Being for the benefit of Mr. Jobs.(Mac the Knife) (Humor)(Column)

Mac the Knife may be guilty of many sins - both venal and mortal -but a lack of ego is not one of his failings. Whether he is dressing down a quaking espresso jockey at the local Starbucks, browbeating a frightened knot of Girl Scouts about the quality of this year's crop of Thin Mints and Samoas, or raining opprobrium upon the elderly proprietor of the corner newspaper stand for creasing his Chronicle, the Knife navigates his day-to-day interactions with the self-righteous hostility of a latter-day Captain Ahab.

Flying

Speaking of wild-eyed, chutzpah-enhanced industry players: As of this writing, Steve Jobs continues to demonstrate enough showmanship to eclipse both Sieg- fried and his (allegedly) estranged lion-tamer Roy - at least when it comes to spelling out his own career plans, not to mention the fate of his Cupertino halfway house for wayward technologies.

While every Larry, Curly and Moe continues to speculate about Mr. Jobs' ultimate role at Apple, the Big Man himself is taking an aerial view of the action. According to some feckless Jehovah's Witnesses the Knife publicly humiliated just this morning, Mr. Jobs is considering seizing control of an abandoned military base in Pixar's Richmond, Calif., home as a helicopter landing port for lightning-strike missions between Pixar and Apple.

Given this Sgt. Slaughteresque Weltanshauung, mere product rollouts don't stand a chance. Take the rollout of the PowerBook 3500c, a k a PowerBook G3, a k a Kanga, originally set to surface this week at Macworld Expo London. No sooner had the cucumber sandwiches and piccalilli been laid out for the big event when Mr. Jobs abruptly pulled the plug, deciding that a product intro- duction would "steal his thunder" before the big Cupertino wing-ding slated for Nov. 10. Apple U.K. is now scrambling, ...