Posted 9:41 PM by Blah blah

Today was random web surfing day. Here's some of the catch I brought back in my little fish bucket.

As usual, Craigslist makes me chuckle with the following ads. The Craigslist community just had what looks like a cool party at the Curve Bar in SF. Why don't I get invited to THESE things? Damn...

Girlfriend Resume [Cute!]:

Girlfriend position with an interesting, attractive, 24-38 year old man in San Francisco or Marin that will build on prior success as a single woman and a long term girlfriend.

Relationship Experience

Single Woman in the City, Ltd., July 2001 – Present.
Single Woman
-- Posted personal ads on Craigs List, Match.com, and Nerve.com resulting in the three highest dating periods in single woman's 26 year history
-- Wrote and edited personal ads and personal responses to numerous men; also wrote numerous interesting journal entries and short stories
-- Managed inside and outside dates including hiking, dinner, drinks, sleepovers, museum outings, plays, music, and weekend trips
-- Trained dates on etiquette through the use of role-plays, briefings, conversations, and emails
-- Developed strategic plan to enjoy life as single woman including painting, reading, running, yoga, writing, and movie watching
-- Managed life so that dating was not the only concentration
-- Maintained friendships with other single women, old boyfriends, some new acquaintances

Long-Term Girlfriend, Inc., April 1999 - July 2001
Long-Term Girlfriend
-- Consultant to boyfriend on wardrobe, cooking, and family relationship issues
-- Participated in numerous debates including politics, existentialism, religion, business, and toilet seat positions
-- Formulated and implemented dating plan including extensive hiking, breakfasts in bed, high levels of cuddling, and fun with friends and alone
-- Wrote and edited online and print love letters
-- Defined boundaries for success as an entity of my own, not the other half of boyfriend
-- Responsible for PR with our friends to ensure that we kept all friendships and enjoyed time apart

Volunteer Activities

Conversation partner for mother, some cleaning and cooking, massages, and love

Education

Twenty six years of life

References available after we become acquainted.

Sorry to the young man on the BART (Missed Connections):

i accidently looked up (i really didn't mean to) and you said hi and started to introduce yourself. now i'm very friendly in the right situations, but i've noticed a trend in my life where i get picked up on by very young, and often very persistent men (such as yourself ) all too often, now i know, i shouldn't really complain-- it IS flattering and I'm told i look young for my old, old, old age -- did i mention i'm old? i was actually one of those old young people, but now that i'm getting older it seems i'm getting younger, strange- i know-- but when i realized it was happening again the words came out before i thought about it . .

"i'm reading" ...

Now i would normally grade myself on my own response here, but i never took the "how to get hit on correctly" class and as it appears, i have really bad manners in that area (which is admitedly a terrible, terrible thing) and i can't stand getting bad grades, so I will simply appologize and wonder how i can just say thank you next time or maybe smile bigger, but screw it don't I have a certain right not to get hit on in certain situations (can you just smile at me or something?).. or go ahead .. say something to me.. but don't ask for anything like.. my name or my phone number.. and for crying out loud, don't hit on me then ask for change..

I Hate Myself (Missed Connections):

YOU: Tall beautiful surly girl, short dark hair, pale skin, steel toed boots, fussing over the USE BY dates on the ground beef yesterday evening at Safeway on Church and Market.

ME: Slumped, wounded, slightly unattractive, unshaven, tired, basket full of Safeway Select brand products, moderate gut ... Ah what's the use.

Other ways to contact poster: Unlikely

$175 - Stay in my stationwagon for cheap!

Here's the deal. I have a BIG lovely stationwagon with 5 cupholders, cloth interior, 6 tube hooka, large ash tray, leopard trash bag, and tinted windows.

This is a one person stationwagon rental. I am asking for $175.00 per month and all other expenses are paid. However, you are reponsible for washing the windshield, morning defrosting, and oil changes.

I work from 9:00am- 7:00pm weekdays......SO THE CAR-APARTMENT will not be available at those times for entertaining, sleeping, or cooking. Weekends are flexible.

The CAR-APARTMENT is furnished with a futon, one yellow pillow, a stuffed care-bear, and some left-over candy wrappers. (I like candy) Sometimes I like to leave my tenants snacks and such.

Of course you will have have to live/rent the CAR APARTMENT in my drive-way. It's quite nice and near the Berkeley Capus, 7-11, various neighborhood bars, and a laundromat. If you ask nicely I can even park my car at the laundromat so you have easy access to clean your clothing.

Other ways to contact poster: only email, and you can't drive my car. sorry.
cats are OK - purrr

Are you happy where you’re sleeping?

I love my bed; there’s a great view, a fireplace, a beside table on each side, with cool books and sketch pads. The only problem is others don’t seem to know my bed exists. To wit: I’ve done a horrible job of marketing my bed. Sure, when a woman sees me on the street, she realizes on a super-subconscious level that I have a bed. But I kind of want some of the women I see on the street to actually come over and check my bed out, give it a test drive so to speak.

Now I have an open mind. I’m sure there are other great beds in the city and I would be willing to test drive other beds. My bed won’t be jealous, I’m certain. So maybe I am looking for a mean game of bed-swapping?

What I look like in my bed: I sleep on my stomach, except if there is a woman with me, in which case I can pull off a mean spoon. I am six-feet long, because I think I gain at least a half-inch since that pesky gravity isn’t acting on me in a vertical fashion. I have on boxers and a t-shirt if it’s cold. I have blue eyes, which you can’t see because my eyes are closed. I have a good body (translation: I am not embarrassed to take my shirt off at the beach, and sometimes when I do, someone will say, ‘nice body’) and my hair is about a half-inch long because more and more of it stays in the shower now (I’m 31). I don’t drool, honest!

What you look like in bed: you can sleep any way you want, as long as you don’t push your butt way out into my side of the bed, thus hogging the bed. If you do that, I’ll have to slap you on the ass to make you move over, unless we’re fooling around, then I might slap you on the ass any way, but only if I’ve cleared it with you first. You are wearing underwear and a t-shirt. You are in good shape and maybe you even workout on a regular basis or practice yoga, but not in the bed, unless we’re fooling around…

Please don’t ask to come see my bed if: you are mean; you are materialistic; you don’t like to spend long, but productive, hours in said bed; you eat in bed; you didn’t have a bed at college; you smoke in bed, or any where else; your bed isn’t in the city; you don’t consider yourself intelligent and wise.

