RealityGal

As Jack Donagee once said on "30 Rock" sometimes you have to go "into the crevasse" in order to succeed. I understand 2-3 day challenges cost more money, but the current situation IMO is the alternative. Fewer talented designers, crappier designs, designers terrified to take a risk and just sending boring stuff down the runway. I think there is a chance that PR will start to lose viewers because the one thing that was the most important was the runway show. Without a cool as hell runway show, its just drama, and I have many Real Housewife options to choose from if all I want is drama (and please believe, I do love some drama on PR, but I want to see amazing fashion walk down the runway!) I think if they "went into the crevasse" of spending more money on the 2 day challenges they would get more viewers in the coveted demographic, and then they could charge more for ad revenue. They need to know, I will draw the line at a Payless accessory/shoe wall, and a Wal Mart hair and makeup studio

I felt like 2-3 day challenges were the norm, and one day challenges (with more time) were the exception. I can always remember the designers groaning at a one day challenge because they weren't the norm, now they are pleased as punch to have two day challenges. Now - I know I'm going to be in the minority here. And I can appreciate it, and please, all of you pelt me with your hate and snark. Mentally, I have put on my snark/hate raincoat (in my mind, it looks a lot like Sandaya's pinwheel coat) so I'm ready......... But, I actually wouldn't mind seeing them take some elements from Fashion Star. Actually, just one. I would like to see high end retailers weigh in on the designs, and have some sort of mechanism in place for having them available in a ready to wear format. Three retailers, maybe like a Nordstroms, Lord & Taylor, and maybe an online retailer like Zappos or something. Maybe it would be another iteration of PR. Maybe like a Project Runway: Ready to Wear or something, I'm not sure. But I like the idea, because first, it would give the show more money/budget, and they could bring back the 2-3 day challenges. Second, I like that it connects the audience more solidly with the show. Third, it allows for the designers to get into stores and get exposure in a very real way, instead of the derivative way its done now (show at NY Fashion Week, and hope that exposure turns into people buying your clothes). Fourth, I think if done correctly, it can create a buzz for the show that they haven't had in a long time, which can bring back higher end judges. Fifth, I think it will force the designers to design for real women, because they will have to consider the real woman in their designs, because the stores will want to have a design that can fit a variety of women, not just 6 foot glamazons. Sixth, the designers can get a real world perspective from actual buyers who are in the business of selling to the public, which I think is invaluable. Eighth, I think if done correctly it can attract higher end sponsors, especially through cross promotion, if I'm L'oreal, MUFE, MAC, Urban Decay, Ojon, or any other high end brand and I can be featured in an in-store ad in Nordstrom or Lord & Taylor, right there at point of purchase, in a situation where people are already geared towards buying I'm a happy camper, not only are my products being featured on a national TV show, but now I'm getting advertisting at a point of purchase. As much as Fashion Star sucked absolute monkey balls....and it absolutely sucked all the monkey balls in so many ways, almost every winning design sold out online, or you couldn't find it in the store after a few days. And that was even at Saks where the stuff was wildly overpriced and not even that good. I think Fashion Star just had so many things wrong (the team approach, the mentors [you'll never convince me Jessica Simpson, or Nicole Richie are really designers in the same way DVF or Elie Tahari, or Betsey Johnson are], the ridiculous runway with "song of the day" tie in and Hula dancers and shit, the fact that seriously, no one with any real talent was cast) that the few things the show did right were hard to see.

