Bastet

I hate that song almost violently.

Right? If I was ordering four pizzas for an office party like this person was, I'd get: 1) a cheese pizza so those for whom at least one ingredient on every other pizza was something they don't like have something to eat, 2) a veggie pizza for vegetarians and those who want a slice of meat pizza, but then want something a little healthier for their other slice, 3) a basic pizza (like pepperoni and sausage) for people who don't want to get adventurous with their toppings, and 4) a specialty pizza - probably something with grilled chicken and a non-tomato sauce - that's a little outside the norm. (I'd also get one pizza with a gluten-free crust if someone needed it [I'd send out an email asking]). For salads, I'd get two: a caesar salad and a mixed greens (with several dressing options on the side). If someone can't find anything among that variety of free food to eat, that's on them; you can't account for absolutely everything (especially since it's for coworkers not friends, so there's only so much you can know about everyone's tastes; you're not trying to make sure everyone has their favorite pizza, but that everyone has at least one pizza they'd be happy to eat). But serving only four meat pizzas and one house salad, that's a total hosting fail.

That is so damn rude not to order a vegetarian option (of the main course everyone else is getting; the salad is a side dish and doesn't count!). And so what even if it turned you were the only one who ate it? You could take the rest home with you or save it in the office refrigerator for another day, just like others will take home/stick in the fridge anything left over from the other pizzas. We don't have Mellow Mushroom here, so I looked up the menu. Four of their specialty pizzas are vegetarian. Then there's a plain ol' cheese pizza. And even a vegan pizza. Plus you can select your own combination of sauce, cheese(s), and toppings. This is not a place that makes it difficult for vegetarians to eat. And I'm quite sure the company could afford an extra pizza. She simply chose not to care that you wouldn't have any. Gee, that really says, "Thanks for the good work this year, and happy holidays," doesn't it? Also, I could barf at her taking the CFO a plate. Children get their food dished up for them; adults walk into the damn kitchen and get it themselves.

Archive game for me since it's a football night. I missed three literary characters, so I was off to a terrible start, but I got everything else in the first round correct. It was a different story in DJ, where I did not run a single category. I mostly just missed one or two, except for TV, where I missed all but one (I only knew Hannibal). And, boy, do I feel like a dunce over FJ, because I didn't even know the St. Lawrence Seaway exists. (St. Lawrence River, yes, but I had no idea there was a whole canal thing going on up there.)

Did that actor have acne or was it a make-up effect? Because I wonder if they reason they switched to something other than acne for this version is simply not wanting to mess with doing prosthetic make-up on Jon Stewart for a live show.

Yeah, but that seems to be about the non-engagement/Everett vs. Ben debacle that morning, not about the hideous things she said at dinner the night before. The idea of saying what she did and walking back into that house without apologizing to everyone is beyond me. Yet at the bar later that night and at the house the next morning, she never once acted like, let alone said to anyone (like, oh, I don't know, Thad and Patrick, who, unlike Sybil, were never unkind to her) she knew she was wrong, too. That's what really kills me, because there are at a couple of points talk among some of the Stones at least somewhat acknowledging their faults towards her, but she seems either oblivious to or totally defiant about hers towards them. (It doesn't matter to me that they also owe her apologies for other things; that they started off right out the gate as terrible hosts, harder on her than they had any right to be, does nothing to diminish the fact that the way she conducted herself while a guest at someone's Christmas Eve dinner was deplorable. If she'd decided Screw it, you don't like me, I don't like you, so I'm through trying since you'll clearly never make any effort and was condescending or otherwise rude to them, that would have been tit for tat. She was instead grossly offensive, and kept getting more offensive instead of taking one of the many opportunities she had to shut up.) Not the words "I'm sorry", no, but cleaning her up and agreeing "Yes, you are; probably better" when Meredith stands there covered in breakfast goo and says "I'm just as good as any of you" is more of a gesture than Meredith ever offered to Sybil about attacking her parenting and saying a gay son is not a "normal" child. I'm not even sure who this film expects me to side with at any point; I think I'm supposed to somehow root for all of them, but instead I dislike most of them, with Meredith being near the top of that list. Pre-Christmas Eve dinner, I think they're worse to her than she is to them, so my sympathy is more with her, but at Christmas Eve dinner, she's utterly horrid and I have zero sympathy for her, and then Christmas Day I feel like it should all kind of balance out because she gives everyone a nice gift and endures the "I'm not proposing" humiliation, but it doesn't because I'm gobsmacked by the fact she doesn't seem to think she was awful at dinner. There's never an "I know I screwed up last night, but" mixed in with any of her "You all hate me, you think I'm this and that, doesn't anyone love me, what's so great about you guys, nothing" stuff and there hadn't even been any sort of "I can't believe I said it that way" when getting drinks with Ben in the aftermath.

