A Luxury We Can All Afford...

Diamonds are forever? 

Well, not this kind -

but it is just as pretty -

if you can observe it 

with a microscope, that is! 

We are talking about the 

prodigious 

snow flake! 

And, this holiday season 

especially, 

a great many people 

can only afford that 

- as they are homeless, 

even hopeless -

and guess what: 

Mother Nature 

won't even give them THAT...

That bitch! 

Merry Christmas 

to everyone 

with artificial snow slopes -

at least? 

(The stuff in a can doesn't count!) 

+++ 

Luxuries - As Seen On Facebook!

A Bavarian castle - why not, Herr Übermensch...!


Spend the day in the spa, milord?


And find your Dulcinea awaiting thee
on a bed of roses...! Awwwwww!


All that -and more- can be yours too:
if you agree to bury large sums of your earnings
(hardly earned or not) into it...!

You'll feel like you own it all - if only for a day!
It is a great feeling -
no matter how temporary it all is, really!

Chri$tma$

Is it a luxury these days, really, to have a very, VERY, Merry Christmas...?

The answer: perhaps.

You could have a ton of expensive gifts, champagne gushing out of bottles by the dozen, tables chock-full of exotic dishes and a legion of servants to feed it to your dozens of guests, packed into your fancy abode...!

Or all you could have is this:



And it would be the most luxurious of Christmases because you would have the Essence: you would have the Light - you would have Christ, The Christ in Christmas, symbolized here by the luminous tree; and luminous it is though devoid of any ornaments or decorations made in China or something...!

May you be able to afford this luxury - this year...

+++

Trendy Eyewear - Ha.

Ahh... Oakley!

Oakley... who?
Baron Oakley?
Charles Oakley?
OAKLEY, ENGLAND?
OAKLEY, CALIF.?

Disambiguation helping and all, along with an ever-renewable miniaturized hyperlink supplied by a little tweety-tweety birdie that is as generic as it is mercantile (simeonbttjhr3 Simeon Washington @luminousluciano : http://tiny.ly/P8kS) we could quickly identify the Oakley suspect as such:




All 'tis being ado about nothing much at all indeed;
for I am perfectly happy with my eyewear right now!

Look how cool I am with it - and weep! For some peeps may be wearing the purported-to-be  coolest eyewear in all the land -  and yet they can't see squat! 

Case in point:  duas hermanas, aqui -  uma nem pode ver um palmo adianto do nariz  and recognize her sissy...?!?  'Cause if she did recognize her here...  she wouldn't be making out with her!  RIGHT?  LOL 

Ban Ray Ban - I say!
And Oakley? Oh. It's... Obsolete!  Clearly!
:)

Think We Got A Problem...?

Well, IT IS tax season after all...
We gotta pay the price for all that luxurious lifestyle one day or another, right?!?

Just ask our friends Ricky, Jeezy and Lil' Wayne here...

We thought this would fit the bill just fine - some music, some wine, a million other frivolities, maybe...?!? But we digress...

On this festive occasion -tax season- why not celebrate with a -dreadful- song about them taxes, the most annoying of all of them too: the luxury tax!

At least the song leads people to think that it might be about said tax...!

Oh well - just escape back into a world of pure ecstatic excess already - onboard a luxury yacht, for instance:

Excelsior!
;)

Shining Stars, Shining Bright... rrrrrrrrrrrrright!

Pluie d’étoiles pour Marithé et François Girbaud !

Gotta give it to the fair half of that creative couple though;
Marithé is such a gracious name!
Amalgamating Marie and Thé - two very good things indeed!
Now THAT's my cup of tea!
Congrats and kudos, both, to Marithé's parents!
Add cheers to that too!

Jeers to that Girbaud guy who took you away from them, though!
(If only in a creative partnership, thus not consummated, quite obviously...!)
And the same to those male models he uses!!!
In blasphemous poses to boot - the jerk!

Yeah, I know;
for all I know, it could have well been MARITHÉ's IDEA in the first place!!!

It is, most probably, the prerogative of a MARITHÉ indeed; 

one with such an original name can and shall do as she pleases...! 

For a time... 

LOVE

THE GREATEST LUXURY OF ALL: 

TO GIVE ONE'S HEART 

AND TAKE ANOTHER'S! 

