Hi everyone, and welcome to our Christmas 2004 newsletter!

At the annual Stragsco Enterprises offsite dinner banquet in November, our President, CFO, and V.P. of Maternal Affairs announced that, for the 18th consecutive year, Stragsco's ledger showed an excess of accounts payable to accounts receivable. In other words, we were in the red. Again.

Needless to say, pandemonium ensued. The Chief Executive Officer demanded to know how such a shocking fiduciary crisis could have arisen. The CFO pointed out that maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the fact that the Board of Directors voted unanimously to hold this year's offsite at Disneyland. (Southwest was offering some awesome airfares out of Philly.) The CEO suggested that perhaps our accounting woes had to do with the fact hat the CFO hadn't made her famous oatmeal raisin cookies for a while. Stunned, the CFO asked what the heck that had to do with anything. The CEO replied he had no clue, he was just stalling for time.

Turning to the junior executives for guidance, the CEO and CFO found that they were AWOL. Seems that the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Communications Officer had gone to chase down Goofy for an autograph, while the Chief Technology Officer was back in the buffet line for what must have been his sixth plate of food.

Oh well, it was a great vacation. But as the December credit card bill arrives, and with Christmas shopping season upon us, Stragsco is once again looking for imaginative ways to raise revenue. Last year's newsletter theme, the sBay Auction House, didn't bring in as much as we'd hoped, largely because we discovered that the only thing we had that anyone wanted to take home with them was Scott.

So this Christmas, we've decided to tap into the (we hope) lucrative market of Pop Culture -- specifically, Reality TV shows. This turned out to be more of a challenge than we originally thought, mainly because none of us watch any reality shows at all outside of "Trading Spaces". So we basically had no idea what we were doing. As if that ever stopped us.

Originally we planned on a "Survivor" theme, only to discover that the kids quickly formed a sub-tribe and voted their parents out of the house. Then they made popcorn, cranked up the DVD, and mysteriously forgot all about those piles of homework sitting on the kitchen table.

Eventually we settled on a better concept: Straguzziville Idol, a shameless rip-off of American Idol. We'll hold a singing contest and let you, our treasured family and friends, decide who wins! Mercifully, you will hear no audio clips of us actually singing, because if you did we already know Amy would win, Mary Beth would finish second, John and Scott would tie for a distant third, and Nick would be fielding offers to record a duet with William Hung. Of course, if you'd care to become a sponsor and purchase commercial time, so much the better. A single banner ad costs only...um, wait, where'd we put the Visa bill?

Each of the pages that follow is designated a Theme Night, just like on the real A.I. View each of our performances and decide which of us should be "sent home" that night. (Your choices will be remembered from page to page through the magic of JavaScript.) At the end, you'll crown a winner and then...er, we're not sure what happens then, but did we mention our really attractive sponsorship rates?

Click on the "Start The Show" link below to begin! And, if we may remove our tongues from our cheeks for just a moment, all of us at Stragsco wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, and a wonderful and rewarding 2005!

Sincerely,