Totale

I took it to mean that if the states in question had say $5 billion in their budget for education and $5 in lottery money earmarked for education came in, the schools didn't end up with $10 billion - they paid for the schools with the lottery money and took the original $5 bil they got from taxes and put it somewhere else, like Under assistant secretaries for game development or something. He (or his source, actually) wasn't saying the schools weren't getting lottery money, it was that the lottery money didn't increase education's funding in those states, as the ad implies.

Most post-Brak Adult Swim stuff doesn't do much for me, but I like Mr. Pickles. The artwork reminds me of old underground comics like Zap.

It's a long parody of tropes in sitcom credit design which goes on to darker humor. i wouldn't download it on a dialup connection were I you.

That gets them past the syntax and just leaves the question of whether a fleur de lys is a plant. It's a stylized representation of a lily, but then the Jolly Green Giant is a stylized representation of a giant. Does that make him one?

The nearest one to me is an hour away and I've never been to it, so although I've heard of them I never knew they sold anything but cheesecake. The dumbed-down bahn mi was the perfect choice and the winner was right on that making unfamiliar food seem familiar was the way to get picky eaters with an elementary schooler's palate to try it, which is a problem mall food chains must face every day. I was surprised to hear they'd be serving the dish to "millions of people" from their 170 locations. Emeril is so over this, and is now sleepwalking through it like he's on heavy meds, like when he lied straight faced into the camera about how exciting it was being the "menu master". I think he wanted to slap the self-styled comic, but kept his composure. The slice of cheesecake they brought out for the winner was the size of her head, is that the common portion there? It has to be 2000 calories on its own.

I don't think this season's crop of clue writers and judges would be good contestants on Jeopardy. I take and fail the online test every year, and I have to think there's something wrong with the selection process if it lets these dullards through and excludes lovely telegenic people with some actual general knowledge of the damn world they live in such as myself (kidding).

I'm amused that they're staging their Revolution-era challenge at the site of a 19th Century arsenal that last I knew was a shopping mall.

You cooked that beautiful product??? Barbarian.

The mighty one, of course.

It's been a meatgrinder of a day and we're just getting calzones and onion rings from down on the corner. I intend to respect them by inhaling them.

It's just a title. For the sake of my blood pressure I now skip all the chef's introductions so I don't know how big her restaurant is, but when I was 23 I was the Technical Director for a manufacturing corporation which was considered one of the tops in its field at the time. But only 20 people worked there, and all it practically meant was that I fielded tech support calls in between fixing broken shit like I did before the prior TD quit. Kudos to her for staying graceful under Conant's onslaught, and even though she screwed up her dessert I still think course for course she beat all comers. And just since nobody else mentioned it, what a colossal douche the private chef was. It was big of him to deign to accept the judges' criticisms, seeing as how they were acceptably articulate and all. Pureed antipasto "pate" sounds gross, Amanda's face said it all.

Terrible game. When it got to the final I said the smart bet for either was 0, since in either's case their opponent was obviously a maroon and they would probably get it wrong.

I had steaks my whole life, but steak tips (on rice, yeah) I never had or saw on a menu until I moved to Boston..

This has gotten awfully predictable, I called every elimination way early. When chef Emiril Jr and whoever the loud host is got the first tasting of the lasagna and said "There's a lot of crabmeat in here" I heard "But we can't sell the damn dish for $80 so that's coming way down". But shrimp and grits guy was doomed after everybody told him "everyone in NOLA has been making shrimp and grits that kick your ass for their whole lives" so it was no surprise he was booted off. Easier to fix up a seafood lasagna they can actually afford to sell than risk Emeril's reputation - if he thought S&G should be on the menu they already would be.

I lived in and around Boston for 20 years, and when I think of pizza that's best around Boston and falls off elsewhere it's Greek pizza (grease-za), that staple of cheap House Of Pizza joints that also serve gyros, with the thick oil-laden crust and oddball cheese blend that I can't find as good anywhere else - I always preferred it to New York/North End style, but that was when I was young and never thought about calories. I don't expect it to be featured on Top Chef. The other Boston-centric dish I never had before I lived there and won't be seeing on Top Chef is steak tips, but that's really down to marinade and there's no time to do it right in a competition setting. They're going to go heavy on seafood, but I had my best seafood out in the far suburbs, not the city - and even with lobster rolls I have to throw my vote in for Connecticut style (warm with drawn butter) over the cool mayo-laden Boston/North Shore version.

The tie is only conceivably a smart play by the one going into FJ ahead when #2 is obviously Not Worthy and only got that far because of something like one lucky True Daily Double, to weaken the potential field for the next game. But even then I wouldn't do it - even if he or she is a mouthbreathing dummy they still will have had practice at the button, while two fresh contenders will need some time to get that and their nerves under control.

I sensed the heavy hand of the producers there as well. She wandered off and faced away from the camera after her breakdown, saying something like "I'm so tired of this whole routine". I don't think it was the cooking or presentation to the judges she was tired of - I suspect it was the producers harping on her to keep on the Dad story when it meant more to her than 2 minutes in the klieg lights. Beyond the fact that it has nothing to do with Sudden Death (which would be the loser in the Quickfire having to immediately PTKAG), the whole Elimination Quickfire thing smacks of phony because the producers need their contestant count to be at certain levels for certain points in the season - team challenges, RW, reserved slots on the fishing boats, etc. So from the jump the schematic for the season likely says "There will be six Sudden Death Quickfires, in weeks x,y,z...,and numbers 1 and 4 will result in a contestant being eliminated". The producers will follow their internal scripts to inform the talent as to who will be going home when it's elimination time, and the "challenged" contestant can serve their play on Crackerjack Ceviche that week and still be safe.

Apparently preempted for World Series here. Tivo shows next week as 11 Chefs Compete Part II so it's a cliffhanger yawn anyway. I haven't watched any show preempted by sports in forever, these days do they usually reschedule those for late night or bump the whole schedule a week?

I'm learning more and more about classic Canadian dishes I don't want to eat. Hoping for poutine soon.

My biggest problem with the finale is the casting of a 23 year old actor to play the (in canon) 12 or 13 year old Tommy Darmody. He should have looked the same age (or younger since women mature faster) than Young Gillian and just didn't. I would have liked it better if Joe Harper just reminded Nucky of Tommy, or more likely Jimmy since he barely knew Tommy and wouldn't have thought about him in years, but Joe Harper was actually just a random Depression-era thug going for survival the best way he knew how.

My most WTF judging moment was when Collichio pretty clearly took Puck aside and pressured him to change his vote so his boy Isabella stayed over Antonia. And I thought that was at least partially a gendered incident at the time.

I got it, but only because I'd just watched an episode of "Comic Book Men" where Kevin Smith's daughter Harley Quinn Smith was featured. We were four questions into that CP category before we figured out what the hell they were looking for. Worst category in recent memory.

I think that's pretty much the case. I believe I read somewhere that he doesn't actually work at the store.