Study shows: Mac people don't like other people touching their toys

See here. I've always known this was true. Especially in my own case. It's a germ thing. I also can't use a bathroom that anyone else uses. I have to have my own. FWIW, Jony is the same way.

Scoble desecrates his Mac

Check out this photo on Scoble's flickr page. He's got a perfectly nice MacBook Pro, covered in ugly stickers. I got so angry looking at this that I had to shut off my Mac and go sit down and do some non-thinking for a while.

That "Hillary in the House" kook is back

Obama just keeps looking better and better. Peace.

If you see these kids in an Apple store, please smack them in the head and then call security

Check out these two smug little know-it-all pricks. They really think they're the shit, don't they? Mr. Significant Eyewear and his Boy Band Member sidekick. Well they weren't looking so cool and tough when we had them out back in a holding pen at the Palo Alto store, trust me. Thirty seconds with one of Moshe's former Sayeret Matkal commandos and they were like blobs of jelly, sitting there crying and shivering and hugging each other and calling for their mommies. Chubbo actually peed his pants. Ha! Take that, Mr. No Pubes.

Little back story here. These two idiots and some of their friends were in the Palo Alto store and started downloading crapware onto an iPhone (see here) and generally being a pack of little pricks. If you've been in one of our stores lately you know exactly the kind of dickheads I'm talking about. Wisecracks to the staff, generally being a pack of little know-it-all wannabe Kevin Mitnicks.

So our security squad chased them down the street and detained them, subjected them to a bit of enhanced interrogation, tasered them a bit and then photographed them and warned them to stay out of Apple stores. This is all part of a larger plan (Operation Restore Order) that we've put into place to try to rid our stores of these packs of obnoxious teenagers who are loitering in our stores downloading music and screwing around with their Facebook pages and annoying the crap out of the staff and the other customers.

Now the spoiled little pricks are crying to the press. Boo hoo. We took their photos and distributed them to Apple stores worldwide to add to our list of people who aren't allowed in the store. According to our legal team (the same ones who exonerated me on the options backdating stuff) the Geneva Conventions do not apply to bratty little rich kids from Palo Alto. They're considered enemy combatants and therefore can be detained and held for as long as we'd like without charges being brought. FWIW, Borg employees are also classified as enemy combatants and subject to the same enhanced interrogation techniques.

I know some of you Apple faithful might be a bit concerned about this stuff and it might even make you a bit wary of going into an Apple store for fear of being detained. Sure, you can deal with being ignored by sales reps and condescended to by the geniuses; you can deal with the sneers and sniggers and the little wisecracks about what a frigtard you are. But detained and held? All I can say is that by entering the store you are agreeing to allow us to do whatever we want to you. It's right in the user agreement. On the other hand, as long as you behave yourself and do as you're told, everything will be cool.

It's official: FSJ demographic skews older, more cynical

How else to explain the overwhelming response to our last poll about whether the Borg should buy Facebook. More than 2,700 votes for "Who gives a shit," with only single digits for "Yes" and "No"? I must admit that this gives me a perverse form of satisfaction. It's nice to know that not everyone in the world is obsessed with Mark Zuckerberg and his kooky non-money-making Web site. It's also nice to see Scoble get 1,000 votes even if those votes made no sense at all. Cheers, Robert. You rock. I mean it.

A fake Colbert puppet is taunting me

A lot of people don't know this but I really, really hate puppets. Almost as much as I hate Finns and the media. And this puppet clip above is a bit too meta for my taste -- fake Colbert, done as a puppet, taunting Steve Jobs? Whatever. Nevertheless our interns in Krasnodar, Iulia and Natasha, say the puppet maker sent them this on email and they thought it was cute and that I should use it. Well, it's Friday. And our WWDC auditions are rocking out bigtime and I'm in a good mood. So what the hell. Enjoy.

So Mikey wants to fight

My people are telling me that Mikey Dell says he can "take me." I'm not sure about the vernacular, but I think he wants an athletic contest of some sort.

Moshe says of course this means war. He says that if Dell wants to put his dumb-ass brute Texas brawn up again my catlike, Ninja wiles, fine by Moshe.

Whatever.

Tell you what, Mikey. Go wait out to the back of your back 40. I'll be there soon. Really. Count on it.

Again: You're welcome

This guy owes me something. Too many freeloaders using our terminology.

The bill is in the mail. Seriously. It's coming. And it's due.

Conundrum

What do you do when you design a building spare and pure to the extreme edge of beauty and people like this camp out in front?


Just when I was starting to recover, Katie flagged a quote from the related story "I'm not really a Mac guy; I stood up for Vista when it came out. It's a fun time. I like standing in line," said one James Shapiro.

Honestly, people, we are wasted on you.

More photos of our supremely perfect Boston store (and the freaks who obscured it) here.

UPDATE: Apologies for Iulia's spelling error on the original headline. I've docked her $25 -- that's half a week's pay in Krasnodar. She swears it will never happen again.

Full Zunar eclipse

Zune continues its spectactular ride to the top. Oh wait, the chart's upside down.

One data point in The Borg's awe-inspiring media player flameout: GameSpot's dumped the device.

Our friends up north at the CBC report why, citing NPD and The Borg's own numbers. Apparently, Microsoft admits that two million Zunes have shipped since the launch in 2006. That would be, let's see, a four percent share of the market, says NPD.

Gee, I wonder how the iPod stacks up? Wait! Here it is: "Apple in its most recent quarter sold 10.6 million iPods. Wait for it ... that's "more than five times Microsoft's cumulative total for a year and a half."

Thanks for doing the math boys.

Much love and harmonious thoughts to commentard bobdmac for the CBC link (which has since evaporated) and this one.

A pat on the back

for MacRumors. You guys are just adorable. Good for you for following our breadcrumbs to the patent office.

Solar-powered iPods, iPhones, laptops. What could be cleaner, more Zen? More Apple.

But, what's with the spurious mention of Motorola? As if those phoniacs would have a clue.

We ask. You deliver.

Much peace and love to the commentards who made this happen.

Our lawyers will be in touch

In the interest of protecting our brand, we must insist that this site cease and desist posting IMMEDIATELY.

The legal hounds have been unleashed FSJ.com.

Trifecta: Beastmaster, Monkey Boy & Goatberg

Check out the the Beastmaster and Monkey Boy at AllThingsD.

Highlight: Goatberg does a great imitation of Brat-Pack-era Sammy Davis Jr. laughing just a little too hard at the Beastmaster's "funnies."

The team started to count Goatberg's self-references but gave up. We have deadlines to meet people!

Interesting commentary from Goatberg-in-training on the AllThingsD site after the inevitable demo:

"Windows 7, like other Microsoft OS’s before it, seems to have borrowed a thing or two from Mac OS X. This time it’s Apple’s Dock, which Microsoft appears to have borrowed. Multi-touch and a Dock. In Windows. Steve Jobs must be so proud."


Proud isn't the word I'd choose.

Borg flash: Windows 7 won't be 'Vistaster'

Right on cue--the Beastmaster must have read about the coinage of "Vistaster" as a term of art--the Borg makes scary Steve Sinofsky available to house stenographer Ina Fried for an "interview" on Windows 7.

Sinofsky's so cute. He thinks he's raised secrecy to an art form. Funny thing is, if we actually wanted to know anything about this hideous Son of Vista, we'd know it by now.

Moshe says if you ever want to freak this guy out, just walk by his office and let your coffee slosh around in the cup. He'll be so fixated on possible spillage that he'll be completely off his game. For hours. Imagine how guy like that must feel about cleaning up after the Vista elephant.

Meanwhile, the lower-ranking Vistatards, all evidence to the contrary, are busy declaring victory on their little blog.

"The business results speak for themselves," types designated Vistatard Chris Flores. More than 140 million Windows Vista licenses sold etc etc etc. Unclear how many are actually in use.

Indy Mogul, I am gunning for you

Sit through this entire clip and you can see a bad impersonation of me and then an even worse special effect shot that supposedly shows my head melting. Ugh.

New word: "vistaster"

Believe it or not this one is going around in the hallways at Redmond, where one of our spies picked it up. Here at Apple we're running a "definition competition" and of course all of the Apple faithful are welcome to join as well. Send in the best fake dictionary definition and we'll have a bake-off here in the comment strings. Winner gets a free fake vegan breakfast with El Jobso and a shout-out from the stage at the WWDC, week after next. Also, much love and a huge namaste to anyone who can get this word entered into the Urban Dictionary.

FWIW the definition that's going around at the Borg campus is this:

VISTASTER. n. a giant cluster-fuck; a colossal mistake; a turning point, inflection point, or event that, in retrospect, turns out to have led to the doom and demise of a once-powerful company, person or organization, eg., "Have you seen Speed Racer? It's a total vistaster."

DERIVATIVES:
vistastrous. adj.
visastrously. adv.

Frogtards to get subsidized iPhone?

The interwebs are burning up with rumors (see here and here) that Orange will pay French iPhone customers to upgrade to the next release.

Are we concerned that this will cheapen our brand? Um, that would only happen if the the francs or lira or pounds come out of our coffers. Which they most certainly will not.

Oh contraire! Here's a great opportunity to sell and resell (and resell) to the same customer. Not only is a sucker born every minute, the same sucker may be reborn a couple times a year.

Life is copacetic.



`

This person's iPhone rights will be revoked

Note to the moron who left his/her iPhone on a train:
You will be hearing from us. But not on your recovered iPhone because we've terminated your service.

Some people simply do not deserve us.

Accident my ass

Listen up guy. As I've already said, there are no accidents. This is all part of our grand plan.

The Lady Clintstone must be stopped

Hill's at it again. The latest faux pas, as they say in Germany, was the "slip" about RFK's assassination. Lady Clintstone backed off, but she knows you can't unring a bell with this lame "did-I-say-that-out-loud?" act.

As Jung once said: There are no accidents.

Obama, Barry, baby! As I've warned you more than once: Watch your back.

Just in case, Moshe is dispatching Shlomo and his bagmen to backstop your Secret Service detail.

No wonder Yahoo's in trouble

Check out this this video tour of Yahoo headquarters. Sheesh. No wonder this company is in the mess it's in. Literally. When Katie got to the part (at around -6:06 if you can stand it) with the cluttered, gee-gaw-filled offices, I threw the iMac across the room. And went to my quiet, clean, cool place. For three days.

Money quote from the Yangster after Filo reminisced about the early days when they worked out of trailers: "Look at us now! we have a whole campus all to ourselves."

Not for long my friend. Not for long.

You ask. We Deliver

The 3g iPhone vulcan mind meld is working as planned. See here. And here.

Our agents at Goldman Sachs followed our instructions.

You're welcome.

Sergey offers the Yangster an out

Those around First Ave in Sunnyvale, keep a sharp eye out for Uhauls. The Yangster may be on the move.

Sergey last week offered the Yangster his own personal exit strategy.

Much love to reader JSG for the link.

FWIW, also check out the Yahoo company blog. With all that's going on, what was the subject Friday? Penny Day. You got that right.
.

The Borg: Just makin' granola

Girlfriend Kara Swisher's doing the Beastmaster's bidding this week, talking up the borg's alleged "organic" Web-search-and-ad stew. Project Granola they call it. The thinking is that Microsoft has so much cool crap in house it doesn't need no stinkin' Yahoo.

