At Time Warner's annual stockholders meeting last week in Atlanta, the buzz was all about Ted Turner's Garboesque I-vant-to-be-alone speech.

What you may have missed was TWX's new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report.  The report addresses Time Warner's role as good corporate citizen in a variety of areas, including diversity, journalistic integrity, child protection online, content accessibility, consumer privacy, ethics and governance, employee growth and development, public policy, the environment, supply chain management, and philanthropy.

All of that is well and good, but I want to ask: who is going to take responsibility for the Warner Bros./Matt Leblanc vehicle Joey?

[image from CBS News]

• Turner did not stand for re-election to TWX board of directors
• He didn't stay for the video montage in his honor
• He disappeared before former CNN chief Tom Johnson gave a long tribute to him

• Even more Al Roker Investigates
• Forensic Files increases its wonkishness tenfold
• Court TV's series Parco, P.I. will fight Magnum, P.I. (my all-time second favorite syndicated tv show) to the death

As if $7 beers, steroid scandals, and terrible haircuts (oh, Johnny Damon, what happened?) weren't enough of a challenge for the beleagured game of baseball to overcome, now there's an even bigger threat to worry about: changes in corporate ownership.

The Atlanta Braves are up on the auction block (as they have been for quite a while), and it looks like Time Warner may finally get out of the big leagues by selling them to Colorado-based Liberty Media Corporation.

Ted Turner had long held a soft spot for the Atlanta Braves, acquiring them three decades ago. When Time Warner merged with Turner Broadcasting System in 1996, it also picked up the Braves. But rather than seeing the Braves as a perk, TWX has long viewed the Braves as an albatross around its neck.

Third baseman Chipper Jones, echoing the sentiments many Braves, is worried about the corporate switch-up pitch. "I don't know what [Liberty Media's] intentions are as far as salary structure, but the bottom line is: They're from out of town."

If TWX can sell the Braves, will it finally get back on base?

Former Latin students of the world:

Salvete! I have good news!

No, your Latin teacher didn't actually give herself a lethal paper cut on your shoddy translation of Virgil's Aeneid. And, no, your local school board didn't finally decide that Latin was, in fact, "dead enough" to give up on trying to teach it.

But it's almost as good. Earlier today, Warner Bros. movie studio, a unit of Time Warner, announced plans to remake the old Latin class stand-by Clash of the Titans. The original feature film, which follows the codpiece-wearing hero, Perseus, as he fights monsters and Medusa, to save the beautiful Princess Andromeda. Andromeda, in typical princess style, spends most of the movie chained up to a rock, waiting to be rescued by the divinely chartered hero.

Today, Time Warner closed at 17.40, a gain of 0.23%.

But what does a gain of 0.23% mean? Well, allow me to put that in perspective for you:

• François Truffaut's film The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cent Coups) won him the Best Director Award at Cannes in 1959. A 0.23% gain would've forced the Film Festival to praise him instead for The 400.92 Blows.
• In the Biblical story of Noah's flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. With a 0.23% gain, it would have rained for 40.092 days and 40.092 nights.
• Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Water would freeze at 32.0736 degrees Fahrenheit with a 0.23% gain.
• In the sport of bike racing, a racer said to be "dying a thousand deaths" when struggling to hang on to the pack.With a 0.23% gain, he would be "dying a thousand-two-point-three deaths."
• “… Baby One More Time” was the Britney Spears megahit of 1998. A 0.23% gain would have changed the hit to “… Baby One-point-zero-zero-two-three More Times.”

That, finance fans, is what a 0.23% gain means.

As my blogs suggest, I expect VIP treatment -- a spot behind the velvet rope, a complimentary bottle of Cristal, a second bottle for my entourage, and someone to hold my parasol.

It turns out, however, that I need to start expecting VoIP treatment.

That's right, finance fans, VoIP is short for "voice over internet protocol." It's the way internet users are starting to make calls. By using a phone connected to a high-speed internet line, they can connect anywhere and talk to anyone.

Time Warner has been in this market for a while, but it's trying to increase the market share. Skype (owned by eBay) announced today that it had reached 100 million users. Additionally, Vonage Holdings Corp., may offer up to 31.25 million shares priced at $16 to $18 each in an initial public offering, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.

Citing industry analysts, Vonage estimates the market for Internet phone service in North America may get as high as 15.3 million consumers by the close of 2007.

15.3 million consumers?! Getting VoIP treatment?!

Well, did any of those 15.3 million consumers get invites to the afterparty I'm going to tonight?

I didn't think so.

Good news, owners of TWX stock! Not only are you going to enjoy the benefits of more reality television, more syndicated re-runs and more pithy "commentary" from observers like myself, you're also going to be getting a nickel.

That's right, yesterday, the Board of Directors of Time Warner declared that owners of Common Stock will receive $0.05 a share, in cash, on June 15, 2006.

Huzzah!

So, the big question is, how many shares of stock would I have to own (which I don't---I don't own any TWX) in order to take advantage of the following Warner entertainment options:

TNT's is about to drop yet another original drama series on us. It's called Saved, and AOL products will be integrated into the actual show.

Saved will air Mondays at 10 p.m. starting June 12. The series launches with a commercial-free premiere episode, sponsored by Quizno's and Dodge.

"Our integration with both Saved and [the TNT series] The Closer -- an established hit -- allows us to tap into new audiences and broaden our reach in a unique way," says Richard Taylor, senior vice president of brand marketing for AOL. "We can showcase the value of AOL within the actual storyline, making it relevant to the characters' lives."

According to the press release, Saved focuses on a young, hip, directionless slacker named Wyatt Cole. Cole -- played by Tom Everett Scott (Boiler Room, That Thing You Do) -- kicks around Portland, Oregon, trying to figure out what to do with his life and struggling to live in the shadow of his high-achieving parents.

The hook? He's a paramedic.

The catchphrase? "By saving other people's lives, he will be able to save his own."

I can only imagine how this one is going to work...

SCENE: Burnside Bridge, Downtown Portland. Single-car auto accident. Cole is applying a tourniquet.

Cole: "I can't deal with all these pressures. They've been with me ever since childhood. I mean if only they'd placed PARENTAL CONTROLS on their expectations of me --"

Auto accident victim [suddenly coming back to consciousness]: "You mean like the PARENTAL CONTROLS on AOL?!"

So Time Warner opened this morning at 16.93, and this afternoon it closed at 17.36, a 2.78 % gain.

2.78%. That was the change today. Not bad. Not good.

What does 2.78% gain mean, really?

Well, let's think about what a 2.78 % gain would have meant at certain moments in history.

• 1066 was the year of the Norman Conquest of England. A 2.78% gain would have meant the Normans invaded in June of 1095.
• In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittberg Cathedral. A 2.78% gain would have resulted in 97.6 Theses nailed to the door of the Wittberg Cathedral.
• Abraham Lincoln began the Gettysburg Address with the famous words, "Four score and seven years ago." (This is apparently how you say the number 87 if you are a president in the nineteenth century.) A 2.78% gain would have forced him to begin the Gettysburg Address, "Four score and 7.19 years ago."
• In 1988, the Scottish band The Proclaimers had an enormous hit with the single "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)". A 2.78% gain would have forced The Proclaimers to re-name that song "I'm Gonna Be (513.9 Miles)".
• Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt, and Morgan Freeman all starred in the 1995 thriller Seven. A 2.78% gain would have forced the movie to be called Seven-Point-One-Nine.

  That, dear readers, is what a gain of 2.78% means.