The Daily Variable

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Attention citizens of the world: Would you like to have dinner with a total stranger?

If so please call Marc Horowitz at 1-510-872-7326. The 28-year-old conceptual artist from the San Francisco area not only wants to meet you, he wants you to become part of his newest art project.

Horowitz began his "National Dinner Tour" last year as a way to explore the idea of community among strangers. Since then he has driven a leaky 1984 Toyota RV from the organic chicken farms of southern California to the hallowed halls of Yale University, in search of food and conversation -- which he documents on his Web site, www.ineedtostopsoon.com.

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NEW YORK, May 3 -- The winners of The 9th Annual Webby Awards will be saluted at the internet honors' ceremony in New York City on June 6th, the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences announced today.

Winners of The Webby Awards, selected by the Academy, were revealed today in over 60 categories -- from popular favorites like Community, Fashion, Film, and Politics to new categories making their debut this year, such as Blog, Beauty, Real Estate, Retail, and Social Networking. The 9th Annual Webby Awards received a record number of entries from over 40 countries and all 50 states.

In addition, over 200,000 votes were cast by the people around the world who chose their favorite sites in The People's Voice Awards. A full list of Webby Awards and People's Voice winners - and the teams behind them -- can be found at www.webbyawards.com.

Organizers also announced the first-ever recipients of The Webby Special Achievement Awards.

Setting the record straight on one of recent history's most persistent political myths, The Webby Awards will present former Vice President Al Gore with The Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the pivotal role he has played in the development of the internet over the past three decades. Academy member Vint Cerf, widely credited as a founder of the internet, will present the award to Gore.

Other Webby Special Achievement recipients include: Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, for Webby Person of the Year; The Kleptones, an acclaimed British band pioneering new musical genres and methods of online distribution, for Webby Artist of the Year; and Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, the founders of Flickr, who have taken photo sharing and management to an exciting new level, for Webby Breakout of the Year.

Hailed as "the online Oscars" by Time Magazine, The Webby Awards is the leading international honor for web sites and the people behind them. The awards are presented by the Academy, a global organization dedicated to the creative, technical and professional progress of the internet. Members include musician David Bowie, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison and fashion designer Max Azria.

More than 450 winners, industry leaders, and celebrities will attend the gala event on June 6th at New York City's legendary Gotham Hall, hosted by comedian Rob Corddry of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This year marks the first time The Webby Awards will be held outside of their San Francisco birthplace.

The ceremony will showcase winners delivering the Webbys' trademark five-word acceptance speeches, and presenters such as celebrated digital filmmakers the Spiridellis Brothers, the founders of Jib Jab, and other surprises.

"The winners of The 9th Annual Webby Awards reveal how the web has become the driving force shaping popular culture, the marketplace, and society as a whole," said Tiffany Shlain, the founder and chairperson of The Webby Awards.

Highlights of The 9th Annual Webby Awards winners include:

• Webby Awards winners ranged from powerhouses like Mercedes-Benz USA (Automotive), Google (Best Practices), Merck (Health), and Skype (Telecommunications), and to up-and-coming or lesser-known sites like Graffiti Archaelogy (Arts), Dogster (Community), Rtm86.com (Personal Web Site), and 43 Things (Social Networking).
• People's Voice winners included web giants like cars.com (Automotive),ING Direct (Banking/Bill Paying), Yahoo! Hotjobs (Employment) and ESPN (Sports), and new favorites like BookCrossing.com (Community), Eddie Izzard (Humor), 101 Cookbooks (Personal Site) and BrandonBird.com (Weird).

13 sites won both a Webby Award and a People's Voice Award including:

• SK Telecom Mobile Museum (Animation or Moving Image); Google (Best Practices); Boing Boing (Blog); McSweeney's Internet Tendency (Copy/Writing), Adobe's Words at Play (Home/Welcome Page); Consumer Reports (Guides/Ratings/Reviews); CNET's Download.com (IT Hardware/Software); BBC OneMusic (Music); BBC News (News); Virgin Radio (Radio); Chipotle (Restaurant); SingingFish.com (Services); Comedy Central's Indecision 2004 (Television); and ChannelOne.com (Youth).
• Biggs/Gilmore Communications, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Critical Mass, David Day + Associates, Poke, Wunderman, and Xylem Interactive are among the interactive, advertising, and design agencies behind the winning sites.
• The 9th Annual Webby Awards winners hail from 11 countries outside the United States including: The United Kingdom's Alexander McQueen (Fashion); South Korea's The Uninvited (Film); Sweden's Hands on CERN (Science); and New Zealand's NewZealand.com (Tourism)

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The line for the toilet is about to get longer.

