backformore

I'm sure I complained about this last year, but here goes anyway. My neighbor is decorating his front yard for Halloween. I don't mind monsters, skeletons, ghosts, graveyards, witches, etc. that's what the holiday is about. But he has mannequins depicting violent acts - like blood and guts, people with their heads split open, that kind of stuff. the kind, I think, you might see in a haunted house that was themed to a horror movie. I avoid horror movies, and I cringe and hide behind a pillow when there are violent or gruesome scenes on TV. this display is right in his front yard, where it can't be avoided, he has two little kids, and I was a little creeped out the other day seeing his 3 year old daughter playing in the yard among the creepy bloody zombies. Maybe because many years ago, a woman I worked with suffered a horribly violent death. I'm not sure. or maybe because when my kids were young, two kids they knew were killed in separate accidents, one by a car, one by a falling tree. So maybe depictions of violence and death remind me of the ugly realities. But I am eager for Halloween to be over and done with, because I have a twinge of anxiety each time I leave or come home. (And I'm hoping kids enjoy our string of pumpkin lights and our lighted jack-o-lantern).

I don't understand. the kid-pros are dancers. Being children, they are not adept at choreography or teaching, which are separate skills from dancing. So, of course, an adult is needed in those roles. How else could they do this show?

I think that Joy was confused, she obviously doesn't watch the "fresh off the Boat" show. The show is based on the real life childhood experiences of a Chinese immigrant, Eddie Huang. The main character is based on Eddie as a child. I bet Joy heard that it was based on real life, and first thought that Constance Wu was the main character, and then thought she was playing herself in the show.

my son lives out of state, and not in college. People ask me if he will be "home for Christmas this year." And I think yes, he will be at home, because he is unable to fly in to be at our house. So, he will not be attending the Christmas eve gathering because he will be "home." Its different when someone goes away to college, because a dorm is temporary. You leave the dorm to "go home," home is your permanent address. The only time I'm really bothered, though, is when people say they "live at home." It's a tautology.

I have a pet peeve when young people say they live "at home" - meaning with their parents. Of course you live AT HOME. that's the definition of "home" - where you live. When you move away from your parents, you still live "at home." it's home because you live there. I guess it goes back to when I was a college student on a scholarship, working nights, living in an apartment in the city. I had moved away from my parents, was 100% independent. People would ask me if I was "going home" over breaks, or after graduation - Yes, I'm going home to MY home, my apartment, where I live. After graduation, people ask, "do you live back at home now?" Yes, back at my apartment, which is my home. It might be a weird peeve, but when people say "I live at home," the redundancy irks me.

I'm sorry - maybe it's your post, maybe it's just me, but I have read this 4 times, and I still have absolutely no idea what any of it means.

True. People aren't voting, necessarily for the best dancer, they're voting for who they want to see stay in the competition and compete next week. And that's OK, because all ABC needs is for people to watch, so they can sell advertisers commercial time based on how large the audience is. So sometimes the people who get votes are getting those votes based on a prior fandom, or on being cute, or funny, whatever. It's not based on pure dancing talent. The difference, though, between DWTS and a show like American Idol, is that there's no million dollar record deal, or TV appearances based on dancing talent, for the winner. It's just a trophy. It's not a career-making contract.

exactly! The show is supposed to be about people who are "stars" (however that is defined) learning how to do something out of their comfort zone. It is annoying when the stars who are competing are not coming from similar levels of dance experience. Teaching a hip-hop dancer to do ballroom dancing is a different task than teaching a grocery store owner to do ballroom dancing. NO , it's not a serious competition. Yes, the stars get paid for appearing on the show, but the "prize" is the trophy. They're not competing for a million dollars, they're competing for a mirrored disco-ball trophy. And the judges score the dancers anyway, the judges scores are combined with audience scores to determine who gets eliminated. So there aren't really rules, the judges can score according to whatever they want. And the judges have said that they judge according to an individual's progress and ability, not in comparison to the others. Calling Joe a "crappy dancer" isn't really fair, because the spirit of the show is about taking crappy dancers and turning them into good dancers. The show has also included people with various levels of disability, which further pushes the narrative that anyone can learn to dance.

