I’m having trouble trying to embed this directly into the post, but here’s the link in case you didn’t see it live.

It’s another Tina Fey as Sarah Palin at the VP debate from SNL Saturday Night.  Now, I watched the entire debate live.  And I watched this clip yesterday.  And I cannot get over how right on Tina Fey is with this skit.  Seriously… it makes me want to die laughing.

And there’s mention (towards the end of the skit) where Palin makes a comment to all those out there who started a drinking game in her honor…  Yup, I’m dead!  LOL

But check it out.

Note:  I watched the entire 90-minute debate, but only blogged “live” the first half (45 minutes) of it.

**************************

Before the debate gets started, I just wanted to take a moment to relax and figure out again why this is a 3-ring circus… I guess I’ll never know.

A few things I do want to address once the debate is over are this new bailout plan, as well as the other issues the debaters will be focusing on.

Good luck, VP Debaters!

9:00 pm  Live from WAshington University… changed channel from ABC to NBC.  Yup, I’m all about loyalty….

9:01 pm  Oops… now I’m on FOX.  Gwen Ifill, a PBS anchor… and the moderator.  Domestic/Foreign Policy.

9:02 pm Palin and Biden take the stage…

9:03 pm They start with the bailout… so cool.  Biden seems kind of dry as he starts out this debate.  He’s definitely trying to build up Obama.   ”Fundamentally change the focus of the economic policy.”  

9:05 pm  Is it bad that I want to smack Palin?  She immediately starts off by going to the soccer field and the “everyman.”  Does she even know anything about the “everyman”?  And she’s fluffing up McCain.  He suspended his own campaign… well, duh!  He’s trying to make himself look better.  But isn’t that the whole point of the campaign?  Anybody who knows me knows that I do not support the bailout plan.  I’m very much interested in personal responsibility… and this is not helping.

9:07 pm Genocide, Bosnia, violence against women.  AND Biden has Republican friends??? Wow.  Is this supposed to be a slander campaign?  McCain is apparently out of touch.  

9:08 pm Palin was a Governor and a Mayor… putting politics aside to “get the job done.”  Has anyone ever noticed that she looks exactly the same every  time she speaks?  And I hate her glasses.

9:10 pm  Economic meltdown… Palin is convinced it was the Predator Lenders… yeah, there was corruption, deception, greed etc on Wall Street… but won’t this bailout plan make them think they can continue corrupting and deceving the common man?  As a republican, she’s making sense about the economy.  But she’s got some pretty high dreams.

9:12 pm  Biden is convinced that McCain is all about de-regulation.  Middle class needs relief right now.  And I definitely appreciate his views.  The fact that the working middle class is in such bad shape is heartbreaking (mostly because I am in that population).

9:14 pm Note to self: research “de-regulation.”

9:15 pm And Palin thinks that reducing taxes is the key… apparently she did it as Mayor and Governor… But in today’s world, is it really possible to reduce taxes?  We keep spending money, and making money, it’s a wonder the economy has ever survived…. but how is the country supposed to make money, if not off it’s people?

9:16 pm Class warfare?  Taxing more for higher earners…. the middle class is struggling.  Biden says there’s been no tax breaks.  And is in favor of “fairness.”

9:17 pm I’m a little confused by this tax issue.  So, Obama will raise taxes for the wealthy, and McCain won’t raise taxes at all?  That doesn’t make sense.

9:19 pm  Take a drink…. or a few.  Biden mentioned a few towns he lived in… including Scranton.  I knew I loved that drinking game for a reason.

9:20 pm McCain’s healthcare plan is a bridge to nowhere, according to Biden.

9:21 pm Broken Promises - (Biden) double foreign assistance… tax cut proposals… but they can’t slow up on education, affordable healthcare.  $100 billion tax dodge….

9:22 pm Broken Promises - (Palin) The energy plan… Palin is genuinely obsessed with her positions in Alaska.  She’s promised to do what is right for the people… *sigh*  Apparently, McCain has made no promises that he won’t keep.

9:26 pm  Palin is starting to veer off topic a bit… I think she’s trying to talk about what she wants to talk about… I find it difficult to listen to her.

