Crosblog

I am now on Facebook.

And now that I'm on it, now what?

Tom Brady reportedly pops the question. No word as to whether the discovery of Ms. Bundchen's Trapper Keeper, which was covered with different writings of "Mrs. Giselle Cassell" added any awkwardness to the proposal.

Also, Giselle is reportedly insisting on signing strong backup husband, in case Brady suffers a season-ending injury on his wedding night.

...Merry Christmas to all...and for those of you wondering, buying a new parent baby stuff is considered a gift for the baby, not the parent.

You know, if anyone were keeping track...

Matt Labash's article on Detroit brings back memories. Apparently one of their casinos in bankruptcy. Only Detroit could figure out how to lose money on a casino.

Tip - Steve Silver

One annual tradition in Casa de Crosblog is our two-person Toys for Tots drive. We're pretty heavy toy collectors, and buy toys all year round, and end up with a lot of extra stuff - some specifically bought to donate, some we later decide not to keep, and some we just don't have any friggin' room for.

We're kind of nuts about the toy thing. I'm not kidding. This is one wall of our toy room.

There are other walls in that room. In any event, my point is about Christmas traditions. Now that we are new parents, it's time to build new traditions for Xander, which will hopefully give him happy memories, bring us closer as a family, and ultimately reduce the time he spends in therapy as an adult. (I figure if we keep it under what his insurance pays for, we've done a good job as parents.)

One popular Christmas tradition is to have the child's picture taken with Santa Claus. This year, making our Toys for Tots dropoff, we discovered an opportunity to forge our own new tradition as to the Christmas picture:



Props to Georgia's 501 for collecting toys this year, and we look forward to seeing them next year for Xander's annual Christmas picture with Darth Vader.

At this rate, he may not even need therapy when he's an adult.

UPDATE - That is not the crazy redhead in the picture. At least, not my crazy redhead. (She is out in public dressed like a Jedi, after all.)

An angry Rottweiler.

Just saw the documentary A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, about the giant collective scam the legal industry runs called the bar exam. It follows six people who are preparing to take the California bar exam, including one guy who has failed the bar over 40 times.

It's very good, and if you are a lawyer, thinking of being a lawyer, or wondering why America hates lawyers, it's well worth watching.

Romantic comedies are bad for your love life.

Also, Mr. Big is a jerk. Always has been, always will be.

Jury fails to reach verdict on Brian Nichols sentence. They hung 9-3 for death. The judge will sentence Nichols tomorrow - his only choices are life with parole or life without.

If anyone wanted to see regular pictures of Xander, here are a few.

While we've been getting used to the idea of being parents, our dogs have been at the vet's getting boarded. We were supposed to pick them up Thursday, but a surprise return trip to the hospital put that off by a day. (Xander needed phototherapy for a case of jaundice, after treatment at the hospital and at home, he's fine.)

Anyways, we picked up Koshka, Otchki, and Smutyan, and Maddy brought them home while Xander and I made another quick trip to Target. (Tip for new parents - diapers go quicker than you think.) Then Xander and I came home, and we broke the news to the dogs about the radically changed family heirarchy.

They took it in stride, more or less. Koshka, running things as usual, took the lead and made first contact. After a couple sniffs, she pronounced him 1.) not a threat, and 2.) apparently not edible, and resumed her normal position in her chair. Otchki took a sniff or two as well, and apparently concerned for some reason, sought refuge behind me. (Otchki is a wonderful dog with a pure and noble soul, but "first in every desperate charge, and last in every desperate retreat," is just one of many mottos he does not share.)

Some of that first meeting is below:



Smutyan, being considerably more hyper, had a much more carefully controlled first meeting with Xander that went well also. (He sniffed, just like the other two did, and then went about his business.)

Xander, for his part, decided that none of the above merited waking up.

In Target with the crazy redhead and Xander, trying to deal with an unexpected spit-up...

5 Year old Girl passing by: Is that your first baby
ever?

Spouse: Because we're so clueless, even kids can
tell.

As long as nobody tells Xander, though, I think we'll be OK...

If I live to be a million, I will never forgive Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (pronounced "DIP-shit") for getting arrested while I was having a baby, and therefore too busy to properly mock a guy who knew Patrick Fricking Fitzgerald was on his butt, and still managed to find the proper combination of cojones and bone-jarring stupidity to try and sell Barack Obama's old Senate seat.

It seems that Blagojevich was corrupt on a truly staggering scale, and any politician who dealt with him regularly would almost have to fall into one of three categories:

1.) Knew Blagojevich was corrupt, and engaged in corrupt practices with him.

2.) Knew Blagojevich was corrupt, avoided engaging in corrupt practices with him, but never raised any kind of stink about it in the interest of getting along.

3.) Is dumber than a grilled cheese sandwich.

Sounds like option 3 is the choice Illinois' most famous politician is going with, although I've long thought Obama was an option 2 guy - I've never thought he personally benefitted from the way Illinois does business (especially the Chicago Democrat portion of Illinois), but the wheelers and dealers of Illinois machine politics never seem to have any problems having him around or trading endorsements.

...we had a baby.

So, I get a call at work Friday, that begins with my eight + month pregnant wife saying, and I quote, "Don't freak, I'm at the hospital."

