Expos DC bound?

ESPN is reporting that DC is likely to be announced as the Expos new temporary home soon. The temporary is supposed to make it easier to deal with recalcitrant Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

Meanwhile, it looks like MLB is looking to give away the store to Angelos, who still isn't satisfied. Ridiculous.

Baseball had hoped it could satisfy Angelos by giving the Orioles a portion of the purchase price when the Expos are finally sold, and by helping to create a second regional sports network that would allow the Orioles to continue to televise their games in Washington and Virginia.

Sold for $15,000

Jeremy Wright of Ensight.com has sold his blog for $15,000, including an upfront sale fee and monthly compensation for his continued blogging on business and tech.

Fortunately, Jeremy has good uses he can put the money towards:

But it is enough to pay off my student loans and to take my wife on our honeymoon, as we never really got one when we got married 4.5 years ago. So, for our 5th anniversary we're going somewhere nice, thanks to the sale of Ensight. That's it.

Congrats to Jeremy.

As BusinessPundit notes, Jeremy could be considered a blogrepreneur.

Perhaps the big question is how much is Instapundit worth?

Makeup

Will Baude writes:

To be sure, I can hardly complain about the presence of lipstick that I don't notice.

That, of course, is by and large the key to successful makeup: a girl frequently looks best when it appears she isn't wearing any.

Like Will, I'm not a fan of girls who wear too much makeup. All the concealer and foundation isn't going to change your features, but some girls seem to think it will. Unlike Will, I do think there is a place for makeup.

There are some girls who have pretty eyes, but somehow these eyes are lost in their facial features. The right eyeshadow -- properly applied -- can help highlight and complement some pairs of eyes.

Makeup be an effective form of signaling. A girl who is noticably not wearing any makeup is putting out a certain vibe that she isn't interested in her appearance. That can lead potential suitors to assume that she is not interested in their biddings. So, if she's noticably not wearing any makeup, then she's not playing by the rules of society.

And by not playing by the rules, a girl holds herself back from certain opportunities. I certainly can't cite any studies, but I'm willing to wager that the average professional woman who noticably never wears makeup is handicapping her career. Because she's not playing by "the rules," she's probably more likely to be attributed negative characteristics, suchas standoffish and cold.

Browser wars: Google's army mustering for battle?

According to the New York Post, Google has hired a bunch of people from Microsoft and other tech companies who have worked on programs like Internet Explorer, Java, etc. It also includes this nugget:

Last month, Google hosted Mozilla Developer Day on its campus, a gathering of programmers that work together to build sequels to the re-named Netscape browser. Mozilla, which is "open source" and available to anyone, could be shaped to Google's specifications and be embedded with Google search, Gmail free e-mail and other Google applications.

And in fact, on April 26, 2004, Google registered gbrowser.com.

It makes sense, too. Microsoft is said to be developing their own search engine. If the next version of Windows sets IE7's homepage to be the new Microsoft search, then Google could be in trouble. So, from Google's standpoint, why not take the battle to Microsoft's home turf? Or at least Google can posture like they're going to compete, in an attempt to scare Microsoft away. (This seems unlikely to work. Microsoft doesn't scare easily.)

And of course, I've used Google for awhile, but I'm beginning to ponder a switch to Yahoo or MSN. They're both returning better results than Google lately.

One fly in the ointment: there's apparently already a gbrowser, who might have claim to the trademark.

The story that never ends

Where will Major League Baseball move the Montreal Expos? Apparently the new frontrunner is a DC site on the SE part of town.

Lots of politicians have been pushing very hard for a Capital metro area team, and they don't seem to care about where. There's also other locations under consideration by MLB (Las Vegas, Norfolk, Portland, Ore., and Monterrey, Mexico), but they seem to like the DC area as a first choice, even though Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos is deadset against a DC team.

Initially DC looked like the frontrunner, then that fell through. DC City Council doesn't seem to support the project strongly. According the article, 4 are for, 3 against, and 4 undecided. That's better than previous numbers I've seen.

Arlington and Alexandria were frontrunners at one time, but no longer. Residents didn't want the traffic hassle.

Until very recently, a site over by the Dulles Airport in Loudon County (a bit further out, and not as much of a competition for Angelos' Orioles)

Professional protesters?

Right now, there's only a headline to this article (no story): SOS hires people to protest Lowe's.

You can now hire protesters? I wonder what the market is like for that.

Austin based Schlotsky's to try and come back

Schlotzsky's was once an Austin institution, but now is looking to sell or get an investor to get out of bankruptcy.

Microsoft sharing code?

Rather unusual for Microsoft to share its source code, I think:

Microsoft Corp. announced this week it is making the programming code for its Office 2003 software suite available to government agencies around the globe, a move partly aimed at allowing them to inspect the product for flaws and security problems.

Though Microsoft usually guards such software coding tightly, the step is an extension of an initiative the company began in January 2003 giving about 60 governments access to the inner workings of the Windows operating system. This is the first time the software giant has shared the source code for Office, which includes the Word text processing, Excel spreadsheet, and PowerPoint presentation programs.

Apparently Microsoft has shared some source code before. I'm surprised that this source code hasn't found its way onto the Internet. Or maybe it has, I suppose I don't follow this stuff that closely.

Uhoh and thanks

Thanks to Jeremy for the link, although I didn't know I sound jaded.

Maybe I need to work on my tone...I'm too young to be jaded.

Social security change is needed

Reuters:

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last month issued one of his sharpest warnings yet that [Social Security and Medicare] face a severe long-term financial crunch and need reform.

Yes. Would the government please stop giving away so much of my money to my grandparents?

The World War II generation rocked. They fought fascism and communism, and ultimately beat both. But now these programs are now 40% of the federal budget, and still rising.

My generation will have a hard time being prosperous if we keep voting away our money to senior citizens.