Bastet

It's progress, I guess. Yet not really, because Venus is saying women need not just a special razor but an entire line of products (a cleanser/shave gel combo, the razor, and a soothing serum) for their pubic hair and skin. My favorite razor commercials are those from Billie, the only brand with commercials that show women shaving hair. Commercials for men's razors show men shaving hair. Since, ya know, that's what the product being advertised is used for. But commercials for women's razors show women shaving already bare skin (because when it's on women, body hair is suddenly so gross we can't even look at it for the time it takes to eradicate it). Except Billie.

Thanks to The Golden Girls, "disdam" is allowed as a word when my mom and I play Scrabble. (As Sophia explained, it means "you're no good as disdam game".)

I don't think so, because they didn't accept dole; dole and mete only fit the "to portion out food" part of the clue, but not the "to gossip" part.

Another blah batch of ten; nothing I truly hate, but a bunch of "doesn't belong" or "too high" songs. That shouldn't be the norm in the top 350.

In this interview, Gillian Anderson seems to indicate that Blech. I hope it comes out better than I envision, but I'm so sick of these damn storylines.

He may be among those being talked with behind the scenes as a candidate for the permanent job (and I hope so!); other than Ken Jennings, I don't think any of these guest host gigs are on-air auditions for the role, just celebrity appearances for charity (plus the executive producer as a filler between Ken's run and when the celebrity hosts they'd lined up could start) while this massive decision process among professional hosts goes on outside our view as it generally does.

Lance's behavior/personality didn't register anything on my radar good or bad either night, so whatever about him bugs some folks didn't bug me. I was rooting for Karen tonight, because she looks a lot like one of my close friends (and, as always, because she was the lone woman). But I enjoyed Phil's surprise when he won. The rally TS surprised me a bit, since it's not a term exclusive to tennis (especially once Lance guessed volley; I thought that similarity would spark something in one of the other two). Gaunt was a little surprising, too, with "au" spotted. But that was about it. Did y'all hear me yelling "Lean on Me" at Phil during his DD? And then for a moment I thought Karen was going to blow the Nassau DD. I missed several Michael wrote clues, a couple of boats, and a couple of tennis clues in the first round. I didn't get a chance to jot down my DJ misses, but had about half a dozen there, too. I could not pull Wilson's name out of my brain for FJ, though. Pittsburgh immediately triggered "Pittsburgh Cycle", but I completely blanked on his name.

I have to be in the right mood to re-watch season six, because for all the stuff I like, there's, you know, that whole pesky thing about killing off one of my favorite TV characters of all time and sending me into a tailspin of emotions. (And then that damn Rusty/Stroh ending.)

Right, the book is Rose's textbook from the history class Dorothy was teaching, not Rose's yearbook. Rose objects that Dorothy incorrectly marked as wrong a question Rose got right on the final exam. Dorothy says the question was "Who was the leader of the Third Reich?" and Rose wrote down "Fritz Stickelmeyer" (who we earlier learned was her high school history teacher, a Nazi who was "part of a nefarious plot by the Germans to teach misinformation so America's youth would be really stupid when the Germans invaded" [and St. Olaf was the first town chosen for their experiment]). Rose grabs her textbook, points to a picture of Hitler, and confirms this is the man they're talking about. She insists Dorothy can call him whatever she wants, but that's Fritz Stickelmeyer. "I'm as sure of that as I am that's Eva Braun standing next to him." When Dorothy asks, "You recognize Eva Braun?" Rose says she was her high school PE teacher, and it was rumored she used to date Mr. Stickelmeyer. Dorothy says she can't take it anymore, and by marking that question right, it gives Rose a D- in the course, which means she passed all her classes and is now a high school graduate.

I have reusable mesh bags for produce, but I, too, leave a lot of it loose.

Even though I didn't know who either one of them were at the time, I once watched several season one episodes of Newlyweds while channel surfing, as there was nothing on I wanted to watch and I thought well, this guy's attractive, let's see what this is about. Even allowing for "reality" TV nonsense, it was glaringly obvious that marriage wasn't going to last for any significant length of time (if they'd lived together first, they'd have known not to even get married, but of course her family's creepy obsession with "purity" wouldn't have allowed that). Nick Lachey used sexist media to further his poor me post-divorce narrative the same way Justin Timberlake did after his break-up with Britney Spears.

Same here. I use it in writing, but avoid saying it, because I cannot bring myself to pronounce it incorrectly, yet I also cannot deal with the reaction when I say it correctly, so I just skip the whole thing.

Life beats you down, and when you're working a paycheck job and raising kids on top of that, you usually don't have the energy for passion projects or further education. The transcendence stories are stories because they're notable, not the norm. But, while it made perfect sense that Roseanne never pursued writing despite her love of it, Darlene went for it young and actually made a living at it for years. For Roseanne, it was something a rare class of other people did, a fantasy for someone like her. But Darlene did it. It's a big part of her lived experience. Which is why she took a job like Ben's stupid local crime gossip rag as a stop gap, something that paid bills while at least lightly scratching that artistic itch. So, while economic reality in Lanford is that it will be difficult to support herself wholly via writing, meaning a union job is something you can't turn down, there should be references to her at least making attempts at online writing/editing gigs. There's a grace period for her just being so dejected by what her life has become she can't muster up the energy, but the writers are pretty close to exhausting it. They need to explore her fear she's going to get stuck at Wellman, too dependent on the paycheck and benefits to take a chance, and have her at least try.

@Prevailing Wind drew a good comparison - there are lots of people who don't watch a particular sport (or any sport at all), yet athletes are spokespeople because there are enough viewers who do know who they are that it's effective. Like me with auto racing; I have zero interest, and couldn't name a single driver, so the dude in the Domino's commercial means nothing to me, but there are enough fans out there it made advertising sense to go with him. There are enough Food Network viewers that the guy who has 83 shows (okay, maybe it just seems that way, but he's all over the channel's line-up) has a Q score that makes him a viable option for pitching a product, especially one that's food related.

