Hedgehogging

Hedge*hog*ing v. Interrupting conversations in an office environment by poking your head over the top of the cube.
You gotta love Nokia. Here is a company that is handily the largest cellphone maker in the world, yet it still has the nerve to bring the $750 N95 smartphone to a U.S. market that is dominated by free phones and has not been kind to the Finnish in recent years. Sure, the phone might be cheaper if a carrier picks it up and it includes everything you would need to run your own country, but the current price makes the iPhone look like a deal.
Addendum: Since we really do love Nokia-and since Qualcomm is basically handing back Nokia its $20 million check-and since the edit department could use that $20 million to buy pizza and pledge a portion of that money to an unnamed yet-to-be-determined charity, we think you should give us that $20 million. I mean, the check’s already been written and you know how touchy accountants are about accounts payable and accounts receivable .
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Quarterly reporting season is upon us and you know what that means? More stock back-dating issues. While we hate to generalize when it comes to illegal activities, but it looks like everyone was participating in this stock manipulation scheme. We say, what’s the big deal? No one got hurt and if the worst you can claim for a company is that they fudged some numbers to give their executives some more spending cash, that ain’t so bad. . Not! As an aside, it seems the scandal is slowly eating away at RCR Wireless News’ online editor Mike Dano’s will to live.
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According to a variety of media reports, Sprint Nextel’s CEO Gary Forsee made $21.3 million last year. For those of you keeping score, that number includes $1.44 million in salary, $10.1 million in stock awards, and $8.37 million in options awards (don’t ask me why those numbers don’t add up to $21.3 million). Now here’s some fun math: If you take Sprint Nextel’s fourth-quarter ARPU ($60) and put it into CEO money terms, it took almost 30,000 Sprint Nextel customers to pay for Forsee. So essentially, Gary Forsee is worth 30,000 customers. Isn’t math fun?
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There’s a company called Limbo 41414 (yes, that’s the actual name of the company) that operates a text messaging game called the “Limbo Auction.” Here’s how the company describes the game: “The winner is the person who makes the lowest bid that no other player makes, as opposed to the highest bid.” According to the company, winners have walked away with prizes like a Hummer H3, a Mini Cooper and a plasma TV. Am I missing something? Here’s a tip for all you Limbo Auction players: BID ZERO. Or, if possible, negative infinity.