Bastet

A friend of mine does that so frequently, despite being corrected, I swear she's just doing it to fuck with me.

And then there's the potential lung damage. But, on the other hand - kids. So, yeah, bring on the smoke! CA was the first state to ban indoor smoking in restaurants (among other places), back in 1995, so for a while, when restaurants in other states still had smoking sections, it was jarring to walk into one while traveling and be hit with the smell (because it's not as if the smoke ever actually stayed in the smoking sections). I had coworkers who were livid not be able to smoke at their desks anymore. The ban on indoor smoking in bars followed a few years later, but the dive bar in my old neighborhood was still flouting the law and allowing it when I left in '05 and I would not be surprised if they're still doing it.

I can't stand Geoffrey Zakarian's wage-thieving ass, and between Alex vs. America and this I've had to watch him twice in just a few days, but this was a good episode. The best parts were the Titans' reactions from the couch, when something came right down to the wire. It was funny hearing the Titans say they had a surprising amount of fun for a competition in which they got smoked each round. And Brooke saying "Maybe this can be the end of the pork belly thing" at the end. I correctly predicted every single score this entire episode, which I don't think I've ever done before.

I usually put it in the freezer if I'm not going to cook it that week, but if I do leave meat in the refrigerator past the "use by" date, I'll still cook it so long as it looks, smells, and feels normal, and eat it so long as it tastes right. Most things have been good to go past the date, but I've had to toss a few, which is why I became pretty diligent about not losing track of meat in the refrigerator, letting it get hidden by other things and then forgetting about it so that it doesn't get frozen or cooked in time. It is incredibly annoying to throw away food (and money) like that.

Grab your smellin' salts, because this will surely shock you: HGTV's Christina El Moussa Anstead Hall is getting divorced again. Experience taught her nothing, as they apparently don't have a pre-nup, and he's asking for alimony and the rights to all the HGTV content they produced. For those not keeping track (which normally includes me, but this article popped up as a recommendation on something else I was reading, and I have to admit her husband-picking skills being as terrible as her design skills amuses me, so I read it): After she divorced the second guy in 2021, she married this one in April 2022 and they felt the need to have a second wedding that September. Fast forward to this week, and they both filed petitions for divorce.

Not even some, the majority. And it's no coincidence those at the top of the list appeared most frequently. That anyone would with a straight face name Nigel's actor as the number one guest star, when he's been in 20 episodes and his character was engaged to one of the leads, and put in second Nancy's actor, with 17 appearances, is pathetic, even for entertainment journalism. What a ridiculous article.

According to IMDb, she competed on Masters, and appeared as a guest judge on this show four times (including, of course, the Portland season, when she was a guest judge twice, one of those times being the finale).

Yep, no problems. Two in the first round, three in DJ, and then FJ. (And two of the three DDs were missed.)

Another archive game for me since it will be preempted tonight, so I can only hope Isaac responded to the 50 Cent clue correctly (Fiddy, rather than Fifty). This clue could not have been more meant for me if it had my name in it: The trigger TS surprised me, as did no one getting scribble. Erika's "United Postal Service" response was something. Maybe she meant UPS, which is United Parcel Service, but whether she meant UPS or the USPS, clearly neither one was named for a person. She got nearly as many wrong as she did right, ouch. I did very well in the first round, but couldn't quite run the whole thing; I ran TV and screen to stage, but missed one each in the rest (Left 4 Dead 2, Maryland, lungfish, and the Sami). In DJ, I was terrible in authors, only getting Agatha Christie, but otherwise I did well. I expected to also be terrible in diss tracks, but only missed two. I missed another two in flags (I don't think seeing the pictures would have helped), but I ran trials and got all but the beard TS in leftovers and all but the Iolanthe TS in vowels. FJ was an instaget.

I think we'd use the form to request a new forum - like if a new streaming service came out, and it produced documentaries, there would need to be a [New Streaming Service] forum created in the Nonfiction & Documentaries category. But we still create topics within the existing forums ourselves - so if Netflix releases a trailer for an upcoming documentary, we just go ahead and create a topic for that doc within Nonfiction & Documentaries > Netflix.

According to the archive, yes, several times, if you count "Newer Words & Phrases" as there's no reason not to.

I was going to be happy with anyone's win other than Jose Garces, so I passed that bar, but I'm still bummed Stephanie went out first. And I can always do without seeing Geoffrey Wage-Thieving Zakarain infect any of "my" shows, as judge or competitor. But I enjoyed this. And, holy hell, I wanted every single artichoke dish made in the second round. YUM. It was not, however, a typical Alex vs. America episode, so I'm curious to see what happens going forward.

