Click to viewLet the depression-era nostalgia officially begin with this instructional guide from Howcast and Poykpac on how to do from cube-dweller to migrant laborer. Best tip? Squatting could become the new homesteading, thanks to "adverse possession" laws. The helpful San Francisco Tenant's Union offers a primer on your rights when it comes to taking control, and maybe even ownership, of an abandoned residence.

The last time I saw the the Pets.com sock puppet was during an E-Trade Super Bowl commercial. In it, a chimp rides a horse through a postapocalyptic, postbubble Silicon Valley. At the end of the 30-second spot, a wrecking ball crashes through an office building, and the puppet flies out, landing dusty and ragged at the chimp's feet. The chimp picks up the puppet and a tear rolls down his face, as he mourns a tarnished symbol of '90s exuberance. But watching today's financial news, I'm thinking the chimp should have burned the little sucker. Because then BarNone — a subprime lender, of course — wouldn't have been able to purchase the rights to the puppet for $125,000 and keep its wretched curse alive. "Everybody deserves a second chance," my foot.

Why did the citizen-spying National Security Agency pay Google $2 million? According to a contractobtained through the Freedom of Information Act and parsed by Blogoscoped, the NSA purchased "four Google search appliances, two-years replacement warranty on all of them, and 100 hours of consulting support." I know, kind of a letdown. But we sincerely hope that won't stop the conspiracy theorists from creating another paranoia-fueled video like the classic we've embedded below.

We need to make a slight correction. We've created a certain image around Post attack hack Steve Dunleavy, who's retiring tomorrow: a sort of man you love to hate, a swashbuckling, hard-drinking, right-wing scamp who you disagree with but can't help admiring for his way with the ladies and constant adventures. When in fact, none of those qualities are as overpowering as his weird Australian-ness. Click to watch this clip of him rattling off Australian slang. There's no way to tell what it means, or why he says it, or why such slang was created. Rin-tin-tin. [via Tabloid Baby]

Sarah Palin just keeps going back for more car-wreck interviews with Katie Couric. After forecasting a possible Great Depression and saying something indecipherable about her state's relations with Russia, the Republican vice presidential nominee reportedly went silent when called on to name Supreme Court cases other than Roe V. Wade. Also, in the attached clip, Palin and John McCain both implausibly try to blame "gotcha journalism" for reporting on Palin's support for cross-border raids into Pakistan, a position shared by Barack Obama and attacked by McCain during the presidential debate. (Click the video icon to watch.) Now, Politico reports, the Republican ticket is pulling Palin back to the safer waters of right-wing talk radio. Putting McCain's popular-but-inexperienced running mate in front of more TV cameras was a calculated gamble by the campaign to broaden her appeal. It's now safe to say that it failed.

· It doesn't quite approach the C-word magic of his previous sidewalk exploits, but People's Court jester Harvey Levin still knows all the invective keywords that make a lady smile. [People's Court] · What do you think: Is the extra discretion sought by the married producer in this M4M ad damaged at all by his accompanying photograph? Yeah, we thought so, too. [Craigslist] · Hey, unicorn! [OregonLive] · The first Obama/McCain debate drew 16% fewer viewers than the same Bush/Kerry debate in 2004. We think we know where those souls disappeared to. [THR] · If and/or when God forgives him for Towelhead, Alan Ball said he will return with either a screwball sex comedy or a dark comedy with "a body count." Take your time, Alan. [MTV] · The couple with whose car Shia LaBeouf's pinkie had its near-tragic run-in last July will be charged with submitting false information to police. Your move, Harvey Levin! [AP]

Here's John McCain saying that now's the time to "leave partisanship at the door" and fix this Wall Street mess, instead of acting like Barack Obama, who "infused partisanship into the process" of voting on the bailout plan personally redesigned by the Republican presidential nominee, in a day, alone. Before you ask which candidate injected himself into the process, and which one returned to Washington only at the behest of the president, remind yourself that "now is not time to affix the blame." I guess this means McCain's campaign is unsuspended. Click the video icon to watch this jaw-dropping bit of political posturing.

