Bastet

Re. the Hong Kong style wonton soup segment: I have never had wonton soup with noodles added, and it seems likeoverkill. But what puzzled me was the broth -- they called for starting with a homemade chicken stock tailored for this soup, with ginger. When I make wonton soup, I simmer my regular homemade chicken stock with garlic and ginger before using it, so that tracks. They added shrimp shells to that stock, as they were using shrimp and pork filling in the wontons. That also tracks; I often use chicken-filled wontons, but if I'm doing shrimp-filled I indeed add the shells to my stock. But they also added two cups of water, without saying why they were diluting it.

Crying Pam never gets old. From that article about the episode with the infamous hay wall: She's an interior designer herself, and didn't expect only $1000 worth of materials and less than two days of work by mostly untrained people to be shoddy?!

For me, they generally were not favorites, things I either had no interest in seeing at all or had seen once and didn't have any desire to see again. So it was just an annual annoyance to me, but at least they didn't air on a goddamned loop like It's a Wonderful Life (saw once, will never watch again) and A Christmas Story (tried, but could not get through) do now.

I know we got our first VCR in 1978 (for $1000!), but, while I know we also got our first microwave before they became common, I'm not sure exactly how early -- because I was a lot more excited about the VCR than the microwave. A very quick internet search of just a few sources about the history of microwaves in home kitchens tells me their popularity grew in the late '70s when prices dropped below $500, became common in the '80s, and were in 90% of homes by the late '90s.

With my friends who ditched their landlines, I talk to them less. I hate trying to have an extended conversation with someone on a cell phone; landline to landline, no problems ever. Landline to cell phone, it's shitty sound virtually always - I strain to hear, and then that makes me talk too loudly - and often cutouts (even worse if they're calling from the car, which I hate even more).

They don't give a shit about sexual abuse or they'd want his ass in prison, not the White House. The ones flipping out are the Pizzagate crowd, equally convinced the Epstein files contain only a bunch of prominent Democrats, and will finally expose that cabal. It's all about that "gotcha", nothing to do with the girls (who were abused by men of all political persuasions).

I watched two episodes of it with a friend and her roommate who were into it. In those two episodes I never once heard them discuss anything other than men, and they were all such caricatures rather than properly dimensional characters I didn't like any of them.

Her response on Instagram is great - complete with a picture of him with Epstein - even though the lack of capitalization (and words running together which I cleaned up to make it readable) drives me nuts: hey donald – you’re rattled again? 
18 years later and I still live rent-free in that collapsing brain of yours. you call me a threat to humanity –
but I’m everything you fear:
a loud woman 
a queer woman
 a mother who tells the truth
 an american who got out of the country b4 u set it ablaze you build walls –
I build a life for my autistic kid in a country where decency still exists you crave loyalty –
I teach my children to question power you sell fear on golf courses –
I make art about surviving trauma you lie, you steal, you degrade –
I nurture, I create, I persist you are everything that is wrong with america –
and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it you want to revoke my citizenship?
go ahead and try, king joffrey with a tangerine spray tan i’m not yours to silence 
i never was

I, too, spent many an evening during my teenage years on the phone with friends I'd just gone to school with all day. One of those friends is still one of my best friends, and our phone calls still last at least an hour, usually closer to two. Everyone else, I mostly email in between times when we're together in person. I had my own phone, but not my own line (I kept asking, thinking eventually my parents would get sick of me tying up the phone, but never got it -- and obviously didn't want it enough to pay for it myself). My mom used to take my phone away as punishment, but I had another one hidden in my pajama drawer, so as long as I kept an ear out for her and stopped talking when she was within range, I could still chat away.

Same here, but the impression it made on me (and my mom) is: It's ugly. FJ was an instaget. I watched with friends, so didn't keep track of specifics, but had a good game. I was the only one who knew Dinosaur, I remember that. And that I was terrible in mythology and great in drinks, as would be expected.

There's no need; you're allowed to embed the YouTube video or link to it, so the link is fine.

