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853fisher

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Everything posted by 853fisher

  1. I thought the towel picked up from the tennis club, and whether it had been discarded in such a way that made it admissible, was going to be more important. Speaking of which, they should have lent one to the actor playing the father. He had foundation or something all over his collar at one point. They must’ve really spackled it on!
  2. You're right, it's not an impossibly difficult problem to solve. But it would be a nice convenience and I wonder why they briefly tried it in FJ and didn't keep it. I know some folks like to track their results with pen and paper but that's not for me. I often watch on the bus or train and prefer to follow the KISS principle.
  3. I thought the clue "August Wilson got the title for his play about this singer from her song that became a dance craze, 'The Black Bottom'" was badly written. The black bottom, a dance style related to the Charleston and popular among African-American communities in the South and in Harlem for some years, achieved national popularity in 1926 after it was performed by a white couple in the "George White's Scandals" revue. "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," as original 78s are labeled, was not recorded until December 1927. It's inaccurate to say that song "became" the dance craze that predated it, and in fact, although it makes an anatomical pun on the dance's name, it's not much of a record to actually dance it to. I was glad to see Ma Rainey mentioned, but I wish the writers had used more care.
  4. I think I have read that contestants are contractually restricted from certain other media appearances until a year after their last games. They may not be eligible to do something like The Chase or a GSN show until November of next year, given the ToC.
  5. I thought Simi was impressive. $17K going into FJ without any DDs is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe she will be on their list for Second Chance. I've said it before but it bears repeating: I really hope they will use objective criteria. Allein is lovely! It also reminds me of Allyn McLerie, who was big in musical theater and also worked in film and TV. She passed away in 2018. I doubt she had much luck finding her name printed on souvenirs either. Common names can have other sillier pitfalls. My mother, meant to be named for my great-grandmother, is Ann instead of Annie because my grandmother wrongly assumed that Annie was a diminutive, although she never went by Ann. Grammy didn't want to ask because it would have spoiled the surprise!
  6. Good ole Snopes! This is dated yesterday, but it must have been put up after my little research. How thoughtless of them. ;) The name of the supposed CBD company on the link I fact-checked is not one of the five listed in this article. Some of this online stuff really is hydra-like. I will say that it makes me like Mayim even a bit less than I did before, which is quite an achievement, to realize that these scammers thought she was the right kind of person to use to appeal to those who want to read Fox News stories about cancel culture.
  7. Some news in our periphery: The Chase is back May 3. Ken and Mark Labbett are out. Buzzy, Victoria Groce, and Brandon Blackwell are in. Brad and James are returning, so there will be 5 chasers. No mention of the length of the season, but I think 5 is too many for fewer than at least 20 episodes (which means they'll probably do 10!). I wondered whether all concerned parties would want Ken to stay in that role if he continues to host Jeopardy! so maybe it's not a bad sign that he's stepped down on Chase. Victoria and Brandon are not known to me but are apparently big names in the quizzing world. She was a one-time Jeopardy! champion and he was a teen tournament semifinalist. I think they could have done so much more with the superchamp gimmick while it was applicable, but probably not without paying Sony a pretty penny, and there it goes. I hadn't seen any of this, but someone made an accusatory post about it on Reddit the other day, and I looked into it. Those headlines link to a Fox News story which describes the restorative powers of Mayim's line of CBD gummies. The trouble is that Martha MacCallum is suing in an attempt to get Mayim off the air, so Tucker Carlson is defending her against this latest manifestation of "cancel culture", and to allow those suffering with dementia to be made aware of these curative gummies as an alternative to "Big Pharma." As you have probably guessed, it's all bunk. The photos are doctored, the quotations are made-up, and the supposed Fox News story is hosted at [random characters].com. We've covered the Neuriva supplements, but Mayim hasn't endorsed any CBD products. As far as I can tell, her name is being used totally without her permission. I think she's a terrible game show host and I don't much care for her otherwise, but I was happy to defend her on this point, because nobody deserves to have their identity misused, and the Reddit poster who clicked the link and actually read this ridiculous article really should have known better than to take it as fact. Based on the tortured English used, I assume the company is offshore. Otherwise, Mayim may choose to pursue them legally, and I couldn’t blame her if she did.
