Moving to Canada?

Taking over Apple Computer?

Controlling the English language viz. a viz its MSWord dictionary!

Up late or early Art?

Buying Netscape

Buying the Seattle Mariners?

Purchase Digital

Bundling a proprietary browser in its operating system.

taking over Sun Microsystems?

I'm in Minnesota, Hackly--it's 11 AM here (so early I guess!)

Discontinue Office for the Mac

Nothing right so far.

I've never seen the Wombat so slow--we're really hammering it with simultaneous posts.

Buying the Seattle Seahawks?

hostile takeovers

FUD-ing GW-DOS

(that really means something!)

Split the company

package Internet Explorer with Windows?

hostile takeovers

Finishing the sports vein:

Buying the Supersonics?

Delay the release of Windows 95

curse this slow internet! Art's right! Illegal bundling!

nnnnope

create a virus that attacks MacIntosh

FUD-ing Linux

Require MS-DOS be on OEMs if they want Windows.

Sell MS-branded PCs

Burning off some of those profits by throwing a huge rock festival, possibly with free beer for all?

closing its code?

Issue a dividend

Purchase Netscape?

release transcripts of Monica Lewinsky's conversation with Linda Tripp!

Patenting the concept of a "computer."

exert monopoly power

spend huge amounts of cash buying Rolling Stones and David Bowie songs

Diverge from HTML standards in IE

Nothing right yet.

Erk - saw someone had already guessed my last one. Umm...

Purchasing Oracle?

disable Netscape browser

Acquiring tactical nuclear weapons?

Giving away $100 of Bill Gates' money every time YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK!

mandate the laughing head of Bill Gates as "wallpaper" on all Windows-operating systems

Switch from Nasdaq to NYSE

Causing system failure during very important quizzes!

Renovating the Sistine Chapel?

Purchase the rights to the REM song "It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)".

delay Windows 95 until after Christmas

Giving out a red velvet cake recipe.

send out a billion Christmas emails

"Move" to a tax haven.

Clues:

1. Didn't involve software per se.
2. Didn't happen.

Embed racial messages in Wingdings

Bill Gates retiring as CEO.

installing a global grid of low-flying satellites

develop software to breach privacy laws (by spying on personal computers?)

Buying the internet.

Appointing Bill Gates "Emperor of the Known Universe."

Purchase WordPerfect

slow slow wombat

sell technology to the CIA/Dept of Defense

Merge w/IBM

Instigating the Whiskey Rebellion. Using Bob Hope.

embed backdoors into NT for intelligence agencies

hold one helluva Xmas party (with strippers and everything...you know for all those male computer dorks)

Sell out to the Federal Government.

Puchase Novell

subsidizing schools

stage a bare-knuckle brawl between Bill Gates and that guy who owns Ikea

Discontinuing support for Windows 3.x

no consecutive guesses are possible

developing ways to control computers from afar

more clues please

charge for support calls

More clues

3. Kind of astonishing people took it seriously enough to deluge Microsoft with phone calls.
4. Involved another internationally powerful institution.

Develop a Spacecraft.

uh, just goes to show you

sell off stock or something? man, i should have taken economics

Record a Christmas album

Getting a seat on the UN.

Was purchasing the Freemasons.

Accept emails addressed to Santa Claus

Oh no! Consecutive guesses!

send gifts to kids who send emails to Santa Claus (hope this isn't consecutive)

taking over a branch of the u.s. government.

nothing right yet!

*smacks GJ's double-posting hand*

Nominating itself for a Nobel prize.

Partnering with the NSA

Winning the Wombatfile Quizvitational.

thanks, Garth

kidnap Richard Branson

Clue 5. Microsoft's announcement was in response to an Internet hoax.

My pleasure Art.

Supplanting the Pope.

making sweetheart deals with Boeing, Airbus, NASA, AT+T and the U.N.

Giving out free copies of Microsoft Windows?

Purchasing Tibet from the Chinese.

Interestingly, there have been two posts that have brushed past the actual substance of the hoax.

