Say, what do you do if you need to book a major Apple personality to wow the crowd at something sort of like a keynote for what used to be Macworld Expo, but because Apple doesn't even want to show up in the first place you just can't get either Steve Jobs or Apple's cofounder Steve Wozniak? Why, you book the biological entity cloned from those two visionaries' spliced DNA, of course! According to an IDG press release, the speaker at the "opening feature presentation" at Macworld CreativePro (ah, so that's what they're calling it this week!) will be none other than Apple's veep of hardware product marketing, Greg Joswiak.

What? No Schiller? Nope. It seems that even The Phil passed on this gig. Or it's possible that IDG decided that in order to quell the murderous feelings of abandonment that will surely charge the air at next month's Stevenote-lacking semi-Expo, they needed someone closer to the real thing-- hence the booking of Joswiak, who is genetically half-Jobs and half-Wozniak. Oh, sure, you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell from the man's high-resolution mug shot, but there's a mercurial streak a mile wide (well, half a mile wide, anyway) bubbling just beneath that placid surface.

Of course, the real question is, does the Joz have a Jobsian Reality Distortion Field at his command? Sources say yes, albeit one that only runs at half-power-- and it only functions what Joswiak wears a black turtleneck, as opposed to the polo shirt he's wearing in the photo, and has at least 16 ounces of Evian in his system. All indications imply that Greg will indeed be appropriately garbed and beveraged come the morning of July 16th, so attendees should expect at least a mild RDF charge when Joz takes the stage.

As for what the Joz will talk about come the big day, well, seeing as Apple seems intent on downplaying the whole need for a summer Expo in the first place, we're not expecting any big revelations. Most likely he'll simply rehash all the stuff that Steve himself covers at the Stevenote next week-- and that's if we're lucky. If Apple really wants to drive a stake through the heart of the summer Expo once and for all, we can imagine all sorts of ways in which Joz can make the prospect of a repeat performance well-nigh unthinkable. For example, are any of you familiar with "snotwarbling," the ancient Scottish performance art of playing traditional folk songs on a set of bagpipes through which one is simultaneously gargling the mucus of large field animals?

Anyone? No?

Well, cheer up; if our sources are correct, you will be in a month. Woo-hoo!