As Wired says, it’s like a Star Trek convention with no Spock. Macworld 2010 kicks off Tuesday in San Francisco..with no Apple. Apple announced back in 2008 they were pulling out, since their retail stores were offering more consumer contact, lessening the need for trade show exposure. About 30,000 Mac faithful are expected to make a visit.

Macworld 2010 is later than usual, moving to February from the usual early January date.  That’s not all that’s changed.  A noticeable name will be missing from the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

So you’ve probably heard all about this crazy woman who calls herself Violent Blue and how she’s going around complaining that she tried to get me to pose for a photo with her and I told her that she was rude. Oh, and Katie snickered and rolled her eyes. You can see Ms. Porno’s version of what happened here on her Web site. If you want to know what really happened, read on.

Yes, she did want to have her photo taken with me. But first of all, come on. You don’t just walk up to me when I’m standing in some public place and just speak to me. Everyone knows that. Moreover, this was Macworld, and I’m standing on the show floor. Does that seem like the kind of situation where I’m looking to interact with people?

Worse yet, this woman touched me. She admits as much, saying she “lightly touched” my arm. In the civilized world this is known as a violation of personal boundaries, and according to our legal team (because yes we’ve had to bring them in on this) the “lightly touched” constitutes a form of assault. In fact Violent Blue is lucky we didn’t have her arrested right there on the spot.

Instead, I let her off easy. I told her, very politely, that she was rude. Then I very politely turned my back to her. Now she’s using this incident to play the victim and have her fifteen seconds of fame. Which, I guarantee you, was the whole plan from the get-go. It’s like Katie always says about the press: You can’t win. They’re out to get you, and whether you talk to them or ignore them they’re going to make you look bad. So you might as well just kick them in the nuts and stomp on their heads and move on.

Naturally good old Scoble got himself involved in the Violent Blue thing, since he was right there on the spot with his camera, filming away. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Supposedly there’s a video here on a site called Qik which I think should have been called Slo. Click play and wait ten minutes and maybe you’ll see the clip.

Meanwhile, we are considering a civil lawsuit against Violent Blue for assault and attempted battery plus defamation. I gave a police report in San Francisco last night and had photographs taken of the incredibly deep black bruise on my arm. More info as this develops.

Check out this video of iJustine camping out overnight to be first in the door at Macworld. She and her hot friend are reading my book and laughing their incredibly sweet asses off. Much love, ladies. Sorry I did not have a chance to see you in person during the show. I had a very nice penthouse suite at the W with gorgeous white robes made of incredibly soft Egyptian cotton. That’s right. Robes. Always in fashion.

By the way, little bit of trivia about this video. Maybe you’re wondering why there’s nobody else in line? Well, the ladies were actually camped out outside the wrong door. The line was forming on the other side of the building. Perfect, right?

To see the original version of this, go to iJustine’s page.

Dear Apple Faithful,

This letter is intended for the thousands of you who are here at the Macworld conference and to the millions who are here with us in spirit. From all of us at Apple, I want to say: You’re welcome. And, thank you. Thank you for sharing our excitement about our revolutionary new game-changing products that have already, in just 24 hours, permanently altered the landscape of the computing market and rehaped the entire world’s economy. The reaction to the glowing reviews in today’s press have been astounding, beyond anything we could have imagined when we wrote those reviews several weeks ago.

Time Capsule, aka Product X, is one of those products that just seems so obvious once you’ve seen it yet you never would have dreamed of it before. Right? A high-speed router coupled a storage device? Again, we’re thinking different. The new iPhone software is totally breaking new ground and our GPS functionality is far and away the best and most advanced GPS technology available from anyone on the planet. Basically it’s the same stuff that the CIA uses to track terrorists from satellites in outer space, and now we’re making it available to you at no cost. The new Apple TV? So amazing and scary that we’re expecting many of our competitors to just toss in the towel and leave the business so they don’t have to be humiliated by us as we steamroll over them.

And then there is Air. I don’t like to call it a product, because to me it’s more than that. To me it’s a vision. My vision. It’s a statement. My statement. It’s a no-compromise laptop that has the fastest processor ever invented, the most RAM available on any computer in the world, the best keyboard, the best screen, and the longest battery life of any laptop ever made, plus it’s thinner and lighter than any computer ever created in all of history. How do we do it? How do we make the fastest, most feature-packed laptop but put it into a tiny package and give it such amazing battery life? I like to think of it as magic. And so should you. That’s all you need to know. We did it. And it’s magic.

Finally I want to thank everyone in the audience yesterday for gasping and moaning every time I announced something. Really appreciated this, as always. I was especially grateful when the flickr feed didn’t work and we were standing there with a giant blank screen and you all cheered and clapped like mindless zombies anyway. Yes! That is the spirit of our community! Also the wild cheers and gasping panting orgasmic growls when I walked you through the iTunes movie rental process? Fantastic job. Who would think that with just a few clicks of a button you could rent or buy a movie from the Interwebs, and you wouldn’t even need to use a PC? Can you fucking believe it? Well, it’s beyond rocket science, but we did it.

