You know, in a funny way (albeit not "ha ha" funny) these past five weeks have been a blessing of sorts; sure, it's been a painfully Steveless interval while Fearless Leader is laid up nursing his post-op pancreas back to health, but as it turns out, things haven't been nearly as unbearable as we initially expected. In fact, we're starting to think we could potentially survive a Steveless Apple indefinitely if the man ever leaves the company for whatever reason.

See, we were flipping back through the past five weeks' worth of reruns, and we're pretty sure we were able to squeeze just enough drama from events occurring during the Great Steve Hiatus to keep the show from collapsing in upon itself and vanishing in a puff of cosmic irrelevance. Yeah, we'd have loved for Apple Expo to have hosted an honest-to-goshness Stevenote (no offense, Phil). Sure, interim go-to guy Tim Cook decided to run the company without kicking up any of that ruckus to which we're so hopelessly addicted. And just knowing that Steve isn't rattling around inside One Infinite Loop casts an icy pall on everything we behold. But hey, we've seen worse.

Don't get us wrong, here-- we still feel like we want to throw ourselves under a speeding bus. But we no longer think we need that bus to be on fire and full of anvils at the time.

The point is moot for now anyway, though, because you can apparently call off the bus completely, regardless of what's inside or whether it's belching flames from its windows. Faithful viewer EWM dished us a CNET article which reports that The Stevester is practically back in action even now, albeit part-time; according to Apple spokesperson Katie Cotton, he's already "attending some company meetings" and is still on track "to return to full-time work later this month," as he had originally projected. Which is good, because if he were to decide to take another month or two off to recuperate more fully before leaping back into the fray, we'd of course totally understand and support that decision-- even as we'd be scanning the horizon for Greyhounds that might obligingly put us out of our Jobsless misery. No Steve until, say, November would be one Apple delay that we wouldn't weather gracefully.

Of course, even once he's back full-time, it remains to be seen whether he'll be operating at 100% capacity-- either work-wise or from a purely dramatic perspective. We've heard tell that other mercurial, two-job-having, black-turtleneck-wearing, Reality-Distortion-Field-emitting extraterrestrial CEOs who have survived cancer surgery (as you well know, this industry is full of 'em) wound up losing a little of that killer instinct that made them so much fun to stalk in the first place. Instead of parking across three handicapped parking spaces and firing people in elevators, they wind up smiling serenely, listening to a lot of John Tesh, and contemplating their navels. It's our fervent hope that Steve manages to avoid that fate by emerging from this whole ordeal without one of those awful "senses of perspective" that are all too often the death of quality drama.

Oh, wait, this just in: AtAT sources report that Steve has just been sighted at a Circle K in San Jose, where he encountered another shopper wearing an unlicensed Apple-logo wristwatch. Reportedly Steve loudly demanded that the man surrender the contraband timepiece; the man refused, and Steve then beat him senseless with a frozen Don Miguel burrito and then pelted his crumpled form with Hostess snack cakes. Mostly pink Sno Balls.

He's back, baby! Here's to a full recovery!