The Russians have really got it going on.

So, their economy sucks, right? Big deal, whose doesn’t? But they have a unique suggestion for stimulating it. Unlike our boring attempts to pump things up here in the U.S. Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin just came right out and told everyone to smoke and drink as much and as often as possible.

While some would call this stimulus agenda a good reason to pack up and move to Russia, others say that while it’s fun to party to your heart’s content, it may also lead to your heart’s demise. Well, not so fast, you negative nudnicks; don’t rain on Russia’s parade yet. First, consider a new study that just came out of England.

According to the study, people who drink heavily live longer than teetotalers. While some doubt the study’s validity (they say it was influenced by participants’ wishful thinking), I’m willing to believe anyone who speaks with a British accent, especially as happy hour approaches.

So, scan the news and draw your own conclusions, but it’s all adding up like one plus one: Drink your way to a healthy economy and a healthy body. Start by making yourself a tasty Moscow Mule cocktail (click here for recipe), in honor of the wise Russian guy (who would rather you drink three or four and smoke a pack while you’re at it).

There’s a new movie out, starring my dog, Oliver. It’s called, “Eat, Poop, Sleep.”

Dragon Dictation is my new best friend.

I have two daughters away at college, and our main method of communication is texting. But I admit to being text-challenged; I find it hard to type on my iPhone. So I often feel like a clod-fingered oldster, requiring ten minutes to respond to urgent questions like, “Can I wash the red underpants with the white?” Before I can painstakingly tap out a response, I often get an impatient prompt: “Mom?”

Recently, my friend Michael (also an oafish texter) told me about a free application called Dragon Dictation. The Dragon allows you to dictate messages, which appear immediately as text on your phone screen, where you can correct them if need be and then send them off (as text messages or email). It could not be easier (unless maybe a kid would simply answer her phone for a big fat change).

Now when my daughters text me, instead of tapping a simple “yes,” in seconds I come back with, “Well, if you’ve washed the red several times before they will most likely be fine mixed with the white. If, however they are brand new…oh, was that the Victoria’s Secret thing on your credit card bill? And oh, you left your pink sweatpants here….shall I send thgem? Did you get the brownies? Did you see the last episode of “Modern Family”? When are you having lunch with Aunt Sue?” And so on.

Dragon Dictation, may be my new best friend. It may be my daughters’ new nemesis.

I was inspired by the news story about the 215 pairs of underpants

This 10-year-old kid was perusing the Guinness Book and saw where some kindred spirit set a record when he put on 214 pairs of u-trow. So the kid (let’s just call him Captain Underpants) decided to use the occasion of his birthday to publicly beat that record. A glimpse at the Captain’s birthday video shows that his mom and dad, thrilled that their son would take on this underpants challenge, proudly supplied and numbered the stacks of white cotton briefs.

He did it, although he lost circulation in his legs in the final stretch, and slipped into #215 while horizontal. The crowd went wild.

You gotta hand it to the Captain, putting some zip in his birthday celebration with something that transcends pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I’m thinking maybe I should do something equally attention-getting on my  birthday. I’m steering away from the underpants thing because I’d have to go for 216, and I have found that Hanky Pankies lose their allure when worn in multiple layers. Plus, they are not cheap; my party budget does not allow 4K for undergarments.

I’m thinking maybe I’ll look for some other record to break. Maybe I’ll take a whack at the one set by  Andre The Giant, who drank 117 beers in one sitting.

“OMG.” That’s what was in the thought bubble above my head when I opened the Dining section of the NYTimes on Wednesday to find Mark Bittman’s article titled “101 Reasons For Lighting The Grill.” The very thought of all those reasons made me want to   sit down. As it happened, I was on an airplane, so sitting was pretty much my only option anyway.

But I was only on reason #26 when I had a breakdown. I felt like I did at the Bloomingdale’s shoe sale; I was overwhelmed by choices.  I stowed the NYTimes,  grabbed my iPod and summoned the flight attendant for an alcoholic beverage.

Anyway, I already had 1 good reason for lighting my grill (which was the expected arrival of 12 people on Sunday for lunch) and  that seemed like enough. But as I listened to my “mellow” playlist and sipped my wine, two words from Bittman’s piece kept bobbing to the surface of my mind: “Bacon dog.” Everyone is at least a closeted bacon dog lover, if not an overt one.

So now I have 2 Reasons For Lighting The Grill. That’s about all I can handle, Mr. Bittman, but thanks anyway.

It was 7 a.m., it was pre-coffee, and I was making scrambled eggs, treating  Oliver’s infected paw, on the phone with my N.Y. daugher re: travel plans, adding ingredients for turkey loaf to my mental grocery list, and stepping out to retrieve the newspaper, at which time the sprinklers popped up cheerfully to douse me. So when the vuvuzelas started, I was already in a state you might call irritable.

But then soccer took over. Tom and Nora have been obsessed with the World Cup, but I’ve been more, shall we say, aloof. (The most emotion I’ve displayed vis-à-vis the Cup is bitching about the vuvuzelas.) This morning, however, my family’s intense focus zapped me. I turned to the television and, within seconds, I was hooked.

I stood in my damp bathrobe and got acquainted with Landon Donovan, and life’s irritating factors evaporated. Even the vuvuzelas lost their edge.

After The Goal (note-to=self: get that YouTube vid on my iPhone), I skittered across Twitter and now I (along with 60,000 other stalkers) am following Landon. His tweet after the victory? “WOW!” (Well, whattya want, the Gettysburg address? The guy was pooped, for chrissakes.)

