Kathira

A lousy night for me in terms of TS's, although I did the get the fairly easy FJ. I briefly considered Helsinki, but the name changes meant it really had to be St. Petersburgh. I got last night's FJ of Pluto, also, so it's been a reasonably good week for me so far.

Yeah, that was an instaget for sure. I don't think there were too many TS's but I did know that Mike Brady was an architect and Attack of the Clones. I like Alan, although after complaining about champs with too much personality, now I feel bad since I'm going to have to complain that he's dull. There's just no pleasing me, I guess.

I kind of admire Jen Garner for being willing to go there with such a dislikeable character, but this shaded over into nearly unwatchable. Why is Walt still married to her? Walt really seems like a sweet guy with some nice guy friends, but I don't see why any of their wives/partners would be willing to subject themselves to such a shrew for a whole weekend. (Is that why the character is named Katie? Could this be a kind of modern post-marriage Taming of the Shrew? That would actually be clever, so I don't hold out much hope for it.) Maybe they're going to soften her as she learns some lessons over the course of the show, or give some background that would make her more understandable/sympathetic but driving away your audience in the first episode doesn't seem like a good idea. I'll stick with this, but only because I love David Tennant.

I was thinking that, too. After all these years, I think Alex likes to see contestants with a fair amount of personality. Especially since I would say that many people who become Jeopardy contestants tend to be rather serious people. And even if you are fun-loving in your private life, the stress of being on the show would make anyone nervous. Throughout the show, you could see Alex changing his allegiance from Alex to Sara. He started out really liking Alex - a good player with a big personality - giving him more chances to answer than he really should. Then as the game went on, Sara proved herself to be a force and also to have the other characteristic that Alex tends to like in contestants, namely that she's a gutsy bettor. I like to see that, too. They don't always have to do a "true daily double," but I like to see people have the courage of their convictions. For TS's, I got Homeland, Raymond Chandler, and brains. I was sad to see Chandler go down as a TS. It's true, people don't know the classics any more. I did get FJ, after briefly considering honey as a possibility for "liquid gold" but I couldn't see how that was especially Mediterranean, or how you could fake it. I also thought of maple syrup, which has been the subject of criminal enterprises, but I was pretty sure that folks like Homer and Marco Polo never heard of it. LOL I got to olive oil in plenty of time.

OMG, was Doug this obnoxious yesterday? I only saw FJ yesterday and he didn't seem too awful, but today was the worst. He makes me long for Austin or Buzzy. At least I got Ben Affleck, so I'm officially "smarter" than him. (I always feel superior if I get FJ and none of the contestants do.) Also got One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Liberty.

I feel you, but this happens in all areas of popular culture. The young'uns today don't know older movies either. It's all "before your time" to them, unless one has an unusual interest. Otherwise, it's all Star Wars and super heros. I've been trying to introduce my son to sci-fi classics, both fiction and movies. Sometimes he's bored, but I do occasionally get a "hey, that was pretty good." His English teachers have been helpful, too. This year they're reading Farenheit 451.

I slept through most of J tonight and only woke up in time to guess Madam Bovary instead of Anna Karenina for FJ, ruining my streak of instaget FJs. I'll rewatch the rest later.

Ugh. Tonight's FJ. There were a couple of other 70's Oscar winners it could have been, but no one would even consider them after Alex's lousy Marlon Brando imitation. Maybe they all would have gotten it anyway, but now we'll never know. It's one thing when he does that kind of thing for regular clues, but for DDs and definitely for FJ, just read the clue straight. Espcially since it wasn't actually a runaway for Andrew. I liked Barbara and her purple hair and she could have had a shot. In addition to the give-away FJ, I got fire extinguisher, microwave, Honolulu, greenmail and Stockholm.

Me too. Add "Catholic" to that list at least for me. I knew the Alamo was a Spanish mission. Definitely an easy FJ even without PeeWee Herman.

Avogadro. Who you will see, if you scroll through this link, was a rather odd-looking individual. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introchem/chapter/avogadros-number-and-the-mole/

It's not just the southern US. I live in upstate NY and I was sure he would be ruled incorrect. I've always heard the rhyme as "Ladybug, ladybug fly away home."

On the one hand, the hearings today are important to the life and future of our country. One the other hand.... OK, good.

Thanks to my 12 year old son, I ran the video game category. I actually (embarrassingly) gave a fist pump for Destiny, which is a favorite of his. I even got the older one, Joust, at least partly because of him. It was one of the 80s games featured in Ready Player One, which we both read. Disney Infinity was one of those insidious games where you have to buy physical versions of the characters in order to have them in the game. My son preferred Skylanders, and I don't even want to think about how much money I spent on stupid plastic figures. Of course, now all my money goes to buying items made of game code, but at least they take up less storage space. I wonder if they would have taken "letters" for the epistles of Paul? FJ was easy and gave me a tiny sniffle remembering that Sue Grafton passed away. I like the new champ. In addition to the Operation category, she really crushed the music questions, some of which I thought were pretty hard.

