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Madden video game event forced to call an audible
Turns out tiny Madden, Miss., isn't quite as small as Microsoft's Xbox team thought. In a publicity stunt for Madden NFL '07, the company and Electronic Arts staged a huge celebration in the town Tuesday and announced plans to give everyone in Madden - population 74, Microsoft believed - a free Xbox 360 game console. But that number came from an initial count given to Microsoft by Madden Postmaster Bulus Leflore, based on his understanding of the population in the main part of town. But many more people have Madden post-office boxes and therefore consider themselves Madden residents. When Leflore checked his records, he found that there are actually 93 residential post-office boxes. However, Microsoft left the postmaster with only 74 consoles to give out. That promised to put him in a tough spot. He said he wondered if Microsoft might be inclined to send out an additional 19 consoles to make sure every post office box holder gets one. That's what the company says it will do. "Obviously this is a different play than we came to the line with, but we're going to call an audible and make sure they all get an Xbox 360," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said.
It's not all paradise for workers in the Keys
A new survey shows three out of five tourism workers in the Florida Keys plan to leave the island chain during the next five years, mainly because they don't make enough money to live there and hurricanes pose a threat every summer. The Monroe County Tourist Development Council reported that about 65 percent of Keys workers plan to leave by 2011. That's about 8,000 workers in all and, based on past statistics, would mean a net loss of 3,000 workers. The study released Tuesday also said nearly 20 percent of hospitality workers plan to leave the Keys this year, and 15 percent already commute from the mainland. Tourism accounts for 54 percent of all jobs in the Keys and generates about $2.2-billion a year.
Other chatter
INDIAN SOFT DRINK BAN: Several Indian states on Wednesday insisted they would continue to ban the sale of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo soft drinks even though the federal Health Ministry dismissed allegations that the beverages contained pesticide residues. At least seven Indian states have banned sale of soft drinks made by the Indian subsidiaries of Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. at schools, colleges and government offices after the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi said the levels of pesticides in the drinks made them unsafe for humans. The southern state of Kerala went even further, imposing a total ban and asking the two companies to shut plants there.