Bastet

Not that I know of; it became clear very early in the process that Olmos would not be able to do it after all, so I doubt they had time to contemplate it. They didn't do any in jokes when Jamie Bamber guest starred, but it would be more tempting to insert one with "Roslin and Adama" sharing the screen again.

They make me lunge for the remote, lest I gag. Which means I change the channel before their poor daughter has that funny Oh, dear gods embarrassed look on her face, but it's not with sitting through those twits to get to her.

That would create the first Super Bowl in my lifetime that I would not watch. Not even one minute. I'd just root for the meteor from afar.

Godsdamn, if USC could play on the road like they play at home, this would be quite a different season. They have so much going against them - tough schedule, massive depth issues, and a real mixed bag of a coach - it's incredible they're sitting atop the Pac-12 South. And maddening to think how they could be doing if just one of their obstacles didn't exist.

Before it became necessary to put Maddie's food up on the dryer where Baxter couldn't reach it, I called them Yin and Yang, because they'd start out facing forward the normal way, her in front of the left bowl and him in front of the right, but within seconds they would always switch to her body in front of the left bowl but her head stretched over to the right one and him moved to position his body behind that right bowl with his head eating out of the left.

I didn’t see much of “Quid Pro Quo” tonight because I was watching football, but that’s okay because it’s a bit of a frustrating episode for me. I like that it’s Amy-centric, but her relationship with Hickman has always been problematic to me and I want to shake her in this one when she doesn’t just tell him if the defense wants to examine evidence, Rothman is well aware of the procedure for doing so, and walk away. So I like seeing more of Amy, but dislike some of her characterization. There are also several things for me to nitpick in the trial (starting with the fact a death penalty case went to trial this quickly; realistically, it would have been quite difficult for Rothman to pull off her rush this to trial before they find the hit man strategy). And the fulcrum of the killer chancing nothing doesn’t jibe with his non-strategy to just say his son and the restaurant manager were both mistaken about the phone call. It's a flawed case; not horrible, and still with a better foundation than many crime dramas, but requiring suspension of disbelief on major prongs. It also drives me disproportionately nuts that Rusty is changing his major because he now intends to go to law school. Change it to what? Communications is a good – and common – degree for law school applicants. And it continues to bug me that the work they have him doing with Andrea is stuff she’d have a law school, not undergrad, intern for. But I like meeting Mason (I love the actor’s voice), and it never fails to amuse me how many people are running screaming from a huge promotion. Head of FID Sharon would have been all over the Asst. Chief opportunity (and she’d be good at the job), for herself and for the impact of having a woman in that position, so I like that she’s so happy where she is now that she'd rather close out her career in Major Crimes at a lower rank. And this episode changed how I re-watched all the episodes prior to it, in hindsight forever noticing when one of them used their phone to document a crime scene; it happened a lot. Most of their cases settle before discovery even occurs, but it’s food for thought. And it's a great touch that it did indeed decrease in subsequent cases after Amy getting slapped in court brought it to their attention; it wasn't just a one-episode plot point that had no lasting impact (in fact, I can't immediately call to mind a time when it happens again after this). I got to see one of my favorite moments of the episode, Sharon’s little grin when Julio says, “Or maybe we’re screwed.” I love that Mary McDonnell always has great reactions even when the camera isn’t focused on her; she really embodies her characters and listens to and responds appropriately to what’s going on around them. And I got to see the one and only time Linda Rothman dons sleeves to go into court; her courtroom wardrobe is so ridiculous. I did not, unfortunately, catch the scene