GreekGeek

Reading about the end of the glass jars of B&M Baked Beans reminded me of another discontinued product I remember: Sau Sea Shrimp Cocktail. It came in small glasses, some of which I'm still using. Their current website lists various sauces, including shrimp cocktail sauce, but no shrimp cocktail. For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, here's a blog post from an author the same age I am.

She kind of is, though. Neither one seems especially fond of the other much of the time. All that sarcasm and one-upmanship trying to convince us it was affectionate banter...nope. Speaking of Love Story, I thought the ending would have been better if it had stuck with the book's ending: After Jennifer dies, Oliver falls into his father's arms and weeps. Instead he repeats that dubious platitude about never having to say you're sorry and walks away.

I've always heard it called the Forrest Bounce.

I'm one of those who found Rowan's "big" personality a bit much, but if they make it to the ToC, I won't be unhappy. They seemed to tone it down in DJ. I was a little taken aback by two out of the three interviews: Rowan's revelations about coming out as nonbinary and Nikkee's discussion of her therapy. Nothing shameful about either of these, but unusually frank for J! interviews. I was more surprised by the missed Yorick DD. I thought everyone (well, anyone likely to be on J!) knew "Alas poor Yorick." For FJ I said fountains without specifying Trevi, so I guess that counted as wrong. It was a running joke between my mother and me for years that some people can't see a fountain without wanting to toss a coin in, and there is more than one fountain in Rome. The Metropolitan Museum in NY had to put up a sign by a Tiffany fountain on display not to toss coins in!

I confess I didn’t enjoy Friday’s game much. I don’t care for games where someone builds a huge lead early and no one else ever comes within striking distance. At least I have the satisfaction of making the same mistake as the superchamp on FJ. Curious: Has anyone ever done a “Cliff Claven”: built a runaway lead and then blown it on FJ?

I thought of Herbert Hoover. I know the date was 10 years after the start of the Great Depression, but I thought he was looking back on his presidency.

I was going to say Curie would have been OK because the clue said “she,” but then I remembered Pierre and Marie’s daughter Irene. I knew cube farm and Big Rock Candy Mountain, but also said Andrea Doria. Edmund Fitzgerald didn’t cross my mind because I knew that the wreck (and the song) happened in the 70s. It was a good pre-guess though.

One contestant thought it was the Morton’s Salt girl. I knew locusts from The Good Earth movie.

I got FJ thanks to the movie. Glad to hear from a fellow fan. It irks me that it always seems to pop up on those "Undeserved Oscars" lists that are re-hashed every Oscar season. I found it interesting that the 1948 edition predicted the Green Book would be obsolete in the near future, but the last Green Book was published in 1966. I guess it depends on your definition of "near."

I had the same thought. Maybe Liev Schreiber? I also got kind of a James Holzhauer vibe from him, although that was more about his playing style than looks.

The only TS I got was celeriac. For the Popes clue, once the Medici were ruled incorrect, I thought “The other ones” but Borgia just didn’t come to me. For FJ I thought of John Le Carre first, then realized the letter F in the clue was there for a reason, and came up with the right answer. Cris was impressive; I like big bettors on DD’s. But I hope he doesn’t revive the board jumping strategy.

I got teacher, detective, Corazon Aquino, Calliope, Christmas tree, and Bix. I knew the latter because I remembered reading years ago that he was sometimes misnamed as “Big Spider Beck.” I hadn’t noticed David as a big swayer, so now of course I can’t unsee it if he does. I wonder if/when a Bible category will come up while he’s champ—which could well be a long time if his first two games are an indication.

I was rooting for Kelly, the Classics professor. I was excited when she finished DJ in the lead, especially since it looked like an Emmett runaway for awhile. But disappointment awaited me. I was also disappointed that Ken's interview with her was all about her father and not her, but at least he didn't ask why anyone would want to study dead languages! On a happier note: We got two genres, both as a category ad as a clue!

BAU = Business as usual. As for Lorna Doone, either they don't eat the cookies or they got hung up on the "R.D. Blackmore" part of the clue and blanked, since they had never heard of him.

I wondered the same thing. He made some strange wagers before, and this time it backfired. I guess he didn't feel that confident in his own knowledge, and thought Emmett would get it wrong and Melissa was too far behind to be a threat. I got business as usual, Bernadette, Lorna Doone (now I want some shortbread cookies!) and Leif Erickson (DD).

My thoughts exactly, especially since Harriet being ruled wrong enabled another Luigi runaway.

All I could think of was Buckingham Palace, because of all the coverage of the Royal Family in the news. It wasn't my night-- I thought of Alligator Alley instead of Snake. (Alligator Alley is a road in Florida between Naples and Fort Lauderdale.) And I did not know that "Hudson's Bay" is an acceptable alternative name. FJ was easy. I hope Luigi gets some better opponents soon. I like him but I don't like runaways. I was happy when he pulled way ahead of Tim though, since I found Tim annoyingly slow to pick clues and answer. I didn't keep up with J! news after S38 ended, so didn't know about the Second Chance Tournament. I've seen lists of the contestants' names but not how they were selected beyond the fact that they were on since the last ToC. I personally would love to see the second chance go to those who went up against a Matt or Amy and never were able to show what they could do, rather than those who lost in a close game to a lackluster champ.

Any Choco-Taco lovers here? Their discontinuance merited a New Yorker article.

Virginia Patton Moss, the last surviving adult actor from It's a Wonderful Life, has died at age 97. She played Harry Bailey's wife.

The best quip about Shirley MacLaine and her New Age philosophy: “Shirley MacLaine—who does she think she was?” That’s funny about your mom. With my mother it was Henry Fonda. According to her, she saw him giving a box office worker holy hell and doing the “Do you know who I am?” number. I guess the “compassion for the little guy” of his screen persona didn’t carry over into real life. But I could never watch a Henry Fonda movie without hearing about his rudeness.

For that "Mashed Up Sitcom Titles" category, would they have accepted "KIng of the Hill" instead of "King of Queens?" All the contestants were pleasant in the season finale show, but I rooted for Luigi after his story about dreaming of all his family speaking Latin! "See:" you all in September!

Yes, the reports were a bit premature, but when you hear about hospice care, it means the end is near. 😪

I loved Hill Street Blues. I would look forward to Thursday nights all week during the show's run. Neal Washington was arguably the most underutilized of the cop characters, though he did have a great scene with the mother of a man he had shot. R.I.P. Taurean Blacque.

Lots of TS's! I knew blue flu, yellow-bellied, go-go boots, engineer boots, clothe, radio, Berlin, Morningstar, Scorsese, balderdash, funambulist, and horse. I felt bad that Erica led throughout and lost on a tiebreaker, but why didn't she bet just one dollar more? I loved her glasses! I thought William wasn't going to be around for FJ, let alone win!

Yes, I don't think she was intended to be sympathetic, at least not entirely. Her tragedy is that she doesn't realize she already has the true love that the heroines of romance novels pursue--except that her husband isn't the mysterious tormented Heathcliff or Rochester type. One of the ironies of the book is that down to earth Charles gets the beautiful romantic death--he literally dies of a broken heart--while Emma dies in agonies of vomiting. As for the surgery, if I recall, Charles didn't want to do it but was pressured into it by Emma and Homais (compared to whom Emma is a saint).