MatchPerfect: WordPerfect co-founder Alan Ashton and tennis partner Dave Harkness took first place at the First Corel Invitational Tennis Tournament in Las Vegas.
Corel Corp. is a Canadian company that makes a business graphics software program. Corel sponsored the tournament last week during Comdex, the huge computer show that attracted more than 133,000 people.Corel's product competes head-to-head with WordPerfect's Presentations software (formerly called DrawPerfect).
But on the tennis court there was no contest. Ashton and Harkness, a former BYU tennis star, won all five matches. The competition included other computer executives teamed up with former tennis greats Rod Laver or Pat DuPre.
Laver was the 1969 singles champion at the U.S. Open. DuPre ranked 12th in the world in 1979-80. He was the Hong Kong Open winner at the time and reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in 1979.
Ashton, a confirmed tennis devotee, said it was "fairly easy to win." It would have been fun to have some real competition, he said - like playing a doubles team composed of Laver and DuPre.
What a byte: Some people have the strangest ideas about Utahns, don't they? Politis & Associates threw a party for 14 Utah companies last week in conjunction with Comdex, a huge computer show held in Las Vegas. The public relations firm invited editors and reviewers at trade magazines to come munch delicacies from the Rocky Mountain region and take a look at what the companies have to offer.
Here's what two editors had to say as they stood in the buffet line: "What is this stuff? Weird stuff they only eat in Utah?"
"Roast bear, probably."
Yeah, right. Just get us a club.
The menu featured venison sausage, quail, roast baron of beef and river trout.
Of course, Leonard Lee, co-owner of Data Pad in Lindon, later told the Deseret News that to really represent Utah, Politis should have served green jello and carrots. You bet.
Lay siege to Clinton: Orem resident Keith Haines is point man for a campaign to protest opening military service to homosexuals.
Haines wants people to send Christmas cards to President-elect Clinton c/o the White House that say they're praying for his administration. He also wants people to include a line saying they don't want gays in the Armed Forces.
"I don't want the all-volunteer forces to be mistaken for consenting adults," Haines said.
Success with a heart: WordPerfect did a good deed while in Las Vegas last week. Company officials believed they ordered more food than needed for a party they threw to preview WordPerfect's Presentations software.
They donated about $2,000 worth of turkey, ham and roast beef to St. Vincent's Homeless Shelter, which serves 500 meals daily to needy men, women and children.
"We've enjoyed success as a company and wanted to share with those less fortunate," said public relations specialist Linda Berlin.
WordPerfect may have been a little too generous. The company ran out of food at the party.
Sign o' the week: Dr. Woodward. P.5 Recombinant DNA lab. Don't touch the icky stuff - Sign hanging in molecular biologist Scott Woodward's lab at Brigham Young University.
License plate o' the week: KRUZZ-N - white Hyundai Excel.
Loose Change appears in the Deseret News on Mondays. Got an item for the column? Call Dennis or Brooke at 374-1162 or fax us at 377-5701.