DearEvette

Chili mac and cheese

I am the exact opposite. I like comedies, but for me the re-watch value just isn't there. I think I've re-watched fully Brooklyn 99 and maybe Happy Endings and Playing House. More typically I will watch select episodes of my favorites. But dramas have my heart. Lord knows I am no fan of dark gritty dramas (I do admit I think Breaking Bad is just excellent tv) but before they took over our tvs, there were a lot of lighter dramas and genre shows. David E. Kelley's entire 90s oeuvre threaded that needle. Meanwhile I think I've re-watched Leverage (the OG) like 5 times all the way through. Eureka, Psych and Freaks and Geeks are super fun re-watches all the way through. And then I'll do select seasons of some others, like the first three seasons of Fringe, Person of Interest, Killjoys, Scandal, Justified, Endeavour, and Alias. I would LOVE for some gone too soon shows to appear on streaming like Wonderfalls and Big Shots (the one with Dylan McDermott (or maybe it was Dermot Mulroney), Michael Vartan and Nia Long.) At some point I plan to re-watch Queen's Gambit. I watched it during Covid lockdown binge fog when I watched so. many. shows. So I think I want to do a re-watch to take my time and savor it a bit.

I literally just saw that part and had to pause and say 'Girl, whut?' Oh honey, no. I don't watch a lot of reality tv, so the reality people aren't resonating with me. The only person I've heard of was of course Ryan Lochte but not because of reality tv but because of the Olympics. Also, Cirie from Survivor. Her reputation as a player has trickled out even to me who hasn't watched Survivor since season 3. So the reality show people are just as anonymous to me as the regulars. Meanwhile some Big Brother girl swears she's an icon. Girl, I guess... I love that Alan Cumming decided to dial his accent up to 20. LOL. Everybody else is on a reality show. He is starring in an Austin Powers movie as the villain.

I'd be curious about the reason for the tweet. Context is everything, With Brendan and Terry we know they were both actually sexually assaulted. So their experience is different. National statistics say that 91% of sexual assault victims are women vs. 9% who are men. It simply isn't something that normally rises to the forefront of men's consciousness like it does a woman's. And women of course, even when they are not actually assaulted, often have to be hyper vigilant about the possibility of it with street harassment and men becoming aggressive and or violent when rejected. Again not something men have to often confront or think about. So with that tweet, it only works in context if he was responding to something about assault. If he wasn't, then it coming from nowhere and specifying 'any man' who touches him versus 'anyone' who touches him, it does come off as sounding rather gay panic-y.

“I’m a pacifist. You mess with me, imma pass a fist across yo face.” What a fantastic episode. The quips were flying fast and furious. Barb and Jacob's reaction to learning that their garden is actually Gregory's Secret Garden was everything. Probably my favorite scene of the episode. Between Barbara's alliterative outrage and the gasp/hurt faces Jacob was making, it was perfect. I liked that both Eddie men sent a WTF look at the camera at one of Ava's lines. LOL a Janine being shorter than 8th graders. "Hate to see my Queens fight, but I thought Miss Teagues was gonna get molly-whopped." Man. I haven't heard that term in a minute. Everyone can agree that Toy Story 3 is one you just can't handle the re-watch.

Minx lives!!

Oh forgot to mention in my earlier post... The romance novels that Carole (I think this name I got right... LOL) had on her shelves were mostly fake, except the first one, it was a Mary Balogh novel that I actually read (quite good). Also I love that Harry being a 'LumberPrince' was a turn on for the ladies even with that stupid looking beard. I also liked the sight gag of the gumbo being delivered by invisible elves to Sophie as she worked in the food truck.

Airdate: 01/11/2023

LOL, bless you for using real names. I did not have the energy to go bck and look for names and I was posting from memory. And agreed about this being a look at a possible new pair of Leverage Int'l recruits.

This was a nice change up of the formula. I do admit in the first... what..15 mins? I was missing the team. But it was nice to see how they operate from the perspective of someone on the outside who doesn't know what is happening. The assistant (yeah I forgot her name already too...) was a sharp little thing. I like that she immediately copped to Sophie's fake name. You never know who you are gonna run into who knows character trivia. There is a mystery series I read (Fox and O'Hare) where they run cons to catch thieves and Fox (the the reformed thief) always uses names for 60s-80s era tv show characters (Merrill Stubing or Thomas Banacek). Those probably wouldn't tip a millennial but a Gen-x might get it. I liked the fact that even with Parker's instructions, she wasn't able to miraculously crack a safe, and we got to see Parker slip down and open it for her. My one question about this ep was how did the Leverage team get the job? It sounds like the original victim, Sara didn't know they were on the job since she thanked the two regular employees for helping her, not the team? I am wondering if she sought them out and they were on recon and hadn't officially accepted the job when they realized the new plucky assistant was doing all their work for them and they decided to 'help' her out?

