(Street Life is a regular feature that looks at what's playing in the stock market.)

* ACT I: The Home Run AnorMED Inc.

(TSX:AOM) $14.05 Up 155.5 per cent (one-month surge, since first takeover bid).

Investors often write off a company as dead money and move on once a takeover offer is made. However, if you'd sold your AnorMED shares when U.S.-based pharmaceutical company Genzyme (Nasdaq: GENZ) pitched a hostile offer of $8.55 US in August, you missed out on the home run. Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:MLNM) stunned the market with a $12 US all-cash bid for AnorMED. That works out to an eye-popping 40-per-cent premium over Genzyme's initial bid that was dismissed by AnorMED as a low-ball offer. Prudential Equity Group analyst Ron Ellis wasn't impressed with Millennium's swing-for-the-fences play, writing in a note to clients that the bid was "likely beyond reasonableness for Millennium.”

Millennium is banking on AnorMED's experimental stem cell booster, Mozobil, being a huge success. As for those patient AnorMED stockholders, they're laughing all the way to the bank.

* ACT II: The Trust Bust Gienow Windows & Doors Income Fund (TSX:GIF.UN) $3.50 Down 49 per cent (two-week plunge on distribution cut).

Gienow slammed the door on unitholders with a massive distribution cut, something that has become commonplace in the income trust sector. The Calgary company slashed its monthly cash distribution from eight cents to five cents, citing a challenging market. Gienow is Canada's largest window and door manufacturer, but the company said its margins have been compressed because of labour constraints in Western Canada and it has also experienced weaker demand in its Eastern Canadian market. The units, which traded at $9.65 a year ago, have been on a steep decline over the past 12 months.

* ACT III: The Bitter Pill Labopharm Inc.

(TSX:DDS) $6.35 Down 21.7 per cent (one-day swoon on news).

The market hates uncertainty and it reinforced that point when Labopharm gave the market a splitting headache over its application for approval of its painkiller Tramadol. The Laval, Que.-based drug developer said it received an approval letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Tramadol, but the stock sold off on concerns over a possible lengthy delay in release of the drug. CEO James Howard-Tripp told a conference call "we need a degree of clarification from the FDA.”

However, many shareholders didn't need any such clarification and dumped the shares. Many analysts lowered target prices and speculated that the drug may not be launched until the second half of next year.

* ACT IV: The Record Breaker Research In Motion Ltd. (TSX: RIM) $114.59 Up 56.9 per cent (two-month rally).

Canada has become notorious for technology market disasters such as Nortel Networks, but RIM is doing a pretty good job of picking up the slack and cementing its reputation as a great Canadian success story. Stock in the company shattered the $100 barrier with a one-day surge of 20 per cent on robust earnings that beat even its own expectations and also issued a rosy forecast. RIM attributed its surprising results to strong sales of its new Blackberry Pearl product and predicted that it should be able to add 800,000 subscribers in the third quarter to its current subscriber total of 6.2 million. The street is also anticipating more good news for shareholders, predicting the company will announce a stock split.

* ACT V: The Big Shakeup CryptoLogic (TSX:CRY) $24.63 Down 18 per cent (one-week dip).

Here's a new twist on CEO speak: "This is about being closer to our customers and to the world's most thriving Internet gaming markets," said CryptoLogic CEO Lewis Rose, in justifying his company's decision to move its headquarters from Toronto to Ireland. Judging by the market's response, Rose's words didn't exactly bring the shareholders any closer to the Internet gaming software company. Furthermore, Rose will be distancing himself to the company as he will not be making the move to Ireland, citing family reasons. The company is now searching for a new CEO. The move to Ireland is estimated to cost CryptoLogic $8-$8.5 million.

* ACT VI: The Dividend Booster McDonald's Corp.

(NYSE:MCD) $39.12 US Up 22.2 per cent (three-month gain).

McDonald's, the much-maligned fast-food restaurant chain, continues to silence its critics with its ringing cash registers and its remarkable resurgence. And now it has rewarded shareholders by boosting its dividend by 50 per cent in one fell swoop, from 67 cents to $1. The Oak Brook, Ill. company said it plans to return at least $10 billion US to its shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks from 2006 to 2008, a ringing endorsement of how the business is thriving. Many pundits thought McDonald's business was in trouble a few years ago but the company's shares have quietly tripled over the past 3 1/2 years.

* ACT VII: The Milestone Zi Corp. (TSX:ZIC) $1.30 (as of Sept. 27).

Up 73.3 per cent (one-day spike on news).

Shares in Zi busted out on news that the mobile wireless technology company had secured a contract with a major global wireless service operation for utilization of its Qix technology, its mobile search and service discovery solution. The deal represents the first revenue-generating agreement involving Qix and CEO Milos Djokovic termed it a "major milestone" in the Calgary-based company's history. The Qix technology recently proved successful in a trial with Sir Richard Branson's U.K.-based Virgin Mobile. Even after the one-day bounce on the news, Zi shares were still down 65 per cent from a year ago.

* ACT VIII: The Penny Jackpot Blue Pearl Mining (TSX:BLE) $5.92 Up 596.5 per cent (year to date).

Prior to this year, Blue Pearl Mining wasn't exactly a household name in the mining sector.

And hardly anyone could pronounce molybdenum let alone explain what it is (a key component in high-end steel alloys and pipeline steel). But Blue Pearl and molybdenum recently became junior mining's hottest one-two punch when the Toronto-based company propelled itself into becoming one of the world's top five molybdenum producers by acquiring privately held Thompson Creek Metal Co. for $575 million. That deal gave Blue Pearl shares an instant 43-per-cent boost. Since January, the stock has recorded an eye-popping seven-fold increase.

(Quotes are based on results through Sept. 29 unless otherwise specified.)

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)