I'm Back...

And, in the words of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, "I'm feeling much better now"...

But man oh man, did a bunch of weird shit happen while I was away. Scotty McWeewee's almost-mea-culpa, Hillary's constantly-changing "fuzzy math" over the delegate count and her campaign throwing a tantrum over the democratic process in Michigan, Grampaw McCain having so many "senior moments" -- now he's up to three or four per day! -- that I'm thinking he's gone over the edge into full-blown senility, former senator Phil "I-Look-Like-A-Thumb-Only-Dumber" Gramm (R-Texas Windbag) surfacing in yet another in a long line of lobbyist problems for Grampaw Mac ... well, the list goes on.

For those of you who are interested, I am now officially a non-smoker. Yeah, I know, it's probably too soon to count my chickens, etc., but thanks to a helpful cocktail of high-test psychoactive drugs (ingredients on request), I was able to whip my addiction in record time and now I am, as "they" say, tanned, fit, rested and ready.

With the caveat that I will also be MIA for about a week, more or less, surrounding the weekend of June 14-15 -- that's the weekend of the state Democratic Party convention. I am an Obama delegate to the state convention as well as the Third Congressional District caucus (where, you may recall, I stomped Ted Danson's ass in the ratings...), and that duty requires my presence all the way across the state, in Spokane. So we're making a mini-vacation out of it and we're going to do some fun things, such as digging for fossils at the Stone Rose Center in remote Republic, Washington, and watching the laser light show on the spillway of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Nevertheless, I'm back and I'm ready. Let the games begin. And a huge thank you to all of you who offered words of encouragement and support. It really means a lot.