Finally to all of the Apple engineers who worked on these fantastic earth-shattering products I want to send out a heartfelt thanks. Movie rentals on iTunes? This is Arno Penzias type stuff. A subnotebook with no optical drive that only weighs 3 pounds? How the fuck can we even do it? I mean we’re defying the laws of physics. A router with storage that backs up all the Macs in your house? This is a man-on-the-moon level invention. To all those who say that America no longer leads in advanced research and technology, let the news go forth: We do lead. Apple leads. And the rest of you follow. Without fail, like cows with rings in your nose, you follow. I love you all. Peace out.

Attention all conference attendees — due to a scheduling conflict we’ve had to push today’s ritual mass suicide up to 3 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. as it is listed in your program. Please take note of this and plan accordingly if you intend to participate. The doors will close exactly at 3 p.m. and latecomers will not be admitted. Suicidants are advised to remove all watches and jewelry before arriving, and to wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes. White robes not required, but they definitely add to the experience. Kool-Aid and body bags will be provided by Apple.

You know it’s Macworld week when the usual batch of San Francisco posers abandon the nightclubs in SOMA and are replaced by people like the two cyborg lifecasters in the photo above. These two dudes above were at a Gizmodo party. They’d never met so we introduced them and got them to pose for a picture together. They both spend their entire lives walking around with cameras clipped to their heads streaming live feeds so they can share their empty meaningless lives with the entire world. By the way, the red eye on the tall guy is not a camera effect — that’s really what his eye looks like. Otherwise they’re both very, very good replicants, barely distinguishable from actual humans. Red eye dude told us he has not slept since Saturday and plans to stay awake through the entire conference, streaming video of every fucking second to his Web site. Says he stays awake using caffeine tablets. No side effects, he says, except “they kind of make me twitchy.”

Undaunted by its shameful performance at CES, disgraced gadget blog Gizmodo hosted a party at Harlot, a club on Minna. Here’s Brian Lam of Gizmodo. I believe he’s saying, “Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”

Owen Thomas of Valeywag (right, with scarf inexplicably wrapped around neck) attended the Gizmodo party and spent the whole night bugging Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek (left, scarfless) for a job.

Some company called Coghead tried to coast on our wind by announcing version 2.0 of their product last night and having a party at a Mexican restaurant near the Moscone Center. This is two of their execs wishing they worked at Apple. Sorry, dudes. Not cool enough. But keep trying.

Nick Denton look-alike and supreme blogger Pete Cashmore of Mashable (left in photo below) crashed the Coghead party and graciously complained about the quality of the Mexican food. By the way, Pete is from Scotland. Ahem. Maybe you are wondering, as we were, just what the fuck is Mashable? Mashable, Pete informed us indignantly, is “the eighth-largest blog in the world, man. We’re bigger than GigaOm.” Sorry dude. Our bad.

Here are the first shots of the Macworld madness, taken at 5 a.m. local time this morning. Hundreds of Apple faithful have been camping out in the streets around Moscone Center since last night. The brisk morning air is redolent with the odor of reefer, patchouli oil and nerd body funk. TV trucks are parked outside interviewing idiots and asking them what we’re going to announce today. The Starbucks on 4th Street has a line halfway down the block. Even the filthy hacks in the press corps have started lining up early. There’s pizza, Krispy Kreme donuts and lots of coffee. Sleeping bags and mats and folding chairs and pieces of cardboard, piles of fat geeks sprawled on the pavement — it looks like a homeless convention. Overall I think it’s about the ugliest single group of human beings I’ve ever seen in one place.

In the regular attendee line, a group of about 40 spoiled Google brats (above and below), with their typical sense of entitlement, showed up early, pitched a huge tent at the front, then took turns rotating in and out of line all night, working in shifts. When the doors open they’re all going to crash in together — and they think this is perfectly okay. The fucks. Moshe will deal with you all later.

Controlled substances appear to have been plentiful. This guy works at Google and claims he was just “sleepy.” Nice hair, Morrissey.

Naturally there was a dude in the front of the line playing Guitar Hero on a MacBook and being very solemn about the whole thing. You knew there would be, right?

Please tune in for live coverage of the keynote.

Maybe you’ve seen stories like this one from TechCrunch about the keynote outline that got “leaked” onto Wikipedia. Please. It’s not even close. But as fakes go, it’s a good one. Tip of the cap to Katie for fueling the media frenzy.

Must run. My colorist, Annalisa, is here. Then I’m off for my spearmint high colonic followed by a ninety-minute massage and seaweed wrap, an hour of yoga, an hour of meditation with my roshi, a final pre-keynote meal of miso soup and two spoonfuls of organic honey from Tibet, and a good’s night sleep in my transportable float tank, which is already waiting for me deep inside the Moscone Center. Peace out, Apple faithful. See you in the morning when I’ll be blowing your minds.