FRIEND OR FAUX?
Some people pay money to receive emails, letters and photos from pretend lovers.
For just $50, you can rent a girlfriend for a month.
You'll never get to kiss her, give her flowers or even meet her, but at least she'll send you a few letters and maybe even scent them with perfume.
Imaginary girlfriends - and boyfriends - are the latest sensations on eBay, which currently lists more than 80 entries from men and women who want to be your baby - if you're willing to pay the price.
If you've got $100, you can bid on "Let Me Be Your Imaginary Girlfriend," who promises "a nice & sweet letter or a hot & naughty letter every week for two months," along with e-mails and digital pictures.
For $14.99, you can get a "secret admirer" box of chocolates from an imaginary boyfriend on Valentine's Day. And for just $4.99, you can land an "Imaginary Stalker Ex-Boyfriend," who will e-mail you "on a daily basis, asking where you've been all day and who you were with."
What's going on here? Are people really that desperate to be in a relationship?
"Some guys are just paralyzed with dating. It's like a phobia," says L.A. clinical psychologist Robert Butterworth.
"If this gives them a boost of self-confidence, then it's not so bad. It's a step to building a relationship."
The bidding is currently up to $51 on "Online Imaginary Girlfriend," who boasts that she's "great if you want to make another girl jealous or to prove to your friends that you do have a girlfriend.
"At the end of the four weeks," she continues, "you can dump me however you'd like to, and I can beg you to take me back if you wish!!"
In real life, "Online Imaginary Girlfriend" is Amanda, a 22-year-old college student from Nova Scotia who posted her first auction on eBay last week.
"At first, I just did it as a joke," Amanda told The Post.
"But then some guy paid me $100, and I thought, this is a lot better than working at Dairy Queen."
Amanda is more revealing than most imaginary girlfriends - she gives out her cell phone number to whoever wins the auction. The guy who won her faux affections last week, a business student in Boston, has called three times since, and he and Amanda trade e-mail several times a day.
The original on-line imaginary girlfriend - a 22-year-old college junior named Judy in Wichita Falls, Texas - only promised four letters and a picture in her first auction, which she posted on eBay late one night last September.
"It started as just this off-the-wall idea at, like, 2 in the morning," Judy told The Post.
She had been watching the 1987 movie "Can't Buy Me Love," starring Patrick Dempsey as a dorky high schooler who pays a cheerleader $1,000 a month to date him.
"I thought, what a great idea, but I wanted to do it in a way that I wouldn't have to see the guy."
That first auction netted $40, and Judy, who wants to be an elementary school teacher, now sells her services through her own Web site, www.judylovesme.com. Since September, she's made about $300.
Meanwhile, her copycats have been raking it in on eBay - and the auctioneer isn't about to stop them.
"This isn't against our policies, because basically it's just a pen pal service," says eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.
"We'd draw the line if someone was offering to meet with the person, because that gets into selling human bodies, which is definitely against our policies."
EBay doesn't promise to protect buyers against deceptive imaginary girlfriends - and they are out there.
"Used to Model Panties," a self-described "naughty college girl (theater major)" advertises herself with a picture that looked like it was ripped out of a lingerie catalog.
The first e-mail from Panties, which was signed "XOXOXO, Shari," also contained a receipt for a payment made out not to Shari but to some guy named Brian, who runs the Internet site at a Ford dealership in Omaha.
A phone call to Brian ended up getting returned by his wife, Shari, who admitted with a laugh that Brian had written the XOXO note and that the picture on eBay was not her.
"Brian's just a creative guy, always looking for easy ways to make money," said Shari, a mother of three who works part-time as a phlebotomist at an Omaha hospital.
"We heard about this imaginary girlfriend thing a couple weeks ago, and we said, 'Well, that sounds easy.' "
Since then, Shari and Brian have communicated with five men, writing them one letter and several e-mails once a day.
"They're just lonely guys looking for a friend," she says. "It's safe companionship for them."
