Bastet

I just read through last night's clues on the archive. For those who watched: Did the contestant who got the 50 Cent clue answer "Fiddy Cent"? Because that would have amused me greatly. Add me to the list surprised by the Eiffel Tower TS; even among the huge group of people with no idea where within Paris anything is located, "rises above" will make the Tower a common first thought. With the Arc de Triomphe ruled out, I'm truly puzzled by no one ringing in with it. To me, it's like if no one had come up with Sprite when the first contestant incorrectly guessed 7-Up. I'm also surprised Zumba and FJ were TS, especially the former. As for snowplow parenting (which I'd never heard of but easily guessed based on the clue's wording), I wouldn't accept bulldozer instead because the clue specified "this winter vehicle". If, per the article liked above, bulldozer, snowplow, and lawnmower parenting all are used to mean the first part of the clue ("trying to remove every obstacle from your kid's path"), I think you have to pick the only one that fits the whole clue by also fitting the second part, "this winter vehicle".

Interesting; A2 milk has been sold for quite a few years now (at least in my area), but has not become so common that a national commercial need not contain any explanation as to why one might want it in the first place. I wonder if you did just miss it. A1 and A2 are two types of the protein found in milk. A2 used to be the only type produced by most dairy cows, but over time commercial breeding practices resulted in the milk found in stores coming from cows producing mostly A1 and a little A2. About 20 years ago, maybe, A2-only milk emerged as a niche market item, claiming to be more easily digestible, and slowly grew in popularity. It's more similar to milk produced by various other animals, including humans, but the the studies touting its various benefits over "regular" milk have all been funded by the dairy industry or even the A2 company itself, so who knows.

Not the condition, the commercial.

While not impossible, on average she's a bit too old for menarche to be recent. And it's pretty much the biggest tropes of slasher movies that the teens who have sex get killed, while the chaste survive (as an aside, I like how this is addressed in Scream), which of course is quite sexist as most horror villains are men and most main/surviving victims young women. Wes Craven is known for avoiding nudity in his films, so the bathtub scene is quintessentially him - no gratuitous tit shot to distract, which makes the scene all the better for the vulnerability in Freddy's razor hand emerging from the water.

That one has been around for a while now (I didn't realize it was back in rotation), and I don't mind it; I think the teasing nature of their relationship is well played by the actors - Dad always fishes for info on the guys she's dating even in the early stages, Daughter always shuts him down until/unless it means something, and neither gets annoyed with the other because natures and intentions are good on both sides.

Commercial work is one of the best paying in the business, in terms of how much one makes compared to time put in. Working actors are quite willing to take some ribbing from their friends for being the face of [embarrassing condition] in exchange for that paycheck and addition to their reel. As I say whenever this commercial is brought up, I don't have a particular problem with it. The fundamental phenomenon of "ask your doctor" pharmaceutical ads and how much R&D money is spent on penises, of course, but within that reality: Once they're going to advertise a treatment for Peyronie's disease, and certainly can't include an actual illustration of the condition as the visual, a series of penis-shaped curved vegetables at least gives me a mild chuckle.

I'm not sure I'd have known her first name without her appearances on Chopped and Top Chef. I don't like boxing, so even though I'd read about her in that context and, of course, it was a big deal that a child of The Greatest had succeeded in the sport, I might have been "Who is Ali?" if not for the fact I watch a few cooking shows and thus her full name was more recently in my memory. Yes, it's filmed separately and added in (shaving time off elsewhere if needed; speed something up, omit one of Alex's [alleged] bon mots, cut a contestant's phrasing in the form of a question, etc.). Those plugs do not cause a real-time delay in game play.

After The Thin Man works, because it picks up shortly after the first film left off, and covers their next adventure after the Thin Man case. And that was supposed to be the only sequel. But MGM kept cranking out more, and using "The Thin Man" in all those titles, too, even calling the fifth film - in which Nick and Nora visit Nick's parents in his hometown - The Thin Man Goes Home. Argh! Nick isn't the Thin Man; Clyde Wynant was. I don't remember who it was - certainly not Robert Osborne - but someone on TCM once referred to William Powell playing "The Thin Man". Of all the places where everyone should get it right. Hmph.

