CompleteAuto, a Rocket City Automotive Group company, is an eBay Motors certified solution provider. The company offers software, personnel and design options to automotive dealerships throughout the U.S. CompleteAuto and Rocket City Automotive are based in Orlando.

Founded in 2004, CompleteAuto announced today that it passed the 10,000 mark with 10,191 vehicles currently listed on eBay Motors. eBay Motors receives 12 million visitors each month and has 168 million registered users.

Rocket City Automotive Company was established to acquire, manage, supervise and operate corporations specializing in eBay, eBay Motors services, eCommerce, software development and retail automotive operations.

• Strange Son by Portia Iversen (Riverhead Books), the moving story of two mothers' quest to unlock the hidden world of autism.
  
  
• Set of two books by Gail Godwin: Queen of the Underworld (Ballantine), the New York Times bestselling novel that explores the growth of a young woman beginning her career as a journalist in Miami and The Making of a Writer (Random House), Godwin's fascinating journals from 1961-1963, edited by Rob Neufeld.
  
  
• Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Buide From the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University, Edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call (Plume), with contributions by Nora Ephron, Gay Talese, David Halberstam, Tom Wolfe and many more distinguished authors.
  
  
• The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer by Sandra Scofeld (Penguin), the fundamental guide for crafting more effective scenes in fiction.
  
  

Menu Foods Ltd., which recalled 60 million cans of wet pet food in the U.S. last week, asked for all brands involved to be removed, regardless of the date of manufacture, amid concern tainted products are still being sold.

Menu Foods, based in the Toronto suburb of Streetsville, withdrew all varieties of the affected brands even though there isn't a known risk for those foods, the company said in a statement. The original recall, announced March 16, applied to wet food made at its Emporia, Kansas, and Pennsauken, New Jersey, plants between Dec. 3 and March 6.

The recall doesn't include any dry pet food or pet food sold in Canada.

Nearly 11 million cosmetic plastic surgery operations were performed in the United States in 2006, up by 7 percent from 2005, the group said. It also said more than 5.2 million reconstructive plastic surgery procedures were performed last year, mostly removal of tumors.

The most popular cosmetic choice was breast augmentation, with 329,000 reported in 2006. This is the first time "breast jobs" have passed nose reshaping surgery, performed on 307,000 people in 2006.

The group reported an 8 percent rise in minimally invasive cosmetic procedures such as injections to fill out wrinkles, with more than 9 million such operations. Botox treatments were by far the most common, with more than 4 million treatments in 2006.

Rat poison was found in pet food blamed for the deaths of at least 16 cats and dogs, but scientists said Friday they still don't know how it got there and predicted more animal deaths would be linked to it.

After the announcement, the company that produced the food expanded its recall to include all 95 brands of the "cuts and gravy" style food, regardless of when they were produced. The company also said it would take responsibility for pet medical expenses incurred as a result of the food.

The substance in the food was identified as aminopterin, a cancer drug that once was used to induce abortions in the United States and is still used to kill rats in some other countries, state Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker said. The federal government prohibits using aminopterin for killing rodents in the U.S. State officials would not speculate on how the poison got into the pet food, but said no criminal investigations had been launched.

The pet deaths led to a recall of 60 million cans and pouches of dog and cat food produced by Menu Foods and sold throughout North America under 95 brand names. Some pets that ate the recalled brands suffered kidney failure, and the company has confirmed the deaths of 15 cats and one dog.

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The Food and Drug Administration has said the investigation into the pet deaths was focused on wheat gluten in the food. The gluten itself would not cause kidney failure, but it could have been contaminated, the FDA said. Paul Henderson, chief executive of Ontario, Canada-based Menu Foods, confirmed Friday that the wheat gluten was purchased from China.

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A complete list of the recalled products along with product codes, descriptions and production dates was posted online by Menu Foods and is available at http://tinyurl.com/2pn6mm. The company also designated two phone numbers that pet owners could call for information: (866) 463-6738 and (866) 895-2708.

Total reports of sick or dead pets: 1715

Deceased pets: 845

Of those:

Cats, deceased: 500

Dogs, deceased: 345

It also has put a spotlight on the world of pet food processing and is raising a range of questions about whether companies and the government do enough testing to ensure the safety of products meant for pets at a time when animals hold a special place in many Americans' households.