where Rusty flips her off; I love that scene for how Sharon’s Mom Sense tells her he did something, and Rusty’s guilty nothing! look when she turns around. (Of course, it would be edited in syndication.) I saw more, but not all of “Dead Drop,” an episode I love. So much that I wish I hadn’t learned the original plan – thwarted by scheduling conflicts - was for Edward James Olmos (Mary McDonnell’s close friend and Battlestar Galactica co-star) to play Morales’s father; the actor who wound up with the role does a great job, but I can’t help thinking how the episode would have been even more wonderful with Olmos. I love that we get a Dr. Morales episode; I always like seeing him outside the morgue, and the whole ruse to fool his father just cracks me up – particularly him up in the tree and his obsession with the killer’s shoe (I love Sharon’s reaction to his big reveal). I love everyone – even Andrea - going along with it, as it creates countless funny moments, and like when his dad asks Sharon and Provenza not to tell Fernando that he’s always known the truth (I mean, of course he has, but it’s really sweet.) I also love Eduardo being a fan of Badge of Justice, which Dr. Morales can’t stand; and that Morales still poses with Mike so his dad can take pictures. There’s funny stuff from everyone in this; I love how Sharon has no shits to give about dealing with Winnie Davis, all but laughing in her face at one point, and this exchange gives me life: “If Major Crimes insists on special treatment, of course, you’ll get it. I’ll just tell everyone they have to wait until you’re done. Is that what you want me to do?” “Yes, if you could, thank you.” Do the “thank you” with a southern accent and it could have instead been an early exchange between Sharon and Brenda. And Sharon relying yet again on “Let’s ask Chief Howard” also reminds me of Sharon asking Brenda – who always abused her connection to Pope – if she often invoked the name of a higher-ranked man to get what she wanted. (“Of course; don’t you?”) Eduardo as Provenza’s brother from another mother is also entertaining (“el Facebook, el Instagram” and “it is always the ex-wife) and, oh my gods, when the ex-wife says they can have the pot, because it’s too strong for her – “half a puff, and I tried mopping the floor with my cat” – I nearly hurt myself laughing upon first viewing, and it still cracks me up. As does the “I don’t think that’s German” dude. In Smokey and the Bandit, someone tells Sheriff Justice a fact is not germane to the situation and Jackie Gleason’s delivery on “The goddamned Germans got nothing to do with it!” is so funny my family quotes it whenever we hear “germane” used. The way Julio recites “hashtag gratitude” from the witness’s Instagram post is almost as good as the way Taylor said “frowny face” when reading Jon Worth’s in “Cutting Loose”. (And the witness’s social media trajectory – what platform she used and what she presented herself as on each of them – is delicious commentary.) I love the way Amy asks, “Uh, ‘grass’?” when Morales referred to the marijuana that way (I also like Provenza’s “Thank you, Serpico” to him). Particularly great line deliveries throughout, including the dumb flying brother’s attempts at sounding innocent. The relationship between Andy and Rusty has been noticeably stronger in season 5B, and I like the idea that the aftermath of Andy’s heart attack made Rusty get over the last of his issues with Sharon being in the relationship. I love his reaction when Andy hugs him. And I can accept Rusty being necessary to remind Andy Sharon does not enjoy surprises, being whisked away, or public proposals; while annoying, it fits for Andy to be one of those guys who gets so caught up in wanting to “make it perfect” that he forgets the woman he knows and loves is not a character in a movie - she does not want the grand gesture fiction presents as being a universal fantasy. I’m with Mary McDonnell in thinking Sharon would not want to get married again, but since they were determined to go down the traditional road, I’m glad Sharon at least got an appropriate proposal in the end. (I also like the touch that Andy refers to their dinner at Serve as their first real date, and Sharon as their first date; that hazy period right before friendship morphed into romance was a bit problematic, and the two lines accurately reflect their differing perceptions of it.)

