Bastet

Dolly is almost always aces on a daily basis, and definitely when an artist takes a song she wrote in a direction she never thought of and creates something beautiful. She loves music, period, regardless of genre. She's refreshingly honest about loving the money a cover brings her - as the songwriter whose publishing company has steadfastly held onto the rights (including when Elvis Presely, to her great thrill, was set to record "I Will Always Love You", but she backed out because, at the last minute, his infamous manager declared Elvis would only do it for half the publishing rights) - such as saying anyone can go ahead and give Whitney Houston credit for "I Will Always Love You" so long as they give Dolly the cash. But she's just as open about her love of the artistry of great covers, and the thrill she gets from hearing a song she wrote recorded in a wonderful way she'd never contemplated. She literally pulled off the road to listen to Houston's "I Will Always Love You", and was overwhelmed by that recording. So for her to love Lil Nas X's take on "Jolene" - which is, like "I Will Always Love You", one of the greatest of her many songs - and fete his celebration of it is not at all surprising, yet is wonderful.

"I said a prayer last night." "To who, Satan?" Such a prayer would make about as much sense as Darlene giving a particular god a try. Becky getting sucked in to the "higher power" thing that excludes many addicts from the AA path to sobriety (which is the only path TV writers think exists), I can readily go with - we don't have anywhere near as much history on her feelings on this issue, so they can take her just about anywhere. But Darlene we saw contemplate and stand firm against push-back even from Roseanne's vague "There's a god of some kind out there somewhere" belief, let alone a given religion. (It's not about my feelings on religion - I couldn't watch 95% of TV if it was - it's about consistency with the characters'.) "You'll find something that works for you [because this Jesus thing obviously doesn't]" - and Darlene heading back to the church to clean out the donation bin, because "Mom would have wanted it that way", heh - gives me hope this is going to right itself, but I know we're in for more of Pastor Phil, so I'm still a bit apprehensive. There were some funny moments in that storyline, though. "Here's your mic back" was great, and Dan's "It's not a miracle, I opened a drawer!" refutation was equally in character. And I enjoyed this when a churchgoer clutched her pearls at the sisters celebrating the fact if they both wound up in a hell they could do shots off a demon's ass: "You're welcome to join us, of course." In a storyline much more to my liking, I enjoyed Becky's feelings at being old enough to be the mom of her classmates. I really hope they do justice to this re-awakening yet tempered by time version of Becky's academic interest. Neville is not as awful so far this season, but I haven't forgotten the origins of Jackie's relationship with him. Since it seems the writers are fairly committed to it, I hope they continue to show why he'd be healthy for her now despite starting out as a won't take no for an answer jackass. So, in the end, I'm glad I watched. I'm also glad I had three martinis first.

I found the '80s songs category with Johnny Gilbert reciting the lyrics fun, but when the first one was "Wind Beneath My Wings", I wished Mayim was doing it. The intangible TS surprised me a bit. I missed one each in monkeys, business (I could not get pass-through from my brain to my mouth!) and webcams (had no idea where Cape Fear is off the coast of, and I'm normally pretty good with geography), but got everything else in the first round. In DJ, I only ran TV kitchens, but still had a good round. I missed one in CL, and two each in the rest (including the low-valued Louis XIV clue, which was rather embarrassing even though only my cat was here to see it). To the surprise of absolutely no one, I did not know FJ. I would have to spend so much time studying religion/mythology if I ever wanted to try out for the show. (I just know the categories of my audition test would be The Bible, Opera, Sci-Fi, Today's Pop Music, Wars By Battle, and Video Games.) As for Mayim's pants, which I read about earlier today, I saw her on What Not to Wear a long time ago, and I believe she stated she does not wear pants in public. This article says the same. But both were quite some time ago; this one is much more recent and she says she "hardly ever" does. So perhaps she has loosened up, perhaps wearing pants as J! host is the same to her as wearing them for a fictional role, who knows. It doesn't seem like anything someone at J!/Sony would try to force (hell, Mike Richards would be more likely to try to get her in a shorter skirt), and she doesn't seem like someone who would acquiesce if they did, so this game's wardrobe selection was presumably her choice, in which case - good for her.

But non-practicing. Great scene. I'm not sure if I want to watch this tonight or wait until I feel like I'm in the mood for this storyline. I think I'll need to have a few drinks over the next two hours until it airs here.

