Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk.

Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.

Today, we help you through the deep personal hurting you feel over the Leopard delay.

Because you people need a lot of help.

Q: AAAAAAAAAGH!

A: Dude, calm down.

Q: AAAAAAAAAGH! AH! AHHHHHHH!

A: DUDE!

Q: WHAT?!

A: Calm. Down.

Q: No, YOU calm down! My whole world view is crashing down around me and you don’t want me to panic? Well, when should I panic? Huh?! Evolution gave me the panic instinct for a reason, right?! So, if I’m not gonna use it now, when the hell am I going to use it, Charles Darwin?!

A: C’mon. It’s not exactly like you’re being chased by a bear.

Q: No. It’s like I’m being chased by a leopard and… and… it’s really slow… so slow that I’m lapping it and… and… and… AND WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HAVE THIS?

A: OK. OK. Fine. Enjoy your freak-out.

UGLUK: Ugluk hear someone chased by bear?

A: Oh, man, you do not want to get in on this.

Q: AAAAAAAAAGH!

A: Heeeere we go again…

Q: Hey, I don’t know about anyone else, man, but I’m totally not worried about this. It’s all part of the plan!

A: The plan?

Q: Oh, yeah, man. See, Apple’s just saying that Leopard’s delayed until October! It’s coming out next week!

A: Uh… next week?

Q: Totally! I read on Think Secret it’s almost done!

A: Um, dude…

Q: They just need to put some final touches on it. See, while Mac users are freaking out about the “delay”, they’ll be too busy wallowing in despair to call Apple support or go out and buy stuff at the Apple Store. So Apple’s going to redirect the support people and sales staff to finish Leopard!

A: That makes absolutely no sense at all. How the hell are sales staff going to help finish Leopard?

Q: Uh, well they can, um, put the semicolons in. Pretty much any kind of monkey can type in semicolons.

A: Dude, this is an operating system they’re putting together. It’s not like a barn raising.

Q: Yes, it is! Leopard is coming! You’ll see! You’ll see!

A: You need to seek professional help.

Q: What… you mean more?

Q: Um… I’ve been up all night sobbing quietly to myself. And… I just want to know one thing.

A: Uh… yeah?

Q: Is it… is it… going to be OK?

A: Huh?

Q: Are we… are we all going to be OK?

A: Uhhh… you mean until October?

Q: …

A: …

Q: OK, well, it just sounds silly when you say it like that.

AAAAAAAAAGH!!!

Apple announced disappointing news this afternoon that due to efforts to ensure the iPhone would stay on target for a June release, Leopard would be delayed until October.

And right now the Mac community, as is its wont, is in full freak out mode.

“But, but…” stammered the Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Scott McNulty, “If Leopard is delayed, then Leopard is Vista. And if Leopard is Vista, then Apple is Microsoft!

“Aaaaaagh!” McNulty screamed as he hurled himself through the window of his office.

Fortunately, the window was open and McNulty’s office is on the first floor.

But the same reaction is being echoed all across the Mac community tonight.

“Steve! Why have you foresaken us?!” screamed an distraught Gus Mueller of Flying Meat, as he rent his garments. “WHY?!”

“We must have done something wrong,” said the MacUser‘s Dan Moren, his face ashen. “Steve is angry! We must offer sacrifice to appease him!

“Does anyone know any virgins?

“Anyone?

“No? Just one would do. One? C’mon. No one knows one virgin?! Really?”

While Moren scurried off to look for virgins, other members of Mac using community set about gathering up goats and first-born sons to offer to their apparently angry god.

But Scott Bourne of the Apple Phone Show offered another path for the bereaved.

“My brethren,” Bourne said, “Steve hath not forsaken thee. For, lo, he hath delivered unto us this day most joyous news! The iPhone cometh! In June, as has been foretold for lo these several weeks!

“As for Leopard, let he among you who has not missed a deadline cast the first stone.”

As a small stone flew from the gathered crowd outside his San Francisco condo striking him in the forehead, Bourne cried out in pain.

“Owwww!” the MacBreak Weekly panelist said, putting his hands to his head. “Don’t you know a rhetorical challenge when you hear one? Damn it. You weren’t really supposed to… supposed to throw a stone. Owww. That’s gonna… that’s gonna leave a mark! Crimeny.”

As of the posting of this story, a crowd of wailing Mac users has formed outside of Apple’s Cupertino headquarters seemingly intent on sitting there and whining until October.

Microsoft Celebrates Sale of 100th Zune.

Just days after Apple’s announcement that it had sold 100 million iPods, Microsoft’s Zune celebrated a milestone of its own.

According to a press release issued by the company today, its 100th Zune was sold to 13-year-old Dieter Ebersbacher in Shreveport, Illinois, and is a sign of its success in the marketplace.

