Theater of the Absurd

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 12:01 AM
To: eWEEK readers
Subject: Evil by any other name; to Dell and back

“You guys should consider letting a loan officer set up shop here,” Spence told the pimply faced attendant at the pricey snack bar of his local cineplex. Having ditched work to covertly catch a showing of “The Princess Diaries 2,” El Gato was too busy juggling his expensive edibles to notice he had mistakenly wandered into a theater showing “Resident Evil: Apocalypse.” As the perplexed Puss awaited Julie Andrews visage to arise from the lurching legion of the unliving on screen, the Kitty recalled hearing that the now-publicly-owned Google may have forgotten its mantra: “Dont be evil.” The hosts of two Web sites featuring Google parodies—goegel.be and hoehel.be—claim that the browser barons deemed both sites trademark infringements and have sent letters demanding they be removed from the Web. “I guess at Google, imitation is the evilest form of flattery,” laughed the Lynx.

Appalled by his seating error, Le Chat grabbed his vittles and blindly darted into the next theater. The Furball realized he had tumbled into “Baby Geniuses 2” just as the KattPhones new ring tone blared The Kinks “Celluloid Heroes.” Spence felt several Milk Duds bounce off his head as he took a call from a crony who said Dell may announce a new Axim Pocket PC called the X50 early next month. The crony cited rumors that the X50 will have a 3.7-inch VGA screen, a 624MHz processor, and built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and will offer CompactFlash and Secure Digital expansion slots. The buddy also babbled about other baby geniuses possibly awaiting birth: a new e830 from Toshiba and a Tungsten 5 from PalmOne. The buzz is that PalmOne is skipping the release of a T4 model due to Asian superstitions about the number 4. Its also been speculated that the T5 will have built-in Bluetooth capabilities but will likely use a PalmOne SDIO card for Wi-Fi access, as the T3 model does, said the crony.

As Nonpareils pelted the Puss, he bid his pal adieu and ran to the next theater, which, to his chagrin, was running the thriller “Cellular.” While he wondered why Kim Basinger was in an attic whispering into a phone, he was startled by his BlackBerrys vibration. Several moviegoers quickly moved away from the Mouser as he fumbled around his trousers and eventually pulled out the device. It was a message from a smooth operator that said rumors of a Dell smart phone have resurfaced. Dell said in October that it was putting its Dell phone plans on hold, but, recently, speculation that Dell may yet develop a Pocket PC phone has resurfaced. Several ushers eyed the Tawny Titan suspiciously as he wobbled through the lobby into a theater showing “The Village.” There, he got a call from a mobile Manhattoe who had seen smoke signals from blog fires indicating that Verizon Wireless may soon build out its EV-DO mobile data network throughout New York City. “Well, the movie was lousy, but the coming attractions were great,” cackled the Kitty as the theater staff deposited him on the curb.