PALO ALTO (CNN/Money) - Could there be something in the water in Houston?

First, of course, there was Enron. Then, Hanover Compressor, featured in this column in February, had to restate revenue.

The latest: Seitel, the energy company that's also a software purveyor and librarian of seismic data used by other energy concerns searching for oil. Little Seitel (market capitalization of $228 million at Monday's close of $9.11) made a doozy of an announcement Monday, its deadline for filing its 10-K annual report.

Here are the highlights. It'll re-state a total of $68 million in revenue over two years because it has "chosen" to adopt a series of more conservative accounting policies. Its chairman and CEO is in discussion with his board about amending his compensation agreement so his bonus is tied to earnings instead of revenues. It is in violation of some of its banking agreements. Oh, and Seitel SEI isn't saying a peep about its future performance other than that it will be profitable in 2002.

Other than that, everything is hunky dory.

In fact, Seitel's conference call Monday with investors was a model of confusion. Chairman and CEO Paul Frame said the re-statement -- a reduction of revenues by 22 percent -- would clear up a number of issues. Instead, analyst after analyst struggled to figure out what was going on. Seitel made two significant changes in how it recognizes revenue. It will recognize them more slowly, effectively waiting until customers choose which of Seitel's information it will use. And it will change how it recognizes revenue from contracts to buy and sell data for its seismic-data library.

Those may be steps in the right direction, but there's still a lot to wonder about. For example, Seitel brags that its "non-cash" revenues -- which "some of you refer to as barter transactions," said Frame -- accounted for only 13.4 percent of overall revenues in 2001 and that a third-party firm has verified the value of those revenues. That reported 13.4 percent, however, is up from 5.3 percent and 7 percent in the previous two years, according to Seitel's 10-K. And "non-cash" revenues account for nearly half of Seitel's deferred revenues, the balance-sheet item that suggests what future-year results will be.

Of course, given the -- shall we say -- dynamic nature of Seitel's historical results, who knows what the new numbers really say about the future?

An angry reader named Jack didn't like the article here last week suggesting that investors remain too enamored with technology stocks. Disagreement is good. That's how our convictions get solidified, by rigorously debating them.

RECENTLY BY ADAM LASHINSKY       STOP. LOOKING. AT. TECH! In favor of corporate McCarthyism Turning points

But Jack took things a step further by accusing me of dealing with readers in bad faith, a not uncommon charge from the foam-at-the-mouth crowd. "Could it be that you or somebody you know has interest in 'shorting' the stock?" he wonders. "It has become apparent, especially since the Enron mess, that conflict of interest is alive and well in the investment community. Humor me, tell me why you felt compelled to write your article today, and why we should give you the benefit of the doubt."

Okay Jack, I'll humor you. I wrote that article that day because it was the best idea I had. Other than shares of my own employer (AOL Time Warner) or the employer of one of my family members, I don't own any individual stocks. And if one day I do, I'll disclose that in my column. Does that mean I'll never be wrong? No way. It does mean I've got no agenda other than that of journalism. Period.

Send email to Adam at adam_lashinsky@timeinc.com.

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