Hey, kids, it's time once again to check in on Mike Dell and the state of his dangerous copycat obsession with Steve Jobs! When last we examined this fascinating phenomenon, Mr. Dell was trying hard to channel the very essence of Steve by appropriating elements of last January's Expo Stevenote; three weeks after Apple's iCEO-for-life discussed the continued viability of the personal computer and its evolution as the hub of the modern digital lifestyle, Mike was off in London telling anyone who would listen about how "the PC will remain central to people's lives" as "the center of an entertainment system." So what's Mikey got in store for us this time around?

Well, as faithful viewer Dave Rose points out, CNET recently reported that Dell plans to cut 1700 jobs due to the cooling demand for personal computers. Granted, that sounds more like Motorola emulation than a theft of one of Apple's moves, but Dave raises a very important question: "Are they beleaguered yet?" See, we figure that since Mike's follow-the-leader approach still hasn't garnered his company the elusive b-word that was once synonymous with Apple Computer, he's started to color outside the lines. Never mind that Apple hasn't laid anyone off in years; Mike wants Dell to be called "beleaguered." He needs Dell to be called "beleaguered." And if axing 1700 jobs is the way to do it, then by golly, let the pink slips fly!

Unfortunately, the media still hasn't taken the bait. Just take a look at the Associated Press article on Dell's recent woes that faithful viewer GORDYmac sent our way. It certainly doesn't lack an abundance of negative words and phrases: "reductions," "reorganization," "lower expectations," "layoff," "challenging," "slowdown," "sluggish," "hiring freeze," "reduced demand," "limited," "shutting down," "warned," and "diminishing" all appear somewhere on the page. But "beleaguered"? Nope. And you can bet that Mikey's chewing his own legs off in frustration right about now.

It's no secret that, in this effort, at least, we wish Mike Dell all the success in the world; in fact, we've been lobbying for the widespread use of the phrase "beleaguered Dell" for over a year now, and we have faith that sooner or later, Mike will accomplish his greatest goal. After all, Apple's not the only high-tech company to win the "beleaguered" tag from the media at large; heck, even Microsoft pulled it off once. So we're pulling for you, Mike! It's only a matter of time.

Call it "sour grapes gone obsessive," if you will, but ever since we, your friendly AtAT staff, finally came to terms with the cold, hard truth that we will never own a Titanium PowerBook G4 (well, at least not until Apple has released six or seven successors to the current model), we've been engaging in a mild degree of relief when certain "imperfections" come to light. Don't get us wrong; we love the new PowerBook, and we want it to sell millions of units. But hearing about its little flaws helps us rationalize our otherwise lamentable titanium-free state.

It started with little things, like the single FireWire port; our Pismo has two, so we're obviously much better off. (Never mind that we own exactly zero FireWire devices in the first place-- one, if you count the camcorder.) And no expansion bay? Heck, we can swap out our Pismo's DVD-ROM drive with a Zip drive, a CD-RW drive, or even a second battery. (Never mind that we don't own any of those things, either.) And then came the truly scary news: the Mac Observer reports that if you pop a DVD into the drive of a PowerBook G4 and then tilt it "90 degrees to the right," horrible grinding sounds emanate from the unit, apparently from the spinning disk coming into contact with part of the casing. Well, that's a deal-killer if ever we heard one, because right now, we can watch Apocalypse Now as it's meant to be seen-- with our Pismo turned on its side. Yes, we daresay we can screen our entire DVD collection sideways with impunity. Thank goodness we didn't go titanium!

But actually, even the no-watching-movies-sideways limitation of the PowerBook G4 pales in comparison to the latest quirk to catch our attention. Few things freak us out as badly as sudden, unexpected discharges of static electricity. Sure, when we were kids, it was lots of fun shuffling our feets across the shag rug and zapping unsuspecting siblings and house pets. (Okay, we didn't really do that to the house pets, because that would be cruel. But the siblings, on the other hand, got smacked down on a regular basis.) These days, however, with crucial computer equipment humming around us on all sides, an accidental zap sends us into palpitations as we wonder what piece of expensive circuitry we've probably just fried. So far we've been lucky, at least in terms of actual physical damage, but we're paranoid enough that every cracking shock against the case of one of our Macs takes a year or two off our lives.

Which means that we probably wouldn't live to see next year if we owned a PowerBook G4. According to a report over at The iBook & PowerBook Page, the new unit's titanium casing apparently attracts static electricity like a lightning rod. Worse yet, the shocks are neither infrequent nor harmless; while the article's author doesn't report any permanent physical damage, he does note that when he accidentally zaps his PowerBook "near the keyboard," the whole system crashes hard, requiring a forced restart. Now, we know we'd find that experience more than a little harrowing, and at every post-zap reboot we'd have our hearts in our mouths waiting to see if the system would come back up, or if we now owned a 5.3-pound titanium paperweight.

So, we've got one more reason to delude ourselves into thinking we're happier with our Pismo than we could ever be with a PowerBook G4. For those of you "unlucky" enough to have Apple's latest model, however, apparently the static problem abates significantly if you don't wear shoes. We're serious. Just think of it as one more small step in the Steve Jobs World Domination Master Plan: keeping the faithful barefoot. Just you wait-- the new iMacs are probably going to crash every twenty minutes unless the user is wearing a black turtleneck...

Good lord, it's just like Lucy pulling the football away; Macworld has an "exclusive" story on how Apple is supposedly "considering" attending a Mac-themed trade show in the United Kingdom again. If you're rolling your eyes in disbelief, we can't say we blame you; after all, we're been here before. Many, many times.

Apple's history with UK-based expos isn't exactly sunshine and lollipops. Let's see, here... First, Steve and company pulled out of Apple Expo '98 when the show's organizers tried to make the event cross-platform. We can't entirely fault Apple with that decision. Then Apple Expo '99 got "postponed" by Apple, who instead committed to making Apple Expo 2000 the biggest, baddest event ever. But then came the topper: Apple committed to a huge presence at Apple Expo 2000, complete with one of those patented seat-filling Stevenotes-- and again, bailed at the last minute. (It turns out that Steve decided he'd rather keynote at Internet World instead, which was scheduled for the same week. Of course, then he bailed on Internet World, too-- reportedly because he felt the ceiling at the convention center was too low. You can't make this stuff up!)

So here's the latest in this saga of "fool me four times, shame on my parents for dropping me on my head when I was a child": apparently "Apple US and European personnel" have been engaged in active discussion with MacExpo Events Ltd about the possibility of attending a second European Mac-themed show to balance the Paris Expo, which was reportedly too "French-centric" for many UK Mac fans. Last year, UK exhibitors threw down their own independent Mac show, sans Apple, called "The Expo 2000," and it was a success, drawing over 10,000 attendees. Its sequel, "MacExpo," is slated to take place in late November-- and this time around Apple might even show up. But if you put any money on it, we need to have a little talk about your trust issues.