Tis A Luxury To Remember, Also...

In this day and age of political correctness, to simply commemorate without enough of a reason to do so is simply not permissible.

Thankfully, this past Monday, the permission as the occasion were simply there for the taking as the USofA proudly announced that it had finally done it: they'd killed Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. For that act, there will certainly be repercussions of some kind; maybe as high as the death in retaliation of... Barack Hussein Obama?

But that is another story... for later.

As it stands now, U.S. Intelligence is dumbfounded it took so long to get these results - and the blame goes to Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI who basically thought that Bin Laden was not crazy enough to hide out in the last place he'd be thought of hiding out in...! Where was that? In a compound is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst. Who could have thought Bin Laden would have had the GUTS...? Indeed. The compound had last been raided in 2003 and was not on the list anymore as a "likely place" - at all. Well, Osama sure fooled you all, eh; for as along as he could, anyhow...

Kind of makes me think of those druggies, junkies, resellers and consumers of the stuff along with their workers/walkers, who always come back to the same spot, despite having been raided, caught, cuffed and picked up THERE a thousand times over...! Some people simply oversimplify things for themselves - and it can work, sometimes...

But we are getting side-tracked here; back to the compound we go.

With these living arrangements, the Bin Laden clan was not living in any luxury whatsoever. What they did have, though, was the luxury to be close to everything in near-anonymity; something that would have been thought of as impossible by the ISI, CIA, FBI, whatever... That is ONE "luxurious aspect" here...

The other one is from the American point of view - could it live with the luxury of letting this guy live much longer indeed? But the fact is that his organization may be more dangerous now that he's dead than it was with him alive, so...

And finally, to get back to our original point here - the luxury of remembrance...

This when it is much preferable, sometimes, to simply forget...

But as I always say, NEVER FORGET: personally, my mantra is "forgive but never forget," actually... Because when you do that, you can still be alert for the next time a similar situation arises and, then, you will know what to expect. Forgiving *and* forgetting is simply doing oneself a huge disfavor.

And so, at the announcement of someone's death -shot right in front of his young daughter's eyes too, reportedly- some thought it was the most opportune time to REMEMBER indeed.

For to do so justifies that act.
And it makes it all the more patriotic too.

And how do you remember best, as in officially as well as ceremoniously? At the old ball game, with an Army Ranger, ceremonial pitches from crosstown representatives of the other two top teams in your city AND the national anthem sung by someone with a voice of gold. (Or, as the case may be here, the anthem gets to be played by a marching band of renown - locally speaking, anyhow!)

I think it was the first time I noticed that there was a Boston Bruins great and a Boston Celtics great with SIMILAR NAMES, too... Derek Sanderson and Tom Sanders - cosmic twins, surely...

Like Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden?
Hmm...

Red Sox honor 9/11 victims, military

May, 2, 2011

May 2

7:32

PM ET

• Comments-5

By Brendan Hall

BOSTON -- In the wake of last night’s announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden, tonight’s pre-game festivities honored those who were killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks as well as those who have served in the military.

A moment of silence was observed as several small American flags were waved about the park. Fifteen Navy sailors stood at attention in front of an American flag that blanketed over the entire Green Monster, while the Brockton High School marching band played the national anthem, generating a loud response.

Following the anthem, Army Ranger Sgt. Lucas Carr of South Boston joined Bruins legend Derek Sanderson and Celtics legend Tom “Satch” Sanders in throwing out ceremonial first pitches, getting another resounding ovation from the crowd.

• 
  

Hopefully, these resounding ovations heard across the land, echoing the one Barack Obama received at the White House upon confirmation of "the news" there, will not turn into cries of tears made of blood any time soon.

Now that is a luxury even the mighty USofA truly cannot afford.

HOW BIG IS WAL-MART?


1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th)
than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco +
K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep
in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chai ns sought bankruptcy
(including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approximately 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are
SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had 5 years ago.

11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a
Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion).

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

Luxurious Unsightliness!

Well  then...
You may try 
your luck -
hey,
you never know,
eh?

Now these chicks
know the meaning
of
luxuriating -
THAT's
for
sure!

Happy New Year - En Français!