I watched the fish and vegetables on the grill episode, and the vegetable platter made me hungry. I hate trout, so that segment did nothing for me, but I have so many garden-fresh vegetables I almost wanted to have people over so I would take the time to arrange a pretty platter like that. Almost. With a lemon tree in my backyard, I've never bought lemonade in a carton, and I was taken aback by the color of that clear one. The orange was weird, too, but explained by it having orange juice in it (the hell?). Why was the clear one clear? Just sugar water with a little bit of lemon juice? Maybe, since that was the favorite of people who want theirs emphasizing sweet rather than tart (not me). I like Julia picking the winner because it tasted like a cocktail.

Life is stressful enough reading the news once or twice a day. I'm not sure how I'd function if I was bombarded with it all day long.

Archive game for me since the show is preempted. I gave myself credit for mulberry on the belief the picture would have helped me, but thankfully for the rest I didn't need them. I missed three in TV shows (I've only seen The X-Files and The Good Place, and cultural osmosis did not help me at all with the others this time), but had a decent first round otherwise. I missed two in afternoon, but ran colleges and weather, and got all but indulgences in history and all but the Bruins TS in Dutch. I only ran fruits & vegetables in DJ. I got all but "Radioactive" in songs, but missed three in nth and two each in the rest. FJ was an instaget, though.

He'll always be Doogie's dad to me, so I liked this from Neil Patrick Harris (via his Instagram):

I was stunned Marcus got a 19 on his final dish with that horrible watery texture. Since it's Marcus, it must have been hella flavorful and, most important to the judge, creative. A high score despite one glaring error of execution, even a score high enough to win given his lead, wouldn't have surprised me, just a near-perfect score. I'm glad Tiffany got one, too -- and with a salad, which tends to get poo-pooed in competition. Brooke had me yelling at her through the TV, which virtually never happens -- if you like your salmon more done than the average person, cook it that way at home, not in a frakkin' competition where almost any judge is going to call it overcooked. I love her because she's as fantastic a cheftestant as she is a chef (I've had her food several times), so the rare times she makes an error in strategy it bums me out.

I have always rooted for Shannen Doherty, ever since the "I Hate Brenda" newsletter (how Brenda can be anyone's biggest problem when Kelly Baby-Voiced Taylor existed alongside her, I will never know), in a way even I can't understand. I hate watched 90210 for a while during the early seasons thanks to a friend who loved it, but I only ever saw a few episodes of Charmed, so it's not like I was a fan - but she was the best part of both those shows - but I always sensed she was getting a greater share of the blame for any on-set problems than she should have. It's possible that sense was completely off, of course; there was just something about her I was drawn to from a distance. It seems like we'd have disagreed on a lot, but I never saw her express her views in a hateful way, so respected that. Lots of people have cancer, many of them young, but there was something about her public battle with it that touched me in a particular way, and every time she shared the latest grim change I hoped for her to beat the odds.

Weddings are boring as all get out in real life (the reception might be fun, but the ceremony is something people endure), and worse on TV. The wacky hijinx in getting there are often too much, and I'd like a better balance, but I'll take emphasizing the madness over sitting through a slew of realistic ceremonies any day.

I still pull out my tape (yes, I still have a VCR) from time to time, when I'm recovering from illness or injury, as it's a good workout when I need something to get me going again before I'm ready to ease back into my usual routine. Fundamentally, it's so great to see an exercise video (I have many, as I hate gyms) with people of so many different sizes and abilities, all able to do the routine to one degree or another, instead of the usual where you have Mega-Fit, Super-Fit, and then Fit masquerading as the "If you need to start with the least-intensive version" option that makes a good chunk of the audience give up after failing to meet unrealistic expectations. I don't know much about him, and what I saw of his personality was not my favorite, but eternal kudos to him for that.

I watched this last night and had the same question. I hate most romantic comedies and most sci-fi, and I remember when this came out a few people told me if I ever got Hulu I should watch it as it will join my list of exceptions. I finally did, and it is. I mean, I don't understand the sci-fi stuff in any detail, but I don't care, because the shit they got up to in the various loops was funny. And, on the relationship front, this time it wasn't a woman making her life less than it should be in order to stay with a man who doesn't deserve her to begin with. Here, it's a man who is actually good for her, but when he asks her to sacrifice and stay, she says no, that she'll be fine without him. So he's the one who has to decide to follow her in order to be with her. Plus, they're funny and sarcastic rather than schmoopy and cutesy. I don't know any of the main actors other than J.K. Simmons, whom I love in everything I've ever seen him in, and Peter Gallagher, who used to bug me but who really appeals to me in the last decade or so, but the two leads did a good job, too, especially her. The movie was just plain fun, which is what I needed. I am not at all surprised this was received so well in 2020, for the same reason.