Thanks for the info. I remember so little about this show, a lot of it feels like I'm watching it for the first time. Among the things I'd forgotten was how early the stage for the sweet Mark/Justin relationship was set. Back when Marc and Amanda had no redeeming qualities yet, Betty takes Justin to work with her (because he'd lied that he needed to shadow her to write a paper for school) and Marc immediately recognizes a kid who's going to go through a lot of shit for who he is and advises him on dealing with the fact the kids at school don't get him: "Be who you are, wear what you want, just learn how to run really fast." One thing I did not forget is how much I fucking hate Walter. He's an insecure, jealous whiner. I've re-watched the first seven episodes, and at the end of the seventh one I got so angry when Betty left that SoHo hotel she was reviewing so she could apologize to him. Excuse me?! He acted like a total asshole, embarrassed her, and stomped off. (Again.)

If any of it was from a chain restaurant or involved deep dish, I can produce a dozen character witnesses to testify that not even if I was simultaneously starving and broke would I have placed those orders.

And he didn't even seek out the manager, he happened upon him, said, "Oh good, the manager" and told him Brian in produce was very helpful and continued on shopping. I'm with you rather than Dr. Rick; that's not silly, that's commendable. People with negative experiences often let management know, but people who get notably good customer service are much less likely to.

This isn't a credit card fraud situation; someone applied for unemployment benefits using her information, and now she's received the prepaid debit card onto which the benefit payment is loaded.

Aaron was so very bland, but I still wish the whole group was participating. I don't get (and am not signing up for) Paramount+, but I'm hoping they'll make the first episode available on YouTube like they did with the first episode of the NY Homecoming so I can see everyone (well, almost everyone) greet each other again after all this time.

No, he liked the Corday/Benton relationship and was not opposed to an interracial relationship in and of itself. What he objected to was having the relationship with a white professional be Benton's only successful relationship, while his relationships with Black women were dysfunctional messes, nothing but fucking and fighting. As the Black lead of one of TV's biggest shows, he felt a responsibility not to be part of that messaging. Good for him.

Yes, I wish that one and the Rubberband Man's back-to-school commercial would be brought back annually. (They'd just have to change the chyron at the end, since Office Max is now Office Depot.)

I'm rather surprised that was a FJ clue. Even if none of the three knew that fact (entirely possible), pretty much every J! contestant in the history of the show (hell, pretty much everyone who's ever looked at a map) would guess either Africa or Asia. So to select for FJ a 50/50 clue seemed a little weird. It was very much a $200 clue, that's for sure. I've never seen an episode of the show, but it's so prevalent in pop culture that William Shatner + space program got me there immediately (and I'm sure the picture of her in uniform further signaled it had to be a sci-fi series [I didn't see it, as I was just reading the clues on the archive, not watching]). I knew the only way I'd be wrong is if it was another title in the Trek franchise (I have no idea if he appeared in any of the spinoffs or what they're called), but at $200 I figured I was safe.

I hope they continue to air that every "GEICOween" for the rest of my life, because I will never stop laughing at it.

I like the documentary series Nightwatch and recently watched some episodes of a couple of similar UK series (about paramedics, police, and fire responding to 999 [like our 911] calls), and there are some notable differences with British vs. American EMS folks (they're able to do more in the field, and are nice and quick with pain relief), but, wow, the differences in police are staggering. I knew some basics, but actually watching cops and not yelling at my TV screen was a revelation. Not perfect, certainly, but a fundamentally different concept of what policing is meant to do and how to interact with the community. I hate most American crime dramas for how they normalize, justify, and even celebrate a variety of police misconduct - not to mention the simplistic attitude towards crime and the apparent fetish for showing violence, especially against women - but maybe I would similarly spend less time yelling at British versions.

My friend has to move the start time of our weekly phone call up to 7:00 tonight (which is when the show airs in my market), and said she knows my willingness to miss J! is a tremendous gesture of love. 😀 So I just "played" via the archive. I was terrible in the Books For Kids category; despite being a voracious reader as a child, the only one of those I'd read was Harriet the Spy (and I read it many, many times). I got everything else in the first round. In DJ, I only ran anatomy, but still had a decent round: I missed two each in Rome, roles, and speeches, and one each in vocabulary (I'd never heard of the color vermilion) and middle names (I'd never come across Kobe Bryant's). FJ was an instaget, so I had a good game overall.

