Homily

Yep. I read this as someone trying to get a standing desk who had no real need for it so was just trying their luck by going through Leonard - on a level with a coy pond for the office. Or else writers who have no real clue how budgets actually work, especially in big organizations with HR departments Which leads me to my question - some of the stuff that was requested cost $ and some probably cost $$$ so did it end that Leonard only had enough for one project or did he fund smaller things and just have enough left for one big ticket item? This had me a little confused. I did like the way Leonard resolved things though. Good for him! If you're going to have everyone mad anyway you may as well get something out of it!

I felt she redeemed herself by her genuine sorrow about the loss of her husband. When she realized that selling her husband's stuff wasn't as easy to do as she expected it to be that rang very true to me. I am really liking the way they are giving the characters a little depth.

Becky was always the one who ended up picking up the slack at home while Darlene lay on the couch or stayed in her room. As an oldest child myself I totally identified with Becky from those days. It would be no surprise to me at all that she knows her way around a kitchen. We don't have to be gourmet chefs to know how to cook a decent meal!

Maybe not every dark wood is like this but the last house I lived in had dark coloured hardwood and the dust just shone - I'd no sooner clean it off then it would settle back down. That has put me off dark wood for life!

A flipper show I saw last night had them gutting the kitchen (of course) because it was "so 90s" they even talked about how everyone went in and changed up houses then to look like what they were now gutting. Neither of them seemed to have a clue that what they're doing to that house right now will be just as dated in 20 years and someone else will be gutting it. Just once it would be nice if they would at least give a passing nod to that but so far I've never seen anyone admit to it!

That's me - and most of the people I know. Wouldn't give the last reboot a chance since Roseanne Barr was in it but are thrilled now to have the chance to revisit the Conners and catch up. The show following it is very good as well and if enough people like it too that makes a good strong hour of TV so fingers crossed both shows can keep the momentum going. Oh also I think a lot of us are looking for family centered sitcoms so that probably helps.

W channel here in Ontario started airing Christmas movies today. I got all cosied up to watch Journey Back to Christmas and lo and behold they were not showing Journey Back to Christmas as advertised but Rocky Mountain Christmas instead. I coped admirably but come on W channel you messed up with the FIRST MOVIE out of the gate. This does not bode well. I usually tape my Christmas addictions so if I can't count on them well I hope a few schedulers get coal in their stockings this year!

He was being honest. Howard should have known better than to expect anything else from Sheldon!

This is what I want in a house! I like the idea of the family room/kitchen combination as long as there are still other rooms on the main floor! To me what you describe sounds like a cozy family home. The One Big Room just doesn't.

My son and his wife have two children - one turned two in September and the baby is turning one in December. I am definitely going to recommend they catch this episode. I think my DIL in particular will be able to identity with Bernadette!

Microwaves - did many people have them back in the '70s? I remember them getting hugely popular in the mid to late 80s - I have microwaves and VCR players completely entwined in my mind as we got both for Christmas (one from each set of parents) I think in 1986-1988 timeframe. Before that the VHS players were way too expensive and microwaves may have been as well.

I'm curious why you think this - are you actually watching the show? If you are are you assuming you're the only outlier? If you're not then how would you know what this show is doing or not doing?

I'm a librarian and back around 2008-2009 I was weeding the collection and ended up discarding an entire shelf of microwave cookbooks - none of them had been taken out in years but obviously at some point in time someone went a little crazy adding them to the collection! I also remember when you could take microwave cookery classes and when, as least in my town, there was a whole store devoted to all things microwave.

You do realize Penny makes more money than Leonard and is an attractive woman who has never lacked for male companionship? I seriously doubt Leonard is the best she could do if by that you mean he was her last chance to get married because, well she's old now and all.

Well that's true for everyone. If the people in charge of salaries decide they don't want to meet their stars demands they'll lose out on the revenue from another season as well.

My feelings exactly. Same pool of money just shared out differently. I don't see why the stars shouldn't get what they can while the show lasts.

That's what kills me with the whole open concept thing. My sister turned her eat in kitchen into a kitchen/family room type deal and it looks great. It really does. A lot like most of the sets on family centred sitcoms (which I think is what she was going for). Anyway looks great. Sounds? Not so much. If you're in the family room area trying to watch TV and you keep hearing water running in the sink, someone rattling around in the cutlery drawer or searching for a pot or whatever it gets pretty annoying. And the other side of the coin of course is that if you're the one cooking dinner and you don't want the Price is Right blasting on the TV you're going to Have Words with someone.

That reminds me of something I wondered about. Unless Bernadette converts will the baby even be raised Jewish? Have they ever talked about that?

I don't think Bernadette will let Howard name the baby Debbie. Maybe a middle name. I think given Howard's creepy relationship with his mother naming his daughter after her would be, well, creepy!

Absolutely agree. This season it feels like they're giving Parsons a chance to get another Emmy. Anyway if they can keep up the quality of the writing the actors are all good enough to keep me watching. I'll admit it even though I didn't hate last season I sure didn't love it but this season has been much stronger and this episode more than held it's own. Laughed out loud a few times which is a good thing :).

Agreed. The "meet the parents" story is over now and I'd be surprised to see any of them again any time soon. The Nav system storyline has been building since last season so I'm interested to see where they go with it.

Oh sure I agree it's a sitcom and we all need to accept that but it was a sitcom based on the real life of its star and it was s sitcom where one of the main characters had a very visible kind of job where most people would know that a senior member of the NY police department would never be reduced to eating baloney pie "like an animal"!

According to several sites I just checked the average salary of an NYPD police lieutentant is $102k per annum. Even assuming Robert makes less than that he has 20 years experience so it's close. Ray may have been making more than the average sportswriter but we're never given any reason to believe he's making a lot more. It's not like he was a syndicated columnist and as we've touched on he never did write or publish any of those books he worked on. At best he's making what Robert is making. No way is he making so much more that Robert is a pauper by comparison! Which is what it always seemed like whenever talk about their relative financial situations might be.

I remember on the old TWOP board the discussion of Ray's salary came up and someone linked to an article that listed average salaries for certain professions. IIRC Ray's salary as a columnist was assumed to be decent but by no means a salary that would make him wealthy. What always bothered me was the assumption on the part of the writers that Ray was rich and Robert was poor. As a lieutenant in the NYPD Robert was not making peanuts and then when he married someone who had to be earning a fairly good salary herself it seemed to me that between Robert and Amy they were making more than Ray who was the sole breadwinner in his family. It was like though the writers assumed Ray the newspaper columnist was making the same kind of money as Ray the big time TV star!

The worst example of that was when they had (I think) Tommy Lasorda at Ray's house sampling Ray's spaghetti sauce. It was just silly - and of course it's the first and last time we ever see Ray cooking anything - well there was the time he tried to make a tuna sandwich "oh my GOD tuna juice"!