Bastet

Yeah, I loved his performance as Thurgood Marshall in Marshall (the only thing I've seen him in other than as Jackie Robinson - another great performance - in 42), and now to learn that project was among these he prepped and performed "during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy" has me admiring his work even more.

TDS took out a full-page newspaper ad for the legal firm Trevor Noah & Associates & Sons Presidential Attorneys, reading: “Are you a soon-to-be ex-president? About to lose legal immunity? Has your lawyer gone to jail? Call the very fine people on YOUR side.” The best part is if you call the number listed in the ad (1-210-WH-CRIME), you're asked to press 1 if you're the president and 2 if you're not. One leads to a message from Trevor touting relocating to Uganda as an option, given its "strong goat-based economy" and lack of extradition treaty, offering to transport the president and "any members of your family you actually like" there. Two encourages people to register to vote. There's more information, and a picture of the ad, in this Variety article.

Yes, and long after, from the bank; they came with the monthly statements. Presumably, yes - the payment didn't get credited to their account, because someone at the insurance company spelled their name wrong (probably typing Connor instead of Conner). This, of course, requires suspension of disbelief that the clerk would be entering a last name instead of an account number, but yes - it was just a clerical error, the misspelling, that caused their insurance policy to come up as lapsed when the hospital ran it.

Dawn/Don and Mary/Merry/Marry are probably the two most well-known regional pronunciation differences there are. The latter certainly since the Harvard dialect survey in the early '00s, when it became the prime example of vowel merging. (The study showed nearly 60% of Americans pronounced them the same, with the rest divided between pronouncing all three differently [usually in the Northeast] or "marry and Mary" the same and "merry" differently.)

Not only that, they admitted her the night before. Even under anesthesia, that's an outpatient procedure. I've had three benign lumps removed, but only the first one was preceded by a biopsy, which was a stereotactic needle biopsy (no anesthesia, just a local); the next two were assumed to be the same as the first (or cancer, so either way, they needed to come out!), so I just had them removed and then biopsied.

I always use raw shrimp for ceviche (I loathe overcooked shrimp [I hate overcooked anything, but shrimp, especially, goes over in a hurry], so to start with cooked would necessitate marinating it for so little time the flavors wouldn't combine and set to my liking), but I would never try to make ceviche under this show's time constraints! For any round, but especially the appetizer round with only 20 minutes total (that's not even 20 minutes of "cooking" time).

Belly also had a "Broken" song, as did Elvis Costello, Bad Religion, and Tears For Fears.

That list is ... not good. I don't hate Brother, Can You Spare That Jacket the way most do, but it's bottom 25, not top. The finale isn't remotely top 25, so to have that as number one is just totally bizarre. Mister Terrific as top 15?! And Isn't It Romantic (with Jean), A Little Romance (with Dr. Jonathan Newman), Journey to the Center of Attention (the Rusty Anchor), My Brother, My Father (Sister Rose and Sister Blanche) aren't on the list at all, so I can't take it seriously. Especially given the exclusion of those first two - come on!

Do yourself a favor if you ever visit Oregon, and don't say it that way while you're there. I'm more peeved by the other side of that, where people who said something they didn't realize was offensive go into defensive and denial mode when the offense is pointed out, instead of listening to why the word/expression is received in a different way than they intended and learning they should not say that anymore.

I pronounce the long O, but I don't emphasize it, and I almost completely lose the a - it's basically "ornge".

Right. He had the heart attack while they were having sex, she called paramedics, and he asked her to dress him so he wasn't naked when they arrived. They got into an argument because she started putting a pair of white pants on him and it was after Labor Day ("Charlie was very stubborn -- and very dapper"). He told her he loved her, and then he died. So she dressed him in gray flannel pants, and he was all done up, complete with tie, when the paramedics arrived.

My thoughts exactly, CU folks.

Yep; I use the "men's" version of many toiletries, because it's actually just the product I need without the gender surcharge.

John Stamos thinks rape is funny, so he can get off my screen none too soon. For those who haven't heard in the 15 years since it was revealed, which seems to be a lot of people: In a magazine interview (Jane), he was asked a series of five questions, to which he gave a series of "joke" answers - e.g. Jerry O'Connell for his current entry on his celebrities to make out with list and growing his mullet back for any urges he was suppressing - the last of which was what was the worst he'd ever screwed someone over. Concluding with he "was young and didn't have a conscience", but with an easy tone (he did, after all, freely recount this story in response to the last of five innocuous questions to which he'd given funny answers) of gosh, that was a bit of a dick move, not dear gods, I facilitated a rape - recounted the tale of, somewhere in the early-80s, encountering a "really drunk" woman after a show (he was in a band then) who was really interested in him; he wasn't into her, but his friend was. So he took her back to his hotel, turned down the lights, made out with her, told her to hold on a minute as he needed to brush his teeth, and sent his friend - who looked like him and was lying in wait - into the room in his place to continue. So she thought she was having sex with Stamos but was actually raped by his buddy. I can't find a direct link, but there's an image of the article in this tweet:

Wow, these closely mirror my thoughts on both films. When I read the two choices, I thought, "Oh, two of the handful of rom-coms I like." And then I realized I don't like the rom part of Four Weddings and a Funeral and don't really remember anything about Moonstruck other than liking Cher and Olympia Dukakis.

Probably; that's how everyone I know there/from there pronounces it -- Nevahda gets eye rolls and a correction.