Are you talking first date, or every date? My policy is pretty straightforward: If I accept a dinner invitation from someone I've newly met, I expect them to pay; they did the inviting, that's how it goes. If I invite to dinner someone I've newly met, I expect to pay; I did the inviting, that's how it goes. Our genders and how much time and money each of us spent getting ready (it doesn't take me much of either) are irrelevant to me. But once a relationship - again, whether friendship or romantic - has formed, where going out to dinner together has become a regular thing by now, we're not really inviting each other to dinner in the same way other than on special occasions, e.g. taking the other out for their birthday or to celebrate a promotion. It's more routine making of suggestions like "Wanna go try that new Italian place Friday?", and in those cases I expect to either split the tab each time or alternate who pays - I get this one, they get the next one, etc.

That's good to know. Looking her up on IMDb, she was 25 when she pitched a fit about Blair having sex - and refused to appear in the episode even once Natalie was given the storyline instead in acquiescence to her beliefs - so one would think old enough to understand the difference between her and her character. But that same year is when she at such a young age married her pastor ten years her elder, and not even two years later popped out what would be the first of three kids in three years! If she was indoctrinated into something that strict her whole life, who's to say what she should know when; it's understandable she needed more time to mature then, and I'm pleased to hear she's indeed evolved in the time since. Since I came in late when this aired, I just looked up the sequence of her singing the theme song with Mindy and Kim walking in at the end. That was cute, but I wish the three of them had been incorporated some other way and we'd been treated to a musical performance the likes of two members of Boyz II Men singing the Diff'rent Strokes theme song, because that was great.

Does she not know how to jiggle the handle? If she doesn't care because she has insurance, it sounds like her toilet isn't just running, but overflowing. Who wouldn't care about potential floor damage just because insurance would cover it? It's still a pain to deal with. Even if it is just running, she doesn't care about wasting water (even if, for no other reason, getting the bill like you said)? I couldn't find it using a quick search, but it indeed sounds stupid!

Those of us whose natural sleep cycle is go to go sleep late and wake up late seem to grasp the fact those whose natural cycle is to go to sleep early and wake up early are simply wired differently; we're not prone to busting into someone's bedroom at night and demanding, "Why are you in bed already?!" But, boy, do a lot of morning people feel free to interrupt our sleep in the morning, or make fun of us for it, or imply we're lazy because of it. Plus have no sympathy for how frequently we have to get up completely against our natural wake time, yet would pitch a thousand fits if they had to stay up past their natural sleep time that often. I don't begin to care if someone is a morning person. I do care if they think that makes them superior, because that schedule is the "right" one to have.

I finished it last night, and I did tear up along with the pregnant sister to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and again as soon as the final scene started, knowing it was the next year, their first Christmas without Sybil. And I laughed at one point during the Christmas morning wacky hijinks, when in the midst of everyone chasing, yelling, and crying, the paramedic leans across to Julie and says, "Hi, I don't think we've met." But that's about it. I cannot believe Meredith never apologized! Kelly went to the inn to apologize to her, but she wasn't there, Amy was about to do the same the next morning, but she was crying over the picture and then all the non-proposal shit started, and in the kitchen Sybil responded to Meredith's "I'm just as good as any of you" with "Of course you are; better, probably", but Meredith - Ms. "I just think any parent would want a normal child" - apparently never even thought about apologizing for her role. Good gods. Amy's hatred of her from jump was totally over the top (at least based on the big ball of nothing we were given as to why she couldn't stand her after that one dinner they had), as was most of the family's initial reactions to her missteps (Meredith could teach graduate level courses in how to go about things the wrong way, but come on - give a nervous woman walking into meeting an entire family some leeway at first), but what she said at THEIR dinner table on Christmas Eve?! She had multiple opportunities to just fucking stop, but she kept on, and then when Everett finally, after sitting there listening to her not just be generally offensive, but specifically to and about his brother and mother, responded to her umpteenth "I didn't mean that" with "Why don't you try saying what it is you do mean," she pulls this wounded act like he betrayed her. Fool, please; if everything that has come out of your mouth for the past five minutes has sounded bigoted, then you either are a bigot or you are completely incapable of expressing yourself, and either way the thing to do is stop saying these things. But nope, not Meredith. When it's clear she's made the entire room hideously uncomfortable and offended, to the point she's flat out told "That's enough," she doubles down with "I just think any parent would want a normal child". One thing I do feel sorry for Meredith about is how her not wanting to be hugged by people she's just met is counted as a strike against her, another sign of how uptight she is. It's not rude not to want to be hugged by your boyfriend's father three seconds after meeting him; what's rude is to, when someone has extended their hand in greeting, ignore that in favor of forcing a hug on them. And then later she has to squirm away because Ben thinks it's totally okay to - again, within a short time of meeting her - come wrap his arm around her. There really could have been something to this movie, especially with how the varying degrees of knowledge among the family members (some know, some know without knowing, some don't know) that this will be their last Christmas with Sybil affect everything that happens, but the script never delivers. It just throws stuff out there - Amy hates Meredith, the family figures Meredith is awful if Amy hates her so much (even though Amy hates everyone and has listed only minor annoyances as the basis for her grievance), Julie is the greatest thing since sliced bread, Meredith isn't an asshole she just tries too hard, Julie and Everett are perfect for each other and not at all hesitant by the fact he was with her sister until five minutes ago, Meredith and Ben are perfect for each other and not at all hesitant by the fact she was with his brother until five minutes ago - without establishing a basis for any of it. It just tells, never shows.

