-shirts -- a redesigned "Dell baby seal" shirt and a new one called "Namaste."

These small photos don't do them justice. To get the full monty, go to the shop and see the larger images. Dasha and Iulia have redone the "Dell baby seal" T-shirt so the image takes up more space on the shirt. And frankly I think the new black "Namaste" T-shirts are gorgeous. Also check out the coffee mugs and book bag. What better way to say, "I honor the place where you and I become one."

If anyone would like to design something especially for WWDC, send in ideas. But I think these shirts will do fine, especially the Namaste in black.

We need to send a huge "Much Love" to our dear friend Mikolaj Kamler in Warsaw. He's the artistic genius who did all the art and layout work to make these products possible. Check out his company's amazing online workshop here to see some of the graphics and animation he and his partner, Zuzanna, have done. Mikolaj is a devoted reader and, it turns out, an astonishingly good artist. Check out his bio in the "About" page. He's not an amateur. We hope to see more from him in the future. Stay tuned.

Also, in the interest of giving all credit where it's due, the original Namaste button was designed by another dear reader, Tyler Hall. Thanks, T.

Some captions

If she was my wife, I'd ...

Check this out. Some guy shot a photo of his wife in that Sports Illustrated "wearing nothing but an iPod" pose, and put the photo on flickr. At least I think it's his wife. Could this be the start of a trend?

We are so friggin hot

Sales of Macs grew 30% in the last quarter v. 2.9% for the overall industry, according to Gartner. See here. Apple faithful, we are smoking.

Help a Linux lover live his dream

Some Linux lover guy has set an ambitious goal. He wants to put a Linux advertisement on an Indy 500 car. See here. All he needs to do is raise $350,000 in a month. And as he points out, this should be easy because there are so many millions of Linux users, and all he needs is for 350,000 of them to send him a dollar each. Unfortunately the freetards haven't been cooperating, and so far he's raised only $5,000. Weird, right? I mean, who would have thought that people who use free software would turn out to be cheapskates? Worse yet, instead of sending money, a bunch of the Linux freaks instead decided to attack his website and splatter porn all over it. See his complaint about the whole thing here.

It's really worth reading these articles to get a glimpse of a full-blown Microsoft panic. Note, for example, his link to some Microsoft take-over-the-planet documents, which Linux Man calls "Evangalism [sic] is War." Sadly, he seems to be under the impression that if the entire world does not adopt Linux, we'll all be doomed to use nothing but Microsoft software. Should we maybe tell him about OS X? More important, should we help this dude out and send him some money so he can have his Linux race car?

And why oh why are these Linu-tics always hatching these grand schemes, like online petitions and fund-raising campaigns? Why can't they just be like Apple fans, and just buy their superior products and smugly shake their heads at the dopes who don't know any better than to run Windows?

Yeah, this is gonna sell products. Big time.

Microsoft is now using this photo of Young Bill Gates (pre deal with devil) on its web site hoping it will help sell copies of developer tools. Naturally the "inspired" spot gets super high marks from the shills at Microsoft Watch (see here) which is perhaps to be expected since they rely on Microsoft for 100% of their financial "inspiration." The idea, according to Microsoft Watch editor and genius software pundit Joe Wilcox, is to put "a friendly marketing face on the company." You know, the way the Germans used to put smiley face buttons on their Panzers.


Also, please note the tiny photo of Joe Wilcox. Is it just me or does this guy look like he's holding in a poop? This is one happy bastard, right? How inspiring it must be to work at Microsoft Watch, to devote your entire being to chronicling the wondrous products that restore a sense of infantile helplessness and utter frustration to people's lives. And dealing with all those people who are so passionate about Microsoft products. The Excel fan club, the Visual Basic crazies, the Zune-atics. Fun bunch.

The FSJ interns have opened a Cafe Press shop

I'm sure they'll screw it up somehow but Dasha and Iulia want to be entrepreneurs and who am I to stop them? I was young once, walking in barefoot to Atari and demanding a job. Anyway, the photo above shows their first effort. It's a T-shirt that says, "Every time you buy a Dell, a baby seal dies." I think it's a nice way to counteract Dell's ridiculous Plant A Tree For Me program.

The T-shirt was designed by dear reader Mikolaj, a creative genius from Poland. You can get a better image of the T-shirt on the Fake Steve Cafe Press shop, here. Also, the techies on staff have put a new button in the sidebar which takes you to the store. (You don't think El Jobso knows how to do stuff like that himself, do you?) If you do try out the store let us know how it works. The T-shirt is organic cotton, naturally, because Apple is all about making green by being green, and the organic T is the most expensive model they offer at Cafe Press. We've also put the logo on a mug and a book bag.

We're working on more designs and hope to have them up soon. Peace out.

Mother Jones drills me a new one

They too say we are not green enough and accuse Apple of engaging in "rapacious capitalism," which I think they intend as an insult. See here.

Note to all of Apple: Mother Jones is now also banned from the premises.

The Economist says iPhone is already obsolete

See here. They say we've been "pipped" which sounds dirty but I don't think it is. Money quote: "Though not available until June, the $500 iPhone is as mouth-watering today as yesterday’s cold pizza." And they blast us for using EDGE instead of EV-DO: "Why Apple should have hitched its wagon to so fading a star shows how quickly even the most talented of companies can be blinded by today’s blistering pace of wireless innovation."

Announcement to all of Apple: The Economist is banned from all Apple buildings.

Everybody's an expert

Some guy who used to work for us says here that the reason we're having problems with the iPhone and OS X is that we don't have enough powerful VPs. He says the reason for this is that I won't allow anyone powerful to get underneath me. Suggestion is that El Jobso is kind of paranoid and insecure. You know what? You'd be paranoid and insecure too if you once got thrown out of your own damn company. So the OS is gonna be a little late. It's also going to be amazing. Have no fear, Apple Faithful. We know what we're doing. And there's a reason why this "expert" is no longer at Apple. As his bio states at the bottom of his attack piece: "His interests include alpine skiing, SciFi, astronomy, and Perl." Enough said.

Apple faithful, I know you're upset by our new direction

The signs of unhappiness are everywhere. Like in this piece by my good friend Leander Kahney who grumbles that Apple stores now are full of "teenage mall rats and iPod noobs" not to mention "peabrains." Leander frets because we're putting the iPhone ahead of OS X, and says this reflects a shift in focus away from hardcore computer geeks to the great unwashed hoi polloi. His title: "What's Happening to Our Lovely Cult?"

