Sources near Steve Jobs indicate that Apple’s mercurial CEO has shown increasing signs that he has become drunk on not only the power afforded to him by Apple’s board and shareholders, but several bottles of fortified malt liquor.
“We were talking the other day about G5 PowerBooks and the heat problems we’ve been having, said one executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We had a test unit sitting there and Steve put his hand on it and said ‘The G5 shall be cool! Cool, I say!'”
Jobs reportedly then made motions with his hands as if he were casting a spell. He finished with a flourish, yelled “Huzzah!” As the gathered executives and engineers looked on, dumbfounded, Jobs took a big swig out of a bottle wrapped in a brown bag.
Other sources note that Jobs has issued increasingly unreasonable demands, many of which defy the laws of physics.
“Here’s are just a few,” a hardware engineer said, reading from a recent rambling email from Jobs. “12-inch PowerBooks with 21-inch screens. Power Macs made of wood. Edible iPods. Remote Desktop with Inviso-Death Ray. I don’t even know what that means.
“This one just says ‘Monkeys.’ I mean… what the…? He wants us to make monkeys? I don’t get it.”
Unreasonable demands are nothing new for Jobs, but long-time employees believe his natural predilections have been stoked by recent circumstances.
“Steve’s always been something of a harsh task master, but I can’t help but think that the wide latitude the board has given him and the company’s recent successes have gone to his head.
“And all those Colt 45 bottles I see lined up on the window sill of his office can’t be making things any better.”
Indeed, Jobs has been seen frequenting a local package store that features fortified liquors.
“Steve Jobs?” said proprietor Glenn Hartunian. “Oh, yeah. I see him in here all the time. He’ll get a few bottles of Mad Dog 40/40… some King Cobra… and then finish it off with our cheapest tequila.”
Asked to comment on the accusations, Jobs became belligerent and swung randomly at reporters, yelling incoherently, before crawling off to sleep on a couch in the Apple lobby.