Wow! I just saw "The Matrix Reloaded". I totally loved it, and although I dearly loved the first one, this one was just as good if not better. So many unanswered questions, so many things and situations that make you think.

I saw my chiropractor before I saw the movie, and he told me there was no plot. He was so wrong! There is an amazing plot, and I'm definitely going to have to see it a bunch of times to take it all in.

I went with a friend who I used to work with at a job where we both did a little programming, and she thinks we love the Matrix series because of well 1) Keanu Reeves and 2) we both did enough programming where we kind of get all the references.

Like a back door. I'm a firm believer that there is a back door into any program, heck, a back door into and out of any situation. It's just a matter of wanting to find it badly enough. I loved the key maker too. Once you have the keys to any situation, it opens all the doors.

The whole theory of anomalies is fascinating, and that it's true when the old guy says even the best designed program have inherent flaws. The whole thing in the movie about choice is a like a computer decision tree and the possibilities there are so endless because choose one way and a whole sub routine starts. This makes me wonder if like decision trees, all decisions lead eventually to sometimes the same outcome, but just in a different way.

I love the whole thing about programs that can't be killed, and that each program has a function, but once that function ends, the program goes away. I like the whole theory of a program routinely looping and doing the same thing over and over again. The only way to get out of the loop is to choose something that the programmer hasn't thought of, and end the subroutine.

And what was that with the silver bullit killing old programs? Is that another programming reference? I'm sure the silver bullit thing was introduced for a reason.

I definitely have to go and see "The Matrix Reloaded" a bunch more times.

I just signed up for a writing class. I'm hoping it will get me in gear to write again. Now that my job and home life are somewhat settled, or as settled as they can be in these economically troubled times of ours, I want to start writing again.

I was going to start writing on Tuesday, but decided I needed to read a book for inspiration. I had a few books that I borrowed from a friend years ago, but never read and I'd like to return them to her, so I picked a book from that pile.

I'm reading "Liar's Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street" by Michael Lewis. It's a story about a bond trader from Salomon Brothers in the 80's. The book is written in the first person, which is the point of view for my first novel, so I'm trying to see how this author does this. Okay, I know I'm procrastinating from writing but reading is research for me.

In the last two years people have been bemoaning all the excesses of the dot com culture and all the money that was spent and lost, but in the 80's the same kind of thing happened in New York with bond trading. And like the dot com bust, the roof fell in on bond trading as well. Perhaps not quite so fast, but lots of money was lost and spent in 80's as well on a small number of very young bond traders right of business schools.

The parallels are amazing actually, but this is a good thing I think because it means that in another 10 years, some other new thing, some new industry will emerge in business and generate a ton of revenue. To make money from this new, new thing, you just have to spot the emerging business. Like who knew 10-12 years ago that the internet for at least a couple of years would be such a great investment.

If you could spot the new emerging business and get in first, when the new, new business explodes you could sell your investment and make your millions that way. Maybe it's nanotechnology or probably defense related industries. Don't you know that this war on terrorism is just going to keep on going which is bad for the public, but great for industries in the defense sector.

I would also look at commodities trading, specifically food. With all the weather changes in the world, I would think there would be huge fluctuations in food prices. And if the mad cow scare in Canada pans out and spreads to the US, I would expect to see huge fluctuations in beef and cattle prices as well.

Not quite sure how if you can make money with SARS other than by investing in biotech companies, which will probably be looking for a vaccine if SARS develops any further. Someone has to benefit economically from the world's disasters.

I watched "Maid in Manhattan" last night. Parts of that movie made me cringe it was so predictable, but of course at the end I was sucked in.

Jennifer Lopez is so cute, and there were all those shots of that butt of hers, plus shots of Ralph Fiennes lusting over her butt, and jokes about her "assets". She does have quite a backside, I guess. That gown JayLo wore to the Met was like so "Brooklyn". What's up with that? Natasha Richardson was funny as the ditzy society girl, and to round out the english cast there was Bob Hoskins as the butler.

The ending was really cute, but the story line was so very weak. I think the saddest part of the movie is when JayLo's mother tells her that she'll never be anything more than a cleaning person, and JayLo agrees with her. That was really sad. There's alot of mothers out there who give their daughters advice like that to this day.

The one interesting thing in the movie I thought was when Bob Hoskins tells JayLo that when she's in management she can do anything. That's such misperception about management that people have who aren't in management. It's so not true. When you're in management, you're even more constrained I think.

You always have to be the corporate cheerleader no matter what's going on with the company. You can't really be social with people who work for you or who are below you. You have to act professional at all times, and you can't really confide in anyone either if you're having problems. Then there's the whole social constraint of not being able to look like you're out of control at any time, or showing up with acceptable looking escorts or at some conservative companies, dating and marrying well.

I think this all stems from management having to even reflect the company more than the worker, and the pressure of reflecting well.

But if you're non-management, you don't see any of this and fantasize about how much freedom you'll have as a manager, which is such a lie.

This is from Starf@#*&s, the coffee place everyone in San Francisco totally hates, but it's an interesting concept, Artist's Choice cds.

Your favorite artists picked 16 songs, artists that influenced them early on and songs they can't stop listening to, personal choices, and it's on one CD.

Artists include YoYo Ma, Sheryl Crow, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles and Lucinda Williams for now. I think there are more artist compilations on the way.

I was trying to think of 16 songs myself, but I think it would depend on my mood as to which 16 songs I would choose.

Here's a list I put together very quickly, but like I said the list will change depending on my mood.

1. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
2. Stevie Wonder - You and I
3. Prince - Head
4. The Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack Flash
5. John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
6. Jesus Christ Superstar - I don't know how to love him
7. Foo Fighters - Times Like These
8. Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto # 2
9. Alice in the Chains - Man in the Box
10. Depeche Mode - The Love Thieves
11. Al Green - Let's Stay Together
12. Madonna - Crazy for You
13. Velvet Underground - Candy Says
14. Miles Davis - Blue In Green
15. The Beach Boys - Wouldn't it be Nice
16. The Grateful Dead - Fire on the Mountain

Wow, this was hard. I wanted to make sure I had some classical, some jazz, some current stuff, and some all time favourites, you know representative of my all over musical taste. I wanted to put in The Beatles, but aren't they on everyone list somewhere? And no country too, which is too bad because I love country music especially the really old stuff. I'm still trying to find this song which had the lyric, "whiskey, whiskey I love you". Now that's old time country music.

No music from my youth either when I heard really old stuff like Petula Clark and ABBA, and my mom's favorites Englebert Humperdink, Don Ho, Jack Jones and Tom Jones. But she also really liked Al Green and The Doors, especially Jim Morrison, The Police, and yes she totally adored Barry Manilow too. Maybe Al Green is the song from childhood.

It would be interesting to do this list every day for a month to see which 16 songs you have over and over again, and then make the list from the top 16 song that keep coming up over and over again.

Oh well, it's meant to be representative not a definitive list. How can you make a definitive list out of just 16 songs?