Open For Revision (Glossary of terms for Craigslist posters):

Biden: poster who steals other people's ads and runs them as their own.
Bonaparte: a man who is pissed the hell off about women's height requirements.
Britney: a woman who posts a provocative ad just for the influx of responses, with no intention of following up.
Cass: a woman who won't post stats on account of weight
Cruella: someone who posts just to make fun of respondents. Britneys are not always Cruellas, but Cruellas are always Britneys.
Dorian: one who posts "I'm [blank] but look [blank]"
Dorothy: the witty, wry, bitterish, sassy poster
Doug: (as in Henning) guy who posts same ad every day changing only the title, in hopes that'll do the trick.
Ebenezer: Obsessed with women and their attitudes towards money. He'll be there when you get there, drink already ordered.
Emily: (as in Dickenson) a woman whose ad is heavy in the prose department.
Freud: (as in it doesn't take one to figure this out) a person who projects, via hostile posts, their frustration at being addicted to CL.

#### W A R N I N G #### THIS COULD HAPPEN 2U!!!

First I got a computer. Then I found out about craigslist. Well it quickly became obvious that a "pic" was imperative so I got a "pic". Now I had to learn the online lingo and how to market myself, what wording to use to skirt the fact that I am a relatively average middle age guy, no problem, I found out pretty quickly that I am actually just a VGL hunky late thirties stud. So I stretched the truth a bit.

Well, here's the bottom line, six months later I have done nothing but sit in front of this damn computer putting postings on craigslist as well as responding to the postings of others. I haven't been to the gym in months, am snacking on Spam and Ritz crackers and chain smoking. I have gained ten pounds and developped quite a hack.
I NOW LOOK NOTHING LIKE MY "PIC"

Batter up: I keep a lineup card of my favorite actresses, and though I love Meg Ryan, her feet might be a deal breaker. (Salon.com). This essay by Bill Vaughn really makes me laugh. Once I met a woman, a roommate of my coworker, who looked strikingly like Meg Ryan. I started calling her "Meg" and she would respond with the same goofy smile:

"After I took some heat last season for starting only babes and starlets [on my fantasy list of favorite celebrity women], I drafted Greta Van Susteren, the nimble little lawyer who co-hosted the CNN legal affairs show Burden of Proof (until Fox wooed her away). I liked the way -- for obscure reasons -- her smile got all crooked when she was excited about some point of law. The guys who had shamed me into this roster change featured players on their lineup cards such as Catherine the Great, the singer Natalie Merchant, lady CEOs and women who never existed in the flesh (Betty Crocker was one). These were managers, I finally decided, who had allowed their minds to beat out everything else for control.

After suffering through a dismal road trip with the politically correct but sensually inert Van Susteren (she's good with the glove but just can't hit to save her life), I had to admit that I didn't want women who made me think. I wanted women who made me dizzy. It was my teenage nephew who finally forced the issue (his leadoff hitter is Dominique Swain, the nymphet Jeremy Irons was obsessed with in the remake of Lolita). The boy sent me a squib from a fanzine that clearly showed that the person Van Susteren resembled most in the world was Fabio. I replaced her on the spot with Gwyneth Paltrow. And I've never looked back."

Posted 3:05 PM by Blah blah

When it's wrong to "have a vision":

Eating My Own Words: A letter to Lou Gerstner from Stewart Alsop (Fortune):

Dear Lou: Let me loudly congratulate you upon your retirement from IBM. I clearly remember the reaction most people had when you arrived as CEO in 1993 (after a number of people had reportedly turned the job down, by the way): How the heck can some guy who knows squat about computers save what was once the world's greatest technology company?

And then you promptly came out with a truly memorable quote: "The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision." Did we have a field day with that! Gerstner is no leader! He'll just sell off pieces of the company and dismantle this icon.

Given all our chatter, it would have been easy for you to embrace some emerging technology as the Next Big Thing to save IBM. You would have been hailed as a visionary. Instead you declared that "the last thing IBM needs right now is a vision." Can you imagine Carly Fiorina saying, "The last thing HP needs right now is a vision"? Or Ken Lay saying last October, "The last thing Enron needs right now is a vision"? If only!

But IBM didn't need a vision; it needed to execute smartly for its legions of customers. It needed to give them the services and technology they asked for. You got the company to buckle down and deliver on the great strength that had been buried under layers of bureaucracy: integrating computer systems and applying technology to solve customer problems. That's boring stuff, but it made IBM a successful company with satisfied customers. And in the wake of the recent bursting of the Internet and telecom bubbles, satisfied customers seem awfully sexy.

Of course, the most impressive thing about your tenure at IBM has been your ability to ignore the nattering nabobs. Just 18 months before you signed on, I wrote a column predicting the death of the mainframe. (I even predicted that the last one would be unplugged and retired by 1996!) So it was a thrill for me, just one week ago, to pose for your upcoming annual report. Your photographer put me in front of a plate covered by letters spelling out the words DEATH TO THE MAINFRAME. Well, let me metaphorically eat my words now. While those 1991-era mainframes are virtually extinct, it is clear that corporate customers still like to have centrally controlled, very predictable, reliable computing systems--exactly the kind of systems that IBM specializes in. It is also perfectly clear that you were right, and I was wrong. Have fun in retirement!

Posted 12:18 PM by Blah blah

If you are new to reading this journal, you must think I am just a copycat with no original material. Well I plead guilty for these past few weeks. My blogging philosophy now is: "if you can't write as funny as the other guy, steal his work."

Anyway, why not use this space to show you some much more talented writers, like my always favorite Rod Serling? Here's part of a TV script I like from The Twilight Zone:

A World of His Own: A playwright finds a creative way to cheat on his wife...

