On iTunes there are celebrity playlists, and I can buy the Cure's playlist of 21 songs for about $21. I love all of their song picks, but then I adore the band so that makes sense doesn't it?

So I've finally joined the modern world and downloaded iTunes on my laptop and bought the following songs:

Collide by Howie Day
Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson (I hate that it's her but I like this song a ton!)
Breathe (2AM) by Anna Nalick
She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5
Where's Your Head At by Basement Jaxx
If You're Not the One by Daniel Bedingfield
Headstrong by Trapt
Beautiful by Pharrell, Snoop Dogg and Uncle Charlie Wilson
Mesmerize by Ja Rule
In da club by 50 Cent
Down with the sickness by Disturbed
Slept so long by Jay Gordon
Los Angeles is Burning by Bad Religion

So I think I figured out perhaps a few reasons why I can't write at my pct at home.

Back in 2002 while I was desperately trying to finish my screenplay to enter into a contest and watching the SF Giants and the Angels world series, my pc died. It took about two weeks to get someone to build me a new computer. Because I didn't back anything up, I had the pc guy install my old hard drives into my new computer.

When my computer died, I lost about a day's work on my screenplay and I believe some of my enthusiasm for writing. That was back in October 2002. I somehow managed to keep writing because I did Nanowrimo that year and started my second novel.

Then in May 2003 I moved, and I worked at home which was shocking and weird and made me not want to write. But I did manage to write and start my third novel, which I'm still trying to finish. Then in March 2004 I started a new job, which was again shocking and disruptive but I did try to write, only I wrote on paper at cafes and into my palm pilot.

And now that I have my new laptop, I'm thinking that my two year old computer is so slow and needs a new chip and if I replace the 256 memory chip with a 512 memory chip maybe I'll want to sit down and write at my pc again. Plus if I upgrade from windows 2000 to windows xp professional and uprgrade my software from office 2000 to office 2004, my home pc will run much faster which will make me want to actually sit down and use it.

I could probably just keep writing using my laptop, but it would be nice to have my home pc as another option. Or I could just buy one of them new macintosh pc computers, and own a mac like I've always fantasized about.

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.