Rancide

Brooke looked soooooo painfully thin climbing those stairs at the end, part of me wonders if at least some of the problem isn't that she's suffering the general side effects (fatigue, mental confusion, weakness, lethargy) of being seriously underweight. She was a slender girl when they started, but now she's looking downright skeletal. They can't be eating all that regularly at this point. I know my (otherwise very calm, very lovely) naturally skinny husband turns into a peevish, snapping nightmare when something comes up that results in our missing a meal. Once yelled at me for 10 minutes for pulling up next to an empty gas pump that was 10 steps farther from the bathroom than the closest available empty gas pump, and I swear to God he does not do this AT ALL when properly nourished (and yes, he apologized profusely after he got some food in him). They need an "eat 5 cheeseburgers" challenge ASAP. That girl looks like she's about to snap in half.

Not necessarily. I have an in-law who doesn't drive because of epilepsy. His condition isn't even all that bad, but in our state, you can't get a license unless you're 12-months seizure-free. He sometimes goes years at a time between seizures, but when he has one, he's unlicensed for at least the next 12 months.

I don't see how choosing a female partner out of concern about the possible ramifications of being paired with a homophobic (or even just gay clueless) male can fairly be described as "bigoted stereotyping based on sexual identity" (if that's what happened). Yes, both men and women can be bigoted and/or clueless about gay people. But a homophobic woman or a gay-clueless woman isn't likely going to get uncomfortable or cause a scene if she ends up crammed in a tiny car with a gay dude who has to put his arm around her for them to both fit, or if--as sometimes happens on this show--the team has to share a changing area or sleep in a tent together. I think that the fact that Seth went out of his way to mention that he was glad to hear that Olive had a gay roommate suggests he may have had some concern about being paired with someone who might not be as open to his sexual identity or perhaps just not as familiar with it. Frankly, assuming that a random unknown woman will automatically "balance" a man seems far closer to bigoted stereotyping. Olive's a firefighter. There's nothing we know about her that suggests her skill set would be significantly different from that of any one of the many male soldiers/policemen/firemen we seem to have on this show.

Yes, though a homophobic woman probably won't manifest her homophobia by not wanting to share a tent with you or imagining that you're trying to hit on her. I'm a PoC, and if I were in this position I'd have been looking for another PoC. Not that non-white people can't be racist. Or that all white people are racist. Just playing the odds. (Which is, frankly, all the people who were say "pick a man over a woman" are doing, also.)

I thought it was weird, too, but actually the choices ended up pretty logical. Seth picks first and is gay. If I were a gay dude on this show pairing up with a stranger, I might prefer a female partner, too, over a rando potential "bro" contestant with as-yet-unknown attitudes towards homosexuality. He picks the first woman who finished. Matt picks second and picks a guy. Shamir picks third, and for all his cracking a joke about wanting a hot chick, he actually picked the person who finished highest among the remaining contestants (who also happens to be a hot chick). Scott picks fourth and is also gay so is facing the same kind of choice as Seth. Becca picks fifth and is a woman and picks a man. Vanck picks sixth and is Vanck. Tara picks seventh and is a woman and picks a man. London picks eighth and is a woman and picks a man. Jenn picks ninth and is a woman and picks a man. Michael picks tenth, and there are no men left to pick. Team Eleven is two women. The only people who made choices that made me thing "wow, I might have done that differently" are Vanck (which....) and I guess possibly Shamir (though he did actually pick the next highest finisher after himself). Vanck probably should have picked Logan. Everyone else made what seemed to be at least a defensible choice under the circumstances.