Yeah. Okay. We've heard about the billions the Borg spends on R&D. Problem is, no one can think of one truly creative thing it's ever done. Oh, wait: my people do rave about Nathan Myrvold's cassoulet.

Word of warning to the Yangster if he's still in the game: Despite all its cash, the Borg won't buy what it can steal.

En garde, twittertards

I'm not supposed to talk about this but it's too good to hold back.

Apple blazing trails again, this time with a gadget that will silence twitterers at will. Regardless of their device.

Imagine the chagrin as the twitter mobs get revved up only to have their peckings dissipate into the ether! What will Scoble do if he can't tell the world when he's sleeping. When he's awake. When he's being annoying (which face it, is all the time)?

Sweet. Wonder how much Sarah Va-Va-Voom Lacy would pay for this baby?

Maybe we'll trot it out at the already-sold-out worldwide developers conference.

Maybe not.

Attention iPhone queue actors: Wrong week, assholes

Jesus I am freaking the hell out. I just had Katie and Phil in here mumbling excuses and trying to blame the contractor who hired the actors for the iPhone queue outside the Fifth Avenue store in New York. As you may have read, the bozos started lining up yesterday -- a full two weeks ahead of schedule. I mean we've worked this out for months here in our Fifth Avenue mock-up set in Building X at the Cupertino headquarters. We've had rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. How to give our rain gear, when to give our water, what kind of ratty-looking folding chairs to use. We've had these unemployed actors doing week-long run-throughs, and everything has been perfect.

And now this. Phil says it's the contractor in New York who got the folks out on the sidewalk and had them out there chanting until we got wind of it and had them hustled away. I told Phil it doesn't matter who screwed up, the whole thing falls on him. Moshe and his boys are dealing with Phil now. Then it'll be Katie's turn. It's the full Gitmo for both of them. Sorry but it has to be done. Peace out.

Confession: I'm scared shitless about the 3G iPhone rollout

I'll be honest. I've never been completely happy (or even a little bit happy) with our AT&T relationship. When I read stories like this I just want to curl up under my desk and cry.

This cannot stand

The Clintstones never say die. The only hybrid as noxious as an iPhone/Vista abortion would be an Obama/Clintstone ticket. But that's just what Billy Bob is pushing, according to Time maggie.

Key snippet:

"In Bill Clinton's view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill "is pushing real hard for this to happen," says a friend.

Listen up Barry! Don't get sucked in. They'll be talking all Dreamteam and shit but once you're in there, you know you'll get shivved. You'd be as disposable as Larry's number two at Oracle.

Believe it.

Gartner gets a clue

So the tech analtards over at Gartner now realize that the iPhone can be used for business calls. Duh.

"Mazel tov boyz," as Moshe might say. "You've bought yourself a clue."

Hell freezing over

I can't even type the words to describe this abomination.

Specworks: Have you no decency?

Katie, Moshe and the legal team are on Defcom 5

Ballmer-to-egg transformation complete

Much love to Pascal for the photograph.

Goatberg's on a break

El Jobso fan boy Nick Wingfield is sitting in for Goatberg for a few weeks while the latter learns new ways to jam more me's-myself's-and-I's into his columns.

We were all set for Son of Goatberg, but here's the interesting thing: In just over 800 words, Wingfield does not include one self-reference. Thankfully the article is replete with mentions of my genius. Which makes it semi worthwhile. But really, this is news?

While the Goatberg drought is a pause that refreshes, Wingfield gets massive demerits for failing to focus solely on the 3g iPhone as he has been instructed. Instead, he speculates on all the cool other stuff we're cooking up. As all filthy hacks should know by now, the interwebs are abuzz about our new device. It's the natural order of things.

So, Nick, girlfriend: How do you explain this lapse? Katie will be in touch. And, she's ticked.

Success of Hillary, Microsoft, NASCAR explained

At last we know.

This just makes me laugh . . .

Like a little girl.

Microsoft is launching yet another multi-hundred-million-dollar brand makeover. Must be that time of year. More here.

iPhone 2 express gains steam

After some backsliding, Wired is back aboard our iPhone 2 saturation campaign. Much love my black-wearing-too-cool-for-school friends.

Also, the Canadian hacks chime in. Namaste to our friends north of the border who are always just a little bit nicer, and a little bit slower than the rest.

Computerworld broke the pact, needlessly distracting the herd with a story about iPhone going to Asia although clearly such a device would be 3G. Much shame to the trade hack responsible. Do you need us to use bigger fonts?

Mouse on mouse violence

So the hacks over at Alley Insider unearthed this sordid little tale. Some crab-shankers down in Maryland are suing us over Mighty Mouse. Like they came up with it for their sad little devices.

WTF! Everyone knows El Jobso invented the minute mouse!

Hey, Man & Machine Inc., of West Street, Landover, Maryland? Yes, I'm talking to you. We've got our eye on you. And by "we" I mean Moshe. In cases like this, why go to the mouthpieces, when you can go directly to the muscle?

More reasons to love the British

So I'm in Newcastle to give a speech and I happened to see this article about a village called Shitterton that wants to change its name, as some locals feel the name is hurting property values. Imagine that. Best of all is the sidebar which lists other towns over here that have really bad names, like Cockington, Lickey End, Nob End, Thong, Ugley, Wetwang, Twatt, Penistone, Bitchfield, Crapstone and Cockermouth.

Meanwhile, just to digress a bit, and I just wrote to Jony about this too -- what the fuck is up with the way people talk up here? I mean they open their mouths and sounds come out but I can't understand any of it. I'm not even sure it's English. It's all a bit disappointing especially because I was really looking forward to the visit and as a huge Beatles fan I've always thought of this as kind of a holy place, like Mecca, or Sedona, and I realize the Merseybeat stuff happened nearly 50 years ago (can you believe it?) but still I figured there'd be something.

I'm sad to report, however, that this is a pretty grim little city and worse yet there's precious little done here to commemorate the Beatles. I went out this morning and got a taxi and asked the driver if he could show me the Rathskeller or the Cavern Club or any other places of note. The guy just looked at me. How about Abbey Road then, I said. Again, nothing. I thought maybe it was just the way I talk -- maybe they have as much difficulty understanding my accent as I do with theirs. Back at the hotel, however, I asked and they told me there's really not much to see here regarding the Beatles. No museum, not even a souvenir shop. Bit of a letdown, but times change. Or tempus fugit, as they say in German. They've also never heard of a mango smoothie. Oh well. I'm feeling old.

Microsoft still doesn't get it

Now it's going to pay poor losers on the web to buy stuff found with Microsoft's inadequate Live Search.

So now the plan is to buy Google users one at a time? Interesting....
I know they have more money than God, but someone remind Beastmaster Bill that the idea is for customers to pay you for your mediocre stuff. Not vice versa.

Surprise! iPhone users are happy

And fulfilled. And healthy. And good looking.

It's great that Rubicom Consulting tells it like it is (and pretty much as we told them last year) and got the word out to Wired.

But they missed the memo that, effective immediately, all analysts and filthy hacks should focus 100% of their coverage on the soon-to-be-unveiled 3g iPhone.


And, not to quibble but Rubicon stuck in the bit about how some iPhone users carry a second, non-Apple product. That was their sad effort to appear even handed. Smart consumers, per our previous instructions, carry a decoy device only for pickpockets.

So, remember troops: It's all about the new iPhone. That is all.

Monkey Boy and the egg

My physicist friend Ingyar tells me that the Monkey Boy and Egg Incident is more than a random event. It is a great demonstration of string theory.

Ingyar (something of an egghead himself if you get my meaning) maintains that in this worldview, all parts of the universe are made up of eensy strings, each of which resonates with its fellow strings at the most fundamental level. "Ballmer looks like an egg. Ergo, at some point the egg and Ballmer will find each other in a deeply resonant way." As they apparently almost did in Hungary. Only a podium kept this natural occurrence from flowing to its fated shell-on-noggin conclusion.

If you look at it that way, the ovum-tossing terrorist is really helping Ballmer find his inner egg.

Ingyar, I honor the place where your 11 dimensions and the crack of eggshell on cranium unite.

And for those who whined that posting about this event breached good manners, two words: Bite me.

Dear Al: Grow a pair and do the right thing

Al, we've been through hell and back together. We've spent sacred time in a sweat-lodge, fired up on peyote and spooning, naked, while we shared our most intimate secrets. So I say this as a friend. Will you please stop this fucking waffling? Your country needs you.

Attention all news organizations: From now until June 9, it's nothing but iPhone, 24x7

So our leak to Gizmodo worked like a charm, and they've posted the news about the 3G iPhone drop here. Big date is June 9. Katie and her crew are putting together the final memo which will go out to Goatberg, Smurfy and all the other filthy hacks either late tonight or early tomorrow. Last draft I saw looked like this:

Dear Filthy Scum Hack:

Son of iPhone is about to make its appearance on June 9. We expect that you will give this important news the column inches it deserves, just as you did last year. We are giving you this early heads-up under NDA so that you can finish up any other non-iPhone stories you might be working on -- Microhoo, Facebook, Google, whatever -- in the next few days so that after Memorial Day weekend you'll be able to devote 100% of your attention to the 3G iPhone. As always Katie and her team will be developing angles for your stories and distributing prepared texts customized to your publication based on our analysis of your audience demographic and its interests. We hope you'll take advantage of this offer and remain on our list of publications in which we advertise. Your advertising sales department will be glad to help you out on this and we urge you to work closely with your colleagues, as well as with us, to deliver the best experience possible to your readers. As usual, Goatberg and Pogue have agreed, sight unseen, to run glowing completely positive reviews of the 3G iPhone which will include the following words: "breakthrough," "tremendous," "awesome," and "revolutionary." In exchange they will be given devices ahead of everyone else so that they can run articles on the morning of June 9 and beat the rest of you by a day. What can I say? A deal's a deal. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings. Actually I'm not sorry at all. I don't even know what that word means. Okay. That is all. Peace out.

Steve Jobs

New poll: Should Microsoft acquire Facebook?

Most people don't know this but Kara Swisher of AllThingsD is a devoted FOFSJ and just an all-around great gal. (Full disclosure: We dated in the 1980s.) Well just this morning, at 4:03 a.m. Pacific time, Kara roused herself from her slumber and posted a brilliant memo to Mark Zuckerberg telling him, in effect, that if the Borg makes a decent offer for Facebook -- say anything over $10 billion -- then boy wonder should probably take it or risk getting his smooth, sweet, pre-pubescent candy ass sued into oblivion by his pissed-off shareholders.

FWIW, our theory is that this is why Sheryl "The Terminator" SandBorg was brought in from Google to run Facebook in the first place. She was hand-picked by the investors (they're her pals) and they want a cash-out and they realize Zuck can't or won't do it. Hell, he can't even bear to be around when his friends get fired. But the ducks are quacking, Zuck. It's time.

Which prompted us to launch a new poll. Should Microsoft acquire Facebook? Possible answers are: (a) yes; (b) no; (c) Who gives a shit?; and (d) Scoble.

Poll is in a box to the right but feel free to argue and debate the merits of the case here in the comment strings. And if anyone wants to make a new version of the Microhoo dog-fucking photo with Faceberg's picture in place of Jerry Yang's, please do so. Or make us any other disgusting artwork that captures the essence of a BorgBook deal. We'll put it up right away and send you a low number for the 3G iPhone waiting line.