Mally Mal absolutely knows he is on TV. Stringing along two dumb, but "pretty" broads*. He is probably getting all sorts of congratulations from other men for making these two look like morons on national TV. And I gotta hand it to him, he is not a good looking man, but he has these two golddigging dummies tied up in knots over him. * - I use this term loosely because I think Nikki looks like a dude, and Masaka has a lot of forehead

I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but most law school classes have one big test. A midterm is optional, and might be like 15% of your grade, but most of your grade will rest on the final exam. And there is generally only one. And it makes sense, the final is generally pretty writing intensive, and so having to grade 100+ writing intensive exams would be tough. In my school, the TA's don't do any of the test grading (and I would raise a ruckus if they did) so its all on one professor to read and grade 90+ exams. However, I think the immunity idol could be a "get a free A in my class" thing. And it would make sense, ostensibly, if you have worked hard enough to get the idol, you've probably written extensively and applied criminal law theories amazingly well in a real world setting, thus proving you have the best knowledge of the subject and deserve the A. But, since the show doesn't seem to be overly invested in an accurate portrayal of law school (and thus giving me priceless opportunities for some snark) I imagine that the immunity idol means that they will show them taking 2-3 exams.

You're right, but would it be what you would learn in a first year criminal law course? On the first day? Not in mine. It wasn't until I got to Evidence that we covered impeaching witnesses. Actually, I can't remember the context of "bury the evidence" but excluding evidence is also a valid trial strategy, but we covered that in Evidence & Constitutional Criminal Procedure, not first year Criminal Law.

Okay, I'm only about 1/2 an hour in, but I got notes 1. Hazel - E - Calling someone a "has been" is a pretty strong statement from a "never was"....I'm just sayin' 2. Nia could have her own show called "unfortunate edges" or maybe "when topknots go wrong." 3. Nikki - promise ring? You realize thats a mans way of just getting dumb broads to stop pestering them about marriage right? Its not some sort of magic ring that means you lay special claim to him. 4. Tierra Marie - first off, that butterfly song isn't good. Second - you did not have a tattoo removed! Please stop saying that, adding additional tattoo is the exact opposite of tattoo removal you dummy! 4b. Tierra Marie - LMAO at "I didn't know Hazel was moving?" Really? You didn't get a call from the producers telling you to get your ass back to your apartment so they could capture that manufactured moment? The producers didn't call you a town car to pick you up, because for some reason you can't drive or don't have a car? Come on now. You just mysteriously got a town car and showed up when Hazel was walking her very last box to the moving truck? Really? But more to the point, if Hazel wasn't paying you any money and you didn't need her, why are you mad she is moving? I would be delighted! Now you can either get a roommate that can pay half the rent, or you can just have a place to yourself! 5. Moniece - dear me....where do I even begin. First, stop it with the fucking crocodile tears, furiously dabbing your eyes doesn't convince me you're crying. when you can stop crying on a dime so you can behave like a bitch again that tells me all I need to know. And no bitch you're not supposed to worship the ground Amanda walks on, you're supposed to be a mother to your fucking child, or at least respect the woman who is mothering your child when you refuse! And good on Fizz for calling her out on having new shoes when she "can't contribute" financially or even give her time to her son. She has time and money to get new shoes and to get her hair done. And she has the audacity to seriously blame her bad parenting on Fizz not answering her midnight phone calls? Furthermore, if you're emotionally exhausted, stop picking fights with people! That is the easiest way to not fight is to stop picking fights! 6. Soula Boy - this asshole has to be the worst liar on the planet Earth. That was a "surprise party?" People just broke into your house in the middle of the day without you knowing and threw you a party? No one you know has a job? Where is the birthday cake? Having said that, Nia can stop with the naggy thing. Clearly, you know this isn't a guy that wants to celebrate his birthday with your cooking and a baby. Come on now, he doesn't seem like that sort even if it was his child. A birthday party should be about doing what the person whose birthday it is wants to do. He was doing what he wanted to be doing to celebrate his birthday, so there is no cause to nag, just get your child and leave. 7. Apryl and Masika - listen, I'm gonna need to call a moratorium on princess headbands in the middle of the day. Not a one of you bitches is Princess Jasmine, so just stop. 8. Omarion - ITA with him about his mother. There was a certain charm to Momma Dee from the jump, and Omarion's mother just doesn't have that charm. She just sounds like a bitter bitch, more of a Momma Joyce, than a Momma Dee. To expect that her financial needs come before her future grandchild's? Say what? And if she doesn't have income, she needs to get on ObamaCare for her treatments. It's sad to me that she is really expecting him to pay her way in life, even if it means less for his own children. 9. Next week! - more drink throwing, more fighting! No drink is safe around these people! Hooray! More degradation of Hazel-E.....its tough, but man, unless the previews are misleading, the man is basically begging you to get lost. I feel sad for her, Young Berg has a giant head and is not attractive. hazel is not a pretty girl, but she could do better.