I guess that's my question--does heroin withdrawal cause babies to be born with birth defects? Obviously, if someone can't quit heroin, methadone is better. I'm not arguing about that. I'm just trying to figure out why methadone is better than cold turkey for someone who wants to quit and can. I'm struggling to see "methadone reduces risk of miscarriage" as a really winning argument for everyone, in all circumstances. I don't know how many heroin-addict pregnancies are planned. One would hope not that many. (I'm not judging parents with addictions--just saying, drug addiction and kids obviously don't mix, so I'm not sure why anyone would be in the midst of an active addiction and actively trying to conceive at the same time. One would hope that an addict who was trying to start a family would see working on the addiction as something that should take place before, rather than during, pregnancy.) I get that some people may not be trying to get pregnant but then find themselves that way and immediately decide they want to do everything possible to reduce the risk of miscarriage. For them, okay, do what you gotta do. No judgment. But it seemed like in this episode the doctor had told her that she must go on methadone, regardless of whether she wanted to or not, which seemed weird to me. I mean, if someone quits cold turkey and then miscarries...??? Is that really such an unacceptable risk? Abortion is legal, but making a decision that increases the chance of miscarriage is medically unsound? Does not compute.

Count me among those who don't get the "methadone maintenance" while pregnant thing. I mean, if someone just can't stop, I get that methadone is better than heroin, and good for them. But for women for whom pregnancy really is a sufficient motivator to want to quit, why not just let them quit? What's going to happen? The "bad consequences" they talk about are... what? Miscarriage? I don't mean to sound callous, but tons of people miscarry every day, whether they're using heroin or not. Also, you know what else causes miscarriage? Using drugs. Losing an early pregnancy is relatively common and not generally considered a life-altering tragedy that must be avoided at all costs even if it means giving birth to a methadone-addicted baby. Unless these "bad consequences" of quitting cold turkey they're talking about are children born with severe brain damage, incurable birth defects, or other significantly life-impairing conditions, I don't get why quitting cold turkey and accepting that your drug use (or sudden drug cessation) may mean you don't get to have a baby at all isn't a perfectly reasonable, and possibly preferable, alternative to giving birth to a baby hooked on methadone.

Did NOT need to see Dave hanging around like that. Judges continue to hate New School. Shut up, Sketchy. /yawn

I think the judges on this show, minus Dave, have a vocabulary of ~500 words. If I hear "apples to apples" or "checkers" or "chess" again one more time, I may scream. Nunez, in particular, is waaaay too dumb to spend as much time talking about "strategy" as he likes to do. I don't think he could strategize himself out of a locked room. Kevin was obviously going home. He doesn't do what Nunez tells him to. The only reason he made it this far is because Sketchy quit, and despite what the judges say about how this is Peck v. Nunez and talking about how one person's team is going dominate, it's REALLY OBVIOUS that all they've been doing is taking turns eliminating one person from one team and one person from another all season so that the teams are always kept equal. Once Sketchy quit and put team Nunez down one man, it just bought Kevin some time, but nothing else. Now Team Nunez is down one man, so next week it will have to be Nate or Gian to go. /yawn. Why doesn't this show focus more on tattoos, less on yelling and acting like a heinous human being and ridiculous game-playing nonsense?

I'm okay with Tim Gunn using the TGS, and I don't even like Cornelius. I just hate to see bad behavior rewarded. Sure, the pleated skirt was a problem... because he was doing it at the last minute by himself after Erin took his skirt. I also respect that Tim probably feels somewhat responsible for the red team's loss because he gave them such a good critique. He left them thinking they were on the right track, and they did what he said, and they ended up the losers. If I were in his position, I might feel partially responsible for their failure, and using the "save" might be his way of apologizing for steering them wrong.

I learned "sequencing."

Count me among those perplexed by this week's judging. I hated all of the top looks and couldn't believe the judges didn't say anything about the "taste level" of Cornelieus' enormous smiley face on his model's crotch. On the other hand, with the exception of Mah-Jing, who I just felt bad for with that unfortunate pink dye mishap, I didn't think the bottom designs were THAT bad, at least not compared to others the judges could have picked from. I thought they were mostly just boring with a side of questionable taste for that former raver guy whose name I've already forgotten. All I can think is that maybe the black light didn't come across the same way in person as it did on TV. Half those designs, including Brik's extremely boring white sheath of nothing, did nothing on my screen when the black light went on. And yes, Roberi was robbed.