Whatever tainted Menu's "cuts and gravy" - style pet food "remains a puzzle," spokesman Sam Bornstein says. Federal regulators have said one possibility could be contaminated wheat gluten, but other ingredients are being checked. The food linked to pet deaths so far is believed to have been produced at Menu's plant in Kansas. The recall includes products made at Menu's New Jersey plant, too, because it received some of the same wheat gluten.

This week, pet owners have gone to veterinarians' offices, online chat rooms and blogs to express anxiety over what to feed their animals and the safety of pet food - and even to wonder whether the contamination could have implications for the human food supply system.

Karen Goodhart of Port Wentworth, Ga., says she lost one of her cats to kidney failure and is caring for another that also lost some kidney function after eating tainted food. She's now buying food from her veterinarian and may never use commercial food again. "I'm scared to death of it," she says.

Organic pet-food makers and retailers across North America may be the winners as the fallout settles from the recall of nearly 100 brands of pet food manufactured by Canada’s Menu Foods Inc.

"I just want to find something that won't kill my dog," said Adriana Pierce as she watched her 4-year-old border collie, Tango, race around a downtown Toronto dog park. "I'm so afraid of him getting sick that I've been feeding him table scraps for three days."

Natural and organic products may provide the alternative, analysts say.

"I'd say this is an in for the organic manufacturers and retailers," said Vivian Ma, a senior retail analyst at CIBC World Markets in New York. "At this point, consumers see them as an option that represents a source of comfort."

Peekaboo hair: Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and John Galliano at Christian Dior had a love affair with 1940s silver-screen sirens and their sultry hairstyles. So don't chop it all off this summer.

Metallics: They might look like one of those here today-gone tomorrow items, but they were shining on the Ralph Lauren runway, and plenty of others, for fall. The most forward-looking investment: a bomber jacket.

Plaid: Designers at Chanel and Balenciaga were mad for plaid jackets, while Jean Paul Gaultier worked a whole Highlands theme. Burton's lumberjack check luggage is a surprising spin on the trend.

Power red: With Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for the White House and Nancy Pelosi at the helm on Capitol Hill, we were bound to see a return to 1980s power red, and we did — Viktor & Rolf and Marc Jacobs did especially good coats. A bag or shoe will do just fine too.

Tuxedo: It was Yves Saint Laurent who first put women in le smoking, and Stefano Pilati updated the look for fall with a sculpted cream tuxedo coatdress. But tuxedos aren't just for after 5: Diesel's spring ivory vest with tux lapels looks terrific with walking shorts.

HOW does a carmaker unlock the door to reaching distracted, elusive customers in an increasingly competitive category? Nissan North America is hoping the answer may lie with, um, keys.

A campaign to promote a push-button ignition system on the 2007 Nissan Altima sedan is to begin this week and continue through March 30. For the promotion, 20,000 key rings will be deliberately "lost" in bars, concert halls, sports arenas and other public places in seven large markets.

Each key ring will have three keys, all real, and two tags. The biggest key resembles a car key and the other two look as if they could fit the locks on house or office doors.

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Although the idea for the promotion was a simple one, "it was fairly complicated" to see to fruition, Ms. Erwin said, requiring "one supplier for the keys, one for the key tags and a third to assemble the key rings." The car keys are blanks, Ms. Erwin said, and the other keys are cut. "We're hopeful they don't fit a real house," she added, laughing.

These days, an estimated 50% of marriages end in divorce. So what happens after the divorce? What do you do with the ring? When you turn around and sell a ring, you are taking a big loss. The price you will get for the ring will be sharply discounted from what was originally paid. In most cases, you will only get 25-35% of the purchase price and that´s if you are lucky.

I Do...Now I Don't can help solve the "what do I do with the ring?" scenario. We will help you sell your ring at the price that it deserves!!

"You can't sell it for what you bought it for, but maybe you can get at least 50 or 60 percent of the value," said Opperman, a 29-year-old real estate broker who saw a business opportunity after suffering his own heartbreak.

He felt funny about saving his ex's leftover ring for a future fiancee. So he tried to sell it back to the jeweler, who was willing to give Opperman about one-third of the ring's original cost. (Opperman declined to say exactly how much he paid.)

Since launching his site in November, "I Do" has hosted more than 100 auctions - many are still pending - and got raves from talk-show host Rachael Ray. After Opperman appeared on Ray's show last month, his site got 200,000 hits in one day, he said.

He explains that his site is different from other online auction houses like eBay because he guarantees that you won't get hoodwinked. Sellers are required to provide a certificate of authenticity from one of the country's three leading gemological laboratories.

