Why does Jersey have all the toxic waste dumps and New York all the Attorneys?...

Jersey got first pick...

So what's been going down? Guess not too much. Brooklyn gets a little cuter every day. She also gets a little heavier. I picked her up and tossed her toward the ceiling - she's one heavy punk. The other day as I prepped her for her bath (eg, chased her naked butt around the upstairs) I noticed that what junk she lacks in the trunk she makes up for in her baby gut. The baby gut is a strange phenomenon. It's as if the baby's midsection has hit middle-age all by itself. Any ways, here are some pics:

This is Brooklyn hanging out with Laila Haraj-Sai. Brooklyn pretty much plays all the time, hangs out with friends, lets other people bathe her, change her clothes, etc. Someone tell that freeloading kid to get a job already...

Here's a pic of me at Tower Bridge, the Thames river below. You can tell from the photo that it was raining. I was in London a total of 33 days. It rained on me 32 of those days. No kidding. It rained on me so much that I was reluctant to take a shower.

Tower of London in the background. It's a really old castle that was once home to the Royal family or the Flintstones or Hugh Grant - I wasn't really clear on what my tour guide was saying because I was still adjusting to his thick accent. I asked at the front desk if they had a tour guide who spoke AMERICAN and trust me, that didn't go over very well. Did you know the ToL's guards were called Beefeaters because in the olden days they had to taste the King's food for poison - and you thought your job sucked?!

Behind me is the State Capitol building where Charlonian's Ball is held. Every May teenagers get dressed up in tuxes and/or gowns, rent convertible mustang's from Hertz and try to get their car to roll UP gravity hill (for the non-Utard's this won't make any sense). No, seriously, it's St. Paul's, a very, very cool old cathedral.

This is the view from St. Paul's. I tried to get a picture of the Gherkin - an odd rocket-shaped bldg not far from UBS - so you could see this freaky thing, it's pretty cool.

I harp on this building b/c my first couple of days in London I was completely lost getting around. People kept giving me directions based on the Gherkin. I was too polite or embarrassed to say: Sire, just show me on the map where I have to go because I have no idea who this guy Gerkin is or where he hangs. Instead whenever someone would gesticulate wildly off in some direction, then another, then another, then another, and say "... you'll see the Gherkin on your right and Bob's your uncle", I would just nod and say, "Oh, yes, next to the Kurklemin, perfect, cheers" and walk away purposefully in the direction where the guy first pointed. It sometimes took me an hour more to get to the Gherkin which was actually so close to the UBS building that they shared a bus stop. But at least I didn't have to be man-shamed by admitting I was lost, which is bad, but as a note to any ladies out there: the only thing worse than a man having to ask for directions is having to ask for an follow-up explanation of someone's directions, no matter how confusing they were in the first place.

Oh, then after a couple of days schlepping around I figured out that the Gherkin was this building (infra) what I had walked past every day and had secretly titled: what Michael Jackson would build if he had become an architect instead of a weirdo:

Stop, collaborate and listen...

I hate people who eat with chopsticks. I don't mean Asian people, I mean other people who learn to eat with chopsticks later in life because they're always going to Asian restaurants. You know who I'm talking about - the people who have that smug, self-satisfied look on their face the whole time: "I've traveled extensively throughout Asia... I'm very familiar with your ways, Master Chen... I'll just be going with the chopsticks. And let me take the liberty of ordering for our party: we'll have the mooshoo hock chin chaooooo...' I'm very sophisticated, I'm a world-traveler. I think I mentioned that earlier..."

The real question is whether there's an American restaurant in downtown Beijing where the locals get to pat themselves on the back for eating with Silverware: "Ooooohhh, I go with the fork... I'm a real world traveler..."

Anyway, the reason you're all here: pics of little Miss Brookers.

Here's Brookers in front of our tree.

Brittiny and I at the Hospital's yearly Christmas dinner at the Omni hotel in New Hay Hay. We had a good time there -- there was a dance floor, so Brooklyn ran around for three hours with the other kids. She was really tired when we finally left the party... I just noticed that I use the red-eye correction in Adobe Photoshop and it makes us look creepy.

Here are my two precious ladies. Brooklyn was a sweetheart all night, playing with all the kids and shaking her groove thang on the dance floor. Her dancing is hilarious, but already way, way better than Dad's moves. We bought Brookers this red Christmas dress for the w/end's Christmas parties... She looked really cute.

Nephews Jake, Jaxen and Gerrett. Definitely they're up to something...

