Bastet

In the article linked above about how the designers came up with the course, it's stated there were "200 cameras filming the action, including 23 Varicams and a small army of GoPros and drones".

That's his Mom character's name - Steve Curtis.

The actor is Don McManus. (I "know" him from Any Day Now and The Shawshank Redemption as well as Mom, and he's done one-off guest spots in at least half a dozen other shows I've watched, including a really creepy role in an episode of Cold Case -- he's everywhere!)

I do 68 and 80, but I sometimes don't turn the AC on until it's around 82 in the room I'm in (I have a ductless system, with individual units in each room, so I don't have to cool the whole house if I don't want to). Lately, in an awful heat wave, I've had all of them going at 78 all day and well into the evening. I'm not sure, either; I've only seen promos for TDS (in which he's always wearing one of his many hoodies).

He's always been an asshole, but, yes, he seems to have abandoned any effort at hiding the fact he's a total jerk. I don't know why anyone would want him as the scruffy face of their product, either.

I watched two episodes of that show at a friend's house a few years ago, and found the entire Chrisley family shallow, useless, and varying degrees of dumb. (I will never understand why people like this are given reality shows, nor why people want to see shallow, useless, dumb people rewarded with fame and fortune.) If they're raising a grandchild, I hope she somehow doesn't turn out to be as big a brat as the others, especially that unbearable youngest boy, but they don't have a good track record.

Yeah, someone else said, "Don't do that yet" or something along those lines.

Holy sexism, Batman; has either word, let alone the combination of the two, ever been used to insult a man based on his actions?

I realized how very different I am from the NZ team members when they decided to scale the falls overnight, and all I could think was how sad it was they weren't going to see them. Reading virtually ever single person interviewed respond to the "favorite moment" question by talking about how wonderful the people of Fiji were to them just irritates me anew that we saw very little of them and heard even less.

This, right here, is why so many different types of people love her as a person, whether or not they like her music: This is great, too:

Oh my, then you've never seen the initial encounter with Ray Don? That must be rectified:

I didn't love this as much as I did the old ones - and I really could have done without that ridiculous host - as it felt more "OMG, Drama!" forced rather than simply presenting a challenge that is inherently dramatic, but it was still enjoyable. Team Onyx was a favorite, so I was sad to see them have to bow out, but respect the talk they had on the way back to camp how they would make the decision whether to continue, and then how they indeed made it. I loved how Sam sprang into action when they found Clifton had crashed his bike; she immediately refocused him from the bike to "Are you okay?" and then found his helmet to inspect it. When she found a crack in it, she made him sit down. I also liked the captain of Team Flying J, looking at her teammate not even able to stand up because his leg is so infected and saying, "I'm calling it" when he was insisting on continuing. And then the other guys objected! The hell? I'm glad she was captain. (They were all military, so she's used to this macho bullshit; I wouldn't be surprised if she insisted on being captain in order to participate [since they had to have a woman on the team], knowing that if they got into a situation where someone should not go on for their own safety, those guys would all insist on continuing.) I would have liked to see more of the Fijians (not just the two teams, but the people whose villages, homes, horses, and labor were being used) and more of some contenders who didn't speak English. But I liked the overall trajectory, with how jarring it increasingly became to see how far behind those bringing up the rear were from those vying for the title. As always, I was more interested in the teams who were just trying to finish, not place. The NZ team is quite obviously impressive, though. Back in the day, I used to watch this and think about where in the race I'd have to quit because I couldn't physically do it. This time I kept thinking, "Even if I could do this, I wouldn't" -- I'm too old for the miserable conditions (pushing my bike up a hill whose soil has been made into the consistency of peanut butter by rain?!) so watching people older than me press on was impressive.

Wow, he's really into gender stereotypes.

Add basil, and that's a summertime favorite for me. Margherita pizza is one of the few with a tomato sauce I love (I prefer pesto, olive oil, alfredo, or another white sauce); the other is a pizza topped with chorizo, cilantro, onions, and jalapeño.

I'm fine with it in general (and love cauliflower "rice" as a substitute for rice, which I find utterly pointless filler but I sometimes need something like it in a saucy dish), but roasted is my favorite. I particularly like it roasted with olive oil and red pepper flakes.

That's a Geico commercial with DJ Khaled. It's one of their "So what are you waiting for?" commercials with celebrities -- for John Stamos to knit you a scarf, for Idina Menzel to sing your own theme song, for DJ Khaled to be your motivational coach. I think it was the first one of that series, but maybe I just saw it first.

"Hush Hush Baby" by Lxandra. The lyrics are: Hush hush, baby, nobody will break you [humming] You told me "Hush hush, baby, nobody will break you" I agree that "hush" sounds really weird.

