Has the NY Times developed a quirky sense of humor? Or is the author of this article really named Jennifer 8. Lee? The article is about the demand for phone numbers with lucky digits in China. A man paid $2,500 for 8889988 at a charity auction. Cell phone stores advertise their best numbers. Discounted numbers (ending with unlucky 4s) are sold below cost. But there are customers who refuse to pay more for lucky numbers. At any rate, Jennifer 8. Lee is looking for prosperity in her byline, and it seems The Old Grey Lady is happy to play along. It’s not so grey anymore anyway with the color photos that still take me by surprise. (Update: Turns out Jennifer just has very cool parents! They wanted to give her a unique name, Jennifer Lee being very popular. So 8. it was. I had done a search in the NY Times archives for “Jennifer Lee” when I wrote the post to see if she usually used the 8, but the search engine was too smart and didn’t return any “Jennifer 8. Lee”s, just “Jennifer Lee” in a few places. But I should have searched for “Jennifer 8. Lee” to begin with. Actually I should have remembered I’ve read plenty of her 8. bylined articles already. Thanks for the info, Seth Gordon!)