For the most part, the guys have relatively tame e-mails, but one asked for a pair of Shari's panties, and she complied - sort of.
"There's no way I'd send him mine," Shari says. "Those were fresh panties we bought at Wal-Mart."
I'm better than dirt! Well, most kinds of dirt, not that fancy store-bought dirt... I can't compete with that stuff."
— Moe, Fox's The Simpsons
GIVING THE BIRD
Comedian Richard Pryor is joining PETA's international campaign urging people to boycott KFC restaurants until the company cracks down on its suppliers' cruel treatment of chickens.
'King' extended DVD on the way
Now that the last installment of The Lord of the Rings saga has reaped 11 Oscar nominations and appears a shoo-in for best picture, there is another concern on the minds of its fan fellowship.
When can we expect the extended DVD version of The Return of the King?
Director Peter Jackson just edited the four-hour, 10-minute longer cut, due in November. The theatrical version will arrive in May or June.
Speaking from his hotel in Los Angeles, the Kiwi was in a splendid mood, despite a lack of Oscar nominations for his cast. "Sean (Astin, who plays hobbit Sam) was our chance at it. There were other great performances, but his was the name we were praying to hear this morning."
He enjoyed his first Golden Globes ceremony, where King went four for four with wins. Save for one discovery: New Zealand is left off the globe portion of his statue. "I'll have a quiet word with them."
South Park season finale has boys heading to Canada in Oz homage
TORONTO (CP) - The boys of South Park are blaming Canada again. And the new prime minister.
In the 1999 movie South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, foul-mouthed Canadian cartoon characters were blamed for the moral corruption of America's youth, which led to a third world war. The movie included a musical number, Blame Canada, that even jokingly slagged Anne Murray.
Now, the new prime minister is the target in South Park's season finale, an episode called Christmastime in Canada, which airs Feb. 13 on The Comedy Network.
Word gets out that Canada has a new leader and he's causing big problems with his laws and policies. Just as Christmas is approaching, he's demanded that all adopted children be returned to their birth parents.
One of the South Park kids is shipped off to Canada. The South Park gang is determined to save Christmas and they head north to the rescue.
The episode is an homage to The Wizard of Oz, the idea being that Canada is a foreign, bizarre place, said Matt Stone, one of the co-creators of the show.
"We really love the idea of treating Canada like Oz. . .and just asserting that Canada is this totally strange fantasy land," Stone said.
The kids travel down Canada's "only road", though Quebec and Newfoundland, before eventually finding Parliament Hill and the prime minister.
Along the way they learn that French Canadians hate the prime minister because a new law has banned drinking wine; budget cuts have replaced the Mounties' horses with sheep, and a Newfoundlander named Steve (who, of course, has the stereotypical accent) is upset that the PM has "sure screwed up things for Newfoundland. It just hasn't been the same since he made sodomy illegal."
Stone said the show's creators and writers (one of them, Kyle McCulloch, is Canadian) get most of their jokes and ideas from misinformation and misconceptions about Canada.
"It never comes from a place of having any agenda, it just comes from a place of having fun," Stone said. "What we love about referencing Canada so much is that it does perplex people and they're like, 'But why Canada?'
"And we do it because it's just funny. It's the same way Monty Python was always ripping on the stinking Belgians. It didn't make any sense, that's what's so funny about it."
Paul Martin is never named in the episode but there is a surprise revelation when the prime minister's identity is revealed.
Singer Sarah McLachlan to begin 41-date tour on July 5 in Seattle
TORONTO (CP) - Sarah McLachlan will hit the road in July in support of her latest album Afterglow.
The 41-date tour, which begins July 5 in Seattle, is the singer's first in five years. McLachlan will come through Ontario and Quebec in August, and Western Canada in September. The U.S.-Canadian tour, entitled Afterglow Live Tour, will end in Vancouver, her current residence, on Sept. 10.
Tickets for the Western Canadian dates go on sale Feb. 7 through Ticketmaster. The other on-sale dates will be announced in the coming weeks.
