This article on C-Net really suprises me. It claims that women account for more than half of the on-line gaming. Interesting. I would not have guessed it. Somehow I know few women personally who game, although I do have an addiction to on-line spades and euchre at Iwin.com (formerly Playsite.com) and you do encounter a lot of female players there I guess. The fact that I was so suprised is why the headline. I don’t really think I am sexist in any significant way.

Today Google announced Google Checkout. If you already use the adwords program as an advertiser, you can actually process transactions for free, or if you don’t the transaction fee is 2% and $0.20 per transaction. That makes it very competitive with Paypal. Worthy of a look if you do business on-line. You do not need to be an ad-words advertiser to use the checkout system.

Well I need to sell my barefoot boat so that I can buy a different boat for the family. This boat is fantastic for barefooting, slalom skiing and general driving around a lake pretty darn fast. It planes out sweet.

Scoble, soon to depart Microsoft himself just broke the news that Bill Gates is stepping down from a full time role at Microsoft. Wonder what he is planning. We’ll know soon enough. I wonder if it is distract us from the delay in production on Vista.

Update: there is a press release that talks of a two year phase out to July 2008. So the news may be a bit overstated by the Scobelizer. It starts out thus:

REDMOND, Wash. — June 15, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that effective July 2008 Bill Gates, chairman, will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates’ daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company’s chairman and an advisor on key development projects.

Wandering around ZoomBlast this morning, a new video aggregation site I guess you might say. Came across this funny little homemade ad for Firefox web browser.

While Australians almost never use the stereotypical Crocodile Dundee flavour of Australian English, It seems Microsoft have seen a pressing need to adopt “dinky-di ‘Strine” (translation: native-born Australian spoken English) in the Australian version of Office 2007.

According to News.com.au “Words such as g’day, sickie, jackaroo, dag, dinky-di, ute, sanga, wuss and cooee were among the list of words selected by a panel of Australian experts, who considered them to be most relevant to everyday Aussies, Microsoft said.”

A panel of Australian experts??? Who on Earth were they? Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin? Was Microsoft paying by the hour? Is Microsoft satisfied with the manufactured outcome that it sanctioned?

As an Australian resident for most of my years (I migrated from the US at age 2), I can reliably attest to Microsoft being waaaaaay off base on this one. While “g’day” is a common form of the greeting “good day” and a “ute” is simply a “utility vehicle” (pick-up truck), most of the other words are not spoken by Australians in every day life. Or “any-day life” for that matter! It makes us cringe to hear words like “bonza, ridgy-didge, dob, galah, cockie, onya, and motza”, but fortunately we only hear them in media targeted at US and UK audiences.

Microsoft you’ve gotten it wrong again, and now you’re embarrassing yourselves as well as the “fair-dinkum Aussies” that you want to sell your product to. Crikey!

Wow that was a good one. Watching Jimmy Kimmel live and he gets bit by a snake and taken off in an ambulance. It was done in a way that we sat here wondering if it was real until we realized what he was up to. He then interviewed the Dr. from Grey’s anatomy from his fake hospital bed. It was funny but it actually had you wondering for a minute if he really got bit. Well done bit.