Okay, we admit we're getting a little impatient. We're not talking about Mac OS X, or FireWire iBooks, or even faster G4 chips-- though, of course, we're pretty impatient about those, too. But what's really driving us up the proverbial wall is sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, and waiting for Steve Jobs to announce his candidacy for the office of President of the United States. Come on already; we first proposed the idea last November, and we've been blathering about it ever since. So it's not like he hasn't had time to get it together. How tough is it to print up a few bumper stickers, call a press conference, announce one's candidacy, kiss a couple of babies, and then blast a near-lethal dose of Reality Distortion Field energy into the brains of every registered voter in this great land?

And yet here we are, a scant two months before Election Day, and Steve still hasn't budged. Now, granted, after throwing his translucent hat in the ring, it probably wouldn't take him more than three days to lock up the election tighter than a Power Mac running Word 6, but still, this reeks of procrastination. The only strategic benefit we can imagine to waiting this long is that the effects of RDF energy taper off over time, so perhaps he's waiting until just before the election to jump in, pump the electorate full of Steve-y charm, and win the day by the largest margin in electoral history.

After all, there's no real point in trying to shock anyone with a last-minute campaign; everyone already knows that he's going to run. If you just keep your eyes and ears open, the signs are all over the place. For example, ZDNet ran an article on the latest Stevenote which began, "judging by the size of the lines and the tight security... the casual observer might have concluded that... Steve Jobs was about to announce his decision to run for president." Well, no such luck-- but faithful viewer Sarah Wilkin noticed that during the keynote, the Macromedia presentation focused on constructing "Steve for President" campaign materials-- just search for "candidates" in the transcript and you'll see what we're talking about. Not too subtle, is it?

And in fact, though the Macromedia stuff shown on stage was probably far more compelling, faithful viewer Devin Durham pointed out that there's already a "Jobs for President" site live on the web, complete with commercials, e-cards, press briefings-- just about everything except for, say, an actual picture of the candidate. (Apparently Steve has chosen to be represented by a red, white, and blue top hat for reasons of modesty.) Okay, okay... this site isn't legit. Like Steve would ever run a site using Active Server Pages! How tasteless. Still, we can dream, can't we?

Speaking of faster G4 chips (hey, we did mention that briefly-- it's a valid segue!), the scuttlebutt on Motorola's latest progress in its year-long-and-counting struggle to punch through the 500 MHz ceiling hints that things may in fact be getting better. For instance, faithful viewer Russell Maggio notes an article in The Register which boldly announces that test runs of the upcoming "G4e" processor are finally bearing some sweet, sweet fruit. The good news? Motorola has apparently produced G4e chips running at 1050 MHz. The bad news? They've apparently only made, say, two of them-- the yields on these speedy new chips reportedly sucks rocks. (That's a technical term.)

The worse news? The Register's source for this information is none other than Mac OS Rumors, so take that how you will. Personally we ascribe more accuracy to MOSR's sources than we probably should, but it's important to note that it's entirely possible that the whole story is mere fabrication. And finally, the worst news of all: even if the story's true, and Motorola has been able to squeeze out a couple of GHz G4es, you certainly can't buy one of them to take home with you next week. (Unless, of course, some naughty Moto employee slaps them up on eBay.) No, regardless of how much progress Motorola has made on the clock speed front, odds are we're a minimum of four months away from seeing G4es in shipping Macs-- we say six. And until then, we assume we're going to be stuck at the unfashionably retro 500 MHz level. Perhaps by then it'll come back into style?

If you're looking for news on the G4e in the "legitimate" press, well, there's always MacWEEK. Sure, they used to be "MacLEAK," but remember, they canned Mac the Knife and now they're serious journalists. Anyway, it seems that Motorola is still planning to trot out the G4e for show at this October's Microprocessor Forum 2000, and an honest-to-goodness Motorola spokesperson is quoted as saying that the company's presentation "will be about what technologies are needed to operate G4 PowerPC processors at [more than 1 GHz]." Apparently silicon-on-insulator technology figures heavily, as does that old copper trick. In any event, we just can't see them shipping the G4e this calendar year if it's going to be Forum fodder in October. So our advice to those suffering from clinical Clock Speed Anxiety is this: gear up for a long winter, and keep thinking happy thoughts.

Insight; some got it, some don't. The writers at Salon occasionally display remarkable glimmers of perception, but every once in a while they also miss the boat completely. For instance, faithful viewer Chris Nelson pointed out a new article called, "Why is Michael Dell cashing out?" It seems that good ol' Mike has been dumping his DELL stock over the past couple of years, shedding two and a half billion dollars' worth in just under twenty-four months, and Salon wants to know why. The cash value of Mike's sell-off just for this year alone appears to be significantly higher than the own-company-stock sales of Steve Case, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates combined.

Of course, Microsoft's Paul Allen dumped almost five billion dollars' worth of MSFT this year, but he's no longer at the company, so it's not quite a comparable scenario. The fact is, Mike Dell's stock sales are inordinately high, no matter what a Dell spokesperson says about Mike simply performing "routine money management." So unless he's planning on buying a few thousand yachts sometime soon, it's not surprising that some analysts consider Mike's selling spree an "ominous sign" that "there's been a price malaise in [Dell's] stock." It's easy to wonder whether Mike knows something that other investors don't, but probably should.

However, Salon missed the single most obvious reason that Mike would be selling off all his company's stock-- but faithful viewer Mr. Nick sure didn't: "We know why, don't we? After he's left with a single share of DELL, will he go for a jet or an America's Cup boat?" Suddenly it all comes clear; this is just another manifestation of Mike's unhealthy obsession with copying Steve Jobs. You'll recall, of course, that Steve sold off all but one share of AAPL in 1997, and retained just that single share until the board threw him all those stock options when they gave him that jet. (We're not even sure if he's exercised any of the options, actually.) So now Mike's following suit. Sigh... It's sad to see the depths to which mental illness can drag us.