February 16, 2001: Thrills and fascination in san francisco
How fast can the human body travel before breaking down? I don't know the definitive answer, but I'm sure that each branch of the united states military, nasa, the cia, lockheed, pfizer and procter and gamble have all spent millions determining exact numbers.

At this point, things are moving terrifically fast around here. I have never needed empirical numbers to write a story, of course. Even facts or details are not entirely indispensable when writing entertainment based reality. But believe me, things are screaming.

This particular story is about the experiment itself. A scant two weeks ago I scrambled together a series of web pages. Nick and I then spidered our mailboxes looking for addresses of friends. We announced our debut. People started reading and thought it was funny. It doesn't take much positive encouragement like that to get me excited into a writing frenzy.

Then things exploded.

First, a mad rush of renters banged at out virtual door. Thankfully, we didn't advertise our actual address. Survival of the fittest ensured that most of these had slow enough attention spans, sufficient apathetic reluctance, or enough general xenoconceptual difficulty to prevent them from posting a simple application, leaving things to a manageable six to figure out. Have you voted for anyone yet?

Next, a wave of macintosh enthusiasts raged through the site to read my story posted on the fifteenth. The mac is a powerful, sophisticated force that drives a diverse group of people throughout the world. A healthy percentage drove here, which was awesome. We scored over seventy thousand hits that day alone.

Now, we have one of the largest news organizations, news.com, featuring us in a new story. News.com' cnet parent is a virtual neighbor. I walk past their new san francisco headquarters, now under construction, daily. Thanks for the mention, patricia!

What's up next? That's yet another part of the experiment. If you have any ideas, we've set up an address to hear them. Hope you're having fun, because the rules demand it. Thanks for watching, and please tell your friends. Cheers - tony.

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