Grrr-argh.

There are no words to describe how horrible THE FAIL ZONE is.  I'm hours away from leaving for my flight to New Jersey and I'm trying to get as much accomplished as possible.

This, of course, means that EVERYTHING must stop working.  I've recorded two of the four or five videos that I intended to tape.  Right now, my camera is no longer recording.  I need to upload all these videos to youtube--marking them private and then making them public in the coming days--but one video has already errored out twice.  And that was AFTER it had uploaded the lion's share of the 200MB.

So as my time is running out, I'm turning my focus to the website and getting a couple of the chapters lined up and ready for the next few days.  I hope you never have to visit THE FAIL ZONE.  1.5 is after the break.

"Sorry," I said to my would-be companion, scooting to the end of the bench and offering her a half-smile.

As the dark-haired woman sat down, I took in her details. She was older than I was, probably in her early thirties. Whereas Patience (or Joy) had extraordinarily generic and bland features that made her rather difficult to pick out of a line-up, this new woman was nothing short of striking.

She sat down and our eyes met for a brief moment when the Ferris wheel began to turn and in that instant I glimpsed such a wealth of blatant indifference that I nearly went hard from the excitement.

This woman had an aura about her, a sense that I had never perceivedfrom another.

She was different.

The way she ignored me was delightful. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an unattractive man. And when my remarkably good looks are paired with the indefatigably confident personality that I've crafted for my surface-dwelling peers, I find that women of all types are wildly attracted to me.

I am not conceited. Nor am I arrogant. I am, however, relatively well-versed in human behavior and am quick to understand actions and motivations. Therefore I say these things not because I'm an egotistical maniac (although one could make a convincing argument otherwise) but because, for all practical purposes, it is fact. In an instant as brief as they come, I found myself attracted to this woman. As if on cue, my instincts began to scream at me, warning me against this mysterious stranger.

I trust my instincts. But fate, it seems, didn't seem to care.