FADE IN and PAN DOWN to a large, comfortable house in an affluent neighborhood, one afternoon, as the disembodied voice of an omniscient NARRATOR fills in the details.

NARRATOR: The home of Mr. Gregory West, one of America's most noted playwrights.

DISSOLVE TO:

A large, comfortable OFFICE in the large, comfortable house. A big desk sits beside a big window.

NARRATOR: The office of Mr. Gregory West.

A large, comfortable man -- not too handsome but a man of intelligence -- sits on a sofa away from the desk. This is GREGORY WEST who wears a jaunty moustache, a necktie, a large, comfortable sweater -- and a grin.

NARRATOR: Mr. Gregory West -- shy, quiet, and at the moment very happy.

Gregory grins at the source of his happiness: a smiling, radiant blonde who wears a plain blouse with an old-fashioned brooch. She mixes a drink.

NARRATOR: Mary -- warm, affectionate.

They regard one another lovingly.

MARY: You really should be working, you know.

GREGORY: You're nagging me.

MARY: I'm only thinking of posterity.

GREGORY: Think of me instead.

MARY: Don't I always?

GREGORY (nods happily): Yes, you do.

Mary tastes the drink.

GREGORY: Dry enough?

MARY: We'll let the master decide.

Mary hands the glass to Gregory who drinks. She waits eagerly for his response. After a swallow, he toasts her.

GREGORY: Perfect -- as always.

MARY: Are you describing yourself, Mister West?

GREGORY: Let the mistress decide.

MARY: She's decided.

Mary joins Gregory on the sofa. He puts an arm around her and kisses her forehead. Gregory and Mary fail to see a figure appear in the window by the desk. The figure of a woman.

NARRATOR: And the final ingredient...

The stylishly-dressed brunette at the window stares in shock at the couple on the sofa.

NARRATOR: Mrs. Gregory West.

VICTORIA WEST, appalled, wraps her fur coat a little tighter around herself and heads for the front door as the unsuspecting couple cuddle. Gregory offers Mary a sip of his drink and they smile. But at the sound of the front door OPENING, a dark look crosses Gregory's face. Mary watches with consternation as he rises. He pauses to listen for a moment, near the office door.

VICTORIA'S VOICE: Gregory?!

Startled, Gregory drops his glass. It SHATTERS on the floor. A distraught Mary rises and grabs him by the shoulders.

MARY (pleading): Greg. Not again.

GREGORY: I have to.

VICTORIA'S VOICE: Gregory, I'm home, darling!

MARY: No, Greg.

GREGORY: What else can I do?

VICTORIA: Are you working?

MARY: Are you so afraid?

Gregory breaks away from her and crosses to his desk. Mary puts her hands to her face and walks over to the office's burning fireplace, opposite the desk.

Victoria KNOCKS at the door.

VICTORIA'S VOICE: I hope I'm not interrupting you.

On the opposite side of the locked office DOOR, Victoria continues to KNOCK.

VICTORIA: Darling! I'll only be a moment, I just want to come in and... kiss you.

Victoria grins horribly. She knows she's got him trapped.

Meanwhile, in the OFFICE, Gregory, with scissors in hand, backs away from the fireplace towards the office door. He pauses to stare at something in the direction of the fireplace and then, satisfied, turns and unlocks the office door. Victoria bursts in, eager for a confrontation.

GREGORY: Well, I didn't expect you --

Victoria stops short. And stares. At the empty sofa. At the empty half of the office with the fireplace. At the empty half of the office with the desk. The office is empty: Mary is nowhere to be seen.

GREGORY: 'S'matter, dear? Somethin' wrong?

Standing by the door, Gregory smiles a little smugly. A confused Victoria removes her fancy hat and continues to look around for any sign of her husband's mistress.

FADE OUT

FADE IN on the OFFICE, a moment later. Gregory regards a sheepish but dogged Victoria who immediately begins to search the room.

GREGORY: How come you're home so early, dear? Didn't you like the movie?

VICTORIA: No, not very much.

Gregory pretends to nonchalantly adjust the tape recorder on his desk while Victoria just as casually roams the room, inspecting it for secret exits.

VICTORIA: I just decided I'd come home early. Have you, uh -- been busy?

GREGORY: Oh, yes, yes. (off the tape recorder) I got quite a bit done.

VICTORIA: Did you? (off the broken glass on floor) Oh, I see you dropped a glass.

GREGORY: Oh, yeah.

Victoria continues her inspection of the room.

GREGORY: You looking for something, dear?

VICTORIA: No. No, I, er, I just thought I'd see if your room needed to be cleaned.

GREGORY: I don't think so.

Victoria TAPS on the wall.

GREGORY: What are you doing, dear? Honey, what are you doing?

VICTORIA: Hmmm? Oh, I, um, uh, checking the wall.

GREGORY: Oh.

Gregory opens a drawer in his desk to put away his scissors.

VICTORIA: What's that?

Guiltily, Gregory throws the scissors into the drawer, then recovers himself.

GREGORY: Oh.

Gregory holds up the scissors to her and CLICKS them a few times.

GREGORY (grins stupidly): My scissors.

Victoria grins back at him. They are playing cat-and-mouse. She walks to a far wall as he pretends to inspect his tape recorder again.

VICTORIA: Gregory...

GREGORY: Mm hmm?

VICTORIA: You wouldn't by any chance have a, uh, a secret door in here, would you?

GREGORY: A secret door?

VICTORIA: That's what I said, darling. Secret door.

GREGORY: Well, now what on earth would I want with a secret door in here?

VICTORIA (ironic): Yes, whatever on earth for?

Gregory sits at the desk. Victoria, crouching low, sneaks up behind him and peers under the desk with an intense look on her face. Gregory looks down at her.

GREGORY: Are you all right, Victoria?

VICTORIA: Hm? (rises) Oh, well, I don't know, I'm not too sure.

GREGORY: Really?

VICTORIA: As a matter of fact, I think I may be suffering from hallucinations.

GREGORY (puts a comforting hand on her): Oh, you poor dear.

VICTORIA (crosses to the window): You know, it's the strangest thing but I was just standing outside this window only a moment ago, right here.

