Whoops! Sorry about the delayed return to broadcasting following our non-AtAT-related road trip to Manhattan, folks, but a few times a year this weird thing happens to us where the whole world goes dark, we suddenly realize that our eyes are closed, and when we open them, we find that entire hours have passed. Extensive research revealed to us a few years back that this phenomenon is disturbingly common among the population, and has been designated by the medical establishment as "sleep." Normally we manage to keep it down to just 45 minutes or so a couple of times a day, but, like we say, every once in a while we get smacked down for a solid six to eight hours, and then all hell breaks loose. Suddenly our bodies seem to insist on the stuff, and for a week or so we wind up "sleeping" up to a third of each day away. It's the biggest productivity killer we can think of since Snood.

Anyway, we're trying to get back to our normal selves via the liberal ingestion of strong Silk mochas and Green & Black's, but if anything's going to snap us out of this eight-hours-a-day foolishness, it's the Silicon.com article that was forwarded to us by faithful viewer Macintosah. No doubt you've seen this thing by now, because it's been quoted by every media outlet that's even vaguely Mac-related, including any that may have used the letters "M," "A," and/or "C" in some published content at some point in their histories. Basically, it's about Microsoft CEO and Resident Genetic Road Accident Steve Ballmer and his recent rant to the London press about how all iPod users-- and remember, that's a heckuva lotta users-- are dirty, stinkin' thieves who should all be rounded up, shot, stuffed, mounted, painted orange, and used as roadside traffic cones for their crimes.

At least, that's our best guess at a translation into English from whatever Missing Link logic-deficient backwoods patois the Ballmer actually speaks. Silicon.com quotes the man-thing as having said (and we assume that this is a phonetic transcription): "We've had DRM in Windows for years. The most common format of music on an iPod is 'stolen'... we are going to continue to improve our DRM, to make it harder to crack, and easier, easier, easier, easier, to use."

It's like he's trying speak to us, we just know it.

Okay, so apparently the Ballmer thinks that everyone with an iPod fills it up by wantonly downloading all of their music from illegal sources, which certainly would never happen if those people were only using Windows. Just for giggles, let's completely ignore the fact that, by now, most iPod owners are Windows users. (It was ages ago that Steve Jobs mentioned that Apple was selling more iPods to Windows sad sacks than to Mac users, but hey, why let that get in the way of a freaky foam-flecked Ballmerian rant about how thieves lurk around every street corner?) How, exactly, is this DRM that's been in Windows "for years" supposed to prevent people from pirating music and slapping it onto an iPod? Or, for that matter, any other portable digital music player on the planet, since they all either play MP3s or some other easily rippable format and not just DRMed Windows Media?

See, somehow ape-guy seems to have conveniently forgotten that Napster (not the new pay-to-listen service with the same name and logo, but the original Napster, with all the illicit downloading and the bootlegs and the Metallica lawsuits with the hey hey hey and the pretty LAAAAAAdy glayvin) ran on Windows for eons before someone slapped together a Mac client. The same goes for KaZaA and, we imagine, pretty much any other software commonly used to swipe music without paying for it. He also seems never to have encountered the concept of a "CD," a clever medium whereby consumers can purchase a selection of music in a legal fashion and then transfer said music to an iPod all in a completely above-board context. Heck, we filled up our first 5 GB iPod within twenty minutes of opening the box, just with music from CDs we'd previously imported into iTunes. We've tripled our CD-encoded iTunes library since then, and we've still got dozens (if not hundreds) of discs to rip if we ever feel like getting comprehensive about things. If only the Ballmer hadn't been thawed from a glacier before Microsoft shaved him and stuck him in a suit, he might know of such wonders of civilized life, and he might not play so fast and loose with the slander and all.

But none of that is really what's helping us conquer our most recent bout of sleep addiction. No, for that we have to look at this Ballmer quote from the end of the article: "My 12-year-old at home doesn't want to hear that he can't put all the music that he wants in all of the places that he would like it." Let us guess: did said Ballmer-son register his disapproval with his dad's strict notions about copyright law by screeching and flinging fecal matter? (No, we didn't just sink so low as to insult a defenseless 12-year-old; we've always been down here.) Imagine the look on our unaccustomedly well-rested faces as the dawning horror sank in: the Ballmer has spawned. Frankly, the possibility had never even come within twenty feet of the curb, let alone actually crossed our minds, because, well, look at him for cryin' out Pete's sake.

This is precisely the sort of thing that natural selection is supposed to prevent from happening. But nevertheless, the Ballmer has offspring (two kids, apparently), and that's enough to keep us awake for another decade, at least.