How hard is it for my family to figure out, if we're taking turns hosting Christmas, that we can all keep track of who had it which year? We alternate, and invariably the conversation is like this: "whose hosting Christmas?" "L -it's her turn." "Oh, I didn't realize there was some kind of schedule" "yes, R had it last year, I had it the year before, it's L's turn." "Are you sure? I thought it was your house last year, and mine the year before." "No. I kept a record, I looked it up." "I don't know, that doesn't seem right. are you sure?" "yes." "well, OK, I'll ask L. What if she says no? will you have it?" "No - it's her turn. period. I will tell her. she skipped her last turn, she's not getting out of it." this is only an issue because in my husband's family, we also take turns hosting, and it's easy, nobody argues, nobody tries to switch. in my family, someone is always wanting to jump in and host when it's not their year, or skip their turn, and then there are bad feelings- which means there's an "injured party" who inevitably complains to me. AND, there are years when it's my turn for BOTH Christmas celebrations, and I need to be able to gear up for that - make sure I have money, a plan, and extra days off work. My family is not good at planning. the discussion of who is hosting Christmas will start in October (as it just did) and then be dropped, brought up again in november, dropped, until mid-December, when I will get the question again, "who is hosting Christmas?" and it's a week away. sometimes I feel the person who keeps asking me is just pestering me until I volunteer to do it myself.

Ok, there was a news article about a couple who was killed. I'm sad for them, but the article pissed me off. (wish I could link it here, but now I can't find it) the headline was that a grandmother was killed, then the next line was that an "Elderly couple" were the victims of a shooting. They were 57 and 64 years old. Now, I don't know about anyone here, but when I read "elderly couple" I am picturing people age 80 or older, kind of frail, white-haired people. NOT people my age. I'm not "Elderly!!" Yes, I'm sensitive about it, but why do people have to be described as in an age group, or by their parent/grandparent status? And it's usually women who are described this way - "mother of 4" or "grandmother", while men are more often described by their occupation, or if older as "retired" and then their previous occupation. But Elderly? give me a break. Are we describing the president and certain senators as "elderly grandfather?"

YES! She didn't have a chance to introduce him to her parents - he just went ahead and introduced himself - and then STAYED! that's pretty crazy.

Bayleigh accepting the proposal- She did look surprised, but he very unfairly put her on the spot. Perhaps if he'd had proposed in private (like sensible people do) and not on television, she'd have a chance to talk about it. As in, let's date for a while before jumping into being engaged. With a public proposal, it's hard to say no without looking like a heartless bitch. She already had a bitchy meltdown on tv, she had no idea how the public would react to breaking poor swaggys heart by saying no. (We would have cheered her on, but she didn't know). I thought all along swaggy was an asshole, motivated to be famous. His proposal sealed that opinion. I didn't really like bayleigh that much, but I felt sorry for her in that moment. I suspect that once she's back in the real world for a few weeks, she might see swaggy a bit differently.

Yeah, actually I'd be pretty pissed if someone did that "for" me. It was a pretty weird group text to be on, a bunch of people mourning a guy I never met or heard of.

I once got a group text telling me that "Bruce" had passed away. I didn't know who it was from, and I didn't think I knew anyone named Bruce. What's worse is that people kept responding with condolences - TO THE GROUP TEXT! so I got the "Bruce is dead" text, and then for several hours was getting "SO sorry, he was such a good man!" texts. the text gave the funeral home information, so I had to look that up, scan through the names, and eventually figured out that Bruce was the husband of someone I used to work with. Apparently someone copied her phone book, and sent everyone the group text. I get it. But if you are texting to a bunch of people you don't know, wouldn't it be nice to use the first and last name?

