Bastet

There's only one scene of that, and it's at the end, so I think it's meant to symbolize that they're done for the day. I think they should have cut all the scenes shorter, so they had time to show more of them at work than just looking at a printout and handling a phone call, because, yeah, it plays like they came into the office, did very little, and called it a day. Arthritis.

I liked Kerry (not everything she did, certainly, but in general) and while I wound up coming around on Pratt, he aggravated me for quite a long time. And I was Team Jen in the Green vs. Green divorce. They propped Mark up by having her cheat, and she of course should not have done that, but up until then he bore a majority of the responsibility for their marital problems. I also did not give a shit about Doug and Carol as a couple; I generally liked them both as characters, but thought they both sucked as romantic partners, so my only interest in them getting/staying together was to think, "Good, they've spared anyone else having to be romantically involved with either one of them".

I was already an EMILY's List supporter when that episode aired, and as soon as Toby said "that girls group with the stupid name", I knew that was going to be what he was referring to (because, though I generally like Toby, that is unfortunately very much the kind of thing he'd say). I thought it was clunky that they had C.J. explain the acronym, but if so many viewers weren't familiar with it, I guess the writers knew what they were doing.

It is an unbelievably stupid, trite, cliché, reality-defying episode, and so beneath this show. That it's only the fifth episode of the series lets me forgive it some, as does the fact it's the lead-in to Murphy's thoughts - reasonable at her age - about whether motherhood is something she should pursue, which Diane English put in far earlier than she would have had she known the show was indeed going to carry on for many years. But when I watch my DVDs (of season one, since that's all that was released and I don't get any of the stations that have aired this in syndication), I roll my eyes so much at that episode I'm afraid one day they'll get stuck.

I didn't know until today that her little brother - the one who found her the next morning after the guys dumped her in her own front yard - had died since the documentary came out (killed in a car accident, like their dad). Her poor mother - over the course of about ten years, that woman has endured the deaths of her husband and two of her four kids.

For those who saw Audrie & Daisy and haven't yet seen the news elsewhere, tragically, now both girls are gone; Daisy Coleman committed suicide last night. Her mom's announcement on Facebook breaks my heart: “She was my best friend and amazing daughter. I think she had to make make it seem like I could live without her. I can’t. I wish I could have taken the pain from her! She never recovered from what those boys did to her and it’s just not fair. My baby girl is gone.” The number of people responsible for that young woman's death is staggering, and I doubt a single one of them (especially that morally repugnant sheriff) feels any shame over it.

Oh, no! This tears at my heart. Her advocacy will live on, via the documentary (which I recommend to everyone; it's a difficult watch, but a necessary one) and the organization she founded, but it is utterly tragic that she is gone. Shame on all her attackers - that entire "wolf pack" (her rapist, the guys who dumped her passed-out body in a frozen yard, the asshole who filmed the rape), all the assholes who passed that video around school, the despicable sheriff who blamed the victims (her best friend was raped that night, too), the corrupt prosecutors who dropped charges because the rapist was part of a locally-powerful family, and everyone who bullied her and her family relentlessly because she dared speak out against the football star.

Not that have ever been publicized, and the cast remains close. No way I'd watch this without Judith Light. And how are they going to explain Angela's absence, when the house Samantha is now living in is hers? If this gets picked up, I hope producers do indeed find a way to "work [her and Jonathan] in" because after the eight years we saw, and the sweet way things ended, it would suck if Tony and Angela hadn't worked out in the long term. Even if Judith Light doesn't want to commit to more than a few appearances, and we hardly ever see Jonathan (since Danny Pintauro could NOT act once he became a teenager and thus hasn't done much since), I'd want the family intact. If they did something to honor Mona (since Katherine Helmond is dead), I'd tune in for that; she was a great character.

Every time this discussion comes up, I feel like I'm going to have my woman card taken away, because I don't give a shit about having pockets. I think they do ruin the fit (at least on my body) of almost all pants other than jeans, and while they can be invisible on their own in some skirts and dresses, they're not once you put something in them, so I don't use them. At home or work, I don't need to have anything on me, and when I'm out I'm perfectly fine putting the few things I need to carry - wallet, keys, cell phone, Chapstick, and, if needed, tampons - in my purse or briefcase. When I was young, I didn't want to take a purse out clubbing (you can't safely put it anywhere, but don't want it on you when dancing), so then if there was a guy among us girlfriends we made him put everything in his pockets and, if not, we'd put everything in one purse and take turns with it. But now? I don't go anywhere I can't easily deal with a purse.

I had forgotten all about Claudia until I watched tonight's re-run of her first Million Dollar Masters episode. I don't quite know how I managed that, since she was in Battle of the Decades just six years ago, so it's not like it has been eons since she's been on my screen. Anyway, as soon as I saw her I remembered how much I liked her. My goodness, did I have a terrible game. I'm going to blame the extreme stress I'm under right now for messing with my mind, because I couldn't even remember Ray Kroc's name (and that's a bit of trivia that is somehow always at the ready for me, even though the only thing I'll eat from McDonald's is the fries). FJ was an instaget, so at least I ended with a win, but it was not at all my night.

