Between the Giro d’Italia, deadlines and various household chores, I haven’t had much time for politics lately. That said, fuck Dick Cheney. This pustular pestilence is less in need of a soapbox than of the contents therein, though I expect it would take more than Ivory or even Lava to wash the bloodstains off his pudgy pinkies. Perhaps we should try napalm or white phosphorous.

But enough about Evil Dick. How’bout that Giro time trial, hah? Didn’t turn the GC all topsy-turvy the way some pundits had predicted, but it sure was fun to watch — until the Universal Sports feed went black in the final 3km of Denis Menchov’s winning ride.

A certain former Tour champ has ceased speaking with the working press, freeing reporters to actually write about the race for a change. And while my homeboy Danny Pate is not exactly a GC threat, it was nice to see Juliet Macur of The New York Times note the former U-23 world time-trial champ’s performance in this most recent race against the clock — seems he lost it on a descent and shot straight through a hospitality tent.

“I just rode into there, went around some tables and shot back out,” he said. “I didn’t have any time to grab Champagne.”

Oh, snap. Swing on by when you get back to Bibleburg, homes, we’ll pour you a little sumpin’-sumpin’.

Here in Pate country, meanwhile, we’ve been doing our little part to keep the economy humming along. Herself’s mother is coming to visit for a few days, and we have no spare bedroom, so we had to hunt up a love seat that folds out into a single bed. I proposed that Herself v1.0 camp in the back of the ’83 longbed, which isn’t getting any use right now, but that dog didn’t hunt with v2.0, so we’re out a few C’s that could have been spent on bike parts and beer.

Another substantial chunk of change evaporated when Herself decreed that our bedroom needed curtains after a half-dozen years getting by with some cheapo blinds. And those pricey new curtains do indeed look nifty, but not as nifty as, say, a week at the beach, quaffing colorful beverages with little umbrellas shading their ice cubes.

Then the fire blight is nibbling at the trees again, the decks demanded stain as protection against the elements and our basement remains incomplete after someone screwed the pooch on a key measurement, leaving us with a bathroom door that won’t fit; it only took six weeks to build and ship, but the good news is that its replacement should only take four. Yeah, right.

Whoops, here come the love-seat-delivery dudes. Anyone want to place a bet on whether the sumbitch will fit through the back door?

• Late update: It fit. Barely. Like an H2 on a sidewalk. Sucker sure looked smaller on the showroom floor than it did going down the basement stairs.

Actually, yesterday it did both for a while. We could see the lawn and trees greening up like Bruce Banner in “The Incredible Hulk.” It was heavy, wet stuff that kept me indoors, moving pixels around VeloNews.com and furniture around my office, which had begun to resemble a rummage sale at a crack house run by a retired newspaperman. I was starting to feel crowded, like a Republican asked for a fact. Thus, a bunch of books I never read are headed for the library system, and some furniture is bound for the thrift store. Only I remain to tell the tale.

If there was a downside to the precip’, it was that our roof sprung a leak again yesterday. I was headed for my rocker with a largish bowl of Mom’s chile con carne when I noticed a couple of wet spots on my sweats. “You spastic tosspot,” I thought. “You’ve either pissed yourself or spilt perfectly drinkable wine on your drawers.” Then a third drop drilled me in the bald spot, which is pretty easy to hit in that it starts around my upper lip. Oh, shit. Straight down out of the ceiling fan this time.

Into the attic I go with a bucket and a headlamp as Herself makes a terse call to the roofers who plugged the holes around our solar array the last time we had a decent snowfall. The bucket proved more useful, although the roofers are certainly a pleasant outfit, if one has a hurricane and an insurance company close at hand.

With that in mind, we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a tornado, hailstorm or falling satellite, as Uncle Sugar has announced his plans to jam both forepaws and one cloven hoof in our pockets come Wednesday. Happily, it’s a small roof, and we already have the bucket.

Many things demanded my attention today, but it was 70-something outdoors and so I showed them all a clean pair of heels. I went for a longish run-hike in Palmer Park, took the cats outdoors for an airing and in general wasted the day in creative loafing. Judge not lest ye be judged. You’re lucky I didn’t con you into whitewashing the fence.

If the economy perks up it’s because I bought some light groceries from Vitamin Cottage-Natural Grocers, not because I raced out to grab one of the updated iMacs or Mac Minis announced today. It’s just like the Black Turtleneck Mob to tempt me with shiny baubles after a week of herding dented and stained G4 and G3 relics from the digital tar pits. Get thee behind me, Apple.

It would be the height of stupidity for me to buy a new computer in these troubled times, working as I do in the publications industry, a career path with all the stability and longevity of a gig delivering nitroglycerin via pogo stick. So, naturally, I’ll probably do it. What the hell, it’s only money. Take out a loan, everybody does it. Dude, where’s my bailout? Surely I’m too big to fail. Just ask anyone who’s seen me in Lycra lately.