Bastet

Of course. The older they are when neutered, the greater the likelihood they will continue to "spray" indoors, but it's still far more likely they won't. And there are techniques to settle them down and alleviate the urge to mark their territory in that way. (And, thankfully, within a fairly short time after neutering, the urine is far less pungent, so any transition period is usually easily handled via patience and good enzyme-based cleaner.)

I will never live in a house that is part of a development with an HOA. When I lived in a townhouse, of course we had one with CC&Rs we were all bound by, because there were common areas to be maintained and uniformity (e.g. front doors all being the same color and porch lights all being the same) makes sense with a building. But a big hell to the no to living in my own house on my own lot and having it dictated to me what colors I can paint my house, what landscaping I can use, etc. We have a group of busybodies who formed a "[Neighborhood] Homeowners Association" and they sure like to think they have actual power, but they don't. So they drive around daily - I shit you not - looking for stuff that might be judged to run afoul of a municipal ordinance (you know, those actual rules limiting what homeowners can do) and report those things to the City (whose employees absolutely detest them, but do sometimes get involved just to shut them up for a bit). My best friend now lives in a cute house in a "regular" neighborhood, but the two before that were in cookie cutter developments where I had to memorize landmarks in order to find her damn house because they all looked the same and I didn't want to be squinting to locate her address. Different strokes, of course, it's just not at all my thing.

And aren't there pictures of Cruise and others standing around just as closely while wearing masks?

Ah, I see that from the archive now. I missed the reveal of his answer, and with him having such a low score I just figured he hadn't known it, either, rather than thinking about the fact he had a low score coming in. Now I have "Jump" by Kriss Kross in my head.

If anyone in Los Angeles is wondering what that noise was, it was me yelling all the missed Yacht Rock clues at the TV. I'm surprised FJ was a TS (Edit: Oops, just a double stumper). Same with bill of lading and Boxer. I ran the first round, but blew the 4-letter movies category in DJ; I only knew Babe. I only missed four others in the round, so if it wasn't for that category, I'd have had an excellent game. (FJ was an insta-guess that I was pretty sure was right.)

I found this underwhelming, but an enjoyable enough way to pass the time. (I've never seen anything else of Ryan Murphy's, and I would never have gone to see this at the cinema, but scrolling through Netflix when I couldn't get back to sleep overnight, I figured why not?) The only musical numbers I really liked where "It's Not About Me" and "Tonight Belongs to You". "Just Breathe" and "Alyssa Greene" were pretty good, too. Alyssa's mother doing a 180-degree turn in about five minutes was utterly ridiculous, and I agree with those who say ignoring the Greenes' race in the mother-daughter confrontation over high expectations was noticeably weird and rather problematic. But I loved the relationship between Dee Dee and Principal Hawkins. It made the whole thing worthwhile. (I absolutely adore Keegan-Michael Key in everything I see him in.)

It does. At least it did in the original series. But in an episode where Dan and Louise were in the bathroom, they had moved the toilet next to the tub (when it used to be across from it), so they may have eliminated that door, I can't remember.

Perfect! I really liked him on Major Crimes and Mom - and love his voice - but have never known anything about him off-screen until now. I'm glad he spoke out, and hope he's getting the support he deserves.

The different reactions Ali Larter had to filming love scenes with two different co-stars could, of course, possibly have resulted from other factors in addition to their respective races, depending on how the scenes were written and how the directors were acting in each instance (I didn't watch the show, so it seems like, of the two, the one with Leonard Roberts would have been less uncomfortable to film, but I not only wasn't on set I didn't even see the final on-screen result), but under the totality of the circumstances it's pretty hard to believe race isn't significantly at play here. But even if she - and I don't think this is true, but giving a hypothetical version of her the benefit of the doubt to drive home a point - didn't consciously realize racism was informing her reaction to him, how she can read Leonard Roberts's recount (upon her repeatedly and loudly expressing discomfort with the director's staging of the love scene during rehearsal): and not have her heart break open and take a good, long look at how his experience as a Black man informed that moment, not to mention read the whole story and not contemplate and acknowledge what she was (willfully or otherwise) blind to at the time rather than just issue some anemic "sorry for any role I may have played" in his "perception" (which, of course, implies it's in his mind, not reality) response to the whole thing makes me simultaneously flames on the side of my face angry and frustrated while letting out an exhausted sigh of non-surprise.