  8. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd dealt with two same-named contestants in a ToC at some point. It might sound a little funny, or high school quiz bowl - ish, but they could consider going just with last names in that case. I'd rather it sound a little odd than risk false starts, hesitations, etc. That brings me back! In my parochial school class we used last initials. There were Jack C and Jack K and maybe a female pair too. I was part of a third pair. I've kept up with my counterpart peripherally and noticed we both go by different variations on our names now, so we could have saved our teachers the trouble!
  9. I met one of my close friends when I was in college and he was a law student. We looked forward to watching "Downton" together every week. Would you believe he still found time to pass the bar? ;) Lexi sure made herself easy to root against! The contestants seemed less clueless than I recall from last season, despite a few real awful answers. Jane's light snark is good for me. In hindsight, some of Anne's comments seem more cruel than funny. They were considered edgy 15 years ago but many would find them in bad taste today. Anne hosts "Countdown" in the UK now and has a dry edge that's new for that show. "Weakest Link" is back with a new host more in Jane's vein there too.
  10. I thought what Amy blurted out was "Erie," and I was trying to connect that with ospreys fast before the buzzer. Perhaps it was for a similar reason that Matt and Susan weren't confident enough to repeat what they heard either?
  11. I liked the acknowledgment of the Correspondence of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore Project and would be glad to hear more in that vein from time to time. It's a nice way to thank those who have helped the writers / researchers beyond the easily-overlooked credits roll, and to let viewers know about interesting thing going on beyond the show. I was glad Amy won. She's from even nearer where my mother's family lives than Maureen was and seems a more level personality. She should be proud of that comeback. The NIH headquarters in Bethesda was definitely "you-either-know-it-or-you-don't." No question that location has been in the news recently, but that's not what most would take away from the reports of those speaking there, and I don't think there's just one Maryland suburb where governmental offices not in Washington are all located. So bad luck on that one! I knew "a 70s show called _____ Files" was Rockford Files because Joe Santos, who played Becker, was on Match Game once or twice a year near the end of its run with Gene Rayburn. I know a sentence or two about a lot of shows from that era I haven't otherwise learned about yet, just from skimming the Wikipedia articles on wherever game show announcers said the celebrity panelists were from. It's an odd way to get there, but they pay the $1000 no matter how you do it. ;)
  12. I was glad to see Marsha Stephanie Blake as the defense attorney. I remember her as Berdie, the prison counselor in "Orange is the New Black." I think she has great range. I'd like to learn more about Maroun's character. Her reaction to the guilty verdict ("I don't know if her parents agree this was a good outcome!" or whatever it was) seemed a bit much. I can understand why the parents would feel that way, but not what seemed like echoing their feelings herself. I know they can't all think alike or it'd be boring viewing, but at times I've wondered why she's an ADA and not something else in the justice system.
  13. 12 times in the last 5 years, per J! Archive. I'd say it was a pretty good "Pavlovian" wild guess upon seeing the category.
  14. I appreciate these perspectives. I didn't get the impression, the way the anecdote was presented, that a situation like these applied. But I know that laughter often covers what is difficult to talk about, so perhaps I should have been more circumspect. Thanks for "calling me in" as I've heard it said.
  15. I'd be fascinated to learn how, if at all, the "Women Make Passes" / "Guys Who Wear Glasses" categories and yesterday's FJ clue related to each other in the writers' room. It's not hard to imagine that one inspired the other, but they might have been developed totally separately. The random draw from available games that I understand occurs happened to place those consecutively, but one might have been written in August and one in December, who knows? I recently read that Secretariat's necropsy revealed that his heart weighed about 22lbs, 2.5 times the usual! I wonder whether they would have taken just "cutting down trees" instead of clearcutting or deforestation for the Norwegian sawmills? Finally, has anyone seen the new season of "Space Force"? I like to finish shows once I've started them, so I slogged through the first season, but I thought it was very poor. I understand the new season has gotten pretty good reviews, but I haven't been able to bring myself to try more than the first episode yet.
