Land of the forgotten stocks
Remember when Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer rescues all of the unwanted toys that are wasting away on the Island of Unwanted Toys? Check your TV listings, as it's bound to air a few times over the next few weeks. Anyway, that's what this past week felt like, as seemingly unwanted companies were on the receiving end of amorous advances.

Reader's Digest (NYSE:RDA), Clear Channel (NYSE:CCU), and Delta (OTC BB: DALRQ.PK) all received buyout offers. I'd call it the Ugly Betty effect, though that may not be fair considering that Clear Channel has been holding up pretty well in a difficult environment, and even though Reader's Digest was slow to embrace the online revolution, the publisher was taking some welcome steps to get up to speed digitally.

That leaves Delta -- a struggling airline that only a rival struggling airline could love. Consolidation in this red-inked sector would be a good thing for the airlines. There are realized synergies in combinations, and, perhaps more importantly, it would be one less company to engage in a fare war.

To PS3 or not to PS3
With just 400,000 PS3 consoles on sale on Friday morning, it was pretty much a non-event that Sony (NYSE:SNE) admitted that a few older PlayStation titles won't play on the new gaming console. It didn't make the lines at your local Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) or Circuit City (NYSE:CC) any shorter. It also didn't hold back any of the pricey speculation taking place at eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY).

Things only got worse when the online marketplace decided to prohibit presale listings from anyone other than seasoned sellers. It was already bad enough that the limited supply of these $599 next-generation gaming machines had folks bidding about $1,500 for the systems on eBay. Wouldn't drying up the listing pool drive prices even higher? At least until the item hit stores on Friday and eBay lifted the requirement?

Ahh, the things I would do if I still had my youth and three days to burn in a pitched tent in front of a Best Buy.

Until next week, I remain,

Rick Munarriz

Best Buy and eBay are Stock Advisor selections.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz recommends windshield wiper fluid when trying to look back. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy.