The recount continues ... on eBay

Other Palm Beach election crisis detritus recently glimpsed on eBay: The domain name pregnantchad.com, going for $20; a Palm Beach County poll worker brochure (complete with "a special message from Theresa LePore, who designed the now World Famous Controversial 'Butterfly' Official Palm Beach County, Florida Ballot that put our Nation's Presidential Election History on hold") -- a steal at a mere $5.99; and a batch of "I Voted Buchanan on Purpose" memorial pins. (Not to mention any number of newspapers sporting the infamous "Bush Wins!" headline.)

Sure, the lucky bidders may actually cast a vote on that pricey butterfly ballot (perhaps in a sentimental throwback to those golden moments of November 4) but we wouldn't recommend it: Today's garbage, after all, is tomorrow's treasure. -- Janelle Brown [2:20 P.M. PST, Nov. 21, 2000]

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Ho, ho, ho: Santa Claus endorses George W.

Santa Claus is a Republican -- and Florida has him really pissed off right now. That's right, simply type www.santaclaus.com into your browser and you'll see no visions of Christmas cheer, no fat guy clad in red and white. Instead you'll be bounced to a lawyerly screed titled "The Rule of Law or the Rule of Whim?" And what does Santa have to say? Simple: The Florida Supreme Court must certify Bush's victory and end the hand count in Florida lest there be a "constitutional crisis."

Such online shenanigans are hardly new to the election-frenzied Net. But liberal-leaning Web surfers may be disappointed to discover that jolly old Claus has decided to let partisan politics invade his Web site. "This is not the Santa I remember," noted the Salon reader who alerted us to the site's existence. Surely it must be some kind of "dirty trick."

Pshaw! It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Santa Claus is and has always been a member of the GOP. Mrs. Claus is a stay-at-home mom -- no Hillary Clinton fan she. And let's not forget the sorry lack of union representation enjoyed by Santa's elves -- all of whom work long hours for low pay. And all that talk of "you better be good" -- obviously law-and-order claptrap, a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" approach that ignores all the kids without boots! Personally, I always knew the old white male was shady. After all, in 1982, good old St. Nick failed to bring me that Atari 2600. Bastard. I'm just surprised he and Charlton Heston haven't killed Rudolph yet. -- Damien Cave [11:55 a.m. PST, Nov. 21, 2000]

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Pay-to-play polling

The day after the election, President Clinton quipped that the people had spoken but we would have to wait a while to find out what they'd said. Now the legions of spammers who afflict the Net have invented a way for the people to speak, and pay through the nose for the privilege. Since Election Day, our in boxes have filled with slimy pitches innocently labeled "Poll Question: Who Should Be President?" That's right: "Your suggestions could help now and in future elections." All you have to do is dial a phone number to register your views with this "independent polling company." Scroll down far enough and you discover that "there is a charge of $1.99 per minute to leave your opinion."

Sniff a rip-off? Au contraire, sayeth the spammer: It's "a very small price to be heard and to have an opportunity to influence the voting process now and in the Future."

Moral: Speak out -- but read the fine print first. [6:51 a.m. PST, Nov. 21, 2000]

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There's something fishy at Pets.com

Ten top executives at Pets.com could split a kitty of as much as $1 million if they stick around to shut down the dot-com that they ran into the ground, Bloomberg reported.

CEO Julie Wainwright and CFO Paul Manca could each receive as much as $225,000 for cleaning up the mess that they and the other top dogs made at the defunct pet portal.

The money for the "retention bonuses" will come out of whatever funds are generated by the sale of the company's assets. Talk about an incentive to wring a high price from the sale of the sock puppet.

But a company spokesperson noted that there's no guarantee there'll be any money left over for equity investors. In other words, the bozos who lost tens of millions trying to sell dog food over the Internet will reward themselves, while finding one final way to screw their investors. [4:20 p.m. PST, Nov. 20, 2000]

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The new dope peddler

There's a lovely new tidbit of jargon winging its way around Wall Street: "crackberry." Financiers and future Gordon Geckos use the term to describe their Blackberry wireless e-mail devices. The hand-held, pager-size gadgets are apparently far too addictive to be called by any other name.

