Unfortunately, we need to finish up this episode on a somewhat serious note: we suspect that Steve Jobs may be in need of some form of psychiatric treatment. While we've observed no behavior that might indicate that he's a danger to himself and others (yet), we're concerned about what is clearly the man's unhealthy obsession with toast and the whole toasting process. Something about it's just not right.

Starting to think that we might need a little therapy? Well, yeah, we do, but not about this toast thing. See, faithful viewer Munificent Paraclete noted that, in response to an analyst's question about what extra features might make it into future versions of the iPod, Steve reportedly replied, "Our next step is that we want it to make toast." And sure, we get the point; "it's the music, stupid," and the iPod is all about being the best portable music player bar none. Adding features like those long-rumored video capabilities would be just as extraneous and detrimental to the product's focus as welding on a toaster. Great. But why, specifically, toast?

See, he already made the toast joke before-- at an analyst meeting, no less, so probably to the same exact audience as the folks listening in today. You remember, right? It was last November, and in response to a very similar sort of question about whether Apple would integrate television features into its Macs à la those wacky Media Center PCs that Microsoft is pushing, Steve remarked "We're not gonna go that direction, we're gonna integrate toasters and computers. Because we think people want toast when they're working on their computers. We can have computer control, just get it exactly how you-- we can put up pictures of toast, you pick the one that looks like what you want, and it'll come right out the side. We think it's a much better idea." The man clearly has some sort of fixation on toast, particularly as a sarcasm-laced metaphor for superfluous features.

Well, either that or he's just fresh out of new material so he's recycling the same tired old gags out of necessity. (You know, kinda like us. "Ballmer is apelike!" "Mike Dell is a copycat!" All that stuff.)

So here's hoping it's just an overused joke and not a budding toast-based psychosis ticking away like a mental time bomb. By the way, how freakin' prescient were we when, hours before the conference call and the ensuing toast spiel, we joked that one of iTunes 4.5's new features was "extra-wide slots for toasting bagels, plus a convenient crumb tray"? It's like we have real powers. Woo-hoo! Kreskin can bite us!