FWIW, when I try to imagine what Zuckerberg is doing on his month-long Vision Quest, the following clip keeps coming to mind:

To the ramparts!

Napster, the song-stealing cabal, now says it is "compatible" with iTunes. This is not the kind of thing we will take lying down. Katie has marshaled the forces of good and our message is sounding forth already. Noted quote boy Rob Enderle (photo) dutifully dissected the deal in this AP story.

It's right from the script: Enderquote can't "picture many iPod and iTunes users shifting to Napster, since iTunes software is so integrated with Apple music players. The exception may be someone looking for a track that Apple doesn't offer," he says.

Nicely done, Rob, except for that last part which was a little off-message. Katie will be calling you with the language for your clarification.

Napster CEO Chris Gorog nonetheless tries to take a victory lap. "It is really the beginning of a level playing field," he says. Yeah, right. Hey, Chris Gorog (if that is your real name) we'll see about that. You may note that your Napster predecessor is now hawking cheap, round German cars. Who knows what awaits you?

Leprosy or Vista? That's a tough one.

Much love to dear reader Kevin for alerting us to this story where developers explain they'd rather get leprosy than write code for Vista. Money quote from one of the code monkeys: "Vista is too bleeding-edge -- not for us, but for our clients. They're all leery of Vista."

The people have spoken: Scoble for Borg CEO

Well our poll about who should be the new Borg CEO has closed and much to our surprise King of All Bloggers Robert Scoble has emerged as the people's favorite to replace Steve Ballmer. Scoble got 786 votes, or 39% of the total, compared to 534 for Gates and 507 for Ozzie. Much love to all who participated. And congratulations, Robert Scoble.

You think Monkey Boy's got it bad?

Yesterday you will recall that old Monkey Boy got attacked with eggs in Budapest. Well, dear reader Brett wrote in saying you should see what the Russians did to harass Gary Kasparov, chess champion turned political dissident. They turned loose a flying dick -- a dildo with helicopter blades -- in one of his press conferences. Please note the aggressive response of the bodyguard. I haven't seen a guy leap around after a dick with that much enthusiasm since the time I let Carson Kressley and Barry Diller catch a ride on my Gulfstream.

But I digress. For the full link to the Kasparov story, see here.

Much love, Joe Doe

Who's Joe Doe? I have no idea. But he's the dude who made the other Microhoo animation for us, and now he's made this one. I love it. Namaste, Joe Doe.

Stallman hunting sharks

World-class adventure sports fanatic Richard M. Stallman now has turned his attention from other dangerous activities like kite-boarding and high-wire walking and rocking the half-pipe into a new passion -- hunting sharks. The photo above was taken in Australia a few days ago. This unlucky shark bastard violated the GPL and got what he had coming -- a spear through the neck from RMS, who was aided in his shark-hunt by Harald Welte and Eben Moglen. Rock on, RMS, you demented soldier in the war for freedom. Much love to Jason for the photo.

First XP on XO machines ready to ship

Children around the world will be celebrating tonight. Much love to Jason for the spy photo.

RIM CEO says iPhone has boosted his sales

See this appalling Q&A with Mike Lazaridis where he says there's nothing to worry about, BlackBerry is kicking butt, business is great, the Bold is not an iPhone ripoff, RIM rules and so on. Money quote: "I think what happened was the amount of marketing and the attention (Apple) generated in the market -- the customers are now coming to the store and saying I didn't know you could do all that with a phone. And when they get there they realize there's a selection -- there's not just one device. And so what it's actually done is increased our sales."

Well, what can I say, Mike Lazaridis, except, "You're welcome." Oh, and one more thing -- considering you've been selling smart phones for so long, and if you're such a great company, why then did you need me to come into your market and explain it to the world at large? And if that is truly the case, let me just point out that it does not bode well for you guys.

Ballmer egg attack video is here

I fucking love this. Honestly, if I could find that Hungarian egg terrorist I would kiss him on the mouth. Much love to Dolly Haze for the video work.

Ballmer egged in Budapest!

See the video clip on this link. Especially check out the look on Monkey Boy's face after he runs behind a desk and ducks for cover. Poor bastard looks scared shitless. (Still photo above.) If anyone can rip this video and put in YouTube let me know so I can embed it here. I've been watching it over and over and over again. Also if anyone speaks Czech and can translate the article or at least tell us what the egg-throwing dude is saying, I'd be much obliged. I asked Iulia and Natasha in Krasnodar but they were like, Styopa, pazhalsta, we speak Russian, okay? Czechs are swine.

`And now I simply set the time machine for 1999, and boom -- we're growing again!'

This appears to be Sun's new business plan. Which is why the buyout talk is starting up again.

They're back!

Well these crazy frigtarded mofos are back at it again and I am jumping for joy. Because honestly this ridiculous pas de deux is the gift that keeps on giving. Remember almost a year ago I wrote that we need a good merger -- "one of those deals where tens of billions of dollars change hands and everybody knows it's a train wreck but the two CEOs get up and talk about their wonderful synergies and blah blah and everyone just kind of snickers and waits for the disaster to happen."

Well, the tech gods (with a nudge from Carl Icahn) are trying to make it happen.

As for this video, well, I just can't think of anything better to say about Microhoo than what this video says in its own sophisticated, eloquent way. Peace out. Fingers crossed.

Borg launches sinister plan to bring even more misery to Third World children

How will they do it? By shipping Windows XP on a poorly built, underpowered, unreliable laptop. As Monkey Boy said in a statement: "At Microsoft we believe that everyone in the world should have equal access to blue screens and freeze-ups and viruses. We hope this program helps prepare kids around the world to become frustrated, annoyed and unproductive members of the global work force."

Nothing like a bloated operating system on a tiny processor with not enough RAM, right? Just when you thought life couldn't get worse for people in the Third World, sure enough the Borgtards find a way to do it. What's next? Seeding clouds over Burma?

You know what? I weep for the poor kids who will grow up using XP on XO. I really do.

What the fuck is going on with Roger McNamee's hair?

So I'd heard talk around the Valley that Roger was playing in some band (photo above is from a recent gig) and was letting his hair grow out a bit and that it was kind of, um, unusual for a guy who runs a big Valley private equity firm, Elevation Partners, that has Bono as a partner and owns a big chunk of Palm Inc., as well as some other things, including some right-wing magazine from the East Coast. But honestly I had no idea how shaggy the guy has become. Then I ran into him the other day, and I swear I didn't even recognize him.

He was coming out of a head shop in Palo Alto with this huge shopping bag under his arm and he said hi to me. My first thought was, Why is this homeless guy talking to me? My second thought is that maybe I should take Larry's advice and get a bodyguard so that people can't just come up to me and start talking, like that crazy Violent Blue woman did a while back at Macworld.

But then McNamee was like, Seriously, Steve, we are going to crush the iPhone, I'm not bragging, I'm just saying, it's totally true -- and I recognized that voice of his, and I was like, Roger? Is that you? What the fuck happened to you? You look like Rip Van Winkle, dude.

Because I'm not even joking, he totally does, and honestly his hair is way down past his shoulders.

He's like, What do you mean? Oh, you mean the hair? Yup, I'm rocking the long hair. You like it?

I'm like, Dude, did you make a bet or something? Like you wouldn't cut your hair until Palm starts making money? I sure hope not because if so you're going to have hair down to your ass, my brother. You'll look like Cousin It.

He just laughed, and then he went on and on about his band was gonna be opening for the Marshall Tucker Band and did I want some backstage passes, and I was like are they the guys who did "Freebird," and he just laughed again and said seriously he was like this close to living the dream and becoming a full-blown rock star and once that happens he's going to drop this whole investment thing altogether.

To get an idea of what the Valley has done to this guy's head since he moved here from the East Coast 20 years ago, check out the original clean-cut Roger. Then check out slight shaggy Roger which was shaggy but nothing extreme. Then there was the shaggy but still preppy Roger.

Roger, I'm your friend, okay? Not really. But look. People are talking. People are worried. But nobody dares to say anything, so fuck it, I'll do it. You need a haircut, my brother. Doesn't have to be short, but just neaten it up. Okay? At the very least you need some conditioner. Consider this an intervention. For your hair. For God's sake, man. Do something. Oh, and good luck with Palm.

How the Valley put Obama over the top

Recently I pointed out that the Valley deserved a great deal of credit for Obama's success. (See here.) Now the big brains at The Atlantic have figured that out too and have turned out a terrific piece about the huge role that Valley money-raisers and techies had in helping Obama gain an edge. Also very smart is the author's recognition that Obama fits in out here -- he's young, charismatic, maybe light in experience but in the Valley we're all about the new new thing, and that's what Barry is. So people took to him and wanted to invest in him. Better yet, Barry understood the power of social networking and put it to work on his Web site, big time. And he's a Mac user. As we say in the Valley, he gets it. It also didn't hurt that the Clintstones made a huge error in refusing to play ball with the Valley, relying instead on the same old rich cronies they've always turned to for money. Money quote: "As a result, the wealthiest region of the wealthiest state in the nation was left to Barack Obama."

Suck on it, Clintstones. And note to the rest of America -- we may not be as sexy as Hollywood or Wall Street, but you know what? We've got a shitload of money, and we know how to organize. We're a powerful bunch of khaki-wearing, gay-marriage-supporting, arugula-eating, Mac-using elitist nerds out here. To all of you racist homophobic non-Californian dumb fucks who find that annoying? Tough shit. We outsmarted you. We out-spent you. And now for the next eight years we're going to be running this country. We're going to give equal rights to gay people, fund stem-cell research, teach evolution, take down the fence on the Mexican border, and make sure abortion stays safe and legal. We're going to pull out of Iraq, shut down Gitmo, and stop torturing people. And yeah. A black dude with a Muslim-sounding name and degrees from Columbia and Harvard is going to be in charge. So sit back down, strap yourself in, and shut the fuck up, crackers.

My lawyers are freaking out

Just got a nervous call from my lawyers who said they wanted to give me a "heads up" about a "situation" at Broadcom. See more about it here. Basically the feds are going after some Broadcom execs over some options backdating stuff. I'm like, So what? I don't work at Broadcom. They're like, Um, well, see, Broadcom did its own internal investigation and already cleared these guys, and the SEC isn't buying it apparently, and though the company itself has already settled the whole thing the SEC is still going after the executives as individuals. Now you do you see? Is this ringing any bells?

I'm like, No, not at all. I don't hear any bells. I'm sorry.

They go, Steve, your former CFO at Pixar is getting hassled over options backdating. And your former general counsel at Apple is going to trial too. Still not setting off any alarms over there?

I'm like, Nope. No alarms. Just working on my super tasty new iPhone, but thanks for the call. Now I gotta go, my signal is breaking up, I'm going into a tunnel, I think I'm losing you, can you hear me? Can you? I can't hear you. Losing you. Okay. I'll call you back. Bye.

FWIW, if you'd like to get the best account of what went on at Apple during the options backdating crisis and how we managed the crisis, I highly recommend this book.