I think most people do. I got it at least partly because the building I work in has a really old Otis escalator which is constantly breaking down. I've spent some time talking to the guys working on it. They have to order custom specially machined parts for it. The building was built in 1927 as a Sears store. It's now all cut up into offices, but the escalator is still in the center. It must have been really cool when it was new, but now it's mostly kind of annoying.

I got rainbow, Adam Lambert, escalator, Zion and alacrity. I went with Look Back in Anger for FJ. Oh, well. I got yesterday's FJ, anyway. Glad Nancy beat Vincent. I didn't think he really deserved a do-over.

OK, I take back that I knew what Andres Segovia looked like. It was Picasso's "The Old Guitarist" that I "saw" in my mind. For some reason, I always associate him with that painting. If they had shown it, I would have said Segovia!

Some people say it with a more pronounced "u" sound, like tur-kuwoise. Also, it's the kind of word that Alex might be tempted to Frenchify in some horrible way, so it was nice that he went with the ordinary American pronunciation. I also "knew" Segovia, could see him in my mind and couldn't make his name come up. It's similar to the "Hey, it's that guy" syndrome - when you see an actor and you know who it is, but you can't think of their name. "You know, that guy. He was in that show."

Air conditioning makes noise that makes filming difficult, when part of the show is to hear what people are saying. I've read more than one interview with contestants where they talk about that. It's true on Top Chef also, where the kitchens they work in have not only many ovens, but hot stove tops also. At least they're usually inside. (Not always, though, and some of their more memorable moments have been outside in the elements.) I feel most sorry for the baking show folks when it's rainy and damp. Maybe the heat melts their fancy decorations, but the damp and humidity has to be a bear to deal with when you are trying to get your dough to rise properly.

Azurebaijan - I love it. Thanks for the laugh.

Azure was all I could think of either. Lapis, not a gem, amethyst, not really blue, and not a country. Ugh. Despite that complete fail, I did get Roundheads, Naked Lunch and catahoula. The Coachella category was funny. Kyle had a good run, won a nice bunch of money, and managed not to be annoying. Good for him. For me, Jeopardy was almost pre-empted by a rare upstate NY tornado warning. Our weather people got all excited and decided they "had to stay on the air with us" until the warning was discontinued. Puh-lease. Don't do me any favors. And don't mess with my Jeopardy! .

I also think this is a possibility. At least partly because that's the way justice often works in fiction. The audience wants to see a wrong-doer punished in some way, so if they escape the law, often death by deus ex machina does the trick emotionally. In real life, we know that people get away with stuff all the time which is very unsatisfying, so we like to see a better resolution in our fiction.

I considered him, too, while I was running over Revolutionary figures who might care about Boston in my mind. Although I suppose the "plains of Boston" bit probably should have clued me in that it wasn't someone from there. Massachusetts is pretty hilly.

I liked the beard, but I'm giving the pornstache a big NO. I did better on the TSs today - got Reddit, Rothschild, clang clang clang, and the Order of the Garter. Which made up for my total whiff on FJ. I went for John Adams. Or maybe Sam Adams. It was the reference to Boston in the clue that threw me off - Patrick Henry was from Virginia and the speech was to the Virginia Convention. At least I wasn't the only one thrown off by that, as even the contestants went for Paul Revere.

I liked Alex's suit and tie combo tonight. That light gray suit with the muted orange tie really looked good on him. He always looks pretty sharp, but this was an especially nice look. Another Toddler Jeopardy FJ. Although I guess it could have been another "easy if you know it" one. I didn't get Dolly Madison, but it cool to see that there was an actual photograph of her.

I agree on the whole Hannah's "best friend" thing. I was totally expecting him to say she was Hannah's lover. And even if they had previously shown Hannah to have male lovers, well, this is 2018 and bi people exist. This whole episode was an acting tour-de-force for Jonny. He was fantastic and it was amazing to see all of Sherlock's emotions play across his face, especially in what he thought was his final exchange with Joan. His unspoken "happy" was just crushing. And Lucy just reflecting all that back to him... I was having quite a few emotions myself. And the end just made me laugh and clap like a fool. "You realize I only said that because I thought we'd never see each other again." LOL I rewound and watched those two scenes more times than I'd care to admit. If that had been the real last scene of the series, I would have been totally OK with it. I'm glad they're continuing, though. This show is totally underrated. On a shallow note, Joan's starry blouse and long black coat in their "farewell" scene were gorgeous. She looked just so slim and perfect. She's worn that coat before and it really suits her. I liked that they switched her to a white dress and coat in London. It was a nice touch.