Okay, guys, first things first: he's fine. So we don't want to hear about distraught Mac fans leaping off of tall buildings or diving into tree-shredders or anything like that, okay? By all accounts, the man is coming through the whole thing most spiffily, so there's absolutely no need to panic and slam your own head repeatedly in your car door. Normally we're all about the melodrama, but in this particular case it'd probably be a good thing if you all just chill. Like we said, the guy's just dandy.

That said, we fully acknowledge that it's more than a little distressing to hear that Steve Jobs had cancer.

Aaaaaand in the response to the thousands of viewers who just regaled us with a simultaneous global "WHAT?! OH NO!!" (yes, we could hear it from here-- in stereo, no less), we'll remind you once again that we said don't panic. Sure, it's alarming news, and we were more than a little freaked out ourselves when faithful viewer Nat Bletter first forwarded us the Reuters article reporting that Steve had just undergone surgery to remove an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor from his pancreas. Not freaked out enough to pass up the "We Told You So™" moment, of course; we knew something was up when we pointed out Steve's sudden unexplained weight loss and his uncharacteristic break in concentration during that Euro iTMS launch event, but it's always a shock when vague nagging fears suddenly crystallize into real, honest-to-goshness bad news. And it's even more of a shock when we're actually right about something.

But like we said, things aren't nearly as bad as they could be; apparently Steve's particular brand of cancer is both extremely rare (at "about 1 percent of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed this year," it's got even lower market share than the Mac does) and extremely treatable if caught early-- which it was. Despite having gone under the knife at some point this weekend, Steve managed to inform the troops of his condition himself, via post-op email sent from his hospital bed thanks to his trusty 17-inch PowerBook. (The man knows how to convalesce in style.) Steve also pointed out that won't need to undergo chemo or radiation therapy, so the surgery sounds like basically a one-and-done. Indeed, His Steveness is only planning to take one month off to recuperate and expects to get back to his mercurial micromanagement duties full-time in September.

In the meantime, you may have to ratchet back your drama plans for a while, because plotwise, it sounds like we've got a largely Steveless Apple ahead of us this month. While he lets his pancreas recover, Steve has turned the reins over to worldwide sales 'n' ops guru Tim Cook for the next four or five weeks. We have total confidence that Tim will handle Apple's day-to-day operations without a hitch (especially since Steve will almost certainly be on the phone every twenty or thirty seconds telling Tim what to do), but we doubt that anyone expects him to carry out his duties with more than, say, 8 or 9 percent of Steve's inimitable flair. Nevertheless, AtAT sources report that Tim is already being fitted for black turtlenecks, jeans, and New Balances, so apparently he plans to give it the ol' college try.

In closing, we expect that several of you will want to send get-well wishes to your favorite cancer-stricken CEO, though we can't help wondering whether he'd find the extra attention heartening or just plain annoying. May we suggest that if you have to flood him with iCards or something, you avoid clogging up his main "sjobs@apple.com" account with under-the-weather bulldogs and instead use the "steve@mac.com" account, which will probably be far less instrumental a tool to him while he's trying to run Apple from his Barcalounger? Personally, we're skipping the iCard thing on the premise that he'll have plenty enough of that stuff to sift through without our contribution-- but on the off-off-off-chance that anyone tuning in out there in TV land happens to be on visiting terms with The Steve, do us a favor and let him know we're all pulling for him down here at the AtAT compound, willya?