Yeah, we had a seating chart that we filled in after we picked our seats. I can't imagine having assigned seats the first day, because I like to sit in the dead middle of the classroom, and have shown up extremely early to get that seat. And it has to be the dead middle. I would be bummed to be in a huge class and have to be in the front corner. I don't want to spend an hour looking up the professors nose. But I think having a practicing attorney teaching a first year class is bound to be a disaster. I had two amazing professors for contracts and criminal law in my first year. The criminal law professor was a dedicated professor, and so she taught in a very cohesive, deliberate way. It was very helpful to me, because I felt like I wanted a good foundation, and thats what, IMO, the casebook, and studying the cases is meant to give you. I think the finesse and practice tips can only come when you have the foundation down pat. Now my contracts professor was amazing, funny as hell, and cool as shit. But he was a practicing attorney, and in about 80% of cases we would discuss, he would circle back and tell us how the case didn't at all reflect how things were done in practice. It confused the shit out of me, because I would read the casebook, understand it, and feel like I was building a good foundation, but then he would come back and muddy the waters by telling me that that case wasn't really how law was practiced. the only thing they have learned so far is mens rea, actus reus, and that they should bury evidence. I'm hoping the bar exam is flexible in their state. I'm sure Professor Keating is the bomb dot com at the law school, but I can tell you right now, professors all love to feel important, and if a torts professor at my law school got the idea that someone even suggested their class was less important, there would be much hell to be paid.

what happens in the tea cups, stays in the tea cups.

Ken Burns is the bomb dot com

I think more 2-3 day challenges will bring a more talented pool of designers. If I were a talented, young (or older) designer looking to make a name for myself I would probably run from PR at this point. PR should be a showcase for super talented fashion designers. The prize is great, but even if you don't win the Lexus, you should be able to know that you got to display the best of your design talent to the world. 1 day challenges are set up for designers to just fail, and so if I were a talented designer I wouldn't want to carry the big risk of not only having no time to produce anything amazing, but the distinct and very real risk of having so little time that you have to send something shitty down the runway. And then people only know you for being responsible for sending shit down the runway on national TV. A serious, talented young designer may simply decide its not worth the risk, especially because with one day challenges as the norm, you'll never really be able to put anything spectacular down the runway and you run the risk of sending something truly shitty down the runway.

Thus far my plan has been to give myself up to the zombies early, and hope to earn a good position in the new zombie government. But I like your plan better!

This has nothing to do with fashion, but Santino is a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race :) ETA: what am I talking about?? Drag Race is all about fashion!

Well....this woman is that shallow. But seriously, if I'm on a shoe chase, its not going to include a Marshalls. Because, I'm just gonna say it. The shoes they carry are fucking ugly. There, I said it. And yeah, its just my opinion, and I know I'm stating my opinion like a gospel fact, and I know thats an asshole move. But its just true. The shoes there are truly the leftovers that no one can sell anywhere else. So, Marshalls can go suck it, even when I go to their stores that they claim are "shoe paradises, or shoe megastores or whatever" I'm bowled over by how truly unattractive the shoes are. If you're dying for a shoe go to DSW or Off Broadway shoes or even Nordstrom Rack (although lately...meh). If you're dying for designer shoes just use the internet (beware of paying full price for knockoffs, but 6pm.com, Zappos, Shoebuy, and generally most Amazon retailers). Marshall's prices on their shitty shoes aren't even that great.

