ESPPs are generally a great deal, but you do have to be careful to make sure you're on top of selling the stock. And you will have taxes to deal with, so you'll be paying your accountant more.

Generally there are some restrictions on how long you have to hold the stock before you can sell. And of course things can go down a lot more than 15%. Otherwise they're generally a pretty big deal, so long as you don't have too much of your comp tied up in them.

Still coughing. Still can't breathe through my nose.

We have an ESPP. If you do payroll deduction, you get a discount on the purchase price each 6 months. If I could afford it, I would buy much more than I have.

The Top 20 Internet Lists of 2009

What are the top scandalous TV sex scenes? I don't want to click on that from the office. But I do wanna know.

My nerd neighbors are Firefly fans. One just sang the chorus from "The Man They Call Jayne" and said, "I need to find someone who can do that on the guitar." Neighbor: "I'll so do that!" And then they laughed in shared geek joy.

I love connie's geeky coworkers!

What are the top scandalous TV sex scenes? I don't want to click on that from the office. But I do wanna know.

I'll womanfully that this hit for ya, ita! Will report back in a moment.

P-C, the only thing I can suggest is that it's important to diversify. You want to be careful that you don't put too much into any one investment. (And there are bigger risks if that investment is stock of the company you work for -- as Steph implied, Enron employees that put their retirement assets heavily into Enron stock lost both their jobs and their retirement nest eggs when Enron went under.)

Beverly Hills, 90210

Brenda loses her virginity to Dylan Though the rebooted 90210 premiered last year with a strongly implied blowjob within the first ten minutes, its 90’s progenitor was hit with its fair share of controversy simply for scripting an offscreen loss of virginity for Shannen Doherty’s Brenda. “Do you know why I’m so lucky?” she cooed to Dylan. “How many girls get to have sex for the first time with someone they love?” What’s even more striking is how happy she is after the act (though a pregnancy scare two episodes later would make that afterglow short-lived).

Without a Trace

Teen orgy In the flashback that cost CBS millions of dollars in fines, a teenage girl remembers a sex party full of underage participants that some overzealous director-of-the-week decided to shoot as though it came straight from an Adrian Lyne film. The message, we think, is that this level of sexual precociousness is a bad thing, but who cares when these eroticized teenage girls are doffing their tops and having sex with two guys at once, am I right? Prompted by complaints from the Parents Television Council and the American Family Association (who may not have even seen the scene in question), the FCC fined CBS for $3.6 million.

General Hospital

Luke rapes Laura Everyone knows that Luke and Laura’s wedding was the biggest ratings event ever on daytime television, but this soap supercouple had a kiiiind of rough start when he, you know, raped her. (He also forced her to disco dance with him just before, adding insult to injury.) Still, audiences seemed so invested in the potential pairing that the two romantically reunited only months after the October 1979 rape. They married in 1981

The Thorn Birds

Meggie consummates her love for Father Ralph de Bricassart At this point, sex scandals involving Catholic priests are a dime a dozen, but back in 1983, they were fairly novel — and the one in The Thorn Birds involved a priest’s sexual relationship with an adult woman, no less! (Albeit one he met when she was just a kid.) The real controversy surrounding The Thorn Birds came from ABC’s decision to begin airing it on Palm Sunday and run the entire miniseries through Holy Week, which infuriated the United States Catholic Conference. Advertisers felt pressure to stay away, though The Thorn Birds was such a huge event that many chose simply to advertise before the relationship was consummated in the third installment.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy and Spike graphically get together When Buffy the Vampire Slayer moved from the WB to UPN for its sixth season, the struggling network was so happy to have a modest success that it let Joss Whedon & Co. get away with a lot. Case in point: Buffy and Spike finally giving in to their abusive foreplay when Buffy unzips Spike’s pants, mounts him, then engages in a level of thrusting and riding so intense that it brings down an entire house (and could teach those sexually adventurous teens from Without a Trace a thing or two). Here’s a montage of Vampire-on-Slayer action set to Madonna’s “Erotic.

NYPD Blue

The pilot offers a graphic, taboo-busting sex scene When NYPD Blue premiered in 1993, creator Steven Bochco felt that in an age where premium cable was widely accessible, it was time for network dramas to stop sanitizing themselves when it came to strong language and sexual situations. The result was a pilot-ending sex scene that went far further than anything previously seen before on networks — and that scene alone prompted 57 of ABC’s 225 affiliates to preempt the show. (Ratings success eventually drew them back into the fold.)

Via TeresaKopec EPIC NERD LOVE: what happens when two betrothed, Level 80 nerds create a "Save the Date" video. [link]

Thanks, Erin! Go Team Spuffy! Man, I remember when that aired. Good times, good times. Do they really link to a vid after that?

You know, I saw the WaT scene, and it didn't make an impression on me at all.

I'm disappointed there are no gay sex scenes on the list. How can those all have slipped under the scandal radar?

P-C, the only thing I can suggest is that it's important to diversify. You want to be careful that you don't put too much into any one investment.

Yeah, I really need to figure out this whole investing thing, except it's scary.

I think I'll probably just try a few thousand this first time and see how it pans out.