REDMOND, WA – In its latest move to deploy surplus cash and to expand its reach and relevance, tech giant Microsoft has announced the acquisition of the domain name Awesome.com for $50 billion.

The transaction will consist of cash and the assumption of net debt– chiefly a $7.99 payable to GoDaddy for a month-to-month Economy hosting plan. Awesome.com is wholly owned by Skip Willoughby of Maryland Heights, Missouri and according to Microsoft, earns between $10 and $12 per month through “cash parking,” a GoDaddy service which populates a website with context-relevant advertisements.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer remarked,

Microsoft is often derided as a humongous, complacent and incrementalist corporation that churns out uninspired products and couldn’t increase our stock price to save our lives. Well, to our critics, I am pleased to announce– we are awesome. Dot com.

There is increasing evidence that consumers are spending more and more time on the Internet. We have been closely reviewing the rise of the Internet over the past 15 years or so and we feel that it is now time to make a bold move– indeed, an awesome move. Dot com.

Contrary to the commonly held scientific conclusion that the Earth is getting warmer, a scientist who has written more than 150 peer-reviewed papers has unveiled evidence for his prediction that global cooling is coming soon.

Come on, people– we had a consensus! Damnit. Well, at a minimum this is going to be a big word processing challenge…

To get started, here are some useful tips for Al Gore et al. from the Microsoft website. This function probably works in Powerpoint, too (and with the words ”warming” and “cooling”):

How to Use Search and Replace

 You can automatically replace text — for example, you can replace “Acme” with “Apex.”

1. On the Edit menu, click Replace.
2. In the Find what box, enter the text that you want to search for.
3. In the Replace with box, enter the replacement text.
4. Select any other options that you want.
5. Click Find Next, Replace, or Replace All.

To cancel a search in progress, press ESC.

H/T Mike B.