Good Day, Bad Day

GOOD DAY FOR: Tailgating, after a company called Gameday Customs reached profitability in just two years manufacturing trailers featuring flatscreen TVs, “kegerators” for keeping beer cold, and 1,000-watt generators. The tailgaiting trailers sell for as much as $18,500. Tailgating is so popular that as many as 10,000 people show up for Rose Bowl games but never enter the stadium. (Los Angeles Times, free registration)

BAD DAY FOR: Telling it like it is, as troubled student loan giant Sallie Mae’s stock plunged by 20 percent on Wednesday—its worst one-day drop ever—after chief executive Albert Lord held a conference call to reassure investors. Instead, he scared them by joking that shareholders would have to walk through a metal detector at their next meeting, and by ending the call with an expletive. “We were all kind of shaking our heads,” one analyst said. (The New York Times, free registration)