augmentedfourth

Local pedant alert: It was cute how Carisi mentioned that he had a cousin who lived up in Pearl River, back when it was known as Muddy Creek, but he missed it by a couple generations. My mother is 70, and by the time the family moved out of the city when she was in elementary school, it was definitely Pearl River by then. Even the local telephone exchange (remember those?) is PE. Ah, the Carisi family, always a random relative when you need one, regardless of how plausible it is. Someone else can figure out how he has a cousin who's at least in his 90s. ;) /Local pedant alert I think my bar is just set way too low for this show now, as most episodes this season have elicited the same reaction: "Eh, wasn't bad, I guess?" It became obvious way too quickly that Jules wasn't going to survive until the end of the episode. Wonder if we'll ever get a follow-up like "Closure". Stephanie March still looks fantastic, good for her. The only reason anyone gives even a fraction of a damn about Peter and his sister is because they're Ben Stone's kids. I agree with whoever said they're giving us too much too soon on the Stone family's personal life.

I think Connor had a couple lines (practically throwaway blink-and-you'll-miss-it lines) about how since they all still remember JFK being president, it was already pretty much set in stone that they would succeed in finding him and returning him to 1934, so a stable time loop. And this is one reason why most time-travel fiction makes me go cross-eyed at one point or another.

As I'm not a dog owner, I was wondering how harmful eating rabbit poop really is for dogs. I guess there are a lot of variables, and with a puppy so young, you probably don't want to chance much of anything. I agree with JJ's ruling, though, based on past ones - the plaintiff had the dog for two weeks in between getting the dog and putting it down, and had nothing to prove it wasn't healthy when she took it home. The highlight of the episode, though, was the old bat suing over her dead brother's (?) golf cart, who couldn't give a straight answer as to whether her daughter moved from Pennsylvania to Virginia in 2014 or 2017 (or anywhere in between). Yeah, that's a very difficult question. And then she started yelling at the end that the defendant didn't pay for the repairs to it. Who cares? You just told JJ that YOU DIDN'T. Is there a Kelley Blue Book for decades-old golf carts? :P

I can think of at least two instances in recent memory where I was in Venus's position, the light was clearly green when I entered the intersection, but it turned red when I was stuck right in the middle. Once was at a T-intersection, where I was making a left. Farther down the roadway, there was construction going on, so soon after I entered the intersection, everyone just...stopped. Luckily I just heard a lot of angry honking, which, where would you like me to go? The other...let me see if I can describe this clusterfuck I have to navigate about six times a week, as it is in between my house and my kids' preschool. Okay, the main intersection (which we'll call Intersection 1) is a 4-way intersection for two roads running north-south and east-west. Each side of the intersection has a straight lane, a left turn lane, and a right turn lane. Immediately to the east of Intersection 1 is Intersection 2. There's a road from the northeast and a road from the southeast that feed onto that east-west road. Northeast road and southwest road have stop signs at Intersection 2. If you're traveling westbound on east-west road, you have a stop sign, but if you're traveling eastbound, you don't. (Clear as mud, right?) Between Intersection 1 and Intersection 2, there's room for about 3 cars to safely fit in those three lanes, though obviously people are jerks and more often try to squeeze in. Yes, there's usually a lot of a backup at those stop signs, but I don't know what else can really be done there. So a few weeks ago, I went to pick up my kids from school, and was driving eastbound on east-west road. Green light at Intersection 1, no stop sign in my direction at Intersection 2, everything should be groovy, right? WRONG! A bus driver coming from southeast road just got tired of waiting at his stop sign, so he pulled up to stake his claim in line at Intersection 1, completely blocking everything at Intersection 2. Leaving me as the schmuck stuck in the middle of Intersection 1 when the light turned. I seriously thought I was going to die. The car two ahead of mine was finally able to inch around the %@&$-ing bus and I could at least get out of the middle of the road. There was a lot of honking and glaring and maybe an angry gesture or two directed at the bus driver. Sigh. I'm really surprised there aren't more accidents there, and I do try to avoid it whenever possible, but sometimes (like going to my kids' school), there just isn't another way.

When we were in Aruba a number of years ago, we got the same exact CBS feed as our local affiliate. (The NYC/tri-state area one, actually!) We'd go to the beach or do our excursions during the day, come back to the room to shower or nap or whatever, and then if we had some time before dinner, we'd watch the 4:00 episodes of JJ. Sometimes if we had late reservations, we'd watch a little of the 5:00 news for that little taste of home.

