OFFICIAL RETURNS: By official count, my losses at poker Saturday were only $2.85. Pretty good bargain for a whole day and night of entertainment. Thanks, Soartstar!

Will someone give John McCain a map of Georgia?

First, Sen. McCain, my friend, please notice that Tbilisi is closer to Grosnyy, Chechnya, than Oklahoma City is to Dallas, TX. Remember how effective American protests were about Chechnya, Senator?

There’s a reason for that, my friend.

How is America or NATO going to get air superiority at that particular point on the globe, Senator? IT’S ON THE RUSSIAN BORDER!!!!

How are American ships going to get into the Black Sea and, more to the point, how are they going to get out? IT’S RUSSIA’S PRIVATE LAKE, SENATOR!!!!

Where are we going to get 150 tanks to face the 150 Russian tanks already in Gori, my friend, the good Senator from the great state of Arizona? Will we take them out of Iraq? Will we get the Italians and the Germans and the French to send theirs? They call this the Caucasus because of mountains there, Senator, so you might want to take into account that tanks have problems in mountains. Ask the Soviets about what happened to their tanks in Afghanistan, Senator.

I looked under the sofa cushions, Senator, and since we’re spending $12 billion A MONTH on the two wars we’re already fighting, I’m not sure there’s anything left in the cubbard. Smart bombs don’t come cheap these days.

Now, switch to decaf and lay off the Viagra until Cindy’s hand heals up, OK, my friend?

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post script: Senator, The Charge of the Light Brigade was a neato keen childhood poem, but a military disaster.

I bought 2% milk instead of whole milk today.

Just keeping you updated.

Oh!, and I also had a small salad for lunch.

I didn’t walk in the rain, though.

These details are the Devil.

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Even trying to factor in the weight I should give to my own bias for Obama over McCain, I still think it was jarring upon seeing McCain’s “Obama is a celebrity” ad immediately after the USA surprisingly won the gold over France in the 4X100, preserving Mike Phelps’ chance for 8 gold, a uniquely patriotic moment for even a leftist like me.

A “negative” ad at that particular time just really struck me as out of place.

If a political ad during the Olympics can be appropriate, it seems like Obama’s “hands” ad about energy strikes a decent tone. By contrast, it makes it seem to me like McCain’s being a jerk.

The polls are actually much more stable than the Dow; for weeks now, Obama’s been +/- 1 of 47 percent and McCain’s been +/- 2 of 42 percent. The electoral vote state maps have also been fairly stable, but seem to be moving Obama’s way since May with 11 states in “toss up” status, by which I mean within 4% in the average of polls taken in each state.

If you think about it, 47-43 means that about 1-2% are voting for Barr or Nader and about 8 percent are waiting for the vice presidential choices, conventions and the three debates. This wait-and-see undecided voter doesn’t seem unreasonable by any means.

One caveat: the more I study the polls this year, the less confidence I have in them. I won’t bore you with the reasons, but I don’t expect polls to be predictive this election in the presidential arena. I believe there is a much higher margin of error this year than the statistics admit. I think Obama’s ahead right now, but that’s gut as much as anything, and I think no one can say with certainty any more than that.

On a related political note, I got an email from the Obama campaign promising to tell me the vice presidential pick “first” — by email or text and not through the news media. Good gimmick and also plays up the McCain campaign’s ignorance of the importance of such means of communication. Also harvests zillions of email addresses and hard-to-get cell phone numbers. A plea for money could not be far behind. They even have a form for you to put 10 folks from your address book on their lists. Work it, baby. They don’t miss a trick. iPhones and Blackberries will whirr and beep.

As I’ve said before, I like Richardson as a choice. I think he could help put Texas in play. I like Bayh, I would be cool with Hillary even though I think it’s a dumb pick, I don’t like Biden and I’m cooling towards Tim Kaine of VA. I think McCaskill or Sibelius are disasters. If he would do it, Al Gore would seal the deal for the Dems.

OK, I’ve got that off my chest.

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IMHO, a self-made man usually shows all the flaws of every DIY project I’ve ever seen.

Nevertheless, I’ve embarked on a self-improvement kick.

