carrps

I was pleasantly surprised that the twins won. They've grown on me, and by this last episode, I think I "got" them. I don't think I could ever be their bosom pal, but I can see that the personalities are organic to who they are. Especially after the call to their mom. OMG, the three of them all sounded exactly alike. LOL. You can see where they got it! Property Bro was sure trying to hype his long time friends the Bauemlers. I don't see how anyone could praise that dumb attached "dining" table. Oh, well, at least they didn't win.

He definitely baked his own ladyfingers and the cake layers in his Charlotte. They showed him putting them on his work surface after he took them out of the oven. Sorbet!

I didn't want to say it, but if you have one couple using a "stricter" coding system than the others, all they have to do is rate everyone else enough lower so that it would swing enough points (even fractional points) in their own directon.

Argh. Korean, not Koren.

I remember Margaret Cho -- and I don't remember which one of these shows she was on -- but Koren "clans" keep historical books that go back thousands of years. If you know your family name, you can go to "your" book and find thousands and thousands of relatives.

Yeah, I've never quite warmed up to Buddha. He always seems like he's looking down on people. I was wondering if she was reacting to their tears. I'm a sympathy crier. If someone else is crying I almost can't stop myself from joining in. They didn't specifically mention the Usonian houses, did they? Those were also lower priced versions of his Prairie Style. He was actually quite quirky. There was this great documentary I saw a number of years ago. This guy's parents (who weren't terribly wealthy) had FLW design a home for him in the 50s (?). They asked him to design a matching doghouse, and he did it! I've been to Taliesin West and would love to go to the original. There are quite a few FLW houses in L.A. (I love La Miniatura and Hollyhock house), and I've seen a lot of them. I also got to tour one in Carmel (through a tour sponsored by the Gamble House) which was on a point by the ocean. It was quite small, but so ingeniously designed.

I knew the results ahead of time, because my sister watched this episode before me, so I was amused by Rasika's panic when she and Danny were called in to the judges with Kaleen and Alicia. "What did I do wrong?" I don't know if Tom thought of that when he said to only bring out the best and worst teams!

Yeah, I've found a lot about my father's side of the family (no new immigrants after 1840), but I don't know hardly anything about my mother's side where she was a first generation American.

Like 90% of Mongolians are related to Genghis Khan. You go back far enough, nearly all of us have connections to royalty of some sort.

I like Nikki well enough, but I'm not really happy with her pushing the booze in last couple of episodes. Seems too much like buttering up Nancy. And did you see how much wine she put in her petit fours? Ergh. I was with Duff. For me, alcohol should be a flavor-enhancer, not as an overwhelming flavor of its own.

The petit fours (all except Alex's) were awful. The only wreath I wanted to eat was Caitlyn's. We always had biscuit shortcake when I was a kid. We always had it for my dad's bday because it was in May. Hate the spongy things.

Drives me crazy! Spend the bulk of the hour on cutesy s**t, then rush through the reveals so quickly you get no real sense of the space.

I think I had PTSD flashbacks when I saw Alex's confetti.

Yeah, but that wouldn't WOW the judges. Blech.

That was my question. If you don't do the salt thing with eggplant first, it really doesn't cook or taste right.

Or you'd be toting it all back and forth all the time. Which would be a major pain.

He did say, in this last episode, that it was so much harder than TC France, but he didn't elaborate. I'd be interested in how it's different.

My grandfather also said that he was avoiding the army -- the Austro-Hungarian army. He was Hungarian and not Jewish, so it's probably a pretty universal immigrant story.

No, Sarah. That was not a bonsai tree. Has she ever seen actual bonsai? It's not the type of tree; it's how it's manipulated. I guess she saw a Japanese pine and thought "bonsai!" I've seen quite a few, and my favorites were not necessarily the more traditional looking ones. One was a grapevine trained into tree shape with really tiny grapes growing on it, the other was a gorgeous maple. I love bonsai. I just don't have the patience to do the necessary work to keep them going.

It was the twist they didn't show. Everybody had some little cakes or cookies with their elephants. Seems most people are annoyed by Rochelle, but Anna annoyed me more. I can't put my finger on why. She just bugged me. Both my sister and I did yell out to warn her about the coating chocolate, though. Guess she didn't hear us. Tsumani cakes are another fad that I can't imagine ever becoming an ongoing trend. What a lot of work for two seconds of wow. I did love how Cait wrenched her acetate off so quickly that she ended up "blood" running down the mannequin's neck. Very Goth.

I'm loving this season.

Eh, sounds like David is hiding behind his NDAs.

Oh, man, this is a prescient comment after this week's episode.

I guess for most people that's true. And for real estate estimations a better value. But I personally don't care about the orientation of the pool at all. Am I going to be sitting in the pool for hours on end where it'd make a difference? For me, no.

Personally? A bug screen wins. Hands down. I don't really care about the orientation of the pool.