9:28 pm Bankruptcy bill… subprime mortgage crisis.  

9:29 pm wow… Palin really likes to stick to her ideas.  Please explain to me why everybody else in the world is talking about the bankruptcy bill and the mortgage crisis and the working man being able to pay off their mortgages, and Palin is back on energy.  Tax breaks for energy…

9:30 pm The moderator finally changed the topic to energy.  And Palin LOVES talking about Alaska.  Believe it or not, the US is made up of another 49 states.  And she won’t argue about the causes of the climate change.  Sure, She has pretty ideas of the whole country “going green”…. but she is not explaining the HOW part of that happening.

9:32 pm there it is… conserving energy.

9:33 pm right on Biden!  Way to address the question directly!  You have to understand why it’s happening before you can fix it.  We can create jobs and export jobs in environmental issues.  

9:35 pm …  and Palin can’t pronounce “NUCLEAR.”  Offically, I do not want her to be the next VP… Look at it this way… George W Bush can’t pronounce nuclear either.  It is my personal opinion that if you can’t pronounce a simple word, you do not need to run the country.

9:36 pm  Approving same-sex benefits.  Biden approves… joint ownership, life insurance… etc.  Obama and Biden support the same consitutional benefits as hetero-sexual couples.

9:37 pm  A hit from the moderator…. telling Palin to stop talking about alaska.  Clearly Palin is not comfortable with same-sex issues…. She does not support marriages that don’t entail one man and one woman.  She just lost a LOT of voters.

9:38 pm HOWEVER, Biden and Obama do not approve of the same-sex marriage… but rather that it is up to be individual, and the religion to determine how it is defined.

9:39 pm Foreign policy… Palin is being set up to talk about her son.  Funding for the troops…  But Palin wants more troops in Iraq… but it is to not quit now, and try to win the country over.

9:41 pm  Biden - plan to shift responsibility to the Iraqis.  Meaning, we need to let them do what they need to do and if they don’t do it, we’ll probably blow them up (that’s my rash interpretation… I’ve had to lay down to watch this… it takes a lot of energy to point out how stupid the candidates can be).  McCain has no end in sight… and Palin thinks Biden’s plan was a white flag surrender…

9:45 pm Pakistan or Iran… which is more dangerous?  Biden says Pakistan, because of the nuclear weapons… but Iran is not as much of world changer.

***************

Pretty much after that point, I decided that paying more attention to the debate and not blogging it live would be a good idea.

So…

Sarah Palin has a certain likability.  I don’t like her, but I can understand why people do.  She tries to be the “everyman.”  She’s the hockey mom, she’s down to earth, she has a family…  What’s not to love?

Personally, I don’t think anyone had any expectations of Palin for this debate, and she lived up to every one of  them.  She did something that was pretty classic for a lot of her anwers: short decisive answers, then a swift topic change to what she wanted to talk about.  Ellen had to rope her in a time or two to get her to focus and answer the questions.

But she has a personality.

In my opinion, in regards to the issues they were discussing, Joe Biden won that debate.  But Palin won for personality… and freshness…  But Joe Biden was easier to focus on simply because he was addressing the questions and giving them some real thought and relating  them back to Obama.

So, tell me, gentle readers… what did you think about the debate?

So, the second season premier was last night.  I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t really impressed either.  The one thing I absolutely loved about this show is the production quality.  The scripts are very well written, but it seems like this has more of a story of the week feel to it.  Which works fine for the show.

So basically, we return to the scene were Chuck and Ned are still in love, Chuck is still dead, Emerson is still solving crimes, and Olive is still in love with Ned, and keep a world full of secrets.  Olive finally starts feeling the burden of the secrets she is keeping, first that Chuck is still dead (while technically, she thinks that Chuck faked her own death) and second that Lily, one of Chuck’s aunts, is actually her birth mother.  She nearly cracks and lets every secret out, until she resigns and Lily sweeps her off to somewhere that would appreciate her secret-keeping.  A convent.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, Chuck has decided to move into Olive’s apartment to watch it while she’s gone.  She somehow has this romantic notion that living across the hall from Ned rather than in his apartment (and avoiding touching each other) is a fantastic idea, where there could be late night knocking (the literal kind….) and it would be more real.. and easier to live.