Brayden's luck in finding the DDs is really something. I like the way he leans in to better see/hear/concentrate on them; it's a cute little quirk. I wouldn't have predicted 409, herbicide, roach motel, or San Francisco to stump them, but no true surprises -- until FJ. I'm surprised none of them twigged to nose ("my visage's center ornament" as a source of mockery) and thus came up with it. The only clue I missed in the first round was diets (I've never heard of any of them other than Mediterranean), but I missed at least a dozen in DJ. No one blown category, just a lot of scattered misses. But I rebounded in FJ.

She was the first woman elected president in Chile, and the first Chilean president to be reelected in a long time (something like 80 years). When she was a med student, her father was killed by Pinochet's goons, and she and her mom were tortured; she went into exile for several years before returning. She had to start her education all over again as her European university credits were not honored. When she graduated, the government denied her public sector work on political grounds; she wound up heading up the medical department of an NGO. When Pinochet was ousted, she was able to work in the Health Department and eventually became Health Minister. She dramatically overhauled the country's healthcare system. Somewhere in there she furthered her other primary interest, civil-military relations, by getting a Master's in that field, and later became Defense Minister - not just the first woman in Chile, but all of Latin America (and one of a handful in the world). She instituted wide-ranging reform there, too. Upon being elected president, she appointed the first Cabinet that was 50/50 men and women. A shit ton of reforms happened during her two terms. She now heads the UN's Human Rights Commission.

Well done as always. And, jeez, 2020 has been long; a few of those people I thought, "Was that just this year?" I hope they don't have to edit in any more between now and the end of the year.

It's jarring, isn't it, when you go way back in time like that? I watched some season one episodes of The Closer a couple of years ago and thought, "Wow, I had truly forgotten how much I hated half these people in the beginning."

The horror!

Maybe that's their pitch - "Don't bathe? No problem; just douse yourself in Yves St. Laurent, and you can still have the ladies wild for you."

No one knowing Michelle Bachelet = Chile was a little surprising, but the TS that surprised me more in that category was no one even taking a guess for Norway; the clue spotted Scandinavia, so there weren't many to choose from (even thinking culturally rather than strictly geographically) - take a shot! Ding dongs also surprised me - gross, IMO, but quite popular - but maybe they were trying to think of the name of those other nasty chocolate things from Hostess, the ones with the white swirl on top. Or maybe none of them are of the right age for it to be a ready association; I didn't pay any attention other than Brayden looks like he's 14. I got everything except for two of the TV comedies in the first round, but was not as good in DJ (as is my usual pattern); I only missed about half a dozen scattered clues, though, so still a good game. Until FJ; I didn't even have a guess (not unexpected, given the category).

Y'all know how much I hate the Rusty Beck, Super Journalist storyline of season four, so imagine my eye roll when I finished work early tonight and turned on "Sorry I Missed You" just in time to hear Rusty snotting to Slider (who cracks me up when he sees the "reporter" he's supposed to be meeting with is this kid, and asks if he's writing about Alice as a show and tell project) that he doesn't write for a college paper, he writes for an online vlog. Yeah, because that's more prestigious. I mean, it could be, depending on the blog, but this one is produced exclusively by a guy with five minutes of journalism class under his belt who couldn't even get staffed on the student paper. But after I put my eyes back where they belong, that scene always makes me think in hindsight, because he tells Slider if he had access to it, he'd know Rusty isn't just some middle class white boy, that he lived on the streets. When Slider asks about his drug hook-up (to verify his street experience), Rusty says he didn't do drugs, he did sex. So I wonder if the vlog, in talking about teen homelessness, reveals he survived by hustling, because if it does it's possible Aiden (Gus's boss he cheats on Rusty with) learned by looking him up online and finding Identity, rather than his "well, I hear you'd know all about that" when Rusty refers to being bought coming by way of Gus having revealed it to Aiden. The greater context of that confrontation between Rusty and Aiden (at the end of season five, when Rusty is being an insecure dolt about the Napa job offer), in which it's clear that Gus has been talking about Rusty to him to some extent, definitely raises the possibility Gus revealed Rusty's past. And while Aiden might have been curious enough to look Rusty up at one point (like Rusty did him), I can't imagine him caring enough to actually sit and watch any of the vlog entries, so Gus seems more likely as the source, but that was never once noted by anyone as being among his transgressions once they broke up, so I'm not sure. And I absolutely fucking hate Gus by season six, so if I have one more reason to do so, I'd like to know. 🙂

