Bastet

"I brought you a leg." Yes, "Rain King" is an episode that succeeds in spite of itself. Between Scully and Mulder having to share a motel room and strangers commenting on/making assumptions about their relationship, it is indeed fucking fanfic. And, as I mentioned, Victoria Jackson. Sheila is a drip, so it's not even like Jackson transcends her usual level of crap, and the "happy ending means marriage and baby" trope is in no less need of killing here as it is elsewhere. There's this horrible nice guy entitlement vibe, that Sheila has to return Holman's feelings (no surprise, since it was written by the guy who wrote the horrifically sexist "Alpha"), but Holman not being among those who behave that way mitigates it. But there's so much else to make me laugh. For example, every single second of Scully's reactions to Kroner, its residents, and Mulder; Gillian slays it in this episode. It benefits from being in season six, which is much like season four to me -- it has episodes I love, but also a whole lot I don't give a shit about. So the ones I like, I like even more than I would in a better season.

Do Netflix shows get sold into syndication? If not, the 100 episode threshold has no meaning (and it doesn't even have the meaning it used to in terms of when a show becomes a potential syndication commodity). As I said back when it was announced the seventh season would be the last, while I could happily watch this show for many more seasons, seven is a great run, and I like when shows know well in advance that their final season will indeed be their final season - some shows don't even get to write a proper series finale, so to write and execute an entire season knowing it's the last one means a show can really go out on its own terms.

They tend to do that, don't they? The good news is, I've never heard of an owner who stuck to it who didn't eventually win the war (even though the cat won her/his share of battles along the way), so just keep at it. It's too bad you can't explain the extra pressure on her joints because of the missing leg and how maintaining an appropriate weight will help with that. Oh, who am I kidding - she'd probably still just look at you and say, "Fascinating. Now, give me my dry food."

A friend of mine is currently weaning her cat back off dry food (it had been just treat of maybe a dozen pieces before bed, but then a set of circumstances resulted in it constituting about half the cat's diet for many months, and kitty ballooned up), and having quite a battle of wills as a result. So she feels your pain!

I do, too, which is pretty astounding since Victoria Jackson is in it.

I thought they'd abandoned the stew idea, because they said something about Lanford's first wood-fired pizza oven. But then later stew was mentioned. (I'm still going off memories of Tuesday's haphazard viewing, as I'm not home yet to re-watch with full attention.) So I guess they're going for a more diversified menu. Either that or they still have no idea what they're doing. On this show, it could go either way.

I barely watched at that point, but didn't poor Sandy's family consist largely of a bunch of homophobes who tried to deny Kerry her rightful place in Henry's life for lack of a biological connection, something they would not have done had Sandy's partner been a man?

A local restaurant (which was terrible, and this is an area where great independent restaurants abound) recently closed its doors after nearly 40 years, and people were all upset about it on social media, but increasing rent wasn't the only reason for the closure - the other half was declining sales. Not all these folks who go on and on about the family establishment and oh how sad that it's closing actually eat there regularly to keep it open, and people being attached to a local joint isn't enough to keep it in business. Add in the fact many people in Lanford know the Conners, and know about Roseanne's death, and it stands to reason Dan's sentiment about local folks wanting to see someone get a win would be brought out in this situation. The Lunch Box probably lasted there longer than anything else that's come and gone since, so people get all nostalgic upon reading that newspaper article and try to help. Whether that will translate to being a regular customer (those who can afford to in the first place) once it's reopened is quite the open question, though.

I thought that was going to be a very different story, since that thing turns the light off and on in response to sounds other than clapping. So I thought it was going to be about a kid traumatized by the strobe effect going on in his parents' bedroom.

I'm glad you had such success on your first try! Since there are only three of us, we always do a turkey breast. We brine it, and then baste with butter while grilling it (this year was in the oven due to heavy rain, but it's usually done on a charcoal grill as we go camping [in a motorhome] for Thanksgiving). I am a big proponent of brining meats that can tend towards the dry, like thin-cut pork chops.

