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Who stole all the gnomes?

When Newark, N.Y., police recently were called to a local ballpark, they were speechless. "We were laughing too hard to say anything," officer Tim Vanderlinde said. Arranged around the baseball field were 24 ceramic, plastic, and concrete gnomes - set up as if they were playing baseball. Dozens of garden gnomes have been stolen from lawns and flower beds in this village 25 miles east of Rochester since the start of summer. Mysterious calling cards signed by the "Garden Gnome Liberation Front" were left in their places.

An oil painting that a Wisconsin resident couldn't sell for $5 at a thrift sale last year recently went for $50,000 in an Idaho art auction. Carolyn Bugher's mother-in-law bought the painting, "Into New Country" by Philip Russell Goodwin. When she died, Bugher and her husband inherited the piece, but stashed it in the garage because it didn't match their home's decor. Later, Bugher tried to sell it at a thrift sale, to no avail. She was surfing the Web one day, and, on a whim, she says, "I looked behind me at the painting, put the artist's name in, and found out it might be valuable."

While the vast majority of Americans still use instant messaging at home, it's increasingly supplanting traditional e-mail and phone calling on the job, a new survey from market researcher InsightExpress found. The nationwide poll revealed that 47 percent of all US consumers use instant messaging (IM) regularly. Of that group, 20 percent use IM at work, with almost half choosing the technology over making a phone call. The most-common reasons Americans opt for instant messaging, according to the poll by InsightExpress:

See a "buddy" online 82%

To replace talking on the telephone 49%

Block messages from unknown persons 42%

To replace e-mail 35%

- Business Wire