News In Brief

THE 'ME' GENERATION If you missed it, a new study has determined that the country with the vainest people is ... Venezuela. The marketing research group Roper Starch Worldwide says it found 65 percent of women and 47 percent of men there admitted thinking about how they look "all the time." Venezuelans, it says, also obsess over beauty pageants. The country's entries have won four recent Miss World titles. By contrast, a Roper Starch researcher said, "in Germany, virtually nobody says they think about what they look like all the time."

OUT OF TUNE WITH THE TIMES? Rock 'n' roll has made fortunes for an almost endless list of artists, promoters, producers, distributors, and the like. Then there's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Without more money, its chairman wrote to the trustees earlier this month, it may not be self-sustaining over the long term. An expansion project under consideration would cost at least $10 million. But attendance has dropped each year since the hall opened in 1995.

Expect Y2K eve to be extra pricey in New York eateries If you're among those who are still looking for New Year's Eve reservations in New York, the tab for dinner at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center will be $3,000 a person. That excludes tax and gratuities, but includes dancing to the Jim Johnson Orchestra and a sunrise breakfast. In defending such sky-high prices, restaurateurs say their costs for the evening have also shot up, for everything from linen service and keepsakes to entertainers and what they must pay their own employees to work that night. A look at the special per-person Y2K-eve prices of some of the Big Apple's better-known restaurants:

Rainbow Room $3,000

Chanterelle 2,500

Lespinasse 2,500

River Cafe 2,500

Windows on the World 2,000

Daniel 1,250

Aureole 1,200

One If By Land 1,200

Russian Tea Room 500-900

- Reuters

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