My speech-delayed 3 year old can clearly say Judge Judy, Wayne, and Drew. (Oh, and new car!) I'm not saying we watch CBS all day every day, because we don't, but she definitely knows the key players of the daytime lineup.

Hell, my husband and I have twin toddlers, and a lot of weeks, 10:00 - 11:00 is past OUR bedtime! We used to watch it live, but with the time slot move, we've been DVRing it and watching it on Mondays.

Another quick thought: They've been spending time revealing Wyatt's troubled youth and bad things he did over the past couple episodes. I wonder if, in this new timeline they've come back to where Jessica is alive and well (though maybe not quite happy), she's going to tell him that sometime in the "missing years" between when she died in the original timeline and present day in the current one, he did something really shitty to her. Which, of course, he'll have no memory of, but realize it wouldn't have been out of character for him. Then he's going to hate himself and more ANGST! will result. But Lucy will be there to pick up the pieces and assure him he's not a terrible person, blah blah blah.

Rufus is a treasure. Puffy heart love. There's totally going to be a Lucy/Wyatt time baby at some point. I predict the season finale. I knew Jessica's return was inevitable and was "meh" on it, but I have to admit, the way it played out at the end piqued my interest a little. She was NOT happy to see Wyatt, and that was an intentional shot focusing on her engagement ring. I like the theory another poster suggested where in whatever timeline they returned to, their marital problems just weren't able to be resolved, and she's just been living her life without him for the past couple years and he has no idea what transpired in her version of events. (But yeah, there's a pretty good chance she's going to wind up being Rittenhouse. Which, that's another "meh".) My take on the Jiya scenes was that clearly, there is something "wrong" with her, but it's some sort of time-related issue that current medical tests can't pick up. So she'll still have her seizures/visions, but today's doctors can't find a reason for it.

Every couple of episodes there's a sketch that is so completely random, I find myself laughing uncontrollably despite my better judgment. The Shrek sketch was one of those sketches. Everyone, especially Sterling K. Brown, just sold the hell out of it and it was unexpectedly hilarious. I even had to rewind a couple times to hear lines I missed. Heidi's Allison Janney impression was spot on. I hope she sticks around for a while, I've really been impressed with her this season. Sometimes I think Kyle is brilliant and other times I wonder how he even has this job. His bit this time, though it's worked for me in the past, fell into the latter category. I think I finally figured out that for me, he needs at least one other character to play off of to make his stuff work. (And interacting with the anchors on WU as his comedian character doesn't count, I can't stand him.)

This is why I thought the portrayal of Mia (up until around the second/actual rape) was pretty well done and a better handling of gray areas than this show has been known for lately. The issue of consent is a hot topic, and rightfully so. Even though she eventually confessed that she said yes to Ethan, did she *really* want to have sex with him in that moment? Of course, since she did say yes, legally it wasn't rape, but then there's a whole other can of worms to be opened with societal pressures/expectations, some men's attitudes of entitlement due to the culture they grow up in, and so on and so forth. The show didn't go that far, and we as a society certainly haven't even come close to unpacking all of that, so I'm going to stop there. However! All the "Oh, Mia, none of this is your fault!" and pats on the head did bug me after a while. Like Corvino said, I don't think Mia was a bad person who did something malicious, but she did do a very bad thing, and it would have been nice to see some acknowledgment of that on the parts of our protagonists. Even a simple "Yes, you made a serious mistake, but I love you anyway" from Carisi would have gone a long way. On to less serious business. My mother watches the show live (I catch up over the weekend) and she warned me about the Stone/Benson scenes. I don't even dislike Olivia as much as a lot of other people here, but when my mother speculated over whether they'll get together, my knee-jerk reaction was "Ugh, who HASN'T Olivia been with?" Bad, I know, but MamaFourth laughed and agreed.

I don't know, if we're being totally honest here (and of course, we're ALWAYS honest on the Judge Judy forums!), using bleach to write nasty words in someone's lawn is kind of an awesome way to convey your displeasure with them. I'm almost sorry we didn't get into that part of the case more. Bleaching a cheating ex-boyfriend's clothes seems so pedestrian and uninspired in comparison. Taking the time to write words on a lawn so 1) the whole world can see it and 2) your displeasure/handiwork will be there until it grows out or the owner pays to have it fixed (which obviously didn't/couldn't happen in this case) is on a whole new level. And I could be biased or way off base here, but from the little I did see, I'm not convinced the defendant did it. The plaintiff did stiff him, and even though his grammar left a little to be desired, he seemed like he had his act together and didn't appear unhinged. Who knows how many people the plaintiff has ticked off in the same way?