I'm not objecting to the rank - as you said, we've known from the very premise of The Closer that he'd come in as a Deputy Chief and why - I'm objecting that his FBI experience in no way qualifies him to lead the entire Special Operations Bureau of the LAPD. Brenda was qualified to run Priority Homicide (or Priority Murder Squad, heh, until she pointed out PMS wasn't a good name) at least, given its purpose - getting confessions that would hold up in court - and her specialty - as "the closer" - and it made all the sense in the world that she was Pope's pick for the job under the circumstances (personal and professional). (The squad's resentment in response also made sense between her being a woman, an outsider who knew jack about the city or department, and Pope's pet, and getting a rank handed to her rather than working her way up within the LAPD as they had.) Fritz wouldn't have got the SOB job if he applied for it, let alone been recruited for it, though; there is no reason, personal or professional, that Taylor would seek him out or that Pope would sign off on it. It was only written in order to set up this potential spin-off, so we lost him as FBI liaison (although I didn't mind Morris as his replacement) and got all these additional characters along with him whenever he appeared for a while.

While the headline led with his Emmy win, he was mostly known in the indie film world; he was a prolific producer, and also wrote, directed, and acted. A friend of mine worked on "Fat Girls", which Christian wrote, directed, and starred in at just 19 (he'd done the same with several short films prior to that). I saw it with her at Outfest in L.A., where it won an emerging talent award.

Being a backdoor pilot for a potential spin-off, “Two Options” is an awkward episode, crammed with new characters and technology, and an overall shoot-out style. Gloria Lim is another Emma Rios, with a horribly clunky one-note introduction, and it’s quite problematic for both such characters to be women of color. And the idea that the department’s FBI liaison would be recruited to head up the Special Operations Bureau is ridiculous; a federal agent who’s never been a boss is going to be sought out to oversee numerous tactical divisions? So, on many principles, I wouldn’t have watched the SOB show had it come to fruition, but every time I watch episodes that hint at it, especially this first one, I wonder what the plan was, particularly with respect to Fritz’s marriage to Brenda (between shipping her off to D.C. and reminding us of his love for kids that she didn't want to have while introducing Ann McGinnis as having lost her husband and child in an accident and having her give him meaningful glances as he holds one of the rescued kids). But it has elements I like; Ann fits into the Sharon and Fritz side of the dynamic against Taylor nicely. I like her, including that she turns down the promotion; she doesn’t want to head the division because of all the administrative responsibilities, she wants to remain second in command in order to do the hands-on job she loves. It’s like Provenza, and when everyone but Winnie Davis runs screaming from the Asst. Chief job. I’ve mentioned before that I developed the head canon that Ann is one of those who benefited from the work Sharon did as the LAPD’s Women’s Coordinator and is grateful to her (appreciating the circumstances by which she outranks her at their respective ages and experiences), and I’ve since read that the actors discussed the same dynamic, so I’m calling it official. The respect she shows her is one thing, but there’s also frequent deference despite Ann outranking Sharon; I dig it. I’m also interested in Jamie Perez, the third-generation officer; what must life as a black cop in a racist organization been like for his grandfather and father, and what’s it like for him now? There’s some funny stuff sprinkled throughout a high-stakes case, most notably Julio’s improv with the ice cream truck: Provenza’s WTF reaction to Julio going on an ice cream run (and to Buzz protesting he’d have liked a snowcone), the driver’s “shoot us?!” reaction after his excitement when Julio pretends to deputize him, everyone’s response to hearing what Julio is doing, the actual ruse – it’s wonderful. (Too many white extras for that park, though; they’re better than many L.A.-based shows with main, secondary, and even tertiary casting, but the extras are a recurring problem [for which both sides of casting are culpable].) There are also nice personal dynamics throughout, from the established - Provenza knowing the specific pep talk an exhausted Sharon could use from her second in command, and Sharon and Rusty talking about the adoption – to the relatively new - Cooper and Julio, the two “crap magnets” being sent down into the bowels of the building. I also like the touch of Amy giving the kid in the next apartment her vest while he complains about having to get in the tub. And of the little girl covering her ears during the shoot-out; her hearing is still going to be fucked up, but that’s usually ignored altogether.

Thanks, folks. I wound up making a half batch of the coconut browned butter cookies, so hopefully my mom likes them. The batter tasted delicious before I added the coconut (how could it not - sugar and browned butter).

I hadn't seen this advertised, so I'm glad I noticed the new thread! I, too, loved the Eco-Challenge on Discovery back in the late '90s. A friend with whom I went on hiking trips back then also watched each year, and we talked for about five minutes about possibly forming a team and trying out, before realizing we'd be in way over our heads. I'm glad it's back. I hope it doesn't have a more sensationalized tone to it all these years later (I never had any interest in Survivor or his other shows, so I want this to be more like the old-school Eco-Challenge than that show).

It's Lolo's (singer-songwriter Lauren Pritchard) "Wild", which came out a couple of years ago (I think I heard it somewhere before the commercial came out last year, but I'm not sure).

I loved his character (Billy) on Battlestar Galactica, but have never seen him in anything else or heard anything about him personally. I'm glad to see he's a good guy!

Bob flamed out pretty spectacularly in the second day of finals. After his shocked reaction when he ever-so-confidently whiffed the Taft DD, I was almost glad; I do not like that guy. Even though I knew Brad won, and I have no issues with him, I found myself fruitlessly rooting for Eric.