Tonight's dinner is one of those Crap, I've got things very close to going bad, what can I do with them? combinations -- with turkey thigh meat, kale, scallions, turkey fat, and alfredo sauce all needing to be used tonight, I dumped the first three into a skillet with the turkey fat and some garlic and red pepper flakes, added the sauce, and then some whole wheat fettucine and was good to go. It's obviously not setting the culinary world on fire, but it's tasty.

I was underwhelmed by (but did not dislike) Aviation, but I like Hendricks, so I will give The Botanist a try (it's been on my mental list, I just haven't gotten around to it). And I will definitely try this one; thanks for the enthusiastic recommendation (especially noting lending itself to a cucumber martini, which I love). I need to head into my local liquor store shortly to re-stock and buy some holiday gifts, so I will add this as a "Merry Christmas to me" item. Speaking of holiday gifts, has anyone tried and loved anything we haven't previously discussed here, particularly bourbons or other whiskeys?

That's cool to learn. I know nothing about Paul Dooley off screen other than he's married to Winnie Holzman (which I didn't know until listening to her commentary on the My So-Called Life DVDs [a show she created and on which he appeared a couple of times as Angela's grandpa] and which startled me upon learning given the nearly 30 year age difference; I never would have pictured that!), but I enjoy so many of his performances -- the dad in Sixteen Candles (one of the only good things about that film), the boss at the oil refinery on Grace Under Fire, Isaac Q. Newton on an episode of The Golden Girls, Ellie's dad on an episode of High Society, Susan's dad on ER, part of a hilarious gang of sorta killers on an episode of Major Crimes -- it's nice to hear he's a good man in real life. I just looked up his credits on IMDb, and am pleased to see he's still working in his early 90s.

Since this is my best friend and her family, whom I've known for 45 years, and the two families have been intertwined this whole time, yes, I do. I'm not sure what your issue is with my sharing one family's experience that differs from your family's, but this will be my last response to it. I love that no one knew for years how she obtained her distribution powers. Speaking of tags, we re-use the same ones until they wear out (or they get recycled because the giver or recipient died), and there remain one "To Mommy From [Bastet]" and one "To Daddy From [Bastet]" tag in my very early childhood scrawl, and I use them each year, as my parents always get a kick out of seeing them. And then, speaking of "Mommy", I remember both laughing and smiling when I - some summer break during college - heard my mom tell a younger friend who was melancholy about her kid switching to "Mom" instead of "Mommy": Yeah, I remember missing "Mommy" at first. Then came those early teen years when I was "Mother" (pronounced as "MUTH-errr"; for those who watched Roseanne, hear this in 14-year-old Becky's voice - the verbal equivalent of an eye roll - as that's pretty much exactly how I said it), and I missed "Mom". And then that came back. It'll be fine.