Margaret had some real doozy wrong answers. FJ was an instaget, but otherwise I just had a so-so game. The only TS I got were Mongol and mandolin. I loved the anagram category, though.

From Episode 8: Why Alex, when Elena is the one to have not only shown a propensity for and interest in handyperson skills but previously worked as Schneider's assistant? I hope this of all shows would provide a reason beyond sporting a penis. From episode 13: These things are always hard to pull off, where a character who would logically go away to school instead decides to attend a local university (so they can remain a regular part of the show). I'm curious to know what Elena's reason would have been. I know their original plan was to film these remaining episodes as set back before COVID existed, then rejoin reality in season five. With COVID being an utter disaster a lot longer than many hoped at the time that mindset was announced, I just can't imagine them still doing so if the show had not been cancelled. But since I watch almost no new fictional programming, and the one show I do watch, The Conners, incorporates (with frustrating inconsistency) pandemic life, maybe it's actually common to put out programming that exists either in the recent past or in an alternate universe so it need not be addressed; it would be very weird to me, but maybe not to most. I'm just sorry not to get the chance to find out.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote: And last night I finally watched this. And, yeah, did it ever do right by her. I like setting it in that period of her life. Had RBG never been appointed to the Supreme Court (and she was not who Clinton intended to nominate, but the stars aligned - the highly-social Marty marshaled his varied contacts to lobby for her consideration, and then she nailed the interview and completely changed Clinton's course - and the course of history - within fifteen minutes), hardly anyone would know she was the architect of women's rights law. Until her particular twist on the legal argument, this country officially stated that discrimination on the basis of sex was constitutional (never you mind what that pesky 14th Amendment says). And even with the attention her confirmation hearing and subsequent rulings and, more famously, dissents from the bench brought her, a lot of people didn't still know how pioneering she'd been as a lawyer before she became a judge. So the more attention brought to her, the better. She was a true hero. And it's nice to see her kind of hero be the subject of a film; we need to celebrate those who are loud and proud on the streets and in front of the cameras, and we also need to celebrate the quiet, serious ones who put their head down and do a different kind of work for the cause (I appreciate that the film explicitly stated both are necessary components to any movement). I love the scene where she's practicing her oral argument in front of the mirror and trying to incorporate the smile she's been instructed to display. (We still get this fucking "advice", despite the fact we're arguing a case - just like our male counterparts who have probably never once in the history of time been told to smile - not competing in a beauty pageant.) The government was arguing that ruling in the appellant's favor was going to destroy the American family, but she wasn't to speak to anything beyond her client's individual claim, and do so with a smile, lest she be unlikable. I also, having worked at the ACLU, like that the organization was presented accurately; a tremendous organization doing crucial work, the "I'd rather be a woman in this country than a Black man, socialist, or religious minority" hierarchy Mel Wulf states to RBG was still alive and well when I was there, despite the profound systematic success of the Women's Rights Project RBG and Brenda Feigen got off the ground. I love when RBG brings him the Moritz case, he says it's "beyond [their] mandate" and she responds, "The American Civil Liberties Union? Women's rights are civil rights." (I don't love still needing to point this out to some of my male "allies".) The performances were great, and I especially loved Kathy Bates as Dorothy Kenyon. (And please, can someone make a film about her, too - she clawed her way to admission to the NY bar in 1917, established her own firm with another woman in 1930, and devoted her life to social activism on behalf of women, laborers, consumers, the impoverished, etc.) Felicity Jones didn't at all nail RBG's voice, but if she'd tried to it would have felt like an impersonation; what matters is she embodied her spirit. I cried at the transition to the real RBG walking up the Supreme Court steps (rocking that outfit) at the end. I feel her loss so profoundly, her having been such a personal hero of mine, and we're all going to feel it via the Court we now have for a dreadfully long time to come. What a great movie! The screenwriter, her nephew, had the perfect response to all the shit he took for how perfect a character Marty was, noting that innumerable fictional female characters have been written as devoted, supportive wives, and he comes along and accurately writes one real devoted, supportive husband, and there's an outcry. (With all due appreciation for Martin Ginsburg on the record, my favorite scene between them was on the walk home after his boss told her she was a "smart girl" for marrying a star, and she told him the little dismissals matter, and add up, and shouldn't be shrugged off. Because even men like Marty need to have their privilege pointed out to them sometimes.) I also had a laugh at learning, via an interview featured on the DVD, that when he pitched the idea of this film to his aunt, she said, "If that's how you feel you want to spend your time" and invited him to go ahead and come interview her. And that her notes on the script were as prolific as her notes on her clerks' briefs, and started on page one: She wouldn't be wearing heels in the opening scene where she enters Harvard Law School on her first day, because she walked to school from their apartment and thus wore flats. Obviously, through the course of approving the script, she accepted little moments of dramatic license. If you haven't yet seen this, honor the Notorious RBG's memory and do so, since it's a biopic that appropriately honors its subject.