Speaking of CEOs named "Steve," how about we turn our attention to one that doesn't look like the evolutionary ancestor of Peter Boyle? Steve Jobs gave us all a screaming case of the heebie-jeebies a couple of months back when he revealed to Apple personnel that he'd just undergone surgery to treat a rare form of pancreatic cancer, but he assured the troops that he was okay and would be back to work full-time sometime in September. Well, September's come and gone, and aside from a news report about a month ago that he was back in action part-time and attending a few meetings, we've had zero official (or even semi-official) acknowledgment that our boy in back in town.

Not that Apple was exactly hurting without him; the iMac G5 was announced and shipped, the company's digital music initiative is still on track, and the stock price is up about eight bucks since Steve began his leave of absence, so there didn't seem to be much reason to rush the guy back until he was feeling good about the whole "pancreas trauma" thing. Still, we'd feel a lot better if we knew that His Steveness were indeed back in the saddle-- and without having "mellowed" due to his brush with, if not necessarily Death, then at least Death's kid brother Maynard. You know how the "mellowing" thing goes; type A personality has a heart attack or a mild stroke or an aneurysm or whatever and subsequently decides that life is too short for the rat race, so he/she spends all his/her time on flower arranging and "quality time" with the kids. Would Steve return only to cease kicking corporate tail?

Well, as usual, apparently we needn't have worried, because faithful viewer Daniel Blanken forwarded us a Mercury News article which reports that Steve has indeed "quietly returned to work full time" now, and what's more, "he is the same old Steve and just as intensely driven as before." Apple cofounder the Woz, who has reportedly traded email with Steve since his return to One Infinite Loop, insists that the CEO is "in excellent spirits," and if Steve was profoundly affected by his illness, any such philosophical epiphanies have apparently not touched his professional life, because "employees and others who have had dealings with Jobs since his return say he never acknowledges his illness or recovery." Sure, it could be denial, but hey, he sure sounds well-adjusted about the whole thing.

So go ahead and grin your goofiest grin, because this is pretty great news-- especially the bit about Jobs being "the same old Steve," because given two independent eyewitness accounts that the man had been spotted in the Apple cafeteria wearing white instead of his trademark black turtleneck, we admit we harbored some concern that Steve the White might be too busy stopping to smell the roses to kick the kind of kiester necessary to push Apple to new heights of coolth.

It's time for the New Music Download Store of the Hour! Gather 'round, kiddies, because have we got a doozy for you this time: if you thrilled to the utter incomprehensibility of MyCokeMusic.com and gasped in delight at the immediately obvious sheer unsustainability of BuyMusic.com, how can you help but be enthralled by the latest lamb to the slaughter? Well, brace yourselves, folks, because here we go: witness the mMode Music Store, a new download store just launched by AT&T Wireless.

Yes, AT&T Wireless. The cell phone guys. C'mon, it's no less off-topic than the Coke site. And it even copies the iTunes Music Store slightly better than the rest; practically everyone sells songs for 99 cents, sells albums for $9.99, and lets you search the catalog or browse by genre, but we don't recall any other download store swiping Apple's "Celebrity Playlists" idea until now. And besides, the mMode Music Store has a unique tie-in to AT&T's wireless phone service. Sure, it's unique in its complete and utter uselessness, but unique nonetheless!

Get this: faithful viewer Jared das Über-dork tipped us off to a MacCentral article which describes the new store's integration with AT&T's mobile phones. You remember when Apple and Motorola announced that future Motorola cell phones would contain a mini-iTunes (that could play DRMed iTMS songs) and enough storage space to hold a dozen songs or more? Remember how dorky you thought it was that customers won't be able to buy and download songs on the phone itself, but will have to rely on using a connected computer to buy the songs, download them, and then upload them to the phones? Kinda kills the biggest draw of being able to play a download store's songs on a cell phone in the first place, right? Well, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

See, here's the thing: reportedly the mMode Music Store is compatible with AT&T Wireless phones, and will allow customers with compatible phones to listen to 30-second previews and even purchase the songs via their cell phones. BUT (and that's a big "but") while you can buy songs on the phone, you can't download them onto the phone wirelessly right then and there-- you have to go back to your Wintel PC to actually download the song you bought. And here's the real kicker: apparently you can't transfer the songs to your phone and listen to them even after you've downloaded them to your PC. In other words, the phone is just for browsing and placing the order; the only fundamental difference between the mMode Music Store and all the other WMA download stores is that, if you like, you can use your cell phone to buy music (which you then have to download and listen to on your PC).

Unless we're missing something pretty significant, here, this whole concept is quite possibly the goofiest and most useless invention since the horse-propelled automobile. To that we can say only one thing: Cool!