Lamest Meet-Cute of the Week

Crusty but lovable Apple founder Steve Jobs gets into a pissy email exchange with a daffy and delightful student journalist (and former hand model) who is doing a classroom article "about the implementation of an iPad program" at her school.

The resurgent CEO mocks 22-year-old CW Post senior Chelsea Kate Isaacs' po-faced attempt to guilt Jobs into getting his PR department to return her phone calls.

Isaacs shoots back a well-I-never response. Snappy dialogue ensues.

Jobs tires of the game and cuts off the exchange: "Please leave us alone."

Gawker has the full exchange.

Lord knows what CW Post's "iPad program" will be, but it's a good bet it will be three shades of useless. Meantime, Gawker commenters are pretty solidly against Isaacs. One blogger takes Isaacs' side. Flamin' Jay Rosen wisely splits the difference.

Assuming this was Jobs responding and not some disgruntled member of the advance team, there's something admirable about taking time out of your billion-dollar schedule just to belittle a college student. It shows principle. A lesser man might even have put pride aside and tried to help the young woman just for positive word of mouth.

But then a lesser man wouldn't have a fulltime cult and press corps ready to suck in his every brain fart and breathe it out as a noble gas. I don't know how Randoids come down on the whole Apple-v.-open source question, but it seems to me no other CEO achieves the Roarkian ideal quite like Jobs: The key to success is to be a complete dick to everybody.