Buffy and Veronica

It really is turning out to be a very Buffy week... MORE Buffy news:

For more on the Buffy comic, here's an interview with Joss Whedon. It costs 75 cents, but I betcha it's worth it.

Michelle Trachtenberg is guest-starring on Law & Order: Criminal Intent tonight. She plays a video blogger (named Willow, ironically) a la lonelygirl15, who gets cyber-kidnapped and the video is posted on YouTube. It airs at 9pm, which conflicts with Veronica Mars, but I might tape it, just because I'm curious.

Speaking of our favorite girl detective, I found this article about why people who think Veronica's too bitchy are being too hard on her. There's also a cool interview with Tina Majorino... look how cute she is in that picture! So when's Mac coming back?? Turns out, she's on another show! But never fear, she will be around.

Best thing ever.

It's really turning into a Buffy week, but I found this and it kinda just made my day:

"Let's face it. Unless there's a website called www.oh-by-the-way-we-have-Darla-stashed-here.com, we're out of luck." - Cordelia

What makes it even more hilarious is the poll at the bottom - and if you look at the results, it's tied 50-50! Hahaha.... btw, cavemen all the way.

Buffy is back!

Guess what, Buffy fans! Remember how we all wished for a season 8? Well, it's here! It's in comic form, but it's a total Joss project - apparently all the ideas he wanted to use for the TV movies that never materialized. I don't usually go in for the comic book thing (Buffy/Angel already has a plethora of comics published) but this whole "season 8" thing has got me interested.

In less happy TV news, ABC is pulling The Nine. Too bad... I was starting to like that show.

This is a real source of pride: Margaret Spellings, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, lost on Jeopardy. She lost badly. This bodes well for our educational system.

In this week's edition of "get to know your city" - look at all the things to do in Philadelphia.

And finally, the CIA has a personality test on its website. Mine is "impressive mastermind." I been sayin' it for years.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wow, this holiday kind of snuck up on me. I've just been all off-season since I missed Halloween. I also got a nice surprise when I got up for work yesterday and it was FREEZING COLD! When did that happen?

In case family dinners at your house are usually fraught with disaster, here's a NYTimes article on how to deal this Thanksgiving.

Also, Rick Moranis by the numbers... I guess when he's not busy shrinking his kids, that is. (Anybody else remember that movie? Gosh, it was so long ago, but I don't know how many times I saw it. Hated the sequels - as often happens with sequels - but the original, man... riding on the ant, and eating the gigantic Oreo... good times.)

You can now advertise on the Golden Gate Bridge. Come on, guys. Christmas is coming. I wanna see my name on that bridge!

And hey, who knew The History Boys was a movie? I saw the play in London, and liked it very much. Kind of curious to see the movie. I feel like it might be too British to be popular here, but who knows? It was on Broadway for awhile, I think, but didn't last long.

It really is dangerous to work for the President. From Yahoo:

Three police motorcycle officers were injured when they crashed on slick pavement while escorting his motorcade on Tuesday. Two were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where one was described as in serious condition and another was described as stable.

Members of the White House medical team — including an ambulance — were cut loose from the motorcade to help, said Dr. Richard Tubb, Bush's doctor. Local ambulance and fire units were sent, too.

Also, acting White House Travel Office Director Gregg Pitts was beaten and robbed by at least two men while out in Honolulu Monday night. Pitts suffered head and other injuries in the attack. He was awake and alert but remained behind at a Honolulu hospital because of a possible concussion, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Anyway, hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving, eats lots of turkey, and enjoys the time off from work, school, or whatever.

Tales of an Apartment Hunter

I was in Harrisburg this weekend to look at apartments. I'd say I was fairly successful, I found at least two potential places that I'm now trying to decide between. Both are walking distance from the Capitol, though one is more roll-out-of-bed-and-you're-at-your-desk while the other is a nice walk. The roll-out-of-bed one is a loft-style (bedroom and bathroom upstairs, living room and kitchen downstairs), in a VERY nice building (it's the renovated City Hall building, hence the name "Old City Hall") - also kind of expensive. I thought my future kitten might enjoy running up and down the stairs, though. On the other hand, I have no doors, so I wouldn't be able to lock the kitten up in my room if I needed to.

The other apartment is in a high-rise building (I'd be on the 10th floor, nice view), also a one-bedroom. It's smaller, a little bit cheaper, and has the bonus feature of a fitness center and pool. It feels slightly dorm-like, because I won't have a washer and dryer in the apartment (laundry room in the basement) but much nicer than any dorm I've ever lived in, lol. This place is also giving me $200 off my first month's rent because I work for the Governor. Sweet!

