So here's some economic speculations I've been paying attention to the various boards I read. Experts have been speculating for a couple months now what would happen to GM and Ford if their bond status was rated as "junk". Many were speculating that GM would file for bankruptcy because it's been bleeding debt for years, and was only making money through GMAC. If GM were to declare bankruptcy, they could separate GM and GMAC into two companies. GM could also in bankruptcy courts unload the unions and all the costs of their retirees, which would be great for their bottom line but bad news for GM retirees, employees and the dozens of companies who have invested stock on GM including many large retirement funds. Experts have also warned that GM stock is a bellweather of the American economy, so if GM filed for bankruptcy it would not be a good sign for the US economy.

Well, it just happened. S&P cut GM's and Ford's bond status to "junk". It will be interesting what GM's next move will be. I say "bankruptcy" and if GM does that, it will be bigger than the Enron bankruptcy and the markets will take one hell of a dive on that day.

The movie "Angel Eyes" was on TV over the weekend, and I ended up watching the end of it. For fun, I printed out the screenplay to read as well. I didn't watch the beginning of the movie, so I netflixed it and it should be arriving soon.

The screenplay version I found on the Net was a little different than the movie, and when the movie comes I'm going to compare the lines to see how different they both are. It's interesting to watch a movie and then read the screenplay. And when you do the reverse, reading the screenplay first and then watching the movie, it's interesting as well. It's kind of like reading a novel first and then seeing how they make the movie or watching a movie first and then going back to read the book.

John Grisham's "The Firm" was a much better novel than the movie. The movie of
"The Girl with a Pearl Earring" was quite a good adaptation of the novel, and I think the visuals of Vermeer's world added a different element to the telling of the story.

The problem for me with reading screenplays is most of the screenplays that I can find on the Net and print are not necessarily movies that I like. But I guess I should get over this dislike, and just read whatever I can get my hands on. Everyone working in Hollywood as a screenwriter says that reading screenplays is the best way to educate yourself about the trade, and that watching a movie is not the same. I just wish there were more screenplays from movies that I liked that are free to print on the Net.

I am loving my new laptop. It has freed my from the tyranny of writing at my desk at home. Now that I used to mind writing from my desk at home because I did start two novels (over 100 pages of typed pages each), wrote over 20 short stories and finished a screenplay all at my desk. But for whatever reason, I can't write at my desk at home. I don't know if it's because I'm in a different place now and I just don't have my desk in the right place to write, or if it's because I just got burnt out from writing at home.

I wrote my mid-term paper on my laptop sitting on my bed and then transferred it to my pc to print. So it's not like I can't write at home, because I can. I just can't write at my desk at home. This is not a good thing for a writer, but with the laptop maybe it doesn't matter.

I'm even thinking it's now time to sign up for i-Tunes so I can download songs into my laptop. But I'm still hesitating. I still like the listening to music in cafes, because sometimes I hear songs that I wouldn't normally listen to and end up liking or I hear sets of songs that I wouldn't think go together but end up being a great set. I'm constantly surprised by the fantastic sets of music playing on the radio sometimes ... everything flows and there's a theme and the beats are the same so when one song ends the other song starts and it's same on the same beat. I've tried to do it and it's very difficult to get it just right. But it would be nice to have tunes on my laptop, so when a song gets stuck in my head I can listen to it a hundred times and write.

I was a conference call this morning with people involved in healthcare quality this morning, when someone mentioned blogs. The person was suggesting that maybe the group should start a blog to find out what consumers think about healthcare quality. No one on the call knew anything about blogs, and I was tempted to volunteer my knowledge but declined.

Apparently there was an article in the Wall Street Journal today about blogs and healthcare and how patients are discussing their doctors, and the doctors are of course very unhappy about it. Here it is, Blogging from your sickbed,

This is the first time the subject of blogs have come up in one of my nationwide conference calls on healthcare quality. What a riot!