For example, yesterday I walked eight (8) leagues … er … miles … uhm … kilometers … OK … blocks. Well, 8 blocks is just about 2/3 of a mile and pretty close to a kilometer.

I walked to the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarets. AND back home afterwards!

OK, so a walk to buy cigarets isn’t all that great a health improvement, but at least I didn’t drive and pollute and contribute to the “energy crisis”.

I also did a pushup and a situp. Whew! Soon, they’ll be calling me “Iron Man”.

I’m also watching my diet.

Last night at dinner, I refused to have red meat and had chicken instead. It’s a cholesterol thing, you know. Yes, I felt quite virtuous with my chicken enchilada covered in cheese and sour cream, knowing the good I was doing to my arteries.

On the intellectual front, I’m trying to learn to speak French. I have CDs in my car and listen to the lessons except when I listen to Edith Piaf sing in French. So far, I’ve learned that “oui” means “yes”. Pretty good, eh? Oh, and I can also talk through my nose, a big step in French speaking apparently.

I watched a glass-making demonstration last night at a new gallery at NW 11 and Western. The Bewleys were showing their work, which I love, along with a variety of other artists. Loved the show, really loved the new space they’ve created there, and found out that making glass is very hot work. Thus, not likely to be one of my own mediums for expression. Sweating over a hot laptop keyboard is more my style.

Yesterday was also MindOverMary’s last day in town. She flew out about 4 p.m. to be restored to her S.C. porch and lake view. I already miss her. We had a lot of fun while she was here and some really great talks. Love you, little sis.

My son, Jack, called yesterday, trying to weasel his way back into the will after blowing me off on my birthday last month. Darn the boy (he’s 40 and hardly a boy anymore, but what the heck?), I love him too much to stiff him and I’ll probably let him have a share of the booty when I croak. What the hell would his sister do with my silk ties and black socks anyway?

Have a great weekend, everybody!
Love you lots!
Bye!

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Today’s New York Times magazine has what may be the most interesting article published in the dead tree journalism world this year. It’s Malwebolence, about trolls. Trolls, of course, are those web users who seem to exist for the purpose of stirring up trouble and making other people’s lives miserable on the internet. One can hardly be on the internet these days without having run into trolls, whether you use that word or not. Trolls often hack, in their most virulent form, and can do things like send endless pizzas and paid escorts to your door, expose your Social Security number, or just “follow” you around bedeviling you. The reporter actually meets some trolls of the more public variety — the superstars of trolling, if you wish — and finds out who they are and what they are like in the real world and discusses their thinking about what they do and why. I found the piece totally fascinating and very highly recommend you spend some time reading it.

On the “Ickky” front, and again from dead tree journalism, is the cover of this month’s Nichols Hills Magazine. Does anyone else remember the controversy surrounding an MSNBC’s talking head description of Sen. Clinton as “pimping out” her daughter, Chelsea? This month’s magazine cover is a photograph of one of this year’s 21 Oklahoma City debutantes, Janell Law Fryer, a University of Kansas coed and the daughter of Ms. Tricia Law and Mr. Peter Burchfield Fryer. She’s wearing a yellow frock, has her left hand on her hip and is looking over her shoulder, a mass of auburn hair blowing amongst a flowered background. She’s fresh faced and virginal in the photograph (God only knows what she’s like on campus in her life). My first reaction was “ickky”. My second reaction was: “ickky”. I find I can’t even make the “shoulderpad feminism” argument about it. The word “ickky” just keeps blocking everything else out. For half a century, there have been OKC debutantes in my reality. Most years, I think about it not at all. It’s not part of my world to any great extent. I don’t care about debutante balls in Oklahoma City at all except to think it’s kind of a silly imitation of the New York City debutantes. The notion of parents presenting their daughters “to society” seems 19th Century and beyond quaint. It’s ironic to me that the phrase “coming out” has been co-opted to mean something alltogether different. Maybe it has something to do with Sen. Clinton’s campaign for president being so far past such idiotic ideas as parents owning children and women as chattel. I can’t even parse out all the reactions I have except to say: “Ickky!”. Ickky! Ickky! Ickky!