Goatberg pronoun count up from last week

Amazing stuff, Goatberg watchers. Walt's column this week (see here) is 853 words long and contains 17 uses of I, me, my or mine. That's up from 15 uses in last week's column. This week's column is ostensibly about a pair of Bluetooth headsets, one from Plantronics and one from Aliph. But come on. We know what he's really writing about. By the way, in advance of the 3G iPhone release we've had Walt in for a check-up on his hypnosis and everything seems to be in tip-top shape. Also, just for kicks and to make sure he's fully buttered up, I took Walt out to dinner at Il Fornaio in Palo Alto. The great part of dining with Walt is watching the way he treats the waiters and other staff. He's like, "Do you know who I am? I'm Walt Mossberg, goddammit! Yes, from the Wall Street Journal. Have you heard of it? It's a newspaper in New York. Kind of a big deal. Now will you please bring me the kind of bread I asked you for? And then would you go stick your head in a vat of boiling pasta water? Thank you. No really. I mean it. Boil your head. Fine. Call your manager. I'd love to speak to your manager."

And on and on and on. All night long. God I love hanging out with him.

Barely Political messes with O'Reilly's big fat ugly empty head

You have to see this video mashup that Barely Political did with the clip of Bill O'Reilly flipping out on the set of Inside Edition. It's friggin brilliant. Much love, Barely Political. Namaste. I honor the place where your sicko humor and Bill O'Reilly's lunacy become one.

New poll: Who will replace Monkey Boy?

Check it out. As we pointed out yesterday, investors have lost faith in Monkey Boy. Not only because of the Vista fiasco and the Microhoo fiasco, but also because of this. Naturally this raises the question of who will replace Ballmer when the board finally pushes him out. Choices are Mundie, Ozzie, Gates, Shirley (if you have to look him up, you're not old enough to be playing), and Scoble. Have at it, friends. We'll send the results to the Borg as a way of showing our support.

FWIW, our next poll will be this:

How will the Borg directors get rid of Ballmer? (a) Take him up in plane, toss him out over the ocean, claim it was an accident?; (b) Firing squad; (c) Death by Vista; or (d) Tie him to chair, force him to watch Scoble videos.

Off topic, but worth it

Much love to Faddah for sending a link to this video. I'm not trying to get all political on you. I just think it's a funny video. So no hate mail. Bokay?

Consumer Reports, you are dead to me

So the big brains at Consumer Reports claim that our laptops break down more than those made by other major brands. They base this on "evidence" gathered in some kind of "survey" of so-called "customers." Please. I don't believe it for a second. Our laptops are way more reliable than any other brand. Our own internal research, where we survey millions of Mac users, indicates our machines are among the most bulletproof devices in all of consumer electronics, not just computers. So there.

I've instructed Katie to ban all copies of Consumer Reports from our retail stores and from our offices. Anyone found carrying CR will be fired on the spot. That is all.

Larry Kudlow rants about his Windows PC. Monkey Boy, you are a dead man.

See the Kudlow and Company gang here. Skip through the stuff about oil at the beginning and you'll get to the love for Apple and the utter hatred for Microsoft. I mean these dudes really unload on the Borg. One dude bashes Ballmer for not completing the Yahoo deal. Kudlow talks about having "computer rage almost on a nightly basis" because his Windows machine sucks so bad. "I'm sick of it," he says, and then says he's fed up and is going to switch to a Mac.

There's something really scary in the voices here. It's in the tone. You know what I'm hearing? It's disgust. Nobody comes out and says it, but these guys are fed up with Microsoft. They're not even angry. They're just fed up. They've had it. They stuck by the company during the DOJ trial and the antitrust mess, because hey, what investor doesn't love a monopoly. The guys on Wall Street don't care if you lie, or cheat, or bully your rivals -- as long as you're winning, and making money, and as long as the stock keeps going up.


What they won't stand for is fuck-ups. Incompetence. Mistakes. And the Borg has been nothing but fuck-ups for what -- three years? Listening to these investor dudes talk I'm reminded of a time in the late 1980s when Wall Street guys began ranting about Digital Equipment Corp. For years DEC had been their darling. Ken Olsen walked on water. But suddenly Ken Olsen was a doofus, an idiot. The company which once had been so powerful and so admired almost overnight came to be seen as a loser that couldn't adapt and change.

You know what? I just realized something. Ballmer is a dead man. Maybe not right now. Not this week. Maybe not even this year. But he's a dead man. The only thing keeping him around right now is that they don't have anyone else who could take over for him. Mundie? Ozzie? Please. But the fact is, Ballmer's investors have lost faith in him. And they will drive him out. Yes, Steve and Bill go way back. Doesn't matter. At this level, when there's this much money at stake, hurt feelings don't matter. As a Wall Street guy once told me, during my time of darkness, "You need a friend? Get a dog. You need a shoulder to cry on? Hire a shrink. After what we've paid you, you can afford it."

Larry Ellison claims he's the model for Tony Stark aka Iron Man

Larry has been telling me this for months. And I must admit, this guy makes a pretty good argument. Check out the video clips. They're very convincing. Larry says Robert Downey Jr. studied tapes of Larry talking to develop his character. Which we both agree is pretty damn cool.

Smoking hot Sarah Lacy has a smoking hot book ranked #1 on Amazon

See here. Sarah's book about Web 2.0 is ranked #1 among "company profile" books and #289 among all books on Amazon. Pretty incredible, though Katie informs me that the Amazon numbers can be misleading, in that a relatively small number of orders -- like less than 50 -- can give a book a big pop if they all come in at once. Anyway, I'm delighted to see Sarah having such great success. Much love, Sarah Lacy. And don't pay any attention to the haters, like this assmonkey who says: "i have read pre-release sections of this book. this is a promotional vehicle for a cadre of mostly unimportant serial self-promoters (including the author), and a few "somebodies" who you can already learn too much about somewhere else. if you need a reason to hate the small group of wannabe-celebrities who form the "web2" echo chamber, then this book has a purpose."

You know what I never understand? It's people who turn into big haters on someone's book. Books are hard work. Most people don't make a lot of money on them. All books are flawed. A few are great; the vast majority are average; a few truly suck. I have no idea which category Sarah's book falls into and I don't really care. I'm not going to read it. Ever. But it's a big deal in Sarah's life. So why not be happy for her?

FWIW, I'm not being paid to say this stuff. But I do have a massive crush on Sarah Lacy -- the photo above is the screensaver on my iPhone -- and I'm hoping to get her into the Jobs Pod and hypnotize her. Now that Bike Helmet Girl has moved to Washington, D.C., and Veronica Belmont has assured me, repeatedly, that she will not leave Ryan Block and is immune to hypnosis, well, Sarah Lacy has now moved into the #1 spot on the Jobso Dream Team. Look into my hypnotic eyes, Sarah Lacy. Listen to the sexy sounds of the Barry White music I'm playing in the background. Feel yourself growing sleepy. That's it. Give in to your feelings--

Oh shit. Katie just walked in. Gotta go. Peace out.

We are so friggin gay it's not funny

According to Ars Technica, a gay Internet portal called PlanetOut says Apple is as "gay friendly" as it is humanly possible to be. The only brand that's more gay than Apple is the Bravo cable network, which produces loads of gay-type programs. As regular readers know, this whole gay thing has been at the very top of my agenda for a long, long time. Like when I pushed Disney to make our Fairy Tale Wedding package available to same-sex couples. We've worked really hard at Apple, too, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to guys like Ron Johnson (photo above, in wig and sunglasses, at last year's Pride event in San Francisco) who did the hard work of getting out on the street and reaching out to gays with flyers and other materials explaining Apple's support of LGBT issues.

What can I tell you? I'm so proud of this company right now. So proud. I'm going to call Jony and tell him about it and see if he wants to go for a walk together and maybe have a smoothie with me.

A stunning look inside the OLPC fiasco

Ivan Krstic used to be the head of security development for OLPC but he quit recently as the entire place began to fall into chaos. Turns out the mess is far, far worse than anyone on the outside could ever have imagined. Check out this long essay in which Krstic lays it all bare. It's amazing stuff, and in case you don't want to read the whole thing let me boil down the essential bits:

* OLPC was never really about learning; it was about freetards promoting free software. Now it's not even about that. It's just about selling laptops.

* Walter Bender: "I quit because I can't continue to work on a lie."

* Richard Stallman is a total fuckwit who thinks OLPC is evil for shipping Windows on the XO machine.

* Krstic recently got fed up with Linux (after 12 years) and bought a Mac -- only to discover that OS X eats Linux for lunch. (Welcome back to the real world, freetard.)

* OLPC never had any plan for deploying laptops. Out in the field, in Peru and Uruguay, it's a total mess.

Great stuff, right? So do you think Lesley Stahl will do an update for 60 Minutes and ask Saint Nicholas to explain what went wrong? Will anyone hold this idiot's feet to the fire?

Coming up next on 60 Minutes -- The big lie: How a band of arrogant, ignorant, academic blowhards squandered millions of dollars and conned the world -- until it all came crashing down around them.

Now that would be a show worth watching.

More raves for Vista

Now comes Aaron Ricadela of BusinessWeek, one of the most talented hacks of his generation, with a fine piece explaining that corporate customers are shunning Vista and waiting for Windows 7 instead. I emailed a link to Beastmaster Bill with a note saying, "Bill -- so happy for you." He wrote back: "Steve, it saddens me that you are still so obsessed with our old adolescent rivalry when you could instead be finding ways to use your wealth and influence to work on serious issues in the developing world. There's more to life than consumer electronics. As for Vista, let me just say this: Siooma, assclown."

How long until the Journal does a classic nasty takedown on Jerry Yang?

So now Carl Icahn has bought a chunk of Yahoo and may launch a proxy fight. See today's Journal story about it here. Now the question is how long will it be until Icahn gets his minions at the Journal to do his dirty work for him by producing a devastating hatchet job on Jerry Yang. I give it a week. Two weeks, tops. This is how Icahn operates. Remember the black ops work he did on Ed Zander of Motorola? First, on a Friday, Icahn planted a story that destroyed Zander's reputation and pretended he had nothing to do with it; then on Monday he took out a full-page ad in the Journal saying he was "shocked -- shocked!" by what he'd read in the Journal on Friday, and that Zander had to go.

As for Yahoo, the Icahn shenanigans have already begun. Today's story in the Wall Street Journal carries two bylines plus a reporting credit for a third hack, and is loaded with anonymous sources who are "familiar with the matter." Translation: Icahn and his guys are feeding info to the Journal, and the deal with the devil is this -- we feed you inside info so you get a Page One scoop, and you slant the story in a way that helps us, and you leave our names out of it.

Now Icahn and his guys will worm their way into Yahoo and find insiders who hate Yang and want him out. Then they will tee those people up to talk to the Journal and spill their guts (anonymously, of course) about what an incompetent nitwit Jerry Yang is.

The strange thing is that the Journal isn't ashamed of this kind of thing. In fact they're proud of it. See, this is how they do their jobs. They curry favor with scumbags like Icahn and carry his water for him and help him make millions on these proxy fight deals.

Hey, it's a living, I suppose, but what bothers folks like me who actually run these companies is that the Journal then has the gall to call what they do "journalism" and say it's all done in the pursuit of truth and justice and Mom and apple pie -- when really they're not much different or better than the idiots who follow Britney Spears around hoping to get a photograph of her doing bong hits with her 3-year-old.

Frankly it makes me sick. I don't know how these filthy hacks can look at themselves in the mirror. Katie and her team are already on notice to be looking for the Yang attack piece when it runs so we can deconstruct it and figure out who's leaking what to whom. Why not have some fun and point the gun back at the hacks, right?

