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We were already off for the day when we heard the news. You already know it, of course, because it spread like a virus. Steve Jobs, dead, at 56.

The very first computer I ever touched was an Apple ][, it’s a pretty common statement among people my age. I used to walk down the block to my friend’s house and we’d play video games all day. It’s funny to think of now, but in the early 80s, Apple dominated the gamer’s market, and that lead didn’t vanish until the Apple Board of Directors fired Steve and decided to go their own way. Probably they had good reasons, because everyone’s heard how the man could be a total jerk, but without him the company sort of floundered. They still had some great concepts, like the handheld Newton and the early Powerbook, and we all know that twenty years later those ancestors would evolve to the backbone of the Apple line. But without Steve’s magic, nobody seemed to care, and all those cool ideas were just for nerds...

People have talked about Jobs and his “reality distortion field” many times. Maybe it was some magic power he picked up in the 60s. But more likely was that Steve was a rare human being, a person who was comfortable with the computer world AND had an innate understanding of what it meant to be cool. And this is why, when Steve came back to a weakened Apple, he made a tiny change that instantly reworked the brand. He brought style.

If you’re touching a computer right now, and it isn’t a hazy beige, you owe Steve Jobs a debt. If you aren’t typing command line, you owe Steve Jobs a debt. If you started programming in Applesoft BASIC, or if you’re happier without a floppy drive, or if your computer looks like a part of the room instead of some looming outsider, you definitely owe Steve Jobs a debt. And that’s not even getting into his many other fields of interest.

We know as well as anyone that your brand is only as much fun as its marketing. We certainly try to be honest in our writeups, but our first goal is to entertain, because that’s what people like the best. Steve Jobs seemed to understand that nobody watched TV for pure information, and if you didn’t give them a story, they’d just wander away. Compare these two ad campaigns and you’ll see clearly the difference the man brought to his company.

That’s perhaps what was the most amazing thing about Steve. He didn’t just shake up one field, he shook up them ALL. Take a look at the coverage all around the net, or the feelings he’s generated on Twitter, or the stories on various blogs or magazines. Each one starts the same, and then talks about something different. “Steve changed movies” and “Steve changed education” and “Steve was about design” and “Steve brought accessibility” and “Steve changed the music industry” and so much more. Rarely can a person be eulogized in so many different ways and have them all be correct.

You can’t say the Internet is in mourning today, because most of us didn’t lose a friend. We’re jaded, we’ve seen it all, we know Steve saw us as dollar signs in a ledger. But if that’s so, please pass the offering plate again because no one more deserved our money. Steve used those dollars to push technology, design, usability, and interaction, and even the hardest, most cynical PC users are still grudgingly admitting that Steve Jobs died too young, and that he could have done more.

Steve Jobs, without you, we probably wouldn’t be in the tech industry, and @Wootlive would have nothing to say on Twitter. Thank you for what you gave us, and thank you for what you changed, and we hope you maybe noticed our jokes and our praise, and it made you smile at least once or twice. You gave all of us here so much more than we can repay. Rest in peace.

What have Steve Jobs and Apple meant to you over the years? Let us know below...

Hey, Steve. Woot here.

So we heard about your resignation as Apple's CEO late yesterday and, we've gotta tell you, we're still a little shaken by it. Not that we didn't see it coming, of course. It's mostly because we really didn't have any jokes prepared for it. Rutledge says we're gonna have to take a pay cut for that little oversight. Looks like we’ll all have to buy the really cheap Ramen for a while. Again.

Look, we know we've had our little differences, Stevie. Sure, we poked fun at you, your products, your company, and your wild, quirky ways A LOT over the years or made mockery of your "Stevenotes" on Twitter. But it was all out of love, buddy. Well, let's say 95% of it was, anyway. So, if you don't mind, we'd like to take a moment to say thanks for all the things you accomplished that turned out pretty cool:

You convinced the music industry to finally start thinking digitally, allowing millions of us the joy of carrying our music collections on our hips.

You took back the black turtleneck back from the beatniks and made it into an icon.

You made it possible for our bosses to shackle us with your pocket-sized electronic leashes that make it nearly impossible to escape work-related communication during our off hours. Okay, so maybe that was Blackberry's fault, but you did it with sass.

You transformed the way CEOs deal with the press.

You may or may not have successfully killed your Ninja Master's assassin during a trip to Japan.

Your company released new iPods and iPhones almost every year, ensuring that we always have a refurbished version to sell on our humble site.

You made tech sexy and sleek, and turned a nation of people who spent most of their youth hiding from bullies in computer labs into uppity elitists who giggle condescendingly when they see someone with an Android device.

Oh, and one more thing...

You were the underdog that dreamt and innovated his way to being top dog. No matter what, no matter how much static you got from tech bloggers, competing companies, or even your own company way back in 1985, you did things your way. It's really no wonder that you were made Chairman of the Board after your announcement yesterday. After all, you've been the Frank Sinatra of Silicon Valley for a long time now. That deserves a respectful tip of the hat in our book.

And here at Woot!, a respectful tip of the hat means embedding a photo montage set to Apple's 1984 theme song "Breaking Through" that we found on the Internet into a blog post.