One of my close friends loves that show, but I've always had a strong sense just from seeing commercials for it that I'd find it sexist. When that "adorkable misogyny" video was posted a couple of years ago, I watched it and thought, "I knew it!"

I haven't seen it in eons, but wasn't that rather the point of it - that, despite all the shit he got from those (especially the men) around him, there wasn't anything wrong with him not being ready until the right relationship came along at 40, and nothing wrong with him not being quickly ready even within that relationship? I mostly just remember the chest hair waxing scene (in which the actor really was waxed, and improvised many of the hilariously random holy hell, that hurts reactions) and the scene where he "confesses" being a virgin to his girlfriend, saying he put off consummation because he was afraid it wasn't going to be any good - she says something like, "Of course it'll be good, we love each other," and my eyeballs nearly got stuck in the rolled position. What a ridiculous and actually harmful lie to perpetuate, that emotional intimacy yields immediate sexual compatibility.

I love Ron Butterfield! The actor's voice and presence are perfect for the role. I love him with Bartlet in the car after the shooting (and I love Bartlet with him, worried about Butterfield's hand), and I love him with Toby in that scene about protection procedure: "I would never let you not let me protect the president. You tell us you don't like something, we figure out something else."

My email notification is Scully (The X-Files) saying, "Sucker". Which has nothing to do with mail, but I just love the way she said it. When I log onto my computer, she says, "Somebody's accessing my computer," and when I log out, Cartman (South Park) says, "Screw you guys, I'm going home." As you can tell, I have not updated my .wav files in a very long time.

I would never go back and stay with it, as I went on to work in civil rights law, which is my life's passion, and it's not remotely the same now, anyway, but I'm also glad for the fun I had in that '90s era, working for a record label, with a minibar in my office, joints passed around meetings with no judgment one way or the other, lavish picnics and holiday parties each year, a great commissary and rec room, etc.

Or people living their lives, and seizing the opportunity for representation? Polyamory is not my bag, as I won't commit to one person, let alone two, but, like anything else, if it's a truly consensual and equal relationship (which a whole lot of heterosexual relationship aren't), have at it. And kudos to HH - which was among the first to include same-sex couples as, gasp, the same as their opposite-sex counterparts (good and bad) - for including them. I have not seen either airing, but all the pearl-clutching "but what about the children?!" both times because there are three people in a committed relationship instead of two reminds me of nothing other than the same bullshit about same-sex couples raising kids. Kids need love, guidance, and support. The number and gender of those providing it is irrelevant. If these particular HH are thirsty for "fame", that's lame, but the same as it is for anyone who wants to feed their narcissism with an appearance on this HGTV show. And if they're capitalizing on the resulting media attention to help normalize what is a perfectly acceptable family dynamic that society is slow to grasp, more power to them.

Yep. And the sound when you'd pick up the phone to make a call and realize someone in the house was online (then you'd either yell at them you needed to make a call or get yelled at by them that you'd just kicked them off the internet). And you only had a certain number of minutes per month, so I'd download stuff to a disc to read offline and save my minutes mostly for emailing, chatting, etc.

I continued to use the paper from my dot matrix printer for a long time after I switched to an inket printer -- I had much of a big box left when I switched, and there was no way I was just going to recycle rather than use that paper, so I gradually - while watching TV - tore off the side strips (with the holes to feed it through) and separated the pages from each other. The resulting sheets were what I used for first drafts for many years.

Oh, lords, the first season of Top Chef is horrible. Season two is worse. But I stuck with it for the potential and given the TV landscape at the time. It took a while to shake off the reality show stench and establish itself as a proper cooking competition, after which it recruited a better and better caliber of chefs and judges to in fairly short order become the gold standard. Even though the "cheftestants" do live together during filming, the footage from the house is minimal - mostly just little 30-second glimpses at the beginning of each episode to hint at the personal dynamics - as it's about the cooking. It's one of the very few competition shows I watch other than Jeopardy! (I also watch Beat Bobby Flay and occasionally Chopped), and it's my favorite of those by a mile. If you want to give it another try, I suggest starting with recent seasons (the most recent was an All-Stars competition, and absolutely fantastic!) rather than going back to the beginning.

So do I. I'm not really sure why I shouldn't- when I switched from Prodigy* (ask your parents, some of you) to the phone company's DSL as my ISP, sbcglobal became my new email address because SBC was the phone company at that moment in time (it has changed many, many times in my life, even though I've always lived in Los Angeles). Sure, it has long since been AT&T, but the takeover thankfully didn't require existing customers to have att in their email address instead (thus having to notify all our contacts we have a new email address when we weren't the ones to make a change), so since my provider has remained the same all these years, so has my email address. *When we got Prodigy (around '91, I believe), we were assigned a screen name (that also functioned as an email address and a handle on that weird thing known as the world-wide web) made up of a random assortment of letters and numbers. Mine started with "drxf". When I became an X-Files fan several years later, the fact mine looked like "Dr. X-Files [etc.]" was a source of great amusement to me.

