Getting the Finger. Has Wendy’s in San Jose has been serving extra beef in its chili? On March 21 this year, a patron stuck in her thumb and pulled out a plum, er, finger that so far no one has claimed. Wendy’s hasn’t been forthcoming about which finger, but if you’re missing one you might want to give Wendy’s executive office a call. Late Word. It seems our finger finder might have planted the wayward digit.
Google This! Annualized eps hit a whopping $5.16. Guess what its p/e ration is? Well let’s see, you take its share price of $223 (+-) divided by annualized eps of $5.16 and you end up with something like 43 times earnings. And here we thought that bubble had burst.
SPAM Comes to Broadway! Thought it was only in your email? Think again. Hormel, the maker of that canned delicacy we have grown to love, is sponsoring Monty Python’s Spamalot at the Schubert Theater. Hormel is not alone of course. Other products from credit cards to car wax to tequila are ‘spamming’ their way onto the great stages. Will the gallant steeds in Aida at the Met soon be wearing banners, looking more like NASCAR entries than proud opera mounts? How long, I wonder, will it be before high-school plays attract sponsors? And censors?
My Pyramid. The new food pyramid unveiled this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, besides being abhorrently complicated for all but the food police, now has stairs. I’ll stick to chocolate and wait for the escalator version.
Negative Debt Outlook. Huh? Isn’t debt always negative? Fitch Ratings, the debt rating gurus, revised its Berkshire-Hathaway (as in Warren Buffet’s little group from Omaha) debt rating from stable to negative. What does stable mean? What does negative mean? Why does it have to be so confusing? Investment professionals should already know whether it’s good, bad, or ugly so for schlubs like you and me, why can’t Fitch call a turkey a turkey and be done with it.
In the Toilet. We can all applaud American Standard for coming up with Champion, a toilet that never needs plunging, but Champion? Would that be World Champion or Best in Show or Gold Medalist? And suppose you’re the one in charge of Champion, what do you say to people who ask what you do? You know, sitting in first class winging your way to National Flush Trials in Bumsville, MN when the beautiful person in the next seat leans over and whispers in your ear. Do you lie, or plunge right in. Groan. Hey, don’t give me any crap—if you don’t like it, make up your own.
The Wiener Man. George Molchan, who for decades drove his twenty-seven-foot Wienermobile in parades and around malls across America, died April 12th at age 82. At a memorial service, the Wienermobile was parked near his grave and mourners sang a chorus of the Oscar Mayer jingle and blew short blasts on hot dog-shaped whistles. I didn’t know George other than from TV, but I’ll bet he liked the send-off.