PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak follows up the "How I bait Mac users" video (which whipped bloggers into a frenzy) with an "I'm sorry, I'm flabbergasted" column. Now Dvorak says that his baiting trick only worked three times in his career — and that he's amazed how many people blew up at this video.

PC Magazine columnist and veteran tech pundit John C Dvorak explains his Mac-fan baiting method in this video by Dave Winer. The best part isn't Dvorak admitting that he writes like a weasel (duh), nor that he's saying all this in the San Fran Apple store. It's cameraman Dave Winer asking "what the point" is.

There's a rumor going 'round that lots of reporters are reading blogs. So apropos of nothing (and because it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm drinking at the House of Shields), the Valley journo circuit needs new rules from now on.

So Philip Kaplan's no longer running AdBrite — I think we established that. Where are all the other geeks moving?

• In a fit of business brilliance, Microsoft launched a paid PC care service, thus profiting from the shittiness of its own products. [Australian IT]

Time for your Valleyspeak lesson.

I originally read the title of this romance novel mockup, featuring landmark tech journalist John C. Dvorak, as "Spanky Geeks." Just sayin'.

Web 2.0 (TM) marketer Tara Hunt is less than pleased with how "the media" (read: the SF Chronicle's embedded reporter Dan Fost) covered her event this weekend:

Dave Winer, king of the (totally mainstream and not inbred) world of Internet news feeds, is known for his font of wisdom, the personal blog Scripting News. But sometimes, in doling out his advice, the inventor of RSS Flavor #3 forgets that not everyone spends the whole day resting on their laurels:

Hacks and flacks wished Andrew Orlowski (pictured, the one with his hair on top) farewell last night with a calm happy hour at the Edinburgh Castle Pub. His exit dilutes the pool of Valley journalism, as the Register reporter was a long-time snarker and Google hound (one confident enough to snub Google Press Day). Now, after five years in the Valley, he's headed back to England.

Great weekend ahead, and I'm not just saying that 'cause Valleywag takes a half-day tomorrow. Here — meet someone important by Memorial Day and pump 'em for info.

Major props to tech outlet Wired News for posting loads of evidence of a secret AT&T spying room. And more props for doing so the same day that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said that the government can prosecute journalists for publishing classified info.

A shoe-gazing BusinessWeek blogger, one of so many obsessed with Steve Jobs' wardrobe, noticed that Jobsy wore Nike Moires at the Apple-Nike deal announcement. That's a switch from his usual New Balance 991 GLs, says the Steve-watcher.

There are plenty of reasons that the press needs, if not a good hate-on, at least a swat. The St. Paul Pioneer Press demonstrates one reason — the press is easily amused — by calling ex-Sun CEO Scott McNealy (pictured here finding jokes on chests) "funny", "brash", and "outspoken" in the lede to a recap of his tepid talk at the U of Saint Thomas.

Hey, Valley journalists! Getting booted from the Wall Street Journal? Dropped from Wired News? A tipster hands in this internal New York Times memo. (How to tell it's really the NYT? The link's broken.)

Continuing "Keeping straight with the Joneses" day, tech writers Cyrus Farivar and Paul Boutin compare L.A.'s Xenii ("ex-ee-knee"), the exclusive club patronized by Google's Sergey Brin, to L.A.'s Xeni ("SHEH-nee"), the jet-setting journalist pictured at left, now reporting for NPR, Wired Magazine, and Boing Boing.

Keeping the usual gang of Gillmors straight takes a full team of analysts, what with Marc Canter in the mix. So thank the Valley gods that a journalist charted them out for Valleywag.

(They meant "the opposite of offshoring," by the way — which sounds no better, but still.)

An unnamed publicist's e-mail to an unnamed journalist:

AOL gizmo blog Engadget ain't no small-town outlet, and managing editor Ryan Block don't wanna share his subjects. That's why, when Block and crew walk into an in-conference press event with Microsoft XBox exec Peter Moore (five minutes late) and see other bloggers (including tech heavyweight Chris Pirillo), Block mumbles, "Oh, this isn't an exclusive." You can hear him five minutes into this video on tech blog Gear Live.