• JOHN DE DIOS
• Last nights debate featured all nine candidates running for office this year, according to News 4's Lupita Murillo, the moderator.

Last night's debate for mayoral and city council seats featured all nine candidates running for office this year. Lupita Murillo, a News 4 reporter, served as a moderator and kept audience questions flowing throughout the evening.

• JOHN DE DIOS
• Audience members submit questions for the candidates via write in.

Sean Getzwiller is not a household name when it comes to professional poker.

But if the Tucsonan continues to run as good as he has in 2011, that’s not going to be the case for long.

Getzwiller placed 43rd at the World Series of Poker Europe’s Main Event, a 10,000-euro no-limit Texas Hold’Em tournament currently running in Cannes, France.

He was eliminated just after 2 p.m. Tucson time (11 p.m. in France) when he went all in with flush and straight draws but ultimately was beaten by an opponent who called with bottom pair.

Getzwiller earned 24,000 euros, or more than $30,000, for this tourney.

• Tucson professional poker player Sean Getzwiller

Getzwiller, 30, has had a breakout year on the poker tournament circuit, starting in June when he beat a field of more than 3,000 players to earn a World Series of Poker bracelet, not to mention about $611,000. It was one of three deep runs he made at the WSOP at the Rio in Las Vegas, and he followed that up by earning another $69,000 in the second event of the newly-formed Epic Poker League.

He also cashed in one of the six preliminary WSOPE events.

Now living in Las Vegas, Getzwiller is a former real estate broker who used to run some underground card rooms in Tucson before moving to Sin City last year. He also spends time in Toronto so as to be able to play online poker, a move that many professionals have taken since the U.S. government shut down the top poker sites on April 15.

Available in packs of three for $12 and with one of the more amusing FAQ sections in recent memory, introducing Masque, "a paper-thin, gel strip that dissolves on your tongue and completely disguises the taste of semen during oral sex for up to fifteen amazing minutes":

How does it work?

Masque is partially comprised of flavor masking ingredients that work to block taste profiles associated with oral sex on men, and semen (salts, bitters, and proteins). These masking ingredients are all microencapsulated into an orally dissolvable, flavored strip.

Is Masque like other novelty products? (e.g. flavored lubricants and flavored condoms)

No, Masque is not another flavored novelty product. Masque has been designed by a team of scientists and researchers who have engineered a formula combining individual taste receptor blockers which are microencapsulated in a paper thin, dissolvable, oral gel strip.

Couldn’t I just use a mint or Altoid for a similar effect?

Masque doesn’t overwhelm the flavor or cover it in the way that a mint does. For up to fifteen minutes after the strip dissolves on your tongue, the salts, bitter and protein are completely masked to your taste receptors.

Is Masque just like a Listerine® strip?

Masque is a similar product to Listerine® strips in that they are both dissolvable oral strips. The similarities end there. Masque actively conceals all flavors associated with going down on your man.

[HT: The Frisky]

When I talked to Ray Flores from El Charro restaurants a month or so ago I told him of my efforts to get a state food designated for Arizona. He said it was a great idea, and that he'd been kicking around the idea of trying to get the chimichanga named the state food. We talked about it for a bit and he said he was going to ask some of his connections to make it happen.

Well, apparently it has started. I direct you to the Check Yes for Chimi petition, and the corresponding story by AZCentral.com:

Just in time for Arizona's centennial, two family-run Mexican restaurants have launched a campaign to make the chimichanga the official state food.

Proponents argue it's a homegrown specialty, wildly popular with diners and thus should be installed in the pantheon of state symbols, along with the official tie (the bola), the official flower (the saguaro blossom) and the official fossil (petrified wood).

To do that, the owners of Macayo's and El Charro restaurants need the state Legislature.

But judging from lawmakers' initial reactions, it might be asking them to bite off more than they are willing to chew, so to speak.

The Daily Beast ran an interesting article this weekend on John Smid, who previously ran Love in Action, a controversial "ex-gay" organization in Memphis (somewhat similar to some of the counseling work done by Marcus Bachmann), who has turned from his previous position that homosexuality is something to be cured:

Last week, John Smid, the former director of Love in Action, the country’s oldest and largest ex-gay ministry, acknowledged on his blog that, contrary to the claims of the movement he represented for decades, gay people cannot become straight. “I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual,” he wrote. He himself certainly has not. “I would consider myself homosexual and yet in a marriage with a woman,” he explained. He loves his wife and has no plans to leave her, but wrote, “this doesn’t change the fact that I am who I am and she is who she is.”