The police stopped her for the curfew, or on the pretense of a curfew at least, but I think at some point they were resolved to kill her. The lead guy didn't seem mad that she got shot, only that it was done in public. I'm assuming he was on the rebels side because of what he said about people getting paid a peso a day to work in a sugar cane field (and at that point, she could have mustered up some sort of sympathy, I mean, that does kinda suck). I wonder if they weren't just going to drag her someplace and try to do it quietly.

Little Nucky and Little Eli on the beach got me misty eyed. To see so much, and have none of it, the pain of it. Damn those believable child actors! I would guess to jar the audience. I know I felt like Van Alden go out of his jam, and that seemed like the jammiest of jams. Even though I get that Cuba is changing, I totally didn't see Sally's death until it happened. Right up until she got shot I thought she was gonna walk off into the woods/fields and find a way back home. I guess maybe they wanted to remind us that BE is not a show afraid to kill off big characters, so never feel comfortable!

Thats a good point/question. My only thought would be that when Cullen had his first family, he was fully invested, he was happy, the war hadn't happened yet. He went into that family happy and loving. The war and whatever happened broke him, and so I don't ever think he was fully invested in the Naomi family to the point where he would be as shattered as he was by the loss of the first. BUT, I think it would break him in two if Naomi and William were to die. I don't think it can go down like that. I think its different when people leave vs. dying. If Elam had simply decided, way back before the bear attack, that he wanted to take Eva, leave and live somewhere else, I think Cullen would have managed fine. But that Elam died (and at his hand) really tore at him. And I think he was far more attached to Elam than he is to Naomi/William. So, I think the two of them dying wouldn't work at all for Cullen, but I think that maybe the two of them resolving (at Naomi's insistence, because Cullen won't shirk his responsibility) that Naomi and William forge a life in the Mormon camp, and it would be better if Cullen just lets them move on....I think he'll be fine with that. While Cullen may not be Mormon, I think he would realize that his child would be well cared for and loved and that Naomi would be happy, and better off without him because he is so broken.

I hate that that is what the standard workplace has become in America. I don't think your situation is entirely unique at all. When I was a claims adjustor it was always that way and it stressed me out so much it would make me ill. Coming back from a vacation just meant I had shitloads of work to come back to. There was too much work and too few people, and no one seemed much inclined to remedy the situation. I love America, but somehow in a lot of other countries they seem to get a solid 6 weeks of vacation and their economies aren't all falling down around them.

I don't know, and I can't know for sure, but I feel like Mormons may have different rules, especially back then, when it came to marriage, divorce and moving past a man that no one in the community thought was good for you. Maybe after a few years she can get some sort of annulment and be free to marry again. Her family seems to want William as their own son, so they could take him, raise him as their own and she could be free to marry again. The look of resigned disdain at the end of the last episode certainly made it seem as though she doesn't think Cullen is coming back. I mean even if everything were to run perfectly, building the railroad is going to take years, and she isn't sure he has plans to come back. So maybe she tries to use whatever is available in the faith to make herself a free woman again. I get the impression Cullen would not be opposed to something that gets him out of that situation so easily.

all of the above + sex = hit show!

Did you see anyone in a red romper? Or a green plaid majorette outfit? Because maybe I was all wrong and this is all really what real women want to wear.

ugh...Helen :(

Thats how real women want to look nowadays yo' Just kidding, I actually thought her dress was one of the better ones, so prepare yourself.

