We have a bone to pick with the theory of relativity: was it really necessary to make Monday show up three minutes after Friday arrived? Seriously, if we ever run into that theory face-to-face on a Monday morning, it had better hope we've already had our coffee, or we're going to go caveman on its... well, its... premise, or something.

Hmm. Okay, never mind that; considering the likely fruitlessness of threatening a theory, in the interest of efficacy, we're making this personal and going after the theorist instead. So if the ghost of Einstein ever floats in here looking to borrow a cup of ectoplasm, he's going to find himself staring down the business end of a positron collider. Word.

Yes, that's how incoherent we're going to be today. Scary, isn't it?

So we'd better start off slowly, or we're going to sprain a metaphor or something. And you know what "slowly" means, kids: the Occasional Awards Roundup™! Yes sir, nothing says "phoning it in on a premature Monday" like a rundown of various awards and kudos that Apple has won in recent days. (Well, except possibly the act of posting others' marketing press releases verbatim as original "news," but there are depths to which even we absolutely will not sink unless someone pays us a large sum of cash.) This time around, let's take a look at the recognition that Fearless Leader is raking in, shall we? The Ad Age Marketing 50 list is out, and Steve is on it. In addition to referring to the iPod and iTunes as "stunningly successful," Ad Age also notes that "Jobs this year becomes the first person to be named to Advertising Age's list of leading brands three times... not bad for a guy who never had a traditional marketing career." Gee, it's amazing what the extraterrestrial power to bend the human mind to one's will can accomplish, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Steve also finds himself ranked as one of the Top 25 Executives by CRN: he lands at a respectable number 11 for blitzing the world with the iPod-iTunes tag team, shipping the G5, and making the tough call to kill Mac OS 9 in order to give Mac OS X its time in the sun. That said, the CRN list contains a grievous error, and we're not talking about its claim that Panther is a 64-bit operating system: the publication ranked Steve Ballmer higher than Jobs-- all the way up at number two. (The article comes with another winning photo, by the way.)

On second thought, though, maybe Ballmer does deserve the top bunk: since the CRN Top 25 Executives list "profiles the individuals who have had the greatest influence on the high tech industry," technically, Ballmer's number two position is entirely justified, because are you ever going to be able to get this image out of your head? Yeah, us either. Plus it's a good way to get your heart thumping on a Monday.