Which way do you pronounce datum (or do you ever use the singular)? Because I hear "datta" instead of "dayta" fairly frequently, but I never hear "dattum" instead of "daytum" - but, of course, people say data far more frequently than datum so I hardly ever hear the word to begin with.

What I like is that she's initially not; she notes how great he looks despite the crappy lighting in the interview room, but that's it for her level of interest. Later she's even completely unaffected by him standing next to her in Electronics, because she's focused on the fact that husband hasn't said anything they can nail him with. But then after Sharon sends Jon in and he successfully riles the husband up into revealing the car's location (meaning they've got him and now he'll confess and accept a plea bargain), she's thrilled and turns totally giddy when Jon returns. I love that she only gets flustered level of attracted to him when he makes the case for her.

She looks more like the mother of his grandchild than his wife, so I looked up their ages - 63 and 36. When they got together, she was about 25/26, so at least her brain had fully matured about five minutes prior. I'm sorry, all I can do at any individual entry in this ridiculous pattern of rich and famous men courting women young enough to be their children instead of contemporaries is roll my eyes. Hooray for them if they're happy, though, and they certainly didn't rush into marriage and parenting, so whatever. Tanya Tucker not being in the HoF is a crime against humanity.

I have no idea what it's for, either, but I saw that one several days ago and laughed out loud. Then laughed again internally when I pictured germaphobes freaking out over it.

Aw, Tia heading out to pull one dog and winding up with four. I can’t imagine what the people in that country shelter deal with daily – almost no resources, a culture in which animals are largely not properly respected as pets, and so few people for whom it (being in the boonies) is the “local” shelter to begin with, that even if every prospective pet owner in that radius goes there to adopt, how can they ever keep up? Seeing them so packed that cats were housed just feet away from big barking dogs – that segment hurt my heart. I’m glad two of the four are already settled in homes, and hope the other two follow suit. The sight of them palling around in the pond, a simple opportunity they never would have had at the shelter, was lovely. The adopters were sweet, and I knew they were going to take the shy dog who needed extra care (who could resist that face?!). I like how they knew they’d love to pieces whichever dog they adopted, so it was only a matter of deciding for which dog they were the right owners, not which dog was right for them. Marbles is terrific, and I hope gets adopted young as I think he can be truly great with dedicated training, but Jessica is a dog not everyone has the patience for, so I’m thrilled she found people whose hearts were broken by the place life had brought her and who are dedicated to picking up on what Lizzy provided as a rescuer and foster, showing her the whole new world love and one-on-one attention provides, and giving Jessica whatever time she needs to fully settle in. She fundamentally knew she was home, with good people, and all the specifics will fall into place.

I told my friend who sent all this to me: Robert Patrick looks like he just got out of prison after 25 years of hard time.

After all this time, tonight I noticed something new to add to my extensive list of things that make me laugh in “Cutting Loose”: At the graduation party, when Amy is taking a picture of Rusty with the squad and Jon Worth, Julio jumps up as it’s snapped, since he’s short and standing in the back. I won’t recount that list of favorite moments, because I’ve pretty much called out the whole episode over the years as it’s packed frame to frame with them, other than to highlight three that are funny because of utterly perfect line deliveries: Sharon’s appalled “I am just surrounded by people with no sense of occasion” reaction to learning Julio is back and no one did anything, Taylor reading the “frowny face” part of Jon’s social media post, and the storage facility worker reiterating “It was cute, and old, and red, and a convertible” when asked for more detail about the cute old red convertible the woman was driving. Instead I want to explicitly praise the fundamental heart behind the creation of a comedic episode: I love the meta ones where they take piss out of the entertainment industry, and I appreciate that in this one they went with a character who is completely oblivious to his privilege rather than one who’s an arrogant jerk – Jon Worth became a star when he was a teenager, so he has long since lost all touch with reality (nice touch casting the one guy in Hollywood who hadn’t to play him as he could readily tap into the inner good guy), but within the bubble of fame and fortune in which he lives he has a good heart. His introductory scene reveals him perfectly – he makes a grand entrance off the elevator, but he’s respectfully passing on a project rather than snapping/snotting at someone that it's beneath him, and he offers up “Anything I can do, just let me know and I’ll have Kiki do it” because he has an assistant to handle his whole life (he doesn't even know how long a big-ass storage container was in his driveway) but he’s there in the first place, and stays far longer than he was scheduled to, because he genuinely does want to help Lt. Mike. I also appreciate the touch that the young characters don’t know who he is; he was a huge star back in the day and is still working, but Rusty has no idea who he is and the woman at the storage facility can’t place him as a celebrity, he’s just a guy who looks familiar. Nice commentary on career trajectory. My favorite aspect of its presentation of show business is probably the way Kiki is written; she is the absolutely perfect representation of a celebrity assistant (unnoticed in the background and silent unless spoken to yet keenly aware of everything going on, always on her phone, has a Sharpie at the ready, etc.) and they show the myriad stuff she has to roll with regularly, and that she does indeed do so -- she doesn’t even bat an eye at being detained by the federales. She’s never the butt of a joke and I appreciate that. Making fun of actors and psycho super fans I’m here for, but not mocking celebrity assistants (a Los Angeles native who worked in the music industry for a time, I’ve known quite a few, and they earn their money), so I like that in taking on their own industry they aimed properly.

Frank Spotnitz held a contest to create lyrics for the XF theme song. I think the winning entry sucks, but who cares, because a shit ton of people from the show performed it as a fundraiser for World Central Kitchen (José Andrés's organization):