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With all the coverage about Bill Gates' "departure" from Microsoft last week, a few of the stories contained some fascinating details -- not so much about Gates, but on the wonderfully unique entity that is Steve Ballmer, that occasionally rage-prone bear of a software executive who also evidently has a soft spot for Hollywood musicals.

Source: Microsoft

Of course, vast amounts have already been written about the eccentricities of Microsoft's bombastic CEO, but I'm happy to add to the genre with a few amusing (and telling?) factoids from the company's Town Hall meeting last week:

- Ballmer's interview with Gates and Paul Allen took place over dinner with Gates' parents.

- Ballmer considered quitting a month into joining Microsoft: "Jeez, I just dropped out of business school to come to a 30-person company as the bookkeeper."

- Ballmer's favorite movie: "Singing in the Rain"

- Gates and Ballmer first hung out together at a double-feature of "Singing in the Rain" and "A Clockwork Orange." Apparently, Ballmer also got into a fight with a fellow student after the movie, and it somehow fell to Gates (!) to fend off the attacker. File under: Truth being stranger than fiction.

A blast from the past

Yahoo is poised, in just a few minutes, to begin accepting registrations for @ymail.com and @rocketmail.com e-mail addresses.

That's all well and good. But I really hope this isn't seriously thought of as a maneuver against Google's ever-growing Gmail.

In fact, it seems obvious to me that the people most likely to adopt a Ymail address are... Yahoo's existing users. Oh, and spammers.

They're not going to win any of Gmail's users, that's almost certain. Unless, of course, they're looking to snap up an additional "vanity" address. Because, for some reason, they can't do so on Gmail... or on one of the hundreds of other free services out there. And because they either are unwilling or incapable of registering their own domain name.

Thus, Yahoo seems to be targeting a market that cares a little -- but not much -- about their personal brand. The kinds of folks who aren't willing to spend a dime to stand out, but who crave individuality. And evidently, they're expected to find it on the world's largest Webmail service... along with millions and millions of others.

I quote from the announcement: "People can finally say goodbye to CutiePie4Ever80 or mattclark1977@yahoo.com and get a new Yahoo! e-mail address at ymail.com and rocketmail.com."

Of course, getting your hot new e-mail address depends a lot on timing. After all, saying goodbye to CutiePie4Ever80 means little if you're late to register your shiny new ymail.com address... and have to suffer the ignominy of settling for CutiePie4Ever80@ymail.com.

Amazon.com, the Web's largest e-commerce site (well, not counting eBay) and a bellwether for the entire Internet industry, is experiencing technical difficulties.

Everyone, you are now cleared for mass hysteria.

Still Down.!!!!!!!

Still down. Rats. Any catastrophic event in Seattle?

Could have been DoS'ed? (denial of service attack)

This is what happens when you sell pre-orders of the MGS4/PS3 bundle.

Those are just a few samples of the user reactions on Digg.

It's not clear what the problem is. Amazon's seller forums carry only a terse statement from the company, calling the outage an "Un-Planned Event" [sic]:

We are currently investigating an issue that has impacted the availability of the Amazon.com website. Engineers are actively engaged in resolving this issue and we will provide an update once the issue is resolved. We appreciate your patience during this time.