This Story Just In

• Did Michael Jackson's wife have the baby? An in-depth report, live, from in front of Cedars Sinai, which mainly consisted of saying, "We don't know for sure now."

• Fred Goldman's offer to give up the judgement if OJ confessed.

• Tonya Harding's in trouble again.

This morning I woke up and heard the radio playing. Gosh, I thought, it feels like the radio's been on for a while. I looked at the clock. It had been on for 35 minutes and hadn't woken me up. Oops.

Today in Film History we watched Ninotchka, a classic Garbo film ("Garbo laughs!"), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It was a good movie -- incredibly callow American comment approaching: I keep forgetting how racy and knowing these old movies can be -- but Ernst really liked long takes, using deep focus and mise-en-scene. Loooong takes. Hey, Ernst, bring it on home already! Cut! The film dragged occasionally. Everyone agreed it needed snipping.

I called Jeffrey when I got out to see if he wanted me to come in today, but he was at lunch. So, on the way to Babylonian, I stopped at Fry's to get a new cell phone charger for the car. I kept wandering around in a daze, looking at "stuff". By the time I left, over half an hour later, I realized Jeffrey was probably back from lunch. I called.

"Where are you?" he asked urgently.

I realized he wasn't kidding around. "What's up?"

"John wants to talk to you."

Whoa.

John wanted to talk to me about doing some computer stuff for them. Cool. We set up the terms -- like my hourly rate -- and I got to work immediately: the guy running the fan club couldn't access the net.

I spent the next four hours fighting with his machine, mostly over networking software. You know, I just never have this much trouble with my Macintosh. This is why the computer-illiterate hate those of us who like computers. Something goes wrong and they can't understand why; it seems like the computer's being malicious and capricious.

One of the nice things about this was that I got to spend some time on the phone with CJ (who was helping me out some from her apartment). It was comfortable having her to talk to, even though I was incredibly frustrated about what I was trying to do.

I headed out of there to go to TV Night at USC. This was the meet-and-greet for GSPers and TV agents that first-years were invited to earlier today. I got there and discovered that I wasn't as late as I thought I was. Or rather, I was late; the agents hadn't shown up. It was embarrassing. Maybe they couldn't find it, you know? Anyhow, one thing I learned was that I have to go the extra couple of miles and attack agents myself. Hey, no problem, once I get my specs together.

I left and came home. Been reading through my mail. I totally apologize if I haven't gotten back to you recently about mail. I've started marking messages that I want to reply to, but I haven't quite integrated the part about seeking out the marked messages.

Sigh. There's just got to be a better way of doing e-mail.