Lois Sandborne

Just speaking as an attorney on this. Once we take a case, we have to abide by what a client wants. A lawyer can strongly urge a client toward different courses of action, but if they say "I want to go to court," you have to go, or withdraw as their attorney. And withdrawal is its own process. It's not automatic; a court may not allow you to withdraw in some circumstances, even when there's a disagreement. All that to say, her lawyers may have done their best. Now, they could easily also be charlatans. I read something about a plan to appeal, so they could very well be in it together to waste public time and money. But maybe they tried. She can't file an appeal until after any sentencing is issued.

Aw man. I definitely have my DVR set up to catch it, so that's disappointing. Mistletoe Murders is right up my alley, but I just can't justify paying for Hallmark Plus. I hope it eventually ends up on the Mystery channel.

Hallmark hasn't shown Trading Christmas in a long time, but it's one of my all time favorites, so I hunt it down every year. Tonight I found it on Pluto. Watching it always reminds me how much better Hallmark stuff used to be. It's so witty and mature. And there's actual passion in multiple kisses! I think they still turn out some good movies each year, but I wish they'd pump out fewer each year and focus on making a few real quality movies like they used to.

I'm sure everybody who knew this group in college is having a good little time this week, after the newest episode.

For those who were wondering, on Extra Slice Dylan mentioned he's a chef de partie, so basically a line cook. It's not likely he has anything to do with the restaurant's desserts. But it's great he landed his dream job.

I love "For Good" too, but I agree all the real showstoppers are in Act 1. I think that'll be a big letdown after waiting a whole year for the finale. If they had to split it in two (and they didn't), I wish they'd drop Part 2 in February. After finally seeing it, it seems more obvious to me than ever the creative team decided they wanted two movies and then worked backward to figure out how to do it. All the expanded stuff with the animal resistance, and all that applesauce during the "Defying Gravity" portion were the most obvious examples. There was just so much padding. I loved it overall though. The song production was fantastic. I don't like Ariana Grande's voice, but her harmonizing with Cynthia Erivo was beautiful. Idina and Kristin were a terrific surprise. The choreography and staging of all the numbers was amazing; one of the few real reasons to take a show from stage to screen is being able to do really cinematic stuff with dancing and shot composition, and honestly they nailed it. The whole thing looked incredible, the costuming, the set designs, the lighting, all of it. It was great. Not great enough to justify wringing two films out of one story, but really, really good.

Finally got around to checking this out. It wasn't perfect, but I would like a legal drama in my rotation, so we'll see. Even with all the overwritten lines and silly legal blunders, the only thing that really bothered me was the ambitious lady associate calling Maddie "Perry Mason" but not knowing who Matlock was.

It's just too hard to swallow this. Frasier doted on Frederick, even from across the country. Freddy loved being around his dad. We saw him visit Seattle and we saw Frasier visit him. We only saw the most superficial disagreements, when Freddy wanted to chase a girl at the campsite, and when he was chasing some other girl by being goth. We have no reason to think Frasier would be more disapproving of Freddy dropping out than Lillith, who didn't want him to play ball with "the slow children" and made a deal to never see Freddy in a school play or even attend his graduation just so he'd get into Marbury Academy. But Freddy adores Lillith. And he adores Martin, who we have no reason to think he ever saw except the same few times he visited Seattle to see his dad. Sure, anything could've happened to them offscreen over 20 years. But there's no reason to believe it did. These writers are doing a ton of telling us that Freddy and Frasier were estranged, and that it was all Frasier's fault, but they haven't shown me any reason to buy it.

No surprise here, but Nelly was just a delight on Extra Slice this week. She came out in a tiara, keeping up her streak of fabulous head wear. She also said she formed a real friendship with Andy, and that Noel is her brother from another mother.

The Simpsons also did it.

Doing my annual viewing of TOH episodes, and thanks to autoplay I'm catching all of the election episodes along the way. Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish is really underrated. I think it's a better episode than Sideshow Bob Roberts, even though it has fewer gags.

True. I think I meant that for me it just confirms that they definitely don't judge on the week itself. They use whatever factors will justify the result they want, and this may change week to week or season to season. That's not great.

I really love this crew of bakers. This is my favorite cast in a long time, personality and skill wise. Also, Prue and Paul just go ahead and admit you like peanuts. They always end up saying, "Oh I'm not a peanut fan, but that's lovely." Give it up and fly the peanut fan flag already. I would've eliminated Sumayah this week. Her showstopper looked absolutely disgusting. But, confirming my suspicions, Paul finally outright said they would consider her future potential when making the decision. I think that's unfair, but I know lots of people have always thought this was how they do it.

Just more evidence that they don't actually care about the technical challenge.

I don't have a food processor, so I can't do any of their crusts. Erin's did look good though. I like the rope technique she did to seal; I'll probably try that. And too, from what I understand the remainder of an ugly carrot that becomes a baby carrot gets shredded. So by the time you figure in all the people buying those for cole slaw and carrot cake, it's really a big net gain.