GREGORY (realizes she's seen Mary): You were?

VICTORIA: Yes, I was. And you'll never guess what I saw through that window, Gregory. Or at least, you'll never guess what I thought I saw.

GREGORY (lying through his teeth): I couldn't possibly guess.

VICTORIA: I thought I saw a woman in your arms.

They both begin to laugh, slowly at first, but it builds into a roar throughout the following dialogue as they leave the desk and cross to the sofa.

GREGORY: Did you?

VICTORIA: Yes, isn't that just too ridiculous?

GREGORY: Yes, yes.

VICTORIA: Oh, listen, wouldn't you like to have me describe her to you?

GREGORY (sits on the sofa): Well....

VICTORIA: Oh, let me, let me. She had, uh, masses of blonde hair, and she wore one of those frumpy little blouses with a kind of a tacky little brooch at the bosom, and one of those dreadful sort of peasant skirts. But the funny thing was that she handed you a drink.

Victoria has joined Gregory on the sofa.

GREGORY: Oh, such detail. It's quite remarkable.

Their laughter subsides.

VICTORIA: Yes, isn't it? Of course, if I had thought about it, darling, well, I... I would have realized how ridiculous it was. (she starts to flatter him, he drops his guard) I mean, I would have realized if I had thought about it for a minute that a man of your grace and extraordinary taste couldn't possibly be interested in such a drab, ugly, little creature.

GREGORY: Oh, she's not so drab.

Gregory realizes he's just blown it. Victoria nearly explodes.

VICTORIA: Ah ha! Didn't think I'd be home so early, did you? Didn't think I'd be home the whole afternoon, did you? Thought you had me fooled, didn't you? Well, let me tell you something, Gregory West, I've had my eye on you for some time now. Didn't think I suspected the real reason for why you were always sending me out of the house on one pretext and another, did you? I must be alone to work, you said -- the great and famous playwright! The great and famous philanderer!

Gregory scrambles off the sofa to avoid her wrath and stands in front of the fireplace.

GREGORY: Now, Victoria! Look, I can explain -- It's so simple.

VICTORIA: All right, now you tell me where she is. Where is she?

GREGORY: Look, I can explain everything. Do you remem --

VICTORIA: Go ahead.

GREGORY: Well, now, wait. Do you remember my play, Fury in the Night?

VICTORIA (can't believe his pathetic attempt to change the subject): Oooohhhhhh, yes.

GREGORY: Dear, do you remember it? You remember the character Philip Wainwright?

VICTORIA (rises and confronts him): Gregory, just tell me one thing, what's her name?

GREGORY: What?

VICTORIA (slaps his face): What's her name?

GREGORY: Mary! But that doesn't --

VICTORIA: Mary! How common.

GREGORY: Oh, now, Victoria, please. Victoria, just sit down here and listen to me. Let me explain.

Gregory guides her into a chair by the fire.

VICTORIA: I'm listening.

GREGORY: You know how sometimes I've told you that fictional characters come alive? They come alive so vividly that they make decisions of their own. A playwright may have worked out some kind of move for them but they refuse to do it. They will not accept anybody's -- they become so strong that sometimes they take over the whole story.

VICTORIA: Gregory, I hardly see that this has any --

GREGORY: Please bear with me, Victoria.

VICTORIA (acidly): I've borne with you for years.

GREGORY: Philip Wainwright was the first one of my play characters to ever behave like that. No matter what I had planned for him, he balked. He refused. He wouldn't accept any of my decisions. He became alive. With a will of his own. You understand?

VICTORIA: I understand that you're trying to change the subject.

GREGORY: I'm not. This is the subject. Philip Wainwright became alive. One night, while I was working here, right -- right up here in my office...

Gregory back-pedals to the desk and points to it, then at the door.

GREGORY: Philip Wainwright walked in through that door.

VICTORIA: Oh, Greg, now really!

GREGORY: Victoria, you've got to believe me. He walked in right through that door. He came in here and he sat down in that chair. (points to a chair near her) A live, real flesh and blood man. (a little proudly) And I created him.

VICTORIA (thinks he's crazy): Oh, my.

Victoria rises, moves to a nearby telephone, and picks up the receiver.

GREGORY: What are you doing?

VICTORIA: I am afraid a psychiatrist is next on the agenda.

Gregory puts his hand on the phone to kill the line.

GREGORY: You've got to believe me, Victoria. Characters in my plays do come alive. I've seen them, I've talked to them. I've even shaken hands with them.

VICTORIA: You even made love to them, remember?

GREGORY: Ye-e-es --

She SLAMS the receiver down on his hand.

GREGORY: I mean, no! Look, you know how I work. (crosses to desk and picks up the tape recorder's microphone) I dictate dialogue and stage business into the tape recorder. I describe any character I want. And if I do it well enough... they come to life. To life, Victoria! And I don't have to describe the characters in my plays anymore. I can describe any character I want.

VICTORIA: You should be put away.

Victoria heads for the door but Gregory intercepts her.

GREGORY: Now, you said that you saw Mary here, right?

VICTORIA: Oh, I saw her here, all right.

GREGORY: Then how did she get out?

VICTORIA: That's what I'm trying to find out.

Gregory leads her back to the center of the room.

GREGORY (gestures to the window): She could not have gone out through the window. (gestures to the wall) You know there are no secret doors in here. But I'm going to show you how she got out of here, because I want you to understand.

Gregory pats her on the cheek and moves to the desk. He opens the drawer, pulls out his scissors, and holds them up grandly. He pantomimes the action described in the following dialogue while Victoria looks on in disbelief.

GREGORY: I take my scissors. I snip off the part of the tape on which she is described. I roll the tape into a little ball. I throw it into the fireplace. She's gone! (snaps his fingers) Uncreated.

VICTORIA: I'm going to have you committed.

Victoria heads for the door. Gregory again rushes to intercept her.

GREGORY: You've got to believe me now, you've got to.

Gregory locks the office door.

VICTORIA: What do you think you're doing?

GREGORY: Just a minute, I'm trying to save our marriage.

Gregory pockets the key and returns to the desk.

VICTORIA: Don't waste your time.

