While the fireworks were great, the most important thing that “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart elicited out of CNBC’s most famous stock jester, Jim Cramer, was the admission of using the malleable press to float fictional rumors about companies in order to make money on the negative news.

While Cramer at first tried to deny he did it, Stewart had the videotape of the “Mad Money” host talking about the practice, specifically in regards to Apple.

Kind of puts all those Steve-Jobs-Is-Dead-Right-Now rumors from a few months ago into a new light?

While we all know Jobs has been quite ill, grave-dancing rumors written without any serious reporting have also been a troublesome issue, because it was clear greedy short-sellers played a large part in stoking the fear about his immediate demise back then.

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With Macworld out of the way, a chunk of the crack All Things Digital squad is now winging its way both east and west to the annual gadgetopocalypse in Las Vegas, a.k.a. the Consumer Electronics Show.

Despite the fact that the show is feeling the pinch of the economy and that there are really no big products to speak of, CES is still one of the biggest and most important gatherings of the tech year.

Las Vegas turns into a geek moshpit every year, as legions of vendors, buyers, press and others converge to be overwhelmed for days by noise, long lines for cabs, keynotes, demos and more (like the Pussycat Dolls).

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You knew it was coming, of course.

Since the blogosphere couldn’t actually kill him off–deeply lazy and incredibly wrong in insinuating that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was dying imminently–it turned around yesterday and declared him a liar for not saying he had a “hormonal imbalance” sooner.

Of course, Apple has also played along in this bizarre game, along with its defenders, who have all tried to pretend nothing is wrong with a man who clearly looks like he has had the stuffing knocked out of him because of his long-running health issues.

Since the facts of the matter seem dead on arrival, get Marcus Welby, M.D., stat!

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Even without Apple CEO Steve Jobs, there will be copious amounts of live coverage of Macworld’s keynote by Apple SVP Phil “No-Black-Turtleneck” Schiller all over the tech sites online in T-minus nine hours and counting.

And, guess what? All Things Digital will be there too, with the intrepid reporting duo of Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski on text and our Webmaster (and not-so-secret Mac fanboy) Adam Tow on photos.

The $23.45 question: Will the not-prone-yet Jobs make a surprise cameo appearance?

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BoomTown is not saying it’s going to be like watching grass grow.

But 2009 is not exactly getting off to a rousing start this week–with two underwhelming blockbuster tech events taking place that already have more of an air of whimper than of bang to them.

That would be the Consumer Electronics Show, the annual egregious gadgetfest in Las Vegas, and the final appearance by Apple at Macworld.

Of course, while CES tries to fend off the spate of no-one-is-going-to-CES stories–well, I am!–the absence of his digital Holiness and Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld has really generated most of the glumness.

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Boomtown extends apologies to the late Francis P. Church, who penned the original “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” editorial in the New York Sun in 1897. But with a little rejiggering, his eloquent words work perfectly as a translation for Apple’s press release about its withdrawal from Macworld yesterday, which doubtlessly shook the Apple faithful to the core. Oddly enough, it matches up surprisingly–and a little disturbingly–well. Thus, here’s a little holiday inspiration to help those poor souls make it through these darkest of days.

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The prospect of no Steve Jobs keynote and Apple’s last year at IDG’s annual Macworld Conference & Expo is sure to do five things, none of which are pretty. An era is surely over, but what comes next is anyone’s guess.

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While we usually feature our cartoon dudette and dude–Nitrozac and Snaggy–from Geek Culture’s Joy of Tech in Voices now, there was one leftover comic about Apple’s Macworld that deserves special attention.
That’s right: The Macworld Expo Survival Kit (gas mask optional!).
Click on the image to make it bigger:

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When BoomTown was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, I followed my partner-in-tech-crime Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret around the floor of the famous gadgetfest with my annoying video camera (truth be told, I am the irksome one and the camera simply my tool of choice).
And because Walt is so [...]

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Here is the second video installment of Walt Mossberg visiting Macworld yesterday, trailed by the very brave Associate Editor John Sullivan of AllThingsD.com, who gamely borrowed BoomTown’s Flip video camera to take on the momentous task.
In this episode, Walt visits various partners of Apple’s, including Microsoft and, apparently, Dr. Seuss.
In the wise words of [...]

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Kudos to AllThingsD.com friends and Voices regular comic geniuses at Joy of Tech (see the latest one here) for getting in Steve Jobs’s keynote at Apple’s Macworld yesterday.
Webclips, one the the new features of the iPhone announced yesterday by his iHoliness, showed one of JOT on the display Jobs used.
Hey! Facebook makes the cut! But [...]

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The annual love-in to All Things Steve Jobs, oops, we mean Apple, opens this week in San Francisco. Of course, the punditry is in high gear over what precious object his iHoliness will pull out of his pocket in 2008.
Or, apparently this year, out of the air, which is some sort of super-duper-double-secret-probation object or [...]

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