Since The Thin Man is one of my favorite films, I am trying not to be appalled FJ was a TS. But I am surprised; I would have thought mentioning a wife would have clued at least one contestant in to Nick and Nora. I was surprised a fair bit tonight. The Civil Rights Act TS was very surprising (and a bit disturbing), and I can't quite believe the "Let freedom ring" DD in that category was a miss, either; by that point, I correctly predicted Josephine Baker would stump them, too. The rainbow TS is something I thought someone would at least guess. And I thought Laila Ali was more well known than to be a TS; no one even tried getting away with "Who is Ali?" The Millers were a TS, too, so sports was not a particularly good category for them. The Cameroon TS, despite being a "identify the highlighted country" clue, did not surprise me, being African geography. But those TS do always make me a little sad. And that's twice in as many weeks there has been a Great Lakes clue and only one contestant has guessed; narrowed down to four possible answers, it's surprising to me no one else takes a stab at it.

Oh, crap! My cat sleeps in even later than I do, so I don't have to get up to give her breakfast (my previous two cats didn't wake me for breakfast, either; I've been very lucky), but my parents' cats are the "it's breakfast time!" type and I just realized my parents will be gone the first week of the switch back to standard time - which means I'll be staying at their house every other night, and thus woken up early every other morning. (Bandit always quickly remembers meal times are several hours later when I'm there, but Chester takes several days to adjust; until he does, he licks me every 30-45 minutes starting around 7:00 - which will now be 6:00 - trying to get me up.) That week is going to suck, because I also have to go to a friend's house (thankfully located between my house and my parents') once/day to take care of her cats while she's out of town. Everyone's on vacation but me!

Same here. It already gets dark way too early for me this time of year, and once we fall back I'm going to slip into a funk for a while. It's nice in the morning that first week, when it feels like 10:30 when the alarm goes off at 9:30, but that's vastly outweighed by the long stretch of dark evenings. I wish we stayed on DST all year.

It's no improvement on the sexism of such categories, but at least it avoids the grammar problem that usually also plagues them. I was happily surprised to get three of those correct, as it's not a strong subject for me. I did as poorly in the saints category as I'd have predicted, though; I only got Nicholas, because the December clue within the clue did indeed take me to St. Nick. I thought I was going to bomb the "A Tree Grows in Book Land" category, given how I started out, but I wound up the last few of those. I liked the movie category, where you had to give the last word of the title, but I'd never even heard of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (quite the wordy title!), so I didn't get that one.

Yeah, if you just mention female music superstars with long careers who also act, Barbra Streisand, Cher, and Madonna will spring immediately to my mind. But lead off with 1963, and I know exactly who it is. Hey, at least the category wasn't Women Music Superstars. The comma splice TS kind of surprised me; I was reading the archive, so couldn't see the visual clue, but still got it. I knew the 10 million clue without seeing the visual, too, but that one didn't surprise me; I think there are plenty of contestants who wouldn't know what crore means or how digits are separated in India. The TS that surprised me most was symphony. Also god, once religion (which was my first guess, too) was ruled out; it had to be something related to theology. Bivouac wasn't a TS; the first contestant to ring in got it.

It wasn't a TS, it was just that the first contestant to ring in said Lewis and Clark instead of Mason and Dixon (the second one got it right).

Yeah, they really got along. Bev favored her, so Becky didn't have the issues Roseanne, Jackie, and Darlene had with her, and didn't have the "Aw, jeez, Grandma's coming?!" reaction to her visits. During one visit, Becky didn't say yes when asked on a date, because she knew her grandma was going to be in town and figured she should stay home and visit; Bev is the one who told her to go (because it was a date; Darlene she made stay home, because what could she possibly have to do that was of any importance), and Becky very nicely told Bev she'd wear the blouse Bev had given her for her birthday (Darlene got galoshes, heh). Bev was even going to give Becky her old car (but Roseanne and Dan put the kibosh on it; instead, Roseanne got Bev's old car and Becky got Roseanne's hand-me-down), because she'd bought herself a new one (delightedly spending some of her divorce settlement) and Becky was working at the Buy 'n' Bag to save up for a car. And in the revival season, Becky let Bev live with her (until she got grossed out at old people having sex <g>). I always think Estelle Parsons Bev, not a baby, when I hear "Bev" and I hate things like "Little Bev" or "Baby Bev" so I hope they keep calling her "Bev Rose" (or "Beverly" - that would put Nana Mary's voice in my head - not a bad thing), but I like the name for the symmetry with Harris's and Mary's -- the girls have all been named to reflect their maternal lineage.