<sniff> Re-watch complete; once again, I wish there was more. If Anna had stayed and the show continued for a ninth season, that would have wrapped with Christy graduating from law school. Had it gone ten, we'd have seen her even more accomplished, one year into her career, and ten years sober. All previous seasons ended with her sober birthday, so a nice, round ten year scenario would have been a particularly nice time to go out. Alas. But I do like what we got instead. While I love the Bonnie and Christy relationship, and the Bonnie/Christy/Adam family, so I miss those, the eighth season still works well for me. I said when Anna's departure was announced I wanted them to write Christy as transferring to a better law school. I meant something better than the strip mall law school I was never sure was even accredited, not a scholarship to Georgetown, good lords, but I'll take it, because it's a hell of a lot better than the "maybe she met a great guy" predictions some were making. I like that in the beginning she's calling Bonnie every day (especially now, having learned Anna called Allison every day), and then she settles in and it's a couple of times a week, and Bonnie has a hard time coping. Even though she's gone, Christy is the focus of the episode where Bonnie can't decide what to do with the room, and finally melts down that it's an acknowledgement Christy isn't ever going to live there again, and the one where they paint over the billboard the strip club is still using her picture on (I like that one a lot, especially Adam's reaction). I think the writers handled it as well as anyone could. I'd never seen the episode where Adam winds up inviting all of them to join him and Bonnie on their Valentine's Day date, and my heart melted. That's now on my top ten list. I love that they usually don't even bother with Valentine's Day, so it's not an issue that, one by one, this date turns into a group dinner (and it all starts with him inviting Jill to join them, not any prodding from Bonnie). When he says he knew marrying Bonnie meant marrying all of them, he's just stating a fact with which he's perfectly content, not grousing. How refreshing! And it's great that Bonnie responds to them swooning over how sweet Adam is by saying, "Pay attention, ladies -- don't settle for anything less than this." Little things tickle me, so I like the continuity that, for the rest of the series, Bonnie is wearing the bracelet he gave her at that Valentine's dinner. I wish the writers had more than six episodes notice to wrap everything up, and knowing just how condensed the time frame was, I'm less critical than I initially was. I always loved Bonnie and Tammy going into business together, combining their different strengths - and the hiccups along the way. If that succeeds, Bonnie won't have to do the building manager job she hates in order to have a home. I also love that Tammy has gone from handyperson work to full-fledged construction (I loved the handy work, too, because it's so rare to see a woman with those skills on TV). Marjorie liking Gary does not work for me, so I hate that he's the one who broke up with her and that she got so upset about it, but at least she snapped out of it. And I like that her relationship with her son has progressed to the point he's nominating her for an award and giving her an entire weekend with her granddaughter. Jill getting back together with Andy bugged me the first time around, as I thought her "None of it was a waste" realization was a good ending for it -- he was her first sober relationship, it was good while it was lasted, and she learned something she needed to learn about herself. And I instinctively cringe at pregnancy reveals in the end, as if the only happy ending to be written for a woman is a baby. But it works. Jill unintentionally falling pregnant when a year before she had no viable eggs even after hormone stimulation is still a big ball of whatever, but she's wanted it for so long and gone about it so many ways, for her it is the perfect happy ending. The penultimate episode is one of my favorites, and I like the finale. I like the low-key wedding - well, as low-key as it can be with people brawling in the back - and Allison Janney and William Fichtner do terrific non-verbal acting to show Bonnie and Adam's mixed emotions, sitting there watching their friends pledge in sickness and in health when they've just come from the oncologist's office. But the best is Bonnie's final share. They spent years giving that character stutter step progress to allow for a day in which emotions run the gamut and her thinking about everyone other than herself is believable. What a great reward that she genuinely loves herself in a healthy way, not selfishly likes herself in her old defensive way. And I like that the series doesn't close on that share, but on her inviting the newcomers - another dysfunctional mother/daughter duo at the beginning of their recovery journey - for coffee, and finally Wendy asking if anyone else would like to share. I wish more shows would end like that, with a vibe of things will carry on as we've enjoyed all these years, we just won't be peeking in on it anymore.

He doesn't need it thanks to the Supreme Court.

Agree. This commercial gets discussed annually, and I'm always with those who don't give a shit; there's no indication there's anything actually wrong with the kid, so the "Take two" instruction plays as amusing.

Cart -- basket is the thing you carry when you have only a few items, and cart is the thing you're asking about, on wheels, used for larger/heavier loads (which is more typical for how most Americans shop). I don't think there's as much regional difference within the U.S. as there is with things like soda/soft drinks/etc. as I've more often come across a different term in another country than another state (perhaps because in many other countries, people shop more frequently, so baskets are used more often than carts). What's the peeve?