With the sudden news of 3dfx's CEO departure, we have to resort to crystal balls to figure out what next.

Fortunately, I was able to acquire the services of renowned Sicilian psychic Vito Prudentia, a reclusive, 113-year-old octogenarian who is a Tarot reader for some of the most famous names in Silicon Valley. What follows are snippets of our conversation over the course of a palm reading Mr. Prudentia performed on me at his San Jose drive through soothsayer service.

My questions, as usual, are in Italics.

Mr. Prudentia, I can't say how grateful I am that you chose to talk with us about something as trivial as the fate of 3dfx.

Vito: My pleasure, I have been advising some of the visionaries of the Valley for over ninety-two years and am always available to talk about the plight of the small cap companies. I also have an interesting set of readings on the future of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, if you'd care to discuss them, too.

Ooh, Brad and Jen. Yes, well, maybe offline. I really do think we should be concentrating on 3dfx. Obviously, the news of the departure of the CEO, Greg Ballard, came as quite a shock?

Vito: Not really. I believe that I predicted it would happen at least nine years ago.