Information comes to me strange ways. On the way back to my place from doing laundry, the free magazine "Bay Area Parent" was strewn across my steps. The cover story was on Tim Hudson "Huddy", star pitcher for the Oakland A's and the caption read "A's Hurler Tim Hudson: On Being a Big League Dad". How fortuitious since part of my screenplay is about my baseball player dude's relationship to his young son. The article definitely goes into the research folder.

I read the headlines on SF Gate and was shocked to find out that Nasdaq was at April 1997 lows. I knew the stock market would tank and go down to 98 levels, but never in my wildest dreams did I think the Nasdaq sink that low. Just think in 1999, there were all these articles everywhere about how great the stock market was, especially the Nasdaq. In early 2000, the Nasdaq volume was at 5,000. Now in mid 2002 it's quarter of that volume at 1200.

I wonder how many poor people bought the hype about the stock market. I know so many peopel who lost money. I started telling people in 1999 to get out of the market while the market was still high. All my friends, even the really good ones, laughed at me. I wonder who's laughing now. I made money in 2000 and then got the hell out and switched everything over to a money market fund. My investment portfolio value is higher than it was in 2000 and keeping pace with inflation. I can't say the same is true for all of my friends' investment portfolio. Silly people!!!

And what's worse is that I don't think people in general will make the connection to not believe what the papers and TV are telling them. No matter what the newspapers and TV people are saying, you've got to research the stuff and come to your own conclusions. I knew the market was overhyped. I had put together a financial business plan for a startup company before and had to predict when a company would make money. The thing that should have been obvious was none of these overhyped tech stocks had much of revenue stream but a hell of an expense stream. Way too much money being spent and not any money coming in. The tech people spent wildly and lavishly without revenue to pay for it. They were reckless and arrogant but the biggest fools were the people who bought their stock and believed their messed up business plans and models. These tech stock people broke every business rule on how to start a company, rules that have worked since humankind invented businesses. Is it any wonder they all failed and everything came crashing down in a serious way? Silly people who hosed investors and themselves and sillier people who bought the hype and the serious flaunting of basic business rules. Part of me feels sorry for the people who lost money and the other part says "there's a sucker born every minute" and I'mj ust glad that some of the time, I'm not one of them.

I saw Reign of Fire on Friday and I really liked it. Too bad the movie didn't have much of a story line, but the idea was great. I've always loved dragons and I like the fact that this movie mentioned that the dragons of legend were actually real.

I loved the special effects, even though some reviewers thought there were hokey. I loved the prayer they made the children say, which was eerie and spooky, because instead of praying to god they prayed to escape the dragons.

If that movie maybe had half an hour of exposition on how Matthew McConaughey came to England, how the chopper chick joined and how the Christian Bale character came to the castle. They had the characters tell you key elements of the story which was boring, but probably is a lesson to me for my screenplay. Characters telling you the important stuff is boring!!! Show don't tell. But it's hard in a screenplay because you want to avoid flashbacks at any cost. I think they could have fit it all in half an hour more of movie footage. Maybe tell two parallel stories of Matthew and Christian Bale.

Best part of the movie of course was when the dragon fried everyone on the outskirts of London. The movie was nice and violent and I loved it.

I'm debating on whether to see The Bourne Identity since I'm a big fan of the Bourne trilogy of books. I can't imagine Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, but the movie is supposed to different from the book. Jason Bourne was a totally brilliant southeast asian scholar turned assassin zealot in the book. He was the ultimate soldier and his intelligence made him totally lethal. I learned alot in that book. The first book especially read like a handbook on how to be spy and top guy terrorist.

I guess I'll break down and see The Road to Perdition since there's such a review buzz around it and maybe even Minority Report, only because it's Tom Cruise and I've seen all of his movies in the theatre. I'm debating Men in Black 2 but friends have told me the original was way better. I hate bad followup movies!

I went to the Michael Sweerts exhibit at the Legion of Honor on Saturday. I don't really care for flemish style of painting with so much of it being dark and flat, but Sweerts was brilliant at painting cloth. His portraits, which I think were revolutionary for the time, were painted with so much feeling and expression, like photographs. His portraits didn't just stare at your front and center, doing all dour, probably because they had to stand stock still for hours on end. Instead, his subjects were in action, looking off to the side, anywhere but staring straight at you. One guy was even getting dressed, the kind of scene nobody else was painting at the time.

The exhibit was small, but that because he's only recently been discovered as a great artist. Perhaps in the future, more of his paintings will show up and a museum will be able to mount a large exhibit.

I love going to museums and people watching. I'm alway amazed at the types of people who actually go the museums. You see the whole range from art experts to the people who are there because they think looking at pictures in a museum is a good thing. I suppose everyone has their reasons for going. I think I go because I like looking at art, having studied some of it but definitel not enough of it to be an expert, and I also love marvelling at artists who draw well.

I've tried to do the art thing by taking art and drawing classes, but I just ended up frustrated at my rather limited drawing ability. The best I ever did is I drew a coffee pot in charcoal that to me, actually looked like a coffee pot. I never got light and shading and I definitely still can't figure out perspective very well. So I envy people who have the gift for drawing and I love marvelling at their skills. Looking at art, great art is like reading a great book, because there is so much pleasure in seeing a master, a genius at work.

I feel the same way about people who can dance well and play instruments. Having tried to do both dance and playing an instrument and failing miserably on my own, I have nothing but great admiration for people who excel in these skills.