Between a phone call and football, I missed sections of tonight's episode, but it's nice seeing rescues help each other. Last episode a small rescue helped VRC, this time VRC helped a small rescue. Everybody is just doing the best they can, and it's heartwarming. "This is going to sound so un-Tia Torres like, but you just want to hug them." Heh. Lugosi is going to have quite the pack to hang with. I know we've seen Krunch before, but I think we've seen Molly-O, too. I hope this is finally it for Krunch! Earl taking him for one last burger together was sweet, and I like the update photo of his pillow nests. It was neat to briefly revisit some adoptions via the "Out of the Doghouse" map project. When I adopted my cat Riley, she was quite a case; she was one of five disasters at intake (the owner had died and family surrendered them) and had been at the shelter for five months, spending that whole time hiding in a box inside her cage, even though they put her through the socialization program. She was terrified of everything, they had a terrible time getting her to eat - she just was never going to thrive in that environment. So of course I picked her, and she took a lot of patience and different techniques than I was used to (she was my first scaredy-cat), but she's now incredibly happy, and the cuddliest cat I have ever had (only with me, though; she has long since stopped being afraid of other people, but she's either annoyed or indifferent, depending on who it is). Anyway, the point is I sent updates as she progressed to the shelter volunteer I'd dealt with, and she'd forward my emails to the others. She always told me how it made their day, so hearing Lizzy say whenever she disseminates updates she gets replies saying, "Thank you, I was having a shitty day and needed this" made me think I should send another update. I had stopped, because there wasn't anything new to report, but if a cute picture and "we're still blissfully happy together" could brighten the day of someone doing a job as difficult as it is admirable, I'm going to do it.

Getting snarky? Maybe, since he now wears a hairpiece, the guys had been talking about it before cameras rolled and it wasn't as insensitive as it sounded. But this is Alex, so it's also entirely possible it was.

I did that routine, too. Baxter was only a little overweight, but I swear his ass was made of lead, and he couldn't jump very high. Maddie was quite agile, and she also liked to eat throughout the day/night - it took her all day to eat her breakfast and all night to eat her dinner. Baxter - who ate each meal in one or two sittings - was not about to have food sitting out and not help himself to it, so I put her bowl on top of the dryer and problem solved. My friend with the feeders used to keep her fat cat out of her skinny cat's food by putting the skinny cat's bowl in the bathtub, with the shower door opened wide enough for the skinny one to get through. This group of three, though, none of those tricks would work. So, enter the feeders. They're pretty cool. Expensive, but a big help. If anyone who has problems keeping pets out of each other's food is curious about them, here is the website for the Surefeed microchip feeder.

She was raped as a young woman, and "acting out" sexually is a common after-effect of that. Her husband didn't deserve to be cheated on, but there was more going on than "I'm bored with my small-town husband".

A few years ago, when my friend adopted two kittens and was having trouble keeping them out of her skinny old man cat's food, I said they should make feeders that will only open for a particular cat, like doggy doors that only function upon sensing the dog's chip, so unwelcome critters can't come in/cats can't go out. I got online and, sure enough, someone had already had that same brilliant idea long before me, as it already existed. So she promptly bought three of them. Except the old man cat simply allows his little sister to stick her head in his feeder once he's opened it, and happily munch along beside him. But it improved the situation enough that he gets enough to eat - and his fat little brother is losing weight because he doesn't realize he could do the same thing.

I liked Amanda's reaction to realizing the cookie DD was ridiculously easy. There were quite a few really easy clues in that first round, which helped me run the table. I was not nearly as successful in the DJ round, but I had a much easier time with the Words in Icelandic category than they did. I had the same trouble as Brian pulling The Sting out of my brain. I instantly knew what it was, and could see scenes from it in my head, but the title was slow to come. Add me to the list of those surprised no one came up with Madrid; Brian's mistake must have thrown them. The larva TS surprised me, too. I joined them in being stumped by The Christian Science Monitor, and then did a V-8 head smack when it was revealed; at least one of us should have come up with that! No, because the clue referenced two specific times in its history, both of which were well after it had become Zimbabwe.

I live in Los Angeles, as do my parents, and when I was over at their house while the Chargers game was on, each of them at some point looked at the screen and asked me, "Who's LAC"? Which is the same thing that happened last year. It doesn't stick in their heads that the Chargers are here now. Rams, yes, but not the Chargers.

