Welcome to the fold

The buzz at Rabid Reseller is all about Ultra Mobile PCs after Microsoft unfolded details of its new gadget with the Origami codename recently. Here at Rabid we are somewhat concerned about the arrival of actual ultra mobile PCs, having spent years watching slippery customers turn ordinary laptops ultra mobile as they sprint for the door without paying.

Then again, with wireless access and GPS built-in, perhaps we could track down any errant UMPC and send its new “owner” a gentle reminder in the form of a 50,000 volt SMS signed by the local law and order representatives.

Our main objection to this new breed of PC is the over-zealous use of the “ultra” superlative. If ultra mobile is used to describe a gadget that would only fit into the pockets of Crusty the Clown, what will we call genuine ultra mobiles when they arrive? Über-ultra? Ultra-ultra? Nano-ultra?

The same word could be pressed into service as a prefix for the brain-size of the marketing genius who brought us the Origami moniker. Do you have any idea how many small children have already tried to fold our display laptops into a Kawasaki Rose?

Mind you, they’re not waiting for the actual UMPCs to arrive on the shop floor. Their little eagle-eyes just spot the “same size as a piece of A4-paper” stickers on the notebooks and immediately begin their folding endeavours.

Fortunately the modern notebook is fairly sturdy and most of the ankle-biters admit defeat after only managing to fold the lid down. However, a couple of the tiny-tots must be getting bonus bowls of Nutri-Grain®, or else they’re into Dad’s anabolic steroid stash, because they’ve managed to add an extra crease line to the LCD displays.

That’s usually as far as they get before the “roid rage” sees the notebook flying as gracefully as an Origami crane across the shop floor.

Aside from the choice of an inappropriate name and the continuing problem with the rug rats, Rabid Reseller is keen to start selling anything at all really, as long as it has some margin to offer.

Full-sized PCs now cost more to sell than the punter is willing to pay, what with all the competition from white-boxes, so a gadget that hasn’t yet been reverse-engineered by the wily wizards in South East Asia still holds the promise of profits, which used to be why we operated this shop, according to some archival material from the accountant.

We’ll have to trust his records because nobody working here can remember that distant ideal.

The accountant also explained that “not-for-profit” actually refers to charities which exist to give away everything they earn, in itself an utterly bizarre concept, rather than being a tax-effective operating philosophy.

Once we got that straight we saved a lot of time by cancelling the morning prayers and not stopping work so often to kneel and face Redmond, which apparently isn’t even east of here.

Nobody is sure if we will all be damned to eternity for spending years facing the wrong way towards Antarctica, which we’ve discovered is mostly inhabited by penguins. For some reason Mr Gates isn’t enamoured of the tuxedo-wearing waddlers. Something to do with their liking for no-frills bottles of open sauce apparently.

Gotta go! Customers waiting!