FWIW, you should have heard the Journal freaks squeal when I busted them last year on the Icahn-versus-Zander story. All sorts of angry email from these holier-than-thou journalists (that's what hacks call themselves when they get a master's degree) who were soooo pissed and totally indignant about being called out by some lowly blogger. Well, tough noogies, freaks. I'm watching you. I'm a CEO citizen journalist, using technology to disrupt your business model and give you a taste of your own medicine.

More as this story develops.

Obama flashes his iPhone

See the clip here. About halfway through he whips out an iPhone I know what you're wondering -- is that a 3G model that he's using? Dear friends, it is. He got one of the first ones off the production line. And he loves it. Just loves it. He's been calling me at night and raving about it. He says he wants me to be in his cabinet. I was like, Dude, let's talk about that down the road. But, um, yes. I'll do it.

Hookers! Spotted by Google Street View. How awesome is this?

Check out this great photo from an address on San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. Dear reader Faddah spotted it on this blog. Supposedly a guy was doing some house hunting in Oakland and came across this picture. Not sure if he considered the availability of fresh ladies to be a plus or minus in terms of location. Anyone know if this is for real?

Will you filthy hacks please leave me alone? Please?

Dan Frommer of Alley Insider gets a big scoop about how I didn't spend much money on plane travel in the last quarter. Good grief. Now the freaks and fanboys are scouring our SEC filings to find out how much money I'm spending on my plane? What's next? You want to know what brand of peanuts they serve during the flight? I know one good way you could find that out, Frommer. And yeah, you know exactly what I'm suggesting.

President of Mozilla Europe gives a shout-out to Fake Steve

Go to this BBC story and check out the video clip. Or you can go straight to the video clip here. Tristan Nitot demonstrates some of the new features of the Firefox browser, including an "awesome bar" which provides the ability to find Fake Steve Jobs more easily. Much love, Tristan. It pains me to say this, but your browser truly rocks. Much love to dear reader James who alerted us to this clip.

World's largest iPod docking station introduced

Ok, the nice folks at the Register got this first. But it was too good to pass up. Air New Zealand is going to equip planes with iPod docks so you can watch movies and listen to music from your iPod. We've had this feature for years on the Jobs Jet, but I'm glad to see it making its way into commercial airlines, so the proles can get a taste of the good life too.

Bill O'Reilly needs a Mac

Maybe you've seen this already but if not, please enjoy an old clip of world-class asshole Bill O'Reilly going nuts on a TV set. Namaste, Bill O'Reilly. I honor the place where your lunacy and my pageviews become one.

Another "Hillary in the House" video. Groan.

Who the fuck is this guy and can someone please stop him?

That giant whooshing sound is Facebook's $15 billion valuation going up in smoke

So says Henry Blodget of Alley Insider. (See here.) Henry views Facebook's decision to take on debt (leasing $100 million worth of servers) as a sign that it can't raise money at its much-vaunted $15 billion valuation, which wouldn't be surprising since that was always a ridiculous figure. Blodget's theory: Facebook "couldn't sell any more equity at $15 billion, and it didn't want to do a down round, so it turned to the debt markets." He also suspects Facebook will burn more cash this year than it previously said it would.

Everyone said the Borg was crazy when it bought a tiny chunk of Facebook at the ridiculous $15 billion valuation. But think about it. For a mere $240 million (pocket change for the Beastmaster) they've put the boy genius in a bit of a jam, no?

Of course, on the other hand, most people would love to have Zuckerberg's kind of problems.

Truly I am the king of all media

Much love to the good folks at Alley Insider for pointing out the incredible power I now wield in the music industry -- indeed, in all media. See their post here. Basically they're pointing out that I've now made huge stars out of an unknown British band, the Ting Tings, by using one of their songs in our new ads.

And in case you want to see the Ting Tings live, go here. In case you want to see Ting Tong instead of the Ting Tings, go here.

Hillary in the House

Groan.

Frigtard steals Mac, gets busted by its remote access feature

Much love to the many readers who sent in clips to this fine article which tells the story of a clever Apple retail employee who recovered his stolen Mac laptop by turning on its remote access feature and using it to snap a photo of the dumb bastard who stole it. Sweet.

Now XP updates are blowing up machines too.

See here. The Vista pollution apparently is spreading backward to XP. Some users of AMD-based machines are installing an XP update and their machines go into "an endless reboot cycle." You know what? The Borg must die. Honestly. Their time has come and gone. They are no longer able to control their own software. Their business model -- a general purpose OS distributed on OEM hardware -- is no longer tenable. Stop the madness. Buy a Mac.

FWIW, if you do believe that we're headed toward a cloud computing future, can you imagine the cloud that Microsoft will run? What will they call it? TardVille? Who in their right mind will choose to get on that cloud? I suppose the poor dopes who currently use AOL on dial-up will end up being shuffled over onto that platform through some Borg-AOL "partnership" or merger.

You know what? I despise those people. Nevertheless I also weep for them.

How the Borg designs new operating systems

Well at last we have proof. Okay, I know, this is a Photoshop job. Nonetheless it's pretty good and I figured we might have some caption contest fun. Okay? Have at it. Happy Monday.

Facebook: The purge begins

Regular readers will remember that I recently warned Facebook kiddies to be very afraid because their new boss, ex-Google honcho Sheryl Sandberg, would soon begin thinning the ranks at Facebook: "Slowly, one by one, she will start picking you off. Like a predator in one of those sci-fi movies where people keep going missing."


Sure enough, now comes word that the company's CTO, a guy who has been pals with Mark Zuckerberg since high school, is leaving for no apparent reason. Official version is that Adam D'Angelo (photo) wants "to take some time off." Now listen, friends. Kids in their early twenties do not take time off. Especially when they're working for the hottest get-rich-quick startup in the Valley. These folks do not leave because they need a break and want some R&R. They leave because someone gave them money to go away so that someone can bring in one of her friends that she trusts more or believes is more capable.

Nevertheless the ever-clueless CNET describes the resignation this way: "It's kind of like this: an indie rock band gets signed to a major label, and after a taste of the high life, the bassist jumps ship."

Um, no. It's like this: A garage band gets signed to a major label, and the label assigns a producer to their album, and the producer says the bass player's gotta go. I mean, you've seen Wayne's World 2, right? Or, for the older folks, does the name "Pete Best" ring any bells?

Perhaps you were wondering why ZuckerBorg has embarked on a one-month "Vision Quest" to India and other locales for "pleasure and contemplation"? Well now we know. The poor kid can't bear to be around when his pals start getting SandBorged. What a sweetie.

FWIW, I was talking to the Beastmaster over the weekend and he says he's heartened by the fact that Mr. Fleece-and-Flip-Flops can't handle watching the carnage. He and Monkey Boy see this as a sign of weakness. And they're right. The true killers (and I know because I'm one of them) don't mind seeing our friends getting tossed under a bus -- in fact, we get off on it. Larry, who's the sickest of us all, actually videotapes his firings and then watches the tapes afterward, while being pleasured by interns.

But not little Zuckerberg. When put to the test, he blinked. Nice work, kid. You let the Valley VCs and private equity sharks into the pool, and now the sharks are eating your friends, and you're off in India, hiding. What a mensch.

The question arises: Who's next? Will Zuckerberg's sister, Randi Jayne, maker of painfully bad songs and videos, gets booted from her sweetheart job in "marketing"? Doubtful. They'll keep her around just so Mark can feel safe. Worth wondering, though, is what role Zuckerberg will return to when he completes his Vision Quest. Smart money says he gets pushed into some kind of "visionary" role so that the new team of Valley veterans, installed by Facebook's investors, can finally complete their takeover of the company.

Why Dell will not bounce back

I love Charles Cooper of CNET and I respect the fact that he's got to print so many column inches per week in order to earn his paycheck but I have to take issue with his latest effort (see here) where he tries to argue that while Dell looks like crap today, in fact Dell could bounce back just the way Apple did. Coop is light on details and specifics and just sticks to the argument that "times change" and that "Dell has bounced back from previous stumbles so who knows?" This is what passes for "news analysis" at CNET? I'm sorry but the article is glib and facile and, frankly, this kind of hollow pap is the reason CNET itself is headed for the dustheap.

As for the question, "So who knows?" the answer to that question is, I do. I know. Let me explain. What people overlook is that the advantages that allowed Dell to prosper for about a decade were all fleeting advantages. Dell was for a while an innovative company, but its innovations did not involve product design. They involved manufacturing and distribution efficiencies.

On the distribution side, Dell sidestepped the cumbersome and costly two-tier (or is it three-tier) distribution model that its PC rivals had allowed to grow up around them like kudzu until it was choking them and consuming a huge chunk of their profits. Selling to wholesalers like Ingram Micro and Tech Data who in turn sold to retailers who in turn sold to end customers -- Michael Dell early on recognized that this was stupid and simply decided not to play ball. Instead he sold direct which gave him a price advantage and won him corporate accounts. The other PC makers knew they were caught in an abusive relationship with their channel but it took them a decade or so to unwind the old relationships and sell direct like Dell did. Game-changer here was the Internet which made it easy for anyone to set up their own Web store and build direct relationships with customers. Dell's advantage got erased.

On the manufacturing side, Dell figured out faster than the others in its space how to squeeze component suppliers and play them off each other. They brought in loads of former Wal-Mart people to refine this practice. One example: If you want to sell parts to Dell you must agree to ship your parts to Round Rock, Texas, and store them in Dell-owned warehouses (paying rent to Dell!) and to hold them until the very moment Dell needs them at which time you drive your tractor trailer to the Dell manufacturing facility and unload your parts through the shipping bay -- and only then, as the parts go across the threshold, does Dell take ownership of them. Thus you, Mr. Parts Supplier, end up paying rent to Dell for the privilege of carrying its inventory on your books. Nice, right?

Trouble with this "innovation" is that the advantages it creates are fleeting. What wiped this one out was a little place called China. Have you heard of it? The rise of China means everyone can make PCs pretty much as cheaply as Dell does. And it's not just cheap manufacturing anymore. The real genius and power of China lies in its armies of low-cost and brilliant engineers. Seen a Lenovo box lately? Heck of a lot nicer than anything Dell is pooping out from its factory in Round Rock.

Bottom line is this: the only innovations worth making are the ones involving product ideas and product design. I mean, Duh. Right? It's pretty obvious. What's amazing to me is how few companies actually seem to realize it. To sustain an edge in any market you must make better products than your competitors, consistently, over and over and over again. Just making the same products as everyone else but taking a little friction out of the system can give you an advantage, but only a temporary one.


The other reason Dell won't rebound is that the company is yoked to Microsoft. Vista has hurt them tremendously. Don't doubt it. All of the PC makers know this and they are furious about it. But what can they do? They put their future in the hands of the Beastmaster. They figured they could deal with the Borg's evil nature; they didn't anticipate having to deal with the Borg's incompetence. You may remember that ten years ago people were saying Apple should cave in and become a Windows shop too. You know why we didn't? Because even ten years ago El Jobso recognized that Windows had become a hairball and foresaw the problems that the Borg was bound to have as the hairball got bigger and bigger and bigger. It was bound to collapse. It had to. It's like using a Volkswagen car kit to build a space shuttle.


