Mumbles

You may have a reason if it’s along the lines why I can’t stand her which is....she thinks she’s hot, and uh, she’s not. I think last week she referred to her hotness as a hidden strength and I was all, bitch please. I watched the ep, was completely confused, came here, saw that I wasn’t insane (at least, not for *that* reason), have watched it again...it doesn’t get much clearer on a second viewing. Except that Morgan going on and on about how she loves Libby is painful in its irony.

At worst, they should just go watch the Rayburn eps and "reboot" those questions with current references. Yes! Those questions were funny in an absurd way. And not overtly smutty. Not to say that smutty questions can’t be funny, it’s just that the ones they’re using aren’t. I’m just getting around to the last episode and said to myself, she’s the Richard Dawson of this crowd....has the best instincts as to what the contestant is thinking.

Stephanie Ruhle did something cool today. All her guests were women. She said she did this because tomorrow is International Women’s Day and she wants to encourage her colleagues to book female guests tomorrow. As Ruhle pointed out, her guests spoke on all sorts of economic and political issues, not just ones that news programs trot out a woman to talk about, so there’s no excuse why women should not be more represented on news shows.

Lopez isn’t even a good singer. What were they gonna do, autotune her? There are loads of Latina singers who would kill in the role.

I’m just getting through this show on my DVR and I’m getting to the part where they crash the movie screening and what grates me is this theme of “Let’s deign to give the little-people rubes a little excitement by giving them a few minutes of our time.” They did it last year with the Hollywood tour people. Get over yourselves. Another observation I have from being able to watch this in small segments is wow, Meryl Streep’s husband is a pill or has somewhere else he wanted to be. Massive bitchface from him.

Well, it gave us the Porpoise Song, so it's got that going for it (used to great effect 30 years later in the movie "Vanilla Sky.")

Nothing she said was particularly novel or insightful. But we knew she was a fameball years ago when she wrote a book about how she told her kids their homemade Mothers Day cards were stupid and not as good as store-bought. Tiger Mom loves attention.

OMG. I don't watch Today on any regular basis but someone sent me a link to Kathie Lee singing that country song and it is so cringworthy, I went here to see if anyone was commenting on it. The way she stands there with her eyes closed and she's rocking from side to side....come on, nobody really sings like that. Plus the lyric is "I love you to death" which is creepy when you think of it and the way she overemotes when she sings "death" like she's having a special moment... I don't know how the crew kept a straight face.

There's a great book called "The Heir Apparent" by Jane Ridley, about Victoria's oldest son, who became Edward VII. It's long but good and is a good account of what it was like to grow up in that household. It also gives some background about Victoria and Albert.

Back when the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance” came out years ago, a film critic came up with the term “Magical Negro”, a minority character who exists not as a fully formed person but rather only to teach a white character a lesson or comfort them through a crisis. I was getting hints of that when little Sarah came in to comfort the crying Victoria. But that was countered somewhat by Mrs Forbes, who truly loved the little girl. The actors(Mrs Forbes and Sarah) did a great job conveying a real warmth. I also laughed a little because in movies and in TV (and often in life) there’s someone who goes overboard and loses their damn minds about Christmas. It is usually conveyed as a woman so I enjoyed that it was Albert. So I guess Lord Alfred is bisexual? I hope so! I would hate for that coupling to be just a facade.

I saw the headline that the actress from Notting Hill had died but just realized she was also Alice from the Vicar of Dibley literally five minutes ago. She was a fantastic “straight man” in those jokes! I noticed from IMDB she hadn’t worked much in recent years. Anyway given how much the British press is covering this she was well-loved.

She’s probably a work of fiction as she stands portrayed, but I love the duchess. Her warm sympathy toward Victoria about her postpartum depression, getting her a new puppy, and her kindness toward Lord Alfred - to let him learn the news privately and giving him the opportunity to process it away from others. And in her quiet acknowledgment that she was aware of their “fondness”, she was validating it.

Yikes. Makes me wonder if everyone in college debate has uptalk and vocal fry just like her.

Actually she wears it in some challenges out in the sun, like the Bahrain episode. Can’t fault her for wearing a hat in the sun, but I guess the poor little lamb couldn’t find another hat in the world without the Y on it. I mean the fact that the other teams call them Team Yale should tell us how they’ve presented themselves to the rest of the teams. Otherwise they would just be called “Debate Team.”

I wonder how long that’s going to last now that his family and friends have seen what a monster she is and how she treats him. My guess is no. Self-awareness does not seem to be a core efficiency of hers, to employ some of their management-speak. Yeah it was awful, especially given that the Olympics were on as you point out. And since kids like the show, they shouldn’t run episodes to 11pm.

How could have anyone endured listening to this bitch debate for any period of time? Given that it’s a team, I have to think she was carried by the team. Can you imagine some client listening to this bitch tell them how to improve their business?

Maybe but it would behoove her to adopt a less presumptive attitude. When you're lucky enough to meet truly smart people, it's amazing how many of them have an unassuming demeanors of people always willing to learn more and to acknowledge the limits of their knowledge. Read any random Nobel prize lecture. Sadly there is no Nobel for management consulting so we will never be treated to her Nobel lecture. Alas, all that wisdom about core competencies, team efficiencies, and PowerPoint tips lost to the world.

I just went to his feed. It's delightful. He treats his "audience" as his pals, tellling us what his dogs are up to. He makes references to Beyonce. He is dropping names of champions past that many of us have reminisced about here like the geeks we are. At one point he mentions Sarah Hughes is watching it with him. Lucky girl! Unfortunately he didn't live tweet the team stuff, or dancing, except to casually mention he did ice dancing and won some championship in the mid-1940s (which I didn't know!)

So apparently Dick Button is an avid Twitterer and was en fuego these past few weeks. I missed it! But I plan to catch up. https://slate.com/culture/2018/02/dick-buttons-figure-skating-analysis-an-appreciation.html These tweets are so...Dick Button. From casually name-dropping "Jerry" Robbins onward. He seems lively and insightful. At 88 maybe he wasn't up for a trip but it seems a shame that he's not on the air.

All this talk of Carolina reminded me how surprised I was to see Lori Nichol there. I didn't recognize her.

The commitment to choreography is what separates the last group of skaters from the rest. I was watching Gabrielle Daleman skate to Rhapsody in Blue, and it looked like her skating was totally disconnected from the music. It was if she was skating at a public rink and that music was being played in the background speakers. True she had a tough night, but still, jeez, keep it together for the step sequence at least.

Strange, right? This account came from them and not the show. Makes me wonder if it's not true and they don't want to to admit they auditioned for the show on their own, that would be so un-Yale. First off, I think most people like him just fine. Second, it is very irresponsible to compare any of this to a tragedy like a school shooting. Nobody wants anything bad to happen to them. It is just some venting about a snotty elitist attitude by a person a year out of school.

Psychologists say that bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists, because silvers always think how close they came to winning gold, but bronze medalists are thrilled they won a medal at all. Not sure if it’s true but Osmond looks over the moon and I’m happy for her. Would have given gold to Evgenia. Unrelated to that, she seems like more of a human being than Alina.

Interesting. Did the show force the uppity little Bitch to wear a Yale hat all the time?

There are plenty of people who have competed on this race with great credentials and had gone to good schools. (One of the Hippies had gone to Harvard). But the only people I know who made it part of their "thing" was that jerk Scott from last year (who bragged about going to Harvard for grad school) and Bitch here. Obnoxious little snot.