“The sale of the 100th Zune is a sign that it has captured a secure foothold in the market and it totally doesn’t suck,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Asked to explain the discrepancy between this and its previously announced sales figures, Ballmer said “Well, when you take out the units we’ve just stuffed into the channel and then you take out the units that have gone to reviewers… and the units we’ve just outright given away… you’re left with… uh… a hundred. Now. Like, just now.

“I’ve totally been telling that guy… uh… whatsits… um… Foureyes McFloodpants… Gates! I’ve totally been telling him to lay off on how well the Zune’s been doing. Totally.”

Perhaps most unfortunately for Microsoft, Ebersbacher apparently bought the unit thinking it was an iPod.

“It is not iPod?” Ebersbacher asked. “Ach du lieber! I am being exchange student von Reichshof-Mittelagger! With receipt I can return, ja?”

While Ballmer did ultimately admit that the Zune’s current market position was not quite what the company had hoped, he then – after absolutely no prodding on the part of reporters – laid the plans for an upcoming flash-based model on the table, winking effusively. The plans had the words “IPOD NANO KILLER” emblazoned across the top.

Upon closer review, however, the plans seem to consist of a crude drawing of flash memory chip in a box with the words “Ninja powers!”, “Awesome!” and “Death to iPod!” written around it in crayon.

Bloggers Respond To O'Reilly's Blogger's Code.

Reacting to a recent incident where a blogger’s life was threatened, publisher and blogger Tim O’Reilly issued a a blogger’s code of conduct, which was subsequently covered by the New York Times.

Despite his good intentions, the response of many bloggers was negative, complaining that it was an unnecesary overreaction.

“I found this post a little odd coming from Tim,” said blogger Nick Carr. “It’s well known in the technology industry that – while Tim’s very polite on his blog – if you meet him in person you’ll get treated to a 30-minute spittle-shower screed about ‘the god damn Germans’.

“I mean he really, really doesn’t like them. I have no idea why.

“Well, at least that’s what I heard. I can’t remember where.”

Carr also allowed that while he thought it was Germans, it might have been Mexicans O’Reilly dislikes so much.

But sources close to the technology industry maven indicate that it is indeed Germans.

“Not a lot of people know this,” a source said, “but Tim is actually 109 years old. He fought the Kaiser, you know.”

In a hand-written note that is unlikely to make the front page of the New York Times, O’Reilly responded briefly and courteously to Jeff Jarvis’ reaction to his code:

My Esteemed Colleague:

I should rather lay down with the stinking Jerries than engage in the uncouth sport of verbal sparring with such loutery. I shall rise above your gutterisms, leaving you to wallow in the filth with the vile Hun.

I remain your humble servant,

Timothy O’Reilly, III – Esq.

Meanwhile, on O’Reilly’s blog, the most recent post reads in its entirety:

A beverage that I truly enjoy is Moxie. I believe its Genetian root extractives make it a delectable thirst quencher. However, I could see how someone else could have a different opinion and I respect that.

Crazy Apple Rumors Site considered contacting O’Reilly directly prior to publication of this story but then thought, eh, fuck it, he’d probably just ignore us anyway.

It should also be noted that several sites have gone beyond the pale in criticising him as a “German-hating, kerchief-clutching fop”. We’d take them to task over it, but we kinda lost the links and and actually believe that Twittering about Desktop Tower Defense is more important.

Commenters to this post are encouraged to post their true feelings about the Blogger’s Code of Conduct, O’Reilly, Germans and Moxie and their relative preference for big butts.

Devastating Virus Hits iPod.

Devastating news hit Apple fans late last week as a virus slammed the iPod.

The ultimate impact of this killer virus – which requires the iPod to be running Linux and has to be installed manually by the user and possibly infects the iPod with pictures of unicorns and puppies – has yet to be determined. But it is just one disturbing example of how Apple’s products are under a siege that the company seems unable to turn back.

In addition to the killer iPod virus of death, Crazy Apple Rumors Site has learned that these other problems currently afflict Apple products.

  • One dude’s Performa won’t do screen resolutions higher than 640X480 on Yellow Dog Linux, making it really hard to look at porn.
  • LC IIs running OS 7.1 are highly susceptible to repeated failure to meet reserve on eBay.
  • In certain configurations from the Apple Store, the 8-Core Mac Pro will be so expensive it will literally make you puke.
  • If you have a wood-paneled iMac, carpenter ants may want to chew into it. You know… if you have a… wood-paneled iMac.
  • Beating a MacBook with a rock may void your warranty – and nowhere does it say that in big letters on the MacBook!
  • The Apple TV doesn’t do HD. That’s gotta be a bug, right?
  • Some Macs have been infected with Windows which has many viruses and, more importantly, just generally sucks.

To date, Apple has not satisfactorily explained how it will address these issues or the killer death virus of doom for death to iPods.