Microsoftie Excels At Writing Bad

Some catching up to do here.

A Microsoft employee has won the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. In its 23rd year, the competition seeks to anoint the author of the worst-written prose of the year.

This year's winner is Dan McKay, reportedly a "43-year-old quantitative analyst for Microsoft Great Plains" and resident of Fargo, N.D. For his carefully-crafted bad verbiage, he gets 250 clams and bragging rights at San Jose State University, which sponsors the hotly fought competition. Oh yeah, and a TON of international press attention. McKay was reportedly traveling in China and unreachable when the news was announced.

The winning entry? (You know you wanna hear it.)

"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual."

Insert Beavis and Butthead chortle here: "Heh. Heh. He wrote BOSOM."

As impressive as that prize is, other Microsofties had a more profitable few weeks. Bill Gates raked in some big dough selling off some Microsoft shares. Gates reportedly brought home a cool $421 million offloading about 16 million shares in late July, early August. Robbie Bach, Jeff Raikes and Jim Allchin sold lesser amounts of stock, according to SEC filings.