When Ben Davis created buylesscrap.org, a quirky parody of Bono's (Red) campaign, he thought he'd get a few laughs out of his San Francisco designer friends. But since it launched two weeks ago, the site has received thousands of hits, hundreds of blog mentions—and has raised some very real questions about the spending practices and intentions of "cause marketing" campaigns like Red, which funnel a percentage of profits from the sale of consumer goods to charity. "A part of me was thinking long term about buying as a way to cure things, and feeling that was a bit manipulative," says Davis, who runs a creative marketing firm. "I think I put a voice to what many people were feeling."

Davis and his friends aren't the only ones questioning the "shopping to help charity" trend. An article in Advertising Age last week reported that since the campaign launched in the U.K. last March, its corporate sponsors (which include the Gap, Motorola and Apple, among others) have spent some $100 million on marketing but raised just $18 million for the Geneva-based Global Fund—one fifth less than a previously projected goal. Red has since replaced that $18 million figure with $25 million, and called the marketing numbers (derived from independent analysts) "irresponsible journalism," as Red cofounder Bobby Shriver told NEWSWEEK. AdAge, meanwhile, stands by its story-saying that it derived its marketing total from three different "media experts' estimates of the marketing partners' outlay on print, TV, billboard and Internet ads, as well as the cost of a content-integration deal, in-store marketing materials and a pop-up store used by one of the partners."

Whatever the advertising figure (and Red is quick to point out it's substantially less), the debate over Red’s model is bound to come up as a growing population of consumers try to help others while helping themselves to new T shirts and iPods. Activism is the new chic, and we, the consumers, have become the new activists-saving the world one credit-card transaction at a time. Cause marketing is a multibillion-dollar industry today (estimated to clock in at $1.4 billion in the United States this year-a growth of 23 percent since 2005, according to a study by the Chicago-based IEG Sponsorship Report), and it has carved out a niche within a group of young consumers who've grown accustomed to shopping for a cure. Ben & Jerry's American Pie encourages buyers to support its campaign to redistribute the federal budget to focus on children. Sun Chips are crunching for a cure for breast cancer, while Yoplait yogurt is saving lids to save lives-another cancer fund.

A 2006 survey by the marketing firm Cone Inc. found that 74 percent of American 13-to-25-year-olds are more likely to buy from a company with a strong commitment to a cause, while another survey, a collaboration between Cone and Alloy Marketing, found that in the past year, one in four college students has purchased a product because it was viewed as socially conscious. "Done appropriately, cause marketing does well with kids, with women, and with greens," says Paul Jones, a Salt Lake City-based marketing consultant who also authors the Cause-Related Marketing blog. "They think, 'If I'm already going to buy something, why wouldn't I buy the thing that gives back?'"

But how much are we really giving back? And when did shopping become the best way to help poor children in Africa? The Red folks would argue that any contribution is a good contribution, and that cause marketers are tapping into a group who may not donate otherwise, while also raising general awareness of issues such as AIDS and global poverty. Plus, they say, because corporations are benefiting, too, the product is more sustainable. "It's not that people say, 'Oh, I'm feeling charitable today, let me go to the Gap'," says Red’s Shriver. "If you're feeling charitable, write a check. If you're feeling like you need a cool shirt, go to the Gap." So if you need to buy a pair of new sneakers anyway and you have a choice between a pair that helps only the manufacturer's pockets versus one that gives a percentage to a good cause, why not take the charitable route?

Marc Jacobs has checked himself into rehab. After seven years of sobriety, the designer relapsed recently and decided to undergo a second round of in-patient rehabilitation for drug and alcohol abuse. The day after showing his Louis Vuitton collection in Paris, Jacobs, who has publicly acknowledged substance abuse problems in the past, left the French capital and flew to a treatment facility in Arizona.

Reached for comment earlier today Jacobs' business partner Robert Duffy confirmed the rumor that had started to circulate around New York. "Marc made the right decision," Duffy said. "He'd been sober for seven years. When he relapsed, he wanted to deal with it right away."

"According to the experts, such a relapse isn't uncommon," Duffy continued. "Thankfully, Marc recognized the problem himself and chose to deal with it. Obviously, our prayers are with him."

What is Make Me Move?


Make Me Move is a free and easy way to tell others the price you'd be willing to sell your home for, without actually putting it on the market. It's that magical number you just can't refuse.

How Does It Work?


Once you set your Make Me Move price, potential buyers can contact you anonymously via e-mail. Then it's up to you whether or not to sell your home. Try it out! You can remove your Make Me Move price at any time.