I'm torn on the whole Mark thing, with the last presenter. On one hand, it's well known that he doesn't approve of anything that hasn't been scientifically proven, and heck, I'll admit I've enjoyed watching him tear down some of the more annoying peddlers of woo. I might even put this just-graduated kid in that category of annoying people, because if he mentioned Princeton one more time, I was going to reach through the screen and smack him in the face. On the other hand, if he really did dominate the entire presentation for an hour, as Robert and Bethenny alluded to (and I can believe that), and didn't even get to the most basic questions such as "where are you selling?" and "what are your sales?", that really isn't fair to anyone else in the room, both presenters and other Sharks. He may be popular, but it's not The Mark Cuban Show. I've never seen any Housewives show in any iteration, but I'm not blind and deaf, so I'd heard all sorts of negative things about Bethenny over the years. Whenever she shows up somewhere, like on a talk show while I'm in a waiting room or something, I surprisingly don't hate her? I dunno. She's not my favorite guest shark, but her presence doesn't offend me, either.

DEAN WINTERS Y U YELL ALL UR LINES??? Seriously, though, why was he cranked up to 11 except for the last couple minutes? The whole episode, I was thinking "Didn't I like Cassidy at one time? Wasn't Dean Winters a good actor in other stuff too? What's going on?" The episode wasn't completely terrible, I guess. Points awarded to Cassidy for his drunken mockery of St. Olivia in the bar, and to Stone for not having any of SVU's shit (for now). Interesting that the victim's mother's kinda-boyfriend wasn't actually the killer, just a link in the chain. Usually whenever someone has a "throwaway" scene like that, it's because it's not a throwaway scene at all and they're actually the perp. Nice for them not to go for the obvious for a change. Doesn't Rollins have her own kid she can take out for pancakes? I had to laugh at the previews with Olivia telling Carisi that his credibility is at zero. HEY OLIVIA, REMEMBER THAT TIME LAST WEEK YOU HID YOUR MURDER SUSPECT EX-BOYFRIEND IN YOUR APARTMENT FOR TWO DAYS? AND ALSO, ALL THAT OTHER STUFF OVER THE YEARS? Sorry for all the all caps in this post, but man. This show sometimes.

I finally got all caught up with this week's episodes. With the dog fight case, at first I thought JJ was being a little harsh with the defendant from the get go, as she appeared to have her act together more than a lot of other litigants, and at first, I wasn't convinced she was lying. Then as the case progressed, she revealed herself to be such an utter piece of work, I'm surprised JJ didn't rip her apart even more. Yeah, continually shouting out that you don't owe the plaintiff anything is really going to go well for you when you've already agreed to abide by the show's judgment. As everyone already covered, the hallterview was just as bad, if not worse. "All dogs fight! And you're responsible for your dog's vet bills after a dog fight!" THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS. THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS.

You know who I question more? The lawyers who show up as litigants. I don't think I've ever seen a case where it went well for one. For example: yesterday's guy who clearly didn't specialize in contract law, and had to admit in front of however many million people that he'd been temporarily disbarred at least once. I bet that will really attract future clients.

Oh yeah, that's the part that mystified me, too. To the point where I wondered if the plaintiff would/should get more than the $400 and change he gave the sleazy defendant. How does that work? If I leave my car at a shop I believe to reputable for a day or to, does that mean any Joe Schmo off the street can put a lien on it? Everything else has been covered nicely. When I saw that group of pasty thug wannabes, all I could think was "god, I'm glad I'm not in high school anymore". Though my longest high school boyfriend did look like the love child of Sacha Baron Cohen and Michael Phelps. I don't blame Natalie for not being tempted by this free trip to California. I'm also glad JJ made the defendant/current boyfriend clarify the dates he'd been dating her, because with what he originally said, it sounded like Natalie was dating both him and wiseass plaintiff's friend at the same time. And poor Natalie's honor already got a little bit of a ding, we wouldn't want to make it any worse.

