C.K.L.'S HOTSHEET ^*

01 AOL + NETSCAPE = ANALYST FODDER Ask anybody in Silicon Valley (e.g., John Dvorak) and he'll tell you the merger is a wacked-out Bad Idea. For another dime he'll give you directions to the nearest Starbucks.

02 LEGO Like so many other toy manufacturers, they're already planning tie-ins with Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. But aren't those Lego men a little short for stormtroopers?

03 BLACKOUT Nearly a million people in the San Francisco bay area lost power because of human error. So, tell me again why you Luddites don't trust computers?

04 HANDSPRING Cutting analysis from USA Today: "In technology, a start-up getting [John] Doerr [on its board of directors] is the equivalent of a no-name comic in the 1960s getting on The Ed Sullivan Show." Now can we get you to compare computers to cars again?

05 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Next year's Oscar favorite son is not making money in China and has already been pulled from several theatres. Who cares about those crazy white people, anyway?

06 E-MAIL A surge of users sending attachments for the holidays caused unconscionable 45-minute delays in mail delivery on AT&T WorldNet. Whatever happened to tying up the phone lines?

07 PALMPILOT Did you know that your PalmIII can unlock car doors? But not to worry, a defensive flamethrower will discourage thieves.

08 SANTA CLAUS For those of you staying up late on December 24, you can track Santa's flight on the Web. (To Virginia O'Hanlon's archenemies: feel free to continue arguing the contrary position.)

09 WHIPPETS "Some kid figured this out back in the seventies, and this kid should have been involved in the space program, okay? Some kid took the time and the imagination to go down to a supermarket and figure out if you take a whipped cream can container and you press the nozzle on top, just enough before the whipped cream comes out, some gas comes out, you snort the gas (snort), you get high for five seconds. We didn't have MTV-- we had the fucking supermarket! That's what we had!"

10 MICHAEL HUFFINGTON Yup, he's gay. Dianne Feinstein knew, but didn't tell. She's probably seen Seven Days in May a few too many times.