5 Reasons This Recession Is NOT AS BAD as Everyone Thinks:

1. This past weekend at Southeby's famous New York auction house, the above painting (mystically titled: "Bagpipe Player in Profile") was sold for a whopping $10.2 million. If times were tough, one wouldn't have to buy the painting. You could merely open the nearest window and view hoardes of constipated bagpipe players.

2. Exxon Mobil posted profits in 2008 of $45.2 billion. That is the largest profit ever reported by an American company. Ever. Like... ever! Guess we know who's buying crappy art.

3. The coolest ticker symbol on the NYSE is "TAP." It is the symbol for the cominded Coors/Miller beverage companies. They "disappointed" the Street by earning profits (yes they do still exist) of $90 million in the 4th quarter of 2008. This, by the way, is the worst quarter for the stock market in US history & brewing companies are STILL making mounds of cash.

4. A couple of weeks ago, there was a movie which reached #1 at the US box office. Title: "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" Spending money on crappy movies is the poor-man's version of buying crappy overpriced art. Thus proving the recession isn't stopping pointless spending regardless of your income level.

5. Speaking of income... In 2006, Merrill Lynch (now a division of Bank of America ...a.k.a. Bank of Amerrillca) earned a net income total of $7.5 billion, so it bonused its Wall Street execs a total of $8.4 billion. We are all aware of just how much better things were back in 06. So, a gap of a billion dollars or so between the amount of income and the amount of bonuses is only slightly alarming. In the year 2008, Merrill Lynch lost a net income total of $27 billion (that is not a typo and I did not leave out any decimal points). So, naturally, its execs certainly earned their bonuses which totaled $7.5 billion (only $900 million less in bonuses than the highest bonus year on record for the company).

It can be reasoned that even during a recession, people may continue to buy art, watch dumb movies, and buy beer. It is an unfortunate unwritten law of the universe that petroleum companies WILL make money. But, surely, during an time that has been called the WORST ECONOMIC EVENT SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION - a company that exists for the sole purpose of offering sound financial advice to its clients would not create an income-to-bonus gap of nearly $35 billion.

Surely...

Keeping Up With the Jones's...

...and the Burgoyne's, and the Rusin's, etc.

Since everyone and their Momma's goldfish has posted pictures of their bouncing little babies and I have like one picture of Xander on here ...

well ...

Here you go!!!

Horns or Halo?
(The "horns" are actually just 2 dabs of baby lotion Daddy puts on him after his bath. It cracks him up every time.)

Xander's G.Q. pose.

My favorite picture of Xander & his favorite toy.

Wonder who he got his lopsided smirk from?

That's our Xander & we don't remember what life was like without him!

(which probably has been caused by a combination of all-nighters and lots of love)

Confessions of a Twilight Critic

Teenage Romance is not exactly my typical reading genre. It ranks up there with school dances, boy bands, and hanging out at the mall: ALL teen girlie-stuff that I make a point to avoid at any cost.

As a matter of fact, my recreational literature is on a planned cycle. One non-fiction, is then followed by one adult fiction. I know. It is a little retentive. But, we are only given so many brain cells - and if you are as certain as I am that so many of them died in college - it makes sense to try to keep the remaining few firing on all cylinders. It is not that I have anything against vampires. My version of vampires are found in Anne Rice novels and in movies like "Underworld." It is the thought of someone emasculating vampires by putting them into a teen romance novel. I actually find it a little bit insulting.

In my wife's never-ending efforts to expand my previously limited horizons to the finer things in life (like: Rock of Love, Charm School, Project Runway, The Hills, Rascal Flatts - you can see where this is going), she decided that I needed to - no - that I HAD TO read Twilight. I suggested that we just go see the movie since she had read the book and that would be how I kept up. By my line of thinking this would mean I had only 2 hours of torture rather than the week it would take me to suffer through the book.

However, if you know anything of Roxy's and my relationship, you know that this is EXACTLY the sort of battle I end up losing. EVERY SINGLE TIME. So, I flipped to the first sentence in the first chapter, sighed, and prepared myself for a week's worth of brain cells lost to a teenage vampire romance novel. I prayed none of my friends would ever find out I actually read this book. And so it began. "My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down."

Within minutes, Stephenie Meyer had me wrapped around her binder. I was already plagued with questions. I had to keep reading. Each page I turned made me eager to flip to the next. Each chapter brought about new questions and before I knew it - I was dying to know what Edward Cullen was! It was only when I laid the book down that I remembered that I knew he was a vampire. Wow. She was more than a writer. Stephenie embodies that which distinguishes an author in my mind. I was so lost in her world that I forgot all about mine!

By the end of the novel, I had ached for Bella and Edward's tragedy of love between two infinitely impossible - yet so real - characters. By the end of the novel, I could not wait to read the next.

Why spend an entire blog on this? Because if you are or have ever been a pre-emptive critic; you need to read before you rate. I love this series and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to break a typical and boring reading cycle. Perhaps my wife wins these battles for a reason...