The Mike Dell PsychoWatch Team has been on full alert recently, forwarding us every little move that might be construed as further evidence that Dell's fearless leader is in fact so obsessed with Steve Jobs that he faces the possibility of total personality breakdown as he continues to copy Steve's every move. The last major example of this self-destructive behavior surfaced a couple of weeks ago as Dell issued a recall of 27,000 laptop batteries because one had caused a Dell notebook to burst into flames-- a move eerily similar to Apple's infamous PowerBook 5300 Flambé recall some five years earlier. The question now isn't if Mike will eventually suffer a total mental collapse and retire to a clock tower to start picking off bystanders with a high-powered rifle, but when. We just want to know so we can be far, far away when he finally snaps.

Meanwhile, however, dozens of faithful viewers (the first of which was Thomas Diehl) noted another puzzling twist in this plotline a few days ago. Not two weeks after Dell's 5300-ish battery recall, rival Wintel manufacturer Compaq upped the ante; according to a CNET report, Compaq has recalled 55,000 of its own laptop batteries, thus more than doubling Dell's numbers. And lest any of you think that Compaq's recall is simply a consequence of using the same batteries as Dell, Compaq's flammable batteries are made by Sony, while Dell's were made by Sanyo. Two completely different battery manufacturers making dangerously combustible laptop batteries and prompting recalls from two completely different PC manufacturers within the same two-week time frame-- if you think that's a coincidence, you need a nap and a purer grade of the crack you've been smoking.

What's interesting, though, is that most viewers who have pointed out this so-called "coincidence" feel that Compaq (or, more specifically, its CEO Mike Capellas) is infected with a lesser strain of the Steve-itis that afflicts Mike Dell. Not so, true believers. Look at the timing-- Mr. Dell has worked long and hard to bring his psychosis to such an advanced and dangerous phase. He started out just harmlessly aping the iMac and iBook, remember? So what are the odds that Compaq's Capellas launched right in at such an advanced degree of the syndrome-- and a mere two weeks after Mike Dell pulled his flammable laptop stunt?

No, the answer is obvious: Capellas isn't obsessed with Steve, he's obsessed with Mike Dell. Ladies and gentlemen, we have layers upon layers here! So now Mike Dell will continue to copy Steve's moves, good and bad, until he runs his company into the ground and his head implodes, while Mike Capellas will copy Dell until Compaq suffers the same fate. It's a terrible tragedy, to be sure, to see so much sickness running rampant-- but hey, at least the competition's going to get a lot thinner pretty soon. See? There's an upside to everything.