That's what Brandweek informed me this morning. At Adweek, the "backend webserver gave an invalid response." And I thought the holiday parties were wild over there in the '80s. At least the backend's response wasn't "inappropriate." After some Bromo Seltzer, both are back at work.

"Privacy Ends for Kennedy," a front-page article in The New York Times proclaims this morning, and the story goes on to say that Caroline Kennedy's decision to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate will put an end to the "pass" she's been given by the "notoriously rambunctious tabloid press." Tell Steve Jobs about it. All he has to do is say he's staying home from the MacWorld trade show in January and the stories start flying again about his health. "At a conference in June, he appeared gaunt, sparking questions about whether he was suffering lingering effects …

NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solmon did an interesting piece on the cascading effect that consumer pessimism has on our willingness to spend. It's a nearly 10-minute segment that delves into the psychology of bad news perpetuating itself, and is worth a listen. We are in a state of "learned helplessness," one economist posits. When we don't understand the relationship between cause and effect, a famous experiment on dogs discovered, we develop a feeling of helplessness -- even depression - and tend to lie down in our cages even if we know that it will have adverse effects. The …

A 50-page study finds that pharmacies too often fail to provide consumers with needed drug-safety information in the leaflets stapled to their prescriptions, Jonathan D. Rockoff reports. Many fail to specify standard doses or to warn users to stop taking medicines immediately if side effects arise. Others contain irrelevant information such as vitamin promotions or nail-care tips. The Food and Drug Administration says that drug makers, pharmacies and companies that supply pharmacies with safety data need to do more to ensure patients get a full explanation of proper drug use as well as risks and benefits. The National Association …

Alan Mulally, who joined Ford as an outsider in September 2006 from his CEO post at Boeing "hit the ground running" and has focused the automaker on its core brands -- Ford, Lincoln and Mercury, observers tell Jean Halliday. That's why Ford is only looking for access to $9 billion in bridge financing rather than a bailout, as are General Motors and Chrysler, to survive. One of his first actions was to meet with the global product-development teams, where he discovered Ford had separate teams and parts, points out Todd Turner, president of CarConcepts. He took Ford from nine …

Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps is taking a plunge into the video game business but swimming is not likely to be the main event. "Swimming will be a part of it, but it won't be set in an Olympic pool going back and forth," says Adam Kline, president of 505 Games, the company releasing the series. "Swimming -- in even a Mario game -- is a miserable experience," points out Adam Sessler, host of the popular TV show X-Play on the G4 network. he said. "Water is always a bad zone for games in general." Sessler is pulling for …

PepsiCo should be regarded by investors as a "food [snacks] company with a beverage component rather than the other way around, as most investors do," Eric Schoenstein, a principal at Jensen Investment Management tells Gene Marcial. The foods operations are growing at a faster pace than the beverage business, and should continue to do so in the years ahead, he says.

Overall spending dropped 1.7% in the U.S. during the period and the fourth quarter is likely to be worse, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Preliminary numbers "indicate a further slackening," it says.

To the consternation of retailers and manufacturers who would cut corners on toy safety, there's a new way for grownups to indulge in their latent war-game fantasies and be do-gooders at the same time: They can become guerilla plaything testers. Here's how it works. You get this clunky-looking device that looks like a cross between a Flash Gordon ray gun and those gizmos that grocery clerks use to slap the price tags on cans of pickled kumquats. It uses a technology called X-ray fluorescence -- or XRF -- and it comes packaged in devices such as the …