Yeah, well, we know that's usually not true. All these folks buying vacation homes that don't remotely fit their families and lifestyles are not buying them (primarily) for themselves, but for rentals. I wish they'd drop the ridiculous storylines, but they've built the entire show around a small list of ridiculous storylines, characterizations, and dialogue, so that's not going to happen.

It's much more evocative of Children of the Corn than Field of Dreams. All of them chanting together, and the woman in the house is even named Sarah.

Wade Phillips had Tom Brady truly befuddled with his brilliantly diverse and disguised coverage, handling the Pats offense better than any team the entire season, so the Rams defense was hardly incompetent. The Patriots came in averaging 27 points a game in the regular season and 39 in the playoffs, but the Rams held them to only 13. I blamed my first migraine in quite some time on the Rams offense, and their run defense petered out in the 4th quarter, but looking at the game as a whole, the defense was quite impressive.

Well, in Rosarito, they'd get plenty of Los Angeles and San Diego college students renting it for that purpose over spring break, Labor Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend, etc. Being a resort town just over the border, Rosarito is a popular destination for (among others, of course) southern CA college kids eager to enjoy Mexico's cheap food and drink (legal at 18 instead of 21, so no fake ID required), and many of them are happy to have to walk/take a cab to the beaches and clubs in exchange for having a cheaper rental to crash in and get their drink on the next day.

That was way too long ago for me to remember that level of detail, but I do remember there was something about the game footage, so that's probably it. I had (and probably still do) both versions on tape, because I - in Los Angeles - exchanged with a friend in Boston, so we could both see both versions. I remember in one version there was a bit of a problem in getting to a commercial break because the actor had to get through the extras brawling to shove a hand in front of the camera, and that took longer than anticipated. And one or two dropped props. But it was mostly just differences in mannerisms and line deliveries. I had no idea it wasn't well received at the time. I thought it was fun.

I forgot to address this -- if he truly pushed her out of the way, her feeder would close, because it wouldn't detect her chip anymore, and his attempt would be thwarted. But the way his plan would work would be if she held her ground, just scooting over a bit so he could stick his head in there right alongside hers and eat while she was eating.

That's the shorter version of the commercial. In the longer cut, there's more in between the woman turning into a cat and her roommate getting out the cat toy. She stares at her, asks her if she's feeling alright, etc. and then pulls out the cat toy to see how she'll respond.

I had a sense no one was going to know Glen Campbell, and then got a little sad when I was right. I was only reading the archive, so I couldn't see the photo, yet I still got Duke Ellington; that TS, on the other hand, I did not see coming (and certainly wouldn't have predicted the Sousa guess). I also didn't need the photo to get granite, and cannot believe the first contestant to ring in said Formica! Lewis and Clark for Mason and Dixon paled in comparison. Not having any idea on FJ (other than it must be a city in Colorado), I said "Leadville" as a joke (kind of a Goliathtown-style answer), but then thought, wait, is lead an ore? So I didn't even stick with my joke answer that would have turned out to be correct.

Are you talking about the parody commercials made several years ago by a UK organization, based around the question of what commercials would be like if men had periods? I think the "manpon" commercial was the best known, but they did several. They were designed to showcase how ridiculous and sexist the stigma against menstruation is, because it would be treated quite differently if it was something experienced by men. And they ended with some statistics, I think about the huge number of women and girls around the world who do not have access to feminine hygiene products or safe access to toilets during their periods. Ah, here - I found an article about them.

OH. MY. GODS. I just read the CU commentary on the last group posted here and saw there was a link to the next ten, and Hank Williams's "Lovesick Blues" is only #774. Let that sink in for a moment: There are over 750 songs ranked above it by the dudebros at Sirius. Since I'm looking right at it, I'll save @UYI a post. Here are the next ten: #780 - Tracy Lawrence, “Paint Me a Birmingham” #779 - George Strait, “The Fireman” #778 - Miranda Lambert, “Heart Like Mine” #777 - Bill Anderson, “Still” #776 - Brad Paisley, “The World” #775 - Restless Heart, “I’ll Still Be Loving You” #774 - Hank Williams, “Lovesick Blues” #773 - Tim McGraw, “Southern Voice” #772 - Lonestar, “My Front Porch Looking In” #771 - Hank Williams Jr., “Born to Boogie”