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Lai See recently decided it was about time she learned more about Richard Li's Cyber-Kingdom.

 So she logged-on to the Internet and keyed in www.pac ificcentury.com  Imagine our surprise on discovering the home page greeted arrivals with this:  'Women, we now have a special page for you!'  Lai See was a little taken aback. What was that supposed to mean?  Was Richard implying members of our gender needed some sort of special treatment in order to grasp the ins and outs of Cyber-Port?  With hackles raised, we opened the page and discovered . . . a man buffet.

 That's not as exciting as it might sound.

 As buffets go, this was pretty end-of-the-night stuff (after all the hot dishes have been snapped up, leaving behind some fatty beef cakes and a few old vegetables).

 Here were rows of head shots, each accompanied by a blurb describing the wonders of each head-owner's character. Most laid claim to a 'warm personality' and 'monogamous nature' (read 'ugly' and 'no-one else wants me').

 The rest of the Pacific Century site was aimed at men, jostling Asian babes and Russian lovelies in seeking passion and passports.

 Hmm. Either young Richard is dabbling, or someone else is using his company's name.

 Maybe on a memo demanding Pacific Century set up a 'Cyber-Port' site, a butter-fingered staffer hit 'n' instead of 't'.

Lai See has received some entries for her 'Worst or Dumbest Boss of the Millennium Contest'.

 Stephen Austin sent in our Pick of the Week for Hong Kong's Biggest Bast . . . um . . . Bastion of Unsympathetic Behaviour. The victim was an acquaintance of his.

 She's Taiwanese, and when news of the earthquake there hit Hong Kong television screens, she spotted her own building in the background.

 It was in ruins.

 Her son and parents lived there but dead phone lines left her unable to find out if they'd escaped the flat in time.

 Frantic, she told her general manager she needed a few days off to go to Taiwan and find her family.

 He didn't believe her. But he grudgingly allowed her to take a few days out of her annual leave.

 After a fruitless trip to the rubble that had been her home, the woman began combing refugee camps.

 It was there she came across her son hauling a bucket of water.

 He and his grandparents had fled the building just moments before it collapsed. They were alive but homeless.

 The staffer brought them back to Hong Kong and spoke to her company's kindly managing director.

 Concerned, he told her to take a few half-days off to organise this sudden relocation of her family.

 But when the general manager heard of this, he sidled up to her.

 'Go ahead,' he hissed. 'Take the half days off . . . if you want to lose your job'.

 Charming.

 Sounds like he'd fulfil at least one of the criteria laid down in myboss.com's latest list, 'You Know Your Boss Is Unqualified When . . .'  Here are the top three answers:  1) He likes being called the 'Terminator'.

 2) He consults tarot cards before big strategy meetings.

 3) He's late to the company's time management meeting.

An artist has failed in his bid to show that Barbie is truly the world's head doll.

 The plastic bombshell turned 40 this year, so toy manufacturer Mattel invited creative types to submit their works to an 'Art of Barbie' exhibition.

 Elton John will host the London show, which is expected to attract swarms of little girls who aspire to one day become big-breasted bimbos just like her.

 But they might be a tad spooked when they see their role model's bloody, decapitated head impaled on a stick.

 It seems one of the artists had taken a serious approach to deconstructing Barbie. He decided to spatter red paint over Barbie's severed head and then spike it.

 Sounds reasonable to us.

 But child experts were appalled when they learned of his plans, and called for the entire show to be cancelled.

 In the end, Mattel pulled the decapitation exhibit on the grounds it was 'unsuitable for children'.

 It seems the toy makers don't tolerate acts of Barb-arism.



Cyber-Port's man-buffet difficult to swallow