Switch to digital TV gets sporting chance
When the House of Representatives voted last week to switch television broadcasts from analog to digital signals, it also voted to provide converter boxes to consumers without digital televisions.
Although it still requires Senate approval, the measure calls for the switch to occur Feb. 17, 2009.
Not coincidentally, the date was selected to fall two weeks after the Super Bowl and a month before the widely watched men’s national collegiate basketball tournament.
Gates, Buffett fund kids’ learning bridge
Poker may be all the rage with middle-school kids, but the two richest men in the country are betting a million dollars they have a better card game to offer young people: bridge.
That’s contract bridge, the four-player card game whose popularity peaked a half-century ago and is now played largely by senior citizens, country clubbers, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett.
The two billionaires are passionate bridge players who compete in tournaments and online under the names “Chal engr” for Gates and “T-Bone” for Buffett. Now they want to fund a program to teach bridge in schools.
Pastimes of the 1950s are already being revived among kids: Poker is popular, and schools have turned to ballroom dancing to teach teamwork.
Now Gates and Buffett have hired Buffett’s bridge partner, Sharon Osberg, to start a program to teach contract bridge in middle schools.
They’ve anted up $1 million to fund it.
Employees’ films highlight office party
If you think your holiday office party was fun, consider the way employees celebrated at Denver-based McClain Finlon Advertising.
As part of their eighth annual holiday film festival, nine teams scrambled to create short holiday-themed films in less than half a day.
The company-wide screening took place during the afternoon, and the winner was chosen based on applause.
“We’re still really busy with client work during this time of year,” said marketing manager Nicole Hebert. “It’s not like everybody can drop everything they’re doing.”
The first-place film, “Office Space,” spoofed the close quarters workers shared this year as the company grew. It featured, among other things, four employees sharing one fork during lunch and two employees being housed in the kitchen refrigerator.
A bit of U S West and Dick Cheney trivia
Down memory lane: Vice President Dick Cheney served on the US West board of directors in 1993-94. The company later merged with Qwest.
At the time, Cheney was a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, and also sat on the boards of Lockheed Martin and Procter & Gamble.
Cheney was tapped to run Halliburton, the Texas company that builds, cooks and cleans for the U.S. military, and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Tis the season for friendly calling
No “bah humbugs” here.
When the chief executive of one of Colorado’s largest corporations calls you on the phone, you’d better be ready to wish him “Happy holidays.”
That was the message from Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert, who advised a reporter last week to “stop being so serious” during the holiday season.
Message to Dick: The news never sleeps, man.
Note to self: Be more cheerful on the phone,especially talking to the guy who runs the dial-tone factory.
