Ah, we know those symptoms well: the profuse sweating, the manic look in the eyes, the irrepressible shrieking and the compulsive need to jump around like a mad ape on speed... you're either suffering from Acute Steve Withdrawal, or you're Steve Ballmer. We're going to assume it's the former. Really, your condition comes as no great surprise to us, because it's been over a month since the last big Stevenote-- and unless you've managed to repress the memory of last month's "Keynote About Nothing" completely, you probably recall that our last dose of magical Steveness wasn't exactly a satisfying fix. Hence, the withdrawal.

What can we say? The weeks after a Macworld Expo are always tough, what with the dearth of news and the sudden elimination of the life-sustaining glory of Steve's presence. All we can suggest is that you tough it out and try to survive until Steve's next appearance-- at Seybold next month. But hold up, don't get too excited; the man isn't going to show up in person. Instead, as previously reported but now finally confirmed by the show's organizers, Phil Schiller's handling the meatspace appearance, while Steve himself will "briefly address Seybold San Francisco 2001 attendees live, via satellite." (Many thanks to faithful viewer August Trometer for the BusinessWire link, since Seybold's keynote page still just says "Special Keynote-- To Be Announced!")

Now, nothing against Phil, you understand, but compared to Steve, he's sort of the keynote equivalent of expecting a winning lottery ticket and being given half a handful of soggy Chex Mix instead. Seybold is an important show for Apple and its core market of content creators, so if Apple has something new to introduce of interest to creative professionals (like, say, a new PowerBook or Mac OS X 10.1), this would be the time to do it. So here's today's Super Happy Bonus Question: Is Steve appearing via satellite simply to introduce his sidekick and give the showgoers a quick little blast of Reality Distortion Field energy before letting Phil drive, or will his oversize projected video head be intoning the magic words of "Oh, and one more thing..." before introducing something big for the Seybold audience? Only time will tell.

As for why Steve's not handling the Seybold gig in person, well, the smart money in betting that his "live via satellite" appearance will be made from the scenic waterways and rustic cheese mines of Paris, France-- where he is expected to deliver the keynote at the Apple Expo the very next day. Rock star though he may be, we figure he's just not up for delivering two emotionally draining performances just seventeen hours and 5500 miles apart. After all, just because he owns his own jet and could sell a lifetime supply of fabric softener to a nudist colony doesn't mean that he wields ultimate power over time, space, and dimension. Necessarily.

Hey, you! Yeah, you. Are you a) obscenely rich, and b) one of those people that always has to rush out and buy the latest and greatest Macs because you weren't hugged enough as a child? Well, then, have we got news for you! First of all, we (and by "we" we mean those of us still puttering along on ancient Power Computing equipment) hate you and wish you would die-- but not before leaving us all of your Mac gear in your will. Secondly-- and this is the part that may have been less obvious-- it's time to bust out the checkbook again, because Apple is now shipping the 800 MHz dual-processor Power Mac G4, the fastest Mac ever made. At $3499, it's a bargain at twice the price. Buy two: one for the breakfast nook, and one for the online Apple-themed soap opera of your choice. Please?

That's right; according to an Apple press release, today marks the date that the first "ultrafast Power Mac™ G4 computer containing dual 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processors with Velocity Engine™" (whew, try fitting that on the side of the box!) left Apple's doorstep to wing its way towards a lucky customer. This fact is remarkable and impressive for two reasons. Firstly, Steve originally told us that the dual-800 model wouldn't ship until sometime in August; considering that there are still eleven days left in the month, we'd say Apple deserves a round of applause for meeting that deadline and then some. (We won't even hold it against Steve that the 867 MHz model was announced back on July 18th as "available today," which, as buyers of said model can tell you, was a little less than accurate on the shipment forecast front.)

Secondly, and this is the really impressive bit, despite the fact that Apple just started shipping the dual-800s today, stores and customers report having received them as early as the middle of last week; benchmarks from one customer's system have been posted on Mac Rumors since Saturday evening, and Accelerate Your Mac! has comments and benchmarks from a dealer who received an initial shipment of the dual-processor powerhouses last Wednesday.

Shipments arriving five days before they depart? Now that's "special delivery!" And you thought Einstein Express was just a Saturday Night Live spoof. Here's hoping the new Macs are as fast as the service Apple's using to deliver them; if so, we're going to have to go into hock to get one of these things for our production center. If we had a Mac that let us produce an episode in negative five days' time, maybe we'd actually stand a chance of broadcasting on time for a change. But probably not.

Just when you thought it was safe to relaunch your browser... TERROR STRIKES ANEW! Okay, so you survived the Steve Ballmer "Monkeyboy" clip with only a minor stroke, a chronic gastrointestinal condition, and permanent emotional scars. That does indeed prove that you're made of some pretty tough stuff. But if you think you're out of the woods and ready for a nice, long convalescence in the local psych ward, think again: horror movies always have sequels. And they're usually really, really bad.

There's no doubt that the first Ballmervision movie was a breakout success in the grand tradition of "The Blair Witch Project": both films enjoyed a viral success, both had ridiculously low production values, and both were short, cinéma vérité-style portrayals of less-than-brilliant people running around like total idiots. But whereas "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" was an utter flop (perhaps in part because it lacked a Book of Shadows), the followup to the "Monkeyboy" clip is, if anything, more profoundly disturbing than the original. Whereas the original "Ballmervision" video portrayed Microsoft's CEO jumping around and shrieking like a rabid howler monkey (thus subjecting the viewer to raw, primal terror), "Ballmervision 2: Electric Boogaloo" goes for a more psychologically nauseating brand of fear.

Be warned; viewers with weak constitutions should avoid this video at all costs-- footage of a fat, bald white guy sweating profusely whilst chanting the word "developers" in a squeaky voice and clapping his hands and stamping his feet may not sound scary (okay, maybe it does), but trust us: this is an image that crawls under your skin and stays there, festering and corrupting your every thought. Don't say we didn't warn you. We'd thank faithful viewer Ryan Redekopp for bringing this clip to our attention, but frankly, he's ruined our lives forever.

So what's next? Well, given the progression, we can only assume that "Ballmervision 3" will be making the rounds sometime next week, and it'll probably feature something even more disturbing. We're thinking maybe Ballmer clad in nothing but an adult diaper, smearing peanut butter on his pasty, exposed flesh and barking like a dog-- all to the melodious strains of Sisqo's "Thong Song." Expect the worldwide suicide rate to spike dramatically when it happens.