Fed up with the mess created by kitty litter and inspired by the cat "Mr Jinks" in the Hollywood film "Meet the Fockers," an Australian woman has invented a toilet training system for cats called the "Litter-Kwitter."

Mother-of-two Jo Lapidge is flushed with success after teaching her family's Burmese cat, Doogal, to use the toilet.

"Doogal has fallen in, but he hasn't fallen in by accident, he has done it playing with the water," Lapidge told Reuters.

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ATLANTA --May 3, 2005--Throughout the industrialized nations of the world, employers and employees are recognizing the importance of more time off. Some of the most developed nations - Japan, France, the U.K. and the Netherlands - are prospering despite trends towards reduced work hours. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average Americans work more than 175 hours or four plus weeks more than the average French worker. And while many nations are looking for ways to reduce the numbers of hours their citizens work--the American worker appears to be working even harder.

On May 5, Cinco de Mayo, Moe's Southwest Grill is encouraging the American worker to take "eight hours off" to do nothing. To show its support, Moe's will give away more than 20,000 burritos at its stores across the country, beginning at 11:00 a.m. Moe's is also planning to arm its customers with two letters they can pick up beginning May 3 -- a letter to their employer requesting the day off and a letter they can send to Congress requesting a bill be passed acknowledging May 5 as an official day to do nothing.

"It's true we are a hardworking society whose days off are few and far between not to mention usually aligned with some level of commitment or observance," explains Brian Curin, VP of Marketing, Moe's Southwest Grill. "We asked the American people what they thought of a day off and how they felt about it being in May and specifically on May 5 and they seem to support that notion in great numbers."

According to Kelton Research Group, the American population acknowledges their need for a day off, particularly as you drill down to Generation Y and X who work some of the longest hours. "The numbers climb some 13 percent to 82 percent among 18-34 year-olds who support a day off in May," explains Tom Bernthal, Kelton Research Group.

Moe's formed CEHO, "Citizens for Eight Hours Off," after recognizing that Americans are working longer and longer hours, taking shorter lunches and coming into its restaurants later and later. To raise the importance of the cause which Moe's acknowledges is a long-term effort; CEHO can work towards educating employers and state governments about the importance of giving the American worker a day of doing nothing.

"It's amazing to me that so many Americans support eight hours off given their propensity to work," explains Don Wetmore of the Productivity Institute and an expert on workaholics. "We are on a downhill spiral if we don't take the time off to do nothing. Such a day does not exist in our culture and I for one am planning to do nothing on May 5 to show my support."

PHILADELPHIA --May 3, 2005--Jobs in IT, engineering/architecture, and accounting/finance represent nearly 50% of all employment postings--according to a study by the 4Jobs.com Career Network, an online network comprised of over 6,000 employment sites.

IT jobs represent nearly 20% of the online job posting market, engineering/architecture positions constituting 17%, and accounting/finance job postings totaling 10%, according to statistics based upon traffic to the 4Jobs.com's website during Q1 of 2005. Statistics are based upon information collected over a six month period, based on a quarterly breakdown.

Here are some more results from the 4Jobs.com Career Trends Q1 2005 Study:

• IT is the dominant sector for both online employment postings and resume postings.
• As a percentage of healthcare and medical job postings continue to decline, the percentage of resume postings in those areas showed increased growth.
• New jobs in merchandising, purchasing and retail declined sharply in the first quarter of 2005.
• Washington D.C., Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and California have the largest percentage of online employment postings per capita over the last three quarters.
• Nevada ranked tops for healthcare and medical jobs, while Idaho ranked #1 in construction, social services, insurance and repair.
• Internet job searching peaked on Mondays between 1 - 2 p.m. EST, with Sunday peak activity occurred at 8 p.m. EST.

"While technology continues to thrive, engineering/architecture job postings have shown a sharp jump from the third quarter of 2004--increasing from nearly 7% of all job postings to 17% in the first quarter of 2005, " said Richard Milgram, CEO of the 4Jobs.com Career Network.