Bastet

Now I'm cracking up at cutting back and forth between Tonya at home on the phone with Justin (of course; that's apparently all she did) talking shit about her roommates and all the roommates (except Chris, who had to go home for a funeral) in the car on their way to St. Louis talking shit about Tonya. I particularly love the juxtaposition of Cara and Keri countering Aneesa's narrative, showing a much more balanced take on Tonya, with Tonya calling Keri a stuck-up bitch and Cara a screwed-up slut. And then Tonya saying, "Listen to the way I talk; I deserve anything anyone will ever say about me." Nice job, editors. I thought that would be the episode with the "Walla Walla kidney stones" song, but I guess not (then again, these uploads tend to be missing the end of most episodes). A-ha, it's at the beginning of the next episode. A classic.

I understand why Aneesa winds up pissed off and hanging up in every phone conversation with her mom, but I also just cracked the hell up at Aneesa's mom when Aneesa called her to ask for more money in order to get the locks replaced on the car the roommates all share, because she lost the keys when she set them on top of her friend's car in order to pop a squat and pee in the gutter, and then the friend drove off with the keys on top: Aneesa's mom tells her to act like an adult (and solve this problem herself), Aneesa tells her that's what she's trying to do, and Aneesa's mom comes back with, "I don't think so, if you're out peeing at 5:00 in the morning next to someone's car." (Thankfully her brother is smarter than all the roommates put together and says she can just get a new key, she doesn't have to have each individual lock changed.) I hate Kyle; he is such a jerk. I mean, I remembered that, but I had forgotten just how massive a jerk he is. Keri has embarrassed herself on her own a few times, but he's a lying, manipulative, gaslighting asshole. Also, Cara is an odd dichotomy - she's a kind, caring friend/roommate sometimes, and then she's a two-faced phony sometimes. It's mostly male attention/the prospect attention of male attention that brings out the latter in her. She's pretty pathetic in general when it comes to men, and I really work to feel sorry for her given some of the reasons for that (and, holy shit, the ignorant stereotyping foisted on her for needing anti-depressants!), but sometimes I cannot stop the eye roll. I wonder what she's like now, as a full-fledged adult.

I mostly throw it together - the salad ingredients based on what vegetables I have among those typically used and the meat based on how long I have to marinate it.

It's a Sharon Lawrence character; of course she was scheming from the beginning. (Other than NYPD Blue and Rizzoli & Isles, it is the type of character she's played in everything I've ever seen her in. At this point, I pretty much take casting her as a spoiler alert: this character will be up to no good.)

I've seen this film so many times I can recite along verbatim when watching, and I'm always left with so many complicated emotions afterward. It's really great. I recommend Becky Aikman's book Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge.

Hopefully it was always written for the heart valve case to be resolved at the end of the first ten episodes, and then Rebel would move on to her next case in the next batch of episodes. But who knows what the status of any of the personal relationships will be as of the last episode

If you ever get tripped up by all the information in a clue on your first read, unsure of what they're asking for (e.g. artist or work), the quickest thing to do is look for the word "this" -- whatever comes immediately after that is what they're looking for. Identify that, then re-read all the information in the clue with that in mind. So, in this case, it started with "The artist's wife". Since it was not "this artist's wife" they're not looking for the artist. Scan forward and you find "this 1942 painting" - bingo, they're looking for the name of a painting. Now put together all the info the clue provides: a painting, 1942, done by a male artist, depicting a non-fancy restaurant, lighting is important, and the wife may be significant, too. If you don't have the HUGE gaps in art knowledge that I do, that'll get you to Nighthawks if you can remember the title after the visual springs to mind.

Re. drunk Vince Vaughn hitting on me, it's not particularly interesting a story, and I told it in the celebrity encounters thread a while back, but basically he was that level of drunk where you think if you're really deliberate you'll come off normal but you don't, so he was gross and I had no intention of giving up my prime seat to avoid his drunk ass, so I basically told him to fuck off and one of his friends guided him out and I was able to enjoy the bar again. I knew who he was, and would have found him reasonably attractive had he not been listing to one side, but without a photo in the clue, there wasn't enough there for me to recognize him.

