Last Night's Dream

Dear Friends,

Many of you know that my dreams are, for the most part, completely ridiculous. For example, I've roller bladed through a parking garage in Metroid armor killing robots. Liz and I have had to team up to 'solve' a continually collapsing pyramid. On numerous occasions (and I mean frequently) Nick and I have had to battle ninjas. But last night's dream was an entirely different experience, allow me to explain.

Things started off in my astral journey emotionally. I'm not sure of the initial details but I wound up in a hospital with my family, sobbing and hugging my grandfather. Evidently, from this point I was transported to a jungle where I had to RUN FOR MY LIFE because I was being chased by what can only be described as the most insanely terrifying thing anyone could possibly imagine. What was this awful beast you ask? It was Yoko Ono, in a chariot led by five black horses FLYING THROUGH MID-AIR after me...and no, all you skeptics, I am not making this up.

After I lost Yoko and her horse drawn death cart from hell I stopped running, sat down, and calmly enjoyed a movie that was being projected on a large screen hung from the branches and vines. When I turned around, things got weirder. I found myself in an elevated parking lot full of Chevrolet Coupes that presumably have not been designed yet. The most disturbing part of this experience? I am now a WOMAN who looks a lot Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Naturally, all the cars in the parking lot start to drive themselves across a metal bridge that connects the parking lot to a incomplete building across the street. As they are driving away I try to get into one which evades me by doing k-turns and reverse 180's all over the place. I give up on the car and without difficulty get on a motorcycle and drive down the ramp of the building.

Once on I am on the ground outside the building the motorcycle becomes an exoskeleton style power suit that allows me to fly up the frame of a neighbooring skyscraper. Once on the top of this building I get a 360 degree panorama of the city which is a sprawling Metropolis on the coast of an ocean. This most recognizable building in this city? The Paris Opera that is sitting on the beach like the Asbury Park Convention Center. I then wake up to the sound of my alarming playing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and immediatley feel like I need a drink.

So folks, this is what I deal with while I'm asleep. Aren't you jealous?

Exhausted and Confused,
Phill

Shameful Mathematics.

Hello Friends,

Here's a a disgusting little tidbit I just read on the news feed. The chairman of Lehman Brothers, you know the gigantic bank that collapsed last month and begged the government (I.E. you and I) for an even more gigantic assistance package, collected over $480 million of bonuses and payouts since the year 2000. If my math is correct...and the calculator says it is, this man ALONE could pay off 2,244 mortgage loans in the United States based on the average home price of $213,900. The best part about this guy? When the congressman from California asked him if that seemed fair he responded by saying (and I paraphrase) It's not that much money.

Now let's figure that there are maybe two hundred people in the US that have received that kind of money over the last eight years. That equates to $96 Billion, divide that by the average home price and we come up with 448,807 fully paid off homes in the US. I know that some people make more money than others and that some people borrowed way beyond their means. But why should some family who has tried their best to be responsible foot the bill for people who are irresponsible? Why should men with literally TONS of money not help the people who have made them rich? It's immoral, it's unethical and frankly, it bums me out.

Concerned,
Phill