Fun_People Archive
29 Feb
WhiteBoardness - 2/28/96

Date: Thu, 29 Feb 96 14:20:21 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: WhiteBoardness - 2/28/96

Excerpted-from: WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, February 28, 1996
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Dallas, Texas:

A California dad who began entering cooking contests to pass the time after
his divorce became the first man to win the grand prize at the Pillsbury
Bake-Off Tuesday, a bounty that reached a record $1 million this year.

Kurt Wait, a 43-year-old business analyst from Redwood City, California,
and the single father of an 8-year-old son, was chosen from among 100
finalists nationwide for the top award in the Superbowl of amateur cooking
fests.

Wait flashed a big smile and rocked onto the toes of his sneakers as his
Macadamia Fudge Torte was proclaimed a $1 million recipe on national
television.

Judges said Wait's dessert -- a 460 calorie-a-serving dentist's nightmare
involving devil's food cake mix, canned sliced pears, sweetened condensed
milk, chocolate chips and butterscotch-caramel-fudge topping -- was picked
out almost immediately as a top contender.

Several compared it to the legendary Tunnel of Fudge Cake, which came out
of the 1966 Bake-Off to launch the bundt cake craze.

Part kitsch, part chemistry, part king-sized publicity stunt, the
47-year-old Bake-Off has been celebrating home cooking for so long it has
become an American institution of sorts.

Every two years, to the accompaniment of an orchestra and under the
beneficent eye of the Pillsbury Doughboy, 100 amateur cooks march into a
ballroom full of kitchenettes to whip up a cookbook full of recipes using
products manufactured by Pillsbury and its various subsidiaries.

The competition, which generates tens of thousands of entries each time it
is held, is believed to cost Pillsbury about $2 million a pop.

"I kind of have to get over the shock of this," said Wait, who was one of
10 men in the finals.  Until Tuesday, he said, his biggest prize in a
cooking competition was a $500 second place in the Gilroy Garlic Festival
three years ago.
==========

"I didn't get my job by being smart, you know.  I got it by being incredibly
sexy."

Barbara Walters, joking after making a gaffe at a party celebrating The New
Yorker magazine's special women's issue.
==========

Omaha, Nebraska:

Warren Buffet hasn't gotten a raise in 15 years, but don't expect to see
him waiting in line at Price Club.

As CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet had a salary of $100,000 last year,
the same as he's received every year since 1981, according to a proxy
statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

The proxy also disclosed that Buffett owned 479,202 Berkshire shares at the
end of 1995, about the same as a year earlier.

What's different is Berkshire's stock price.  The shares are up 56% the past
year at $34,700 per share Tuesday.  That puts Buffett's net worth at $16.6
billion, moving him ahead of Microsoft's Bill Gates as the world's
wealthiest business person.

Last July, Forbes magazine dubbed Gates wealthiest with a net worth of 12.9
billion.  Buffett was second at $10.7 billion.

Both men have seen their holdings rise since then, but Buffett's net worth
has risen faster.  In a proxy filed last September, Microsoft said Bill
Gates held 141.2 million shares of Microsoft shares, which would put his
current net worth at about $14.1 billion.

On top of his salary, Buffett received $224,100 last year in director's
fees.  Buffett sits on the boards of several companies in which Berkshire
holds a large stake.
==========

Fast News Forum:

A Filipino sprinter embroiled in a long-running sex-change dispute stumped
the country's sports officials by competing in provincial athletic meets as
both a man and a woman.

This year's flooding in Oregon forced federal, state and local officials to
cancel "Quake-X '96" -- a major emergency management drill on how to handle
the aftermath of a massive earthquake or other natural disaster.

Three Billerica, Massachusetts, teens were arrested after they videotaped
themselves ransacking a house and bragged about it, police said.  "They
weren't the sharpest tools in the shed," police Inspector Frank MacKenzie
said.

In Monroe County, Florida, commissioners are considering a proposal to ban
people with noticeable body odor from public libraries.

A 5-year-old boy jumping on his bed bounced out of a window on the third
floor of a Medford, Oregon, apartment building and survived with only minor
injuries.  Soft bark in the landscaping cushioned his fall, officials say.

[There seems to be a real need for tool-sharpening in the ol' shed all across  
the country...  -psl]
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© 1996 Peter Langston