Are they seriously fucking kidding me with this one?! I don't love it, and don't even particularly like it, but in any actual Earth-based evaluation seeking to identify the top 1000 country songs of all time, this is not going to wind up only in the upper 300s. Dude has a record shop named after him, in which - among all the great music - one can buy, as I did for my dad during my first trip to Nashville many decades ago, a floor mat reading "Walking the Floor Over You". The song is a honky-tonk legend. Number 373?!

Great game! Orphan was the only TS that surprised me, because of the several hints between the clue and category. I'm giving myself a genuine "good for me" for running* the first round, because I was in the adjacent room playing with my cat; I read faster than Alex speaks, so I normally have a little extra time to think and answer than I did tonight. *I'm giving myself credit for podcast, because if I'd seen the clue, I'd have known it. (The other clues with pictures I could get just based on the verbiage, but that one I needed to see the icon.) DJ I watched, yet performed far worse - stupid angels and invented languages categories, plus I missed one each in most other categories (two of the movies, but I did get the TS of The Hustler). I didn't get FJ; I was working my way around the world thinking of famous modern performance venues with distinctive styles, and never settled on one for my guess - I hadn't made it down to Australia yet when time ran out, but if I had it still wouldn't have been an A-ha, that's it! moment because I was relying on the date since I had no idea what type of artist Joan Sutherland is/was. It probably would have been my guess, though.

She must hear something; does she only do that at night? And is it quiet in the room when she does (no TV on, etc.)? If so, she might very well be hearing something in the walls. When I first moved into my house, when it was really quiet late at night I could hear a faint sound that I eventually realized was termites eating my window pane!

Which is part of its ridiculousness, but I can go with Santa being a character in a Christmas commercial a hell of a lot easier than I can go with a father risking life and limb to deliver a letter to Santa rather than just opening it to find out what she wants. (And, yes, I know he's a character, too; I'm no more supposed to believe a father would actually do any of that shit than I am to believe Santa Claus is real and driving a Coke truck, because it's all just a fairy tale. But with him, I just can't get lost in the story; I'm too distracted by how preposterous it is. Sometimes that doesn't bother me, but in this one it does.)

I just watched it, and I had the same reaction. Is the father unaware Santa isn't real, and thus going through all those ridiculous shenanigans to reach the North Pole is not actually going to deliver the letter to some wish-granting bearded dude? If he'd opened the damn letter back on the oil rig (or in his truck on the way to work), he'd have known all she wanted for Christmas was him then and there.