Cra-zazy customers hardly need to be told where they can take their complaints: They just need an outlet. Get Satisfaction aims to automate the bitchfest. Bonus: Its president is Lane Becker, one of Valleywag's most lovably lubricated crush objects — clothed, bespectacled and interviewed in this clip from Web 2.0 in New York. Becker's founding cohotties are Thor Muller and Amy Muller. The "frictionless" solution to demanding customers, who will blog about your inadequate service as soon as look at you, was hatched out of the mayhem caused by their mail-order grab bag business for previously free conference tchotchkes, Valleyschwag.

Apple's 3G iPhone commercials, shown here, are a big lie. But at least they're a pleasant falsehood. And they don't display a disregard for proper wordsmithing the way T-Mobile's new G1 "with Google" commercial, below, does in some misguided attempt to be irreverent, hip and Internet-trendy. Dissing the dictionary isn't hip. Ask Yahoo's Jerry Yang. "Smarterer, funnerer, connecteder?" Someone should be fireder.

Tonight, let's get musical. Awesome, amazing, stupendous, rocking live music moments. That's it. I'm taking my wayback machine to a magical concert in 1973 to get us started.

In the wake of Paul Newman's death, it would be just obscene to focus on anything random for tonight's Youtube video fest. I agree with all of the commenters who said they never thought a celebrity death would make them cry until this amazing man went and proved that we are all human and that we all need to cry sometimes. But there's only a certain amount of Paul Newman movies and clips, and we've been sharing them all day in the posts about his passing. However, a huge part of his legacy is that he was a member of the generation of actors and actresses that changed movies forever. Method actors, Actors' Studio people—people who put real human emotion and experience into their roles, rather than the staged, scene-eating acting that marks most of what went before it. Newman's generation—in terms of his training—includes, but is not limited to, Brando, Dennis Hopper, Pacino, Deniro, Ellen Barkin, Steve McQueen, Gene Wilder, Marylin Monroe, Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, James Dean, Sidney Poitiere, Chris Walken, Rip Torn, Dustin Hoffman, George Peppard, Anne Bancroft, and Halloween star P.J. Soles. More Actors' Studio grads here. Let me get us started.

· If the 2008 Emmy Awards were a DVD, this would be our extended director's cut. And this would be our broadcast edit. And just for fun, view the supplemental features. · And Josh Groban may have saved the whole show, but don't take our word for it. He can speak for himself. · Rosh Hashanah is the new Ari Emanuel. Who knew? · Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson are a couple? Really? Says who? Oh. · Meanwhile, Clay Aiken dropped a big gay bombshell that leveled the quaint city of Claymatishima. · Neither Tina Fey nor Margaret Cho could shake the sultry, haunting image of Sarah Palin. · Kim Kardashian begs to differ with our PrivacyWatch tipsters about that whole "hating hurt people" thing. · Travis Barker and DJ AM escaped a plane crash with their lives and are recovering as we speak. · We sought to get to the bottom of why the hell a woman would leave Hugh Hefner for Criss Angel. · First Scott Rudin, then MGM. Harvey Weinstein has had better weeks. · Meet Dominique Arganese, Verne Troyer's stunning new ex-girlfriend! · David Letterman announced his candidacy for President of Breaking John McCain's Balls. · Sam Rockwell is not a sex addict, he just plays on one Defamer. · Q: What's the best thing about Dane Cook's dog poop lawsuit? A: It's over.

Forget it — we're not even bothering with happy hour tonight. We're going straight for our Dirt Sandwich, a heaving helping of all the entertainment news and scandal that's fit to consume from the busy week behind us. This episode features the uniquely robust flavor of Clay Aiken's truth and consequences, the savory zing of Lohan/Ronson revelations, and a soothing aftertaste of Emmys, Dancing with the Stars and swimsuit legend Sarah Palin. How about some extreme face time with Joe Biden? Hungry yet? Fine — you can have the whole thing, crafted from scratch by Defamer's resident video-delicatessen wizardess Molly McAleer. Bon appetit!

Ha ha what could possibly distract people from how terrible Sarah Palin was on CBS? How about a clip of Sarah Palin looking so... poised in a sexy swimsuit! Someone in Alaska claims this is a legit video of the Alaska governor in her Sarah Heath, Beauty Pageant Contestant days. Grainy old VHS digitized and uploaded to YouTube means this could very well be Dick Cheney in a swimsuit but, you know, it does look a bit like her. GAME CHANGER. Debate this, Old Boys Club! [Via Radar]

Confused by Wall Street? Join the club. Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who is one of Silicon Valley's most revered brains, doesn't get what's happening, either. "If I can't understand it, I suspect a lot of people can't," he told Beet.tv's Andy Plesser in this video interview. "In the name of economic efficiency by slicing and dicing risk, we're reducing transparency, which is not a healthy thing." I was with him that far. But then he concluded: "Venture capital will be a pretty good place when we return to reality and invest in things we understand and are real." That rules out most Web startup investments made in the past couple of years. Heck, Khosla believes in cost-effective ethanol.

