Thrifty

Every single person who ever looks bad on reality television always says this.

My sisters, who have to economize because they have kids, shop at Goodwill a lot. I probably would too but I find them too disorganized. Plus I'm a big guy and can't find stuff in my size.

Apparel stores in general confuse me. I go to any shopping mall and see a ton of them. J. Crew, Abercrombie and Fitch, Forever 21, The Gap... just to name the ones off the top of my head. Why these exist confuses me, I think, because I'm a guy and not a particularly fashionable one. I get all my clothes at Walmart or Target. Sometimes I'll get funny t-shirts off various web sites, and sometimes in souvenir shops.

I saw some of this in a supermarket when I was living in Virginia briefly last year, but I couldn't bring myself to buy it. The flavors all looked gross. It doesn't help that I despise tea.

This is reminding me of the 2009 movie. A plague turned most of the people of the world into vampires. 10 years into it, society basically functions okay as a world full of vampires, but there are so few remaining humans left that the supply of human blood is critically low. Vampires who go too long without human blood first turn feral and vicious. Later they mutate into this things that look like giant bats. The plot centers around two factions. One is a vampire who works with a group of humans to find a cure. The other is a vampire run corporation that is trying to find a synthetic substitute for human blood.

Would the U.S. military bombing one of its own cities even be legal? A president who tried to authorize this would probably be impeached and removed from office. Then possibly brought up on war crimes charges. Really what they need to do is treat this like any other outbreak, such as the real life Ebola outbreak in Africa a few years ago. Get all the best and brightest minds, and plenty of resources, on finding a cure. Quarantine if necessary. The thought of criminals using intentional zombie infection to improve their devious doings is scary. And no I do not trust Fillmore-Graves' private mercenary army (you know... the guys who intentionally started this outbreak) to handle that.

I've never heard of a disability that you could pass on to other people by scratching them. The highly infectious nature of this makes it a disease.

Exactly. Containment of a contagious disease is not something you just cross your fingers and hope happens. I personally think the U.S. military needs to be involved in shutting down Chase Graves' vigilante army and the CDC needs to step in to contain the outbreak. Ravi needs to be brought on board with them to bring his expertise to bear in finding a cure. That was epic stupidity of Ravi taking his vaccine, having Liv scratch him, and hoping it works. What happened to all his lab rats?

At the very least, the CDC and the full apparatus of the United States government has GOT to come down hard on containing this. Establish a strong quarantine around Seattle. There's no simpler way to put this: an outbreak of a dangerous and highly contagious disease has infected thousands of people in Seattle. It's sort of like HIV or Ebola or some of the more deadly influenza outbreaks. Except worse. Those diseases, when untreated, leave the victim weaker until they eventually die. Zombie virus makes them stronger and more dangerous. It never actually kills the victim.

That was such a sad episode. The bad guys won, and the zombies got to infect an untold number of innocent people with an incurable virus. They never explained who stole Ravi's doses of the cure. I guess the plot fairies took it so that the show could continue.

That seemed like a strange episode to me. For the first half, it seemed like barely a business. It seemed like two homeless guys making acoustic equipment out of a shack. It felt like a charity case, especially when Marcus got them into that townhouse.

I didn't know that beforehand, but people did explain it to me later. I guess I can't fault them for going with the regional norm. I just think the regional norm is gross. I strongly prefer Texas or Kansas City style, smothered in BBQ sauce. There is a place a block away from my office that makes heavenly pulled pork. I think you would need someone who likes that Carolina kind of taste to give a more objective view on the quality of the pulled pork.

I've seen that feature on my computer screen, but I don't see it on my TV.

I don't know why exactly, but after seeing the 2nd episode I have a strong desire to by a Toyota Rav4.

So given that the owner's main problem was lack of focus, I am pessimistic about his long term success after the show. Without Marcus there to discipline him, he could easily fall back into old habits. There was a business a few seasons ago that did.... something... but I can't remember. Except the owner had big one story building with a basketball court, and like 3 or 4 unrelated other businesses. Marcus got him a little more focused, but by the followup he had managed to screw it all up and go back to his old shenanigans. I wish I could remember which episode this was. I am envious of Michael's charisma. I wish I could be even half that outgoing and charming.

This was one of the few Marcus Lemonis businesses I visited. I was living in northern Virginia for a while in early 2016 and got this overwhelming urge to visit "South of the Border" a notable tourist trap just off I-95 on the border between the Carolinas. Well, Shuler's is only about 20 miles further south, so I added a visit there to my itinerary. I was underwhelmed. There was one buffet table for food, one for desert. There wasn't that much food, and what they had all felt like stuff at a backyard barbecue. The pulled pork tasted awful and vinegary. The biscuits were small. The gift shop was nice, as was the view. The building itself is on a kind of desolate side road, so their success has to be due to a reputation that brings people around (I think I drove almost 400 miles to get there). At any rate, it's a pretty mediocre place.

That's right. I keep forgetting that German army and Nazi were different groups, although there was overlap. I heard a story once from a Holocaust survivor who said that, while in Auchwitz, he befriended a German army officer who did what he could do help the prisoners.

Why would you think it was faked? It was established that Michael gets sidetracked easily, and that people ask for his help. Do you think they found her, said "Hey, go out there and bug Michael about something! We need good footage!" and that she would otherwise never do that? I think the cameras were running constantly, collecting dozens and dozens of hours of footage, and that this happened organically and they decided to put it in because it would make good TV.

Aren't you supposed to think unsexy thoughts?

No room for Blaine. They had to service the other 143 plotlines. How did Harley Johns know where Major's big party would be? Was it Natalie who was caught in the explosion? I can't keep track of all the skinny white women with dark hair that Major hangs out with. The preview for next week implies that the explosion didn't kill the zombies. The damage might make them go feral and start spreading the infection.

You're probably right. An animal backed into a corner becomes dangerous, and I think that's what the whole Fillmore-Graves zombie island is supposed to illustrate. I really would prefer that someone get the CDC involved. Ravi is, instead, taking efforts to hinder the CDC.

That reminds me; I really need to go find some episodes of Hogan's Heroes. I have been morbidly curious about how someone does a sitcom about prisoners of war in a Nazi camp. I never got around to checking it out though.

So my UO is that I really hate Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson. She lied about what was going on in the prison, calling it a "peaceful demonstration", while they were torturing and humiliating hostages to extort the authorities. Then when it all actually works, she unilaterally sells out everyone else in the prison because they won't give in to her impossible demand for revenge on Bailey.

Hmm? When was Piper's sentence extended? It was mentioned on one episode that she only has 3 months left. It's never really made clear how much time has elapsed over the course of the series.

Yeah it was stupid, but they're stupid. So it seemed like a good idea to them. I think this is what the writers are going for. That relationship is just so weird and wrong. I like it. It's something new and original and interesting.