French - it used to be a luxury
only the aristocracy afforded
or bothered with...

Tout Comme Le Champagne, quoi!
;)

The Exceptions (that reaffirm the rule, yeah!)

Christmas Cheer,
The Christmas Spirit,
Love, Peace, Light,

THOSE at least
are NOT luxuries
and are indeed
readily available
TO ALL

+++

Royally Rich - A Top Ten Plus Five (why stop there, Forbes? Aren't there only 19 Royal Families to repertoriate?!?)

Forbes magazine, ever the wily business-saavy rag, knows there is an instant morbid interest in knowing who is so filthy rich that they can't ever hope to spend it all in their lifetime...

Yeah - people like to spend their free time envying the wealthier ones of this world!

Let's proceed then (onwards with the envying) by order:

Numero Uno is the Sultan of Brunei, worth US$22 billion (CDN $23.3 billion)

Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan is ranked No. 2 overall; he rules over the tiny emirate of Abu Dhabi, home to one-tenth of the world's oil reserves; his net worth is estimated to be no less than US$21 billion (CDN$22.2 billion - but that was a month ago or so!).

King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the deity-revered king of Thailand, is allegedly worth US$5 billion (CDN$5.3 billion) and that is good for number 5 - does that mean the top four are deities too?

Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein, who comes in at number 6 for instance, is no prisoner of his volition as he resides over a US$4.5 billion (CDN$4.8 billion)

The Aga Kahn, who is the spiritual leader of the world's dispersed 15 million Ismaili Muslims and does not, hence, rule over any territory per say, is the number ten on this list - which means that Monaco's 1.2 billion dollar bachelor, Prince Albert II, actually edges out a spiritual leader by coming in as number 8...!!!

There's truly no justice in this world!

And rounding up the short list, at number 15, we have one of the most interesting names ever to be found among royalty, for, hailing from sub-Saharan Africa comes 39-year-old King Mswati III of Swaziland, with a net worth of US$200 million (CDN$211.7 million). At 39, he is the youngest on the list too!

The collective worth of the list's 15 rulers is US$95 billion (CDN$100.5 billion)

And the Queen of England, you ask, WHERE is she in all this?
She comes in a paltry 11th on our ranking of the world's richest royalty, weighing in or rather being worth an estimated US$600 million (CDN$635.3 million) - only!



The Queen of the Netherlands is worth only HALF of what LIZ is reputed to command throughout the remains of the Ole British Empire - yet, she is clearly the most stylish of ALL the *very rich* royals, so, I chose to have her picture here - and none of the top ten braggarts! ;)

My blog - I AM THE KING HERE!

*lol*

These chicks know luxury - but they know DESPREZO too...!

Desprezo - as in being dumped? Dissed? Rejected? Ignored? Cast aside?
Yup - all of the above! Poor of them, little rich chicks - eh?
Read on: (as seen on E!) (Huh?) (E!) (Ah!)

============================

ACMs Ain't Whistlin' Dixie (Chicks)
03/05/2007 5:12 AM, E! Online ~ Julie Keller

Sure they swept the Grammy Awards, but apparently the Dixie Chicks don't fly with the Academy of Country Music.

Nominations were announced Monday for the annual ACM Awards and there was nary a Chick to be found despite the Texas trio's five Grammys for Taking the Long Way. The Chicks have won 10 ACMs in their career, including Entertainer of the Year in 2000, but have been shunned by the Nashville establishment since their President Bush-bashing comments in 2003.

While the Academy of Country Music isn't ready to make nice with the Chicks, the organization made sure the usual Nasville-pleasing subjects were accounted for, led by George Straight, Brooks & Dunn and Rascal Flatts.

Strait, who has collected 15 ACM trophies over the course of his career, notched a leading six awards this year, including the top prize, Entertainer of the Year. Strait will also compete for Male Vocalist, Album of the Year for It Just Comes Natural, Single Record of the Year and Song of the Year, both for "Give It Away," and Video of the Year for "Seashores of Old Mexico."

Brooks & Dunn and Rascal Flatts will face off with Strait in the Entertainer of the Year and Album of the Year categories. Brooks & Dunn are also contending for Top Vocal Duo, Video of the Year and Vocal Event of the Year, while Rascal Flatts is gunning for Top Vocal Group and Single Record of the Year. Brooks & Dunn will also receive the Humanitarian Award.