Both places have parking - but you have to pay $90/mo for it. I'm hoping to get either a parking space in my office garage (if I live in Old City Hall and am close enough to leave my car there all the time), or reimbursement for a space so I can park at my apartment (since I won't need to drive to work).

So, any suggestions on which option to take? My mother is definitely leaning towards the high-rise apartment. I'm still kind of ambivalent.

It's so lonely up here on the 13th floor! Alex is back, so at least now there's three of us instead of just me and Michelle. I guess we should enjoy the space while we have it, though, because I just went up to check out the situation in our new office, and Michelle and I will be practically sitting on top of each other.

Anyway, here's some post-election thoughts:

• John Baer talks about how Pennsylvania is in a prime position to become influential in politics again.
• G. Terry Madonna and his little buddy have written this nice eulogy for Rick Santorum.
• And this is why everyone should've been nicer to Joe Lieberman.
• Oh, and in case you suffered massive head trauma during the campaign, the Philadelphia Tribune has been kind enough to explain why Lynn Swann didn't win.
  

Also, on a more fun note, this AOL feature asks which TV politicians you would vote for. Both Presidents from 24 are on the list, and I think it's hilarious that under "pros," Logan's profile says "none whatsoever." But shouldn't one of David Palmer's "cons" be that he's, you know, dead? Other electeds from shows I watch: the Mayor of Jericho and, of course, everyone's favorite fictional President, Jed Bartlet.

Speaking of 24, here are promo pictures for season 6. Check out that group photo... that's Eric Balfour! Be still my heart - is Milo really back? Oh, how I've missed his popcorn-eating ways. I can't wait to see him working for Chloe (as I assume that's what he'll do, since he was a computer whiz before). I'm thinking those two together will be funny. Also, must note - Chloe looks kinda hot. And Jack, of course, is all kinds of hummina goodness... except for that beard! (I went with Moses, the blogger I linked to went the Jesus route - you can decide for yourself.)

Slow news day

Sometimes even I wonder where I find this stuff...

The flying spaghetti monster was spotted in Germany. What do you mean, you've never heard of a flying spaghetti monster? Clearly it exists, I've seen video.

This raises the question: if he was naked, where did he put the concealed weapon?

I guess there's a "sticking things up your butt" theme today, and I feel compelled to give the warning "Don't try this at home, kids."

This one involves dancing eunuchs... enough said. (Sorry, no video on that.)

Something potentially useful... how to tell if someone is lying. Also handy if you plan to lie a lot. (Just don't lie to me... because I'll find out.)

Jack Bauer Fact

I saw this posted on Shelley's blog, and I thought it was hilarious, so I'm stealing it and posting it here too.

Also, they've extended the 24 trailer for season 6!

Modern woman

This morning my mother commented on how I was a "modern woman," because I was reading the newspaper with my breakfast. But instead of reading an actual paper, I had my laptop on the table and was going through the NYTimes website. Three cheers for technology.

In other technology matters, I switched to the "new" Blogger beta. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but let me know if you notice any changes. It's possible that the only changes will be for me, making editing easier and post-labelling and such.

I'm not all that excited, but I thought I should mention that Rutgers football kinda rocks right now, since my mom works there. She made it on the 6 o'clock news last night, in the background of a shot of the Camden campus.

My mom also told me about this funny little video, which seems especially relevant since I'm currently reading Wicked.

And I've got confirmation that Studio 60 was picked up for a full season, so you can all rest easy now.

British scientists have way too much time on their hands. I, however, have blisters on my hands, because I was raking leaves today. This, after cleaning my bathroom, paying my bills, and balancing my checkbook. Yep, the post-election fun just keeps on coming.

Stupid Mozilla

Argh... I had a whole post written out, and then Mozilla quit on me and I lost it all. *sigh* You'd think that working at Marshall St. (where the power goes out every five minutes) I'd have learned to save my work. Anyway, let's try to cobble it back together again.

I believe I was talking about other, non-political things that had been going on while I was election-obsessed, but, as is often the way with me, I kept lapsing into political things anyway. Like, for example, the news that Allen conceded to Webb and the Dems now control the Senate. Woohoo! It's a whole new ballgame, folks.

So what else happened in my eaten-by-the-internet post? I remember that I mentioned Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert being featured in Rolling Stone, in an article by NYTimes columnist Maureen Dowd.

