oct17.com Blog

JANA throws in the towel

CNET Networks Inc shareholder Jana Partners LLC on Thursday said it dropped its effort to win control of CNET’s board in light of CBS Corp’s plan to buy the Internet media company.

And good riddance. Paul Gardi can take his profits on his 129,199 CNET shares, two installments of his $25,000 per quarter consulting fee, and go find a real job.

New passport: $75. New citizenship: $675

The nuclear family got new passports this week — a remarkably quick two weeks after we applied at the local library. (Extremely cool that they have a passport office in there after hours. Love this library.) The new passports are cyborgs; they are stiff with embedded electronics, colorful with holographic etchings, and full of … no stamps. Luckily they return the pages of your old passport so you can reminisce about your globetrotting. Brij’s passport is good for 5 years. Saloni’s and mine are good for the usual 10. Each one costs about $75 to process.

Also this week, the Sarins are filling out their applications for U.S. citizenship. (We spend enough dinner-table time arguing about politics that it’s really overdue, I think.) Lots of information to supply, and most shocking was that the fee to move from Green Card holder to Citizen costs you $675 per person. And I seriously doubt these will get processed in two weeks.

• Saloni says: We’re sending out economic-stimulus package right back to the government.