McLachlan is up for a Grammy Feb. 8 and is scheduled to perform at the Juno Awards on April 4. Her next single will be the song Stupid, and the accompanying music video will be directed by Sophie Muller, whose previous work includes videos for Annie Lennox, No Doubt and McLachlan's Adia.
The Canadian dates for the Afterglow Live Tour:
Aug. 16: Montreal, Bell Centre.
Aug. 17: Ottawa, Corel Centre.
Aug. 19: Toronto, Molson Amphitheatre.
Sept. 5: Winnipeg, Winnipeg Arena.
Sept. 7: Calgary, Pengrowth Saddledome.
Sept. 8: Edmonton, Skyreach Place.
Sept. 10: Vancouver, GM Place.
Pixar Ends Disney Talks, Seeks New Partner
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pixar Animation Studios Inc. on Thursday ended talks with Walt Disney Co. to renew a lucrative movie distribution deal that has produced such blockbusters as "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo."
Pixar, the pioneering computer animation house founded by Apple Computer Inc.'s Steve Jobs, said it would look for another studio partner to distribute its films starting in 2006, when its current deal with Disney expires.
Shares of both companies fell 6 percent after hours.
Observers had expected Pixar and Disney to renew their partnership, which has generated five mega-hits since 1995 that have collectively earned $2.5 billion at the box office.
The Pixar deal has accounted for a large share of Disney Studios' operating profit in recent years, but Disney said Pixar's final offer on a renewed contract would have cost it hundreds of millions of dollars.
The move was an unexpected blow to Disney, which pioneered feature animation with 1937's "Snow White" but has seen its traditional hand-drawn films like the 2002 flop "Treasure Planet" eclipsed by Pixar-style computer-animated hits.
Chief Executive Michael Eisner is also under fire from an heir of founder Walt Disney, Roy Disney, who claims Eisner has mismanaged the company and sapped its creative energy.
Analysts and investors said Pixar could be using its announcement as a negotiating tactic and some observers did not rule out a resumption of talks.
PIXAR 'MOVING ON"
"After 10 months of trying to strike a deal with Disney, we're moving on," said Jobs, Pixar's chief executive.
"We've had a great run together -- one of the most successful in Hollywood history -- and it's a shame that Disney won't be participating in Pixar's future successes."
Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner issued a statement wishing Pixar success.
"Disney management could not accept Pixar's final offer because it would have cost Disney hundreds of millions of dollars... under the existing agreement" without giving Disney enough return on new collaborations, the company said.
A source close to Disney's side of negotiations said that Pixar had also wanted copyright to the valuable library of previous films by the partnership.
Disney now owns the copyright and can make sequels and other works based on the films in the current deal, which includes two upcoming titles -- "The Incredibles," set for a November release and "Cars," due in 2005.
Pixar had been expected to close a deal by the middle of this year and had said it would prefer to renew with Disney.
Roy Disney, the former chairman of Disney's animation department, said that the breakup would be bad for Disney shareholders long-term and accused Eisner of failing to nurture the relationship with Pixar.
"It makes it look like Eisner did something wrong again, but we shouldn't jump to conclusions. This could be a negotiating tactic by Pixar as well," said Patrick McKeigue, an analyst at Independence Investment, which holds Disney shares.
"It's not a happy thing when two long-time partners break apart and Disney, of course, will survive. However, psychologically, the market was hoping there would be an agreement shortly," said Hal Vogel, a New York-based media analyst who runs Vogel Capital Management.
Other studios that have expressed an interest in a Pixar deal included Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp., 20th Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.
Banc of America Securities analyst Michael Savner said Pixar had set itself up to compete at the box office with Disney's future family-friendly offerings.
"Disney could put out its movies at the same time as Pixar," he said. Many investors had already assumed Pixar would get a much-improved deal, including on the two pictures in production, he added.
Staffing at Disney's animation department has shrunk by more than 70 percent since 1997. Disney is set to release its first in-house computer-animated film, "Chicken Little," in 2005.