I'm so annoyed we're already done with this batch of episodes. I know we got two hours each week, but I'm greedy. (I wouldn't be miffed if another show I like was up in the rotation, but it's some zoo shit.) That was so touching; such a sweet, well-mannered dog. We don't know what's going on in the owner's life, maybe they tried to find a home through family and friends, at least they didn't take her to the shelter (given its euthanasia rate), etc. but damn. Just thinking about the sadness and confusion pets experience when their owners leave them makes me cry.

It will be even more enjoyable without NOPD. I've been watching some old episodes lately, which reminds me how much I disliked the cops. Not as much as I hated the Tampa cops, but not anything I want to see. I wonder how many of the OGs will be featured again. I went looking to see if any of them had posted on Twitter about it, and Keeley (who, since we last saw her, got a promotion, got married, and has twins) will be appearing because she has posted pictures from filming. Holly (who also got promoted and has a kid) posted the EMS press release about the show coming back, saying "we" will back on your TV screens before you know it. In a reply to Nick's posting of the announcement, someone said Holly confirmed on Instagram (which I can't figure out how to read) she's coming back. Dan and Titus both posted about the show coming back, but didn't answer questions as to whether they'd be on it.

I can't tell whether they're going for him being too dense to get the name right or him dissing the competition by intentionally using the wrong name. I've never heard of Jimmy John's, but I looked it up and there about a dozen in the greater Los Angeles area. Who knew? (I know, a whole lot of people who aren't me.)

I think Brayden and I would disagree about a number of things, but I'd enjoy the informed debate just as I enjoyed watching him play. But the important thing is that is a tragically young age to die; his life was really just getting started. I was rooting for Alejandra because of the work she does (and because she was the lone woman), but that was a great game and I can't complain. Huns was a surprising TS, though. And the concert category belonged in the first round. Surprisingly, I got three Mecca clues right. Other than the two I missed there, supernatural and rock, paper, scissors were my only other misses in the first round. In DJ, I only missed five or six. But I didn't know FJ.

I was watching some Michelle Obama videos a few months ago and came across that one. I only made it about halfway through, because Ellen's behavior kept making me cringe. Yes, I understand that everything was prearranged with the store, but she acted like a particularly ill-behaved toddler (and, indeed, Obama kept telling her "don't do that" like an exasperated mom). The joke was supposed to be that the Obamas were going to have to adjust to being "regular" people again, so on a shopping trip Michelle would be a bit of a fish out of water navigating mundane things she hadn't been part of for eight years. Of course it would be exaggerated for humor. But Ellen's antics were too much.

I had to look that up. I only like mustard that has no vinegar in it, and I don't much care for ketchup, but I think if I used my own mustard (which is just mustard powder and water) and kept the ketchup minimal, I'd find that a tasty dipping sauce. I'll file that away in the back of my mind.

Ashley Judd suffered a traumatic injury in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and nearly lost her leg, but she's keeping the focus on the discrepancy between her prognosis - being able to pay someone to get her to a South African hospital and having her union insurance to cover the extensive costs of her recovery - and what would happen to a Congolese person in the same position; given the limited medical care and extreme poverty, they would lose their leg and probably their life. She was there doing bonobo conservation work, so when she shared her experience on Instagram, she also centered them: I talked with Judd briefly at a charity event many years ago, and found her very passionate and compassionate; she just exuded good person vibes in that short time. She has a long and painful recovery ahead of her, and I wish her well.

It doesn't diminish the story in any way to not show the needle going into someone's arm, so while I don't think it's problematic to show it, I also don't have any issue with deciding not to in order to avoid unnecessarily causing squeamishness in what may be a notable percentage of the audience (it's not exactly unheard of for people to respond negatively to such images, so they're not inventing an issue here).

The new - at least I think it's fairly new; my program guide has been unreliable in dating this show for a while now - episode where two people from the show (a culinary producer and a food stylist) battle each other - with Saltine crackers - for the chance to beat the boss was fun. I loved Bobby's reaction to learning who the contestants were. Given her credentials, I'm not surprised Katie won the first round, and I'm really happy she also won the whole thing - love the ways in which she and Bobby respected each other while competing, and the techniques they "stole" from each other. (Same with how supportive the two staffers were after the first round result; they each wanted to win, but the loser also wanted the winner to kick Flay's ass.) We also got a couple of little tidbits from other behind-the-scenes folks, and I like the producer who handles Bobby's winning puns asking, "Do you think he comes up with those himself?" I'm not sure how proud she should be of hers on the whole, but hearing the head-scratcher he came up with when he winged it was funny. I also like Bobby's scandalized "that ain't right" reaction to it being shared when he's showing up to work after too hard a night he asks for a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich (one of my dad's favorites). I'd have enjoyed either chowder, I'm sure, but Katie's most appealed to me just on the color of the sauce (I'm New England vs. Manhattan) and the discussion of ingredients and flavor profiles solidified it.

Pele was a bit surprising as a TS, and Google being a TS was stunning (no, I couldn't have named her had you asked me who designed Google, but tell me someone "design[ed] the search interface for this company's homepage", and Google was a pretty easy guess that I'm shocked no one even ventured). I only ran the '30s and superstition categories in the first round, but I only missed one or two each in the others. In DJ, I ran the vowel, instrument, and STEM categories, also only missing one or two in the others. And I got FJ pretty quickly, so I continue to make up for the epic disaster that was my performance in Monday's game.

Lecy is nominated for the Critics Choice Award for best supporting actress in a comedy series (hers is the only nomination for The Conners).