I'm probably not the average person, as that would be perfectly fine for me during the day (so long as I had ceiling fans going and was not doing physical labor)*, but not at night. I never have the heat on overnight, since the cat and I are in bed under covers, so no need to warm the house or even the bedroom, but I can't sleep if I'm hot, and these days I not only need to turn on the bedroom AC to not feel hot overnight, I need to turn it down to 76. I've always followed the 68 for heat/78 for AC recommendation, and it's always worked for me - until, as I said, perimenopause meant needing it cooler to sleep. *Which is the case today. It has been so hot lately, I've had all four AC units running most of the day (I have a mini-split system rather than central air, so I can turn on a single unit or a combination of units; all four will combine to cool the whole house), and today it's just "normal" hot outside, so it's 80 in most of the house (81 in the hottest room, 78 in the coolest). I don't have any of the AC units on, but in rooms with a ceiling fan it's pleasant; it doesn't feel hot walking through a room that doesn't, I just don't want to hang out there.

I watched with a small group of friends and FJ was an instaget for almost all of us (and the one for whom it wasn't said "the polio guy"). I didn't keep track, but know I had some terrible categories. I had no idea in the Harry Potter category and only came close to getting one in Doom Scrolling -- thanks to a joke in Ghosts, I knew the Norse myth event in the $2000 clue was "Ragna-something" and then my friends finished it. We were all pretty bad in the Lakes & Rivers category in DJ; one person knew the Pixar movie and I said Joaquin Phoenix, but we had no idea on the rest (none of us had ever even heard of Lake Bell, let alone recognized her). The rest, though, I think I either ran or just missed one in -- I was either great or terrible, no in between.

Just a few days ago I finally watched the documentary about her, filmed as she was turning 90, and looked her up to see if she was still active and she was recently. Good for her; everyone described her as incapable of being still, and she said she never wanted to retire. I'm glad for anyone to die peacefully at home after 96 years, but especially her -- she endured so much trauma (used as basically slave labor in a Swiss orphanage after having to flee Germany via Kindertransport, orphaned by the Holocaust, nearly losing both her legs in an explosion at age 20 after being relocated to Palestine and forced to change her German name [Karola; Ruth is her middle name]), and regarded surviving all that trauma as obliging her to live large and make a dent in this world. Which she did, getting an education against all odds, surviving as an immigrant single mother in a country whose language she did not speak, setting up practice as a sex therapist, and then using a little radio show in the wee hours that wound up spawning TV shows and countless guest appearances on talk shows to change the way this country talked about sex -- particularly female pleasure. She was one of the first outside of the community to be strongly and publicly supportive of LGBTQ rights during the AIDS crisis, having seen first-hand what happens when a group of people is regarded as subhuman. She was fiercely intellectual, as her natural inclination and as a connection to her late father, who had always emphasized education. She raised compassionate children, adored her grandchildren, and responded to the COVID pandemic by heading a commission to combat loneliness, given its effect on health. I highly recommend the documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth, available on Hulu. There are some production choices I think the filmmaker could have done better, so about someone else's life it might not be a notable film, but it's an utterly engaging one because of its subject. She kept a diary during her time in the orphanage, and all the letters she received from her mom, so we're able to hear her read from some of those. She finally looks up the details of her parents' murders, having never previously been ready to see that in black and white. She meets up with her boyfriend from that orphanage, who - allowed to go to high school in town, while girls could only be educated through eighth grade - sneaked into her room each night to teach her what he'd learned that day. There's a nice collection of archival footage covering the trajectory of her career, including of some good ol' boy who tries to place her under citizen's arrest. And throughout, we see that while she's an international icon, she's still everyone's Jewish grandma, making sure the film crew eats.

Liz's "sumo" guess cracked me up, because that's what popped into my head, too. (I knew it wasn't correct, at least.) Her James Taylor guess on the DD was too painful to laugh at. Also, on a shallow note, I like her dress. I was absolutely terrible in concert halls, only coming up with encore. I wasn't quite as terrible in wrestling as I expected to be, "only" missing three. I missed another three in New Hampshire, which I was not expecting; ouch. I ran the rest, but I had as rough a first round as the contestants did. At least much of what stumped me stumped all of them as well, which made getting a TS something to cling to -- I knew Jeannette Rankin and correctly guessed security guard. I didn't fare well in DJ, either -- I ran alphabetically and B&B, but missed three each in heirs and animals and two each in the rest. I got FJ, at least. Like Robert, Portuguese first brought Brazil to mind, but I knew that wasn't correct. Once I shifted my attention to a (former) capital meaning "lake", I got it right away.