I’m listening to the Ronn Owens program on the radio and he has a guest on who is an expert on the real estate market. I feel like I’m listening to the same type of programs I heard about the stock markets during the dot com boom. It’s scary. I don’t believe all the hype anymore. Who is buying all these houses when unemployment is so high in the area? Did people not learn anything from the tech boom and bust? Do people believe all the hype about anything anymore, especially when it comes to the stock market and the real estate market? I can remember those pundits on CNBC saying how the Nasdaq was going to go higher, how the tech stocks and specifically the dot come stocks were the stocks of the future. Where are those pundits and those tech and dot com stocksn now.

People are putting their houses on the market because they’ve lost their jobs and they probably can’t make their mortgage payment. There are so many rental signs in the city right now, even in my neighborhood where I haven't seen For Rent signs in about 4 years. If people can't rent, how are they going to buy? And I don't think the people who have vacated their apartments, are buying real estate. At least not from the people loading their stuff into Uhauls that clog the city streets every weeeknd. Where are these people going? Don't the real estate agents and journalists see these for rents signs and the uhauls too? Don't they read the headlines in the paper or the news websites?

Why do people ignore reality and simple common sense when it comes to money? Is it greed? It’s like maybe just the thought of having all that money puts a spell on you and all your good common sense and your ability to see reality goes out the window. I think the real estate industry is pushing the hype about the market because they make tons of money when houses here sell for big prices. They have no vested interest in seeing home prices drop. They don't care if a homebuyer gets negative amortization on their home loan when the real estate market tanks. They've already made their commission. I'm sure the Wall Street pundits and the CEOs of all those failed companies had these same thoughts. Why should they care? They've got their bonuses, their stock options which they sold while the company stock was high.

I don’t get it. But then again, I haven’t lost any money in stock market since 1998 and my 401(k) and IRA are fine. Now as for the rest of my accounts, that’s another story. I have that annoying knack of walking into a store and only liking the most expensive item in the store. Where I got this skill from is unknown to me, but it’s wrecking havoc with the amounts in my checking account and my credit cards, not to mention my savings.

I went to Stonestown to write. Why I can write in the middle of a mall in food court, where people are talking and eating and they're blaring god awful music and not in the quiet of my own place where I can play my own music, is a mystery to me right now. But writing in very public loud places seems to be the only way I can write this month.

I interviewed the brother character Michael in my screenplay. After finishing up the interview, I decided to change the title of my screenplay to "Going Home Again". I looked up the word "going" in imdb.com and I couldn't find this title in their movie list.

My reviewers told me that I needed my title and I was opposed to it, but now I think they were right. My story is about a a guy going home again and I have him say "some people say the hardest part of leaving home is actually leaving. I think the hardest part of leaving home is going back home again."

On the way home, I also realized that this is my second story about failure. Art is Scary was about the fear of failure, or so says my acting director. I disagreed with him at the time, but maybe he was right. I had a fantasy of Roger Ebert talking about my screenplay and saying that "it was filled with pathos and a sense of failure, failure of parenting, failure of finding your dreams, failure of a father, failure of a son, failure of the american family and finally failure of american society."

And what do I have my movie family saved by? Baseball. How ironic since there may well be a baseball strike this year. I'm not sure what I am trying to say about society and baseball, but I guess I must be saying something.

I hate that I seem to only write about failure. I hate failure. I used to think that failure was not an option in my life, but I have had so many failures that I have proved myself wrong over the years. I love all the many ways people fail and that I've failed. And failure is sometimes accidental, sometimes driven by fate, and sometimes completely voluntary. Is it any wonder I am obsessed with failure as a theme in my writing?

God, I’m really lucky. I signed up to comments yesterday and today the commenting software place is no longer accepting signups. I wonder what happened. Oh well. Commenting seems to work though.

And what a miracle. The baseball players unions has decided not to strike. Doesn't it make you think that they were just testing the waters to see what a strike would do the sport. Guess the reaction wasn't very good. Even that freak Paul Harvey made a comment called millionaire baseball players "bums". It's like you know if you see a report saying that something is fashionable on CNN Headlines News, the item is so no longer fashionable. This is how people become fashion victims; BEWARE!

I'm adding comments. Let's see if this works.