Well, I was never going to mention this insidious and hideous website again, but… Violet Blue’s column today has too juicy of a quote to leave alone. MySpace is about “collecting friends like white cat hair on black Dickies. ” If you’re on MySpace, you know people like this. I’ve seen some profiles that should be sneezing. Although it is titillating white cat hair. I’d hate to see their mouse. Eeew!

Mostly her column is about Web 2.0 dating, and how we love not interacting with people in person. But there is one gem in the article about a entrepreneurial San Francisco techie who has his own page to advertise for dates. Now, there’s a solution! Tired of Match.com, eHarmony, Yahoo? Build your own page and accept applications. Hmm. I wonder if it would work?

I’ve heard of the BS detector and gaydar, but I had not heard of the “flake detector” until a friend mentioned it to me. I still think that BS and flake go together, but I’ve been told that is incorrect. When asked for an explanation of “flake,” I got “dishonest” as a synonym. But isn’t that the same as BS? Well, if anyone out there can explain, I would be grateful.

Apparently this detector is good for singles and sales. Who knew?

It was an interesting night. It’s not like I woke up really thinking about anything. I just woke up. then I couldn’t get back to sleep right away. I didn’t even have any creative thoughts.

I have been making amazing progress with my project. I’m currently working on getting a speaker for an evening. This wasn’t on my list of things to do. This came from someone else. It will happen in about 3 weeks. Not a long time for planning.

I haven’t turned on the TV news. I know the only thing that will be on is the tragedy at Virginia Tech. They will rehash it, run extra stories talking to students, more stories about what universities can do. Unviersities are open places. There’s very little that can be done without building a wall around them and monitoring everyone who comes and goes. I suppose some are contemplating just that scenario.

My first audition ever was Sunday morning on the Stanford campus. It’s a nonpaying movie fora graduate student’s thesis. Apparently they couldn’t even tell that I was nervous and had no idea that it was my first time auditioning. Funny. I guess I’m good at hiding things–better than I thought. Interesting. The hardest part of the role I read for was this little bit where you had to act like you know nothing about computers. Act like you don’t get it. This is rather hard to do when you use computers all the time, but I did what I could. Even those of us who are the most seasoned computer users have trouble from time to time. So now I get to wait and see. I’m not holding my breath. It was an interesting experience though.

I watched a couple of Cary Grant movies from the late fifties and sixties this weekend. I’ve seen quite a few. They all have several things in common. There are little relationship lessons to be learned. Perhaps they worked then. Perhaps they work now. Don’t know. Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Men are always reluctant to marry, but the right girl will change their minds.
2. The girl is never really looking to get married to that guy, but to someone else who better meets her criteria.
3. Girl doesn’t think it would ever work with the guy and has a list of reasons why.
4. Girl will change her mind after extensive wooing by the man even when it makes no sense to her.
5. Friends connive to get the two together. The friends are always right and never get in trouble for meddling.
6. Little lies are okay when wooing or meddling. If the character’s lies get found out, it’s fine when the other realizes why.
7. There’s no sex. Hints of sex, but no activity that even leads to sex. Always suggested, never seen. You suspect the characters will get it on when the movie is over.
8. Married men and women never cheat or even fool around with others.
9. Marriage is the end all be all. It supplies the satisfying ending. The characters don’t just end up together. They have to get married.
10.  Everyone lives happily ever after.

Any other Mac users out there disappointed with the news on Leopard? They have made it look really cool, and now it’s not coming out until October–all to make way for the iPhone. Now the the iPhone is cool too, but it wasn’t something I was going to buy. I wanted a new OS though. I like the multiple windows. I know Apple thought the iPhone should get all the resources…but you silly people just across town in Cupertino, there are a lot of us Mac users who were waiting for Leopard.

I just loved this article by Violet Blue in the SF Chronicle (I read online only). She tallied up the number uses of different key words advertising for sex in Craigslist in the area. If you want to see the numbers, scroll down to the bottom of the article. Interesting that the financial district has a lot of kinky requests. I wonder if working with all those numbers makes them lustful. It also seems that San Jose has it’s share of married players–at least they are announcing they are married. I’ll bet the numbers are the same for SF, but they just aren’t telling.

In another article though, a drug-resistent gonorrhea bacteria is getting more common. So if you’re answering those ads, be sure to wrap it up!

On another note, they are telling us that water may be rationed this summer. So what are the brilliant minds suggesting? Showering together, of course! How’s that for a new pickup line? Let’s do good for the environment, baby.

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It has been cat week here, so it’s time for something different. I have been working on my project these past couple of weeks, but mainly this week. A little bit every day. It’s going to go well. Coming up this weekend I have several choices of things to do: tahitian dancing, going out with friends or be an extra in a movie. Sunday I have an audition. How weird is that? Honestly, I don’t even know what to do.

I’m writing this before the people get here to repair the back fence. Yesterday they didn’t show because it rained a little. Very little. For a few hours. Silly workers. I’m waiting for this morning’s excuse to be that it’s too wet. So I’m waiting to see if they show. I need them to finish the fence as promised in one day, so my dog can go out and not get out. She’s pretty lazy now, but she used to love to get loose and run…and run…and run.

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This new contraption just came yesterday…

It’s a must-have at my house. I have been through 4 Littermaid litter boxes, 3 Performa litter boxes, and this, I hope, is the last automated litter box I ever buy. At least I hope I don’t have to buy a new one next year. The Littermaid boxes lasted about 6 months before they died. My first Performa died within a couple of months so under warranty, I got a replacement. The replacement made it just past it’s warranty before it died. The last one hadn’t died completely, but the noise it made on it’s last legs made me want to kill it.

This new box is pretty cool. Kinda spacey. There are only two pieces. I pulled them out of the box, plugged in the base and set the round top on the base. In less than five minutes, I had a working automatic cat litter. The whole top turns to sift the litter (no rakes!).

The biggest problem is that the cats like to watch it turn, and absolutely have to stick their necks inside to see what is going on. Every time it ran yesterday, at least three cats were watching. Mesmerized. This was more exciting than the birds outside.

It holds a nice amount of litter. The cats seem to like it. It was used within 10 minutes of being set up. (No, this is not a paid post. I just think this is cool.) Also, it only takes up a 2 foot by 2 foot space. The old box took up 40 inches in length of floor space which doesn’t account for walking area for the cats to actually get into the box. Oh, and the clumps go into the drawer that you line with regular garbage bags. No more special bags, litter pans, etc. If you have cats and need an automatic litter box check the site out. They have video.

Anyone have a rejection letter? It’s a writing exercise. I don’t keep any around. They are generally too generic and too stupid to keep.

My out-of-office email… if I had an office to be out of.

“I am out of the office. I will not be reading email. You may continue to send email while I’m out. I plan to enjoy every minute of my vacation and that means no email will be read until I get back. I may or may not respond when I get back. In fact, after seeing that my email box contains 1000 emails, I will delete them all without reading a single one. You will know that I have returned to the office, when you receive a reply.”

Do you think I could get away with that message? At least it’s honest. I really hate the standard out-of-office automated replies.

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