’Ow Is Eet You Play Zees Spess Invaders?
Deconstruct this one, gamers: The French are buying Atari. With all of the fanfare of Gérard Depardieu scarfing down a brioche, the Lyons company Infogrames will this month gobble up Hasbro’s stake in the pioneering video-game company. But the buyer pledges not to shrug off plans for updates of Atari games like Pong, Missile Command, and Centipede. “We’ll take care of your Atari brand,” assures Infogrames’ Yves LeGris. “We were on your side during your independence war. We’ve been allied in two World Wars. We’ll help you with Atari.”
My Fake Career
Graduates of eleven small New England colleges recently received a schedule of spring “networking” evenings, where “distinguished alumni speak about their careers.” Appearing May 1: Rodney Rothman (Middlebury ‘95), the former Late Show writer who caused The New Yorker to run an emphatic “clarification” to “My Fake Job,” his inventive (and partly invented) tale of sneaking into a dot-com. Should Middlebury be quite so proud of this guy? “The timing on that is certainly interesting,” admits a Middlebury career counselor. “We had no idea this was going to happen.” But “he’ll definitely be there.” Unless he spends the evening crashing Yale’s alumni night.
Yeah, But We Still Don’t Have to Wear Ties
Selected headlines appearing between December 22 and 28 in the Silicon Alley trade journal AtNewYork.com:
BID4ASSETS SELLS LAST REMNANTS OF BOO.COM
FACING DELISTING, BIGSTAR INITIATES STOCK BUY-BACK
DOT-COM JOB CUTS HIT NEW RECORD
STICKY NETWORKS NO MORE
XCEED’S CHAIRMAN RESIGNS AMID RESTRUCTURING PLANS
SILICON ALLEY OVER? HOMEY DON’T THINK SO.
Dog Days of Winter
The post-holiday letdown is tough on everyone – especially pets. “Cats and puppies turned in after Christmas account for about 40 percent of the animals surrendered to public shelters,” says Marguerite Howard of the Bide-a-Wee shelter. Unwanted gifts, though, are just one problem. “Pine sap and poinsettias are toxic to cats and dogs,” Howard says. “Turkey bones splinter. There are reports of animals biting into glass ornaments, and even being electrocuted after chewing the wires on Christmas-tree lights.” Yet another reason to be relieved when the tree finally comes down.