McNealy vs. Cuban vs. Trump

Scott McNealy's humor was on display again Tuesday, although it came with a PG rating.

During an online chat session, the Sun Microsystems CEO was asked, "With all the amazing happenings at Sun, how do you find time to enjoy your wife and three young children?"

McNealy responded, "I enjoy my wife enough to now have four children." He then quickly, but not so smoothly, transitioned to a marketing pitch. "Actually, the SunRay at home allows me to work very productively from home. Our mobility story is the best in the industry. I could not do my job and have a life without it."

As they say in golf...nice out, Scott.

Speaking of jokes, has anyone caught more than six minutes of "The Benefactor"? That's the TV show in which Broadcast.com founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban dangles a million bucks in front of 16 people, like a SeaWorld trainer with a bucket of herring.

As previously noted, Cuban knows tech and money: He sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion and is currently president of HDNet, a provider of high-definition TV programming. But lording over people the fact that he's got $1 million to hand to the person who can impress him after a series of lame tests is painfully boring TV. And of all things, competing in Jenga?

These are not TiVo moments, and it's no Donald Trump on "The Apprentice."

Apparently Trump predicted the "The Benefactor" would flop, and Cuban fired back in his blog. For now, Trump's show is trumping Cuban's. "The Apprentice," now in its second season, had 16 million viewers last week, while "The Benefactor" had 5.5 million on its debut.

Move the show from Disney-owned ABC to Fox and it could have some potential. Have the contestants pass some real tests: "Tell your mom that your dad died in a traffic accident and keep the lie going for two days. Break up with your wife, move out and don't return her calls for a week. Participate in a ruse in which your boss thinks he won the lottery." Think "Jackass" meets "The Benefactor" meets "Fear Factor." When it airs, I want a cut.

Lastly, Cuban writes on his Web log about picking contestants for the show: "I wanted a wide range of experiences, backgrounds, education and personalities. There were 8 guys and 8 girls, ranging in age from 22 to 42." Forty-two-year-old girls?