Funniest thing all night was assface Nunez talking about how much it hurt him to have to criticize folks on his own team and why. It's amazing, isn't it? How when you actually talk to people, you get to know them, and then you realize they're actual people with actual feelings and suddenly it's not so easy to be a massive dick to them for no particular reason. Congratulations, Nunez, on finally reaching a junior-high level of emotional awareness!

I agree that Brady* violations are rampant, though I'd like to think it's usually a function of tunnel vision and a failure of imagination rather than a deliberate, outright decision not to follow the rules, as it would have to be in this case. I think what usually happens is that prosecutors and police, who are only human after all, decide they have "the guy" and get so invested in the fact that they have the right guy that they just fail to notice and/or cannot conceive how [x] piece of evidence might actually point in a different direction. Brady is hard. It basically requires you to put yourself in the position of the defense attorney and think "could I use this evidence in my client's favor?" Not everyone is good at doing that. In this case, however, the prosecutor obviously knew the evidence she didn't turn over pointed to someone else because we saw her discussing it with the police officer. Her failure to hand it over would be cause for losing her license. I third or fourth whomever said that this was a good show with a great show lurking somewhere beneath. The legal stuff was just too sloppy for me. *"Brady" is the case that says prosecutors have to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence.

Yes, the prosecutor absolutely had an ethical obligation to turn over the information Box discovered to the defense. Prosecutors MUST turn over ALL information that may suggest an individual is innocent, and information that the victim had been seen arguing with someone else that night and that that person had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars from her would qualify. While I generally enjoyed the series, it fell flat for me as a legal drama. The failure to disclose was only a small part of it. The scene at the end with the prosecutor suggesting that she and Box "go get" the real killer was laughable. Short of finding a videotape of the killing, how are you ever going to convict someone after you very publicly tried someone else for the same crime (and lost)? Especially when the primary evidence you're using to convict is evidence that was already known to you at the time you were very publicly trying to convict someone else? The defense attorney would have a field day. I think the show went too far in an effort to try to incorporate some threads of "hope" into the conclusion. In the real world, no one is going to jail for this murder at this point. The show could have done without the Chandra character entirely. I don't see Stone smuggling heroin into the jail, but it wouldn't have been out of character for him to waive his usual fee for one of his regulars who was on his way back in in return for his making sure Naz got what he needed to avoid being dopesick at trial.

In likely near 100% of cases, employer match makes it worth participating even if fees are terrible. Employer match is free money--instant profit. When people talk about terrible fees, they mean 1%-3%, which is a huge percentage of your total returns if the market is only returning 4%-6% but is still relatively small compared to the huge bonus that employee match brings. Even if your employer is only matching, say, 25%, that still beats the fees by a big amount. If you put in $1, and your employer puts in $0.25, and then exorbitant fees take out $0.03, and you're still ahead by quite a bit. Best advice for bad 401k options is contribute to the full amount necessary to get the full match and then if there's money left over, invest elsewhere.

You may have more control than you think. Find out who is in charge of your company's 401k plan and, if there are no low-cost index funds in it, send them an email asking them to add some. I did this with my mid-size (~4000 employees) employer a few years ago, and new options appeared within 6 months. At the time I asked, we had only one index fund option. We now have four. A lot of employers are getting nervous about what their own responsibilities might be towards managing 401k plans and are therefore increasingly responsive to employee requests. Unless you work for a really tiny company, there's no reason why your company shouldn't be able to offer some low-cost options, and there is no harm in asking.

I was coming here to post that story. Most interesting (though obviously not surprising) part is that the show tells people to amp up the asshole. Also not terribly surprising that the show reached out to him rather than the other way around. This show is more about the drama than about the competition. I wonder how many of the contestants actually apply blind, as opposed to being invited to apply.

