See here. Yours truly, Fake Steve, ranks #11 among the wealthiest fictional characters, right behind Bruce Wayne, Thurston Howell III and Tony Stark, but ahead of Gomez Addams, Willy Wonka, Lucius Malfoy and Princess Peach. Personally I really don’t care for these lists but I must admit it did give me great pleasure to kick Willy Wonka’s sorry ass. I friggin hate that goddamn queen. Always have. And watch out, #1 rated Scrooge McDuck! I’m gunning for you. And my contract is up for renegotiation soon. Much love to Dafyd. (Illustration by Mikolaj “Maximum Mik” Kamler.)

Seriously, Apple faithful, this new theme about how Apple is all arrogant and doesn’t care about customers and is putting its own needs ahead of everyone else’s is just really starting to spread, and I’m friggin sick of it. Check out this article for just one example. Or this one, which says “the only problem with Apple is that it has no gratitude. Or humility. Or generosity. Or manners.” Or this one which says we’re alienating our loyal customer base.

I’m just so sick of being told that I’m arrogant. I’ve been hearing this all my life. I’m not arrogant. I’m smarter than everyone else, and I have better taste. That’s not arrogant. It’s just true. Do you have any idea how maddening it is to be this smart and to create perfect products and then have frigtards tell me I’m arrogant because I won’t let them mess with perfection? Did Leonardo da Vinci finish his big statue of David and then say, Hey, any frigtards who want to add an extra leg or a third eye right in the forehead or whatever, well, go ahead, have at it? No. He did not. He said, Get the fuck away from my statue, jackass. You can look at it. That’s it. And oh yeah. Pay me.

Apple faithful, do me a favor. Keep an eye out for stories like this and send them in. This is a dangerous time for us. Clearly our enemies are pushing an agenda aimed at undermining our momentum. As those of you who know me will attest, I’m probably the least arrogant person on the planet. And to anyone who says otherwise, I say this: Fuck off, stupid. (Photo: Barry Lunger, Jobs-God Magazine.)

UPDATE: Much love to the commenter who alerted me to this gem of a bash job in Macworld of all places.

This comes from the Washington Post. For the original link go here. Much love to reader Alan who sent this in.

Interesting story on Page One of the Journal today (see here) about how Mr. Bill got ready for his big speech at Harvard. Turns out he takes the same approach to speechmaking that he does to writing software. That is, he begins by looking at what others have done and then copies it, but adds lots of complexity so it comes out all frigged up. In this case he read speeches by Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, Bill Clinton, Bono and others. But his biggest source of material, er, inspiration was a speech that George Marshall (yeah, I have no idea either) gave at Harvard in the 1600s or something. After selecting material to plagiarize, plus “methods and concepts,” Bill brought in some writer from Slate, plus a staff of other people, and they all spent months writing drafts and having meetings and trading emails and punching things up with a few jokes about how Bill was a loser in college, and then to cap it off he gets some help from his old pal Jimmy Buffett [ed. note, shurely “Warden”?]. From this messy hodgepodge of incompatible sources and multiple authors comes the rambling, incoherent speech that Gates gave at Harvard.

In case you’re wondering how Vista manages to be both entirely derivative and yet amazingly bloated and slow and turgid, well, now we know.

Contrast this to my own process of preparing for Monday’s WWDC keynote. You won’t be surprised to learn that at Apple we take a slightly different approach to these things. First of all, we begin not with content but with presentation. I’ve spent the past month rehearsing in our made-to-order exact replica of the Moscone Center auditorium, filled with 5,000 extras who play the role of Apple developers (given Nembutal to create that glazed, worshipful expression). We’ve got the whole super-dramatic Leni Riefenstahl Triumph of the Will stage setup going, with the 40-foot X and other large symbols of power and domination. Every day I spend hours running through my presentation, even before the actual text has been written. Hit my spot, say a line, click the remote, boom. Hit my spot, say a line, click the remote, boom. Look out at audience, turn left and right, pretend to make eye contact, try to look slightly wooden and unnatural. It’s harder than it looks, trust me. It’s just that I make it look easy. After rehearsal I’ll spend an hour looking into a mirror working on my hypnotic gaze. Every other day I meet with my beard colorist, Annalisa, to make sure the salt-and-pepper mix is perfect. And my couture consultant Katarina brings me fresh samples of mock turtlenecks.

Today will be our last day of rehearsals, after which Katarina will present me with the actual JobsWear outfit that I’ll be wearing Monday — each piece brand new, freshly laundered and hermetically sealed in clear virgin plastic — and I will go into retreat at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center for the weekend. Starting at sundown tonight I will begin fasting and solitary meditation. I’ll eat nothing but miso soup and will not speak to anyone. By Monday I’ll be five pounds lighter and so hungry I could tear someone’s face off with my teeth. In other words, perfect.

I’m not very good at math, so correct me if I’m wrong here, but it looks to me like our stock is up roughly 50% in the current year, from just over $80 at the start of the year to $120 now. And since our market cap is now just over $100 billion I think that means we’ve added, what, about $30 billion, maybe a little more, just in the past five months? Hmmm. $30 billion in five months. And during those five months we’ve been hounded over some options that were worth, what, about $20 million? And the Journal has been griping because I’m some big rapacious greedy bastard who gets paid a lot and flies around in an expensive jet? Thirty billion dollars in five months. Oh, you poor Apple shareholders. My heart bleeds for you.