853fisher

I'm from the DC suburbs and was curious to know which establishments Anne owns. One is Nanny O'Briens, a pub in Cleveland Park. I read that name and was instantly brought back to our special trips to the zoo. We never went in there (Mom probably would've loved it without three kids in tow) but it was on the walk between the subway station and the zoo gates, and I can picture it perfectly. I still love animals, cities, and transit, but I was surprised I remembered that little detail! It definitely brought a smile to my face, and my mother's when I mentioned it, to be reminded of those times, so cheers to Anne for that.

RE tiebreakers, I prefer the old way too. I recall reading that, shortly before the change, it was felt that some contestants were betting for the tie more often than in the past. Arthur Chu did this at least 2 or 3 times. The show does not want to have to pay cash winnings to more than 1 contestant. A tie also resulted in 1 fewer contestant slot available, which meant the show had to fly people back to California for a second taping (and 1 less chance for the people applying regularly). Thus, although it never seemed to me that ties happened all that often in actuality anyway, the change was made. Thanks! It seems wrong for them not to have any raisins at all.

Thank you! Even before she was on “Facts of Life,” it looks like. It’s an interesting pitch, and it did make me check the pantry to see if I had any, but I do think kids can tell between candy and raisins. ;)

I'm in my late 20s and vaguely recognized the term if not the specific campaign mentioned. I think I've seen an assortment of fruits and nuts under the brand name "Nature's Candy" so that confused me a little." I do think "Molly Ringwald failed to warn us about raisins" may be a sentence that had never been spoken before and will never be again.

I avoided that trap tonight. Last time I fell in it, I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been! ;)

I was glad Christine won. I really like organ music, so that was my silly reason to root for her. She gave more correct answers than Henry so it seemed "right" for her to win the tiebreaker in the end. She said on another forum that she had carefully considered her wager and spent the time (much longer in real life than as shown) between the Final clue and the tiebreaker beating herself up for forgetting to add the $1.

I don't know why it wasn't mentioned on the show, but the EP has said he will be invited.

Even worse, I read she lost most hearing in one ear due to an infection when she was a young woman, and then the incident you describe on her wedding day affected her other ear! But I recall reading that she used her deafness to her advantage by pretending not to understand people who had turned down her pitch for donations or volunteering. ;)

They should have seen these shows anyway! ;) But you make a good point. I'm glad that all three are reasonably easy to stream, and even seemed to get a bit of promotion after Betty's death. I hope curious fans of hers who hadn't seen them gave them a try. I hated the feeling that she was becoming known among younger people as "the old lady who says outrageous things" because I sometimes couldn't tell whether they were laughing at or with her. Maybe I should have given them a bit more credit.

I noticed that expression too but then she didn’t seem to ring in right away so I wasn’t sure. Maybe the timing is different in terms of “when the light goes on” in the tiebreakers. Or maybe she just needed a second to get it from brain to fingers / lips. Either way it worked out for her.

I found it ultimately impossible to dislike Liz because she played well and seemed to be having a great time, but her interview was a turn-off for me. Nearly everybody else talked about some passion or discovery, and she recited her resume. She seemed to be gilding the lily too. Panhellenic VP, social chair of some unnamed "other organization" (which I assume is her sorority), and her position with the Programing Council that brings presenters to campus are plenty of leadership roles to be proud of. But not every activity you participate in outside the classroom is a "leadership role." Campus tour guide and radio show host are certainly not. I did both of them and found them meaningful, but would have found it insulting to the actual leaders of those organizations to present my involvement as a "leadership role." I was very active on my campus, found the people trying to oversell what they did extremely annoying then (and found their work often perfunctory), and am obviously not over it! So win me back next week with the kind of story everyone else had, Liz. Hmmmm, maybe. And to the second question, maybe! Someone who didn't really "know" casting around for "_____ Gershwin" would probably land on George first. A musician friend of mine once said that his brother gets such short thrift that some folks must think George's middle name is "Andira."

Well, he's certainly a good sport. But IMO, when the contestants have about 5 seconds to parse each clue, such potential for misunderstanding should be avoided. A bit of intentional misdirection is one thing if it requires the contestants to remember the category, for instance, rather than giving some otherwise obvious answer. This clue strikes me more as a bit of sloppy phrasing than that.

There's a lot of discussion on Reddit about the clue "This 1991 novel by Canadian Douglas Coupland gave a name to a whole cohort born around the same time" ("Generation X"). Several folks believe it is badly written because it suggests that the cohort in question was born around 1991. I see their point.