Declaring that Bill Gates, contrary to what spellcheck software or something of that ilk indicated, was not the Antichrist?

come on, Santa Claus must be involved--he is an internationally powerful institution and we're talking December 17th! Plus, it would be astonishing if people believed a rumor connecting Microsoft and Santa.

Maybe they planned to release calculations showing that Santa's one-night present drop is impossible (by the laws of physics)?

Oooh, I missed two of the clues.

Purchasing the United Nations?

Give money to people who forward a chain email.

I can't believe the satellite network wasn't it. Didn't MS plan to get the US to subsidize a telephone cum spy network, and then (aha) NASA got all pissy about it?

Is there another question coming after this is solved?

let's go back to Hackly's supposition that you could get money from Bill Gates by clicking a link or emailing

Buying the World Bank?

free trips to Disney World, we're not doing it

This is it, LBY.

6. It did indeed involve a putative purchase.

Financing a trip to Mars, possibly through the purchase of NASA?

whoo-hoo--this is the 100th comment (or close)

do I win something?

Oh, we in trouble now: the jam is in the box.

Buying the Catholic Church?

buying one of the former soviet states? possibly turkmenistan

Buying the UN?

Buying NBC

We're not buying the US government.

Buying the British monarchy?

Buying the Salvation Army

Buying NASA.

buying the north pole (Santa's digs)

Dammit, I want somebody to win this so I can go to lunch.

Buying the Supreme Court?

Buying the Red Cross

Buying Walmart

Buying a space shuttle.

buying the moon

OK, an internationally powerful institution is involved, remember:

buying McDonalds (not a meal but the whole damn company)

Oh, the embarrassment.

DING!

Gavin has nailed it. The hoax Microsoft press release claimed that arrangements had been made to acquire the Catholic Church, allowing Microsoft "to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people." Microsoft responded on December 16, 1994, with a denial.

Ah, life before The Onion.

Have a great weekend -- see you next week for the Awful Finale.

This brings Gavin to 880 points -- within striking distance of the lead.

Buying a satellite.

Woohoo! I can eat now!

(The Wombat Quiz, she is a harsh taskmistress.)

Buying the G-7

wOw! i KNEW there was a reason I bought an ipod. DAG!

fast fingers, Jonathan

i forgot that takeovers aren't correct (so forget McDonalds)

now, what would get people into a phone calling frenzy? they either see an opportunity to make money or they are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore

guess: buy the Love Boat

Oh man! Well, there you go. Congrats Gavin!

Oh man! Well, there you go. Congrats Gavin!

Is there another quiz faux pas I can commit? I think not!

I'll tell you what gets people in a lather: the Wombatfile Quizvitational. I'm going to hose off now.

A little bird told me next week's questions are all based on the director's cut of Ishtar, so y'all might want to study.

i think this resolves our tie in the fairest way possible--i retreat to my tiny cupboard in the far corner of the kitchen

good on you, Gavin!

"It looks like you're trying to make an ex cathedra pronouncement."

Funny!

BTW, did anybody get all ten of the Mississippi states correct?

That's the only one I was sure I knew pre-hint. Just to be sure, I drew myself a map, which I hope doesn't qualify as cheating. The one I thought would throw people wasn't Minnesota but Kentucky.

And what other Guyana would there be, if not a Dutch one?

French and British. You weren't a colonial power if you didn't have a Guyana. Except Spain; Spain sneered at mere Guyanas. France made theirs into a celebrated penal colony.

To make things additionally entertaining, all the Guyanas were Dutch at one time or another. The Dutch lacked colonial focus.

There's British Guyana, which I came close to guessing.

I got Kentucky--the states I got on the Mississippi question were because I've actually roadtripped through them (or over the bridge spanning the river, in one case)--I had no clue where it petered out in the north.

Map-master boxjam turned in his all-correct Mississippi answer very early Monday morning, noting that he wanted to get it in before he went to work (where a big map of the U.S. hangs in his office).

planning this big USA trip, which includes stays in both Minneapolis and New Orleans undoubtedly assisted my recall of the twisty path down the mighty mississip--i got all 10 too (i just threw every state in the region into my answer really)