Yeah, boys the age of those in Jacob's class would probably gravitate to a personality like Budden. It would be interesting if the show kept up with the podcast idea to see who girls that age would gravitate toward. I have no idea as I am not around kids that age anymore and most especially girls (I have two sons so I am more tuned into what male children/young men would gravitate toward). Also am not a podcast listener very much. Like most people I was riveted by Serial. But besides that the only podcast I ever listened to regularly was Denzel Washington Is The Greatest Actor Of All Time Period podcast. I loved that one, the format was great and it was often so informative and funny. And pulling this back to AE, so far we've had the step show and now the podcast and teacher involved extra-curriculars with the students. I hope they do more. Have they put on a school play yet? That would be cool to see.

LOL, right? AM radio was basically podcasts before podcasts were invented. NPR simply adapted their radio stuff to the new technology that had been created and was to allow anyone to reach an audience, not just well funded radio programs. But I could totally see Jacob thinking Ira Glass was the pioneer of podcasting. I mean, he thinks jumping on top of the desk cosplaying Robin Williams from Dead Poet's Society was a flex. He has a specific cultural perspective that is often at odds with his students' point of reference.

Yeah I feel like they get made quite a bit or something happens to blow their cover and the mark figures something ain't right. One I can think of off the top of my head is the one with the cars.... the Boost Job where Hardison/Parker are Nate/Sophie are working two separate marks. H&P are working the chop shop guy and N&S are working the front man in the car dealership who sells the cars. They never are seen together by either mark, but the car dealership guy figures out that Nate and Sophie are conning him and H&P are part of their team.

I think Hurley fits this, He was their original mark in that job but he wasn't the real bad guy and he got pulled into the con at first unwittingly but then for real.

Airdate: 01/08/2023

All Kelvin wanted was some orange juice. Heh. Cute scene. Tom is ridiculous. Eddie Cibrian is sliding into his silver fox years very nicely! Connor put in what looked liked 2 quarts of real maple syrup in his grocery cart. A quart of maple syrup can cost anywhere from $18.00 to $30.00. Even double coupons won't make up for that. Man, Lupe had her fictional back story at the ready. Much respect! Loved he end tag with Denise and Lupe being idle rich and continuing to annoy Connor. Fun episode.

I love that we are reminded of Gregory's utter disdain of pizza. I also love how many grammar school book titles got dropped throughout the episode in dialogue. It was like a scholastic book version of celebrity cameos. Melissa brought out the 'Youse' when she was giving her class their pep talk. She was fired up! But I loved her ending convo with Maya. Not Barbara with Miss Frizzle beef. LOL. Yeah, this kinda pissed me off. I hate the constant Janine-as-loser they go with. But I figure they needed to get her on that podcast. So that ultimately was why. But I wish they had done it cleanly and not another Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown. I thought the Jacob podcast storyline was interesting. Yet another way to highlight how a white teacher in a predominantly black school has to understand the culture of the students. To him, podcasts are of the Ira Glass variety and to them they are of the Joe Budden variety. It becomes both an age thing and a race/culture thing that constantly needs to be navigated. So true. Even with college aged kids. My God , some of the conversations I had with parents when I worked in advising were ... yikes. Luckily my own kids was just the opposite. My oldest kid when he was in the 7th-8th grade basically spoke to us in grunts and hand gestures. He had no time for us. But we'd go to parent-teacher conferences and the teachers would be like 'Oh he is such a polite young man. So intelligent. So insightful in his comments. I wish I had ten more like him." My husband and I would look at each other and be like... what wondrous stranger are they talking about? LOL I kinda call foul on the parents telling their kids they saw Janine and Gregory in the club. Unless those two students have younger siblings in Janine and/or Gregory's classes, most parents are not gonna know or pay attention to other teachers. They know the teachers of their kids. It would be one thing if Janine or Gregory had been at Abbott a long time and parents knew them from their longevity, but Janine had only been there, what, three years? And Gregory two. Gregory might stand out because he is male, black, young and handsome so a rarity in a school.. but unless you know someone really, really well, it takes a bit to place a name to a face when they are completely out of your normal context. I remember there was a librarian I'd see behind the desk of the public library where I would frequent regularly. But then I saw him, I think it was in a restaurant and while the face looked familiar I could not for the life of me remember where I knew him from. Until the next time I saw him in the library and then it clicked. And in J&G's case it was a crowded dark club. So I take piece of gossip that as complete plot convenience.