They did that on Major Crimes and The Closer, too, and I made a game out of spotting whether, when a character was wearing high heels, the actor kept those heels on with the booties over them, or wore some comfy slippers/shoes underneath the booties instead. Basically, if the framing necessitated them being at heel height, they kept the character's shoes on, but if not, there were a number of times when they went for comfort instead.

Good gods, yes. I generally avoid shopping on weekends, but one Mother's Day I realized I was out of something I needed for the dinner. I pulled into the parking lot and observed a steady stream of men coming out of the grocery store with a bouquet of flowers. Seriously, dudes?

Oh, I didn't even register there was a picture (since I was reading the archive rather than watching the show). Wow. That is surprising - and sad.

Didn't that happen already? Widespread American usage of "sick" in that way seems like an '80s thing to me (and was perhaps most common then in skater culture), steadily declining in national prevalence. Bad meaning good has a long history in counter culture, particularly Black culture - as do "jive" and "right on" - often originating in jazz culture.

There was a similar FJ clue about U2 ("In 2017 this band whose singer goes by a nickname became the first to have No.1 albums in the U.S. in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s & 2010s") back in July; is it possible that's what you're remembering? Yes.

I've seen The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas so many times I can recite - and sing - along verbatim. So that's my favorite version of the song, and the performance that I think best - even more than Dolly's original recording - captures the bittersweet mood in which it was written, as you said. But, yeah, Whitney's recording is just fucking epic. And I love how much Dolly loves it. I mean, she's open about how much she enjoys the truckloads of money it added to her bank account, and I love that about her, too, but she's also said she'll never have a greater thrill as a songwriter than hearing something she wrote turned into such an important piece of music. When the song's own writer initially just thinks "hm, that's familiar" but can't even place her own song because someone has done something so different with it, and then has to pull off the road to listen to the rest of the song once it kicks in because she's so overwhelmed, that's a testament to how special a record is. I also love the business sense and fortitude she had to, despite her excitement at Elvis Presley loving and wanting to record the song, turn him down because Col. Parker called her the day before Elvis was set to go into the studio and said, oh, BTW, Elvis gets half the publishing rights. She was heartbroken, but never wavered. I like Linda Ronstadt's cover of it, too (and that's the one Kevin Costner knew, and gave to David Foster and Whitney when they had to come up with a different song to do for The Bodyguard).

And 9-letter "N"oun at that - it had to start with an N.

I'll be watching football tonight, so just checked the archive. I had absolutely no idea what they wanted with the fist bump clue, even after I gave myself extra time. I missed three in that category. I also missed one in movie taglines (Back To the Future, which I should have figured out, but my mind went to Look Who's Talking), but got everything else in the first round (giving myself credit for triangle, sure that I'd have recognized it had I been able to hear the audio). In DJ, I missed three in the sailing category, and one each in noun (seeing the picture would not have helped me get the Swiss city) and Electoral College (unfortunately, Maine is the one of the two states with the district method I remember, and the clue asked for the other one). I ran the rest (well, giving myself credit for ball lightning; I'm familiar with the phenomenon, so feel pretty sure I'd have identified it had I seen the pictures). I thought I was going to blow daytime TV, as I don't watch anything during the day, but thanks to some lucky guesses I nailed it. So other than those two weak categories, I was having a great game, and felt very confident in the FJ category, but when I clicked on the clue my brain froze. A few moments later, I thought of Springsteen, but hadn't heard anything about a new album from him last year, so wasn't sure. Not having any other guess, though, I went with him.

Exactly. Not even Mike Richards would be that reckless. Besides, why would they want to? They get more attention when a contestant goes on a long run; any viewers turning away out of boredom with runaway games are plenty offset with those who turn in to see if tonight will be the night the streak ends.

That's what I came here to post - five minutes after this Sunday's game ended, I was utterly fucking sick of hearing about next Sunday's. I'll be at my parents' house that night, and we may very well decide to skip it. I didn't have a horse to back in tonight's game (I used to hate SF because of Joe Montana and GB because of Brett Favre, but these days I don't much care - I resent the Niners for dumping Kaepernick and have mixed feelings on the Packers because I have one friend who lives for the Bears and one who's just as into the Packers), but that was fun at the end. I knew the 49ers had scored too early.