And the mystery of the week is…. drumroll please…. A conspiracy in the bee/honey harvesting business.  Someone has murdered the spokesperson for “Betty’s Bees” and sabotaged the hives so the company would crumble.

Okay, this was pretty funny…. but for the most part, it was pretty on par with what was going on last season.  The feel of the show hasn’t changed.  The characters haven’t changed.  The story hasn’t changed.

A few things I think they should start addressing:

• Ned touches things that are dead, and they come back to life.  If he touches them again, they die.  And we pretty much know that be a fact.  So what if Chuck actually dies again… can he bring her back to life again?  And will the same thing happen where he can’t touch her?  Or anyone?
• Ned is a pie maker.  He takes dead, rotten fruit, touches it, it comes alive, and he puts it in his pie.  For example, a strawberry.  It is old and moldy and rotten.  When he touches it, it becomes a beautiful plump, ripe red strawberry… Why doesn’t this happen to people?  If someone ended up being broken or disfigured as they died, why wouldn’t Ned touching them restore them briefly to pefect health or physicality?
• Will Olive ever admit to Ned that she loves him?  Will she ever let go of those heavy secrets?

With all that said, it was a pretty funny episode.  And I will definitely be keeping with this one for awhile.

Oh yes, gentle readers.  This is it.  But can someone tell me when Politics became a highly viewed reality TV show?

Anyway, I totally borrowed this from Slander ‘08.  Definitely check out the site.  There’s some pretty interstesting stuff all over it.

And before  you get totally trashed, you may want to DVR the debate and watch it over and over again.  This may make an awesome party game.

Alright, here we go…

For Sarah Palin:

1. Every time Palin mentions one of her kids by name, take the number of drinks corresponding to that child’s number in her brood (e.g. 1 drink for Track, 2 drinks for Bristol, 3 drinks for Willow, 4 drinks for Piper and 5 drinks for Trig).  If she does not give a name, take 1 drink.
2. When Palin mentions 9/11 in a textually-relevant manner (e.g. “We need to prevent another attack like the one on 9/11″), take 1 drink.  When Palin mentions 9/11 in a gratuitous, textually-irrelevant manner (e.g. “When my son Track was sent over to Iraq on 9/11…”), take 2 drinks.
3. If Palin uses the phrase, “hockey mom”, drink until she takes the self-satisfied smirk off her face.

For Joe Biden:

1. Every time Biden chuckles condescendingly at Sarah Palin, take 1 drink.  Every time Biden chuckles condescendingly at moderator Gwen Ifill, take 2 drinks.
2. Every time Biden refers to himself in the third person, take 1 drink.  If he uses his full name (e.g. “When people ask me, ‘Joe Biden, how did you become so good looking?’”), take 2 drinks.
3. If Biden points out that despite being less than 1/100th the size, Delaware has more people than Alaska, drink until you see the bottom of your glass.

If either candidate says:

1. Russia, take 1 drink.  U.S.S.R., take 2 drinks.  Swimming the Bering Straight, take 3 drinks.
2. Hillary Clinton, take 1 drink.  Bill Clinton, take 2 drinks.  Monica Lewinsky, take 3 drinks.
3. Dick Cheney, take 1 drink.  Tricky Dick, take 2 drinks.  Sucking dick, take 3 drinks.

Finally, if at any point Biden uses the phrase “I know Geraldine Ferraro; Geraldine Ferraro is a friend of mine.  Governor, you’re no Geraldine Ferraro,” chug your beer, turn off your TV, and shoot yourself in the head.

Tonite is the night to be sooo excited about TV.  ABC has been promoting their “Stay at Home” week for the last 2 weeks, basically saying that most of their good shows are premiering this week.

Well tonite is the culmination of all that hard work of advertising…

So, tonite I will be watching the following:

• 8:00-9:00 - Pushing Daisies.  I couldn’t be more excited about this one.  I watched the entire first season when it was out last year, and it was so good.  The production quality makes it feel like it should be on HBO. 
• 9:00-10:00 - Private Practice.  This is actually negotiable.  I haven’t fully decided on watching this yet… mostly because it was so-so last year.  Being a Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, I was hoping it would be good… but it’s just okay. 
• 10:00-11:00 - Dirty Sexy Money.  Yes, I’m planning on staying up late.  I only caught a few episodes last year.  It wasn’t the most exciting show, but it seems pretty well-written.  So, I’ll give it another chance.  We’ll see if it will win me over.