Well dang. I saw discussion about this on twitter this morning. Apparently it was announced two years ago that a romance author, Susan Meachan, had committed suicide, partly due to online harassment and bullying by other authors. However, yesterday she posted on her facebook saying that she was really still alive and that the fake death notice was done by her family who felt she needed to step away. WTF? Who even does that? Also I have never heard of her before today or ever read any of her work so I feel like a dispassionate bystander. But man... Here is an article about it.

We just watched the first episode of LI Brazil (S2). My husband has a huge crush on Thamara. LOL Also I was so offended on Samantha's behalf for being used a messenger for William. But I LOVED her in the end and how she handled it. She was great and a lot of fun in that segment.

For lunch today, I made waffled ham and cheese melts with maple butter. Basically, ham and swiss on white farm bread toasted in a waffle iron and lightly spread with maple butter.

Regarding Andi getting the invitation box from Miles: I think Andi got the invitation legitimately. I don't think it had anything to do with Miles trying to give himself an alibi or it was some plan by Miles. She simply got the box like everyone else. The timeline of events is very tight. Miles said to Blanc that the boxes took a very long time to make and were barely finished in time for them to get sent out. The trial ended in March. So my guess is that Miles sent the order for five boxes to be made way before the trial and before Andi was no longer part of the 'Disruptors.' There is no way for him to have one made and sent to Andi after he killed her to establish alibi because he wouldn't have had enough time to do it. Whiskey's birthday was May 9th. Andi sent the emails on May 11th. So Miles had to have killed her sometime after May 11th. They got the boxes on May 13th. It has been established that Miles is not smart and is not a details person. So after the trial he probably legitimately forgot he had a box made to be sent to Andi. He doesn't even think to question how Blanc got one, he just took Blanc's suggestion that one of the existing boxes got reset and sent to him. He probably didn't wait to see if she was really dead (again, not a details guy) so he was really shocked when he saw her show up. He probably thought he just botched the job but at this point, he had no reason to try to hurt her again. He knew he had the real napkin now and he had the Shitheads in his pocket, Andi had lost credibility publicly, so there was nothing she could really do to hurt him. It wasn't until Duke showed him that Andi was really dead that it clicked that it was Helen and he had no idea what she knew or how she could hurt him. That is when he tried to kill her. Otherwise, there was no reason to try to kill Helen either. But she was a wild card. Regards the ending and the shitheads: I re-watched this with my husband last night and he made a good point that I had not really considered. He said the only reason the shitheads turned on Miles (finally) was because he was now an irrefutable liability to them. No other reason. It wasn't that they knew he had murdered both Andi and Duke which would normally have been an unforgivable line. It was because he was now so tainted by being attached to the destruction of the Mona Lisa that sticking with him would bad for them. They really are shitheads.

I loved this! Breanna hated that science guy and was all “I want him bagged and gagged and in front of me in two hours” and Elliot and Parker was all in without question -- ready to go gag and bag! I enjoyed this one since the bad guy was a snotty professor. Hey, listen, my husband is a professor and he is good people. But I hate, hate, hate snotty professors with a passion. Those types are just the most awfulest. I have a couple of them on my list where I work. Also I enjoyed that he alienated the support staff so much that it didn't take much to get them on board. Yeah, don't piss off the custodial staff! Also I love it when Elliot bonds with an older guys on these jobs. The only thing I found a little puzzling was the victim, Emma. If her social anxiety was so crippling that she could only talk to people in a small group, how the heck does she expect to teach? I just assumed she'd just want to do the research, but she mentioned teaching. So it was odd.

Airdate: 01/04/23

Yup it was garlic paste. When I first saw this I did not listen with the sound on and could not for the life of me figure out what she was using for the coating. But duh... volume is your friend, LOL.

No real recipe, just the video. Like I said, super easy. I also used real parmesan cheese. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjojsu6IRAs/