as some of you prepare to enter the self-improvement routine in this new year, know this; franklin covey, the time management / self improvement gurus, made a multimillion dollar business by preaching two basic tenets:

1. if you need to do something, write it down.
2. if you have written something down, do it!

practice those two rules and i assure you, life will improve. and you don't even need one of those fancy leather-bound franklin planners for it to work.

below is one of the explanatory tag lines for the new movie the last samurai. i have not seen this movie nor am i familiar with the full story it's trying to tell and if you talk to me a year from now, i hopefully will be able to say the same. i can't help but ruminate on the question; what could an american pretty boy, like cruise, possibly have to do with the birth of the japanese nation? i'm surprised the film is not costarring pamela anderson. or perhaps they're saving her for an epic about the beginnings of africa.

the highlight from this year's christmas happened the night before. aunt peggy came over to help make sugar cookies for santa. bella complemented the snack with a refreshing single-cup combination of milk & orange juice for him to wash it down.

we were to then drive around and look at christmas lights before putting the kids down. bella had a long day and it was apparent she didn't have the juice for a nighttime car adventure. marty suggested she and her go take a shower and then go to bed. bella quickly upgraded the plan to a family shower. and, being the awesome hostess she is, she even invited aunt peggy to join in our four-person bathtub fun. aunt peggy gracefully declined.

at one point during the family shower, i looked down to find bella catching the water dripping from my penis in a plastic cup while loudly singing happy birthday to jesus. if i had a nickel for every time that very thing has happened to me...

man is my mom going to hate this photo. but not nearly as much as i'm going to hate the one my family goes on at an official photo studio, ala olan mills, in the days to come. "you tilt your head this way...now you move a little to the left...you rest your elbow on your knee like you're relaxing...you tilt your head back the other way...now everyone smile...eveyone have fun...can someone make the ...

to answer some questions regarding the previous post.

yes that was a television bella was jumping from. our old busted one which we gutted and gave to her. it is not at all uncommon to see her pushing it down the hallway en route to climb up on something. it's not the smallest step stool in the house but it sure is the funnest.

and, yes we do endorse jumping on the beds in our home. well we encourage the children doing it. marty is decidedly against the adults (meaning me) from doing it. our bed almost sags to the floor in various spots. i've tried convincing marty this is bella's doing but it only took once for her to hear the tired springs groan under my weight to convince her otherwise. i've asked that we replace the bed because i can't get the height i once could out of my jumps. she is firm on the point that we will replace the bed when the people weighing over 28 pounds stop jumping on it. i'm sure we can all agree, if this is the case, we're going to have this bed for awhile.

as for bella's olympic dive pose, i'm not sure where she picked that up, but it is truly how she begins every event. and as for her naked from the waist down deal, i'm sorry to report that this is far more usual that it should be. i'm merely hoping she gets it out of her system as a prepubescent youth so she doesn't feel the need to in later life.

at last friday night's bachelor party (congrats mikey d) one of our stops included a video arcade place. for the most part i hate the modern day video house, what with all these newfangled hi-fi games. like many i'm a classic vids man. today's fare is nothing more than a bunch of space ace's lining the wall. big frills, no skills.

and as a purist in an unappreciative world i was relegated to the back corner of the room, as too often happens, where they had a stand up game capable of playing all the lost jewels from yesteryear; galaga, joust, robotron. sadly there was no excite bike. or marble madness now that i think about it. but i did get to momentarily return to my adolescent years as well as smugly inform some square 40-something how missile command was truly supposed to be played. tourist.

melvin van peebles speaking to how quiet the theater was during a showing of his movie sweet sweetback's baadasssss song.

to set the scene...

marty went to an all girls catholic high school.

marty had a friend who worked at a photo-mat.

this friend once brought in a copy of a photo picturing a 20-something guy standing naked with an erection. oh, and he had shoulder length feathered, permed, mulletted, and heavily hair-sprayed hair.

marty asked to borrow the photo, stuck it in one of her school books and whenever she found herself in a circle of girls and the question came up 'so, are you dating anyone?' in that high, excited falsetto only catholic school girls seem able to attain, marty would respond 'yeah i am' in a return falsetto, 'would you like to see a picture of him?' they would wildly shriek 'like to. i'd love to. yeah! let's see'. here marty would proudly pull this photo from her calculus book and hold it right in front of their growing eyes with an outstretched arm and watch their faces contort. they would then all take their tops off and bound through the halls, their full, dark ponytails wagging behind their lithe young bodies and they'd be screaming the name "troy! troy! troy!" over and over for some unknown reason. ok, so i added the last part, but the everything before that is really true.

i saw this photo once several years ago and feel compelled to tell you something about it. for one, i looked at this item only once, yet i remember every last detail about it right down to the color of the dirty shag carpeting (mustard yellow with black specks). if i had to explain the origin of this shot i'm certain it went something like this.

the year is 1983. quiet riot is playing a spring break concert in daytona. the drummer has just come out of the bathroom, post-concert, thinking he's got a groupie or two waiting for him but instead finds his band mates with their polaroid.

i'd post the image but it would be kind of a hassle to take it out of the frame on marty's night stand to scan it.

have you ever felt dirty? unchaste? impure? yeah, me neither but recently i've been struggling through a certain predicament. you see, bella likes to watch sesame street. she also likes someone to watch with her. oftentimes that someone is me and i'm always happy to oblige in this basic request.

bella likes gina the veterinarian. she is nice and helps people/animals. daddy likes gina the veterinarian a lot too. she is nice and does all sorts of kind acts. and did i mention she is crazy, smokin' hot. having sensual thoughts about a beautiful woman intermingled with elaborately detailed talking and dancing sock puppets hasn't done my psyche or intimate life any kinds of favors.

think i'm joking? you try having your more libidinous thoughts interrupted by a two-foot tickle me elmo doll informing you that tying your own shoes makes you a big boy, a very big boy.

i sympathize with the burglar who selects my home to rob in the wee hours of the night.

i've lived here 5 years, know the floor plan and have yet to nocturnally navigate it, post bella, without:

1. kicking over a bucket of marbles in the 2am silence
2. running my scantily clad groin into the handle of a fisher price vacuum cleaner
3. stepping barefoot on a two day old, half-eaten and fully husked banana

sadly, we no longer have any valuables that have not been bellafied (aka broken) so they will be doubly pissed at their misfortune.

i've yet to be disappointed in a piece of spam with a subject line: 'i've got a new roommate'.

sadly, the same cannot be said for spam titled 'have you seen my mother?'

well, go get em' already.