Leander, I feel your pain. We all do. Apple employees can't even bear to go into our retail stores anymore. We hear complaints about this all the time. The 80-by-20-foot multi-touch screen in our lobby is filled with nightmare stories.

One solution we're considering: A new chain of "Apple Elite" stores where you have to pass a test to get in. We'd put the test on a really cool multi-touch screen outside the door. If you pass, click, the door opens, just like on an ATM booth. If you fail, too bad, you can just stand outside trying to look through the smoked glass at all the super cool Apple cultists. Apple security guards will make sure you don't try to sneak in when one of the elite customers is leaving. An Apple "concierge" will direct you to the closest regular Apple store, where you can shop with the rest of the frigtards.

Here's one sample question:

CORRECTLY MATCH THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE TO THEIR PHOTOGRAPHS. YOU MUST GET ALL FIVE CORRECT TO ENTER.

1. Andy Hertzfeld. 2. Burrell Smith. 3. Steve Wozniak. 4. Kobun Chino. 5. Bill Atkinson.

Faithful, we need lots of questions. So send in your suggestions.

Caption contest

Fish in a barrel, I know. But the interns here at FSJ Central in Krasnodar are bored and need something to keep them busy. So fire away. And have fun.

Congratulations, Charlie Forelle of the Wall Street Journal

You're 27 years old and you just won a Pulitzer Prize. Great news for you! And all you had to do was play along with the Journal's anti-business smear campaign against El Jobso and hundreds of other hard-working Silicon Valley executives, people who have devoted their lives to developing wondrous products and making the world a better place. Gleeful, crowing money quote from the Journal: "At least 70 top executives have lost their jobs and 10 former executives are facing federal or state criminal charges in the backdating scandal." Great work, guys. You're wiping out careers and ruining lives by the dozen.

Funny thing -- there's no mention in the Journal of the politically ambitious prosecutors who are hunting executives for sport in order to further their own careers, and no mention of the kids who can't go to college now because their dads have had to wipe out their savings to pay legal bills to defend themselves against bullshit charges, and no mention of the trophy wives who are now too ashamed to be seen at Chantilly. Certainly no mention of the many articles, including some by the Journal's own columnist Holman Jenkins Jr., explaining why the backdating "scandal" is not a scandal at all and that in fact no crime occurred. What happens when this whole thing evaporates and is shown to have been a baseless witch hunt? Will the Journal reporters give back their prizes? Um, no. They'll all have been promoted, or poached by Portfolio, where they can write smear jobs with glossy photographs.

Well, celebrate tonight, Charlie. Splurge on a bottle of real French champagne and have a toast with your pals and tell yourselves what wonderful human beings you are. I'll see you in hell.

Of course you cannot go back to XP after you've installed Vista. You'll take what we give you! And like it!

Microsoft customer service reps deal with unruly senior citizens who "upgraded" to Vista only to find that their PCs don't work right anymore. These folks didn't even want refunds. They just wanted to go back and re-install XP. It's disgusting. Our outreach teams are working on getting them over to Macs as soon as possible.

R.I.P., Kurt Vonnegut

Rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut.
O bard of war,
O master of whimsy, you
were the voice of
a generation,
rich & famous & much-loved
& yet
the bad voices drove
you to attempt suicide.
Bastards!
I must admit
I never read your books
though at Reed I carried
Slaughterhouse-Five everywhere
& talked about it
as if I'd read it.
Jon Ive says he read the first
few pages of Cat's Cradle
& found it boring
& fell asleep.
A bit unkind of him, I think.
We asked you to be in our
"Think Different" campaign.
You said you hated computers
& wouldn't even meet me.
Too bad.
We would have paid you a lot.
Now you are dead.
So we can use your image
without your permission
& without paying you.
So it goes.

R.I.P., Don Ho

Rest in peace, Don Ho.
O troubadour of the tropics,
O football star,
O father of ten, you
kept yourself busy, apparently.
"Tiny Bubbles."
That was your famous song.
But others made more money on it.
Bastards!
Still, you were the most
famous Ho in Hollywood.
And that is saying something.
You even had your own TV show.
I watched it once
while tripping on acid.
Intensedelic is the word I use
to describe the experience.
Don Imus called you "nappy-headed."
Not very kind of him.
I'm glad he got fired.
Aloha.

I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings

Apple faithful, I know some of you are offended or hurt by things you read on this blog. But I can't hold back. I can't censor myself. The idea of this blog is to give you an honest, unvarnished look into my soul. As I've said before, this is what genius looks like. It ain't always pretty. Ever read an interview with Norman Mailer? Or Bobby Fischer? Faithful, I know you love our products. I know they restore a sense of childlike wonder to your lives. Perhaps thought I would be as whimsical and cheery as a lime green iPod Nano? I'm sorry. Fact is, I'm dark. Is this paradoxical? Not really. Great art comes from dark places. This is how the creative process works. This is the hero's journey. In order to create I must wander into the dark shadows in my soul. This blog is a way for you to accompany me on that journey. If you'd rather not go there -- if you'd rather just buy the shiny products and marvel at how good they make you feel, and not know about my demons -- I understand. I don't blame you. The journey is often unpleasant for me too. There are many times I wish I could be spared, my cup taken away. Alas, it is my destiny to suffer so that others might enjoy the finest consumer electronics. All I ask is that you use them in memory of me. Peace be with you, my peace I give you. Namaste. I honor the place where you and I become one (and where you, very often, don't enjoy this experience).

Here's the guy who wants to put Dear Leader behind bars

Meet Michael Wang. Soon to be Wong. He's one of the dicks in the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's office, and he's got a total hard-on for yours truly. He's young, and wound super tight in the way that only Asian dudes can be. Like if he'd ever got less than a 100 on a test in college he would have killed himself. Unfortunately this never occurred, so he lived to go on to law school and now gets to torment me.

See a story about him here. They make a big deal out of what an "animal" he is. Which is true. He's kind of a marmoset, I'd say. But no worries. El Jobso has a few animals of his own on his legal team, including one guy who only works undercover, off the record, not for attribution. Jerry York lined him up. Not going to say what he does for us, but put it this way: The Gambino family keeps him on permanent retainer.

