Somehow during the mad scramble for accommodations, the merry men and I were able to once again secure a suite for this year’s Comic-Con International (or, as we older-timers like to call it, “the San Diego Comic Con”). Which means that, this year, there will be more of these small, odd, touchingly humane and sometimes disturbing moments.

By the way, while I am posting these blog posts from an Embassy Suites in Tucson, AZ, I was able to restore internet service to my house before leaving town again. I performed a rigorous inspection of all my systems and identified the problem:  a cable had come loose. I pushed it back in. I only wish I had been able to bill someone $175 or so for that.

Don’t think that’s much of an accomplishment? That’s more than my 18-year-old college kid was able to do in the five days he was home feeling sad without the internet.

Yesterday I emailed Penny in my office to request some changes to this blog — and I just noticed that they’re up.  So now there’s a search box, and there’s an archive by year, and recent comments are previewed. I also asked for a Shelfari feed so everybody can be really impressed by whatever I’m reading at the moment. (Right now:  Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing by George Cloutier; and Creation by Gore Vidal. I’d sure like to put the two authors together in a steel cage match. And also Priceless:  The Myth of Fair Value.) I think she said she’d have to upgrade my WordPress to do that. That upgrade will mean I’ll also be able to use the WordPress iPhone app. I’m hoping it has a feature that allows me to take down Adwords the next time I catch it running ads for a Tea Party candidate on this blog.

I don’t remember the U.S. Census being so openly reviled in the past, but now it seems that no matter where you stand politically, if you fill out your census form it’s like you’re obliging a government conspiracy.

Last week I was visiting a gay couple when the one partner got a call from a gay friend distraught about some series of questions on the census, and my friend was telling him, “No. NO. They do NOT need to know these things about you!” It sounded like a fear of the government knowing you’re gay — even though everyone else in your very gay neighborhood knows. Not being in the situation, I’m not one to judge.

Someone else I know gave this response to “the asinine race question”:  She checked off the box “Some other race” and then wrote in “Lightly tanned.” Granted, once upon a time a lot of people didn’t fit into that form at all (including my friends who are what was once called “mulatto”). But now there are more racial options on that form than ever before. I understand the resistance:  I don’t like being categorized either. Some people claim that if “communities” are under-represented, then there are fewer programs directed to them. Maybe. But starting with my college applications I always checked “Native American” — after all, I was born in New Jersey — and I never got a single grant or scholarship.

While I can’t promise a great dog video on this blog every day, I can promise you this one. And yes, it’s a commercial — and so what? It’s great. I like all of the dogs in this video (even though none of them compares favorably with my own dog).

I’ve been out of town often recently. (Twice to Florida in less than a month, and both times it was cold, windy, and rainy. As I said to my brother, who lives near Fort Lauderdale, “I’m surprised you don’t want to live someplace warmer.)

When I’m staying in a hotel, I tend to have access to the internet. Sometimes it’s “free” (which means the hotel has found a way to add it to your bill), and sometimes it’s for purchase (which means the hotel is essentially adding it onto your bill).  Increasingly, I also have internet access on the plane — in fact, every time recently I’ve had such access on the plane. And I almost always have access through my iPhone.

Where haven’t I had access? Twice now I haven’t had it at my home — I’ve returned to find it down. For no reason. While I was, well, somewhere three days ago, my son texted me to let me know that the wifi was down at my house. I had him reboot the entire system and discovered that it’s not just the wifi — it’s the internet in toto. He said it was working Thursday night, and then magically — it wasn’t. This is not the first time this has happened. Why? Who knows. But tonight I have to figure that out, or tomorrow I have to call the people who keep it up and running at my business and have them come straighten it out at my house. Because otherwise, I’m offline at home. And that’s too horrible a situation to endure.

My friend Terence Anthony’s terrific environmental piece “Blood and Thunder,” about two lowlife criminals caught in rising waters during Hurricane Katrina, closes this weekend after a smash six-month run. If you’re in LA and you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend you do. Here’s where to get tickets.

In the meantime, here’s a nice interview with the cast, courtesy of my friend and fellow playwright Ross Tedford Kendall.

I’d like to thank Rielle Hunter.  Because not only is she stupid, she’s tenacious, which means she will never ever ever stop dogging John Edwards — which means we’ll never ever ever find him serving in public office again. In Dante’s Inferno, the punishment serves the crime; for the pretty and formerly media-hungry John Edwards, Rielle Hunter is the succubus who will drain him for the rest of eternity.

What are the odds of this happening? I flew in yesterday from Los Angeles, and just checked into my hotel in Orlando — and discovered that my brother, who lives in New Jersey, is also staying here.

And no, we are not attending the same event, and we did not plan this.

Every week in one of the political science classes he teaches at the University of Southern California, my friend Dan Schnur throws a student Republican, a student Democrat, a Republican spokesman and a Democratic spokesman into a locked cage and throws away the key until the assembled class’s pizza runs out. Yesterday, the Republican spokesman was Jonathan Wilcox, a speechwriter for Pete Wilson when he was governor of California. For better or worse, the Democrats had me.

We weren’t there to advocate for specific candidates, although I couldn’t help agitating against Carly Failorina. The assigned topic was the U.S. Senate race in California, so it seemed like fair game: It’s a seat that Failorina — okay, “Fiorina” — is seeking. I find her candidacy especially galling, given her disastrous recent history: nearly destroying a storied American company (Hewlett Packard), and so poorly serving John McCain as a spokeswoman in 2008. I can’t imagine the basis for her campaign, unless we have a burning desire for more leaders drawn from the ranks of CEOs who jumped out with millions of dollars while their companies plummeted to the ground. (Although I was vastly entertained by her demon sheep campaign video. I hope she spent a lot of money — her own — on it.) Think I’m just a partisan standard bearer? Let’s hear from a Republican on the subject, one with the last name of Packard.

Wrote Arianna [Packard]: “I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded. So, allow me to disillusion you of a few of your stated reasons for supporting her,” Arianna Packard wrote to Sens Jon Kyl, R-AZ, Tom Coburn, R-OK, and James Inhofe, R-OK.

“You write that she is a ‘proven business leader.’ This may be how she spins her career, but most business commentators consider Fiorina’s tenure at HP to be a disaster,” Packard writes.

That letter gladdens my heart. Although I did feel somewhat badly for the Republican student who took my bait after I linked “Fiorina” with “Failorina” — he then discoursed against the notion, repeating the word “failure” four times in four sentences with the name “Fiorina.” I pointed that out, and Dan pointed out that one of his upcoming classes teaches one to be careful about repeating the opponent’s talking points. That’s only a taste of what Barbara Boxer is going to do to La Failure should she get the nomination.

The Republican end of the table seemed to think that the Democrats in California are going to be in real trouble. Maybe. But it’s eight months until election day — an eternity in politics — and, as I said on the panel, you can’t beat somebody with nobody. Fiorina isn’t getting any traction in the Senate race. Re Meg Whitman, whom Jon compared to “Avatar” (as the biggest, best, and hardest to beat), well, I submit the video below. If you can’t work your own press event, how well are you going to do when Jerry Brown shows up and asks you real questions? That’s a debate I’m looking forward to watching.