AllisonWonderland

For whom, exactly, is he making these video clips we keep seeing? Was this something he did for the show, or are they his own video diaries, or what is the deal there?

Stupid question, this being my first "live" chat--is there a way to keep the page/comments automatically refreshing, or do you have to keep refreshing the page or clicking through the black notification bars on the bottom?

You guuuuuuuuuyyyyyyyysssss.....!

If I remember correctly, she even rhapsodized about "that hot wrapper cheese" when you first unwrap the burger. Like, yo, I'm a girl who loves burgers too, but damn, at least TRY to play it cool, homie!

Waaaaaaah, something got screwed up and it looks like Time Warner or MTV might have transmitted the wrong episode, or....? My DVR had a one-hour block recorded from 9:00-10:00, labeled "The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions: Helter Shelter" and a 30-min block from 10:00-10:30 labeled "Hall Of Fame: Johnny Bananas". BOTH of these recordings are actually of the Johnny program, and the "one hour" block bumps me out to the menu right around the 30 min mark, even though it is showing me another half hour left on the recording. So it appears that they broadcast Johnny at both 9:00 and 10:00...? I'm in NYC and interested whether anyone else had this issue. Man, I had a stupid day and I was looking forward to watching this mindless crapfest tonight. Grumble grumble.

Ok, the song they had written for the hip hop number was like "Noah's Arcade" level of terrible.

Apologies if I misunderstood, but the gun-as-gift thing felt super patronizing and weird to me.... Zach got her the pistol as part of her "welcome home" gifts because (and I'm veeery loosely paraphrasing here) "A few years ago, Ashleigh had an accidental discharge with my weapon which resulted in me losing my job. By gifting her a pistol, I'm showing her that I forgive and trust her enough to have a gun of her very own now." That's, like, icky and possessive, right? The sudden and unexpected job loss was no doubt devastating for their family and I'm sure she has not even *considered* forgiving herself for costing Zach his job, but A) It's weird that she was still unforgiven until now for the discharge incident and, B) She doesn't need your permission or endorsement to own a gun. I am not condoning guns or gun ownership or the idea that Ashleigh should have just gotten her own dang gun by now because I frankly find the whole fetishization of firearms to be terribly offputting, but if carrying a gun was important to her? She didn't need to wait for her husband's approval to get one. "This shows her that I trust her enough now to have a gun of her own" (or whatever) felt really squicky to me.

Just jumping in here to say that I knew Dexter kind of peripherally in high school (one of my best friends was one of Dexter's best friends, though he and I didn't overlap all that often) and the persona he's presenting on the show is precisely the guy I remember. Now I haven't seen him in... almost 15 years? so I can't provide too much insight to him or his current design aesthetic, but I can definitely vouch for the fact that he was always a completely over the top, funny, stylish, "just a bit too much, but in a really fun and charming way" kind of guy. I didn't even realize he was on the show but when they showed one of his talking heads, I had that moment of "Oh my god, I know him but I can't place him... I don't know him as an adult.... so maybe from back home?... I must have been younger...?... So maybe high school?... Oh my god, it's DEXTER, I totally do know him!" It was like gradually finding the path to where something is stored on your hard drive and eventually zeroing in on it. Honestly, I doubt he would even remember me now as it has been so long and we were never actually that close, but my mom definitely drove him home from after-school hangouts a few times.

Soooo, as a chubby American girl who married someone from another country, I am having a really hard time dealing with Nicole. When my guy and I were getting to know each other, I was so excited to learn everything that I could about his world; as we fell in love, I just wanted to drink in every single piece of pop culture, tradition, funny quirks, vocabulary, and every little piece of daily life in his country that I could. When I moved over to the UK after we were married, I was hugely enthusiastic about diving right into normal life in my new home, and I was completely equipped to do so. Now I completely understand that there's a different level of "foreign-ness" in moving from a major US city over to London than there is moving from Bumblefuck, The South all the way to Morocco. However I feel like by getting to know someone deeply, really learning them, you can't help but take in a decent amount of detail about what life is like in their country, purely by osmosis. Sure, trying to prepare oneself to move to a far away country with a different language/alphabet and completely different customs and guidelines of propriety would be tremendously intimidating. She's bound to make a few little blunders as she experiences things in person for the first time. If she had a real, thorough, serious relationship with Azan, though, she would have picked up so much just from listening to him and wanting to know everything there is to know about him, as one does when they're in love.