Right. They hired Mike Richards as host of the regular games, and Mayim as the host of special tournaments. Ken was not given any new job, he was still a presenter (like the Clue Crew - he sometimes presents a category of clues within a game). When Richards resigned as host, no "permanent" replacement for him was named; Mayim was tapped to step in and also host the regular games, but her sitcom shooting schedule means she's not available to host all of them, so they needed a fill-in host for those non-Mayim games and selected Ken. They've now said this will continue for the rest of the season. Who will host the regular games next season - her, him, both, someone else - has not yet been disclosed (and likely not yet decided).

This is key. Even if he did pull the trigger (without meaning to [e.g. without realizing he'd moved his finger enough to do so], or even intentionally as part of blocking the scene) but his mind has now convinced himself he didn't because inadvertently causing a death is too painful to live with, it doesn't say anything about his culpability - as an actor; depending on his producer responsibilities, he could be held partially liable due to lax hiring and oversight practices - because if the gun was as it should have been and was stated to him to be by the people responsible for ensuring that, he could have fired that trigger all day long and this wouldn't have happened.

It didn't seem to me like Sam corrected himself from Parliament to House of Commons before Mayim ruled him incorrect, but maybe he got out "House" just before she said "no" and then continued on? It wouldn't matter, obviously; he completely dominated the game even without ever landing on a DD (29 right, 0 wrong). I was rooting for Ashleigh, but for a U.S. history professor, her House of Representatives answer to that clue was surprising. It was very early in the game, so I'll chalk it up to nerves. I liked when she got Green New Deal at the last second on that DD, even though she wasn't sure of it. The Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn TS surprised me, with the clue asking for two geographic limits of an agreement with Tropical in the title. The Peacock TS surprised me a bit, too, but I'm sure with a little more time someone running through their mental list of streaming services for one that would use a feather would have had the "A-ha!" moment it's easier to have here at home. Not only do I know nothing about golf, my answer to the "you can be disqualified if you sign & return an incorrect scorecard" clue was BINGO. Go ahead and laugh. I didn't know what specific type of wrestling they wanted for the last clue in that same category, either, and missed another two each in 100 and colors. I missed one each in Tut's tomb and environment; Prepositional Phrases was the only category I ran in the first round. In DJ, I was off to a bad start, missing three in literary professors, followed by two in math, but then I ran islands, rhyme time, and ennial. I missed two in 2021. So I did better in DJ than the first round, which doesn't happen all that often. And FJ came to me pretty quickly; concentrating on advocates for non-violence who were assassinated, I first thought of MLK Jr., but then twigged to the MacArthur part of the clue and realized, duh, I need to think earlier in the 20th century, and then Gandhi was my first thought.

Painfully so, yes. (My first comment in the thread was: Yep; I just finished watching there last week, and some episodes are still showing up in my recommendations, so it's still there.

I miss the blog posts the judges used to do about the episodes, and have enjoyed re-reading some of Tom's season one (when he wasn't a producer) thoughts about the challenges, cheftestants, and final edits. I love his irritation at how far Dave made it with his "mostly generic and uninspired cooking", and especially how having to go with the guest judge's decision meant Dave, not Lee Anne, was one of the three heading to Vegas for the finals. I also like this about Tiffani: And LOL at this about Stephen:

The first three episodes of season one are available on the free version of Peacock, so I revisited those folks for the first time in a very long time. Wow. The caliber of cheftestants at the start is absolutely dismal compared to who they were able to get as the series went on. Half of them had no business being on a show with "chef" in the title, let alone "top chef". It's jarring to watch now.

Yes, dictated and regimented is how this person was being about the one-at-a-time distribution and opening of gifts, thus this family saying that was not going to fly anymore, and everyone - including him - having enjoyed it more ever since.

"I got a lot of problems with you people!"

The only truly good one among those I've watched is Major Crimes (in fact, I like it significantly better than The Closer to the point I have difficulty watching any but my very favorite episodes of the original, because having seen the supporting characters fleshed out and given more to do in MC makes it irritating for me to watch them so underutilized in TC). The Conners (sequel to Roseanne) is okay, but it's a shadow of its predecessor and I really only watch out of inertia and nostalgia. All the others I can think of - The Golden Palace, Archie Bunker's Place, Women of the House (a follow-up about Designing Women's Suzanne Sugarbaker), AfterMASH - failed to grab me at all; I just missed the original.

He got over it just fine, and everyone enjoys themselves. There's a lovely medium between a dictated performance and "give me my presents and get out of my way" and that's where they've happily resided ever since how every single one of the half dozen other people present preferred was logically adopted over the regimented rule one person wanted to impose on a fun, festive morning.