"Mathieu made a lot of money last year," said Lerner, "and he wanted to start applying it to some type of social purpose. Mike is a very funny guy -- he has progressive values, but also a very dark, competitive streak. We thought it would be twisted to really use free market rhetoric against payday loans, as a way of demonstrating how as a society, converting short-term financial pain into long--term financial pains isn't good for our citizens."

So, making a satirical web site is serving a social purpose? That seems tenuous, at best. The payday loan industry won't care and the poor folks who rely on the predatory lenders won't see it. Seems like he could be using his Microsoft windfall on something more tangible.

If so, I don't know how you stomach the storylines they've cooked up for Heigl. Talk about unflattering to women. The idiocy of the Denny and George relationships turned me off Grey's for good. I guess her integrity doesn't extend to not starring in crappy TV shows.

I'm chagrined to hear that the movie deviates so far from the book. When I heard that Will Smith was going to star, I figured they wouldn't be making the movie version of Neville anything like the book, since Hollywood has to tendency to make their movie star leading men the hero, regardless of how it perverts the source material. I always wonder why the powers that be bother sticking a book's title on a movie that bares little resemblance to the original.

I don't think Will Smith is a bad actor, but he suffers from the same problem as his good buddy Tom Cruise, they effectively play themselves. I find that in most every movie I've seen that has starred either of them, their "movie star"-ness overwhelmed the character they were playing.

We were also frustrated by the mountain of mailings from groups we donated to each year. I found an organization called Network For Good through which you can make donations to lots of different charities anonymously. There is a fee, but it has helped us cut down on charity junk mail and we feel good about continuing to contribute to the organizations we believe in.

We received one as a present last year. It was entertaining for about 4 or 5 weeks. We barely harvested anything despite scrupulously following the directions. The cilantro, as others have noted, was the worst. We did get a bit of basil, but nothing much else. The bulb stopped working and customer service promised to send another one, but we never received it. We cleaned it out and boxed it up and never used it again. Maybe it was our water was too hard? I didn't have any problem growing herbs in plastic pots and dirt this summer. Anyway, we're hoping to find it a good home soon.

I have sympathy for David and Nic as human beings, but haven't we heard all of this before? Ad nauseum? Another upper class kid screws up his life and mommy or daddy writes about it and the reviewers fawn over their amazing story! And, the kids are all so freaking special and intelligent and gifted. Mom and dad did a few things wrong, but they can't figure out why their precious, special child could ever go to such a dark place. Spare me.

Album at the top of the charts, tour dates this summer at the Hollywood Bowl, United Center and Madison Square Garden. Not bad for a band that's supposedly fallen into obscurity.

If having unimaginable wealth while working yourself to the bone brings you happiness, then I guess they are living these guys are living their dream. It sounds kind of depressing, to me. The story about the Facebook dude and his girlfriend sounds awful. I wonder if she'd stick around if he wasn't a gazillionaire? I also have to wonder about what it is that these folks are creating. All this effort and hard work to produce something like Facebook. I don't know what it is, but I find these Web 2.0 guys not very inspiring other than their ability to build crap that people will spend obscene amounts of money to acquire.

Seriously, if I had any interest in babies, this would be an interesting career choice. Imagine what idiot celebrities would be willing to pay for high end baby planning services.

To Anne in NYC, letter-writers who offer their opinion about the silliness of this service doesn't equal "sour grapes". Newflash, not everyone wants to emulate the wealthy.

If the rural/Appalchian folks are so self-reliant and distrustful of government, why do a significant number of them rely on government assistance? Sorry, but something doesn't compute here. I've seen and read interview after interview where folks in poor, rural areas talk about how government doesn't do enough for them, then they turn around and vote for someone like Bush who wants even smaller government. It's insane.