They have both names and numbers here, but no one would ever use the number. I can't even tell you what number "my" exit is. It's particularly vexing nowadays, when almost everyone has GPS either via an integrated navigation system or their phone and has thus heard the "in one mile, exit X on the right" heads-up. I thus wonder if a lot of these idiots are not people driving in unfamiliar territory and not realizing the exit they need is so close, but people just not paying attention, driving as far to the left as they can in order to go faster, and then coming off of mental auto-pilot a bit too late. Of course, that would make the zooming across lanes even worse, because if they're familiar with the area, there is no problem in just taking the next exit and backtracking.

I was scheduled to go see Gloria: A Life with Mary McDonnell (in Princeton) in September, but had to cancel my trip because of work. (Something by which I remain irritated to this day.)

I’m always impressed with how well the storytelling device of Rusty recapping a recent case to Dr. Joe works in “Do Not Disturb”. It’s usually a clunky way of framing, but it works here. This is the point in the series I start thinking Enough! about how much focus Rusty gets (it doesn’t get bad until season four, but this is when it kicks in), but I love him coming out to the squad. I laugh every time at the way Sharon informs him, no, she will not do the coming out for him, and almost slips up and says everyone already knows. I like that he takes her words to heart, about it not being specifically about him being gay, just about him feeling comfortable being open about himself with those who care about him. So that what he ultimately does is ask them if anyone would feel differently about him if they knew he was gay, and indeed it’s a non-issue for everyone – including Provenza who was previously uncomfortable with the idea of addressing it – and they quickly get back to razzing Amy about dating Cooper. I share Rusty’s reactions to dollhouses and arranged marriages, so he amuses me in this one. His similarities with Lina are extremely heavy-handed, but it’s poignant when he knew by the way she held herself that her injuries were the result of a parental beating, and the blatant parallel did yield the great line, “Am I really that self-centered that the things I feel bad about for other people are really just about me?” Provenza also entertains me with his response to the concierge having claimed it’s not “that kind of a hotel”: It’s a room with a bed, isn’t it? What I really like about this case is the Sharon and Fritz interaction, because it’s one of the few times they’re at odds; she even yells at him, but mostly perfectly appeases him all while doing exactly what she wants to do. I love the look Andy, ticked off because Fritz keeps removing the Madhavan pictures he’s pinning to the murder board, gets on his face when Sharon offers to let Fritz join Andy for his interview with Lina’s friends. I also like the LAPD jokingly trying to lose Fritz on their way to the friend’s beach house, and all the shit Provenza gives Fritz throughout. I also like the Amy and Cooper scene, when he’s mansplaining about the futility of keeping their relationship private, and she slams on the brakes as planned, telling him, “Sorry, I know regulations say I’m supposed to give a heads-up, but you wouldn’t stop talking.” And I like the subtle, realistic touch that the Indian diplomat is supercilious with everyone, due to his immunity, but is also dismissive of Sharon in a way he isn't with Fritz, rarely meeting her eyes (because she’s a woman). As I’ve mentioned before, I know this is an odd complaint since we never see them together, but I just do not buy Lina and Josh as a couple. Tonight I tried to figure out whether I don’t buy Lina’s feelings for him or I don’t buy his for her (as played by the actors, since they’re just talking about each other, not interacting with each other), and I think it’s a bit the latter and just generally about Josh himself – as written and played. He’s so thoroughly bland, while she – even though we don’t actually know her much more than we do him – is interesting (even in her naiveté, because I think that’s rooted in living in two very different cultures simultaneously, living in an old-school Indian family while attending an international school in America). I like that Lina, at her age and given her terror at the idea of being forced into this hideous marriage, holds Mehar very present in her list of regrets over how this all played out; she didn’t want to be sold to the dude, but knows he didn’t deserve to be murdered and is horrified this extreme, irrevocable act is how Josh chose to ignore her plea not to interfere. Random thing I noticed tonight: I think this is the only episode in which Sharon wears the grey and black striped skirt. (Unlike most TV characters, but like most actual people, she repeats clothing; over time, I notice the items that only appear once.)

I like that when the adopters renamed DC, they picked a similar-sounding name. I don't understand why they had such a short fence put in when they intended to always have large dogs in their lives (presumably; they both had Rottweilers before and now got a pit). If they'd gone with a taller one (and a neighbor had one, so it's not like there's a HOA limit or something), they wouldn't have to make sure one of them is out there every second that he is. I was very pleasantly surprised by Roan's prognosis - it's a good thing they took the chance. It's great that the old guy will get a second lease on life; I hope it winds up being in a home. Azrael is a sweetie; I wonder why he was the only dog left in a yard that was filled with crates and chains.