During an Advertising Week panel on Monday, a moderator asked Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg how the Wall Street meltdown will effect online spending. Sandberg delivered a carefully crafted response to an expected question touching upon her time at the Treasury during the Clinton years, the Mexican peso, the Asian crises of the 1990s, and contagion, a fancy new term the rest of us can break out at dinner parties. When she's so comfortable talking global economics, why did Sandberg ever leave Washington D.C.? Look how smoothly she endorses Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Most obvious of all: She's clearly enjoying herself. We don't get the same vibe from Sandberg when she's talking up Facebook.

The brilliance of Bill O'Reilly, such as it is, is his ability to put an emphatically populist spin on any Republican policy, no matter how plutocrat-friendly, and also to get comically enraged about random external stimuli of every sort. By those standards, the Fox News pundit's radio show tonight was a virtuoso performance. Suddenly, to defend a $700 billion bailout aimed at Wall Street banks but opposed by Congressional conservatives, O'Reilly lashed out at "right-wing liars" and "rich guys" with "big cigars," (Those rich cigar smokers aren't bankers, as you might logically conclude, but elitist right-wing talk show hosts.) Then he promised to severely beat both the House and Senate finance committees, personally, by breaking off their fingers. If only Hank Paulson had thought of that! Click the video icon to listen.

Not only did John McCain ditch Late Show host David Letterman for Katie Couric and mislead him about it, it turns out the Republican presidential nominee spent the entire night in New York and didn't fly to DC until the next morning. So, in a reprise of last night, Letterman will spend a good chunk of his show this evening bashing the Arizona senator. "The economy just barely held on long enough for him to get back" to DC, Letterman joked. As theatrical as the Letterman-McCain feud has become, Letterman could probably score more points talking about the $700 billion banking bailout than about the mechanics of late-night TV booking. Here's to hoping that, when the full show airs, he does. (Click the video icon to watch some excerpts.)

· After getting booted from Dancing With The Stars last night, famed '80s bohunk Ted McGinley —whose unfortunately high-pitched voice was the only thing separating him from being one of the most dominating leading men of that decade— gave what will soon come to be recognized as the most humiliatingly pathetic concession speech in reality television history. Look on the bright side of things, Ted; at least you still get laid more than Jeffrey Ross. [DWTS] · Looking for the silver lining in our nation's near total economic collapse? Those glass-half-full kids over at USA Today compiled this dandy list of ten films inspired by past instances of financial ruin. [USA Today via MCN] · Sometimes, the title of a video says it all: "Horse takes a dump on stupid ladys head." [YouTube] · It's been some time since we've mentioned Attack Of The Show's impossibly shiny-haired Olivia Munn. But after we saw this sentence hits ou RSS ("Got home from work and fell asleep for a few hours… I woke up with two things on my mind: pie and blogging about pie. This is my story."), we realized it was high time for that streak to be broken. [Hey Olivia!] · We realize we just touched on Shenae's smoking habit like two posts ago, but this picture of her walking through a parking lot after buying not one, not two, but SIX (!!!) packs of Marlboro menthols is about as fierce as it gets. [Just Jared via Skeet On Shenae]

When Clay Aiken showed up on the cover of People this week announcing to the world that he is, in fact, a gay American, most of us —save the Claymates— processed the relatively unsurprising news and went about our lives. However, while on the radio this morning, Ryan Seacrest couldn't help getting snarky on his old pal when he sarcastically dropped the line "In other news, water is wet and ice cream is cold" while discussing the news. Needless to say, this irked our Intrepid Defamer Videographer Molly McAleer more than a little. Listen to her tear the frosty tipped mogul a new one (and get your evening's To Do's) after the jump.· Atmosphere at the Wiltern. · Megapuss at the Troubadour. · Digital LA - Digital Drinks at the Roosevelt.