Bastet

Neither (I don't think the Second Chance tournament existed then). She wouldn't have won even if they'd accepted it, and I don't know if it even made the difference between second and third place (and she could have avoided it all by just writing "Gordy" [or knowing how to spell his name]). It didn't have much of an impact on her, it was just stupid given the tradition of accepting misspellings in FJ if they fit the pronunciation; it's not even arguing, well, in some regions those names are pronounced the same -- almost 60% of the country (per that Harvard study) says them the same, so there's no reason not to accept it.

The latter.

Yep, something established by the extensive Harvard linguistics survey long before the Barry/Berry debacle, so there is no excuse for J! ruling that incorrect -- to the majority of Americans, that misspelling did not change the pronunciation. (I think their response was something about it being different for names, but I'm too irritated to look back into it. I will forever call bullshit.)

Someone on "Left, Right & Center" last night: "Iran cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons." Me, shouting in the car: "Neither can we!"

I'm usually distracted by the names - Zillion Heir?! - but with that article's detailed timeline, let us just take a moment to contemplate what the reaction would be if Cannon was a woman and this was her offspring trajectory (I know, it's not possible half the damn time): Exceeds the replacement rate, but not all that remarkable: - Kids 1 & 2 (twins) with Husband - Six years later (well past official split and a year after finalized divorce): Kid 3 with Baby Daddy 2 - Three years after that: Kid 4 with Baby Daddy 2 Turns nutty and quickly devolves to batshit crazy: - Six months after that: Kids 5 & 6 (twins) with Baby Daddy 3 - Nine days (yes, days) after that: Kid 7 with Baby Daddy 4 - One year after that: Kid 8 with Baby Daddy 5 - 15 months after that: Kid 9 with Baby Daddy 6 - Nine days (yes, again, days) after that: Kid 10 with Baby Daddy 2 - Two months after that: Kid 11 with Baby Daddy 3 - Just one month after that: Kid 12 with Baby Daddy 4

I watched with friends, and we all groaned at the losing VP category when it was announced; we do well to remember the Veeps who made it into office, so those who didn't are difficult to name. But I ran that category and the others did pretty well, too. We joined the contestants in having no idea for the zombie clues, but we - collectively, as individually no one fared well - did better than they did with 19th c. lit. Arsenic came to me immediately for FJ, and then the "spanning the alphabet" portion of the clue kicked in to take me to Z, so it wasn't an instaget but something close.

Don't forget bigly.

Thank you; here's the embed:

Yeah, that's in the Celebrity Milestones thread, also in the forum for Worst Cooks in America -- sad and surprising news.

Someone has already created a fake commercial for Trump Mobile. I saw it posted elsewhere -- it originated as a Bluesky post, which isn't anything I know how to embed here. Some of its gems: "Tired of paying too much to call the police on your Black neighbors?" "Is spotty reception keeping you from texting ICE about the taco truck outside your church?" "More than just unlimited crazy talk and hateful texts to your sane relatives, Trump Mobile lets you make international calls to 100 destinations, like Russia, North Korea, and Epstein Island." "Trump Mobile. Can you fear me now?" The whole thing is great; give it a look (you don't need a Bluesky account to be able to see it [I don't have one].)

Yeah, it's one thing in southern CA, and entirely another in Scotland. Including winter?! That's some polar bear shit.

Damn! Food Network staple Anne Burrell died at home this morning, at just 55.

I grew up swimming in lakes and the ocean, and the only people I saw in something other than a bathing suit were surfers.

The permit was for 250,000. Anyone with functioning eyes knows nowhere near that many showed up, but, yeah, Steven Cheung is spouting that number with a straight face. Flashbacks to Sean Spicer lying his butt off about the attendance at Trump's first inauguration.

McEntire. I liked her self-titled sitcom (to my surprise, as she's not much of an actor), but the one she's in now, Happy's Place, with her Reba co-star Melissa Peterman, was so astoundingly bad its first episode I couldn't even make it through the whole thing. Anyway, yes, I hate that hokey Realtor.com commercial.