So instead of putting our future in the hands of the MicroTards we undertook the massive effort of creating a next-generation operating system of our own. A lot of people, including some very smart ones, said this was crazy. Especially for a company with 2% market share. They said we were suicidal, ridiculous, old-fashioned, hubristic, doomed. The effort cost us huge amounts of time and money and was far from a sure bet. But my feeling is if you don't dare bet on yourself and your own people, you shouldn't be in business. So we made the bet. And now it is paying off in spades -- on Macs and iPhones and other devices which we have not yet announced but will restore a sense of childlike wonder to your lives, trust me.


Which brings me to the real difference between Dell and Apple -- simply put, it's me. When you boil down all the facts and data, the real bottom line on Apple's rebound is that Apple rebounded because I came back to the company. I mean it's pretty obvious, isn't it? I get tossed out, the company goes into the crapper. I come back, the company booms. You don't need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows, as the Allman Brothers once sang.

Now as for Dell, well, you know what their big problem is? Dell doesn't have me. Or anyone like me. Mostly because, let's face it, there isn't anyone else like me. I'm one of a kind. Sui generis, as the French say. What Dell has is Michael Dell. Don't get me wrong. He's a nice guy. And a smart guy. But he's not a visionary. He's not an artist. The stuff he's good at -- squeezing suppliers, screwing distributors -- was very cool ten or fifteen years ago. Today? No big deal.

The other thing people like Coop don't understand when they do the "Apple rebounded, why can't Dell?" argument is that Dell and Apple are not the same kind of beast. Dell is a company. Apple is not a company. Apple is an artist's studio -- and I'm the artist. Apple is the palette on which I do my work. Apple c'est moi, as Nabokov once wrote. Or was it Camus? I get them confused.


To think Michael Dell can do at Dell what I did at Apple is like thinking that if you give Michael Dell a striped shirt and put him in Picasso's old studio and let him buy supplies from Picasso's supplier then you'd have another Picasso. No. Apple is just that -- it's my paint store, the place I get my brushes and canvases and frames and smocks and the metal or clay or whatever Picasso used to make his sculptures. Apple is the loft where I do my work and make love to my nude models. Figuratively speaking. It's the kitchen where I pose for wacky photos with loaves of bread.

The truth on Dell? Dell is Gateway. Dell is Kaypro. Dell is Osborne Computer. It's DEC and DG and Apollo. It's a flower that bloomed and now must die. It's roadkill. It's mulch. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a good thing.

Hey, here's a video that's not about the election

And it is about Macs. Happy now?

Hillary drawing new voters into the Democratic party

Well it makes me sick to report this but apparently Hillary's new outreach to white supremacists and her new campaign slogan -- "Wake up, white people!" -- is paying off bigtime. She's drawing record crowds at her rallies in West Virginia and Kentucky, with loads of hard-working, energetic, uneducated young voters like the kids in the photo above, who showed up at a Hilldebeast event in Teabag, Ky. to pay homage to their leader. Also check out these fine citizens at a Clinton rally in Charleston, W. Va., and this church group in Erlanger, Ky. Earlier today campaign advisor James Carville led a parade in Wheeling, W. Va.

Says campaign strategist Paul Begala: "We're seeing record numbers of lower-IQ people crossing over from the Republican party to vote for Senator Clinton. Now, maybe the elites and eggheads and academics would rather not rub shoulders with these these ordinary, hard-working folks. Well, this is the world we're living in. These are the folks we need to reach if we're going to defeat John McCain in November. Like it or not, Hillary is the one whose message is bringing them in."

Seattle insurance company spoofing My Little Pony

See a story explaining the whole thing here. Some Seattle insurance company is running a series of ads showing local "types" and one of them is the so-called "Ponytailed Software Geek." Oddly enough the geek happens to look a lot like a certain Silicon Valley CEO who likes to hang out and schmooze with freetards.

Caption contest

Well it's been a while since we've done one. And this one is just begging for it. Please have fun and don't be too mean. Okay, I'm kidding. You can be mean.

Heads in the clouds

This just in from our spies at the Google shareholder meeting: Eric gave a presentation and talked about cloud computing and illustrated it with a picture of Legos stuck on a picture of a cloud. Great stuff.

What I think is much, much weirder is Squirrel Boy's recent joint appearance with Sam Palmisano at an IBM Business Partners conference. (Photo at right.) Gist of it was that IBM and Google would work together on cloud computing. I asked Eric about this and he was like, "Of course we're not doing anything with them. It's all for show. They paid me to get up on stage and pretend that they're relevant."

Eric says when they were backstage Palmisano brought up the subject of the Microsoft Yahoo merger and said he thought there were great opportunities to leverage synergies and achieve efficiencies by gaining scale and exploiting opportunities -- but he couldn't understand why Microsoft would try to acquire a Chinese company in the first place. "You know I once saw that CEO, that Jimmy Yang fellow, speak at a conference and I must tell you, I was impressed," Palmisano said. "He speaks very good English. Say, do you play any golf? We should get out on the course sometime."

Photo: Burt Hammer, Hammer Agency.

Oh, before I forget -- I'm going to work for Obama

Nothing to worry about, though, cause you've still got solid support among unemployed white racists who didn't finish high school. And I love that K-Mart pantsuit. You go, girl.

More praise for Mozilla

Now it's spreading viruses. Great work, freetards. So much for the theory that bad guys can't sneak malicious code into open source programs because the "community" would catch the code before it shipped. Ahem.

NBC makes video deal with Zune

See the pathetic news here. After breaking up with us and pulling their video content out of iTunes, now NBC is making a deal with the Borg to distribute its stuff on Zunes. As a dear friend of mine once said, It's the first time I've seen rats swimming toward a sinking ship.

Can anyone explain why this is happening?

Much love to the readers who have alerted me to the fact that they've been unable to open this site using Internet Explorer lately. Safari and Firefox both work fine, which suggests to me that the problem originates in Redmond. Perhaps the Borgmeisters did not appreciate some of my recent coverage of their botched Microhoo merger? If anyone has any idea what's going on, please let me know. Meanwhile, folks, if you're trying to read this blog using IE, shame on you. I mean it. Shame on you.

Meanwhile, deep inside Hillary's brain ...

Yes, this is wrong. Very wrong. But I can't help myself.

Hillary: In case you didn't understand my coded racist messages, let me make them explicit

The audio clip above and this article are so upsetting. Going into cracker-infested West Virginia and Kentucky, Hillary takes a moment to remind people that she is white and that Obama, um, is not. Subtle, no?

Spaketh the Hilldebeast: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on. There was just an AP article posted that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me. There's a pattern emerging here."

Yes, there is a pattern emerging here. There certainly is. And it's a really, really depressing one. Is this really the new low to which the Clintons have sunk? The former president of the United States, the "man from Hope," our "first black president," now resorts to blatant, outright racism? His wife's reason for remaining in the race now has become simply that uneducated racist white crackers won't vote for a black man, ergo she should be the nominee?

Do any of the hacks who are assigned to cover her ever think to point out that if she really had a "much broader base," she wouldn't be losing in the primaries? I'm told that these days when the Hilldebeast speaks, half the hacks just burst out laughing and the other half throw up in their mouths.

God I feel sick.

Email of the day

This just in:

I am a long time reader of your blog. However, I noticed in your recent blog post "Praise the Lord! Abilene Christian University gives every kid an iPhone" that you open with the line "Some Christian college in Oklahoma is giving every student an iPhone". I have to admit I am a little set back by the apparent lack of fact-checking in your posts. You got the name of the school right in your headline. You even have a link to the video on the schools website, but you got the state wrong.

FSJ regrets the error.

Watch live TV on your iPhone or iPod Touch

This is so friggin cool. And so simple. You just hook a TV tuner to your computer and then you can stream live TV to your iPhone or iPod Touch. Full story on it here.

Scoble seeking to be acquired by Microsoft

In the wake of the Microhoo fiasco and amid reports that Monkey Boy is now hungry to buy something else, like Facebook, our spies in Redmond say former Borg ego-blogger Robert Scoble has reached out to Ballmer directly in a bid to sell his "personal brand" to Microsoft. Sources say Scoble is seeking a 10x multiple on his advertising revenues which analysts estimate at approximately zero dollars. Analysts say that price "somewhat overshoots" the value of the Scoble brand but people close to Scoble say that he's learned from Jerry Yang's mistake and would be willing to negotiate downward in order to make a deal happen. Sources say Scoble would perhaps pay Microsoft as much as $500,000 up front in order to get them to acquire his brand and re-attach him to the Borg. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch estimates a fair value on the deal would involve Scoble putting up a larger amount, perhaps $1 million, with a back-end revenue share arrangement. More as this develops.

Goatberg Game: 15 uses of personal pronoun in this week's column

In his latest Wall Street Journal "Personal Technology" column, which is ostensibly about two laptops, egomaniacal gadget columnist Walt Mossberg uses "I" or "my" or "me" a total of 15 times, and they're all unnecessary. At least half of these could have been excised with a simple press of the "delete" key and the sentence would not have changed at all. The other uses could also have been eliminated but would have required some reworking of the sentence.

Fifteen incidents is not even close to setting a new record, but still and all this is a stellar performance and we're glad to see Goatberg back in top form after his nosedive last week. Molodetz, tovarish!

FWIW, this week's "Personal Technology" column is not entirely about Walt. It's also a review of two new tiny notebooks from Lenovo and Asus. Neither company solicited Walt's input during the design stage, which is a shame, because now Walt doesn't like either of them.

In contrast, Walt played a very big role in helping us design the 3G iPhone, and from what he's told us so far, he lurves the review unit we sent him. Like he wants to marry it and have babies with it. That's what he said in his email to me. I told him if he puts that line in his review I will let him come up on stage at MacWorld, which is something he's been bugging me to let him do for years now. It's like the number one item on his list of things to do in life. He was like, "Master, are you serious? I could be on stage? Right there beside you? Don't toy with me, I beg you."

I told him, "Walt, let's wait and see what your review looks like. You know what we're expecting from you. Katie will write up the actual language and send it to you. Then the ball's in your court."

What I'm really going to do is get him to write that line and then tell him I changed my mind and he can't come on stage after all. But please don't tell Walt that. I want it to be a surprise.

I'm totally winning the "Best Beard in Silicon Valley" contest

When I first heard about this I thought they were talking about the women who are married to Jon Ive and Sergey Brin. But no. It's literally a beard competition. See here. Thing is, I don't usually like competitions, but this time I really got into it and really wanted to win. Thank God for my colorist, Annalisa. She's a miracle worker. Just look at that lustrous sheen, that perfect Arafat-esque salt-and-pepper mix. I love myself so much it's not funny.

Facebook running out of gas?

Supposedly developers are losing interest in the platform. And guess what? Right on schedule, the big brains at Microsoft are looking to acquire the place.

Praise the Lord! Abilene Christian University gives every kid an iPhone

Some Christian college in Oklahoma is giving every student an iPhone. They even made a really dorky movie about it. You know what? Stuff like this almost makes me want to become a Christian. Not really.

