We were surprised to see a carefully-calibrated communicator like Simon drop Schmidt's name on her Twitter stream (see screenshot below); she's been tight-lipped about Schmidt in the past. And isn't she supposed to be pimping TV gigs by Burson's actual clients, like Microsoft?

We're guessing some sort of new relationship is afoot, if not between Schmidt and Simon, then between Google and Burson:

Simon, we hear, joined Schmidt on his jet for a flight last Thursday from California to Teterboro. Apparently she wasn't put off by his taking her last month, as we heard he did, to The Island Mermaid on Fire Island when the couple visited together there in August. That's the same place where Schmidt took actor Stanley Tucci three years ago; we'd urged him to find a new haunt.

But between this Simon-Schmidt sighting and the earlier ones in Aspen and California, it's sounding increasingly like Schmidt is a creature of habit. Which shouldn't affect Google shareholders — unless it causes Schmidt to inadvertently expose something of himself to the PR firm of his lethal enemy (we're talking about proprietary information here, pervs). Or unless it leads to a relationship that finally puts in play Schmidt's Google shares, via a divorce from the wife from whom he's reportedly separated.

If you know anything, including why Punky Brewster was also tweeting up Schmidt, we'd love to hear from you.

Our spies in 2006 told us Schmidt spent time on Fire Island, where Simon has a house, the year before; later in summer 2006 the New York Post reported a sighting of Schmidt leaving the restaurant Island Mermaid there with actor Stanley Tucci. By the end of 2007, the couple had broken up amid talk Schmidt was also seeing Kate Bohner, the business writer.

But now one tipster, a self-described friend of Bohner's, tells us that relationship is finished (commitment issues), while another says Schmidt visited Simon's place on Fire Island "a few times" last month. Meanwhile, the married CEO still hasn't divorced his wife. For all this cycling through old flames, one hopes Schmidt's vacations at least involve new restaurants.

Got anything to add? tips@valleywag.com

(Pic: Dave McClure)

Jobs' parking job does, indeed, bode well for his health, as the blog iPhone Savior suggests. Prior to his liver transplant and medical leave, Jobs' Mercedes was repeatedly photographed in this very spot, always without the license plate, per his usual flouting of various automotive regulations. The one time it wasn't in a handicapped spot was, ironically, during the period when Jobs looked sickest in public. How heartening to see that his old brazenness is back.

(Pic by Nicholas Brown)

A Coldplay roadie melted at the site of Jobs backstage at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. Luckily for us, said roadie has a blog:

I'll be honest with you folks, the only thing that mattered to me tonight was the presence of one Steve Jobs. I'm a confirmed Apple devotee and I really cannot imagine doing the job I do now (or even having got into this line of work) without my Macbook Pro (and all the Powerbooks that went before it). Creating these tools and putting them into the hands of folks like me was the vision of this man.

I spot Steve chatting with Dave Holmes outside the dressing room and suddenly feel like a star-struck teenager. In order to get the gall up to speak to the guy, I down a double espresso. The mixture of caffeine buzz and feeling like a cheesy little fanboy means that all I can manage to say to him is "Thank you so much". I realise that I'm quite simply making a tit of myself and so excuse myself as fast as I appeared.

As Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes, the roadie has been blogging for more than a year with the band, so appears to be a reliable source. Unlike the rest of the crowd; there were 22,000 of you Silicon Valley geeks crammed into Shoreline, and nobody managed to snap an historic iPhone pic of Dear Leader? For shame, Silicon Valley. For shame.

(Top pic: The Coldplay concert, by randomcuriosity on Flickr)

I had lunch with a friend at Apple today and as I was leaving the campus I saw Jobs getting into a chauffeured black Lincoln Continental. This was right outside 1IL [Infinity Loop] at about two PM today.

A Lincoln is, of course, not Jobs' usual ride, and the notorious micromanager usually likes to be behind the driver's wheel; his Mercedes is known for turning up in Apple's handicapped parking spots. But Jobs just underwent a liver transplant and is only traveling to the Apple campus a "few days" per week, according to an Apple statement heralding his return to the company today. Presumably, the CEO's health is such that he needs to conserve his energy for activities other than driving, like running a company.

Earlier today, Apple declined to tell Bloomberg News whether Jobs was on campus. The company had good reason to avoid such a discussion: Entertaining that line of questioning might have led to a discussion of Jobs' itinerary and unwelcome question about why the CEO had to leave early, and about his health. More practically, it also would open the company up to endless questions from reporters about where Jobs is on campus that day. Of course, there's a good chance Apple is going to be getting those queries anyway, whether it answers them or not.

Anyone else spot the newly-returned honcho today? We'd love to hear from you.

UPDATE: Last week, Reuters spotted Jobs leaving the campus in a "black car."

UPDATE 2: The original version of that Reuters story last week had Jobs being "driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces."