By the way the stuff in the story about Wang planning to change his name to Wong is true. It's the first thing our "Attorney X" turned up when he started doing his background work. Apparently Michael pronounces "Wang" so that it rhymes with "Wong" but people have always mispronounced it and called him "wang" as in "rhymes with rang." And he really, really does not like the wang jokes, which he endured all through Harvard Law School. Well, ever since we learned this we've made a point to call him "wang" (as in "rang"). We also say, "Dang!" a lot. And we have our paralegals come to meetings with him wearing iPods that are cranked up load enough so everyone can hear them, and we'll have them listening to the classic "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" and "Wango Tango" by the Nuge or "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung.

He never says anything. But he knows we're doing it on purpose. And it drives the friggin kid nuts, I swear.

Nick Carr, I love you

Why? See here. Free fake 8-core MacPro coming your way, Nick.

Apple faithful, you need to re-hypnotize yourselves

Apple faithful, I sense a disturbance in the force. I feel ... fear. Worry. Anger. Faithful, put aside these negative feelings. The OS is fine. The iPhone is fine. Everything is fine. We are taking a little extra time, that's all. I'm sure you're receiving taunts from your Windows-loving friends talking about "OS X Leper." I've been taunted too. Bill Gates just called and offered to send over a team to help us port Vista features into Leopard.

Faithful, do not lose heart. I've chosen the photo above to help you re-hypnotize yourselves. Look directly into my eyes, not around the eyes, but into the eyes. Now think of products. Glossy white products that cost too much money and make you feel superior to other people. Feel better? Good. Me too.

Sharpton has contacted Disney

It's fall-out from the Imus scandal. Al is contacting all of the movie and TV studios, telling us that he and his organization will be working with us to define a set of standards for appropriate language usage. It's going to take a few months, he says, but for now, to be safe, he recommends we consult an African-American slang dictionary and simply avoid using any words or phrases in that dictionary in any of our movies or TV shows. The exception, of course, is if those words are spoken by African-American characters. But even then, the Sharpton organization would like to be consulted in advance, which I think is a great idea and our folks at ABC have already put together a liaison team.

Words to be avoided include not just the obvious ones (you know what I mean) but also some words that many of us (myself included, I must admit) had never heard before. To avoid confusion Reverend Al is giving us in advance a list of words and phrases that will definitely be off-limits. These include: high yellow; redbone; rhiney; shizzle or any words ending in the -izzle suffix; hooptie; homeboy or its variants, homey or homie; booty, in any context, even if not referring to someone's buttocks; ebony; mahogany; denigrate; renege; negate; "643"; NID; DWB; and "the downlow." Sharpton also asks us to avoid having white people playing blues music as well as "most forms of jazz," and says that, "in no context or situation should Causasians be shown rapping, and yes, this applies even to so-called `professionals' such as Eminem." Sharpton also recommends media executives check out this article in which Kanye West explains that white people may be allowed to use some black slang but only words that are at least one year old. "Good rule of thumb," Sharpton says.

You know what? I'm really glad this happened. Not that Imus said what he did, but that this has prompted a healthy and very necessary dialogue in our country and especially in the media. I think this is long overdue. I've also been a big fan of the Reverend Al for a long time, and I'm glad to see him taking the lead on this. As for Disney, I must say that ever since I took over here I've been deeply ashamed by "Song of the South," and have pushed to have all copies destroyed. It's just one of those legacies that no company wants or needs. I'm thinking now that this might give us the push we need to do the right thing. Peace out.

Our PR people are freaking out

Because New York magazine is running an article that our PR bozos claim makes me look like a bully or a cry-baby or both. The story is actually about the new editor of Time magazine, Richard Stengel, and way down low in the story (see here) there's a bit about how I called Stengel and bitch-slapped him after one of his little prick reporters took some cheap shots about our options "issues" in a piece that was supposed to be about the iPhone. Look, a deal is a deal. Stengel had promised me the story would contain no mention of the options stuff. It's the only way I would agree to do the story. Poor Stengel. Now here in New York magazine they make him say it was a "weak moment" for his magazine's journalism. I think it was a strong moment for Stengel's integrity. He made a deal with his magazine's most important advertiser (me) and he stuck to it. I think that's classy.

Our new Mac recycling program

Peter Oppenheimer just raced into the Jobs Pod (okay, he kind of lumbered, actually) after reading this item from my blog earlier today about the guy with 100 old Macs in his house. Peter says he figures there must be loads of other computer loonies out there who want to fill their houses with old computers. Peter's idea: We use these guys for a recycling program. He figures we might even make a few bucks if we charge people five hundred bucks to take back their dead machines and then sell those dead machines to collectors for some outrageous sum. And everyone gets a "little green Apple" sticker or something that they can put on their Prius to show how much they care about the planet. You know what? I'm liking it.

Those gutless bloggers

Great article here on Wired by "The Luddite" Tony Long about bloggers and anonymity. Tony says bloggers should have to sign their work with their real name. Money quote: "My name is on this, and I'm calling you gutless if you don't sign yours. What are you going to do about it, blogger boy?" I must say, I agree with Tony on this. If you'd been savaged by bloggers the way we at Apple have been, you'd understand. And what kind of loony-tunes coward puts up a website under a fake name to begin with? Makes me sick.

Every time you buy a Dell, a baby seal dies

This slogan showed up on the eighty-foot-by-twenty-foot multi-touch screen in our lobby this morning. One of the guys in Jon Ive's lab found some photos we could use with it. Some showed actual seals being clubbed. Too graphic, I thought. Another idea was to have some baby seal silhouettes dancing with iPod cords on their heads, and then keeling over when Dell makes a sale. We could put it up on billboards with a Dell sales unit counter. But you know me, Mr. Minimalism. I like the cute baby seal photo all by itself. Simple, direct. I think maybe we're on to something here.

This over-achiever turned his house into a Mac shrine

See story here. Dude lives in Missouri and has 100 Macs in his basement. He works full-time in an Apple store too. He says he doesn't have every Apple model ever made, because, "If I did, that would be awesome, but my girlfriend would probably leave me."

Dude, come on. You don't have a girlfriend. You got one of the girls from the store to come over and meet the reporter and pretend. Be honest.