Yeah, I heard he was dropping the "Kan" and calling himself "Ye" Yeah, they can have him come out in various costumes - Perrier with a MAGA hat, Ketchup bottle with a MAGA hat, wine bottle with a MAGA hat, orange juice bottle with a MAGA hat - a running gag throughout the show.

Kanye's crazy. I think he had a weird dream about giant lady and bottles of water, and he thought it was genius. The song was crap, the bottle costumes made it look like a comedy sketch, and Kanye as a bottle of Perrier water is the stupidest thing he's done yet.

Mike is famous for School of Rock, not so much for his acting role, but because he wrote it. He is very talented as a writer, I enjoyed seeing him on Amazing Race because of his attitude - he really seemed to love it. And I think he brings the same joy to Survivor. I know it's partly editing, but I hated Angelina immediately. SHe gave that "AWWWW cute" look when she saw the David tribe, like they were children. I say editing, because it's not like they actually looked much different than the Goliath team, as a group, there was no reason for her to have that attitude. So, maybe I'm being manipulated into hating her, but it worked. The main difference between the two teams, that I saw, was that the Goliath team is composed of a lot of arrogant people. this session was reminding me of BIg Brother, trying to make final 2 promises right off the bat.

Martha wasn't there. The episode was called "tacos and tequila", I'm pretty sure. It wasn't exactly like the food fell out of her mouth. More like she hurriedly tasted salad from a large spoon, and some piece went in her mouth, some fell into the bowl, and some stayed on the spoon. Definitely unsanitary, the kind of thing you'd only do if you were cooking for yourself. I was surprised that they didn't say anything, as people have been called out for much less.

@mlp I was watching this morning and noticed the same thing you did. I saw that she runs a bunch of restaurants in the phoenix/Scottsdale area, and was looking her up, since we plan to visit that area. I thought it would be cool to go to a restaurant run by a chef I saw on tv. Then I saw her taste that salad, and was grossed out. I replayed it a few times to make sure that was what I really saw. Yes, she was mixing the salad, and tasted from the mixing spoon. Pieces fell out, back into the bowl as she was tasting. And she continued to mix with the same spoon. There is no way the judges missed it, since it was on camera. I wondered if they thought pointing it out might damage her reputation, so they showed it without comment, and chopped her for something else. Needless to say, I'm not planning to eat at her restaurant. I liked the guy who won, mostly because he seemed to be having so much fun.

Oh, I bet she did something to put herself in the limelight at some point. And then some two-bit magazine ended up doing a feature on "Baltimore's most interesting people", and Rockstar was included on the list. And 15 minutes later, she was no longer "famous". Big Brother is her comeback.

I think Tyra was confused, because she immediately said what a surprise/shock (I forget which word she used) it was that he was eliminated. Which pissed me off. there were finalists at that point. Tyra was only expressing surprise that Michael didn't win. I wonder if SImon is now happy that "America" didn't vote the way he told them to. And I wonder if that Garth Brooks collaboration will actually happen.

Just wanted to give a thanks to everyone who reminded me about Rockstar (the show). I just spent some watching all those Marty Casey videos again. He was amazing.

But that's almost the point of shows like this. Put people in tough situations and see how they react. If someone has a meltdown, it will live on forever. BB, Survivor, Amazing Race, live for the extreme reactions. if all contestants handle things with maturity and calm, fewer people would watch.

Yes. America's Got Talent is facing some backlash after the "Christian family man who adopted a bunch of kids," who made SImon Cowell all teary-eyed, turned out to be not such a good guy. (He was arrested for domestic battery the day after he lost) . Though he was being pushed by TPTB as the favorite, the online and phone voters did not vote according to SImon's wishes. I bet the AGT producers are thanking their lucky stars he didn't end up winning. I think Big Brother PTB will take note, and make sure that they don't end up with a winner or an "America's favorite" who will then embarrass the franchise.

In principle, I would agree with you 100%. And then, I saw JC running around with an ice cream scooper, "scooping" other HG's crotches. And then all his other objectionable behavior. And now I'm OK with him being called a troll.