It's September 7. The high today is a mere 106, with a low in the 70s. It's dim, but I'm beginning to see a light emerge at the end of the tunnel. God is slowly returning.

It's September 7 and that means Dickie, Sr. has reached an important milestone: He's officially a senior citizen. Join me in wishing Dickie, Sr. a happy birthday!

Work has been nuts lately, which is fine - no complaints - obviously last week I was simultaneously loathed by the religious right and the local gay community, which was fun. Actually I gotta be honest, once the surprise wore off, it really was a fun distinction.

Because if there's one thing I've made an art form of over the years it's equally pissing-off people of all races, religions, sexes, creeds and orientations. Having far-right religious nuts accuse me of being blatantly biased against them, and having the gay community call my article "patently homophobic" - all over the same sentence - well, c'mon, that just represents the pinnacle of my equal opportunity career thus far, doesn't it? Where do you go from there? If someone pulls a Steve Irwin on me, there'll be plenty of suspects.

But work craziness has had one unfortunate side-effect: I've been passing out before midnight. And that has seriously hampered my progress tearing through Season 1 of The Wire. 'Starts slow, but emerges as a damn-good show.

Of course, I took it up on the orders of Bill Simmons, who launched a fleet of book and film recommendations in last week's column. It's scary, but I don't even have to think about checking them all out. And it dawns on me, Bill is slowly building the counter-army to Oprah's!

(I mean, it's the biggest open secret in America that Oprah is slowly building a secret army of bored housewives, using subliminal messaging transmitted through her daily broadcasts. Everyone knows that. You know - and one day she's gonna flip a switch and the Housewives of America will rise up to conquer and castrate men and put Oprah in the Seat of Power. Yeah yeah, I'm just telling you what you already know.)

Not that having Oprah in power would be a bad alternative to the current administration ... it's the whole castration thing I take deep umbrage against.

But when I drove mindlessly to Blockbuster and retrieved the first few Wire discs, I realized: A resistance is forming! The storm is gathering, and when Oprah launches Operation Harpo maybe - just maybe - we will be able to rise up and prevent our bleak future of couch-confessions forced at gunpoint and Oprah Book Club Re-education projects, involving our eyelids taped open!

Ooh! I just got an email calling the paper a "right-wing forum for hate speech, a shill for the radical, corrupt Bush administration, an organization that panders to the extreme, radical right-wing reaches of our society" based on my reporting! Awesome!

Just another day East of Ede- er, "God's Country."