Nope, because I don't give a shit about the Bills other than when they're ruining Jerry Jones's Thanksgiving, and those calls were total bull.

Oh good, because I never use those things; I have always found them annoying for no specific reason.

That's how we wound up with the motorhome tradition; my grandma died in early December, so Thanksgiving was the last holiday with her. The next year, we just were not feeling it, so my dad suggested we go camping. That's what we've been doing ever since, nearly 40 years now.

It happens when someone quotes from a reply, rather than the original post -- A posts something, B quotes it and replies, and C also quotes it and replies, but pulls the quote from B's post rather than A's, leading to it being attributed to B rather than A.

Same as every year, only colder (and with rain starting tomorrow, so I'm annoyed in advance but reminding myself it's far worse in most of the country). My parents head out Sunday in their motorhome, to either a lake about 90 minutes southeast of us or a beach about two hours northwest (thank goodness we picked the lake this year, as there is a wildfire in the hills in the beach area), and I join them Wednesday. Since we're in a motorhome and it's just three of us, we keep it simple (especially because we snack all day while keeping an eye on the football games, so it's a regular dinner that just has turkey as the main course): a fresh, organic turkey breast (deboned, rolled, and tied like a roast, then brined, and finally grilled over charcoal while being basted with butter), cornbread dressing (which I do not eat and my mom can barely stand, but it's my dad's family tradition), mixed greens salad, and a roasted green vegetable (Brussels sprouts this year, and I'll probably do them with bacon and balsamic). Pumpkin pie for dessert, but I don't eat that, either; if I want a sweet fix, I just have some ice cream. Oh, I forgot - and wheat brown and serve rolls. I have no explanation for this, as I am not a bread person and never eat rolls/biscuits the rest of the year, but I crave them at Thanksgiving. Neither of my parents like cranberries, so I don't bother just for me, but my best friend sometimes joins us (we grew up as part of each other's families) and when she does, I make a cranberry and apple conserve. Since we have no pan drippings, I have to make the gravy in advance, and since it's once a year, I do it up right - no butter or chicken stock, it's all turkey. I roast turkey wings, back, and thighs to get turkey fat for roux, then make turkey stock with the wings and back (I use the thigh meat for soup) and add some of that to the non-fat drippings for my liquid (I use the rest of the stock for the soup). It's wonderfully turkey-y. 🙂

I'm hitting the road early tomorrow, so I have a shit ton to do tonight and could only pay sporadic attention; I'll watch properly when I get back from my Thanksgiving trip. From what I saw, there are indeed several things that followed TV logic, not actual logic. But Jackie's Bev zombies nightmare being rooted in her fear she's ruining things for everyone is the blend of emotions the franchise is known for. And Bev's "you've just blown your inheritance on another get poor quick scheme" note with the plant is fantastic. As is the way Jackie asks Louise for a favor. Three generations believing it impossible to wash comforters is a funny little thing. Speaking of the little things, I like that Mark's necklace was caught on his button; on most TV shows, they'd fix that, and avoid using a take from before they did, but it just adds realism. The Conners strike me as the type who'd do well to have one smoke/carbon monoxide detector in the house, never mind one on each floor, so having two in the living room and one in the kitchen (two rooms in which you wouldn't normally find one - carbon monoxide/combo detectors in the hallways and smoke detectors in the bedrooms is code in my area, and I think that's fairly common) was a little odd. Plus, Modern Family already did the "dammit, which one is doing the replace battery beep?" storyline and included a resolution (I may have missed the payoff in this one, though).

One of the numerous things I loved about Sharon Raydor on Major Crimes was her backstory on becoming a cop: She and her husband both planned to go to law school, him first. She became a cop for the pay and benefits and it being a law-related job, and wound up staying longer than intended because her husband wasn't working steadily after he passed the bar. He eventually left her, with two kids to take care of by then; law school just wasn't realistic any more, and she'd come to really like her job. Of the whole squad, Buzz is the only one who chose his career based on a family member (his dad and uncle) being killed in a case that went unsolved - complete with storyline in which he solves said case. And none of them became cops because a parent had been one. Julio did become a cop to avenge the death of his cat, though. 🙂 He grew up in gang territory (and continued to live there), and saw lots of shit, including his cat killed by a couple of bangers. He became a cop out of a general desire to protect people in those neighborhoods from gangs, but particularly enjoyed later arresting those two guys for crimes that wound up putting them away for life.