Forbes says Apple has jumped the shark, and I'm like, Hey, look who's talking.

See painful video here. Gist is, we've sold 100 million iPods, so the game is over. We're toast. Money quote from one of the Capitalist Tools: "The nature of cool is you can't stay cool for that long. It's been almost six years. They're going to have to come up with something else."

Well, I realize six years seems like a long time to be cool when, um, you've never been cool for a single minute in your entire life. But trust me, I've been cool for 52 years and I can stay cool for as long as I want. I was cool in high school. I was cool in college. Heck, folks, I was cool in the womb. (Though certain people failed to recognize that coolness, much to their lifelong chagrin, and believe me, they know exactly who they are -- the two snobby academics who could have had a son worth $5 billion but they don't, because they didn't recognize his coolness. That's right, you jerks. You're the Pete Best of parents. Hope you enjoy living out your days in that cut-rate assisted living facility. What's today? Thursday? I believe dinner is creamed chip beef on toast. Yum.)

Guy Kawasaki has come back to Apple

Guy Kawasaki, the motorcycle designer and former Apple employee, has come on as a consultant to help us with this green stuff. Guy's attitude, which I think is the correct one, is that all of this green stuff and global warming stuff is mostly about marketing. In other words, you really don't need to do very much. You just need to get on message and stay on message. The difference between the companies that get high praise and the companies that get put in the doghouse (like Apple) really isn't that great. The difference is mostly about advertising and messaging. Guy is the master of this concept. He calls it "hollow marketing." I think he's doing a book on it, with Shel Israel collaborating.

So Guy came over yesterday and we spent about an hour hanging upside down in our gravity boots, doing an ab workout and trying to think different about green computing. It's not as easy as it seems. (Both the ab stuff and the thinking.) Guy's a great guy for dreaming up ideas. But I'm really much better at non-thinking. Like my ideal situation is to have other people come up with lots of ideas, and I tell them all that each idea is total shit. If they come back with a refinement of an idea I figure they must be really super passionate about it, and as you know the key to doing anything really super in life is to be super passionate, and that's what we are all about at Apple is the passion. So if I sense there is real passion behind an idea I'll take that idea and do some non-thinking about it in the Tassajara meditation room for a day or two and see what its karma says to me.

So. Long story short. Guy and I didn't really come up with much. Let's face it, it's hard to get passionate about green stuff. It's like trying to be passionate about wool socks. I mean, wool socks are great. I like wool socks. Especially with Birkenstocks. I just don't get a boner thinking about them. Nobody holds up a pair of wool socks in a store and goes, "Whoa, check these out! Hell yes!" There's no sense of childlike wonder in wool socks, that's for sure.

So what'd we dream up? Well, we can use more low-power-consumption chips from Intel. That's not exactly a big breakthrough. We can put a hand-crank on our MacBooks like the One Laptop Per Child machine. Maybe as an option. We'll make it shiny white plastic and sell the crank for a hundred and twenty-nine bucks and patent the connector so other companies can't make a knock-off for two bucks. That was it. Mostly we just hung there trying to do upside-down crunches and bumming out about how old we're getting. Well, it was day one. You have to start somewhere.

New resolution: We're going green

After seeing Arnold on the cover of Newsweek touting his big commitment to the global warming cause, I said you know what? That's it. We're going green. We're gonna be greener than everyone else in the world put together. No more losing out to Lenovo and Dell on this one. No more fighting Greenpeace. To hell with it. We're gonna pay them off. Name your price, Greentards.

Yesterday I called together my best people and told them to go out and figure out some great ideas and bring them back to me, and no matter what it costs, let's get going on this initiative. By the end of this year I want Apple to be known as the greenest company in the world -- not just in tech but in everything. If we've got to make hydrogen-powered computers and iPods that run on solar energy, so be it. Let's get this done. And readers, if you have ideas, send them along. We want your input.

All these rumors about Neil Aspinall quitting the Beatles

So Neil Aspinall has stepped down. See here.

But people are making way too much of this. Like saying that Neil was the impediment to selling the Beatles catalog online, and that now that he's gone, the deal will get done. Or saying that we pushed him out. Or that we got Jerry York to send over some of his pals from the agency to have a talk with him. Or that Al Gore got Tony Blair to threaten to investigate Neil's tax returns.

Well, I wish it were that exciting. But the truth is much simpler. Look, Neil is 64 years old. He's been doing this job in various capacities for 40 years. He wants to go spend time doing things he loves. And, let's face it, he was a bit over his head as the CEO of a company. Great roadie. Great chauffeur. Great guy to go out and score your drugs for you, and help you stay centered when you're having a bad acid trip (see photo above). Most of all, a great friend. Neil, you'll be missed.

You know what? We're listening.

We're listening to folks like Appleology with their list of six things Apple needs to fix by 2008. Improve Apple TV? Check. Make .Mac free? We're thinking about it. Update iWork and iLife? Already in the pipeline. Improved video quality for iPods? You should see what we've got in our labs. New user interface for OS X and lower prices on the consumer Macs? Great ideas. Wish we'd thought of them. But we'll get on it right away.

Folks, this is the new Apple. We want your input. That's the whole point of this blog, to reach out to our users and have a naked conversation and hear what you want from us. Thanks, Appleology. Your comments are fantastic.

Much love, birthday celebrants

Got these via email from a person named Jesse who says their group celebrates Apple's birthday every year. Not sure if they're pulling my leg but it's a nice gesture anyway. As a "thank you" I'd like to fly you kids out to Cupertino in the JobsJet. Send me your info and we'll make the arrangements.

Mikolaj strikes again

Here's his latest effort, which came with an email saying: "Here's a new Civility Enforcer for our technologically advanced times... But who could it be? There's a hint of humanity behind the vanadium visor... or is there?"

This dude Mikolaj in Poland is pretty good, no? We're trying to get him to move to Krasnodar and join the FSJ operation full-time.

From dear reader Toki-chan

Much love, Toki.

From a reader

This came in via email. Much love, friend.

There's a new sheriff in town

This just in from a reader. Nice work. You can check out his blog, "What Would Turtle Do?" here.

