So all the buzz in the market is the new Dream phone running the new Android OS from Google (GOOG).

To properly look at the Dream phone, it must be done in two distinct parts: The Google Android Operating System, and the actual telephone hardware.

I wrote not too long about about buying Wachovia (WB). I got in just under $17, thinking that the worst of the carnage was over. If you followed me, you followed me off a cliff. Hitting an intraday low of $7.80 on July 15, it was a pretty awful call.

Luckily, it had an extremely speedy recovery, getting back into the $18 range earlier this week. Seeing that this was an unbelieveably aggressive move up for any stock, and that the indices for banks in general had jumped historical leaps in just a handful of days, the writing was on the wall that at least for the short term the way forward was down. So I took the opportunity to cash out for a very small profit and look for a new, much lower entry point.

I have written here previously about shorting Amazon.com (AMZN), and if you played the trade and held on long enough, it paid off nicely.

But with this recent earnings report, I think my original assessment of Amazon was wrong. I think that I have somewhat underestimated their ability to get it done in a very tough consumer environment.

With Merrill’s (MER) down day yesterday, it is getting very close to setting up a nice short-term trade. When Merrill took in overseas investment in December, the overseas investors received the right to purchase Merrill stock at $48. In the market carnage that was early January, The stock got as low as $47.50 intra-day, and then immediately bounced higher into the mid $50’s.

Take this in contrast to BoA’s (BAC) right to buy Countrywide (CFC) at $18, and how Countrywide absolutely plummeted through that floor. If you owned Countrywide above $18, this was an obvious signal to sell and wait for another opportunity. Likewise, an investor in Merrill can use the $47 range as a bottom, and any meaningful move below this level as a sign to sell and reset.

Over the weekend Exxon Mobil succeeded in getting a British Court to freeze assets that were seized last year by Venezuela’s state-run oil company. Monday morning, Venezuelan “President” Hugo Chavez vowed to cut off oil supply to the US if the British Court injunction of $12 billion in assets holds up.

Oil prices spiked more than 4% on the news. So what does this mean? What will happen? How do you play it, if at all?

In a pose a yoga master would envy, a contortion that would kick any mere mortal’s ass in a game of Twister, I am long Mastercard (MA) and short Amazon (AMZN). What’s more, if they do the opposite of what I think in the short term, I will just double down.

Before you begin calling for the straight jackets and the sedatives, let me remind you that it’s not a weekend where I can sleep off this type of horseplay (besides, everyone knows I am strictly OTC with good Cabernet). Seriously, hear me out.

I know. I write stuff like this and I get accused of (yes, rampant) drug use. Ironically, I am one of the few people I know who can honestly say that I’ve never indulged.

So right after I pen some craziness, I always say the same thing: Hear me out.