Only a dollar off?

You must admit that this isn't a bad price.

Defeated by the ... Geminis?

Suppose you want to see how certain members of Congress voted on a particular bill, say, the recent Stem Cell bill. Well, the Washington Post has a site that lets you do that.

You can see how many Democrats voted for it. You can see how the votes break down by state, by gender, and by a few other factors.

One of those factors is by astrological sign. Really.

I like it. But why stop there? Why not list members of congress by hair color? Height? Favorite ice cream flavor? What award you got your senior year in high school?

President Bush's veto of the Stem Cell bill was not overturned by Congress. While the measure was close, the "Most likely to succeed" group all voted no to overturning the veto, cancelling out strong support from "Best sense of humor" and "Most likely to end up in Congress and/or Jail."

Easier than the real thing

Ever wanted to design and build a miniature golf course? Turns out it's a lot of work. But I've become a fan of the golf game at Orbitz Games. (Basically, Orbitz is a site owned by several airlines that lets you find and buy airline tickets, hotels, etc. They charge a $5 booking fee for airline tickets booked through their site. So why not just use Orbitz to find a ticket you want, buy it directly from the airline's web site, and sabe $5? Because that would take $5 away from Orbitz Games, that's why?

Anyway, in this golf game, you design your own hole by choosing a perimeter and dragging and dropping obstacles onto the hole. Then, about a week later, your design is released to people playing on the site, and they rate your designs. The best holes will be part of an 18 hole course that will no doubt pop under your browsing window when you least want it to.




So yeah, I'm kind of ambivalent about Orbitz, their fees, and their popunder ads. But does that mean I can't love the game?

Please don't pick me!

Don and Shelly Cruz won the $1 MM HGTV Dream Home last year. They got a house worth $1.75 MM. (Maybe it's the "$1 MM adjusted for inflation dream home?) They got a car. And some money.

According to an article in Money Magazine (June 2006, not online), they spent most of the money. And now they owe $672,000 in taxes. There's a good summary here.

It looks like there was some discussion of the issue on HGTV's web site, which has been removed (and even uncached.) Nice.

As long as people get excited about non-cash prizes, companies will keep offering them. But when will people figure out that paying 40% (in taxes) of the price of something you don't want isn't a good deal?

At least some people are smart enough to turn them down.

But Level 3's CEO is alive and well ... thanks for asking!

The problem with having silly names like L3 and Level 3 is that people get very confused.

There was an incorrect media report today stating that Level 3's CEO had passed away. The report was in fact incorrect and CEO Jim Crowe is well.

L-3 CEO dies; shares surge

This kind of makes me sad.

Shares of L-3 Communications moved higher Wednesday in heavy trading after the death of top executive and founder Frank Lanza as investors mulled the defense contractor's direction, including a possible takeover, without an immediate successor named.

The funny comic

Dave introduced me to The Comics Curmudgeon. Which is funny. I normally don't read the comments, because there are so many of them, and all of the commenters follow the comics like Mary Worth is about to reveal the meaning of life.

But I read them today, because the Curmudgeon guy (Josh) linked to some stuff his commenters did.

One of the commenters asked what was happening in yesterday's Sally Forth.

Can someone explain what happened in Sally Forth yesterday? In the first panel Sally and Ted are in bed, in the second panel Sally is continuing her sentence but Ted is at the office on the phone and in the last panel they are back in bed. What the hell is going on?

Just idle chatter by someone who takes comics very seriously, and doesn't realize that Ted works for a teleportation manufacturing company. Duh. Anyway, 21 minutes later, the guy who writes Sally Forth responds with a detailed explanation. The answer: He messed up.

That's just much, much funnier than the actual comic.

And it officially makes me a fan of Francesco Marciuliano, who writes (but, as can be inferred from the error in the comic above, does not illustrate) Sally Forth. Turns out he also has a much edgier comic called Medium Large.

And he often makes fun of Sally Forth on the blog. Maybe Sally Forth will run off with the guy from Medium Large when she has her passed-over-for-the-promotion-induced midlife crisis?