And the next one is from Mikolaj in Poland:

"One-Adam-12, One-Adam-12, Two-Eleven in Progress, Officers O'Reilly and Wales Responding"

Don't like these as much as the Clint picture but who knows what one of you mad geniuses might be able to do? Drag and drop, people. Someone is going to create something brilliant and become an Internet legend. Namaste.

Just doing my part

This guy looks a lot like Tim O'Reilly doesn't he?

Help wanted

So I'm feeling kind of hungover and nasty this morning. Can any of you super creative artsy guys out there put the faces of Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales on the photo above, and do something funny with the words too?

Or just focus on Tim. Find a photo of O'Reilly and Photoshop a sheriff's hat and badge onto him. Or put Tim's face on a sheriff's body from an old Western.

I think it would be cool to make up an official "Tim O'Reilly, sheriff of the Internet" photo that we could circulate. We could even use it as a "badge of honor" to put on obnoxious websites that proudly refuse to abide by Tim's code. We'd be the first to put this "badge" on our site. "This site NOT approved by Tim O'Reilly." Or "Intolerant people must be silenced." Or something. Heck, it might even make a cool T-shirt.

Another idea: Tim O'Reilly as a sheriff in a gun battle with FSJ.


Another: Just redo Tim's badge with a different slogan. Instead of "civility enforced" maybe the word "Intolerance" with a circle and diagonal line through it. And yes, I realize that frigtards will not get the humor of saying "We're not going to tolerate intolerance." But that's the whole idea, to weed those people out.

Yeah, the big 100 million mark

We're havng a diner 2 celebrate at John Bentley's in Wooodside tonght. and Ill be honorst, were getting a little buzzed om super expnsive wine. But itsgood blow ff steam once on a while. ths is relly a special time 4 a[ple. Jon Ive just told us that if you put 100 million iPoods end 2 end, they wd encricle the globebe 13 xtimes. Amazing. Speaking of amazing, i type ths whlala whow whole massage on my iphone usissins using its touchchcscreen keypayd and adaptiona adaptiv typeing and it worksss greeeat.

Intolerant people must be silenced

This philosophy is one to which I've adhered for as long as I can remember. It's how I run meetings at Apple. It's how I deal with our business partners and suppliers. And our customers. And I'm glad to see that this philosophy has now reached the blogosphere. Folks, there's no room in this world for intolerant people. Life is just too short. Haters, meanies, negative people, people who disagree with me -- I can't have them around. They pollute my karma. They fog up my vibe. For me to create, I need optimal conditions. Peace. Quiet. Serenity. Complete and absolute obedience from everyone around me. Do you want iPhone 2.0 and 3.0 and 4.0? Do you want more iPods and iMacs and beautiful products that bridge the Internet and your TV, and restore a sense of childlike wonder to people's lives? Then get rid of the negative people on the blogosphere.

Dell's answer to the SEC problem

Just stop printing out your quarterly results, and say it's in the cause of saving paper. See here. Damn you Michael Dell! Why didn't we think of this?

O'Reilly: "Dear FSJ, You're busted, arsehole."

Sure enough, in comes this email from Tim O'Reilly:

Dear FSJ,
Big fan of your blog and think your [sic] truly funny most of the time. But you're missing the point on the blogger code of conduct. Nobody is forced to abide by the code. It is a simple idea. Bloggers who follow the guidelines will get an icon identifying themselves as following certain principles. It's not at all about censorship or restricting speech. It's about preventing people we care about from being hurt. That's all. We'd love it, in fact, if you would join up. Your blog is pretty influential and you could do the world a lot of good. This would, however, mean you'd have to take down those copyrighted photos you just put up. And not make fun of women. (No great loss, Jobso, because those items really weren't that funny anyway.) So think about. Join the movement. For now, though, we're going to have to put your blog on our "black list" and pressure Technorati, Google and others to block your site. We will also be putting pressure on Wired to cancel its sponsorship. Okay? Nothing personal. But we're serious about being fair and keeping the Internet safe. Namaste.

If you'd like to read more about Tim's "code" and see the little sheriff's badge (I'm not kidding) that he proposes to put on blogs that play ball with him, go here. I think he's soliciting feedback. Olga? Mike? Dick? Amanda? You guys paying attention?

Smugettes, revisited

BTW is it just me or is anyone else wondering how that angry Smugette in the left side of the photo can type her blog with those teeny tiny hands? They look like friggin chicken feet. Is that some kind of birth defect? Is she perhaps related to this guy? And don't you agree that the tranny in the middle would almost be passable if he'd put some fake boobs under that sweater?

I'm also wondering whether all three Smugettes put sticks up their butts right before the picture was taken, or if they actually go around looking like this all the time. Smuggies, someone needs a high colonic, a mani-pedi-facial and a full Brazilian wax. Then shut down your friggin blog and cook my dinner, bitches! Ha! It's a joke, gals. Ease up.

Oops. I think I just violated the blogger Code of Conduct. Officer Tim O'Reilly and Sergeant Jimmy Wales of the Blog Police will be writing me a ticket.

So many captions, so little time

Here's a fresh batch based on last week's contest. Feel free to comment, critique, vote for favorites. But remember, under the new Blogger "Code of Conduct," you can't say anything mean. Okay? Namaste.

You go, girls!

At first I thought this was some kind of new girl band. The Smugettes or something. Sort of Indigo Girls without the humor. Ahem. But no. They're bloggers, and they're featured in a great story on Page One of the NY Times today (see here) about nasty blogs and how Tim O'Reilly and Jimmy Wales are calling for a "code of conduct" on the blogosphere. I could not agree more. These vile bloggers must be stopped! There's just way too much meanness and nasty behavior.

Look, when it was just civilians being attacked, that's one thing. But now these a-holes are attacking bloggers. Including a blogger who's friends with Tim O'Reilly. This is where we draw the line, folks. You want to call your neighbor a child molester, or claim some politician is taking bribes, or leak trade secrets from Apple so that every cloner in Asia can make a knock-off of our products, hey, that's "protected speech," and the Electronic Frontier Foundation will fight to their last breath to defend you. But don't you dare start making fun of A-list bloggers! These are the heroes who are toppling the mainstream media and bringing truth and sunshine to the world. These are the defenders of free speech. If you're going to make fun of them, well, you're gonna get your pee-pee slapped, and you're gonna get shut down. Simple as that.

