Oh, it's bad.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

- Steve McCroskey, "Airplane"

After last night's late night baseball extravaganza, I decided to take the day off and rest. I started picking at the TV early this morning and rested on Regis and Kelly, who were interviewing a pony tailed Russell Crowe. Suddenly, the screen changed to the ABC News logo and the voice-over said, in that serious tone: This is a special report from ABC News. "Oh boy", I thought, "another airplane hit a building."

No. They cut into the hockey mom's favorite program to show us the opening of the New York Stock Exchange and its subsequent 600-point drop. In 6 minutes, the Dow Jones Industrials were down 648 points. It's settled-in at minus 250. One pundit was predicting that today was the bottom, another was saying he didn't know and a third thought we needed a bank holiday to close the markets for a couple of days to let everyone gather their thoughts. That sounded like the best idea I've heard lately.

If you believe, as I do that a market drop is the financial equivalent of getting into a time machine, consider yourself transported back to 2003, when the Dow was in the 8,000 range.

The year the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing 7 crew members.

The year that George W. Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln in front of a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," two months after the war began.

The Old Man in the Mountain rock formation in New Hampshire crumbled.

Rush Limbaugh publicly admitted that he was addicted to prescription pain killers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California after the recall of Gray Davis.

Welcome back.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.