  16. That makes sense! I normally just go with Smith, Jones, or Johnson. I'm not sophisticated enough for regional specificity on this.
  17. In FJ, I have absolutely no idea why, but my mind went to France and wouldn't leave there. I ended up with Mata Hari: although I knew she was executed around WWI, perhaps she had been acquitted on similar charges earlier in life. Ah well! Was "Adams" supposed to be someone particular, or was that "write down a common last name if you have no idea"?
  18. I've never liked Mama, but I have to admit that I laughed out loud when Anthony asked her if she had a final question for the fountain designer and she asked whether they'd tried the salad at the casino. Natasha is like a bad penny on these shows. Years ago I saw a brief clip of her stand-up which, while a little snotty, resonated with me. I clicked "next video" and got a mean-spirited bit about people at Rite-Aid (one punch line, about a worker she'd noticed was pregnant, was "that's how poor people are made!"). I didn't see her anywhere for several years, until she had a bit part as a stripper in "Community." Then she started showing up on all these panel shows, roasts, etc. When I went looking for the two clips I mentioned just now, YouTube suggested a bit titled "Have you ever noticed that your ugliest friend is most afraid of getting raped?" so I'm glad she's been keeping it classy.
  19. I admit I am guilty of missing Buzz Aldrin. In my defense, his name crossed my mind, but I didn't think the photo looked like him, because I have seen him many more times in his 70s and 80s than as a young man. Yes, I know that's a pisspoor excuse, but it's the only one I've got!
  20. I can't pretend I was anywhere near Dorothy Parker, but I definitely would never have gotten to her from "poem." She absolutely did write them, but I think of her as an essayist or satirist, or general wisecracker. I wouldn't call "poem" a misleading clue, but it wasn't tailored for the way my brain works, which was very thoughtless.
  21. I loved the mention of Scott Joplin, even with the cliche rinky-dink piano sound. "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf" are the ones everyone knows, but some other favorites of mine are Peacherine, Bethena (a waltz, his first composition after his wife died of pneumonia), and the Great Crush Collision (which interprets musically a wild publicity stunt the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad put on: they ran two locomotives into each other, head on, at speed). I am glad he is so well remembered today. It took almost 60 years after his death from syphilitic dementia at age 48 for his pauper's grave to get a marker. I don’t know that I would announce on national tv that I had been kicked out of one school and had to cycle through four more to get a degree, at least without some sort of clarification, but everyone seemed to think it was a cute story, so what do I know? I nearly talked myself out of "schmooze" because it has 4, not 3, consecutive consonants. I guess they didn't say "only 3."
  22. "I've trained her to knock the receiver off the cradle and put her head near it after its rung about five times. Oh, she's answered! Now listen, I'm going to be later than I thought, so why don't you go and lie down on that nice big comfy bed and wait for me, and when I come, I'll tickle your tummy all over! Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Akbar, I must have misdialed! What do you mean, you'll leave your key under the mat?" I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember that! That was another silly "Are You Being Served?" bit. "Where's the maintenance file?" "Oh, you mean the one marked 'decoration'? I filed it yesterday under 'A.' I file most things under 'A.' A letter, a sales report..." "A very difficult way of finding anything!"
  23. Margaret describes the reason for her wager here. "I feel like every time you're on here you have to shoot your shot. Go big or go home, basically." Sounds to me like a lot of who-shot-John from someone who doesn't understand game theory. She's a fine quizzer but really let herself down in this area.
  24. Hmmmm, I guess that's possible. But if his way of communicating that is to say "yeah, I am the only person that I'm aware of who has 4 perfect scores on the high school standardized tests," it's a good thing there's not an essay portion anymore or his pupils would be in terrible trouble!
  25. I should have said "a great guess...other than the category," I suppose. Signed, the one who also forgot we were spotted "Central America." ;) I can't cite any specific examples off the top of my head, but I feel they're consistently inconsistent on things like this, and it does my head in.
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