Here's McKenlyn Eustachias Povey, Brooklyn's newest cousin. Okay, so I made up the Eustachias part b/c I don't know if she has a middle name and I woke up with pressure in my ears. She's looking good, though, and a LOT like her older brother, Jaxen.

Greg Giraldo is hilarious...

Not a ton of new stuff going on in our lives. Have posted some Halloween pics below, along with recent shots of Brookers

Swing and a miss...

Just thought I'd take a second to post a picture of the fair miss Brooklyn. This is her on an impromptu blind date - the male baby pictured is Matthew Stoneman. He met Brooklyn at a summer beach party in Milford, CT. The setup didn't go so well. Brooklyn was more interested in getting back into the cold Atlantic Ocean and Matt had just dropped a stinker in his diaper.

Based on a True Story...

#1 - The great news is that Pops has his new liver. The surgery went well, but did last 12 hours, which was longer than expected. Dad is sitting in bed now 4 days removed from the transplantation. He's recovering nicely. Right now I'm just sitting here listening to him snore (imagine semi-trucks hitting their engine breaks down a steep canyon highway).

#2 - I'll post a few new pics of Brooklyn below. She had her 1st Birthday on August 22nd and was cute as can be for the trip out to Utah. But don't take my word for it, just look at the pics below. She's cute beans if you ask me. Wow, an entire year since my wife awoke me from peaceful slumber with "THE BABY'S COMING!!!" Being somewhat familiar with Wifey's "M.O.", I ought have realized that she meant bidness: Brooklyn was born in the hallway about 9 minutes later.

#3 - So what's the deal with Hollywood "reality" movies? You know what I mean, those mini-series or movies that the producer's want you to believe actually happened as portrayed. I remember when I was a kid Kevin Larson and I used to argue about this exact issue all the time. Our favorite discussion centered around Bloodsport, featuring Jean Claude Van Damme as Frank Dux, some euro-trash martial arts expert. In one fight scene Frank's American buddy gets on the receiving end of an open can of whoop-ace. I told Kevster that I thought it convenient that Dux' buddy got wailed on by the same guy that he ends up fighting in the championship. Kev insisted that this obviously was how the fights had actually gone, since at the beginning of the movie the storyline noted that the movie was "Based on a true story."

Well, this small argument that Kevster and I had years ago continued to haunt me throughout my formative years. The issue is: what duty does Hollywood owe those whose lives are affected by the simple tagline: "Based on a true story?" Was Erin Brockovich a hottie? Did Donnie Brasco help dispose of rival mafia members? Was Seabiscuit a horse, or did owner Charles Howard just tape a bunch of cats together? This troubling uncertainty drove me to pay special attention to claims of reality in the otherwise phony world. I ended up making the following diagnosis:

Based on a True Story (BOATS): These words mean that the story is completely made-up. I could sneeze out a green booger resembling the amorphous apparition from Ghostbusters ("Slimer") and amend the screenplay to be BOATS. Such stories represent the upper limit on the exercise of poetic license.

Inspired by Real Life Events (IBRLE): These productions are also not at all reliable, but they're at least better than BOATS above. Just to have an idea, the Exorcist was an IBRLE film. In this film a possessed 12 year old girl levitates, spits up green bile and then votes for Howard Dean as a write-in candidate in '04 presidential election. Very fishy. I took the liberty of calling the book's writer, William Peter Blatty, to confirm the reality of the depicted events. After a lengthy interrogation Bill admitted to me that his book was actually based on a ferocious weiner dog that had terrorized him throughout childhood. Oh, and the levitation bit was taken from a Michael Jackson concert where Bill first witnessed a perfectly executed moonwalk.

A True-Life Story (TLS): Okay, these are the most reliable. For an example, see Hotel Rwanda or Mr. Belvedere. In these shows the director makes an effort to preserve the legitimacy of the storyline. IE, the real Mr. Belvedere actually did wear sweater vests every day and speak with a mild British accent.

Okay, now pics of Baby Brooklyn... enjoy...

Stay off the sidewalks, because that's where Brooklyn is taking her new hoot ride...

Here's Brooklyn opening presents at the Epperson abode. She snuggled all her presents - especially her clothes.

Here is Brooklyn with her first Birthday cake. We had a Birthday cake in Sandy. Brooklyn mostly just ate the chocolate frosting globs off the cake...

Here's Brooklyn with her second cake. The poor girl, after two days of cake, thought that this was her new diet. Sorry Brookers...