Apple v. Microsoft

Really smart article here that explains why Apple is a key part of Microsoft's downfall. Particularly OS X. Money quote: "OS X is the key to Apple’s success. It has been over the past seven years or so, and it will continue to be moving forward." Amen.

He is risen!

He has come to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, and restore a sense of childlike wonder to our lives. Happy Easter, everyone.

Choke on it, Harvey

Hip hip hooray! "Grindhouse" is a friggin disaster. Money quote: "The Weinstein Co. has been plagued by bomb after bomb since its 2005 inception after Miramax founders Harvey and Bob couldn't come to terms with Disney." I don't mean to say that everyone at Disney is taking immense pleasure in watching that obnoxious blowhard egomaniac Harvey finally shown up as the putz he truly is. I'm sure not everyone at Disney is enjoying this. Just most of us.

Wow, Scoble bought a Mac

And the first thing he does is blog about it and ask his frigtarded readers to suggest all kinds of crapware that he can load onto his beautiful machine to mess it up. Nice. Of course Dave "An Empty Barrel Makes the Most Noise" Winer lobs in two dopey ideas. I've been wondering two things. One, does Scoble actually do anything other than sit at his desk posting moronic items and then engaging in comment string dialogues with readers? Does he bathe? Go to the bathroom? Eat? Well we know he eats. Look at the photo. But you can eat your desk without stopping your blog activity. Does he work? I mean at an actual job?

And two, who the hell are the bozos who actually read Scoble and participate in this circle jerk? Well, now we now. Dave Winer. Wow. When Dave Winer reads your blog you now you've hit the big time. This guy's been lurking around at the edges of the tech industry and generally being a know-it-all pain in the ass for twenty years. Not surprised to find out he's an avid Scoble pud-puller.

Please note too the way Scoble congratulates himself at the end of his item by informing his readers that one of the people he's just mentioned is the CEO of SmugMug. Wow, Robert, when the CEO of SmugMug [ed. note, shurely shome mishtake] is reading you, you know you've become an "influencer" in the Valley. Whew. Little bet here. If SmugMug still exists in 2010, I'll eat meat.

Also in the big news from Scoble category. He's broken another huge story. Some dude from Twitter [ed. note what this?] is leaving to join Jaiku [ed. note you're kidding right]. See here. Stop the friggin presses! The guys at the Journal are sooo pissed off. Scooped by Scoble again! Damn you Robert and the rest of your citizens journalism brigade! And damn you Twitter for not talking to us first!

iPod saves soldier's life

It's true. See here. Pretty amazing. Don't think it's gonna help us with those America-hating fruitcakes in the EU, however.

It's true, bloggers suck

Great article on CNET. See here. Basically it's a review of a new book called "The Cult of the Amateur" by this English guy who says blogs and amateur video crap is ruining our culture. Money quote:

"Blogs have become so dizzyingly infinite, that they've undermined our sense of what is true and what is false, what is real and what is imaginary. These days, kids can't tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com."

I couldn't agree more. Honestly. This madness has to stop.

Microsoft announces Windows Vista Maritime Edition

A whole line of cruise ships that run entirely on a high-availability version of the Windows OS. Who says Windows can't handle mission critical tasks? Fantastic!

This is not my 'worst nightmare'

Business 2.0 reports here that a recent slam on Apple TV by some AP writer is my "worst nightmare." Not at all. My real nightmare is this story where John Dvorak is quoted claiming the iPhone will only have 40 minutes of battery life. Because, um, that one is true. Oops. We're working on it though and my engineers assure me we'll get up to 50 minutes or even an hour by the time of launch. It all comes down to the battery manufacturers and how quickly they can improve their product. Keep your fingers crossed! Or get ready to make really, really fast phone calls.

John Dvorak's got sand in his pussy again

See his latest grumpy piece here. Old assface went to some Churchill Club meeting and was disappointed by the predictions made by John Doerr, Steve Jurvetson, Roger McNamee and Joe Schoendorf. Dvorak says these famous VCs just stated the obvious and it wasn't worth the price of admission. He concludes that "the tech scene in Silicon Valley is a rudderless ship."

Now, please, don't get me started on VCs and private equity guys. These are people who make a living by finding great entrepreneurs with terrific ideas, and then screwing them out of their companies. That and flogging garbage to dopey investors in the public markets. It's not their job to think big ideas. Their job is to find other people with big ideas, and then rob them. Geddit? They're the money. That's all. And John, perhaps it has occurred to you that the key to being an effective swindler involves not telling other people what you're thinking. Asking VCs where they want to invest is like asking a three-card monte guy to tell you which one is the money card. Man, John. Wake up. How long have you been covering this stuff?

The real stupid move was putting a bunch of VCs on a stage in the first place. The only reason VCs go to Churchill Club events is to lure in the poor desperate suckers who rush up afterward hoping to sell their souls. That and the fact that the one thing these bigshot VCs love most is listening to themselves talk. Why do you think Roger carries so many phones? Who do you think he's talking to on three lines at once? Have you not figured this out yet? He's calling himself! He's telling himself what a great job he's doing.

Here's the thing. No matter how rich you get, the one thing you can never get enough of is adulation. (Trust me on this. Why do you think I'm still going to MacWorld?) The other thing that never gets old is taking advantage of someone who really, really needs your money. Half the acquisitions I do have nothing to do with the technology. It's just a chance to frig with some poor bastard and see what he'll do for the money. Will he sit up and beg? Will he eat cat food on a cracker? Most of the time we don't even make the deal; just have a bunch of meetings, mess with the dude's head and send him home. Or sometimes we actually do buy the guy's company and then after the deal is closed we throw out the technology and lock him up with a non-compete. Yeah. It's great to be rich. I'm not gonna lie to you about that.

Eric Schmidt's $500,000 security squad

So the Motley Fool is busting Squirrel Boy's balls over the fact that Google spent $500,000 on security for him last year. See here. Says the wags at the mag: "One can't help but wonder what Schmidt's "security" consisted of, especially since that $500K-plus figure represents more than what many of us could hope to bring home over the course of years."

Naturally the Greentards showed up too

In their underpants, marching around outside our store in Rome, smelling up the mall. We asked the local police to shoot them but apparently Italy has tighter laws on this stuff than, say, Russia. Who knew?