GREGORY (picks up the microphone): I can describe a dog or a cat or any character you want. But I'm sure you would prefer to see Mary and I've created Mary so many times, she'll be much more available.

VICTORIA: I'll just bet she is. Give me the key, Gregory.

GREGORY (almost reverently, into the mike) Her name... is Mary.

The reels on the tape recorder spin. Gregory continues speaking into the mike, so caught up in the act of creation that he fails to sense Victoria as she sneaks up behind him and fishes the key out of his sweater pocket.

GREGORY (into the mike): She's thirty years old. A tender, gentle woman. An understanding woman. She's dressed...

Victoria retrieves the key and moves to the door, silently unlocking it.

GREGORY (into the mike): ...in a soft blouse, old-fashioned brooch, full skirt. Her hair is attractively arranged. She's coming up the front walk. She's crossing the porch.

Victoria opens the door slightly, then pauses. She hears something odd.

GREGORY (into the mike): She's opening the front door.

The front door OPENS.

GREGORY (into the mike): She's closing it.

The front door CLOSES.

GREGORY (into the mike): She's walking across the hall.

FOOTSTEPS down the hall. Mary's shadow appears, followed by Mary herself who arrives at the doorway with a big smile on her face -- she's happy to see Gregory. But as she enters the door, she comes face to face with Victoria. The two women are stunned and stare in shock at Gregory who merely smiles at them both. Mary recovers first.

MARY (very polite): Good afternoon, Mrs. West. Mary looks at Gregory, clearly confused. Victoria looks at Gregory but it's hard to know what she's thinking.

FADE OUT

FADE IN, same scene, moments later. Mary enters the room completely.

MARY: There's nothing to be afraid of, Mrs. West.

GREGORY: Do you believe me now, Victoria?

Victoria calmly shuts the office door.

VICTORIA: I'll tell you what I believe, Gregory. I believe this is some sort of fiendish plot. You-you-you let her out of here through a secret door, then you tell me this ridiculous story about bringing characters to life. Then you lock the door and pretend to bring her back to life. Then she comes in the front door and tries to make me believe that-- You are trying to drive me insane, Gregory. You want to have me committed.

GREGORY (protests): The only reason I did this was because you were going to have me committed.

VICTORIA: You want to have me committed so that you can get all of our property. So, that you can share our property with this, this, this -- (gestures at Mary)

GREGORY: I just wanted to show you.

MARY (genuinely hurt, to Gregory): Is that why you brought me? Just to show her?

GREGORY: Now, please, try to understand, Mary. After all, Victoria is my wife.

VICTORIA: Not any longer, I'm not. Not after this diabolic conspiracy.

GREGORY: Oh, now, Victoria, can't I do anything right?

VICTORIA: No!

MARY (quietly): You haven't answered me, Greg.

GREGORY (ignores Mary): You don't really believe that I want to have--

VICTORIA: Yes!

Victoria heads for the door.

GREGORY: Here we go again!

Once more, Gregory intercepts her, locks the door, pockets the key, and heads back to the desk.

VICTORIA: You let me out of here, you monster. Gregory West, you let me out of here or I'm going to scream. I promise you I'm going to scream.

The two women have followed Gregory to the desk where, scissors in hand, he makes ready to cut the tape.

GREGORY (to Victoria): What for?

MARY (upset, to Gregory): Again?

Gregory cuts the tape.

MARY: Why do you do this to me, Greg?

GREGORY: Oh, I'm sorry, Mary, but (glancing at a confused Victoria) what else can I do?

MARY (protests): I just got here, Greg.

GREGORY: What else can I do?

MARY: That's all you ever say.

Gregory turns to Victoria as he balls up the tape and moves towards the fireplace with it.

GREGORY (sardonic, to Victoria): Wouldn't believe me, huh? You just gotta make me show you, huh? You gotta make me force poor Mary to leave again. Victoria, sometimes I wonder.

MARY (quietly, with conviction): Don't bring me back again, Greg.

GREGORY (stunned): M-Mary!

MARY: Just... don't. I can't bear it any longer.

GREGORY (genuinely upset): Oh.

Gregory glances at a disbelieving Victoria.

GREGORY: Forgive me, Mary. But she is my wife.

Victoria smiles and nods in amusement at all this. Gregory turns to the fireplace and throws the balled-up tape into the fire. The fire FLARES up briefly and, as Gregory and Victoria watch, Mary simply vanishes into thin air. An astonished Victoria turns to Gregory.

VICTORIA: Where is she?

GREGORY: I told you.

Victoria rushes to the spot where Mary disappeared.

VICTORIA: Where is she?

GREGORY: You still don't believe me, huh?

VICTORIA: Gregory, where did she go?

GREGORY: I told you. I... (snaps his fingers) uncreated her.

Victoria shuts her eyes -- she can't believe what she's just seen.

VICTORIA: Oh, dear.

She puts a hand to her head. Gregory embraces her.

GREGORY: Don't you worry. We won't let it happen anymore. I promise you I won't do it again. The only reason I did it the first time was that... well, I was lonely. Oh, don't you see, Victoria? You're so perfect.

As he holds her close to him, she once again reaches into his sweater pocket and steals the key to the office door.

GREGORY: ... You're so impeccable, you're so flawless, and... Well, I just felt inferior. I wouldn't've created Mary... I didn't create her to insult you. I was lonely, that's was all. I wanted somebody to talk to.

VICTORIA (mildly ironic): Aw.

GREGORY (crosses to the desk): Someone that I'd felt comfortable with. Not like a worm. Well, you understand, don't you?

VICTORIA (ironic): Oh, yes. I understand.

At the desk, Gregory fixes the tape in the tape recorder.

GREGORY: Fine. We'll work it out. We'll work it out somehow. It's just that I -- I feel so inadequate compared with you. Of course, that's really my fault. I guess I should have --

He looks up. Victoria's gone. She's moved to the office door which she now unlocks. She turns to him intently.

VICTORIA: Now, don't try to stop me, Gregory.

GREGORY: Where're you going?