After the thrill of victory dimmed slightly, I got real and made a turkey loaf, fantasizing about tweeting old Landon a dinner invite, which would probably be his 59,999^th offer of the day.  Maybe I’ll invite Stan McChrystal instead. Bet his dance card is empty.

It’s all over NPR. Google is making me stupid. But I mean, are they sure? Is that what’s doing it? Or is it, you know, other stuff? I did a scan of recent life activity to see what else might be causing my newfound stupidity.

Could it be: 1. All those vuvuzelas  2. Too many Stacy’s pita chips while watching the NBA 3. That second grapefruit margarita after Game 6 (or was it Game 7?).  4. Watching 40 minutes of Fox News by mistake  5.  Arguing with the mattress delivery dude about whether when they say noon to five that includes five-thirty.  6. Arguing with my daughter about proper etiquette for borrowing my white Splendid tee shirt  7. Riding seventeen floors on an elevator with a guy yelling into cell phone about the “Celtic bastards”  8. Arguing with Tom about the value of owning a smelly ’67 Mustang   9. Hearing Meg Whitman on the radio 10. Rearranging the bookshelf, and now not finding Proust, only Wally Lamb 11. The grapefruit margarita after US tied Slovenia

These things add up; they will dumb you down.  I know I was smarter before all this happened (although I felt better about my own IQ after hearing Barton apologize to BP).

So, I wouldn’t be so quick to blame Google. In fact, I got a smidge smarter yesterday when I learned, courtesy of Google, that the people who attend bingo games outnumber NBA attendees by 59 to 1. (Note-to-self: tweet Kobe about this.)

Grapefruit Margarita:

3 ounces grapefruit juice

2 ounces tequila

1 ounce Grand Marnier

1 tablespoon lime juice

Lime wedges

Pour all this stuff except the lime wedges in a cocktail shaker, add some ice cubes and shake 30 seconds. Pour into 2 glasses, or 1 glass if you’re livin’ large.

Carly Fiorina is having a bad hair day. Not because her hair looks bad, but because nobody likes her catty remarks about Barbara Boxer’s coif.  GOP senate candidate Carly, n capaign mode, didn’t realize her mike was on when she spoke about her passion for hamburgers, then switched topics to focus on her Democratic opponent. “God, what is that hair? Sooooooo yesterday.”

She sounded exactly like Kathy, a bitch I knew  in high school who made a habit of  dissing people’s hair (and shoes and body odor and athletic ability).  I was the subject of Kathy’s ridicule in tenth grade when my own bleach-streaked locks turned red and broke off.

Inspired by Carly’s remarks, I am making hamburgers tonight (sliders, to be exact). But in spite of her fondness for burgers, I am not inviting  Ms. F. to dinner because she’d have a field day with my hair. While not as stunningly bad as it was in bleachy high school days (it’s more bedhead than redhead, but closer to deadhead), today it is limp, useless.  If it were “sooooooo yesterday,” that would be an improvement.

So I will be avoiding Ms. Bitchorina today, and anyone else with an open mike.  I’ll invite some girlfriends over to share my sliders. I may be having a bad hair day, but I’m safe with my friends. They know that  dissing hair is just sooooooo tenth grade.

Last night I dreamed that Obama, dressed impeccably in his usual suit, collapsed into my arms, weeping. “I’m overwhelmed by the Forces of Evil!” he sobbed. We were in a golf cart at the time. (Michelle was busy watching “The Aristocats” on TV.)

Pre-bedtime, I’d been reading the New York Times article about how the BP-inflicted chaos might  affect the presidency, which was, no doubt, the trigger for my midnight vision. If that oil keeps a-spillin’, my dream may become reality (although perhaps without yours truly and the golf cart.)

But that might not be such a bad thing, if the King of Cool were to show a little more spill-related rage, sweat, tears and teeth-gnashing. I know Maureen Dowd would like it, and she’s not alone. It wouldn’t hurt for us to see real evidence that Barry is feeling at as frustrated, saddened and helpless as we feel when we see the dead pelicans on TV every night. I mean, we know he feels the pain, we know he cares completely. But knowing is like dreaming. It’s a little insubstantial.

Misery loves company. So, come on Barack. Yes, you are being overwhelmed by the Forces of Evil. Go ahead. Make my dream come true. Let’s see some tear stains on that suit.

I

I’m getting a haircut and ditching my pantyhose. No, I’m not having a midlife crisis (been there, done that). I’m being a good citizen, donating hair and hose to the oil spill cleanup.

It seems that a company in San Francisco is making booms out of pantyhose stuffed with discarded hair, harvested in salons. The log-shaped booms are used to trap oil as it laps shorelines. (I tested the theory about oil adhering to hair last week when I was too lazy to wash-‘n-blow for three days, so I know it’s true.)

My hairy dog Oliver must’ve got the memo on this because he is very generously trying to do his part. He is shedding profusely enough to protect the entire coast of Louisiana.

The company (called Matter of Trust) which is producing the hair-‘n-Hanes booms was having one problem. Nobody seems to wear pantyhose anymore. (I wear them maybe once a year. Can’t speak for Oliver.) Without cast-off hose hey were struggling to meet the current demands for booms, until a certain community in San Francisco pitched in. Now M.O.T. is up to their ears in transves-tights.