I just looked up the Hobby Lobby commercial and agree it's awful (I wouldn't expect anything else), but what the hell is the son pawning in that one scene? It looks like a gun, but not even Hobby Lobby would go there.

Yes, that was indeed my point - they could select from their pool for gender and racial diversity, but not for economic diversity.

Yeah, I can't with Clint Eastwood, so I was really bummed when I first read he was the one directing this movie, which is a story I'd see once it came out on Blu-Ray. And the trailer looks good. But between Eastwood and the apparently made-up female journalist trades sex for info plot, I may take a pass.

It's a spoiler thread, so no need for tags. I think it's clear Andy doesn't exist; they said during/after the Roseanne revival season they hadn't decided whether he existed, and The Conners has consistently played as if he doesn't. There's just no way to play Becky getting knocked up by a one-night stand who won't leave her alone without ever once mentioning - let alone mining for material - the parallel to Fred, unless that parallel doesn't exist. I don't care if we ever see Jerry, but I'm certainly not clamoring to see Ed Jr., either. (And he should be quite a few years older than that, but so should Harris, so there you go.) But it gives a way of getting back into Dan's relationship with his dad, and may lead to an appearance or two from Crystal (who hasn't yet been in this season).

That was the LaserDisc era for me, and the local rental place offered a weekend special if you rented three. So I also have movies that are linked together in groups of three in my memory from having a movie night rather than spreading them out over the weekend.

I find it very hard to believe that of all the recipes, ATK viewers would vote vegan buffalo cauliflower bites in the top 20. If it's a flavorful substitute for chicken wings, fine. But a top 20 recipe in the show's history? In showing viewers in their home kitchens, they went for gender and racial diversity, but utterly failed at any sort of economic diversity; while airing on public television, this clearly came across as a show watched by people of means. I thought it was a little lackluster for a 20th anniversary special, but the little behind-the-scenes glimpses we got were nice. They're all so dorky, it's fun. I was also amused by the editing out of Chris -- works for me! I thought the shrimp scampi recipe looked really good when it first aired, but never got around to making it. Now that it's the number one recipe, I'll have to make that some time next month.

I don't even call any of my doctors my doc, so definitely not me. In real life, I hear some people say "gyno" - and the long O bugs me, because it's not gynocologist, it's gynecologist - but that's it for abbreviations. And in all my years of dealing with it in my mom, I have never once heard metastatic breast cancer referred to as "MBC" like in some drug commercial. Nor have I ever heard a real person say "LBL" (light bladder leakage) to describe peeing herself a little when she coughs, sneezes, sleeps, whatever. She was "one tough mother" (from its commercials) who took over Columbia Sportswear after her husband's death, and, along with her son, grew it into a huge national brand. There were a series of commercials where she tested the toughness of their products by putting the son through all sorts of extreme shenanigans. She remained chairperson until her death, at age 95, earlier this month. She even kept signing paychecks until a few years ago.

My friend works on the L.A. stadium construction project in a financial capacity, so I hear a lot about the budgetary clusterfuck (granted, I hear a lot of the same on all projects) - and then fill in the NFL soap opera behind it all, as my friend pays no attention to the sport. I forwarded that ESPN article in an email that said, "Here's everything I've been babbling about". Thanks to CBS, I'll finally get weeds pulled this afternoon, because there is no 1:00 game on my affiliate, leaving the only afternoon football option the Cowboys-Patriots shitfest on FOX. Not that I'd actually want to watch Jaguars-Titans, but at least I'd just be uninterested rather than repelled. Go, meteorite!