I also went on for a bit about how I'm catching up on my TV shows, which I've been taping and watching sporadically the last three weeks. I've cut down to just four shows: Studio 60 (which it seems will be picked up for a full season), Veronica Mars (my connection is too slow, but you can check out this website for video clips and other stuff), Jericho (which is getting a split season - ending with a cliffhanger on Nov. 29th, not to return until February), and The Nine.

I don't really know why, but it seems the Chicago Tribune has written an article about one of my favorite phrases, "not so much," tracing its popularity back to some of my favorite TV shows, such as Jon Stewart on The Daily Show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Well, I guess that makes sense.)

I'm not sure why this is funny, maybe it's the dating/politics parallel. It's a parody of an attack ad, about a bad boyfriend. I can't really explain it.

That's all I can remember. Hopefully I'll be back to posting more regularly, now that I have my life back. Whee!

We won!

"Victory is mine! Victory is mine! Great day in the morning, people, victory is mine. I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land." - Josh Lyman

Well, now that I am well-rested and recovered from weeks of working long hours and no sleep, and the election night-well-into-the-morning celebration (I can't believe they made us go to work the next day!), I'm here for an update. The past few weeks have been a lot of fun. I really ended up loving working in logistics. We were all uneasy about it at first, but the office atmosphere was so much fun. I think we're all really going to miss the people at Marshall St., and I think we realized that, even though things got scrapped and things changed daily and we were still re-making maps on election day, the work that we did really was vital to the GOTV effort. We managed to pull off what seemed to be an impossible task, and Patrick (our boss) and all the staging site managers who used our maps told us that we did a fantastic job. So I feel like it was all worth it, the long hours and the frustration and hard work.

Election Day was pretty chaotic - I was in the Marshall St. office, coordinating vans with staging site managers and managing rovers (people who go to the polling places and get turnout numbers). Then I had to go home and get all prettied up so I could work the VIP room at the Election Night party. That was a lot of fun - I've never really watched election results with a group of that many people before. There's such an energy in the room (especially because we did so well overall) as the results come in, watching like, 3 different television channels at once, and people getting updates on their palm pilots and blackberries. Then, of course, after the official party at the Warwick, we all went out to the bar and continued the celebration until about 4am, lol.

Unless you live under a rock or were vacationing on the moon this week, you oughta know that the Democrats ("Laura's team," as Becky likes to call them) had a great day on Tuesday. We won back control of the US House of Representatives, paving the way for the FIRST female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. That's historic, folks. And even though the Senate is still too close to call, we made a huge gain there, too. In the Virginia race (the single outstanding seat which will tip the balance of power to the Democrats), Webb is leading Allen by 7,200 votes, so even though Allen won't concede, that is looking good for us.

Here in Pennsylvania, the Governor was reelected (thanks to my superior efforts, of course), and Bob Casey defeated Rick Santorum for a Senate seat, both with close to a 60-40 margin. In several close, critical Congressional races, Patrick Murphy (I *heart* him), Joe Sestak, Chris Carney, and Jason Altmire defeated Republican incumbents. Also, incumbent Allyson Schwartz handily defeated that idiot Raj Peter Bhakta (which really wasn't in question, but I want to mention it anyway because I've mentioned him on this blog, and because him getting his ass handed to him makes me happy). Sadly, Lois Murphy received her second so-close-it's-painful loss to Jim Gerlach.

I like to think that the overwhelming Democratic victory in southeastern PA was due in large part to my superior fundraising skills, as well as my fantastic mapping effort. Do you realize how many paper cuts I got working on those maps? (I call them "paper cuts for Patrick." I also describe what I did as "mapping for Murphy," "logistics for Lois," and "coloring for Casey." I like alliteration.)

In other political news, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned yesterday. Woohoo! 'Bout friggin' time. I'm still puzzling over the timing of the announcement. Wouldn't it have helped the Republicans more if he resigned, like, 3 weeks ago? Since many voters made decisions based on displeasure with the Bush administration, several candidates could have benefited from a Rumsfeld resignation. On the other hand, the administration may have been saving the announcement for right after the election because it changes the news story from "Democrats take over Washington" to something else. Also, it's possible that Rumsfeld wouldn't have resigned unless the GOP got its collective ass handed to it.

I think that's all for now. I'll post more later on all the non-political stuff going on in the world. (Really, apparently there's, like, other news out there.)