Watching Monday Night Football made me wish I could date a pro football player. I dated a semi-professional soccer player from England and one from Texas who played semi-professional soccer in Italy. I dated a guy who played football for Santa Clara State and M-Square played football for the University of Hawaii. Cute guy from screenwriting class whom I had a huge crush on, played college football for University of Pennsylvania.

Now Chris Berman is on, and I really like him. When Red-Haired guy had a tryst in LA, it was so awkward I made him put on ESPN and we were doing it and listening to Chris. I figured that if the sex got kind of boring for either of us, we could at least catch up on sports scores. I love multitasking, don't you?

It's the 5th anniversary of 9/11 and I'm at home surfing the net and watching Monday Night Football on ESPN and not on ABC. I can't even remember how I spent my 9/11 five years ago. It's all a blur. I was probably watching TV all night long and listening to pundit after pundit trying to explain what happened.

The Oakland Raiders are getting their butts kicked by the San Diego Chargers. The 49ers got their bums kicked yesterday in Arizona. It doesn't look like it's going to be a good football season in the San Francisco Bay Area. I know I am being pessimistic because it's only the first game sof the season, but it would have been nice for both teams to win their first games.

Not sure if I like Monday Night Football on ESPN. I was watching the Redskins/Viking games and I was annoyed by the announcers. I recognized the voice and I was wondering if it was Joe Theisman. I can't stand his voice. It's so weird because I heard Joe speak at a company meeting. The guy sells himself as an inspirational speaker. I don't think so.

I think the only reason they had him speak was because the execs at that company were all football crazy. Fantasy football was a big deal among the executive leadership and they took it very seriously. The Booard Room with the $250K silk rug was used for the draft meeting and I heard it was a very serious event.

All the execs always played in the March Madness pool as well, but it was as serious as Fantasy Football.

Oh well. At least football fans must be happy because it's a double header. And one good thing about not havingn MNF on ABC is I don't have to watch promos for TV shows. It's been mostly Superbowl type commercials. This works for me. I hate watching TV show promos during a game. They are so annoying!

The guys that dress up in the Oakland Raiders Black Hole crack me up. When I attended the Jim Rome's The Jungle Oakland tour stop a few years ago, those guys were there all made up and in full custume. They really made me laugh. You gotta love a crowd that boos the warm up band. How funny is that. I tried to fit in and wore a push-up bra and tight t-shirt. I knew if I looked semi-decent, the guys would leave me alone. Plus, I dragged a good guy friend with me and Charlie was good looking enough to scare guys. We ended up talking to other couples there who all assumed Charlie was the Jim Rome fan and not me, which ended up being kind of awkward. But Charlie was a good BS'er so he could hang and not look too dumb. I had no idea he liked sports so much. That was a side of him I wasn't aware of until that day.

I'm back on a writing roll. I wrote on Monday, and then for a little bit tonight. And tomorrow, my friend S and I are going to write together.

I'm a bit bored editing my finished novel, so I'm now plotting out Book 1 of my elf girl chronicles. I sketched out a couple of new characters and now I am beginning to write the plot for book 1. Even though the chronicles will be in 7 books, I'd like each book to be distinct and be able to stand on its own.

I believe Tennessee Williams wrote his novels this way. He wanted every chapter to stand on their own like a short story, and thinking this way made it easier for him to write.

Book 1 will set up the conflict that drives the whole series, and so many things have to be introduced including the characters. An acting director I know does this. He has all his actors in his play appear in the first scene to 1) make the actors feel comfortable on stage right away and 2) introduce by sight all the people in the play to the audience. Book 1 will have to introduce, even if it's just for a page or two, all of the major characters in the story. Even the evil characters will need to be introduced.

Wow, this is getting so complicated. I have to write out so many notes, and keep track of so many things. But I think it will be fun because it will be like a detective puzzle trying to figure out what comes next. It' s a good thing I"m a pretty darn good detective on some level, and enjoy figuring out how things works, because it's going to tough to figure this all out.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that Mark McClellan, who is currently the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), may be resigning on Tuesday. I heard him speak at the conference I attended in Chicago last month. Mr. McClellan was articulate and interesting, and he definitely knew his stuff. I was very impressed with his Q&A style. He was relaxed and not easily fazed by the barrage of questions sent his way.

I'm always telling my boss that CMS or Medicare is a trendsetter for health care. In the next 10-20 years, I think the stats are 50% of the country will be on Medicare because of the baby boom retirees. That's a lot of people on the government plan. The sheer volume of people expected to be on Medicare make the current levels of payment unsustainable for the U.S. economy. The US cannot fight a war and have that many people receiving social security benefits and health insurance.

I would expect for Medicare to start some serious cost containment programs soon. CMS already has a few in place, but they will need to have them at all levels to try and control costs. Some exec at one of the plans, can't remember which, predicted that the pool of businesses that offer health insurance will start to seriously shrink and more and more people will have to turn to the government for health care.

Walmart started the trend by not offering health care, and other companies will soon follow. I have been predicting for some time that when, not if, the big three automakers (GM, Ford and Chrsyler) declare bankruptcy, the first thing to go will be the retiree health insurance. In fact, I can see the execs of each corporation recommending bankrupty as a way to unload retiree costs, since it looks better to dump them in bankruptcy than when the company is still solvent.

A bankruptcy would give them the cover they need to unload the retirees, get concessions from the unions, and restructure the company. And those poor retirees will have to turn to Medicare for their health care, and Medicare won't be able to handle it. The gloom and doom health exec then said that Medicare will contract with the individual health plans to take of the sudden influx of retirees into the government system.

This will be a recipe for disaster because right now the easier and in the short term cheapest way to reduce health care costs is to have everyone on medication. Preventative care requires too much manpower, and the CMS payment system does little too reward preventative care although they are trying to reverse this trend. In the long run however, I think that people on medication will cost the government more because who knows what the side effects will be for people on continual medication. I can only relay what what people have been predicting for the last 10 years, which is that 3 out of every 5 americans will be suffering from some debilitating disease and that there will more people requiring care than people paying into the system to pay for the care and people healthy enough to take care of the sick.

I had an idea to throw out some old furninture I had by posting for dirt cheap prices on Craig's list, but being the tech idiot I am, I didn't even think about posting pics of my stuff. Someone just emailed me asking for pictures. How dumb, huh?

I was going to have The Salvation Army come and pick it up, but they only take certain items, none of which I seem to have. If I can't get anyone to buy it, I will do the typical San Francisco thing and just leave it out on my sidewalk and pray that someone takes it. Someone always does. I just didn't want to haul the stuff out there. Or maybe even post it as Free on Craig's list and hope someone wants it. And then as a last resort, call 1-800-JUNK and pay to have them get rid of it for me.

Ahhh ... the joys of living in a modern disposable culture where everyone is giving stuff or selling it 24/7.