Daniel and I had a very pleasant wedding anniversary yesterday. After coffee and reading the Sunday New York Times, we went to see Pirates of the Carribean. Great fun. Really, I think this says it all.

After the movie, we went to the bookstore. Browsed through a copy of Creative Screenwriting magazine, which had a nice interview with the screenwriters for Pirates of the Carribean, although what really caught my eye was an article entitled something like, "Where have all the women gone?" Apparently, in the 1920's and 30's, slightly more than half of all working screenwriters were women, and many of the highest paid screenwriters were women. Now, perhaps something like 28% of working screenwriters are women. And the gender numbers are even more skewed if you look at highly-paid screenwriters, award-winning screenwriters, or screenwriters who actually get "written by" credit. (Many working women screenwriters do a lot of rewrite work, which is usually uncredited.)

The article didn't really have a particularly good explanation for the change in gender ratio - it did cite some evidence for plain and simple gender discrimination in the entertainment world, but I can hardly believe that that's gotten worse over the course of this century. I agree with the article's author that one key factor may be the changing demographics of movie audiences. Currently, studios are convinced that they key to movie success is snaring teenage boys. That wasn't true in the 20's and 30's. And studios may assume (rightly or wrongly) that someone who was once a teenage boy has a better grasp on how to grab that audience.

Though, when you put it like that, you'd think it would be the people who were once teenage girls who'd be expert there.

Anyway, after the bookstore, we had coffee, and talked of this and that. We have been enjoying having the ability to chatter about nothing in particular for as long as we like without having to worry about how many mobile-to-mobile minutes we've got. Wireless communication is wonderful, but face to face is better.

Then we had a very nice dinner at Downtown. I had scallops, which I hardly ever dare to order in a restaurant, because even many very fine restaurants cook them horribly. These were perfect. Yay.

Today, we met up with an old high-school friend, who is currently living in Baltimore, but is out visiting California for a few days. It was nice to see him.

It would just be great if someone would build a worldwide network of teleport booths. That would make it so much easier to get the old gang together. Or the new gang together. Or to introduce the old gang to the new gang.

Tomorrow, it's back to work. Rah!