My kids have been thoroughly enjoying the first season of The Cosby Show. I bought the DVDs at Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago, and they've watched every one of them at least three times. It makes me laugh so hard to hear them laughing their heads off at a TV classic.

On the way home from church I had one of those moments where you realize how much change you've seen in your lifetime and that there are things our kids have zero frame of reference for, such as life before the Internet. They were watching an episode where Denise wanted to buy tickets to a rock concert. She tells Theo, "They go on sale tomorrow, but you can get on-line tonight." My eyebrows went up, because that just didn't sound right. As I was trying to do the math in my head for when the Internet became widely available, I heard her clarify the situation that she wanted to sneak out of the house and camp out "on line." I had to just marvel at the memory of camping out for tickets, although in my case the only time I've ever done it was as a college freshman trying to get good tickets to Step Sing. (It's a Samford thing.) But it just struck me how vastly the idea of going "on line" for tickets has changed in a couple of decades.

I don't have much to say about Friday night's debate. I felt like McCain was a clear victor as far as content goes. He obviously knows what he's talking about, and Obama sounds like a poser. However, in the grace and statesmanship category, you have to give it to the Senator from Illinois. I was bothered by the fact that McCain wouldn't look at him, even though I knew he was trying not to lose his temper and I'm grateful that it mostly worked for him. I didn't like that he kept using the words, "I'm afraid he just doesn't understand..." As much as I agree with the sentiment, it just came across to me as an old grandpa talking down to an impudent teenager. I'm afraid the truth behind it probably fell on deaf ears.

Because I don't think anyone was swayed by this debate. I think McCain supporters believed he nailed it, based on the 82% that declared him the winner on Fox News. Every other channel showed Obama to be the winner, although Pat Buchanan did chime in on MSNBC with, "I think the mean guy won." Undecided voters don't concern me too much, because I'm not sure how many truly undecided folks there are out there. If you still don't know at this point, you're either just wanting attention or you don't care. And neither one of those two groups show up in huge numbers on election day.

The debate this week concerns me. I think it will have a much larger than normal viewership based on all the hullabaloo around Sarah Palin. Thankfully for her, the cameras were otherwise occupied this week, because her interview with Katie Couric wasn't pretty. I'm really praying for her this week. I'm afraid that she's been forced into a box that she's not particularly comfortable in. I feel like if she was free to just be herself, she would do fine. The reason people have loved her from the beginning is because she seems so real, so like them. I'm afraid that the more they try to groom her, the more pressure she's going to feel and the more out of her league she's going to seem. But she's going up against Joe Biden, for Pete's sake. It shouldn't be that hard. I'm just really hoping she's not caving under the intense level of scrutiny she's received since throwing her hat in the ring.

37 days and counting...