Keep your eyes peeled for my reviews on each, which I’ll try to post as soon as possible.

I try to stay clear of politcal debate… I’m not really into politics all that much.  But believe me when I tell you this, gentle readers… Sarah Palin is a joke.  Not in the sense of she’s hilarious and when she gets on stage she can really win over a crowd.  But very much in the way that I wouldn’t want her to run the country (let alone “assist” with running the country) if frogs had taken over the world…

I realize I’m being harsh, but I saw the original clip of Sarah Palin talking to Katie Couric.  And I watched the SNL skit with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, and it couldn’t have been more accurate than if Palin had been on SNL herself.  And I can’t get passed the fact that she is not knowledgeable about anything.  Even her own state, of which she was Senator.  And if you know nothing about your own state, how do you expect to be able to run the country???

Here’s my theory: She’s going to do very well in the debate tomorrow night.  Why, you ask.  Because her personality is significantly better than her opponents.  Even though she doesn’t have much insight into the issues, she has the ability to maintain composure and keep things light when it’s not a one on one situationm, like with Katie Couric (who basically made Palin look like a dancing monkey).

I keep mentioning that I feel very uninformed, and this is no one’s fault but my own.  But can you blame me for not wanting to pay attention to a three-ring circus?  I’m sorry, but I’m terrified of clowns.  And as much as I don’t want either candidates in office, I want McCain there even less now because of Sarah Palin.  And it is my personal opinion that if McCain is elected in office, then the country is going to end up in worse shape than when Bush was in office.

I don’t know what it is, but I definitely feel like this election year is more intense than ever before.  Maybe it’s because I’m older now, and more aware of the state of the economy and the issues going on in the country… or maybe it is because this is more intense than previous elections.

If anything, gentle readers, please keep yourselves abreast of the issues and up to date on what’s going on.  You don’t have to know everything (lord knows I don’t), but being aware is the best thing you could do.

Edit:

And also…. the debate tomorrow night is taking the place of The Office and Grey’s Anatomy.  Color me annoyed.

A and I have an interesting relationship… he’s my work friend, and we’ve hung out, gone to lunch, and whatnot.  And we talk TV.  That is the bedrock upon which our friendship was founded.  A love for good TV.  The first week I met him, he loaned me the Firefly series and Serenity.  And I loved it (even thinking about buying it on iTunes so I can watch it on my iPod).

Anyhoo, one of the bonding shows we have right now is Heroes.  He sent me this recap from EW that takes a little bit of a different insight into this new season, and I can’t say I don’t agree.  Take a look.

And you should know by now, gentle readers, that I’m talking about Fringe.

Honestly, I tried.  I’m a FOX girl.  My internal default setting is FOX.  I’m loyal to the station, and I love the dramas.  And it’s home to House, Bones and Prison Break. 

I tried.  I gave it 3 episodes.  A real chance.  But it just couldn’t win me over.  Even my TV boyfriend (formerly the one and only Pacey Witter) Joshua Jackson couldn’t bring me back.

And it’s not that it’s a bad show.  It’s actually pretty good.  It appears to be well written, and it takes place in Boston, which couldn’t be cooler.

But when you don’t pause it when you get up to do something else, or freak out when the commercials are over because you might miss something,  I think it’s a bad sign for the show.

It’s trying to be the X-files without being the X-files.  The whole premise behind it is experiments and “Fringe Science.”  Which is pretty cool, especially when dealing with astral projection, or genetic mutations or anything else that may seem weird on this show.  But the writers keep going back to one thing: past experiments.  Apparently, they are having a hard time finding reasons for what is going on, so they default to, Oh, this was an experiment we did 30 years ago, and it’s come back to haunt us.  Um, no.

The only thing that will save this show is if they steer away from the past experiments thing.  Deal with what is happening today.  There MUST be a new experiment, or something unsavory or morally wrong going on in TV land for them to work with. 

