SURF'S UP

Interesting item from Yahoo Canada and Leger Marketing shows 82 per cent of Canadian boomers use the Internet for travel info and prefer booking travel online so they can read reviews of hotels and attractions. The poll also found 59 per cent of boomers say they look for last-minute deals online.

On a related note, the poll found that 89 per cent of boomers feel the Internet allows them to share information with their loved ones more easily than they could in the past. Oddly, it found that 60 per cent of female boomers use the Internet to play games, compared to 46 per cent of males. Maybe that's not odd, but I find it a little counter-intuitive.

Certainly no surprise here, but the poll also found that 36 per cent of unmarried baby boomers use the Internet to look up personals and dating sites.

AUGUSTA ON SALE

Even the folks who rent out housing for the annual Masters Golf Tournament in Georgia are feeling the economic pinch. In most years, you can't get near Augusta for the tourney, one of the most prestigious in golf. But this clearly is not like most years.

Bloomberg is quoting the president of Corporate Quarters Inc., Diane Starr, as saying that business has never been this bad in 35 years of helping golf fans find housing at the Masters.

"Everybody assumes that the Masters weathers it all, but not in a crisis like this," she says. "There are a lot of houses on the market."

The tourney starts a little over a month from now, on Thursday April 9 (same day as the Star's annual golf magazine, by the way) and Starr says some house prices are down 50 per cent. Bloomberg reports four-day tickets for the tourney are selling for 15 per cent less than last year on EBay Inc.'s Stubhub.