VICTORIA: I'm going to the nearest lawyer and I'm going to have you put away for the rest of your unnatural life. Away from tape recorders and away from me. I'm going to live all by myself in perfect peace and harmony in this house, free of your diseased mind.

GREGORY: No, Victoria!

VICTORIA: Yes, Victoria.

Gregory realizes she isn't kidding.

GREGORY: I believe you. Well, I guess there's nothing else to do.

Gregory crosses to a bookcase by the fireplace. With a wicked grin, he moves some books to reveal a wall safe.

VICTORIA: How long has that been there?

Gregory opens the safe.

GREGORY (casually): Oh, ever since you and I were... married.

He reaches into the safe and pulls out an envelope. Pleased with himself, he confronts Victoria.

VICTORIA: What is that?

He hands her the envelope.

VICTORIA: What is this supposed to mean?

He takes the envelope from her. On the outside of the envelope is printed the name VICTORIA WEST. Gregory opens the envelope and pulls out the contents: a tangled mass of tape. Victoria smiles at this as Gregory returns the tape to the envelope.

GREGORY: Now, Victoria, shall I put this back in the safe? Or shall I throw it in the fire?

VICTORIA (amused): Gregory, you're not seriously trying to make me believe --

GREGORY: I am telling you, Victoria. Look at yourself. Regal. Beautiful. You could have any man in the world that you wanted. (grins) Haven't you ever wondered how you happened to get stuck with me?

Victoria nods pointedly.

GREGORY: Well, I'm telling you. You're impeccable. Flawless. You're just the sort of wife that... I always used to think I wanted more than anything else in the world.

At this last thought, he lowers his head.

VICTORIA: Is this another one of your tawdry little tricks?

GREGORY: Now, why do you think I got so upset when you came back here a while ago? Not because of Mary. But because you came back against my will for the first time. For the first time.

VICTORIA: Do you think you're frightening me?

GREGORY (after a pause): No, I guess not. Oh, you're beyond that.

Victoria doesn't know quite what to make of that.

GREGORY: I made you too strong. I forgot to add a little human frailty. (resignedly) Well, I asked for it. (off the envelope) I'll put this back in the safe. I've got --

Victoria snatches the envelope out of his hand.

VICTORIA: Gregory. Would you like to know what I think of your childish nonsense? Hmm? This.

She throws the envelope into the fireplace. Gregory freaks.

GREGORY: Victoria!

Victoria starts to walk off as Gregory desperately tries to retrieve the envelope. Suddenly, she stops short and put her hand to her forehead. Gregory is unable to save the envelope and burns his hand.

VICTORIA: Oh, Greg. Greg, I feel so strange. I --

The envelope burns. Victoria looks on in horror.

VICTORIA: You -- you don't mean that you were telling me the truth?

The envelope has nearly burnt up -- and the tape along with it. She begins to fade away, exactly as Mary had done.

VICTORIA: You were right.

She completely disappears.

GREGORY: Victoria!

A panicked Gregory races across the room to his desk.

GREGORY (talking to himself): Now, I told her! I told her! She just wouldn't listen to me.

He snatches up the microphone, starts the tape recorder, and sits at the desk. He spins in his swivel chair to face the window, frantically trying to concentrate.

GREGORY (into the mike): Her name... Her name is Mrs. Victoria West...

A long pause. Gregory realizes something, leans back in the chair, and stares for a long moment at the tape recorder.

GREGORY (talking to himself): Why not leave well enough alone?

He stops the tape, rewinds it, and starts recording again.

GREGORY (reverently, into the mike): Her name... is Mary. Mrs. Mary West. She's thirty. Five feet, six inches tall. (rises and moves to the sofa) Blonde hair. Nicely built. Clear complexion. She's a plain, unassuming female. With that inner quality of loveliness that makes a woman truly beautiful. (sits) She is dressed in a soft, pink blouse, old-fashioned brooch, flowing skirt. Her hair is attractively arranged. She is in her husband's study, preparing him a drink.

Mary reappears, just as described. She smiles at him as she mixes his drink.

NARRATOR'S VOICE: We hope you enjoyed tonight's romantic story...

Sitting on the edge of Gregory's desk with the tape recorder in his hands is the omniscient narrator (series host Rod Serling) who addresses the audience directly.

NARRATOR: ... on the Twilight Zone. (Serling puts the recorder aside) At the same time, we want you to realize that it was, of course, purely fictional. In real life, such ridiculous nonsense could never --

At these last words, Gregory and Mary look up and stare at Serling.

GREGORY (surprised): Rod!

Gregory clucks his tongue, rises, crosses to the wall safe.

GREGORY (chiding): You shouldn't.

From the safe, Gregory removes an envelope clearly marked "Rod Serling" and opens it to reveal a tangled mass of tape. Serling doesn't like the looks of that.

GREGORY: You shouldn't say such things as "nonsense." And "ridiculous."

Serling watches uncertainly as Gregory places the envelope into the fire. After a moment, Serling turns to the audience.

NARRATOR: Well, that's the way it goes...

Rod Serling fades away into thin air, leaving Gregory and Mary alone. Gregory crosses back to the sofa and sits. Mary hands him a drink and joins him on the sofa where they sit happily in front of the fire.

NARRATOR'S VOICE: Leaving Mr. Gregory West, still shy, quiet, very happy... and apparently in complete control of...the Twilight Zone.

PAN UP and DISSOLVE TO to a starry night sky and FADE OUT

Posted 9:55 AM by Blah blah

Another example of mistreating a kid:

A Boy Genius? Mother Admits Faking Tests (NY Times):

"Justin Chapman was the smartest little boy in the world.

There were documents to prove it: An I.Q. test, given when Justin was 6, recording his score at 298- plus, the highest on record. A perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT. Another intelligence test, taken when he was 3, on which he maxed out the scale.

Based on such achievements, Justin enrolled in an online high school at 5, and at 6 he took courses at the University of Rochester in New York.

He met with Gov. George E. Pataki of New York. He was featured in a BBC documentary about child geniuses. He spoke at conferences about the special needs of highly gifted children....

