I know I’ve spent too much time on Open Salon when my first thought after Mike Huckabee announced he wouldn’t be running for President was, OESheepdog’s show-business career ended before it began.

I must be dyslexic.  When I first wrote the above, I called him OESheepgod. Or maybe Sheepie deserves a lot more respect than we give him. 

I’ve always felt that, without my mustache and glasses, I’d have more than a passing resemblance to Newt Gingrich.  Which is why I won’t be shaving or changing to contact lenses any time soon.

I know: extramarital affairs, yawn. So if you want a true sex scandal that includes hush money paid by the adulterer’s parents and trying to find the cuckolded husband a job, the Daily Beast has the most salacious highlights from the investigation into resigned Sen. John Ensign’s affair.  I especially love the part where Ensign tells the woman that he wants to divorce his wife and marry her – while they’re attending a National Prayer Breakfast.  Bonus points to Ensign for having self-described moral paragons Tom Coburn and Rick Santorum help him cover his tracks.

Is it wrong for me to say that I think Cheri Daniels, wife of Indiana Governor and potential GOP Presidential candidate Mitch, is kinda hot? (It has nothing to do with her first name reminding me of a stripper!)  She seems real, not cut from the Stepford Wives mold of so many politicians’ spouses. While looking for a suitable photo on the Indiana state website, I discovered Cheri’s Chores, where once a month she spends time learning someone else’s job, like driving a dump truck, milking a cow or  being a lunch lady. Maybe someday I can give her blogging lessons: open laptop, start typing, dump contents of brain, end of lesson.

(Sorry, Cheri, I won't be voting for your husband.  Can we still be friends?)

Is anybody live blogging the end of the world this weekend?

Does anyone besides a deluded marketing exec call Radio Shack “the Shack?”

My foodie daughter has discovered, to her great delight, that there are mystery sub-genres entirely devoted to food: donut-shop mysteries, pizza lover mysteries, cheese lover mysteries, etc.  During a recent visit to Barnes & Noble, we also discovered mystery series revolving around home improvement – being involved in a current project myself, I could see how it would lead to homicide – embroidery, gardening, even sudoku.  Shouldn’t one of us be starting a series of blogging mysteries?  First in the series: “Who Killed the OS Server?”

Speaking of books: While visiting someone in the hospital the other day, the roommate was watching an old episode of All in the Family on her television. I was startled when the dialogue between the Bunkers and the Stivics included a discussion of, and quotes from, Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.  What show today would even attempt such a thing?

Serena Williams recently tweeted a picture of herself in undergarments that was supposed to be quite racy.  I can’t say for sure, since the picture was quickly deleted, possibly because she got criticism for posting it just days after fending off a stalker. So that’s it?  Because she had a stalker, she’s never allowed to pose for a sexy picture again?  Didn’t we banish “blame the victim” thinking?

The other day, I found myself staring at the ass of a high school girl.  Before you accuse me of being a perv – though: guilty as charged – the reason I was staring was that she had writing on the ass of her sweat pants and I was trying to make it out. (It said: “Freshman.”)  Seriously, why do they put words on clothing in an area you don’t want people looking?  And that’s not blame the victim, that’s blame the manufacturer.  (Or blame the parents: “Sure, dear, I don’t mind buying you clothes that will draw strangers’ eyes to your derriere!”)

Around the same time that I was posting my list of Osama bin Laden’s favorite porn films, the Smoking Gun was posting the mug shot of terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, reportedly the spiritual leader of several of the 9/11 hijackers as well as an al-Qaeda recruiter, from one of his two arrests for soliciting prostitution. Frankly, prostitution may not be too far from fundamentalists’ true views of women.

Last week, I posted about a prominent hockey player supporting gay marriage in a TV ad. Yesterday came word that the president and CEO of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, Rick Welts, has announced that he is gay, making him perhaps the most prominent person in American professional sports to do so.  It’s only a matter of time before a prominent active athlete comes out too.  Then it’s only a matter of time until such an announcement elicits shrugs and yawns.

Another man has been released from a Texas prison after DNA tests confirmed that he could not have committed the 1984 rapes for which he was wrongfully convicted.  Once again, the case involved – surprise! – a black man wrongfully ID’d by the victims.  But my favorite part of this story is the guy’s name: Johnny Pinchback.  Doesn’t that sound like a name from a film noir parody?

Can’t anybody spell anymore?  I recently sent an email to the New York Times about a technical problem I was having with their website.  Their reply – I repeat, the reply from the freakin’ New York Times - included this sentence:

We apoligize for the inconvience this may have caused.

I apoligize for the inconvience reading this blog may have caused.