A collection of thoughts while wondering if Sarah Palin read off a teleprompter last night…

  • For those of you who don’t like James Carville, watch The War Room and then tell me he’s not at least unbelievably hilarious. The film is a documentary about President Clinton’s 1992 campaign against George H.W. Bush, but in reality it’s the James Carville show. Now a CNN political analyst, he deserves more credit (maybe even more than Clinton himself) for that election turning out the way it did. The film also merits watching for a younger and clumsier George Stephanopoulos, an almost unrecognizable Hillary Clinton (answering so many phone calls at 3 a.m. seems to have sped up the aging process), and a dorky, teenage Chelsea Clinton.
  • Encouragement to vote is never in short supply, especially at the GSU (Nobody calls it the George Sherman Union. If you’re a student at BU, the only time you’ve ever heard this part of campus referred to by its full name is during tours. It’s the GSU.) Everyday someone is begging you to register and/or apply for an absentee ballot. (Usually it’s students, but yesterday a 60-something-year-old woman stood 10 feet outside an entrance holding a sign and spoke nary a word.) This is especially true if you’re from New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, or Florida. Your vote doesn’t influence much if you cast a ballot in Massachusetts. It’s a foregone conclusion that the Commonwealth’s 12 electoral votes are going to Barack Obama.
  • It’s the first week of October, and that means (at least) one thing in Boston: Pennant fever is in full force. The Red Sox won their opening game of the ALDS Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (translated into English that means “The Angels Angels of Anaheim,” or the team that has lost 10 straight postseason games to the Red Sox.)

I hated when the Angels changed their name to include Los Angeles for marketing purposes, but I’ll admit that I jumped at the chance to break out my “Beat LA” t-shirt that’s been sitting in my drawers since the Celtics won banner No. 17 against the Lakers last June. If a few things go my way, then I’ll have yet another opportunity to don the t-shirt when the Red Sox battle the Dodgers in the World Series.

ANYWAY, expectations for this series changed once Josh Beckett couldn’t pitch the opener, but Jon Lester was nothing short of spectacular in Game One. Daisuke’s got the white pill (aka, baseball) tonight for Game 2, which means I could run an entire Boston Marathon before the game ends. ESPN.com’s report card gives him a “D” for efficiency, and he reaches three-ball counts against 25 percent of batters he faces.

But hey, he won 18 games this year, so the Sox have a legitimate shot at being up 2-0 in the series when I wait in line (and the term here is definitely “in line,” not “on line,” despite how some might refer to the process of waiting with others for something) for tickets to Game 3 on Sunday afternoon.

Next time I post Boston could be preparing for Game One of the American League Championship Series against Tampa Bay or Chicago. But I’m putting the cart waaay before the horse. I’m going to digest some humble pie they serve in Foxborough and take things one game at a time. Despite the success of the past four years, every Boston sports fan knows that anything, especially for the worse, can happen.