My favorite part of the finale was Nunez looking like a m***** standing in the group of Cleen, Anthony, and Christian. I'm okay with the win. Anthony was my favorite throughout the season, but I thought Christian had the best work tonight and dislike how he got eliminated. But at least it wasn't Cleen. I like Cleen as a tattooer, but the judges' obvious favoritism got old weeks ago, and I really feared they were going to overlook his mistakes all the way through the title. I'm glad they pulled it together at the last minute. Least favorite part of the show was the repeated cutaways of the jury talking over each other. This show casts people who can't manage to have civilized debates in groups as small as 2 or 3. What made them think that 10+ of them were going to pull it off?

I turned off the show once Anthony and Christian made it and we were still only halfway through. It was obvious at that point that they were going to do a James/Cleen face-off, and since there was no way the judges were going to send Cleen home, I figured I'd save myself 30 minutes and just check out pictures of the final tattoos in the morning. I never thought I'd say this, but I wish this show had more guest judges. Guest judges are annoying on a lot of other shows, but I really feel like something needs to happen to break up the judges' obvious predetermined, lazy, favoritism-based voting and their inability to resist making decisions based on what they already think about the contestants rather than what they see in front of them.

I almost forgot--obviously not Anthony's fault but I personally would have refused to do that forehead tattoo. I thought it was ironic that the show selected someone who wanted that tattoo on the same episode as other folks trying to cover up their hate tattoos. Not only is the tattoo a horrible idea, but the positioning was unwise. It's a bad idea for men to get tattoos that hug their hairlines for the obvious reason. Again, not really Anthony's fault. It's a competition, and that idiot was clearly an adult. But man. I hope that most, if not all, of these folks would decline to do that tattoo if it walked into their shops at home.

I've resigned myself to the fact that we're never going to get rid of Cleen. It's not like I think the guy's a bad artist. But there's been no dead weight for weeks, so it really should come down to who does what on a particular challenge on a particular week. I thought Cleen's messed-up drawing was a lot more problematic than Matti's that just needed a bit more time. I was also confused by the "A" tattoo. It's definitely a radical political tattoo, but I don't see the connection to "hate." I'm guessing either they couldn't get enough actual hate tattooed people to come on the show (if I had one of those things I certainly wouldn't want the whole country knowing about it), or else the producers felt like they needed a one least left-wing tattoo for balance.

I'll stick up for new school. Love it, love Jesse. I have no tattoos and never seriously considered getting one until this show introduced me to new school. I still have no tattoos, but I'm at least now contemplating the idea. I love Anthony, but I thought Jesse had the better of this face off. Was sorry to see him go.

I don't like Sam, am glad he is gone, etc., but I thought the tiebreaker challenge was hugely unfair. Ken got his own prior winning garment, which already fit his model to perfection and which he'd already spent hours playing with and thinking about. Getting that look back let him just cut off the bottom and add a few bits here and there to make something that fit perfectly (because it ALREADY fit perfectly when he got it) and looked very polished. Sure, Sam's look was an ill-fitting hot mess, but he only had an hour to make something out of pieces he didn't know anything about, neither of which came pre-fitted and pre-tailored to his model. I'm sure the judges selected those weeks because they were the weeks where both the winning and the losing look had a fair amount of fabric, but to really be fair, they should have given Sam Ken and Mitchell's garments and have given Ken Asha and Alexander's. Ken derived a huge advantage from starting with a successful look that was custom-fit to his model.

I second whoever said Jime was an idiot for picking Cleen. Cleen could have called his canvas's mother fat, had the canvas walk out on him and have presented the judges with a photo of the heart taped to his own stomach, and he still wouldn't have gone home. I guess I'm glad for the sake of their mental health that the contestants haven't figured out yet that the judging has very little to do with actual tattooing, very much to do with judges' prior knowledge of and/or relationships with the contestants. But man. What an idiot.