"I can't believe you have a fear of sex! Wow, like, I never heard that before." "Yeah, insects. Yeah." "Oh, insects? Yeah, I don't like insects either." Rachel trying to play off the sex/insects misunderstanding all cool made me chortle delightedly alone in my living room. Also, to echo my statement from a few weeks ago: <3 <3 Mariano <3 <3 (Sorry for the weird extra-large line breaks; I just came back in to edit and I do indeed have the correct number of "returns" in between stuff. Not sure why they're showing up like 2x size on this post.)

I was going to make some snarky remark about her secret having something to do with her weird sideways-jaw talkin' but now I wonder if you might be right and I feel like a bit of a jerk.

We didn't find out Jorge's secret yet, did we? Also, now Loren (sp?) has a secret? Oy.

I *definitely* heard the "Nancy" thing too!!! I was trying to figure out if maybe there was a hostess or someone he was greeting by name...? Or maybe Nancy is Kris's real first name but she decided to go by her cooler middle name or something when she knew she was going to be on tv..? I just know it confused me.

I'm sorry, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here--we all think HEATHER was hard done by in the session with Pastor Cal, and that DEREK wasn't being held responsible for his plans to make things better?! He straight up said "I am committed to this. I want to find a way to make this work." while she Icequeen'd out next to him. Unless they cut it out of the episode, Derek never got the chance to speak freely to the pastor, which is totally unfair from a therapy/counseling perspective. Each person's needs and concerns are as valid as his or her partner's, so for her to get the full attention of the meeting turned it into a "Let's all brainstorm a way to placate Heather for another few weeks!" powwow. He's not perfect, he's not awesome, but Derek is completely right: she checked the eff out when she realized there was no chemistry, and it would save everyone a lot of time to let them cut their losses and run. It is completely irreparable at this point--I've been the one that has been checked out in a relationship and no amount of pastors or nights to sleep on it would have helped--and forcing them to "try" through the end of the 6 weeks is only going to result in miserable, offputting television.

<3 <3 Mariano <3 <3

Ok, can someone please correct me here? I swear that, when Carmela was stating the ages of her children, the *oldest* was 12...? Like, her answer was "12, 10, and 7" or something (numbers totally made up in this example, aside from the 12). Is she honestly "about to be a grandma" with her oldest kid being 12?! I'm no prude but that's.... yeah. I have to have misheard something because that's surely incorrect. Right? (please say yes.)

My league-winning team was named Mama's Prosecco. I was so delighted that everyone else thought it was as funny as I did when I suggested it.

I've never even been to Pennsylvania, but somehow I remarked to myself on the incorrect pronunciation of LANKister. There's a town we always drive past on road trips up north, Port Chester. I used to refer to it as just that: "Want to stop in Port Chester for breakfast?" or "We're just coming up to Port Chester so only a little longer until we're getting off." After 3+ years of this, my boyfriend finally snapped at me "It is PORCHister!!!! Not Port CHESTer, but PORCHester!!!" I could tell he felt so much better after he said it; sorry, homes, being raised on the West Coast, these regional pronunciational curiosities are totally new to me.

Did.... did Vince give a Howard Dean "HYAHHHH!!!!" in the club? Is that what that was? Like, did he just do an effing HOWARD DEAN bit? If so, props, though I doubt he was old enough to have that reference in the arsenal. In any case, he's just terrible (and possibly racist with the "Simone" and "Chantal" stuff....?). Gross.

Ok, I literally just created an account to give you a TREMENDOUS shout-out for this reference. When I realized they were going to be playing the same song over and over, possibly for the entire night, the Tiny Bubbles challenge was the very first thing that popped into my mind and I felt like a total weirdo because surely no one else on earth remembers silly crap like that. So, very happy to see your post! Those first 2 (3?) seasons of The Mole are possibly my favorite reality TV ever--such a smart, interesting, strange, intriguing show. It also doesn't hurt anything that it introduced me to my dear, sweet, wonderful, handsome TV boyfriend, Anderson. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm his type... ;)