The temptation is to compare last week's economic news to a roller-coaster, if not for the fact that doing so would be a cliché . . . and I so easily become ill on amusement park rides. OK, I guess it is the only apt comparison, after all.

So many conflicting signals.

Remember Monday's rise of 900 points on the Dow? Sure you do. . . . Me neither.

That was the same day Bill Gates told a symposium at the Harvard Business School that he expects today's unemployment rate of 6.1% to top 9% before the dust settles.

"Consumer sentiment has never been so low," Gates said. "So no matter how quickly this gets fixed, you're still going to have an economic cycle with a fairly significant recession."

He didn't express any concern about being able to put his children through college.

The market tanked on Tuesday, of course . . . and again on Wednesday.

But I read a story on Network World's own Web site about Gartner assuring one and all that no matter how bad things get they won't be as bad as . . . the dot-com bubble burst.

"In the worst-case scenario, our research indicates an IT spending increase of 2.3% in 2009, down from our earlier projection of 5.8%," said Gartner analyst Peter Sondergaard. "Developed economies, especially the United States and Western Europe, will be the worst affected, but emerging regions will not be immune. Europe will experience negative growth in 2009; the United States and Japan will be flat."

Pass the party hats.

But perhaps the week's most unsettling development occurred out of earshot to anyone but me: My 83-year-old father in a phone call asked, "Are you guys getting through this thing OK?" What he was really asking was whether the five of us might show up on his doorstep clutching our few remaining earthly possessions. I assured him we are fine, but he nonetheless felt compelled to regale me with another round of stories about how his family coped with the Great Depression.

Thanks for another trip to the amusement park, Dad.

Different 'Joe the Plumber' strikes 'Net gold

He might not be the most famous plumber in America, but he does own the most suddenly desirable address on the Internet.

That would be Joe the Plumber. No, not that Joe the Plumber -- John McCain's Joe Six-Pack, who was mentioned a thousand times in Wednesday night's debate -- but rather Joe the Plumber from Amarillo, Texas.