Kenny Chesney, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw round out the race for Entertainer of the Year.

While she didn't make the cut for the usually testosterone heavy Entertainer of the Year race, Grammy-certified Best New Artist Carrie Underwood is vying for five ACMs: Top Female Vocalist, Album of the Year for Some Hearts and Song of the Year, Single Record of the Year and Video of the Year for “Before He Cheats.” Underwood was named Top New Female Vocalist at the 2006 ACMs.

(It was a good day for American Idol alums as Kellie Pickler picked up a nod for Top New Female Vocalist.)

Other top nominees include the duo Big & Rich, who received four nominations, and Gill, Josh Turner and Gretchen Wilson, who each scored three noms.

The nominations were announced at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville by 2006's Entertainer of the Year, Chesney, and the duo Sugarland, who won for Top New Duo or Vocal Group in 2006.

"Whenever you get nominated, it's a reflection of a lot of people's hard work," Chesney said.

The 42nd Annual Awards will be given out May 15 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will air live on CBS.

The complete list of nominees:

Entertainer of the Year:

• Brooks & Dunn • Kenny Chesney • Tim McGraw • Rascal Flatts • George Strait

Album of the Year:

• Brooks & Dunn, Hillbilly Deluxe • George Strait, It Just Comes Natural • Rascal Flatts, Me and My Gang • Carrie Underwood, Some Hearts • Vince Gill, These Days

Single Record of the Year:

• Carrie Underwood, "Before He Cheats" • George Strait, "Give It Away" • Heartland, "I Loved Her First" • Rascal Flatts, "What Hurts the Most" • Josh Turner, "Would You Go With Me"

Song of the Year:

• Jason Aldean, "Amarillo Sky" • Carrie Underwood, "Before He Cheats" • George Strait, "Give It Away" • Rodney Atkins, "If You're Going Through Hell (Before the Devil Even Knows)" • Josh Turner, "Would You Go With Me"

Top Female Vocalist:

• Sara Evans • Faith Hill • Miranda Lambert • Martina McBride • Carrie Underwood

Top Male Vocalist:

• Kenny Chesney • Toby Keith • Brad Paisley • George Strait • Keith Urban

Top Vocal Group:

• Diamond Rio • Emerson Drive • Little Big Town • Lonestar • Rascal Flatts

Top Vocal Duo:

• Big & Rich • Brooks & Dunn • Montgomery Gentry • Sugarland • The Wreckers

Top New Female Vocalist:

• Miranda Lambert • Kellie Pickler • Taylor Swift

Top New Male Vocalist:

• Rodney Atkins • Craig Morgan • Chris Young

Top New Duo or Vocal Group:

• Heartland • Little Big Town • The Wreckers

Video of Year:

• Big & Rich, "8th of November" • Jason Aldean, "Amarillo Sky" • Carrie Underwood, "Before He Cheats" • Brooks & Dunn, "Hillbilly Deluxe" • George Strait, "Seashores of Old Mexico"

Vocal Event:

• Brooks & Dunn with Vince Gill & Sheryl Crow, "Building Bridges" • Ashley Monroe and Ronnie Dunn, "I Don't Want To" • Josh Turner featuring Ralph Stanley and Marty Roe, Dana Williams and Gene Johnson of Diamond Rio, "Me and God" • Gretchen Wilson featuring Merle Haggard, "Politically Uncorrect" • Hank Williams Jr. with Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich and Van Zant, "That's How They Do It In Dixie"

 I guess that, in these days of global village unification and convergence of all dead ends, being dissed is a luxury too...?
Hmm? Food for thought... ;) 

Luxury Gone WILD

... it's as if they are blind to it all: 

the excesses, the exaggeration, the evil.

The Ugly Side Of Luxury

Luxurious AND Luminous!

LUMINEERS! 

What's more - it's painless and affordable!

Truly a luxury you should treat yourself to - now!

:-)

Visit www.hostdrjack.com

CLICK HERE!

That's a regal
luxurious
lavish
Holiday Season
right there, eh

Simone's Creations
perfect for sending
Season's Greetings 

The Reason for the Season
might be lost though
...