MCARP has been writing some recently about being depressed without being depressed “about’ anything. Just wanting to isolate and stay home with the cats. I second that emotion, Smokey Robinson. The past couple of weeks, maybe three, it’s been a real battle inside myself to get out of the house and isolating has won as often as not. I have to really force myself to engage with other humans, even the ones I love the most. I’ve been more than a little reluctant to meet up with my cohort of friends for Wednesday dinner or Friday art stuff. No Thursdays on the roof; heaven forbid. I haven’t really had a choice, in a way, since my beautiful, wonderful, happy, smart, totally awesome sister has been in town since last Monday and absolutely nothing in the world could keep me from spending time with her, not even my depression since that’s not nearly as important as she is. I feel your pain, MCARP. Part of it has to be the heat. It just has to be. It drains the very life out of me to be outside for even a short time. However, even under the air conditioning running 24/7 inside my home, I’m stand-offish. I don’t even really want to post here because that’s a form of reaching out to the world and I don’t want the world to reach back to me. No one’s had to bring me fish and chips (and no one’s offered, I might add), but I have not wanted to go outside even if it meant not eating or eating thrown together crap out of my freezer. I have the usual alcoholic/depressed person’s issues with romance and finance (all problems of alcoholics are said to fall into one of those two categories, an oversimplification but a useful one). I don’t think that’s it. However, I’m not MCARP and have been somewhat more proactive about things (I hate the word “proactive”, btw). I’ve doubled my antidepressant and have an appointment tomorrow with my therapist to try and get out of this cycle. On a less rational note, I also blame a big part of this emotional trough on the last full moon, which is when things took a decided turn for the worst.

I’ve learned the hard way that isolating is not a good strategy for me. Isolation only begets more isolation in Blogblah world. I find myself inside my head more and more and, being a few degrees off plumb to begin with, the more I’m away from others and inside my own head, the further off the beam I get. A few years ago was my last time to make that mistake, if it’s possible for me to have any say about it. I became suicidal, literally. That’s why I’ve “gutted up” and taken myself outside when every instinct I’ve had the past three weeks is to pull the covers over my head. For me, that way madness literally lies. So, I got out. Here’s some things I’ve done:

I went to see two “superhero” movies, “Dark Knight” and “Hancock”. Both were more interesting to me than most superhero movies. I thought the Batman movie was interesting because it left Good versus Evil and became Order vs. Chaos and those who praise the late Heath Ledger’s Joker were spot on, IMHO. Will Smith’s venture was not as good but had a special attraction for me because he became an alcoholic superhero. No matter your gifts, alcohol can ruin your life and lead to bad behavior. I took some of that right to heart.

I went on the First Friday Paseo artwalk, sans the Oz couple, and withered in the heat. Jim Polyester and his wife, H, nailed things, I thought, when they said the art was OK, but nothing to bowl one over. I got to meet Amanda’s fiance, J, and he seemed like a great guy; even better, her band played Sauced and I heard a really terrific set while sitting not far from Skip the Grey Eminence. A friend said I walked through the Sauced crowd like a politician, shaking hands at most of the tables, and the sister also complimented my ensemble, something I always like.

I’ve spent some really deeply satisfying time with MindOverMary, and enjoyed her childhood friends and a couple of evenings at Isis with her and Dave Z and that crowd. Kelley O brightened my day (although not as much as her landscaping landowner) and she looked SO good in a white dress against her dark summer tan at one of the Isis visits.

Last night, I got in some dancing with the super-secret GF after dinner at Pearl’s, where we chatted with the new Mrs. Brian the Chef.

Brennschluss was at Red Cup with L, his SO, and just as I was leaving I discovered from NunzioX that his Austrian Squeeze was there as well (I didn’t recognize her and I suppose I went even higher on her deep freeze list because I once again didn’t engage her, but I was in a rush to get to work before noon).

I’ve had some food at the new Iguana Lounge on 9th Street and it seems like a new, good, hip place to eat and was led to go around the corner to see a house at 4th and Oklahoma that is very modern and cool looking from the street. I’m told people I know also know the homeowner. It’s certainly worth the driveby.