Smid, who resigned from Love in Action in 2008, was just the latest ex-gay luminary to leave the movement, either voluntarily or in a cloud of scandal. His break with ex-gay orthodoxy is a sign that, even in the evangelical world, the notion that sexual orientation can be altered is increasingly crumbling in the face of reality. Evangelicals used to insist that “change is possible,” says Warren Throckmorton, a Grove City College psychology professor once associated with the ex-gay movement. “The new paradigm, I believe, is no, it doesn’t look like that works, and so you go with it, you accept it, and you try to make the best life you can in congruence with the rest of your beliefs,” he says.

[...]

These days, Smid, 57, supports himself through a housecleaning business that he runs with his wife, and he’s launched a new ministry, Grace Rivers, which runs a weekly fellowship meeting for gay Christians. This weekend is gay pride in Memphis, and Smid will be at the parade along with a group of Christians involved in something called the “I’m Sorry” campaign. Founded by a Chicago missionary named Andrew Marin, participants go to gay events to seek forgiveness for the church’s history of homophobia, wearing T-shirts that say, “I’m Sorry. Love Is an Orientation.”

Smid is still praying over what to write on his sign. “It’s not necessarily the generic church saying I’m sorry, it’s deeper than that,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out how to say something on a small poster.”

Just ahead of tonight's big mayor and council debate, Pima County Democratic Party chairman Jeff Rogers has released a Global Strategy Group poll showing Democrat Jonathan Rothschild leading Republican Rick Grinnell by 17 percentage points.

The survey, done over Oct. 10-12, shows that 49 percent of 400 likely voters back Rochschild, while 32 percent support Grinnell and 4 percent support Green Mary DeCamp.

"I'm pleased," Rogers says. "Seventeen points is a good lead."

Rogers says the party will release poll numbers from the council races later this week, which he predicts will show similar margins between Democratic incumbents and GOP challengers.

Stay tuned for reaction from tonight's debate.

Look out ladies of desolate southwest Maricopa County! The prince that's still single is coming to town and he might be looking for snacks and beverages during his stay! .

Sure it's for military training, but Tucson lost out to Gila Bend to get a royal visit? I blame Rio Nuevo.

Decisions, decisions. Where shall Prince Harry rest his head when he arrives in Gila Bend, Ariz., for the second phase of his military training?

[...]

So, where should he stay?

"The accommodations on the base are really nice. Each hotel room has its own bathroom area, a flat-screen TV, a refrigerator where they can keep their cold drinks," says Teresa Walker, spokesperson for the base.

Prince Harry, or Captain Wales as he is called in the military, will have to travel off the base if he wants to fill his 'fridge with drinks and snacks.

"There are no services on Gila Bend [Auxiliary Field]. Absolutely none," says Walker. "There's no store. There's no restaurant. There's no gas station. There's no 7-11."

[People]

Like most meat-eaters, I like bacon a lot, but I think KFC adding the pork delight to their "Famous Bowls" probably should bring America's obsession with the ingredient, right? It's like hearing your favorite song in a commercial for an SUV; you still like the song, but it's never quite the same again.

Related, "a failure pile in a sadness bowl":

Things have been a little tense in the comment section of The Range lately, so I offer this peace offering. Who doesn't love baby elephants? I imagine someone will end up finding a way to compare the elephant's inability to walk to Obama's failed economic policies, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy the cuteness while it lasts.

Cheaters are the scourge of word-based competitions, and although Ed Martin might be innocent this time, it's time to crack down hard on those skirting the rules of fair play. I'm looking at you, Words With Friends cheaters!

England's Ed Martin was accused of hiding a letter 'G' during a match. A Thai player wanted him to be taken to a toilet so he could be search, although authorities refused.

Mr Martin won the match in Warsaw, and no evidence was presented to support the Thai player's allegation.

However, seeing it seems worth noting that the prize for winning the world championship of Scrabble is $20,000, up from $15,000 given to the 2009 winner. If you're thinking of devoting yourself full time to the pursuit of Scrabble excellence, keep in mind you'll probably won't be keeping your trophies on a mantle at your mansion.

[The Telegraph]