Prolific blogging sensation Robert Scoble was ejected from MacWorld today after a photo op turned ugly. Witnesses said Scoble was trying to recreate a pose he made famous with a new iPhone last summer, this time with a MacBook Air at the Apple booth, but the notebook was so thin it bent under the pressure of his sweaty digits.
“The whole bottom part of the machine was warped at a 45-degree angle,” said a source who was laughing too hard to give his name, “And in a second, these two guys in black suits are dragging Scoble away by the nostrils like he weighs absolutely nothing. He kept crying that he’s Steve’s best friend, no really, he’s Steve’s best friend. It was hilarious.”
An Apple spokesman declined comment on the incident, saying only that “the revolutionary MacBook Air is so thin it can fit inside an envelope, just like our critics. Capice?”
This is a transcript of our live coverage of the MacWorld 2008 keynote address by Steve Jobs. For continuing coverage of the show itself, stay with PTTBT. We’re very trustworthy.
Early morning: PTTBT’s Erin Barkley has paid a homeless person $5 to keep her place in line outside the Moscone Center overnight and will be providing live coverage of Steve Jobs’ keynote at MacWorld 2008 starting at 8:30PST (11:30EST) when she has finished her morning routine at Starbucks. Check back here for the web’s most insightful liveblogging analysis of the Stevenote, as it happens.
8:05: We’re in line outside Moscone West. There are several hundred people here, all with iPhones and at least half the crowd is wearing mock turtlenecks. One guy with a Dell was just lynched and strung up to a lamp post.
8:08: Someone just hung a “there’s something in the air” poster from the Dell guy’s foot. Ha! Good times!
8:19: Jason Chen from Gizmodo is here. Apparently Richard Blakeley was supposed to cover MacWorld this year, but he’s in jail after discovering TV-B-Gone remotes also shut off pacemakers at a WWII Vets conference over the weekend.
8:24: A bunch of Googlers at the start of the line just announced they’d trade spots with anyone that could solve some stupid-long equation that takes up like seven sheets of paper. They’ve all got stupid grins on their faces.
8:26: A kid back about 200 people in line just called out “42!” and the Googlers all started swearing and picking up their things.
8:36: Jason Calacanis was just singled out by a bomb-sniffing dog and is being dragged from the line by two large men with kevlar vests. I checked Mahalo for an explanation but it was useless.
8:42: We’re about to be let into the hall. Everyone’s being given a little blue pill along with a pair of 3D glasses. Not sure why.
8:49: A trio of Mac fanboys just swooned next to me. Anywhere else, they’d get their asses kicked for that.
8:55: Camera crews are going in. The rest of us are pounding at the doors like Uruk-hai at Helm’s Deep. Some of us look like Uruk-hai, too ([cough]Scoble![/cough])
8:59: I felt a pleasant tingling and a sudden rush of irrational euphoria. Steve must be nearby!
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Mac news site Appleinsider.com posted images today of banners being put up around San Francisco ahead of MacWorld next Tuesday, with the slogan “There’s something in the air”, which insiders say connects to long-circulating rumours about the Cupertino-based company’s plans to turn the majority of the world’s population into brushed aluminum-loving zombies.
“This is clearly a sign the iBomb is ready,” said tech analyst Mykos Jones. “I have to say it’s a surprise Jobs would put advertisements up about this kind of weapon before it’s deployed, but then again he did invent that damned puck mouse.”
Sources inside Apple tell PTTBT the iBomb is a “wide-range RDF impregnator”, which uses a photonic burst pattern to distribute a synthetic version of Steve Jobs’ infamous Reality Distortion Field across several city blocks from single source. RDF is largely credited with helping Jobs create “Mac Zealots”, who often argue the merits of Apple hardware that does not yet exist.
Sources say once fully installed, a network of iBombs would create a “mesh network” which could “rid the world of Windows once and for all”, as well as convince Sony and Universal to put their movies on iTunes.
Although the precise delivery vector of the iBomb is uncertain, some suspect the actual hardware was deployed in the form of iPhones last summer. The reputable Taiwanese trade magazine DigiTimes reported last month that a major chip vendor outside Taipei recently “landed a contract to manufacture Apple’s next-generation of mind-control devices, which feature a shiny 27″ touchscreen and 16GB of solid-state memory”.
An Apple spokesman declined comment on this story, saying the company “does not comment on unreleased psychokinetic weapons” with an odd, vacant smile on his face.
As in past years, PTTBT will provide live coverage of Steve Jobs’ MacWorld keynote, next Tuesday Janauary 15. Unlike other pansy-ass outfits, we will provide live, on-the-floor updates without resorting to a low-bandwidth version of our site, because our server is run by ironclad warrior Apache dwarves with magic gloves and an inhuman knowledge of load balancing.
Learn all about the new Mac Tablets in the kind of detail nobody else can match, because they’re too concerned with the facts! We will also have exclusive backstage and post-show coverage thanks to our mole, Jeremy Watson, who is Jobs’ personal grapefruit squeezer.
Be sure to tune in… it’s sure to be the most exciting and informative coverage anywhere on the web!
CNN is reporting that Ron Paul has pulled ahead of John McCain in the New Hampshire primaries, and is expected to win the state’s 1.5 delegates in a landslide: “Returns are in from Gibbler’s Gob – New Hampshire’s most populous city with over 100 residents – and it looks as though Paul will finish the day with 85% of the vote.” Analysts say the turnout can largely be attributed to the recent endorsement of tech maven Kevin Rose, who is very influential in a state so small and cold there is little else to do but browse Digg all day.
John McCain won a key endorsement from the Association American Families Struggling With Bipolar Disorder, after “it became clear Senator McCain also suffers from extreme mood swings that diminish his ability to make rational judgments or maintain a consistent personality over a period of several days.” However, Fox News questions whether the association’s members can be counted on to feel well enough to vote in November.
Hillary Clinton, reeling from a perception that her teary moment at a campaign stop on Monday was fabricated, broke down at coffee shop in New Hampshire Tuesday, where she reportedly “beat her breast, tore her hair, and wept sweet tears of sorrow and fear” at the thought of Barack Obama winning the Democratic nomination. Observers say this latest stunt proves that the recent hiring of a lead Google engineer has indeed improved the perception that Clinton is in fact human, although one analyst suggested her handlers use less Shakespeare in the Hillary 3.1 software in the future.