They love us in Rome

Check out this video of what it looked like outside our first Rome retail store when we opened last month. It's like a goddamn rock concert. Amazing. This article captures the pandemonium.

Another reason not to put Linux on your iPod

As if you needed one. But anyway. See here. Some Russian hackers (why are they always friggin Russians, BTW?) have created an iPod virus called Podloso. Money quote: "Podloso only works on iPods running Linux. That rules out about 99.9% of all iPods."

Not sure what the point of all this is, except to demonstrate that Linux is more susceptible to viruses than other operating systems.

Woo-hoo! We love you, Disney!

Honestly, I'm very proud of Disney today. I've been quietly lobbying behind the scenes for a long time for this change. At last it's happened. We announced yesterday that we're going to make our Fairy Tale Wedding package available to same-sex couples. See here.Money quote: "The Lavish Wedding Option also includes a ride to the ceremony in the Cinderella coach, costumed trumpeters heralding the couple's arrival, and attendance by Mickey and Minnie Mouse characters dressed in formal attire." In other words, classy. And now available to millions of dudes like Apple OS X engineer Peter Michelson, shown here gathering signatures last year outside the park. Peter, I know you've waited your whole life to be driven to your wedding in a Cinderella coach with Mickey and Minnie Mouse as witnesses. I'm overjoyed for you and Ben. Now get your "Fairy Tails" down to the park and get hitched, you two lovebirds! (Geddit?)

I highly recommend Walt Mossberg's column today

Seriously. We didn't even have anything to do with this one. And it's just amazing. See it here. Every once in a while Walt just punches one out that blows you away. Usually, like this time, the idea is pretty simple. Walt just went out and bought a new Sony laptop running Vista, and describes what it's like to get the thing running. The simplicity of the concept is what makes it so brilliant. Walt says his new machine forced him to "spend hours as a digital maintenance man wading through annoying and confusing chores." Here's what he found:

Two dozen craplets and trial offers.
Four icons for AOL offerings.
Two icons for Microsoft come-ons.
Start menu and program menu loaded with unwanted items.
Napster lodged in bottom of screen.
Four movies from Sony pre-loaded, using up 4GB of space-- and to watch them you have to pay Sony.
Security software that's all messed up and prompted loads of scary warnings, prompts, scans and updates.
21 software updates pending on a machine that was brand new.
Restart time: more than 3 minutes (v. 34 seconds on a Mac).
Cold start time: more than two minutes (v. 29 seconds on a Mac).

Money quote: "The problem is a lack of respect for the consumer. The manufacturers don't act as if the computer belongs to you. They act as if it is a billboard for restricted trial versions of software and ads for Web sites and services that they can sell to third-party companies who want you to buy these products."

Amen, Walt. I love this story. (Though it makes me steaming mad to think that somehow despite all this we still have such tiny market share. How can this be?) Walt, I take back all the bad things I've said about you in the past. Free MacBook Pro is on the way. No crapware, I promise. Though if you want to pollute the karma and load Microsoft Office on it, well, that's your decision.

There are three people in this photo that we'd like to hire

Can you guess who they are? They've already mastered the expression that we train our retail store workers to adopt.

How dare you rip us on our pricing?

Industry pundit Nick Carr is taken aback by the $13,000 price tag on our new top-end Mac Pro with an eight-core processor, 16 gigs of RAM and 4x750GB hard drives. "Didn't anyone tell Jobs that these things are supposed to be commodities?" he writes. (I can hear his hands wringing from all the way across the country.)

Not sure I get it. Oh wait. I guess $13,000 is a lot of money for some people? I don't know. It's been so long since I carried cash or actually paid for anything that I don't really have much sense of prices anymore. And living out here in the Valley where everyone basically has more money than they can ever spend, well it kind of skews your perspective.

Thing is, Nick Carr, here at Apple we don't build to price. And unlike a lot of other companies, we don't sit around trying to guess what customers want or -- worse yet -- asking customers what they want. God only knows what they'd come up with. Probably they'd just sit there shrugging and eating donuts in the focus group room. Fact is customers never know what they want. If they did they'd all be running tech companies right? They're looking to us to tell them what they want. That's what we're here for. That's our job. So you know what we do? We build what we think is cool. We build the products we'd like to own. And yeah, a $13,000 souped-up Macintosh is gonna be pretty popular in the centimillionaire-Silicon-Valley-engineer crowd. Trust me. We know what we're doing.

Jailed blogger finally gives in

So Josh Wolf, that wacko blogger who went to jail because he wouldn't turn over some videotape, has finally changed his mind after eight months in the slammer. See story here. No official word on what got Josh to break down. But our intelligence guys say old Josh got anxious to deal after the warden put this guy in his cell as his roommate. He's totally just an actor but he's very convincing. FWIW, this is exactly what I wanted to do with the bloggers we were suing last year. Our lawyers wouldn't allow it.

Philippe Kahn claims he invented the camera phone

And the bozos at USA Today fell for it. See this story here. Philippe, I've always admired how much you've accomplished in spite of being developmentally disabled. And I've always appreciated the way you'll just outright lie to anyone you meet, especially journalists. What I don't understand is why people keep falling for your lies. I mean, remember when you floated the story that you dreamed up the Quattro spreadsheet without ever looking at Lotus 1-2-3? Or when you went around telling people you were a direct descendant of Louis XIV? And that you flew fighter jets in the Gulf War, and had a black belt in karate and competed in the Olympics and had a Ph.D. from some mail-order college in California? Or maybe that was someone else. Anyhoo. Just a word of warning to all of you journalist types: Philippe couldn't find his asshole with both hands and a flashlight. And a map. And a tour guide. Honestly.

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Lollypop entry comes from our dear friend and devoted reader "Toki-chan."

My Little Pony begs to differ

Jon Schwartz just called and said he read my IBM post and he thinks I don't understand something about how acquisitions work. He says I've implied that IBM is buying revenues by acquiring software companies. "Steve," he says, "I can tell you from experience that when you acquire companies you don't get any extra revenue from them. If anything, acquisitions actually make your revenue and profits go down."

So I'm like, "Um, Jon, actually, that's because when IBM acquires companies they charge money to customers who use the software made by those companies. Whereas you guys acquire companies and pay a huge amount of money for them but then you give away their stuff at no cost. See the difference?"