I was shocked but pleased to run Chemistry. I did poorly in that subject in school but always enjoyed the labs. That's a subject I would enjoy taking an adult education course in when I have more time. Not as well in State Quarters, though. I remember being an avid collector when I was 7 or 8, so excited about all the different coins and bills I'd find in life. Now I use cash maybe 3 or 4 times a month at divey bars / restaurants and always round a tip up so I don't have to carry coins. That change seemed to happen awful fast. A few TS surprised me. Few gas stations have driveway signal bells anymore, but I've seen them often in TV and movies (including contemporary ones set in the past, not just "old" ones). And what else do you pull into right off the highway? Yes, I know there are a few other things, but come on!

That was an exciting game. I was rooting lightly for the returning champ because Moraga is a cute town near here, but I couldn't cheer for him or the third place finisher because Powell and Rumsfeld were such terrible guesses for "which Secretary of State was a spokesman for Vietnam vets against the war." (At least Powell was actually SoS, though!) Wikipedia (yes, I know, but this article is fine) has a fairly concise rundown of the 1990 Conservative Party leadership race. I've found the story fascinating since I learned about it. The first candidate to stand in opposition to Thatcher was a "stalking horse": Major stepped up in the second ballot after Thatcher, having fallen just short of the required majority, withdrew her candidacy.

I wish I'd seen the publicity around Big Bird's shot! That's a very clever "in" to the clue. I thought I could rule out Bert and Ernie because they are roommates, not children living in a family home. Who knows whether such logic would hold on Sesame Street, but it worked out for me in this case. I thought I recalled them going to work also, but the Internet disagrees with me. I wonder if I'll remember why I asked Google "do bert and ernie have jobs" when I see that in autocomplete later. It sounds so accusatory!

Close but no cigar in FJ. I knew it had to be “Sesame Street” but picked Elmo. I was surprised to learn he didn’t show up until 1980. Big Bird did cross my mind as perhaps the other most popular character, but for some reason I can't rationally justify, I thought Big Bird would probably be older than 6 1/2! Oh well. The Lincoln promo category seemed to go on and on, and then we missed 3/5 clues in the last category, my pet peeve! File under much pettier grievances: when we're playing a category in order, no need to name the speaker before each clue. Somewhere in the middle: Goodwin's pronunciation of "joo-byoo-lent" made my foot itch.

It struck me as a bit sad that Pluto was not able to complete even one trip around the sun between discovery and banishment! But I guess the scientists didn't think of that. The very funny, but sometimes a little crude, "Rick & Morty" did an episode in which the protagonist's father insists Pluto is still a planet while helping with homework. They are subsequently kidnapped by Plutonians and asked to do a press tour as "scientists from Earth." I won't spoil the twist, just in case.

I loved seeing Agnes Moorehead. I think she is just fantastic and I wish more people knew more about her accomplishments. Allen Ludden once asked her what she planned to do during Bewitched's upcoming hiatus. She answered, as casually as if she were describing a trip to the supermarket, "oh, I think I'll go to Spain to visit my friend Orson Welles, I haven't seen him in some time." What a dame! "Big Little Lies" made me smile too. HBO screened the first episodes of its second season at a movie theater here, and I was invited through their loyalty program. They gave away t-shirts that just read"BIG LITTLE LIES." Once as I boarded the bus, a woman I passed said something like "I love your shirt, so few people are talking about it, because they're terrified." I didn't feel like finding out what ideology / issue she'd thought I was commenting on!

Jeric cheated in a $25,000 app-based trivia game in 2018. This is his present day response. I might be a little more impressed with "I was only 17, a minor!" and "must my past define me forever?" if we were talking about events a bit more than 3 or 4 years ago. And sure, he couldn't've cheated in the same way on this show. But he didn't seem like such an amazing quizzer or personality that, if I were the producers, I wouldn't probably have picked someone else instead, with such a limited number of slots.

I said "unbury" instead of "exhume." Inelegant, but it seems to fit!

You're certainly not wrong! I just found it funny that I was so sure I'd risen above their trickery. It wouldn't be either of the obvious ones. Well, actually....

I thought I had it all figured out: it had to be Redd! ;)

Thanks for that! I knew the name was changed but not why. In timely news, Beryl Vertue, the writers' agent who negotiated the sale of "Steptoe" and the British predecessor to "All in the Family" to the American market, passed away Saturday. I'm curious about this. After Amy said she couldn't show her Ozma tattoo for copyright reasons, it occurred to me that the character might well be in the public domain by now. Re-reading her comment, it seemed she was actually talking about the artist's copyright. I have neither tattoos nor a deep understanding of IP law, but it surprised me to think someone could get anything inked on their own bodies without retaining full discretion about when and how to display it. I wondered what the tattoos we could see depict, but I couldn't really make them out.

I wouldn't say I like or dislike it, but it certainly sticks out to me because we so seldom see it! Usually that posture means something negative so I'm not surprised it might strike you that way. But I guess he tried a few things and that's what worked for him! I've never been to Minnesota and know little about it. I have always lived and traveled on one coast or the other, which is of course no excuse not to know more about other areas in our country. I note today's contestants were also all billed as from CA or FL.