A Miss USA to believe in

Darn that Miss USA. She's supposed to be a role model for this country's 20 million young girls, embodying the traditional American ideals of jingoism, dogmatic religious ferver, and anorexia. How dare she tarnish that image by being an underage alcoholic slut?

Questions Couples Should Ask Before Marrying

Important questions from today's NYT, and our answers.

1) Have we discussed whether or not to have children, and if the answer is yes, who is going to be the primary care giver?

I'm happy to say that Jennifer and I discussed this very issue before we were married and were in complete agreement. I said I'd be willing to be a 50-50 partner in terms of caregiving. Naturally, I didn't intend for that to include ancillary things like feeding, bathing, changing diapers, giving medicine, etc. I was thinking that my 50% would include things like, say, "playing games" and "helping open gifts." So, kind of a funny miscommunication there. We've had a lot of laughs about this over the years.

2) Do we have a clear idea of each other’s financial obligations and goals, and do our ideas about spending and saving mesh?

Absolutely, and it was good that we broached this issue before our marriage. Essentially, we agreed that we would only spend up to our credit card limits, unless we wanted to buy something like a flat-screen TV, and that we'd never, ever, borrow more from our family than the price of, say, a Bentley. Sad to say, we were never able to adhere to these strict rules. But it will be fun, when we're old, to see how Samuel and Ethan ended up supporting us.

Entrapment!

"Entrapment" is when your wife leaves a large candy bar on the kitchen counter, then, when you eat it, says, "That was a gift for someone!"

On my way back from lunch I passed a woman with two little girls dressed in holiday coats. They were walking down the sidewalk in front of Macy's, and the little girls were singing "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow!" at the top of their lungs while the mom smiled sheepishly at the other pedestrians, a few of whom smiled sympathetically but most of whom just ignored them. Instead of going back to my office, I wanted to ask if I could hang out with them for the rest of the afternoon.

Psychic healing doesn't pay very well, alas.

Holiday Photo

Whew. Here's the holiday card. My Photoshop skills are improving a little every time I attempt something like this. This time I added shadows to my repertoire. Still thinking I should've made the foreground images a little more grainy, to blend in with the background. I blurred them a bit, but much more and it just looks like a blurry image. Oh, well. I don't do this for a living, folks.

But what a kick-ass concept. Thank God I found the background image. It was the ONLY one I found that was even close to working. I had to scan Lawrence from a book and dub him in; in the photo he was cut off just below the knees, so I had to create the lower part of his legs using a photo of shoes (!) plus copying/pasting/transforming/retouching from the upper part of the leg. That part ain't half bad, I have to say. Even got a little flare in there.

Now, I have to finish the newsletter and get these sent out by the end of the week. I'm putting the newsletter online this year for the first time.

It's 1:30 am, Jennifer is still up wrapping gifts and watching "Brokeback Mountain" on HBO. Boys are long asleep.