JTMacc99

I watched the promos she did with Taran, and now I have high hopes for this episode.

Was Pipsqueak the one who wanted to headbutt the puppies? And the narrator is Henry Strozier. You might remember him from such movies as Contact and P is for Psycho. He is absolutely terrific, and to be honest, I'm surprised that there are aren't more voice credits on his resume, especially since he started doing this show in 2011.

Oh my. So many good friends here already. As I have so many different pets to choose from, let me just share a couple now, and then I'll see if I can find link up some more later. This is Carl. He'd get up to move back into the sunbeam, but that would require too much effort. Not pictured is his brother Lenny who is no longer with us. This is Jesse. She doesn't do much unless we drop some crickets into the tank. This is Danny, currently the only dog in the house and is a 7 year-old lab. He was a show dog who was sent into rescue because his hips were going to prevent him from becoming a viable breeding dog. We fostered him for a couple weeks and have had him for five years now. He's got a three track mind. 1. Pet me. 2. FOOD! 3. Ball Ball Ball Throw the Ball! Not necessarily in that order. And these two are Abby and Luna. Luna was another lab we fostered for a while, and she went on to a permanent home. Abby was my Golden Retriever I had from the age of 7 weeks, always looked like she wandered out of an LL Bean photos shoot, and was a very interesting combination of really smart and really dumb at the same time.

A place to discuss which season needed more seasoning in comparison to a different season, which perhaps was a bit over seasoned. Okay, enough of that. I am finding it rather interesting to see episodes from previous seasons and discover that time has distorted my memory somewhat. For example, I didn't mind watching some of the season 7 episodes at all, which surprises me because I don't remember enjoying that one very much. My best guess is that I didn't like the way it ended, so I remember the whole season less fondly. Which by the way, is probably exactly what is going to happen when I think about season 11 three years from now.

Yes. But it does seem like the casting department makes sure that 90% of the contestants aren't the type of people who think that way. Which is good for the show, and the other 10% are also good for the show because they get to represent me on site by getting frustrated by how the rest of the gang thinks, When I actually watch the nomination process and don't fast forward though it, it always reminds me of a Springfield town meeting. All that is missing is the guy with a bone in his hair making an eloquent but ridiculous declaration and the part where they storm out carrying torches and pitchforks.

I completely agree. Baseball doesn't work like the NFL where people watch the first game even if it has nothing to do with their own favorite team. And boy, I really don't understand what Detroit gets from that contract. I certainly understood what the Yankees got back when they bid against themselves to give A-Rod the current contract. For A-Rod, first, he was a free agent right then. I think it was a player option to opt out, so technically he could have gone on to another team and never played another game for the Yankees. This is not the case in Detroit where Cabrera still had two more years, right? So the first thing that seems nuts is that Detroit could have let him play out the next two years for $44 million and then offered him the same 8 year $248 million contract. Were they worried that somebody was going to give a 33 year-old more than that? Second, for A-Rod the thought process from the Yankees was that he would be the guy who goes on to break the Bonds home run record, and it would be a wonderful moment for the YES network, and generate TONS of ratings and money for the team during the later years of his contract when he was unlikely to generate the on field performance equal to his pay. (Of course, that plan turned out to be complete disaster, but with the size of the NY television market, and the advertising and cable subscription fees the YES network generates, it was good business risk.) And while I understand that the Detroit market is a very good sized television market (it is 11th largest in the US, about 1/4 of the NYC DMA), the potential to generate money for the Detroit franchise is simply not as great as it is in New York. So I would think signing Cabrera for so many years for so much money takes a bigger risk that the A-Rod deal because the payback can't possibly be as high. But, what the heck do I know? Maybe they've got some spreadsheets worked out that show how this is a sound business decision, and that's why they did what they did.

When I got out of the theater that day, one of the thoughts that went through my head was that this would be one of the kids movies that I won't mind being subjected to seeing bits and pieces of it over and over again. I'd probably even wait out certain parts of it just because I wanted to see them again. (Such as Batman asking for everybody's black pieces because he only works in black, or very, very dark gray.) But one thing that I hadn't considered was the return of that ear worm, Hmph. I'm not sure how I feel about that right now.