But in an interview with The New York Times after a newspaper raised doubts about Justin's accomplishments, Ms. Chapman admitted that many of the records attesting to his superior intelligence were a sham. Ms. Chapman said she falsified the records of the I.Q. test given when Justin was 3. The SAT scores, she said, belonged to a former neighbor's son. She also said Justin had studied the manual for the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale before taking the test in April 2000.

She said that Justin was unusually bright and that she was trying to open doors for him that would otherwise have remained closed.

'I didn't plan on it,' she said. 'It just happened, and I let things get out of control.'

The Rocky Mountain News reported on Feb. 13 that Justin had been hospitalized for psychiatric problems and had been taken from his mother and put in foster care, facts confirmed by documents provided to The Times. The article raised questions not only about Ms. Chapman's claims about her son but also about the methods used to assess Justin's I.Q. by the experts who pronounced him profoundly gifted."

[Hmm. I was considered "gifted" as a kid and went to special schooling. I wonder what that really means...]

Letterman Offer Was News to Chief of ABC News (NY Times) Peer behind the fierce competition and office politics of network TV news. To me, this is a sign of the hurt that media conglomeration, such as Disney owning ABC, would do to the quality of news. The ABC executives who handled this were clumsy and arrogant:
__________________________
David Westin, the president of ABC News, told his top executives yesterday morning that his bosses had blindsided him and failed to tell him that ABC wanted to remove his most prestigious program, Nightline, to make room for David Letterman.

People at the division said he was ashen and spoke of "the tremendous blow" the move would be for ABC News, with "ramifications for the entire division."

The fate of Mr. Letterman's show, which ABC is trying to lure from CBS, remained unclear yesterday, partly because Mr. Letterman left for a weeklong vacation. Still, that ABC was even considering taking aim at Nightline was seen as an ominous sign inside the news division, the latest of a number of slights and the most striking indication yet that the network's parent, the Walt Disney Company, would not hesitate to cut back on news to improve its balance sheet....

Disney executives were unflinching early yesterday. They insisted that they would not let what they considered to be a sentimental attachment to an aging news program get in the way of righting the corporate ship. Investors have expressed impatience with Disney's lagging share price as ABC, which it acquired for $19 billion in 1996, has lost more than 20 percent of its ratings from last year and fallen to third place.

ABC executives think that Mr. Letterman can help lift the network's fortunes, and they have little patience for the news division, which they have at times described as a beehive of sanctimony and overpriced star egos.

Mr. Letterman, 54, has made it clear that he will not go to ABC if his arrival directly leads to the departure of Mr. Koppel, 62. Still, ABC executives were making it clear that, regardless of the Letterman outcome, they do not necessarily think Nightline belongs at 11:35 p.m.

The question swirling around ABC News was whether network executives had risked irrevocably straining their relations with Mr. Koppel and the news division for a bid that was a long shot anyway or if they even cared....

Emotions were raw yesterday. In the world of network news, ABC's division is known as a particularly fractious place, where various fiefs reign, led by the anchors Peter Jennings, Ms. Walters, Diane Sawyer and Mr. Koppel. But it has been known to unite when its empire as a whole is threatened....

There was a degree to which ABC and Disney executives seemed confused by the fierce reaction from the news division. The corporate line was that Mr. Koppel could look upon a move from his time slot as an opportunity to do more in prime time, something executives said they were considering. They have said that they would not want the Nightline brand to go away entirely and that they do value Mr. Koppel's superior interviewing skills.

Lost in the debate, they said, was the focus on what really matters Mr. Letterman could do a lot to increase ratings and revenues in late night while perhaps driving a larger audience to Good Morning America, a big money maker for the news division. If viewers turn off their television sets on ABC, the theory goes, they will awaken to the network's morning show when they turn the sets back on. [Do they expect we are so lazy we can't even change the channel in the morning?]

ABC and Disney need help. The network's big television hit, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, is a shadow of its once dominant self. ABC entertainment executives failed to develop any big hits to capitalize on the brief success of Millionaire.

Posted 11:06 PM by Blah blah

Religious Zeal Infused Yates' Lives, Testimony Shows (LA Times). News of the weirdos. Turns out Rusty Yates, engineer husband, was just as rigid as his wife Andrea was psycho:
_______________________
The cloistered household in which Andrea Pia Yates drowned her five children was laced with offbeat, even dangerous, religious zeal, according to testimony in Yates' capital murder trial Thursday.

It was a home in which the husband and wife stuck to traditional roles. It was a home in which medicine was frowned upon, school systems were unacceptable and institutional religion was a tool of evil. Doomsday leaflets mailed to the house gave hysterical warnings against demonic influences that threaten young children....

For two years before the Yates children were killed, Holmes had kept a diary chronicling Andrea Yates' condition "in case something bad happens."

"I called her husband crying and sobbing, saying she needs help now," said Holmes. "He'd say, 'I'll look into it.' I'd say, 'She's not going to make it through the weekend.' "

Holmes said Rusty Yates considered child care a woman's responsibility and refused to help his wife tend the children. "I'm not saying he didn't play with them or enjoy them, but as far as care for them, he didn't," Holmes said. "If the kids' faces or hands were dirty, he'd say, 'Wait till your mother comes.' "

Therapist Earline Wilcott counseled Andrea Yates for months in a Christian center. The only time she met Rusty Yates, he quoted from the Bible: Wives must submit to their husbands. "Sense of [Andrea Yates] being overwhelmed and trapped with no alternative," Wilcott jotted in her notes....

The religious tracts apparently wielded a heavy influence over the family's lifestyle. They were written by Michael Woroniecki, a preacher who roams college campuses with a message: "You are going to hell."

During his undergraduate years, Rusty Yates met Woroniecki on the grounds of Auburn University and the two struck up a friendship. They stayed in touch, and the preacher's wife exchanged letters with Andrea Yates.

The leaflets said women have a biblical duty to endure natural childbirth as a "humbling" rite of passage. Andrea Yates gave birth to all five of her children without the aid of medication.

The pamphlets also insisted on the importance of home schooling. While his wife sat catatonic in a mental hospital, Rusty Yates was out house-hunting. He had a stipulation: There had to be space for a home school, which was Andrea Yates' job. "The social interaction the world tells you is so important is exactly what you need to protect your children from," the leaflet reads.

