Baghdad Bob went into real estate.

BIG PICTURE blog has a list of dozens and dozens of major articles about how the housing market has bottomed and is ready to recover.

Starting in 2006.

Then in 2007.

2008.

2009.

2010.

2011.

2012.

And on and on.

Bless his skeptical little heart.

I think the local real estate blogs have been proclaiming it every couple of months. The Bulletin insists on having headlines that imply it.

Like I've tried to say since the beginning. My experience is that markets don't recover until you've given up expecting them to recover.

Complete capitulation.

Whatever happened to Baghdad Bob?

"Failure to Thrive."

Picked up the Death Certificate for Dad from the funeral home yesterday.

Cause of death was listed as "Failure to Thrive."

What an odd way to put it....

I know, dumb.

This is probably obvious to everyone else, but it suddenly dawned on me yesterday.

You know those surveys that show the difference between the attitudes of different generations?

Like, for instance, I was reading one the other day that said that when a Baby Boomer says he's going to look something up, he says, "I'm going to Google that..." or "I'm going to Wiki that..." or "I'm going to go online and look that up."

Whereas a Millennial will simply say, "I'm going to look that up." Because, you know, where the hell else would you look something up?

Anyway, yesterday I was reading a really interesting poll (ECONOMIX) that asked how important money and how important a prestigious job was to different generations.

"Wealth" was important to Millennials, at 56%.

Whereas for Baby Boomers, we came in at a surprisingly low 16% range.

Exactly the same for "Prestigious Career."

"Wow!" I thought. "What could account for such a difference?"

Then it occurred to me. Age.

It's apples and oranges.

Sure we are different generations, but we are also different ages. Yeah, yeah. Utterly blindingly stupidly obvious. But we're comparing apples and oranges. We're also comparing apples that someday will turn into oranges.

You get to be my age, and a 'prestigious' job just doesn't seem as important. 'Money' doesn't seem as important. When Millennials get to my age, they'll probably feel the same way.

In other words, there isn't really a difference between generations, but a difference in age.

Which is both exactly the same thing and completely different. Well, duh.

Let's do some brutal math.

If this math is wrong, please let me know.

Let's say the Avengers is a billion dollar movie. (Actually, I think it will be much more than that, but to keep the math simple, let's say 1 billion.)

Let's say the average ticket price is 10.00. (Again, it's probably lower than that, but keeping the math simple.)

Let's say that the average Avengers comic sells 50 thousand per month. (High, but math=simple.)

By my estimate, if 100th of 1% of the people who bought a ticket to the Avengers had bought an Avengers comic that month, the sales on that comic would have tripled. (I believe I have been corrected: it would be 1/10th of 1% not 1/100 of 1% to get comics to triple. My mistake.)

Instead, as far as I can see -- they did nothing. Nothing at all.

I bought 30 Avengers related graphic novels in anticipation of the movie, to go along with the several hundred Avengers related books I already had.

I think I may have sold 10 of them, for a net loss.

10.

No extra comics. A couple of back-issue sets, at half price.

My total sales from the Avengers movie was about 200.00. Total expenses? About 200.00 to 250.00. But hey, you gotta try.

The answer is simple, even if you don't like it.

Another brouhaha in the comments over a review of a book about comics at the Wall Street Journal.

Sigh.

Just makes me tired.

I'll say it now and say it every time it comes up.

Most people won't read comics. Period.

It's an unreasonable bias. They're wrong about the quality and intelligence of comics.

Doesn't matter. Nothing you say will make them pick up a comic.

All the talk of missing the boat, all the sturm and drang about how the comic industry is dropping the ball by not getting the movie goers to buy comics. All the accusations of fanboy inbredness, and lousy comic shops, and insular stories, and costs and barriers to entry. All of it is basically bullshit.

Just work in a comic shop for awhile. Talk to people about comics. See how far you get.

Star Wars vs. Lord of the Rings.

What's it gonna be, boy? What's it gonna be?

Huffington Post has a contest between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings as the best movie series ever.

I'm torn.

I absolutely loved the 3 Star Wars movies, but pretty much disliked the other 3 Star Wars movies. I don't have to tell you which ones.

On the other hand, I really liked all 3 Lord of the Rings movies.

Does subtracting the bad Star Wars movies from the overall total give LOTR's the edge?

If I search my heart, as much as I loved LOTR's, I was absolutely thrilled by SW.

So I decided to ignore the existence of Whiny-Anakin-Star Wars, and go with Han Solo's-Shoot-Greedo-First-Star Wars.

If I take those three movies against the LOTR's, I come down on the side of Star Wars.

LOTR's seems to be winning slightly, by the way. Fanboys will never forgive Lucas.

It's a nasty job, but someone has to do it.

I have to post every time I see the boosterism title like the following: "Our Region's Economy Improves." So says the Sunday Bulletin's headline.

Well, not by much:

"...it's nothing particularly substantial." Tim Duy says, highlighted on the same page. The Bulletin is nothing if not a split personality.

Not much to say. I keep looking at the 90% decline in housing starts. Until that number gets better, I really don't see much improvement. That's new building, not selling the excess -- of which there is more than acknowledged.

I'm not sure it matters, actually.

We were a tourist town before the boom, and we're a tourist town after the boom and that's all right by me. That's our economy, and we seem to have enough infrastructure to support that.

We seem to be at 4th Quarter 2003 level; which ironically is when Linda and I started shopping for a house and when we started The Bookmark, and when business started to see an uptick. I just never bought into the uptick as anything other than a bubble.

One other thing. On the same page, they talk about "high-end" homes not selling. I very much remember people on the Bubble Blogs coming on and saying, "Oh, the crappy cheap houses will be killed by a burst bubble, but the really nice homes will keep selling because wealthy people want to live here."

Ummm. That would seem to be wrong.