WTF did I just watch today? One defendant casually tosses out that her ex-boyfriend (sitting on the plaintiff's side) pimped her out when she was underage. Another defendant mentions that his wife was murdered practically as a throwaway line. Neither of those had much to do with the actual cases? I have no idea. (At least I followed the murdered wife case a little better than the pimp case.) Then some slightly odd-looking people were arguing over their barter arrangement involving an antique truck, an antique table, and a refrigerator of unknown vintage? I have a bad head cold. I can't sort this shit out. Bonus points, though, for the kid who tried to submit his bike accident through his car insurance. After approximately a bajillion litigants who don't even have insurance, I think JJ appreciated that he at least tried.

Though it wasn't specified, I'd be willing to bet money that the reason Creepy Walter rejected all five (five!) of the potential replacement roommates the defendant brought to him was none of them were attractive single women. And I bet the defendant chose those potential replacements wisely and is a good person for not foisting a new Pretty Young Thing onto him so she could cut and run faster. I believe everything she said about his hot tub invitations and how they included specific mention of a bikini. I felt the same way, because I was in an extremely similar situation when Hurricane Sandy hit. Our eastern neighbor's tree fell onto our property, taking out the power lines, our lampposts, and the windshield of my car. (Just missed the house, though!) A tree on our property fell onto the western neighbor's property, destroying a section of their fence and their entire shed. We all cleaned up whatever was on our own properties and filed our own insurance claims. This was a few months after we bought our house, and when we moved in, we had a tree service come and evaluate all our tree. The one that fell was perfectly healthy, but I guess we would have had some liability if it wasn't. (And we didn't see proof either way on the JJ case.) We actually asked around to find out if we'd be liable for anything if the western neighbors pushed it, because while we get along with them, the wife's mother can be a bit of a pill. (Starting on the very first day we moved in and she came up, banged on our door, and told me I had parked too close to her car and she needed to leave. Even though I was parked in front of my house. And she was parked in front of her daughter's house. And there was no one behind her. Yeah.) At one point, the mother confronted my husband and my father when they were outside and screamed at them for not being neighborly and not offering to cover any of the damage, and she couldn't understand how they were able to look anyone in the eye because of it. (Remember, we had damage to our property, too, and didn't flip our shit on the other neighbors.) We like to think that our neighbor/daughter either doesn't know what her mother gets up to, or if/when she finds out about it, is all "oh my god, Mom, you did WHAT?!?"

There was pretty much no way the plaintiffs were going to be able to prove that the defendants used the spray incorrectly. Even if he had worked in pest control in the past, short of having video of him preparing to spray his tree, they couldn't prove that 1) he didn't dilute it*, and/or 2) he flagrantly disregarded the instructions on the packaging (which they didn't even have with them). And of course a hazmat team showed up in full gear, considering that when they called 911, at that point, they didn't know what they were dealing with. Them showing up having taken every precaution to prevent themselves from an unknown substance proves absolutely nothing. (*There was so much talking over one another going on, I didn't hear if the defendant said this or not.) So yeah, this was most likely about the cats. Which, I still side with the defendants on. Having someone's pet in my yard once or twice is an accident. Having them be a constant presence is another. We've got a ton of dogs in our neighborhood, and in the six years we've been here, only two have been a problem. So far, "neighborly chats" have seemed to keep things under control. (Incidentally, another neighbor -- not the problem owner of a problem dog -- has said he would prefer everybody in the neighborhood not use pesticides because he thinks it's bad for his dog. He has gone ignored.)

Oh, thank god, I thought I was the only one thinking of Austin Powers during that hot mess of a case. "Mole... Mole... MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY, MOLEY!!!" I'm not even going to touch on Summer and her sexual predator uncle who has such disdain for her sister-in-law for daring to have her life together enough to care for all those kids.

