[ Business World....]

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Oct 19, 1999

A golden leash?

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Ebit Wachner, the Yorkshire terrier belonging to Linda J. Wachner, the boss of both Warnaco and Authentic Fitness, would be the first to benefit if Linda Wachner's plans for merging the two companies went through. Wachner said last week that she would use her $47.9 million proceeds from the deal to further cancer research and to buy Ebit a new collar.

In an apparently paw-written note to a reporter on Ebit Wachner's personalized stationery, signed with a paw print, Ebit herself expressed appreciation last week for the publicity given these plans, adding, "Now I'm certain to get my new collar on time."

The Juggs run in Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- With a bus painted Pepto Bismol pink, a driver named Bubba and a couple of imitation leopard-skinned jackets, sisters Sheri Lynn Nichols and Brenda Kay Wilkins are living out their dreams, performing together in a self-penned show described best as Hard Copy meets Hee Haw.

Two years ago, they dubbed themselves the Jugg sisters and started Nash Trash tours. Billed as the wackiest tour in Nashville, the Juggs sing, dance and deliver "the dish on stars like Reba and Trish" while hauling patrons on the most unlikely of routes through the underbelly of Nashville. It's definitely not your basic Gray Line tour. "It's the National Enquirer on wheels," Brenda Kay says. Just call it two girls, two wigs and a dream -- "not unlike many stories you hear in Nashville," Sheri Lynn says.

With their Southern accents, bright makeup and a serious fixation on the color pink, the Juggs take center stage behind their driver before a capacity audience of 19. The two-act, 90-minute show is a corn pone mix of music and comedy and just enough truth to make you wonder. "We're so over-the-top crazy, people ask us all the time if we're making everything up," Brenda Kay says. "But we're not. In this town, you don't have to."

Time is on our side?

BOSTON (NYT) -- A recent e-mail about the differences between Woodstock `69 and `99 has been making the rounds. Here are excerpts:

* 1969: three-day ticket for $18; 1999: three sodas for $18.

* 1969: three days of peace, love, and understanding; 1999: three days of pay-per-view for $89.95.

* 1969: Firing up a joint during the show; 1999: Burning down the joint after the show.

* 1969: Kids didn't want to fight in Vietnam; 1999: Kids can't spell Vietnam.

* 1969: We are stardust; 1999: We are Starbucks.

The worst on the Web

NEW YORK (AP) -- Want to make the most of your life? Consult a Web site to find out just how much time you have. If you enter your birth date and gender at www.deathclock.com, you will get your projected date of death. If you were born, say, on March 16, 1969, and male, you will die on Dec. 26, 2042, based on average lifespan. That's less than 1.4 billion seconds away.

The Death Clock bills itself as "the Internet's friendly reminder that life is slipping away." It is one of the seven worst Web sites identified in the upcoming issue of P.O.V. magazine, which hits newsstands today. The magazine describes the sites as "so achingly baa-aad that they are actually good."

The Death Clock is not exactly scientific -- it does not consider family history, smoking habits and other factors that actuaries take into account -- or even foolproof. Some combinations offer this: "I am sorry, but your time has expired! Have a nice day."

P.O.V., a monthly targeting young male professionals, also picked 100 good sites. No. 1 is www.broadcast.com, which offers Web simulcasts of radio and TV stations from around the country.

Top (or bottom) on the magazine's "Unmagnificent Seven" is a site that provides the address of a female prisoner for $4.95. Another bad Web site, www.hamsterdance.com, features animated rodents doing "the hamster dance." America Online, the service used by 18 million subscribers, earned a mention for a home page, www.aol.com, that was deemed overly simple. There's also a porn site that traps visitors and forces them to other porn sites if they try to leave.

Need more? P.O.V. suggests www.worstoftheweb.com, which reviews bad sites each day.

Rainbow of hues

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (NYT) -- It has been a long time since IBM stopped requiring employees to wear dark suits and white shirts, but it is still something of a shock to see Big Blue producing computers in hues including Mars Red Metallic, Terra Green Metallic, Eclipse Blue Metallic, Lunar Gray Metallic, Sirius Red, Andromeda Green and Polaris Blue. But those are the actual color options for IBM's new Thinkpad i-series 1400 portable computers.

The 1400-series portables come in a traditional IBM black case, but they have snap-on covers in what IBM calls seven "bright but classy" colors. The covers cost $29.95 each. One can imagine using the black Thinkpad Monday through Thursday, and adding Mars Red or Polaris Blue for dress-down Fridays. In another design innovation, the new Thinkpad 1460 and 1480 models ($2,199 to $2,399) also have an illuminated keyboard that makes it easy to type in a dark meeting room or on an airplane at night.