I also went to my holistic healer chiropractor who told me my life force was at 93-94% but that I still had some fungal infection in my stomach and kidney. I asked him what he meant and he said there probably fungal growing in those organs. Like how gross is that!!! He said there were no new infestations, but he needed to strengthen my stomach and pancreas to kill off the fungal eggs and larvae. Apparently, when he was working on me before, he didn't want to treat my stomach until I had gotten rid of most of my fungal and parasites, because my system was already in overload. But now that I was practically fungal and parasite free, he could strengthen the organs that he didn't heal completely.

I was happy that no new infestations were being hatched in my body, but when he mentioned the eggs and larvae hanging out in my stomach and pancreas, I freaked out. Just the image of what he said put me on edge. Who wants to go through the rest of the weekend thinking that your heart and pancreas are jam packed fully of fungal eggs and larvae?

Thank god he healed me!!! He also said that instead of the ADD that I had as a child, I had a different sort of brain dysfunction. He told me that the connection between my right and left brain was weak and what this meant was I was fine if I was given a project to work on, but wasn't very good at switching gears and being interrupted. This is so true. It's very stressful for me to being in a situation where I all of sudden have to switch gears and be creative.

Like say I was working on a project and then all of sudden, I find out that something has come up that has to be changed on the project. The stressful part comes in when I have to figure out a new thing, a new change for the project and then going back later and incorporating the new thing in my existing project.

I've had these type of experiences at other jobs before and I've hated them. I hate adding to something at the last minute when I'm on a deadline. I get sloppy and I make mistakes and I freak out because it' s hard and I know I just cannot work under that kind of pressure. I know some people thrive on being able to turn something around that quickly and easily, but I don't. It's just all one big stressing event for me. It's like trying to figure out left from right, which is a way stressful event for me. I have to really think about it sometimes and I hate that I just can't automatically figure it right out.

So, I'm glad about not having the ADD and I'm also glad that in a few months, he said he'll be able to fix this weak connection of mind between my right and left brain. I wanted him to do it but he said I need to get rid of my fungal eggs and parasite before he fixed my brain synapses misfiring. I was glad at least, that he said he could fix it. Not that I'm in a job that has last minute deadline pressures, but I don't think I need my brain synpases misfiring. That so doesn't sound so good.

My healer said the brain glitch happened from some mental trauma and scarring I had as a child. Was it all those horrible experiences I had in first grade of not being able to put together puzzles? Now that's an experience that will scar any child for life that's for sure. I wish I knew.

What's ironic is that now I'm very good at problem solving in my adult life. It's what I think I do best at work, solve problems. Someone hands me an outcome and then I figure out how tot get to that outcome. I even like the challenge of figuring out puzzles and problems because it's so satisfying to figure sometihing out. Will I still get the same thrill if my healer guy fixes my misfiring brain synpases? I hope so. Problem solving is the only thing that keeps my rather dull and boring job interesting.

I rented Oceans 11 and High Fidelity this week. A friend of mind said that Oceans 11 was worth watching because it was boy eye candy. And it is eye candy if you're a Brad Pitt and George Clooney fan. Unfortunately, I'm not. I mean they're good looking and all and I wouldn't kick them out of bed, but they so do not get my pulses racings. The person I loved in Oceans 11 was Elliot Gould. God, the man is so funny. I think I still have a crush on him from his performance in MASH. The guy has definitely aged, but he's aging very, very well.

I liked High Fidelity, although parts of it was kind of boring. I think I need to read the book by Nick Hornsby to really appreciate this story. The two nerd boys working at the record shop just totally annoyed me. Especially Jack Black. Half way through the movie, I totally wanted to kick him to death. I guess he played the annoying music nerd very well for me to have that kind of reaction. The skinny guy, whoever he was, was annoying as well, but not as annoying as the skanky chubby guy.

The funny thing about High Fidelity was that John Cusak's character could actually have all those pretty women as girlfriends. I mean, yeah, like only in a Hollywood movie. His character did try to explain how he manages to get very pretty women by being a SNAG, sensitive new age guy, but he even admitted it was a total lie. God, I hate guys like him!!! I hate guys who pretend to be sensitive, which is 99.9% of all guys, and in reality really aren't. It's so bad!!! I'd rather know up front I'm dating an insensitive freak, so at least I'm prepared and there are no surprises.

Most women will tell you that the jerkiest guys they know are the ones they thought were nice and sensitive, and ended up treating them like shit anyway. Them boys are the worst, only beacause it's shocking. Better to date the non-sensitive types who are more honest about who they are instead of faking their personality to get chicks. I stay away from the sensitive types as a rule now, just for this very reason.

I knew that High Fidelity was originally set in London, so for me the american adaptation didn't quite work. American women just aren't like English women and anyway, two of the actresses, the actress playing John Cusak's girlfriend and Catherine Zeta-Jones had accents.

I liked the idea of the top five list, although I think alot of men use it as a line. I find it particularly suspect when a guy tells me after sex that I've made some top 5 list. Like I'm sure the guy says it to every woman after sex. I think there's the public top 5 list and then there's a a secret top five list that that only they and their guy friends know about. The public top five list is just a ruse to either impress chicks or convey some kind of false impression.

But does every guy have a lists of their top five whatever in their head? What a concept. Every once in awhile I think about what top 5 cds I would take if I got lost on a desert island, but my list keeps changing depending on my mood. Then I tell myself I wouldn't be so stupid as to get lost on a desert island, so making the stupid is futile.