Apple has enough MacBook Airs to give away to celebrities, but not enough to put one in each Apple Store — or even the flagships, like the big store at One Stockton Street? Such is the confidence Jobs has in the Apple brand: Would-be purchasers had to buy this mystical laptop sight unseen.

• The lowest level goes to bloggers and reporters from sites with few readers — they get onto the show floor for free, but don't get entry into the all-important Steve Jobs keynote.
• The standard press badge, pictured above, gives access to all the floor and the special media section of the keynote.
• The truly special press have the VIP ribbon (left) affixed to their badge. We spotted one on John Markoff of the New York Times, Newsweek's Steven Levy, and Walt Mossberg of the Walt — sorry, Wall Street Journal. A Macworld veteran told us they're reserved for "geezers."

  When the doors opened for press to enter the keynote, broadcast media were let in first — but Mossberg used his clout to cut in line. "I'm VIP," he said, waved his badge and walked past. The rest of us had to deal with security guards with a small Apple logo emblazoned on their black shirts like we were paparazzi waiting to get into a restaurant where Britney Spears was eating.

  We didn't rate VIP status, but we had something better: Fake Steve Jobs!

Yes, it was One Laptop Per Child's XO. The owner, who was being interviewed by some Web publication, told us that he "really liked" the OLPC and thought it had "great potential" to change the lives of children in the developing world. Then he went on a tangent about how the MacBook Air was too expensive and all we really needed was the OLPC because we could all load free software on it and then the world would be a better place. Then he started talking about how great socialism is. Welcome to San Francisco, but really, isn't he at the wrong conference?

Some more pics from the blogger lounge:

Before Steve Jobs, Devo was a precursor of geek chic. If you're 45 or older you probably remember this brain-breaking TV moment, a hot topic after last night's Macworld show at the Warfield. If not, it's still a good clip. For context, 1978's pop music was dominated by the Bee Gees and Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life." Rock musicians — Journey, Styx, Fleetwood Mac — played big area anthems, had long, feathered hair and wore Spandex. A bunch of robotic shorthairs in radiation suits and dorky eyeglasses singing maybemaybemaybemaybemaybemaybemaybe better come back later next week — produced by Brian Eno, who went on to do the Windows 95 startup sound — was a finger down the throat of the Rolling Stones' contemporary disco hit "Miss You." As they later sang, Devo were the band for those of us through being cool.

"Yahoo has Flickr's servers on 24-hour watch," says a source familiar with the site's operations. In other words, something going wrong is practically the default state for Flickr, which has grown beyond its technical capabilities. Flickr was down for four hours over the weekend. With founder Stewart Butterfield on paternity leave, and not expected to return to Flickr when his leave ends — word is he might seek another role within Yahoo instead — Flickr's staff strikes some as dispirited. And other Yahoo employees would rather gripe about Flickr than fix its code.

(Screenshot posted, and then retracted, by jeremyjohnstone)

Way back when, DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) unveiled a really thin laptop (was it one of the Hinote machines?). Anyway, they had a TV ad that went something like this:

- man puts briefcase on a table
- opens the briefcase
- starts taking stuff out: papers, folders, etc.
- finally the briefcase is empty
- he reaches into the little pocket on the inside cover of the briefcase
- takes out a manila envelope (10x13 mailer)
- rips open the envelope
- takes out the DEC laptop and puts it on the table

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It turns out that, for the past several years, Google employees have staked out early spots in the Macworld keynote admissions line. Arriving well prepared with pizza, coffee and a tent, the Googlers "work" (is this twenty-percent time?) in shifts holding line spots so 40-50 Googlers can get good seats. I convinced a few of the them — including Marissa! — to speak to me for a couple minutes and pose for a picture. Why were they waiting in line so early? "The man gives a great presentation. Hopefully we can learn something."From left to right: Chrix Finne, Associate Product Manager - Google Reader; Nick Baum, Associate Product Manager - Android; David Murray, Associate Product Manager - Gmail; Fernando Delgado, Associate Product Manager - Search Quality; Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Search Products & User Experience; a friend of Marissa's whom I believe was named John.

The last thing the world needs is another logorrheic liveblog transcribing every last word out of Steve Jobs's mouth. (Gizmodo, Engadget, and many others, will be providing those.) Inspired by CNET's Rafe Needleman, I am embracing the discipline of Twitter. Anything important can be said in 140 characters or less, right? And fitting, too, since Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams are rumored to be taking the stage on Tuesday. Check back here Tuesday morning, or follow "vwag" on Twitter. I'll be liveblogging the livebloggers, and Steve Jobs, in a mercifully brief way.