Dell's Michael Dell, EMC's Joe Tucci, Oracle's Larry Ellison, AMD's Hector Ruiz and Intel's Paul Otellini, drunk on power and hubris made the most upsetting corporate ad I seen to date. Even the poor Linux penguin is debased in this flick, but Larry jumping out in gold armor is priceless.

Someone in Dell marketing is going to get fired, because if this was meant to be viral I want a vaccine. A shiny nickel if you can sit through the whole thing.

[youTube]

Hell Jesus. Why did Intel go and change all of its product names? The Conference Fonzie has never seen so many X's and J's and L's in the same words before, and frankly, it frightens him. What's with all these women wandering around the show floor of this year's Intel Developers Forum? And what's this newfangled Tamiflu processor? Perhaps these kind fellows here selling these hand-held video cameras have an idea what's going on.

CF: Where's the damn Geek Challenge?

Booth Dood: What?

CF: God dammit man, I'm in a hurry. I've got a noon meeting with Otellini, and I can't keep him waiting? Point me towards Intel's main booth!

Booth Dood: Sorry, sir, I've no idea what you're talking about. Would you like to buy one of our video cameras? 10 hours of footage captured on 2 Gigs of memory card!

CF: Dear God, you're just making this shit up, aren't you?

Camera in hand, the humble Conference Fonzerelli wandered from booth to booth, passing up weird vendor names, like Aptivus, Viramune, and Merck, desperately searching for some sight of sanity. Everyone here was washing their hands obsessively in the bathroom, and the primary schwag on the floor consisted of pens and giant pads of sticky notes emblazoned with logos down the sides. This was no ordinary Intel Developers Forum. This was clearly some sort of strange, otherworldly palace of transdimensional computation!

Wait a minute. Wasn't the Developer forum over in Moscone West? The ConFonz seems to be in Moscone South! Sweet merciful Buddha, how did I get into this terrible fake conference, and where did this shoulder-bag and badge come from? And why wasn't there any food in the fucking press room!?

Soon, the light of understanding fell upon the brow of the addled king of the technology conference scene. This was not, in fact, the Intel Developers Forum. This was the annual ICAAC meeting, and god knows what that acronym stands for. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica folks selling their books down at the end of the South hall couldn't explain the letters. And neither could they explain the usefulness of their long obsolete product.

But why were there so many clearly commercial booths here? Why sell cameras to microbiologists? And why is everyone here talking about AIDS and birdflu? Holy Zarathustra, this place is shrinking and closing in. Escape must be attained quickly!

And escape was had. Across the street and around the corner, the ubiquitous emperor of expos found the registration desk for the IDF, at long last. Inside the expo floor, everyone chowed down on the near-top quality Moscone chow. The wildly experienced ConFonz had never seen so many different selections from the Moscone menu served at one time. From wraps and fajitas to salads and cakes, to the Asian food in the press room, Intel obviously couldn't settle on a single food type for this event. Too bad they did settle on limiting the coffee a bit. Still, it was flowing freely in the massive press room. Incidentally, the locks on those press laptops? Combination = 0000. Take one home with you! The ConFonz did! These are free, right?

And the schwag is pretty nifty too! Ah, basking in the warm glow of Paul Otellini's rotund form, the ConFonz finally understands: Everything is going to be OK. The world isn't being sucked into some strange and indescribable vortex of nonsensical names and colorful sticky notes. In fact, it's being quickly jerked towards the beer taps and plastic wine cups of an evening Intel booze bash on the expo floor. God help us all. Oh, and Otellini: nice shoes!

• CrunchBiz, the newest title from the TechCrunch blog network, went prematurely live today with some blank test posts after the bloggers at Supr.c.ilio.us outed it. Now the site (which is the B2B-centric blog I thought would launch last week) displays a South Park splash image, which is sadly the coolest thing we'll ever see on it. Love the favicon though. [Supr.c.ilio.us and CrunchBiz]
• Tony Brummel finally repents of his petulant e-mail to Apple honcho Steve Jobs. [Idolator]
• Mom, I got in Slate (and the Journal)! Writer Daniel Gross explains why Yahoo's short-notice forced Christmas vacation (which we revealed here) is an "idiotic" cost-cutting measure in light of the money this company throws around daily. [Slate]
• Intel's CEO says YouTube, not satisfied with shelling out about two million dollars a month in bandwidth costs, will eventually go to high-definition. Speaking at the Intel Whatever-the-hell Forum today, Paul Otellini goes on to say that YouTube is inspiring technology to move videos from the computer to TV. When was the last time you and your family curled up in the living room for a good hour of Lonelygirl15? [Bit-Tech]

CEO Paul Otellini and his fellow execs get to announce this and other fun details after Labor Day, when they'll unveil the next step in Intel's plan to get "leaner, more agile and more efficient." Of course, if someone leaked those details to tips@valleywag.com, maybe the suits would feel a little sting on Tuesday.

Plan at Intel May Include Many Layoffs [NYT]

So even though Sun and Microsoft are partners, Scott McNealy still hates Bill Gates. For the record, here's where things stand:

McNealy hates Gates. (But he'll smile for Steve Ballmer.)
Oracle's Larry Ellison hates Gates more. If they get too close, Larry will actually chew on Bill's face like a rabid dog.
Gates hates Steve Jobs.
Jobs loves Intel's Paul Otellini, but he can't stop hurting him.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin love the whole world. Honest.

Tech Humor [SFGate]

CNN's headline "Apple ads make things awkward for Intel" refers to a commercial introducing Intel-based Macs. (It's on TV, but you can watch it on YouTube.) The ad presents Apple's new Macs as saviors of Intel's chips, which have been trapped in "dull little boxes." Some of us call these boxes "most of Intel's client base."

Intel's acting all supportive, with its spokesperson saying, "We're pleased Apple featured Intel in the ad." Seems pretty obvious that Apple would feature the product it was selling. This is like George Lucas saying "I'm pleased I got into the credits for Star Wars."

"We think it's a cool ad," says Intel. Sounds like "I, uh, fell down some stairs." Intel must be gritting its teeth. Why go through all this abuse?

By taking this humiliation, Intel pissed off its biggest dull-little-box-making client. Dell is switching its laptops to AMD chips. Podcaster Leo Laporte thinks Dell's making a dumb move, tech-wise, and that it's more of a "screw you" from Dell to Intel.

Intel didn't know about the Apple ad before it debuted, but Intel CEO Paul Otellini agreed to wear a cleanroom bunny suit when he met Steve Jobs onstage at MacWorld. Oh, Intel, you poor thing. You can't get help until you admit there's a problem.

UPDATE: Hey there, Digg users! There's more Apple commentary under the Steve Jobs tag, which has its own RSS feed. And you can check out the front page. Hell, we even have a tag for Digg founder Kevin Rose (and a feed). Finally, you can enter the Flip Trifecta and predict whether Digg will sell to Yahoo before Odeo does.

Apple ads make things awkward for Intel [CNN Money]
This Week in Tech: No Comments [Leo Laporte]
How to recognize and tackle abuse [Help the Aged]