The decision to abandon their first suburban house in favor of a nomadic life in trailer parks came after the birth of the Yates' two eldest children. The family lived for a time in a converted Greyhound bus Rusty Yates bought from the Woronieckis for $37,000. A pregnant Andrea Yates--who had recently miscarried--slept on a couch because she was afraid to climb over the steering wheel into the couple's bed, Holmes said.

[HELLO, Earth to Yates...anyone HOME? Sexist fundamentalist husband + mentally deranged wife = Hell.

Reminds me of one of my worst experiences. One summer I was taking care of disabled people and got this boy, maybe 10 years old. He suffered from a degenerative muscular disease that twisted his skinny legs and caused him constant, agonizing pain. He could neither walk nor stand long and spent most of his time lying in a stretcher. He was in such agony he'd scream throughout the night and keep the other campers and himself awake. I still remember me suffering along with him, sitting next to him massaging his legs night after night. One time I was up with him till 4 am massaging till I collapsed next to him in bed.

What infuriated me the most about him was not just his cruel disease, but his parents' beliefs. His parents were Christian Scientists. (I think this is the most ironic name because this belief has no basis in science!) Their religion strongly believes in faith healing, or healing through prayer alone. (Here's the Skeptic's Dictionary's entry on prayer and faith healing.) Basically his parents refused to go to the doctor and refused to let their son take pain medicine! The church of Christian Science has been sued several times, by the way, in the death of children.

We had to honor their religion. All I could do was massage, grit my teeth, and close my eyes to the boy's cries of pain. Why did a boy have to, for the sake of "freedom of religion," suffer for the whims of his parents? I get this same sense of outrage when I hear about the Yates murders. Bah.]
_______________________
My God. What is the real story behind this? Man ambushed ex-boss, police say (San Jose Mercury News):

"Dr. Tanya Holzmayer, a pioneering scientist, was surprised Wednesday night to find a Domino's Pizza deliveryman at the front door of her Mountain View home. Moments later, a former colleague appeared out of the dark, shot her dead and ran off, police said. Guyang 'Matthew' Huang called his wife in Foster City with the news: I just killed my ex-boss. Now I'm going to kill myself....

Both Holzmayer, 46, and Huang, 38, were highly regarded in genetics.

She was a Russian-born genomic scientist who had co-invented a tool that has helped find hundreds of molecular targets to combat cancer and HIV. He was a brilliant scholar -- scoring 11th out of 230,000 students on his college entrance exams in China -- and an activist who fought for reform in his homeland once he came to the United States to study in 1986."

Geek's Startup Business Experiences (Slashdot):

FreshGroundPepper writes: "A few friends and I are in the process of starting up a new software company. (We are compiling our business plan now) With the vast amount of software/startup experience among the /. crowd, we were wondering what kind of potholes and advice our fellow geeks could lend in the way of generic do's and don'ts in the early stages of the game. I'm not looking for legal advice so much as just any gotchas that others have run into."

From Slopes to Salaries When the Olympics Are Over, Many Athletes See Challenges Finding Jobs (ABCNews): "Sure, a few standout athletes from this year's Olympic Games will likely be able to parlay their medals into endorsement dollars. Figure skating's newest sweetheart, gold medal winner Sarah Hughes, for instance, has already gotten her picture on a Wheaties box and many marketing pundits expect her to garner the lion's share of endorsers' attention this winter. But for the more than 200 other American athletes who competed in the Games, the euphoria of competing in the Olympics will soon come crashing up against the harsh realization that they need to find a job just like the rest of us."

Posted 1:29 PM by Blah blah

Sorry again, guys. As those who have chatted with me on Yahoo Messenger recently know, I am just running around like crazy. No time to record. Have some great pix though.

Here are my friend Wei's pictures of the Chinese Spring Festival party, which June helped plan. I was like: "Wei, why didn't you TELL me you were gonna be the host???" Not only was she the host in the red dress,

she was one of the dancers who performed at the end. See those 5 girls and 1 guy?

I think Wei is the girl on the right. Lucky guy, yeah! She told me her dance group had all gone to a shop one day and bought all of their outfits together.

Chinese New Year party pix.

Posted 10:04 PM by Blah blah

With all of Christine's talk of going to China and what it might be like, we should have seen this girl much earlier! Tina of volatile.org is an Asian-Caucasian girl from Vancouver who just started working in Beijing. Her observations crackle from the start and drew me in:

From "Hanoi Nights"...

We mostly rode during our favourite hours, surrounded by shimmering night landscapes. We rode down row after row of grey and shuttered shop fronts, inhaled wafts of reeking garbage at the side of the roads, and skidded down streets which were slick and glistening after being passed over by the cleaning trucks. There were the migrant workers doing the night shift as we careered by and the man, penis in hand, peeing into the street a long arc of wet splashing in front of the bia hoi stall. Along the alleys, there were women of questionable repute idling in the doorways of red-lit karaoke bars. After the dark unlit tangle of streets in the city, we would burst out onto the dusty and empty outside roads and highways, so wide and dotted with flyways - modernity! - and sickly orange lights. Later, as we sidled back to his apartment, there were the muted murmurs and occasional shouts from late-night carousers drinking beer or slurping noodles at the stand on the pavement across the street.

The beauty of nighttime in Hanoi came from the stark contrast of the in-your-face humanity of the daytime and the eerie, almost total, emptiness of the night. It felt infinitely lonely yet full of possibility, with the knowledge of a pulsing sleeping mass of people hidden behind the shuttered shop fronts. In the dark emptiness of the night, there was a sense of wild freedom, epitomized by the two boys who once screamed past us on their motorbike.

If you can tear your soul out of her vivid travels for a while, also check out her imaginative other sections, like The Kiss Project. Tina is so much fun!

She also post this report she wrote for a class on owners of personal websites, including online journals. She surveyed a bunch of us to get her results.

Chi just put up his new site. He's back. I love his design---artistic, poetic, uncluttered. Check him out!