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.