Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer seems to have had more than a few problems with his speech, his demo and - apparently - his brain while keynoting Comdex Canada yesterday. Wired tells us he said the Internet was like a hockey stick (no, we don't know why either), while Reuters, well...

Wire stories are subject to the occasional technological barf, but this one's a corker, to the extent that you need to apply a little bit of forensics to figure out that it's Steve being reported. It's snappily headed "Microsoft's .NET not a bcrosoft Corp.'s ambitious ..." and it goes downhill from there:

"Microsoft's .NET not a bcrosoft Corp.'s ambitious initiative of coupli violations, to control the medium, said chief eeeks ago, which is software it hopes will driventernet does not disguise an ambition to rule that view of history." By order of The Register, Steve Ballmer is hereby rechristened Chief Eeeks.

But there's more: "If the question is are we going to try to get a high to, and exactly what people should want our comis is not an official pronouncement, but if we ever want to relocate to Canada there's only one city for us: Balmertown, Ontario." Then, disappointingly, the report fades back into something approximating English. But it was fun while it lasted. ®