Steve Wozniak, your time is up

He appeared on Dancing with the Stars

It's arguable that more people know of Woz through his appearances on Dancing with the Stars than from his association with Apple. But either way, they know him as a geek. It's just that in his Apple incarnation he was a useful, productive geek.

Witness, if you will, one of the most discordant incongruities ever captured on video: the confluence of a feather boa, the cha-cha-cha, a floppy-disc-controller engineer, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet."

The amazing - and totally Woznian - element of this eye-gouging performance is that the tubby terpsichorean exhibits as little embarrassment as talent. He's enjoying himself. He's the little kid performing in the grade-school talent show.

Charming. Almost.

He had an affair with Kathy Griffin

You are to be completely forgiven if the name "Kathy Griffin" means zero, zip, zilch, diddly-squat, or nada to you. It's hard to make a name for yourself as a sharp-tongued comedienne these days, especially when your comedic skills rank up there with Woz's dancing chops.

But Griffin did land one big fish during her career: the Big Kahuna Tuna himself. After Woz and Griffin attended the 2007 Emmy Awards together, she had the fine sense of decorum to tell centenarian talk-show host Larry King that "He took my dress off at the end of the night."

We could go on, but we won't. We'll just note that the beer-bellied boinker appeared on a few episodes of Griffin's honestly titled My Life on the D-List television series, including one entitled "What's Woz's Love Got To Do With It."

Here's what Woz's love has to do with it: The lumbering Lothario is either unlucky in love or impossible to live with. The heavyset hubby has been married four times, most recently to someone with whom he became involved shortly after he broke up with Griffin.

Good luck, Ms. Numero Cuatro.

His favorite fictional character is himself

Woz's presentation skills might best be described as "suboptimal." It may seem unfair to criticize a man for something outside of his main area of expertise, and it would be in this case if Woz weren't such a ham. Or, more accurately put, such a honey-baked, bone-in, thoroughly porky exemplar of the dramatic arts.

Woz has, for example, voiced a cartoon of himself on the animated series Code Monkeys, appeared on the aforementioned My Life on the D-List - as himself - and loved the camera in the upcoming film, Hackers Wanted.

But for a true indication of Woz's charisma and presence - or lack thereof - check out this following clip from the Los Angeles videogame-oriented cable and satellite station, G4. Be forewarned, however, that the two hosts of the show are possibly even more cringeworthy than the well-upholstered guest sitting on the well-upholstered couch.

After Apple, his career has been less than stellar

The New York Times has a succinct review of the paunchy entrepreneur's first business effort after leaving Apple: "He failed." That company was alternately known as either Cloud 9 or CL9, and it had attempted to build a universal remote.

In late 2001, the beefy businessman founded Wheels of Zeus - note the self-referential acronym, which the company cutely spelled "wOz." This then-attention-catching venture was, according to its own press releases, going to use a combination of GPS and wireless tech to "help everyday people track everyday things." wOz never tracked down a marketable product. It went under in 2006.

Early last year, Woz joined Fusion-io in the decidedly amorphous position of "chief scientist." The sturdy storage savant was tasked with, as the company then described his duties, advising on "market trends, product road maps and other strategic activities".

After that appointment, The Reg's own Chris Mellor, a kindhearted soul, wrote: "We cannot - not even at our kindest - realistically think Woz has any sort of expertise, given [his] track record, of a capability for devising a strategy to penetrate global corporate customers. I mean, in the nicest possible way, that is surely grade one, solid gold BS."

And so it is - as is the media's fascination with hanging onto the paunchy pundit's every word, preference, and hip wiggle. I, for one, just wrote 1,500 words about the guy, and I now hang my head in shame.

But enough. This madness must stop. Should we banish Woz from the pages of The Reg forever? Let me know, arm me with arguments to present to the Vulture Brain Trust™.

Stop the insanity. ®

Apology

This story originally contained some inappropriate language. It has been removed. Our sincere apologies.