He's like, "Wait a minute. Holy shit. Say that again. No wait. Let me get a pen and paper. Shit I gotta call Scott right away. This is huge, man. Thanks! I totally owe you on this one."

Caption contest

Here I am with Eric Nicoli of EMI, announcing our gift of DRM-free music to the world. In case you're wondering, the positioning was not accidental. We had duct tape on the floor showing us where to stand. Have at it. Peace out.

PS-- Much love to Fake Jon Ive for sending this in via email. Love you man.

You're damn right I call the tune

Leander Kahney says here that I'm now driving the music business. He also correctly detects that I picked off the weakest music company first -- EMI -- for a no-DRM deal. And he notes that I published that open letter about DRM a while back so that when the EMI deal happened it would look like it was my idea. Sure, the EMI guys are a little pissed about this, since in fact it was their idea. Oh well. You guys want to sell over the Internet? Well, I'm the gatekeeper. I got there first, and I figured out how to make this stuff work. Not you. Me. Remember the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

We're working on this EU pricing thing

You guys are right. This pricing system in Europe is totally out of whack. I had no idea we were charging different prices in every country and not letting people buy from whatever store they wanted, and so forth. Sure, I'm a micro-manager and a control freak, but I can't be involved in every decision. Like how to price songs in Estonia, or how to dish out stock options to myself. These are things where I just don't get involved. In the case of the options, well, it's pretty clear who screwed the pooch there (cough Fred cough). In Europe the blame falls squarely at the feet of our Paris-based European director, Jean-Christophe Cul de Chat (shown in photo). Sure, he's good looking. And cool. And related to the guy who runs one of our biggest institutional investors. He's also as dumb as a piece of French toast. I've told him he's got two months to straighten out this mess. If he can't, we'll promote him to SVP and move him to Cupertino. That lit a fire under his ass.

You gotta hand it to IBM

No matter how crappy their business is they can always find a chunk of fool's gold in the pile of dogshit and then get someone in the media (or everyone in the media) to focus on that. Latest example was this story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about how IBM's software division is just setting the world on fire. According to our spies at Fortune, IBM's flacks have been shopping this story around since January. At last someone bit. Wow, software sales were up 14% in the last quarter and a galloping 7% for the full year, and now Steve Mills is the second coming of Gerstner. Never mind that the way IBM did this was to move some revenue that used to get recognized in other categories over into the "software" division. Never mind that IBM spent $4.8 billion acquiring companies last year, and most of that went to software shops. Never mind that IBM's track record in software has been to buy up companies and ride them into the ground. Total assets at the end of 2006 are lower than at any time since 2002. Liabilities up, working capital down. Oh well. Who cares when that software division is setting the world on fire, baby?

Remember when the IBM story was the services division? Then that crapped out. Then they tried the "second coming of the mainframe" story. Then it was Linux. Then it was "business transformation outsourcing," which our good pals at Fortune swallowed and said here was a $500 billion market, "an ocean of potential revenue" that IBM was going to tap into. They predicted IBM would top $100 billion in revenues by 2005. Ahem.

Well, now it's software. Yup. That red-hot IBM software division. You know, someone ought to profile the one division that really is hot at IBM and which never gets any credit: the publicity department.

Nanny state at its finest

Lot of people writing in to inform me that the EU Commission was trying to rain on our parade today by confirming their antitrust investigation. See here. Not sure what to say about this really. And I'm not sure what we should do. Get out of the music business? Shut down our iTunes store? Stop making iPods? Or maybe we can just let a bunch of people in Brussels figure out what price we should charge for each song in each country. Fine. Fair enough. Just send us the price list. Heck, maybe these Brussellians can go out and do our component sourcing in Asia for us. They can haggle with the Taiwanese and get us a better price on chips. Maybe they can do all the arm-twisting in Hollywood and at the music labels too, and work out all the contracts. And at the end of each quarter just let us know how much we sold and whether or not we made any profit. I can kind of guess the answer to the last one but whatever.

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Friggin Yoko

Now I know why these guys all quit the band rather than hang around with her. We're just about to go out to the press conference, I mean it's like minutes away, and somehow Loony-San gets out of her cage and manages to get a phone and dial a lawyer. God I hate friggin lawyers. Unless they're my lawyers, in which case they just make me slightly nauseated. So we're on hold again. Same old crazy demands. We have to call the band "John Lennon and the Beatles" and we have to list Yoko as the third songwriter on everything John did after he met her. So it'll be Ono-Lennon-McCartney. Paul says he'd chew off his own leg (bad image, I know) before he lets that happen. Man this is just killing me. But I vow to you, dear friends, I will not rest until Apple (my Apple, the good Apple) is selling the entire Beatles catalog online.

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My interview with Engadget

Had a very pleasant meeting with Ryan Block of Engadget. You can read it all here.

We're more popular than Jesus

Because think about it. The Beatles are announcing they're gonna sell their music on iTunes. That's all. But there's so much hype around Apple these days -- and, let's face it, around me personally -- that they want me to come in here and sex up their press conference. I mean, this is the friggin Beatles. And they're asking me to help promote them. They're hoping my popularity will rub off on them. Pinch me. Seriously.

Anyway, it's late here, but I totally can't sleep. It's just so great to be back in London, even if, like almost all of the former Soviet Bloc cities, it still has that oppressive gray feeling everywhere you go, that crappy cement architecture and the gloomy people shuffling along and not smiling, as if they just can't manage to shrug off nearly a century of communist rule. Anyhoo. Yeah. We've got the Beatles. Yoko Ono is being kept under sedation in her apartment in New York. Paul's good to go. Ringo is hanging out here at the hotel and throwing TVs out the windows just to be nostalgic. Awkward moment a little while ago when I asked, "So will George be here?" They all gave me this look like I'd farted in church. "I mean George Martin," I said. Oh, they said, sure, he's gonna be here. And they all looked really relieved.

Scoble going back to Microsoft

All joking aside. I just heard this from someone reliable. Scoble is going back to Microsoft. Not sure when it will be announced. Word is he'll be in a management role working closely with Ozzie, doing biz dev or strategy for the next-generation apps, the Web-based stuff. Gates himself was personally involved. Apparently he was furious when they let Scoble leave and has been in touch with him a lot since he took off. That's all I have right now. As they say on the DRUDGE REPORT, "developing ..."