I was rooting for Karen, but, wow, Sam ran away with it in DJ; great performance. I ran flags, what to wear, and starts with something you can ride (well, I said busser instead of busboy, because I don't use gendered terms for jobs, but that would have been accepted because it's the name of the position and fits the category) and only missed one each in music and history books, but I missed three in zodiac. I'm normally very good with rhyme time clues, but I do not know astrology well at all, so I was too slow to come up with most of them. In DJ, I didn't get a single emperor. I also missed one each in handprints (Vince Vaughn stumped me just as he did the contestants; he once hit on me in a bar while incredibly drunk, but there was nothing in the clue to lead me to him), elements, and river. I only ran too much and never enough. I was not at all confident going into FJ based on the category, and, indeed, it wasn't something I knew. Nice painting, though. So I'm not off to a great start in the semi-finals.

I know it was readily discussed at the time, but I don't remember - who's the rock star that Cara hooked up with (they blurred the band's faces and blanked out their name every time someone said it)?

I was really hoping the prolonged pandemic would cause at least some businesses to realize how many jobs can be done just as if not more effectively from home and thus give those employees the option of working remotely on general principle, regardless of COVID's status, but I knew that was giving Corporate America way too much credit.

I do, actually (which reminds me I forgot to take my pill today - thank you!). I run warm, but I'm happy with ceiling fans and maybe open windows (depending on outdoor temperature) until it gets above 80 degrees in the house. Pre-menopause hasn't included hot flashes or night sweats yet, though, so I'm sure all the energy I've saved by not cranking the AC will be gobbled up once I get into the real thing; I remember my dad and I under afghans as my mom had the windows open and fan going in February. But, again, that will be a reminder I love living alone - no one arguing with me over my thermostat choices.

I saw that, too (I'd seen it before, as I remember the ciopinno, but of course Gabriel was just some guy to me back then). He made a couple of mildly obnoxious comments, but that sort of thing is encouraged on the show (which is why I always prefer the competitors who shrug and refuse to engage) and Gabriel has always been less annoying around men, so he indeed came across just fine. Both dishes looked and sounded great, with Bobby's slightly better, so I figured it was going to go the way it did (I couldn't remember from the first airing). I laughed when Gabriel mentioned having worked for Tom Colicchio; it was a totally natural mention as part of recapping his background, but viewed in hindsight after the TC editors seemingly included in the first two episodes every mention of working for Tom he ever made, it was funny.

This season this was recently uploaded to YouTube (it seems to be complete); I've watched the preview special (in which Coral hilariously translates Mike's rules for being a good roommate, e.g. "social gatherings should be a quiet affair, organized, with the consent of all roommates" becomes "leave your friends at home; nobody likes them") and the first several episodes. I could barely remember Chris, and I think I can see why; he's the oldest, he's sober, and all he does is work out. That might not have been so fish out of water in earlier seasons, but even though the show hasn't yet totally gone off the rails at this point, it already makes him a bit of an odd choice. I'd forgotten how homophobic Theo and Tonya were; I guess it makes a sad sort of sense given how insular the environments whence they c ame, so it will be interesting to re-visit how they do or do not evolve over the course of their time here. Oh, Cara. At least she freely owns up to being "that girl" who has never been without a boyfriend and gets her validation from men wanting her sexually and acknowledges that's not healthy, and I do remember resenting how the show chose to focus on her sex life, but she's hard to take. And, lordy, but I do not understand the attraction to Kyle. Even if you set aside the personality and rearranged that square face into a better shape, he'd be so generic.

Nope, although I have no idea how odd my parents were in not doing so. It's clear why my dad wouldn't have grown up with that tradition (assuming chocolate bunnies even existed back then, I have no idea), as my dirt poor grandparents could have never afforded to buy all their umpteen kids chocolate. My grandma was quite Baptist, so I'm sure to her it was just a religious holiday, but my grandpa put his foot down early on that no one, adult or child, would be dragged to church against their will, so I doubt the religious holiday was something anyone else signed up for, and the secular version was by financial limitation not really a thing. I have no idea what my mom's non-religious parents did about the Easter Bunny version; there must have been an egg hunt since we did that when I was a kid and that had to come from somewhere, but I guess candy wasn't part of it. I'll have to ask. (I was going to say I'll ask this Easter, then had a vague memory of my chocolate bunny, and looked it up to see, yep, already happened last month. Clearly Easter is not A Thing in my family.)