With the $7.2 billion household paper products market stalled — and Kleenex sales off last year — the brand is embracing personalized products. In a world where consumers can customize their Nike shoes, M&M candies and even their Heinz ketchup labels, the Kleenex box is jumping into the fray.

"It's the brand as me," says Grant McCracken, a cultural anthropologist. For an emerging generation of YouTube enthusiasts who prefer to blaze their own paths, reducing consumer-created content to the tissue box might work, he says. But not without sticker shock. A conventional box of Kleenex costs about a buck. But the newfangled "My Kleenex" box, sold online at mykleenextissue.com, sells for $4.99 — plus roughly $3 shipping. That's about $8 for one box.

"This strikes me as the height of idiocy," says Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. "It says to me that we have too much stuff and too much money." Kimberly-Clark thinks otherwise. It's already tried goosing sales by infusing perfumes, lotions and germicides into Kleenex. Now this. "People love to express their own personal style," says Peggy Nabbefeldt, marketing director for Kleenex. "Now, you can take the special moments of your life and commemorate them on a Kleenex box."

She suggests weddings. Or graduations. Or special vacations. During a test among company employees over Christmas, one worker placed a personalized marriage proposal on a Kleenex box, Nabbefeldt says. There is a limit to what can go on the box. The company will not print hate messages, violence, nudity or unapproved company trademarks, says Rob George, associate marketing manager. At a time when generics are cleaning Kleenex's clock, the company hopes its personalized boxes nudge people to "bond" with the brand, Nabbefeldt says. In an ultra-visual pun, the site even advises folks: Let out your creative juices.

What to do with an empty box? That's a bit of a sticky wicket. "Now you're getting into the area of throwing away memories," warns Steven Addis, a branding expert.

The man believed to be behind the scheme is a longtime stamp dealer living in upstate New York. He has been investigated by law enforcement, suspended by eBay and exposed in Internet forums devoted to stamp collecting. Yet the massive operation continues to churn out philatelic fakes, burning collectors and, some say, undermining the very foundations of the hobby.

A retired FBI agent who worked numerous stamp fraud cases during his years with the bureau describes it as the "the most prolific and most notorious" scam ever perpetrated in eBay's problematic stamp-collecting category. (MSNBC.com is not identifying the suspect because he has not been charged with a crime.)

The scheme was exposed on MSNBC.com in 2002, in a two-part series looking at whether eBay adheres to its stated anti-fraud policy. Months later, eBay suspended accounts identified in the article, but a small group of collectors that uncovered the scam says the forger merely moved the operation to another Internet auction site for a few months before returning to eBay, setting up new accounts and picking up where he left off.

The scheme's most recent incarnation ground to a halt Jan. 29, when eBay security suspended two accounts after the collectors produced conclusive evidence that forged stamps were being sold. But the frustrated philatelists say there is little doubt that the crook will soon be back in business on eBay — the leading Internet auction site, with tens of thousands of stamps listed for sale at any one time - cloaked in new online identities.

The page is layered with watery graffiti images of the words "sex" and "today," and on top of that, as large as the models, two glass bottles shaped like rocket silos topped in white plastic casing and the name of the new scent: CK in2u.

Embedded in these images, as described by a half-dozen Calvin Klein and Coty executives gathered around a table, is a portrait of a generation they describe as physically bold but emotionally guarded, having grown up using computers as a primary means of interaction. Now young adults, they are post-Abercrombie, post-Juicy Couture and over any number of scents derived from the essences of Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

The CK in2u bottle, designed by Stephen Burks, is made from the same materials - white plastic and glass - recognizable in an iPod. (Fabien Baron designed the original bottle.) The name is written in the shorthand of an instant message, a casual invitation to sex so immediate as to imply there was no time to spell it out: "in to you."

A typical line from the press materials for CK in2u goes like this: "She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It's intense. For right now."

Which may turn off its intended audience by the tens of thousands.

Few consumers like being marketed to less than 20-somethings, and Calvin Klein and Coty know this because, as part of their development of CK in2u, they interviewed young consumers thought to be typical of their generation, including ones in the Dumbo and Williamsburg sections of Brooklyn.

Own the Jessica Simpson boots signed by the designer herself, Jessica Simpson. The Daisy-OC boots are up for auction through Clothes Off Our Back. Proceeds from the auction benefit the Children's Defense Fund, Cure Autism Now and the emergency relief efforts in Darfur (specifically Friends of the World Food Program, Save the Children and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF).