Bastet

Another way that Hulu annoys me is making their fastest rewind/FF speed ridiculously slow. Paramount+ zipping ahead/back at lightning speed is annoying, but even worse is having your fastest option only go 32 seconds ahead/back at a time.

I hate ironing*, but I have been known to do quadratic equations as a relaxation technique, so no judgment here! *I even have an ironing board built into my wall in the laundry room (for Clue fans, it's like the one that bopped Colonel Mustard on the head), so it's not as if I'd have to wrestle a full-size board out of a closet in order to iron and then drag it back when I was done. But I still hate ironing so much I've only used my iron a handful of times in the decades I've owned it, even in this house with the built-in board, and most of those times were upon making curtains; for clothes, I mostly don't buy things that would need ironing, so I can just promptly remove from the dryer and occasionally hang right outside a steamy shower if more is needed. Anything that gets dry cleaned (and I keep that to the bare minimum), that's on them to get back to me in ready-to-wear condition.

Archive game for me thanks to hockey. The Brandi Carlile TS was a bummer; I like her music, but I love how much she respects and supports other women in music. If not for the directors category, I'd have nailed the first round in its entirety, but I only came up with two (not terrible, I suppose, since I'd only seen one of the films). I only ran music in DJ, but it wasn't a bad round; I got all but "His Accidency" in presidents and all but Milan in Italy and missed two each in the rest. I had absolutely no idea for FJ, though.

I have zero trouble believing it about every single person listed.

She was rude to her housemates (and the neighbors) for having her buddies over to build a skate ramp at 1:00 in the morning, and her "I can do whatever I want whenever I want" statement had me, frighteningly, speaking in unison with Flora: "Not when you live with six other people." She was too hep and happening to bother with things like cleaning up her dishes. So she was not someone I'd want to live with. But I always thought I'd have enjoyed talking with her; we had wildly different interests, but she was so passionate about hers and I find that makes for an interesting person. She had herself impressively together for her age. Here's what I've seen (via an article in People) in terms of social media posts from castmates: Flora: I am beyond myself and sad to just hear that my roomate Sarah died. I can’t believe this. She was the most selfless person I knew. She was always kind and helpful to everyone. I haven’t spoken to her in years and never knew she was troubled. My prayers go out to her family. RIP my roomate, my friend. May you skate with angels and never feel pain again #therealworldmiami Dan: Yes, I know about the death of Sarah Becker, one of my roommates in "The Real World". Sarah and I had not spoken since the end of the show, so I don't know anything about her struggles. The seven of us in that cast went through a bizarre, intense and sometimes traumatic experience together, and that creates a connection between people, even when they choose not to associate with each other. I can only say, it's very sad. Joe: Sarah Becker, one of my six roommates on MTVs ‘The Real World: Miami,’ and for years after in our home in San Luis Obispo, CA, dedicated herself to becoming a life coach and eventually a licensed marriage and family therapist to help others, and perhaps deeper understand her own mental health challenges. Suicide should never be an option, but hopefully she is at peace, and those who knew and loved her will reach out for the care they need, like I must, to mourn, love, LIVE and thrive. I had no idea Joe and Sarah had roomed together after the show.

Yeah, quite frankly, I don't know too many people who haven't made that stupid choice at least once in their lives (including me), and know several who got popped for it. I thankfully only know one who got into an accident because of it, and luckily the only thing he damaged was his car. And he got arrested, paid the huge fine, and lost his license for a year. All of which he accepted with great embarrassment and remorse, relief he hadn't harmed anyone else, and resolve to never do it again. He did not whine it was going to ruin the tour. I'll judge the decision to get behind the wheel, of course, but circumstances differ, and what tells me more about a person than that action is how they react if they get caught (or, worse, cause an accident). Timberlake had every option available in the world for alternate ways of getting home, chose not to use any of them, got caught, but didn't hurt anyone so faces punishment he's easily able to bear if convicted. But he's up on stage talking about the tough week he's had. I hear far less celebrity news than the average person (I mostly only know what is posted here), so I may be missing a lot, but literally every tidbit I come across about this guy is negative. This seems par for the refusing to ever take responsibility course of entitlement he's been on since he became a star.

No, but I remember that coming up here several years ago, that there was a thread on some other discussion board in which people were arguing over whether it's okay not to return your cart because you have kids with you. Of course, all rational people said "um, hell no" but there was a disturbing contingent who claimed yes. I remember it because I was so perplexed by this notion - wouldn't you just leave the kid in the car or take them with you? - I called my mom and asked her what she did with me when taking the cart back before I was big enough to be the one doing it. She said "Either left you in the car or took you with me, what else would I do?" So I informed her that a section of the internet would have given her license to just leave the cart randomly in the lot because she'd spawned a child.

It's the same for me. I'd still never go on a cruise even without my motion sickness being at its worst on the water (as I've said before, it's not at all how I like to travel, having my itinerary dictated by others, having to be around so many people, the boring at-sea days, etc.), but I love the water and would like to be on it rather than gazing out at it. I'd like to be able to go to Catalina for a day, out on the lake on my uncle's boat, etc. I've done these things, but nowhere near as often as I'd like because the drugs (and wristbands and such, but I don't think those are really contributing anything; it's the drugs) only lessen the severity of my nausea, they do not eliminate it.

My dad, previously an extremely active man, has in the past couple of years accepted that his body (particularly his back) just cannot handle some of the tasks he used to do, and that in whatever years he has left (he's 80), he no longer even wants to take care of all these things himself. But when it's a project that's beyond my skills (I'm significantly handier than the average bear, but I'm at maybe 30% of all the things he knows how to do every bit as well as someone who specializes in that skill - he was truly something in his day - plus my time is limited, and I'm no spring chicken either), so he has to hire someone, he's perfectly happy to pay someone to do it as he has the money, but so many tradespeople who do the job as it should be done have died or retired, and it's sometimes a struggle to find someone who doesn't cut corners and have an "eh, good enough" attitude. So it can still be a challenge to keep him from doing too much when he can't find someone to do a job to his standards (which are not unreasonable), since his mind still knows how to do it, it's just the rest of his body not wanting to go along.

Add Justin Timberlake to Kathleen Madigan's joke from about 15 years ago, about the options rich people have to avoid driving if they're drunk:

Presumably because this weekend concludes the UK leg* of her record-breaking tour (which brings a shit ton of money to every city it visits; there's a whole thing about "Swiftonomics"), in London. *Well, until she returns to London for another five shows in August; I'm neither a fan nor a non-fan, but just reading that schedule made me want to nap.

FJ was one of my most instant of instagets, so the wording posed no problems for me. I watched with friends, but at the end of movie night instead of the beginning, so we were expecting a disaster but we did fairly well. I think the only TS that stumped all of us as well was the one about influencers (something about videos of them getting ready), and we all said we were perfectly content with that one getting by us. (We also all laughed at Ken saying there were a bunch of teenagers yelling at their screens right now.)

She said in an interview she foolishly didn't even realize they were still filming by that point, to her it was just standing around talking amongst themselves after the competition was over. (I didn't have any problem with it, period, I just noticed that part of the interview because I read it after reading some comments here about her making it all about her.)

I've seen posts on NextDoor from people in nearby neighborhoods, with photos of peacocks walking down the sidewalk, but I've never come across them on my walks. I spent some time with the peacocks that roam the garden at Warwick Castle many years ago; the plumage is a beautiful sight up close in person.

Kristen said (in an interview posted in the Media thread) they didn't discuss it for very long (Tom has said on social media it took 90 minutes) as Danny was the unanimous winner:

Yeah, I was completely off schedule last night and didn't even watch the regular show until late, so was saving Kristen's show for today. Except it's not on Peacock or the Bravo site (and I can never find it on the Bravo app in its entirety, just clips). It must have been on YouTube at some point since the video was posted here, but not anymore. @tv echo, were you able to watch it? If so, was there anything - in content or technical issues - that would explain why it has been removed? I need my final fix of the season!

There were some ... hmm, let's call them interesting wrong guesses tonight. Add in Ken accepting things he should never have accepted (including Marianas Trench, which inexplicably did not get reversed as noted above) and this was a somewhat annoying game. I missed three in lit and two each in dukes and numbers, so it was not a good first round. But not terrible, at least; I ran orange and Stevie Wonder and got all but opp in words. But I kicked ass in DJ; I missed two each in Jacques and museums, but ran everything else. I had absolutely no idea for FJ, though.

We're doing it this Sunday instead of last, and I haven't quite decided yet -- tomorrow is grocery shopping.

He's tall, because Ken said he's the most giant of the giant killers.

I never liked it as much as I wanted to - I liked the concept and Brown's performance, but I kept waiting for it to fire on all cylinders and it never quite did - but it's definitely something I'd take another look at if it turned up somewhere. That's too bad it's another show that never will due to music licensing costs.

Apparently, when I have the day off I lose all concept of time, as I didn't even register it was Wednesday until the original airing had passed. I watched the later airing, but tired and pleasantly tipsy, so I'll have to check it out again on Peacock to catch the nuance. From what I absorbed, Danny was a pretty clear winner due to his menu. Savannah, unfortunately (as my favorite, and teamed with my other favorite, Michelle), knocked herself out of the competition despite great first and fourth dishes due to the two in the middle. So it was down to Dan and Danny, and I thought Danny had the better menu overall, and the better execution. It was interesting to see Kristen so emotional about saying "You are Top Chef" for the first time. She is really the perfect successor to Padma, and I look forward to more.

I've been wanting that for a long time. They established him as incredibly close to his mom, but we never see her. I could fanwank that his parents live elsewhere, maybe out of the country, but when Sam's ghost mom invited her to come to the terrible restaurant where she died for Thanksgiving, Jay said no problem, just be aware that will probably mean his mom will want them for Christmas, so it sounded like they were someplace close enough it's routine to spend holidays together. But then they only ever introduced us to his sister, and didn't have them even mention their parents in any of their conversations.

Well, boo - finally no preemption, and I have to watch Adriana lose to some guy who pouts every time he's beat to the buzzer or gets a response wrong. Oh, well; he earned it with that DD wager, and she has a nice round 15 wins, almost cracked the top ten for all-time longest winning streaks, and may very well, depending on how the season goes, be the person most feared in the ToC. The seismic TS surprised me, but I guess it helps to live in earthquake country. Damn poetry; if not for that category, I'd have run the entire first round. But I did better than I expected in it, only missing two. I didn't run a damn thing in DJ, though. The closest I got was getting all but Duma in Russian (I knew it, but could not get it from my brain to my mouth). I dreaded the ships category and indeed missed three. I was even worse in TV; I don't watch any of the shows, and only correctly guessed LEGO. I missed two each in the rest. FJ was an instaguess I was wholly confident was correct, so at least I ended on a high note.

I did it once, and was so embarrassed. A friend and I had a longer-than-anticipated drive out to a vacation condo in Palm Springs, I hadn't eaten yet that day, and she's a highly indecisive everything, especially shopper, so even though we headed to the grocery store immediately after we got checked in and stashed our bags, I knew it was going to be a while before we got back to the condo, or even back in the car, and I did not want to wait that long to have a snack. So I grabbed a bag of chips to munch on while we trudged through the aisles. The checker didn't have to do anything different to scan my half-empty bag of chips than she did the full one we bought, so I don't think I caused any issues (unlike the people who eat half their bunch of grapes, thus not paying for the ones they already ate upon getting what remains weighed at check-out), I just looked incredibly tacky. But I was hella hungry!