Exactly. She's almost at Allison Janney levels of everyone from extras to day players to guest stars to co-stars enjoying her company. Presumably not the same level of loving being a scene partner with or even just witness to such a great actor, but she's someone pretty much everyone who works with her likes. And, yes, she's been genuinely affected by the real-life systemic problems the show is built around and leveraged her fame that is specifically associated with such issues to do some good (I'm a civil rights lawyer with a focus on women's rights, so know a wide circle of legal workers, activists, counselors, and others working in that arena, and Mariska's name pops up with some frequency). I couldn't hang with SVU beyond a few seasons for all the reasons I hate most cop shows, but I doubt any of her current co-stars resent her, and probably don't even have many thoughts about the apparent canonization of her character. None of them expect to be more than an ensemble player - for which they've made a shit ton of money - so there aren't any unrealized expectations, and since she is by all accounts not a diva, I doubt the focus on the one remaining original main character chaps anyone's hide, regardless of whether individual scripts are disappointing in terms of their own character's development or whether some writers might have storyline ideas that are altered to focus more on Benson.

I don't have any interest in Friends, but it's ludicrous to suggest this reunion is an act of desperation. The show has been in continuous syndication since before new episodes even went off the air (which speaks to both its popularity and the fact the actors would have to actively try to squander their money since they could live well on the residuals alone, never mind their other work [which they've all continued to have] in order to have a financial need to do this), many people who didn't even watch it know quotes from it through cultural osmosis ("We were on a break!"), it picks up new viewers rather than being sustained only by nostalgia watchers, and the cast adored working together and has remained in touch. There's no mystery as to why this is happening.

(From one of the threads) I never got an Easter gift as a kid (I did decorate eggs and then hunt for them when I was little, but after I grew out of it Easter became basically a non-holiday since we only ever observed the secular bunny rabbit version), but then one year my family and that of a cousin I'd never met happened to both be at my great aunt and uncle's house on Easter because of a funeral. He was younger, so the adults put on an egg hunt and I joined in but let him find most of them. After that, he got a chocolate bunny, as was his family's tradition. I was quite irritated this had never been my family tradition, so the next year my mom gave me a chocolate bunny. Which she continues to do 40 years later, as a very tasty joking nod to my What?! I was supposed to be getting a big hunk of chocolate all these years? revelation.

Yeah, we talked about this a few months ago, and I noted that the writers seem to have a real knowledge gap (or just a don't let the truth get in the way of a good story philosophy) when it comes to estate law, because there's also an episode of Major Crimes were the motive for murder is an inheritance that would not have actually happened. (They could have easily salvaged it in this one with someone telling the biological half brother that, oh BTW, dumbass, she wouldn't have been entitled to a share of the estate even if she filed a claim, so you murdered her for nothing. Instead they just have the mother point out that Sedona hadn't asked for any money.)

Living in Los Angeles, those commercials were ubiquitous, but I don't know that I'd have remembered his name if the clue had been phrased that way, either. Now, Cal Worthington and his "dog" Spot, that'll never leave my brain.

On last night's episode of Pit Bulls & Parolees, the adopters were looking for a buddy for their puppy Remington. I side eye people who name kids/pets Remington because I wonder if it's glorifying guns (and these folks lived in Texas), but I gave them props when they renamed the new puppy (who'd been called Bro) Steel and, in explaining the name change, referenced Remington Steele. I wish they'd included the final E on his name, but it made me smile.

Interesting; that does seem like what would be a popular title, but when I started brainstorming I realized I didn't actually know any "Lonely" songs (including those you posted), just songs with "lonely" in the title -- "Only the Lonely", "Mr. Lonely", "You're Only Lonely", and "Lonely Too Long".

Another reason I'm glad to live alone - no arguing over the thermostat. It's usually at 68 for the heat kicking in and 80 for the AC kicking in, but sometimes 70 and 78, respectively, if I'm in a mood. I could deal with a little variation on heat (although I'd probably just grumble to put on socks and a sweater for Pete's sake), but anyone turning the air on at a cooler temp than that would really tick me off. Thankfully, my cat doesn't complain.

Only on editing equipment, never on my VCRs. Cassette players, I'm not sure - haven't heard one of those in decades and don't remember.

Nothing about Dawn's delayed communication rose to a level that they'd send her home for it despite producing two of the team's best dishes. She could have on day one inscribed on a tablet every single ingredient and technique she'd use and Penny still would have lost, so the person responsible for two of the three best dishes on the losing team was never going to be a candidate for elimination.