The moniker will probably never appear in an advertisement -- crack is still a dirty word in some circles -- but the nickname must be considered good news at Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the device. The company's stock is trading at over $100 per share, so traders aren't just ponying up several hundred dollars for the devices; they're also investing in the dealer.

You've got to wonder, however, if the gadget deserves all the credit. Wall Street has always attracted addictive personalities: Maybe the Blackberry is just the latest in a long line of preferred fixes. The only remaining question is how long this obsession will last. Don't forget: E-commerce companies once looked addictive too. [1:41 p.m. PST, Nov. 20, 2000]

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Steal this billboard!

Congratulations, Contentville, Women.com, E*Trade and Support.com! You have been liberated. The infamous Billboard Liberation Front has reportedly struck again, this time "improving" 13 billboards on U.S. 101 between San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

At some point Sunday night, Windows-like "fatal error" messages mysteriously appeared on the billboards, declaring the advertised site to have an "Invalid Stock Value" and offering the option to "Abort," "Retry" or "Fail."

In a press release announcing the "advertising improvement offensive" on northbound 101 in Redwood City, the liberators accused investors of "falling prey to irrational under-enthusiasm" for Net stocks, and trumpeted the error messages as a "pro bono" effort to help out the woefully undervalued stock prices of the "much maligned 'dot-coms.'"

The press release -- which issued from the e-mail address "lies@billboardliberation.com" -- quipped: "The Pets.com sock puppet was not available for comment." [11:54 a.m. PST, Nov. 20, 2000]

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How low can you go? The dot-com striptease

Poor little dot-commers with their limp stock prices.

The purveyors of "gentleman's entertainment" at Boys Toys, a North Beach strip club in San Francisco, have taken pity on the suddenly cash-poor HTML set. Last Friday, anyone who could produce a dot-com business card before 10 p.m. got in for free. It's come to this: dot-com night at a strip club. And you thought it was bad enough that Net-heads already had their own restaurant.

The fare was strictly generic strip: long-legged, long-haired, almost-naked dancers sliding up and down and around fireman's poles while docile patrons sipped weak drinks and stared googley-eyed. But at least one geek, with the telltale cellphone on his belt, was more captivated by technology than the bump and grind of the lap dances going on around him. Oblivious, he stared entranced into his Blackberry, pausing to show off its many features to his friends.

Perhaps Boys Toys is uniquely positioned to capture the growing market of down-and-out dot-commers. After all, it's a public company, trading under the inevitable symbol GRLZ, currently enjoying a dot-com-like stock price of just 21 cents a share. [11:25 p.m. PST, Nov. 20, 2000]

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Wanted: Stressed-out dot-commers

Dot-com downturn getting you down? Afraid to take a new job because you'll no doubt be laid off after only two weeks on the job? Never fear -- the Mouse is coming to the rescue. Disney is reaching out to the insecure dot-commers of the world. After all, unlike all those shaky new-economy start-ups, Disney is "a company with a more solid financial backing & benefits."

So goes the recruiting pitch currently being e-mailed to journalists who work for Web concerns. The company appears to be looking for a managing editor to oversee its series of not-so-entertaining entertainment sites like Mr. Showbiz.com and Movies.com.

Can Disney turn dot-com turmoil into its own corporate asset? Who knows -- some might find it hard to argue that Go.com will offer anything close to lifetime employment. But if nothing else, it's clear that the tables have turned. Once upon a time, words like solid and stable signified slow growth and no riches. Dot-coms poached employees from companies like Disney by promising fast times and oodles of excitement. But now, stability is bringing those wanton adventurers back into the fold. What's next? Job listings that brag about letting people wear gray-flannel suits? [8:30 a.m. PST, Nov. 20, 2000]

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