Circuit BoardwalkIn an area where cloning successful...

Circuit Boardwalk

In an area where cloning successful products is routine, a Silicon Valley firm has come up with its own version of the nation’s best-known board game.

A Sunnyvale firm has introduced a high-tech Monopoly clone called “Technopoly,” a game to give players a sense of what it’s like to launch and run high-tech firms.

One of the cards players draw, however, can hardly be called realistic: “Your CEO has loaned you the corporate jet. Move to any square on your next roll.”

That’s Entertainment

An episode of ABC’s soap opera “All My Children” taped last week featured cameo appearances by financier Warren E. Buffett and Capital Cities-ABC Chairman Thomas S. Murphy.

That brings to mind other occasions when prominent business figures were bitten by the acting bug. Among them:

* Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” featured former Drexel Burnham Lambert takeover wizard Jeffrey Beck, later disgraced when the Wall Street Journal revealed much of Beck’s past resembled a fictional script.

* Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca appeared on an episode of the now-defunct series “Miami Vice,” a show in which the star drove a Ferrari.

* Donald J. Trump’s 1987 cameo in the television miniseries “I’ll Take Manhattan,” which at one time seemed like an appropriate slogan for the now-struggling Trump.

How About ‘Emir Emir’s’?

Now that an arm of the Kuwaiti government has purchased Charles H. Keating Jr.’s former Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., and the Crescent Hotel in Phoenix, one question remains: What becomes of the names of fun spots the former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner named after himself?

Turns out they will stay the same, even though Keating is on trial in Los Angeles on charges stemming from the sale at Lincoln branches of now-worthless junk bonds issued by the thrift’s parent firm.

Hotel officials said the Phoenician’s nightclub will remain “Charlie Charlie’s,” as will the name of the restaurant “Mary Elaine’s,” named in honor of Keating’s wife.

“As more and more time goes by, it becomes less and less of an issue,” said Sally Cooper, a Phoenician spokeswoman. “The expense of changing the name of anything on a property of this size is incredible.”

Briefly. . .

Can Cardinal Mahoney help?: Fortune magazine’s latest issue on the best and worst cities for business says “The City of Angels could use some divine intervention.” . . . More Phoenician: The giant resort is 1/453 the size of Kuwait City.