The wannabe author case was at least something new and exciting, and kind of fun. I agree with whoever said JJ's decision was essentially correct, but she didn't come off as well-versed in the publishing world as she probably thought she did. The $5000 title page was hilarious, though. I get what the defendant was trying to get across, and it's entirely possible she was 100% right about the plaintiff not being available and not providing the necessary materials. I think what it came down to, though, was that it was just a crappy contract. My impression was that either she on her own or she and the plaintiff came up with the contract together (or swiped one from the internet, or did a pick 'n' choose from several templates), and it wasn't until things started going south that she thought that it was a good idea to go over the contract with a more knowledgeable third party. Instead of, you know, getting the contract advice first, which would have been the smart thing to do, but then we wouldn't have a show. Crappy as it may have been, she signed it and was bound to it, so she technically didn't hold up her end of the deal. I also agree with whoever suggested it would have been wise for the defendant to say look, this isn't working out, let me refund you most, if not all of your money and we'll part ways. I knew someone here would do the research on who the plaintiff was/what she did before I got here. I won't comment on whether or not there's an audience for her memoirs. However, I did have to laugh as it reminded me of my high school boyfriend who always fancied himself as an ARTISTE, and decided to start writing his memoirs at the ripe old age of 19. He emailed me (from his theatre school) to ask if I wanted to take a look, and I said sure, why not. Basically, most of it was about how for all of high school, including the year we were dating, he was in love with his best friend who had no romantic interest in him. Good times. Really riveting stuff that millions of people would want to read about. He's trying to make his way in the world of independent film now. And still waiting tables, of course.

No discussion for the grinning idiots who mooched off of Male Grinning Idiot's mother and stepfather for a while? Male Grinning Idiot had one of the most punchable faces I've seen on this show in a while. He also seemed to have trouble keeping his head upright, making me wonder if his idiotic grin had something to do with a large quantity of some sort of substance. However, I nearly fell over in shock when he told JJ he was 37. I guess a life of not working and just mooching off people keeps you young. I agree that JJ whiffed on the e-signature case. If the rental company is coming after the daughter, they must have SOMETHING, otherwise she could just turn around and say "Screw you, you can't make me pay this." And e-signatures have totally been a thing for quite some period of time, in many different iterations. I'm a court reporter by day and trashy smut-writer by night, so I've e-signed tons of things in different ways. In no particular order: - One publisher I work with does PDF contracts. As a previous poster described, I made a graphic with my signature and can just stick it in the PDF where required. Done! - Every. single. transcript. I produce needs my signature on it. Back in the day, court reporters actually had to whip out a pen and physically sign something (they might still have to in some places), but just about everything's electronic now. In a slightly better version of the first example, apparently there's some company out in California (?) that does something with verifying e-signatures. I forget the exact details, but all I know is that about five years ago, I just had to sign the paperwork my boss gave me (I might have had to have someone else notarize it?), she sent it off, and then they sent her the necessary files and certifications where she can just plug in my signature at the end of every transcript after I email it to her. - My boss at another agency wasn't quite as particular. He had me print out my certification page that goes at the end, sign it, re-scan it, and email it to him so he'd have it to add to the transcripts. Hey, whatever works! So yeah, definitely not some crazy new technology or anything. I hope the daughter 1) wins in another court, 2) cuts dear old Dad out of her life, and 3) puts all her personal information on lockdown and constantly monitors it because if it worked once, he will absolutely try it again.

Yes, they still exist, and they were a godsend in the car. But what I would have paid an exorbitant amount of money for is if someone invented a force field or something that surrounds a crib and could bounce that pacifier back up whenever it got dropped or flung out. Sometimes I had another one handy, but other times I'd be crawling around in the dark trying to fish it out of the farthest corner.... I liked the clothing from Africa and thought the presenter came across well. Too bad she didn't get a deal (and I agree that Daymond's excuse sounded a little far-fetched). Everything else...meh.

Yes, this bugged the hell out of me, too. I get that the victim was traumatized by being forced to work so closely with her rapist. I get that we should absolutely be repulsed whenever anyone says, "Women are too emotional to do XYZ." (And I certainly am.) But putting those two things side by side didn't gel well and they kind of cancelled each other out. Speaking of what the victim did on the plane - I will admit to having zero experience with anything related to flying a plane, but if she was the co-pilot and had trained for tons and tons of hours...even if her intention was to just turn around and land back at JFK, wouldn't she have been able to do it a little more gracefully than that? Like, she'd locked the door and should have had all the time in the world, couldn't she have just made a big loop and not go flinging the passengers all over the place? I don't know. I guess it's another thing that didn't fit together for me, "women can be competent pilots!" vs. "as soon as a woman touched the controls, everything went to hell". Sigh. Do I have to turn in my liberal feminist card if I think this episode mostly sucked? I resent this show for making me think that. :P I suppose I agree with the overall message, but as always, the delivery was abysmal.