She bows out tomorrow

Fear not, Apple faithful. Our long national nightmare is almost over. Though the Hildebeast has been boasting about carrying on her campaign, Larry tells me he was just on the phone with Bill and Bill says the beast will withdraw tomorrow. FWIW, Larry says Bill actually sounds kind of happy about the whole thing. Larry's theory all along has been that Bill was hoping Hill would fail. For one thing he's got the alpha dog syndrome and doesn't want his wife outdoing him. For another, he doesn't want eight years of scrutiny and having to behave himself. He's been very happy playing golf and chasing tail with Ron Burkle and shaking down foreign governments for huge speaking fees.

Whenever this ugly spectacle ends -- tomorrow or two weeks from now -- I hope everyone will take heart from the fact that the Valley had a great deal to do with sinking Hillary's chances. Plain and simple, people out here wouldn't pony up. We all gave money to Bill and we all were disappointed with the results. So this time we went for Barry. Sure, these politicians might like hanging out with the celebrities in Hollywood, and they may think the money guys on Wall Street are great pals, but the real money and power in this country resides right here in Silicon Valley. If you want our money, you come out here and kiss the ring and play nice. You take our list of demands, and you do what we tell you. Lesson to pols: Do not fuck with the Valley.

Stoners smash iPhone at concert in Canada

See the gruesome story and photos here. You know, in my day, pot made you mellow. Now they're growing this crazy weed that just makes you all nutty and antsy and violent. It's a shame. Honestly.

BizWeek says we should boot Squirrel Boy from the board

See here. Their take is that because Google is doing Android this gives Squirrel Boy such a huge conflict of interest that he will be useless on our board. Money quote: "The potential rivalry between the iPhone and Google-backed companies and applications could put Schmidt in a difficult spot. While on Apple's board, he already recuses himself from discussions that pertain to the iPhone, according to published reports. But exactly how effective a director of Apple can he be if he's not allowed to know proprietary information that pertains to the product that brings in as much as one-third of Apple revenue?"

Good question. We're not going to answer it. Not to reporters, not to investors, not to Wall Street analysts. Why? Because I say so.

AT&T boneheads leak the 3G iPhone release

See here. AT&T sent out notices to employees telling them they can't have vacation between June 15 and July 12 because of "an exciting product launch."

I know what you're wondering: Is Dear Leader friggin furious or what? The answer: Officially, yes I am.

You may also be wondering if in fact we instructed AT&T to send out this email and arranged for it to leak to the blogosphere in order to start pumping up the hype machine in advance of the 3G iPhone release.

My answer: No comment.

Notes from the front line

I've been working the phones all day for Barry and to be honest I'm wiped out and really, really depressed. One thing you find out when you spend 15 hours working a phone bank calling random people is how many scary fucked-up crackers and idiots there are in America. Especially when you call places like North Carolina and Indiana. It's not just that they're racist -- though many of them are. It's that they're so fucking stupid. I mean just really low levels of comprehension.

I guess I never realized this. But 80% of the people I talked to today I'm sure do not read a newspaper on a regular basis. Furthermore, many of them could not read a newspaper and comprehend the meaning of the stories. I don't mean that they're illiterate. They could probably read most of the words, as long as they didn't have more than three syllables. What I mean is they could not really understand what the stories mean. Also, I doubt most of them could focus long enough to finish an entire newspaper article.

And yet they vote. This terrifies me.

No wonder these poor idiots are so easily tricked and pandered to. I love Barry's talk about a new politics and bringing people together and not playing the old games of race-baiting and divisiveness and easy campaign gimmicks and sound bites, but you know what? My sense after a day on the phones is that the crappy stuff is exactly what the crackers want. In fact the crackers love that shit. They get off on it. It's about as sophisticated as they're able to handle. The more a campaign resembles professional wrestling, the better. Because that's the level they're operating on.

So we get arugula and guns and crazy preachers and veiled racist slurs and insults about who's got more balls and bigger balls. Groan.

To be really brutally honest, a lot of these morons can't even understand what Barry is saying. To be even more brutally honest, the truth is they don't deserve him. They really don't. The last time I talked to Barry, which was about a week ago, I said, Dude, why do you even do this? Sitting through these stupid interviews, answering the same frigtarded questions over and over again? It's humiliating. He didn't have much of an answer. He's exhausted and overwhelmed and frankly I think this campaign has done a lot to disillusion him.

As for me, I suppose I shouldn't be so shocked. I mean 95% of the world uses Windows. Over the years I've come to accept this. I tell myself that if someone is so stupid that they can't tell the difference, then I don't want them using my machine anyway.

I guess this makes me elitist. Fine. I'm going to go have some arugula.

Steve Ballmer as Hamlet

More praise for Monkey Boy today as Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times uses his "Dealbook" column to cut Ballmer a new one, in a column titled "How Not to Make a Deal." Sorkin says Ballmer "looks like all hat, no cattle," and says "when Yahoo’s Jerry Yang refused to knuckle under, Mr. Ballmer just ... waffled." Sorkin says that while Yang comes off looking like an idiot, so does Ballmer, who "miscalculated from the start" and "misread his own shareholders, who hated the deal." Money quote: "But most of all, Mr. Ballmer didn’t realize — though he had been warned by his advisers — that when you make a blockbuster unsolicited offer, you must be prepared to win."

Right on, Andrew Ross. Or, as the Bard might have put it:

To buy, or not to buy: that is the question.

Or, as the Bard actually did put it:

And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Namaste, William Shakespeare. I honor the place where your words and events four centuries later become one.

Jerry the genius says he's open to another offer from Microsoft

Well, that didn't take long. See here. Amazing what a little plunge in your stock price can do to awaken your senses.

Question: How long until Jerry Yang is booted out of Yahoo?

Jerry Yang, village idiot

Says here that Jerry Yang is facing a shareholder rebellion and possible lawsuits for failing to make a deal with the Borg. Money quote: "Disillusioned shareholders are bound to question whether the rejection of Microsoft's sweetened offer was driven more by emotion and ego than sound business sense."

Um, yes they are. And for good reason. FWIW, Jerry called me last night. Crying. He'd been on the phone getting screamed at by Wall Street people. And by Yahoo employees who apparently are being really abusive. In men's rooms all over the Yahoo campus a nasty new drawing is popping up, depicting Jerry Yang with his tongue hanging out, his legs pulled up and both thumbs firmly positioned in his ass.

Jerry's like, Steve, dude, I know I can turn this company around. I just need a little more time. I've got it all mapped out. First we'll do another 100-day review period to review our operations and re-review the review we did a few months ago; then we'll have a 100-day listening period; then a 100-day period to digest what we've heard when we're listening and incorporate that data into the data we gathered during our review; then a 100-day period to develop a new strategy; then a 100-day period to explain the new strategy to employees; then a 100-day period to reorg the company and start rolling out the foundations of the new strategy to maximize shareholder value and pursue ways to better leverage our opportunities in the still very young online advertising market where we continue to believe we are well-positioned with a unique strategy; then a 100-day period to finish the reorg and roll out the second half of the new strategy. I mean it's pretty simple stuff."

I'm like, Jerry, dude, I'm not very good at math and to be honest I kind of lost track of what you were saying because I put down the phone at one point so I could check myself out in the mirror, but I think that plan is going to take something like fifteen years, isn't it?

He said no, it was only two or three years at most, and the Internet is still in its infancy, and blah blah blah ...

So I cut him off, and I'm like, Jerry, hold on. Hold on. Stop. Listen to me. Jerry, you know what? It's been great knowing you. Really it has. And I think you're going to make a fantastic member of the Ex-Founders Club, alongside Woz and Paul Allen. I'm sure you'll find ways to keep busy. Maybe you can do some creative investments. Build an electric car. Or a commercial spacecraft. Open a restaurant in Napa. Take up high-altitude ballooning.

He's like, Steve, I don't want to go ballooning, I want to keep running Yahoo. I'm like, Dude, I want to turn my house into a polygamous retreat with Gong Li and Scarlett Johansson as my new wives, but that wish ain't gonna come true. And neither is yours. Sorry.

He was crying again when I hung up.

Much love and namaste to anyone who wants to Photoshop Jerry's face onto that photo above. Bokay? Peace out.

UPDATE: Much love and a free fake 3G iPhone to Billy R. for the Jerry Yang dunce photo. Much love to all the others who sent in versions as well.

Ballmer's brilliant move

Well I've said it before and I know I'll say it again -- no matter what you may think about Steve Ballmer, whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit he's probably the most brilliant CEO in our industry and maybe in any industry today. This fantastic bait-and-switch maneuver on Yahoo just proves it. In one fell swoop Ballmer has upended this entire market space, roiled up everyone, forced all of his competitors into more difficult positions -- and none more so than Jerry Yang of Yahoo who looks more foolish than ever right now. How long till Yang comes crawling back looking -- nay, begging -- for a deal with Microsoft? Three months? His shareholders are already preparing an uprising against him. When the dust clears, Ballmer will scoop Yahoo up on the cheap.

Naturally a lot of the filthy hacks and shitbags on Wall Street are getting it all wrong, saying that if Ballmer didn't have the stomach for a hostile bid why did he bother launching this in the first place, since it was obvious (or should have been anyway) that Yahoo management was never going to negotiate in good faith. Some idiot in the Financial Times says the failure of the deal is "a black eye for Ballmer." Excuse me? A black eye? This is a triumph for Microsoft. It is perhaps the company's finest moment. Certainly it marks the high point in Ballmer's career.

For better coverage, check out the real experts like Mini Microsoft, who's cheering his ass off (see here) and Borg expert Mary Jo Foley who says the deal "restores my faith in the future of the company" (see here) and Joe Wilcox who says the Borg comes out looking better than Yahoo.

Here at Apple we've started a betting pool here about two data points -- Yahoo's stock price on the first trade of the day tomorrow, and its price by the end of the day.

Namaste, Steve Ballmer. I bow to your genius.

Ballmer now looking for other companies to not buy

So Peter Oppenheimer has been our point man watching the Microhoo deal, and he's predicted all along that it wouldn't ever take place, for reasons I first pointed out in my now-classic essay entitled Monkey Boy's three-legged race.

The truly scary take-away from all this, however, is what this botched attempt says about Ballmer as a CEO and Microsoft as a company. The Borgflacks have spent the better part of the past decade trying to change the image of their monstrous overlord. They've worked their asses off to make the Borg appear more friendly, more open, more willing to learn from others. This is straight out of the PR 101 playbook, which says that big companies are scary; big evil companies are even scarier; but big evil clumsy companies are the scariest of all. Nobody wants a big teetering giant stumbling through their market threatening to topple over and wipe out entire neighborhoods by accident. But that's what Microsoft has become -- the big stupid retarded giant lurching into the Valley, like King Kong with a lobotomy and a shotgun and a bottle of tequila, stomping around and beating its chest and then stumbling away, having wiped out most of the city.

And what of Ballmer himself? I'll try to put this politely. He looks like a fucking idiot. The assault on Yahoo was first and foremost an admission that Microsoft has totally fucked up its attempts to build an Internet business. Everybody knew that, of course, but it's still usually not a good idea to draw attention to your weaknesses.

Then just last week Ballmer started saying that he'd just figured out that his rank and file didn't like the deal and were dreading it. Like, dude, shouldn't you have realized that three months ago, before you gathered your army and made noise of war only to shrink away? It's like Caesar getting all his dudes lined up on the Rubicon and then going, Um, you know what? Let's not do this after all. Or to use a polite version of the metaphor that Larry used with me on the phone this morning, Ballmer looks like a guy who's in need of a little Viagra.