My friend the Ultimate Webmaster came to town and spent the night at my house, but on a sad mission to see his Mom through a cancer surgery that was not completely successful. A shout-out to all my Stillwater peeps and their finned, feathered and furry friends.

Finally, Flibbi, who writes recently about the power of touch. Hugs are the deal, I think. She mentions that newborns require touch to be healthy, but fails to mention that nursing home residents clearly do better with hugs — human, caring touch has been proven to lengthen their lives. Why would we doubt the power of hugs to keep those of us between infancy and senility more healthy in mind and body? This brings me back to one of the reasons I think isolation is a bad strategy for me. I honestly believe I literally need hugs to stay healthy. You don’t get hugs huddled in your bedroom. It’s therapy.

Well, I’m headed to Mom’s for a Sunday afternoon poolside get-together for MindOverMary. This was, I guess, just my way to procrastinate since I again don’t want to get out of the house. Hope to see some of you there!

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midnight update: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died at age 89, according to the International Herald Tribune. His books are brilliant, but Gulag Archepeligo was horrifying to read; it was a car wreck I didn’t want to see but from which I could not look away.

Someone, somewhere is fulfilling a very obscure pop culture fetish right this moment. Is it you?

this weather has me exhausted. can’t go outside, I pure dee hate getting sweaty just getting in and out of the car and if the car’s outside, getting in the car is like getting into a sweat lodge. it’s too hot to even go swimming.

just by the way, don’t let the film snippet by nunzioX, below, freak you out. I just enjoy my friend’s expertise with the short film genre and hope you’ll use the link to go see some of his noir work.

speaking of hot, Obama’s overseas tour is the hot ticket this week, isn’t it? poor McCain, schedules a trip to an offshore rig to highlight his drilling stance and gets thwarted by both a hurricane and an oil spill that closed 26 miles of the Mississippi and left New Orleans’ French Quarter stinking of fuel vapors in addition to its normal puke in the gutters and garbage smell.

I understand that baby sis will be in town next week and I can hardly wait.

Or Not To Be from nunzio x on Vimeo.

If I understand correctly, the Bush Administration has begun talking to Iran unconditionally, the military agrees that Afghanistan needs more emphasis, and Iraqi PM Maliki says that Obama’s 16 month withdrawal timeline is what his national government prefers.

Here, the national gas tax holiday has been soundly and roundly rejected and it appears that regulation is needed of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and that the economic downturn is somewhat more than just all in our whining minds. All the economic stands of Sen. McCain have been kneecapped by events.

Obama raised more than $50 million in June compared to McCain’s $20 million and the Illinois senator is putting massive numbers of paid staff in a 18 states and polling indicates the Democrat holds a lead in states with about 322 electoral votes (270 needed for election) along with gains in both the U.S. House and Senate for Democratic Party candidates.

A million Europeans may turn out to see Sen. Obama in Berlin, press reports say.

Meanwhile, an Israeli security source says President Bush will attack Iran between Nov. 9 of this year and Jan. 20, 2009, according to UPI.

On other blogs, the boys like “friends with benefits” while the girls are skeptical. What were the chances of that?

Me? I’m just trying to stay indoors during this very wierd full moon and I’m pissed because I just lost a filling the size of Delaware. In fact, it’s about the same shape as Delaware. It may actually BE Delaware. Has anyone tried to find Delaware on a map lately? Not so easy on the maps I look at. I’ve never been to Delaware. Don’t recall hearing very much about Delaware lately. Don’t know that I’ve heard anyone say that they have been to Delaware lately. You don’t think…Nah…Just saying, you know, it looks a LOT like Delaware … Delaware is a pretty small state and all…as states go…you would think it would be in the news if Delaware had disappeared into one of my molars, but I don’t read the papers every single day…I’m really pretty sure someone would mention the loss of Delaware, but most of my friends are here in OK…I’m not sure I know anyone who actually knows anyone in Delaware to call and see if their state had disappeared…well, anyway, I couldn’t talk to anyone in Delaware right now anyway because I’m too busy cutting my tongue on the place where the filling shaped like Delaware used to be. It would be wicked awesome if I did have Delaware in my tooth’s cavity, though, wouldn’t it?

I did manage to win $6 at poker a dime at a time.

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