It's my guess that the World Cup was simply a reason to bring the Simpsons back to Brazil. Which probably had to be done given what happened the last time they had an episode where they visited Brazil. I'm pretty sure that if it had been the Winter Olympics being held in Brazil, they would have done a similar episode a couple months ago with Homer as a figure skating judge. (Heh, there are just so many things wrong with that last sentence.) So having said that, I don't think this was ever supposed to be an episode about soccer, and I won't judge them too harshly on their soccer jokes. Although the world class injury faker was pretty funny. As for what I thought the episode did well, I liked the family dynamic. I especially liked Lisa's very late call that Marge was her hero and Marge's completly awesome "I'm a little shocked I didn't get more consideration earlier" reaction. And I also really liked the nod to the show's history several times, including all of the subtle references to the earlier issues the family caused with their visit to Brazil, the fact that Martin Prince is the smartest kid in the school, the way they brought in a completely obscure figure in American History as part of a school production, and a few nods to things Homer has done over the years.

Okay, I'm checking in to the Game of Thrones discussion. Time Warner Cable was nice enough to give me HBO and Cinemax as part of my deal for a year. Which by the way was nuts on their part, as those two channels cost them about $16 a month combined. HBO must have cut a deal with them to justify Time Warner putting the channels in my offer. (Sorry, I digress. My work is directly related to the cable and satellite business, so I tend to think in terms of how they do business. If you ever have any questions about that sort of thing, please feel free to ask.) Anyway, over the holidays I discovered and binge-watched this show and am very much looking forward to the start of season 4 in a few days. I had only a couple things spoiling me. First, since I was new to HBO Go, I did not realize that they list the newest episode at the top of their grid, and somehow watched episode 10 of season first. Needless to say, I was a little confused and once I realized what I had done and started watching season 1 in the correct order, I had a pretty good idea of which characters I probably shouldn't get too attached to. Second, I vaguely remembered a bunch of "Holy Shit Game of Thrones!" and "Red Wedding blah, blah, blah" facebook and twitter posts towards the end of what was season 3, so as I was reaching the end of my 30 espisode run, I knew something was going to happen. Other than that, I knew nothing and I also realized that I wish I could have come to a place like this and rehash every little detail between episodes instead of watching them all in a row. So I'm looking forward to the next couple months with you all! Hopefully I'll have something useful to add.

I thought this was a pretty good episode, certainly my favorite one since Seth left, which makes sense. When the head writer takes off for a new job, it is probably going to take the team a while to find their way. I like that they keep firing off strange ideas in the second half of shows. That has pretty much been the case all season, and I am starting to get used to it and enjoy it. They definitely don't all work, but the ones that do are really interesting. I thought the best uses of Louis C.K. was as the white guy in Black Jeopardy and as the appropriately humble guy in the Mr. Big Shot song number. "This is a clip-on goatee!"

Oh my goodness. That would be a wonderful episode. I would most like to see the Breakfast Club one, which might happen as this group has already done one 80's flashback episode this season, and I am going to assume that the two weirdos in a bar at closing time will actually happen again, because why wouldn't it? Mostly though, I'm just hoping for a good episode. I've been a little underwhelmed by the stuff they've done so far since Seth left.

That's the way I'm looking at it. Of course, the interesting thing about a show like Lindsay, is that it is SO easy to apply whatever personal exerience I've had with a person who had some sort of mental health/addiction issues to what I'm seeing with this young woman. Possibly because Lindsay Lohan has so many things that might be wrong with her, that I can just pick and choose off of the LL menu of mental illness. (I'll take a #2 of alcholism, a number #16 of depression, and how's the #44 bi-polar disorder?) But what I see are pretty clear symptoms of depression, which as noted in Sarah's article probably led to the boozing. It is VERY Hollywood to send somebody off to rehab and then assume everything will be ready for the comeback, so I think that's what everybody thinks she needed. However it seems to me that they are just treating a symptom when they talk about her addiction issues. I'm thinking that lots and lots of therapy to start working on the number her parents and her general upbringing did to her would be the first place to start. I simply can't imagine her ever "just growing up and taking control of her life" just because she's 27 and somebody forced some sort of hard reality check on her. I don't think she has any of the tools to deal with day to day life. And only part of that has to do with living a life where people did things for her because she had money and fame. Everyday ordinary people who suffer from the kind of depression I see in her have the same issues getting through life, and display the same sort of self-absorbed behavior she does, and they never had wealth or fame. Or, you know, maybe she's just a spoiled celebrity who needs to grow up and has me fooled into thinking there is something wrong with her because it benefits her for me to think that way. Either way.

Checking in!

He deserves many awards just for his performance in The Party as he tried so desparately to make the team behave somewhat appropriately. While it not have been his funniest line, the one that sticks with me and I wish to use myself whenever possible, was when he advised Boyle to talk about one of his interests. Boyle then started in on it, and Terry responded with an unbelievable face that I could only descriibe as an enthusastic wince and said, "Perfect! So boring!"