After I get done freaking, I find out that she's being held for observation, since she's experiencing something that falls into one of two categories:

1. Labor.

2. Something else.

Around 10:00 last night, it is concluded that she is in fact in labor, and we are in fact having a baby. Shortly thereafter, (1:20 a.m. to be precise), the baby debuts to much applause, albeit some weeks ahead of schedule. (Which, if my wife were running for Vice President as a Republican, would be enough reason to Andrew Sullivan to wonder who the baby's real mother is, but this is a day of joy and such things can wait.) Kind of amusing now to recall my boss telling me that it had been decided that it would be best for the office if the baby was born between Christmas and New Year's.

Key questions - weight? 5 pounds, 4 ounces. Small, but OK. By clearing midnight, the baby made it into week 35, and has been certified healthy by all competent medical personnel. Length is 19 inches.

Gender? To the surprise of everyone, including me, we have a son. A beautiful, healthy, wonderful baby boy.

And, oh yes, is the baby named after Dawn Summers? Let's look at it this way - Dawn Summers chose as her blog pseudonym the name of a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The name going on the baby's birth certificate is Alexander, but we will be calling him Xander, which is also the name of a character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so if you wanted to, you could argue that in spirit, kind of, the baby is named after Dawn Summers.

You could also note that Alexander is the baby's father's middle name, but why get caught up in semantics on this joyous day?

To recap - we have a baby. And in an opinion at least as objective as CNN's election coverage, not just any baby, but the best baby ever.

Without any further adieu - I give you Alexander Sterling Crosby, born December 6, 2008.



Holy crap. We had a baby.

One of the big stories going around Illinois right now is the push to get George Bush to commute the sentence of Illinois State Insect George Ryan. Clemency is Ryan's only hope, as his appeals have run their course.

My first thought is that everyone pushing for this is on drugs, especially people who want Ryan to get clemency for his clearing of Illinois' death row. After all, if your primary goal is to get George Bush to tear up Ryan's clemency petition, set the pieces on fire, and dance a happy jig while urinating on the flaming shreds, suggest that letting Ryan out of prison would be a statement about how great it is to let people off death row. But of course, Ryan actually provides an example of how it could happen - at the time of his clearing of Death Row, Ryan was at the absolute nadir of his popularity, on the verge of leaving office being known for nothing more than the corruption that ultimately sent him to prison, before he, in one fell swoop, changed the subject and gave himself a die-hard group of supporters who will love him forever. Could Bush think showing Ryan mercy might by him some esteem from Ryan's supporters? He's nuts if he does, but it wouldn't be the dumbest thing he's done in the past eight years.

Objectively, there's actually no reason to let Ryan out of jail. Nobody is asking for a pardon, which means nobody is claiming Ryan is innocent. On the other hand, clemency is the sort of thing reserved for the spectacularly contrite or the excessively sentenced. Ryan got 6 1/2 years for basically putting the State of Illinois up for sale for most of his tenure, which if it sounds extreme, is only because so few high-level officials ever get convicted on substantial corruption charges. As to the remorse, no less a source than Ryan's wife says:

"His conscience is as clear as his mind...If he had it to do over -- and I've heard him say this -- he would govern the same way as he did before."

Upon figuring out that a lack of remorse wasn't a good thing for someone everyone thought was guilty, Ryan's attorney released a statement that manages to claim Ryan is as contrite as someone can be who has never actually said what he did wrong.

Ryan's current champions include Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who would kill for George Bush's approval ratings. They also include Senator Dick Durbin, who bravely waited until after he got re-elected to talk about his courage in taking an unpopular position that he's sure everyone will forget in six years. I would like to get Durbin on the record as to whether or not anyone who is ticked off at him right now would be justified in remaining ticked off at him in six years.

Speaking of political courage, the most prestigious and best-known Illinois political figure is bravely staying the hell out of it, and courageously hoping George Bush takes this one off his plate.

I now feel the need for a Sir Robin Break.



Personally, I'd be stunned if Bush let Ryan out of prison, and while I've implied it before, I'm willing to actually state it now - President Obama will let Ryan out of prison - my bet is he'll do it about a year into his first term. It will be spun as an act of mercy for an old man - Ryan will not admit anything of consequence, his supporters will take it as vindicating Ryan's spectacularly dishonest treatment of...well, pretty much everything he's ever touched.

And, of course, Eric Holder will wish he'd handled things differently when asked about it after the fact.

Last October, Kid Rock was arrested after he and some of his entourage got into a fight with a customer at a Georgia Waffle House.

If my currently unborn child ever asks about the meaning of "redneck," I am going to refer him/her to the above sentence.

Speaking of sentence, Kid Rock was ordered to perform community service. Mr. Rock asked to be allowed to perform said community service doing a USO tour and performing for the troops. Mr. Rock believes that these performances would be a valuable service by improving morale and bringing a little bit of home to people spending the holidays away from their families. And, admit it, you felt better after hearing "All Summer Long."

The judge, however, felt differently, holding that giving Mr. Rock credit for "...something he would otherwise love to do in front of a camera completely defeats the punitive purpose of performing community service."

So - who's right? Should he get credit for performing? Or is a Kid Rock concert simply compounding the crime?

After today, no more ads or robocalls. My nightmare is that we get told that somehow we still don't have a Senator after tonight, and we'll need another runoff in a month.


Best of luck to whichever candidate ran fewer ads. I'm serious. I stopped caring which of these tools would make a slightly less worse Senator weeks ago.