The papers reported this morning that maybe this is all part of some nefarious master plan and Ballmer is just trying to crater Yahoo's stock and drive them back to the table. I doubt it, but if so, we're back to problem #1 -- the image of the Borg as this big stupid giant that has nothing better to do than to lurch into the Valley and wreak havoc and tamper with the stock prices of other companies and send everyone into a kerfuffle. This is now what passes for the Microsoft business plan?

What seems more likely to me is that Ballmer launched this dumbass takeover offer without thinking it through well enough. This, then, is what Microsoft has become. A pathetic, impotent, washed-up old giant, easily rebuffed. It might almost be funny if it weren't so sad. I mean come on. Stirring up the shit and wasting everyone's time and then walking away? Out of all the things you could do as a company, that's the best idea you have?

Others are reporting (see CNET story here) that Monkey Boy may have other victims in his sights. Top targets are Facebook, MySpace and AOL. Not to acquire them, mind you. Just to make a dumb offer and fuck things up for a few months and then walk away.

Great work, Monkey Boy. You're the laughingstock of our industry. Turns out this video was a lot more prophetic than we knew:

Conan's new version of GTA

This version has been toned down quite a bit. Much love to Faddah for the link.

The problem with Facebook

This chart says it all. A new study discovers that the vast majority of Facebook apps are an utter waste of time. But oh yeah -- Facebook is worth $9 billion, or $15 billion. And Slide is worth half a billion because it makes that super important FunWall application. Um, right. Kids, let's face it. Facebook is Webkinz for adults. Facebook is a Ponzi scheme. A handful of VCs have created the illusion of an actual market by funding apps companies and then doing deals with each other -- passing cash back and forth among to make it look as if money is being made.

What really freaks me out is that when you mention this to the VCs, they say, "So what? What's wrong with that?" I used to think they were being coy. But I've come to believe that they actually don't know what's wrong with that. Worse yet, they all give me this sad look, like I'm some crazy old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner who just doesn't "get" the whole Web 2.0 thing.

Sigh. Maybe they're right. I guess I'm getting old. But I really miss the days when people in the Valley made actual products.

Freetard convicted of murdering wife; other freetards say it must be a conspiracy

Read the comments here. Classic freetard paranoia.

It's official: Grand Theft Auto is banned from our stores

See this story about them mocking us in their new videogame. I've instructed Ron Johnson to remove all copies of this game from our stores.

UPDATE: I've been informed by Ron Johnson that we do not sell this game. So we're looking for some other way to get back at them. More as this develops.

The Empire Strikes Barack

Yes, these have been trying days lately. But I've been talking to Barry and he's doing just fine. He's calm. He's focused. He knows exactly what he's doing. And his people even had time to make this fantastic video. Much love, fellow Obama supporters. Much love.

MarketWatch tries to get this options scandal going again

See here. They bring up this business about the former CFO of Pixar getting into hot water over options backdating and then try a Hillary-esque "guilt by association" thing saying that isn't it weird that all these people so close to me are in trouble and what could this mean and hoo boy is Jobs in trouble? Which is ridiculous and the article itself quotes some professor saying, "It is also possible that Jobs is clean, or that it is impossible to find a smoking gun against him. `In fairness to Jobs, maybe it just wasn't there,' said Wayne State professor Henning. `It may just be that you cannot make the case against him.'"

Maybe it just wasn't there. Yeah. Maybe. You think? Naturally that is the very last paragraph of the story. Katie tells me that in the world of yellow journalism this is called "the cover-your-ass graf." You write fifty column inches filled with winks and nods and sly hints and dirty innuendo -- and then at the end you say, very explicitly, "Of course Mr. So-and-so has never been charged with anything and there is absolutely no actual evidence to suggest he's ever done anything wrong. Which is why we we just wasted your time with fifty column inches suggesting he's a serial killer even though there is no reason to believe that this is true."

Why do hacks play this game? For one thing, it drives clicks, and clicks sell ads. But for another thing, well, if I were the kind of person who plays the guilt-by-association game, which I'm not, but if I were, I might point out that the possibility exists that short-sellers might encourage various online "business publications" to print certain things which might knock down stock prices and enable short-sellers to perhaps profit from the decline. I'm just saying. The possibility exists. Though to be sure there is absolutely no evidence that anyone at MarketWatch has ever done anything like that and I do not for a minute believe that short-sellers have anything to do with articles containing baseless allegations and innuendoes about me being a bad guy. I really don't. Honestly. Not at all. I have the highest respect for MarketWatch. I believe it is a fine publication with a stellar reputation for honesty and integrity. Peace out.

Happy Friday

This dude with no arms plays guitar with his feet. Pretty amazing, right? If you think that's cool, you should see him drink a cup of coffee.

Cool idea, but needs some refinement

Check out this cool new software tool called retrievr that lets you search flickr by drawing a sketch and having the computer go looking for images that match it. This is a great idea and loads of fun, but based on my tests it's not yet working as well as it should. For example, we tried the sketch on the left and got a bunch of pictures of guys in oversized glasses, like Moe Green and Abe Scheinwald. On the other hand, when we tried the sketch on the right, the system pulled up a bunch of photos of Jason Calacanis. So I guess it's 50-50 at this point. Much love to Faddah for sending this our way.

Surgeon uses iPhone to knock people unconscious

I have to admit, I'm writing this with tears in my eyes. When I see all the ways people have found to use iPhone to bring happiness to the world, well, it just gets me kind of choked up. I mean these are things I'd never even imagined. In this case it's a surgeon in Seattle who's using his iPhone to sedate patients. To see the Gizmodo article on this exact same subject, but with video that actually plays, go here. Much love, Gizmodo. And much love, whoever figured out how to use iPhone to knock people out.

UPDATE: Please be responsible. Do not use the hypnotic power of iPhone to knock people out in places that are not appropriate. Like on the subway, or while sitting in traffic, or in restaurants, or on dates. And yes, Woz, I'm talking to you. Freak.

Katie did a bang-up job on this new BusinessWeek article

Folks I am so proud of Katie Cotton (photo) right now. Please go read the wonderful BusinessWeek cover story she just wrote about how our computers are totally winning over corporate customers. Yes, the story carries the byline of someone named Peter Burrows. But it's pretty much word-for-word the same draft that Katie sent to them. They even used her title: "The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit." Mentions Juniper Networks, Google, IBM, Cisco. Mentions how iPhone is pulling us into corporate shops, and how Vista's frigtardedness has created an opportunity for us and how even if you want Windows you can have it on a Mac now and it's no big deal and we even run Intel processors and all the kids coming out of college today want Macs, not Windows. Mentions how the one thing working against us is that corporate IT guys are lazy fuckers who don't want to support a new machine because they're trying to do as little as possible and they don't give a shit about what end users want. "Their job is not to be paged." Oh really? Just wait till your CEO reads that, you IT morons.

Anyway, great work, Katie. We're all really proud of you. And much love, BusinessWeek. Namaste. I honor the place where my PR message and your print columns become one.

UPDATE: FWIW we're supposedly about to get a big order from Salesforce.com which is dumping Windows for Macs. See this randon blog post based on an anonymous source. I know what you're wondering and yes, Katie wrote this one too.

I am Iron Man

Or so says some guy at Slate. His take is that Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is a capitalist hero in the El Jobso mold. Money quote: "Tony Stark is a self-made man who believes that we can build ourselves out of trouble. He's one of America's romanticized lone inventors who, like Steve Jobs, solve problems by locking themselves away in secret workshops to emerge later with their paradigm-shifting inventions."

Okay, time for a confession. I've been watching that Iron Man trailer in HD on a huge screen. A lot. And when nobody's around I stomp around the room going, "I ... am ... Iron ... Man" in that Ozzy Osbourne robot voice while using a prototype of the Gen 5 iPhone (shown above, to be delivered in 2012). Katie says I'm nuts but you know what? I really don't care. You know why? Because I ... am ...

Okay. Sorry. I'll stop now.

That crazy old economy can be so selective sometimes

Here's the thing. This mean old bad economy didn't hurt our results, or IBM's, or Microsoft's, or Intel's, or Google's. But then -- wham -- it takes it all out on Sun. See here. I just called My Little Pony, who said, "Steve, we're confident that we're on the right path with our strategy of continuing to build expensive vertically integrated high-end computers using our own proprietary processors while giving away software at no cost. Customers have told us they really like the price of our free programs and have indicated that these free programs may or may not induce them to purchase our hardware at some point in the future. Our ticker symbol change and 1-for-4 reverse stock split have delivered great results. My groundbreaking CEO blog and constant public speaking engagements are boosting Sun's reputation for transparency and possibly or possibly not winning us new customers every day. Our $1 billion MySQL acquisition is delivering higher operating costs and a charge to earnings, as well as bringing in loads of new customers who are downloading the free version of MySQL and may or may not be converted into paying customers at some point in the future. More important, the MySQL deal has demonstrated our commitment to the open source community and gained us huge amounts of good will from people who don't like to pay for things, which for a company in our dire situation is absolutely invaluable. Overall we're just really excited about how things are going. And my hair is so shiny and soft. If only we could straighten out this darn economy, right? Well you can't have everything."

Damn you, Goatberg! You're spoiling the fun!

So as you may recall, last week we introduced you to a new game that the hacks in the Wall Street Journal newsroom have been playing for years. It's called the Goatberg Game and the point is simply to count up how many times the egomaniacal Goatberg uses the word I in his column. Half points for words like my, mine, and me. Plus one point for every word that's used in a phrase that is utterly unnecessary to the story and could be cut without losing anything. Last week, for example, Goatman used the word I thirteen times in a single 840-word column.

But this week Goatberg has pulled a fast one on us -- he's churned out a column where he only uses the word I twice. See here. We're not sure but we think this may be a new record for Walt. Then again, as Walt acknowledges in this week's column, his piece today is a retread -- or as Walt puts it, "updated from a similar column I wrote in 2006." To see the original from 2006, go here.

Here's to hoping that when Walt sits down to write a fresh column he maxes out the egometer once more.

Sickening spoof goes viral

Katie just called me in a panic. She says this Lenovo spoof video making fun of MacBook Air has gone "mad viral" on YouTube -- it's had more than 400,000 views and is ranked sixth on the site right now, first among comedy videos. She's like, "Steve, we have to do something. Right now. I mean right now. This thing is getting out of control."

I was like, "Katie, look, I'm in my meditation chamber, and I'm listening to Lothar and the Hand People and trying to focus on the future. This stuff about existing products -- who cares? I mean the Air is done. It's out there. You have to let it go. I let go of it the moment I introduced it. It's not ours anymore. It's a part of the world. It's like what Khalil Gibran says: Your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself, they come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, they belong not to you. Have you read The Prophet? You should. Guy was a genius. And his stuff really helps with product marketing. Fact is, people can respond to MacBook Air however they want. What does it all mean anyway? We're all of us just atoms floating in a pond of ectoplasmic goo toward some kind of great vanishing act, the vast emptiness of the everything that we're all a part of, inseparable from each other, each part indistinguishable from the whole, so what is the point of hating or fighting or arguing? What is the point of any of this?"

She's like, "Steve, you took peyote again, didn't you?"

I'm like, "Yes I did, and it's wonderful. Would you like some?"

By then she'd hung up.