I just don’t know yet.  I will be watching tonite… but mostly because there isn’t anything else on that I need to watch.

Finally, I have the chance to sit back and write a review of the first few episodes of Heroes.

To be perfectly honest, for  me (being a Veronica Mars fan, especially), was the best part of the Heroes premiere.

Let me put it this way: After last season, I was expecting a solid first-season reminiscent opener.  But we didn’t get that at all.  And it’s not that it was dull.  There were a few things I didn’t like about it… and a few things that really made me think.

Firstly (and make a list in a bit), I didn’t like that they still aren’t done starting the story.  In two hours, I feel that there should have been a lot more being covered.  And maybe that’s just me. 

Here goes… what I loved about the first 2 episodes:

• Weevil and Veronica’s stunning reuinion!  Those of you who have not seen Veronica Mars don’t know that I am referring to the Francis Capra and Kristen Bell scene in the second part of the episode.  Francis Capra plays an “inmate” and all around bad-dude named Jesse. 
• Hiro…. I’ve always loved Hiro.  I don’t like his nemesis… some blond chick who is really fast.  But it cracks me up every time Hiro encounters her and says, “Ah, my nemesis.”  Too funny.
• The Haitian is back.  It was good to see him back in the second episode.  And the previews for next week are looking good, and the Haitian looks like he will be coming back into play as Noah’s partner.

What I didn’t love:

• Mohinder’s storyline.  Apparently, he’s slowly becoming Spiderman.  I guess the only saving grace for him at this point is if he starts losing his powers.  It will create a whole new layer to the story.
• Nikki is dead, that we all figured.  Especially after the explosion last season.  But she was laid up in a coffin in a house with Micah, for lord knows how long.  That has a certain creep factor.
• Peter and Nathan’s mother being the mother of EVERYONE.  Allegedly, she is Sylar’s biological mother and gave him up for adoption when he was young… perhaps explaining why he was confused and lonely most of his life and had the need to understand, and killed his adopted mother.
• Sylar being partner to Noah.  “One of us, one of them,” Noah said.  But still… It has the potential to be badly.  The saving grace to that is Noah is an expert manipulator, so by him telling Sylar to stay put, he knew Sylar would come to the rescue.
• Battle of the mothers.  Claire’s adopted mom and Claire’s real mom are at odds.  They had a great scene between the two where the adopted mom showed her dominance… but a few scenes later, Claire was off and about with her birth mom.  Sure, they have something in common, but what happened to actual family?

What confuses me, that may or may not be explained later:

• Future Peter and Past Peter… If Future Peter was able to put Past Peter into the body of an inmate, why didn’t Past Peter pick up those abilities?  And where did Future Peter learn those abilities?  And shouldn’t Past Peter be able to absorb them while Future Peter is using them?
• What is going on with Tracy Strauss, Nikki’s look-a-like?  Is she a clone?  Was she created with abilities?  Does that mean all the “heroes” were created? 
• What is the formula for?
• If Past Peter was in Jesse’s body, does he absorb his abilities?  While Future Peter was pushing him out and while Jesse was using his ability, did Past Peter absorb it then?
• Where’s Elle?

Well, I suppose that will do it for the moment.  I’m sure I’ll think of other things later on…  And there are more than a few things that I have to wrap my head around.

Wait… slow down!  What the bloody hell is  going on???

I watched Bones last night and all I did was have WTF moments.

Zack returned for this episode to help with a case.  He “escaped” from the looney bin. 

And the kicker to this episode… (SPOILER alert)

Zack didn’t kill anybody!  No, seriously.  He didn’t.  Not now.  Not then.  Never.  He confessed to the shrink in the end that he was not a killer, but he told the killer where to find the victim… and the rest is history.  Making Zack an accessory to murder.

“Hodgins assures me that I would not do well in prison,” Zack said at the very end, explaining why he took full blame for murder.  Looks like he got off easy.

Makes me think he’ll be back later in the season as a vital character once again.

I knew they wouldn’t get rid of him, and I knew he wouldn’t be gone so easily. 

But I’m still proccessing the episode right now… So I’ll post more specific thoughts later.