I don’t usually delve into the family bidness here, but my dad’s recent wheelings and dealings are pretty interesting. As friends and family may know, he’s currently running a company called Prestige Brands, Inc., which is basically a hodgepodge of name brand consumer products, like Comet, Chloraseptic, Compound W, Cutex, and Clear Eyes (if it starts with the letter C, it’s all good). Most of these brands were neglected by former owners, and my dad’s company has been fabulously successful at reviving them and manufacturing the products for less than behemoths like P&G ever could.

So, about two months ago, the investment bankers came a callin’. They spent most of January and early February dragging my dad around the country on one of those grueling “road shows,” where he’s supposed to wow potential investors. And then on February 10, at last, the company went officially public. It was a huge success — alarmingly so, as I think Prestige Brands is now worth like a bajillion dollars on paper.

My dad and his colleagues were supposed to ring the opening bell on the big day, but for some reason the turkeys at the NYSE bumped them for New Century Financial Corp. (I mean, come on, those dudes weren’t even going public!) Anyway, the Prestige team was invited back last Thursday to officially do the honors. I got a pic of the event, which I’ll paste below.

As you can see from the close-up of my dad’s expression, instead of pressing the “ring bell” button, as instructed, he accidentally hit the one labeled “incite market panic.” Not very slick.

Back during the anxious buildup to Christmas, I posted about the single strangest development of married life: That of Ana checking my email. What irked me in particular was how she read an email I’d sent to myself, a sort of reminder to put the Griffin RadioShark on my Christmas list. Well, here we are four months later, and all has finally been forgiven.

Thanks to Ana’s snotty comment about the RadioShark to my family, my Secret Santa got the message, and shortly after Groundhog Day the device was delivered. I’ve waited ’til now to post my thoughts because I was on the fence about whether it was, as billed, “TiVo for the radio” or just another gizmo-of-the-moment, destined for the electronics scrap heap that is my closet. I’m happy to report that the RadioShark does indeed kick ass.

As a quick aside (actually a shameless Mann-family plug), if you’re not familiar with the idea of on-demand radio, you should check out my cousin Cam’s article in the March ’05 issue of Wired. Titled “The Resurrection of Indie Radio,” it’s about how digital (HD) radio and on-demand radio have given DJs outside of Clear Channel’s empire a fighting chance. There was also a little sidebar about devices like RadioShark and programs like RadioTime, which allow you to record programs and — may the Royal We forgive me — save ‘em to your iPod.

I love NPR, but I love this technology even more. It’s always seemed to me that “This American Life” is only broadcast at the most inconvenient, hard-to-remember times. For a while now, I’ve gotten around this by downloading the show from Audible.com, but it hardly seems fair to pay for public radio. Enter RadioShark. Now I can get not only TAL, but also “Fresh Air,” “On the Media,” and all the other goodies WHYY has to offer. Sure the gizmo lists at $70, but if you’ve got a procrastinating Secret Santa on your side, it’s free as a can be.

Technorati Tags: iPod, Wired, NPR, This American Life

The Treasure Trove message board, Tweleve.org, has hit a serious brick wall. Despite having almost 5,000 users and over 10,000 articles — all within less than two months! — nobody has posted a real breakthrough since late January. Still, that hasn’t stopped some would-be treasure hunters, myself included, from bombarding the board with their crackpot theories and ADD ramblings. The serious treasure hunters once flamed these people, back when they wanted to keep the conversations on topic, but now it seems they’re at a loss for words — and ideas. In a thread containing a mildly plausible but completely unverified “sub-poem” even the moderators’ responses have devolved into pictorial WTFs, like the one below. Behold what the good folks at Wired have termed “the collective brainpower of thousands”!

Technorati Tags: A Treasure’s Trove, Wired

Despite my affirmations not to blither on about The Gates, like so many avant-garde dog lovers, I realize that, in Tuesday’s dissertation-length post about the cross-fertilization of treasure hunting and saffron wall-hangings, I’ve done just that. Hopefully it’s not too late to repent.

Thanks to Michael Meiser’s blog and the trusty ol’ NY Times, I happened upon a couple brilliant alternatives to The Gates. “The Somerville Gates” was created by Hargo, aka Geoff Hargadon, a 50-year-old from Cambridge, MA, whose “last installation was a studio full of discarded ATM receipts.” His work truly is a sight to behold, and the similarities to Central Park’s Gates abound. “Like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Hargo used recyclable materials for ‘The Somerville Gates.’ Unlike them, he accepts donations to defray the cost of his installation, which was $3.50.”

Equally captivating is “The Crackers,” a cheddar-cheese-and-peanut-butter masterpiece from the minds of Chris and Jane Cunniffe. A publishing executive and advertising copywriter, Chris and Jane are my artistic soul mates, I think. As they put it on their website, “‘The Crackers’ is as much a public happening as it is a tasty snack, defying the domino theory.” And at $1 less than “The Somerville Gates,” a bargain, too!

“The Somerville Gates” is now off-line, but you can still have a shot at purchasing it at a Boston benefit art auction. “The Crackers,” on the other hand, is entirely for profit. If you’d like a tote bag or onesie, you should totally check out “The Crackers” Cafe Press store.

More pics after the jump.