This Week's 5 Dumbest Stock Moves

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Companies do a lot of silly things. This column will highlight a few stock-related stories that would make Darwin's head spin.

1. You may already be a winner, loser
Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) filed a lawsuit against spammers using the company's name in a bogus lottery scheme. The ruse aimed to scam the gullible out of coordinator payments in exchange for the prizes. It's hard to blame the suckers who fell for the hoax, given Yahoo!'s desperate ways lately. Then again, maybe it had to delete a few bogus emails offering ridiculous sums of money.

Earth to Yahoo!: The $47.5 billion offer you got earlier this month -- hailing not from Nigeria, but from Redmond -- was real. You blew it.

2. Make it a glass of Plain White Iced Tea and a bowl of All-American Green Eggs
Denny's (Nasdaq: DENN) is pumping up the volume to satisfy those wee-hours munchies. The value-priced casual dining chain is rolling out a special Craveable menu, available exclusively from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. The staff will also switch out of their ho-hum uniforms and wear jeans and a Craveable t-shirt. Perhaps the weirdest part of this promotion -- as if a grandmother serving up your Super Bird in tight denim isn't freaky enough -- is that the soundtrack will switch over to alternative rock, with indie rockers like Plain White T's and The All-American Rejects creating special summer Craveable dishes.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather see emo rockers strumming six-strings and singing about angst instead of whipping out spatulas and cookbooks.

3. Roses are red, Iomega scrap is cobalt blue
1-800-Flowers (Nasdaq: FLWS) announced an electronic equipment recycling drive. I know that when I think about floral arrangements, the first thing that pops into my mind is not scrap metal. Then again, I can see where a company that ships flowers for a living may overcompensate by boldly taking on an eco-friendly recycling initiative.

The upshot? 1-800-Flowers will provide coupons for 15% off a future purchase. The downside? Before heading out with your toasted copier for the sake of that coupon, know that you'll still be paying for 85% of a purchase that you may not have been planning to make. Ahhh, a green thumb in more ways than one.

4. Lights, camera, squint
Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) unveiled a kiosk -- at its annual shareholder meeting -- that will allow owners of portable media players to download movies at its stores. Can't they just do this at home? No, apparently Blockbuster thinks that movie fans want to drive over to the store, wait in line to dock a player on a machine, and download a video that may be tethered to the player or be seen on a larger screen with questionable quality. Didn't the rental industry learn its lesson with the disposable DVD?

I've got an idea. Wait a year and save some of those kiosks for the next 1-800-Flowers electronic equipment recycling drive.

5. If at first you don't succeed, try and fail again
Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) re-launched its online store this week. It's a lose-lose situation. If it prices its books aggressively to compete with Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), it risks alienating the retail customers paying more in person. If it simply matches its store prices, it doesn't stand a chance against a savvy Web audience. I guess if -- or rather when -- it fails, it can always just refashion Borders.com into a bipartisan hotbed community of people with passionate opinions on the country's immigration policy.