I have theorized that the decline of PR had everything to do with making a majority of the challenges one day challenges, and I still think that may be true. 1. If you have a one day challenge, no one wants to take a risk. Risks on PR either payoff amazingly well on the runway, or they flop horribly on the runway. But generally to get something amazing and out of the norm, you gotta take a risk. With a two or three day challenge, if a risk doesn't pay off, you have some time to fix it and at least produce something that...while not amazing, can at least be safe. So now, most every contestant just aims to make something that will keep them safe. 2. Because there are no risks in order to win a challenge, you don't have to produce something shockingly good, only something that is well sewn and constructed. It doesn't have to be shockingly good and original. You don't have to have it walk down the runway and just blow everyone away. Because few of the contestants, and I would think few designers in the world, can sew that fast you don't see design come to life anymore on the runway and just blowing your mind. Now you see someone win who just sewed an outfit really, really well, and even that person doesn't want to take a risk. This means that the entire bar is set lower, if winning only means you have to produce something that is only well constructed, but not particulary a novel design then everyone else gets in line under that just to be safe. 3. Because the show doesn't produce groundbreaking exciting work anymore, it doesn't create the same buzz that it used to (IMO). That means that you don't have people in the fashion industry clamoring to be on a show. If its basically a show about refined mall clothing, a guest judge in the fashion industry doesn't get any special "reputational" or "coolness" points for judging the show. 4. Because you don't have cool guest judges anymore, because the show isn't producing the same groundbreaking, interesting fashion work that it did when it started, its slipping into the Fashion Star demographic. That means high end sponsors like L'oreal, MUFE, Lord and Taylor, and BlueFly aren't interested anymore. The show used to have a more aspirational, cool feel to it. Like I knew I wasn't going to wear any of the clothing, but it was chic, cutting edge clothing, and so the brands that sponsored it could use that vibe to appeal to the audience. It was a way for people like me (normal folk) to get an inside view of cutting edge fashion design and the beauty it could create. Now you're getting sponsors that honestly, are more geared towards the Fashion Star demographic - Red Robin, Mary Kay, Yoplait. I feel like Philip B (I'm not sure if Philip B is high end, I've never heard of it) and even Aldo didn't know what they were getting into. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If they want to improve the show, and bring it back to its former glory, I think that they need to bring back the 2-3 day challenges. If I were a young, hip designer, I might not even want to be on Project Runway. While you can win a lot of money, given the crazy time constraints, you have a much, much, much better chance of being in a position to send some shitty version of your work down the runway, and now you're going to be known as "the designer that sent shitty design x down the runway" which can probably ruin a reputation. Some of Unicorn Tim's sustainable work is very pretty, but after seeing him on PR would you ever take him seriously? Miranda as well, would you ever be interested in hiring her? A young designer who is serious about their craft has to be concerned that being on PR might really hurt their career. Personalities matter, but they matter much less when you are sending awesome work down the runway. While I was in the minority, I loved Sandro (my little crazy Ruski!), but I also loved his work, no matter how much the judges hated it. People have said Christian Siriano was a jerk, but he produced beautiful clothing. Because he had the chance to, if he had just been a bitchy man, and sent shit down the runway, his career would have been in serious jeopardy. So, I wonder if really amazing designers simply aren't auditioning for PR because it has become somewhat of a risk, without a reward. The risk is that the time constraints cause them to send something shitty down the runway, the reward is that they end up sending somewhat safe shit down the runway. The use of the show to highlight their talent to a national audience is somewhat diminished when...at best, you only have time to send down something that is only safe.

The one thing I noticed was that some of the "blurry faced" people that turned down the designers from what I could see of their bodies were a little on the heavier side. But there didn't appear to be any other ethnicity besides white, and no other gender besides female approached.* * - I always get ethnicity and gender wrong, so if white and female are not the right terms, my bad

No, no, no, you didn't do good at all! Not even a little! And how are they so calm? How is a child with no basic table manners a good thing? The first time he gets punched in the throat by a roommate for pulling that shit, you'll all be sorry! I personally think Mom is taking some "dolls" or "mommy's little helpers" because her botoxed face barely moves. And don't even get me started on dad, when did dad's all get their balls cut off? I wouldn't have ever tried this in front of either of my parents, but in front of my dad? WTF, maybe if I was trying to give him a stroke or something, but geez.