(Pic: Jobs at a MacBook press announcement on Apple's Cupertino campus in October via Getty)

To finagle a spot in line on the day of the new iPhone 3G S's release would be impressive enough; to do so in the heart of Silicon Valley, where new gadgets are especially coveted, implies Wozniak has grown his skills of persuasion to Jobsian heights. From a shopper in the MacRumors forums:

I arrived at 3:50am and Mr. Woz was chopping it up with the manager at Apple. Then around 4:30am he politely asked everyone in line if he could be the 1st to get his iPhone at the store and everyone said yes.

Of course, while Wozniak was talking people out of the precious spots in line, Jobs was collecting their money. The Apple CEO always manages to come out on top.

[via Business Insider]

There's an innocent explanation: His digital-music startup, Project Playlist, which recently scored a deal with EMI, has its offices in a downtown Palo Alto building shared with Facebook. But that doesn't explain why our tipster, who spotted Van Natta twice today, saw him walking from that building to another Facebook office. Could be a coincidence. Or it could be that Van Natta, who remains close to Facebook executives like Chamath Palihapitiya and Dan Rose, is up to something.

A tipster reports spotting the two:

On my way down the elevator, I was stopped on the 5th floor and in walk Roy Bostock and Steve Ballmer. Kind hellos were exchanged. As we entered the lobby they both walked out and seemingly proceeded to lunch together.

An odd couple. Bostock, an adman who now runs Yahoo's board of directors, and Ballmer, the shouty head of the software giant, have spent most of the past year badmouthing each other after a merger deal worth $45 billion fell apart. (Microsoft badly wanted Yahoo's search business, so it could better compete with Google; but Yahoo wanted more money and less uncertainty, since any merger might take a year to get past regulators.)

At one point, a Microsoft flack called Yahoo's recounting of how the deal went down as "revisionist history." Bostock, meanwhile, testily defended himself at Yahoo's last shareholder meeting. And now they're back together, smiling and lunching?

The first conclusion one might jump to: Bostock, having filled Yahoo's CEO chair with a seatwarmer, is ready to cut a deal with Microsoft. Ballmer has already said he'd like to negotiate a deal with Yahoo, and soon. But why would Bartz, a hardcharging, tough-talking sort who formerly served as design-software maker Autodesk's longtime CEO, take the job if she was just going to see the company sold?

A more innocent possibility: Bostock and Ballmer may have agreed to talk as soon as Yahoo appointed a new CEO, and they happened to both be in New York at the same time.

A more disturbing scenario: Bostock is trying to negotiate a sale of the company or its search business behind Bartz's back. A clumsy move, but Bostock, whom many Yahoos regard as an ineffectual "empty suit," might just be stupid enough to try it — in which case Bartz will have to spend her first months battling a rogue board chairman rather than fixing Yahoo's urgent problems. She would do well to oust Bostock, at any rate; as grateful as she might be for the job, Bostock has been a disastrous chairman for Yahoo, from his mishandling of the Microsoft negotiations to his foolish appointment of Yahoo founder Jerry Yang as CEO.

And there's one last twist: The place where they met. Time Warner has long been interested in unloading AOL, its troubled Internet unit, on Yahoo — but only at the right price. And Microsoft might still want to strike a search deal with a combined AOL-Yahoo. Was the popular midtown-Manhattan location just coincidence — or were Bostock and Ballmer also paying visits to AOL's parent? Tips are welcome.

Here's why I think it's really the actor. It's not the autobiographical details, like a love for Austin or Blue Moon beer, which any pretender could have looked up online. It's the sheer ordinariness of Wilson's Twitter feed which feels real:

Of note:

• The account was sporadically used in April and May, then went all but silent until November. A classic adoption pattern of real Twitter users.
• A faker would publish a fantasy version of Wilson's life via Twitter. Instead, the "tweets" — Twitter messages — are relentlessly mundane, discussing beer and replying to other Twitter users. Most real tweets consist of banter with other users rather than actual information.
• The most recent message notes that Wilson has installed software to help him use Twitter better. He has not tweeted since then. Again, classic Twitter!

The regularity with which she appears in the society pages is astonishing, particularly for a Google exec (where this sort of public display of materialism is considered very ungoogley). And despite the materialism, she never manages to pull it off well (this is a common after-work look for her where she pairs a funky/loud top with standard black dress pants, and it rarely works). At least she isn't wearing the same outfit as Sloan.

All true, dear tipster, but last we checked, Marissa has hundreds of millions of dollars in Google stock, a penthouse apartment at the Four Seasons and the nouveau-riche gumption to rent an entire movie theater for her birthday. And we don't. Can the rest of you come up with a better caption? Do so in the comments. The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: kfury, for "Shhh! I'm reading about the keynote!" (Photo by Drew Altizer via SFLuxe)

We kid, of course. What this really confirms is what we knew all along: DeWolfe is a wannabe Hollywood type; rather than a hit movie, he has a hit website. Or had. It's precisely when stars begin fading that they begin prime targets for the paparazzi. MySpace has seen better days. As has DeWolfe. That he's hanging out with the likes of Hilton tells us all we need to know about the future arc of his career. It reminds us, in fact, of the idea of Yahoo merging with MySpace. Yes, that once seemed hot, too.