Which is particularly annoying, since Roseanne made it so easy to remember: "C as in 'cat', O as in 'oaf', N as in 'numbskull', N as in 'nitwit', E as in 'empty-headed', R as in 'tARget'."

I enjoyed Alex's Really, people?-style explanation of Canadian geography for the British Columbia TS. Not so much his using Daryn's possible one shot at a J! interview to ask about James. First come, first serve was a little surprising as a TS, being spotted ordinal. But Wait, There's More surprised me even more; I hadn't heard of the book, and my first guess was As Seen on TV, but once that was ruled out, I knew what it had to be. I liked Alex's delivery. Me too, especially because I know a lot more about astronauts than I do magicians and the shows in the TV-Pourri category. I loved the "ob"scure words category, though. Yeah, I thought the Andy Warhol clue was overvalued, and then FJ came along. I've never seen the film or heard the soundtrack, but come on.

It's astounding (and disturbing) to me how many rescues require someone to be home during the day. We know VRC does not have that bright-line rule, and we've seen them adopt to people with time-consuming jobs - usually with a comment about just that sort of thing, working close to home and thus able to pop home for a walk and attention to break up the long day. They're very case-specific with their requirements (e.g. they will even adopt to people with fenceless yards, depending on the dog and the owner's plans for containment), so I wonder what the totality of the circumstances was in this case. It's too bad it didn't work out.

It's the difference between two systems of romanization, Wade-Giles, and Pinyin, which replaced it - and which more accurately reflects how Mandarin sounds. It took a long time, for a variety of reasons, many of which are political, but it eventually came to be spelled the "right" way in the U.S., so it's Mao Zedong. Or you can just write "Chairman Mao." 🙂

I did too, and talk about picking things up via cultural osmosis, because I don't watch any of the shows. That was my thinking, too - that no one specifically knew the poem, and the reason no one said Titanic is they were afraid the obvious guess was wrong and didn't want to embarrass themselves. The east and yeast TS surprised me, too, but it was the first clue selected in that category and they got all the rest, so maybe they just hadn't wrapped their minds around the category, expecting the Y to be on the end or something. FJ was an instaget, and I had a good game overall. I even got several in the "What Prez Preceded?" category and I'm generally pretty iffy at putting them in order; I can rattle off Washington through Jackson, tell you Lincoln was the 16th, Grant the 18th (because I did a report on him in elementary school), and Chester A. Arthur the 21st (because I watch Die Hard With a Vengeance whenever it's on TV), and, if given enough time, go from Hoover through the present.

Skinny fries are the only kind I'll eat; I hate potatoes, so I only eat fries that are thin and crispy, so they just taste like fat and salt (and the ranch dressing they're dipped in) instead of a potato. Needless to say, I don't eat fries very often. I don't eat much fast food, but maybe once a year I have a Super Star (w/ cheese; I do not even understand burgers without cheese) from Carl's Jr. and fries from McDonald's (they're only a couple of blocks apart on the same street).

I use this, the Drip-It funnel, to easily (meaning hands-free, I don't have to stand there and squeeze/wait) transfer the dregs of one bottle to the next. (I know the link is to a discontinued product, but it's the specific one I have and there are several similar items still on the market - I don't want to pick from among those, just point people in the general direction of something I've been using for years to address this issue.)

This is one of the many results of the lack of a Basic Life Skills curriculum that would make electricity less mysterious, at least alleviating the fear that water merely in the vicinity of electrical current equals sudden death without taking into account the ways in which the current is contained (even in the rare event of improper wiring, insulation, or grounding, death is unusual). It's on par with the American HH in the outskirts of Paris; if her phobia of screen-less windows was rooted in reality, it would have meant the streets of Paris and numerous cities across the globe would be littered with the corpses of fallen children. The showers across the globe (including in the U.K., where I first encountered one, so certainly not only countries with a radically different way of doing things) that feature electric showerheads are similarly not deathtraps.

I still can't look at this episode title without hearing Jackie bemoaning "Lanford, Laaaannnford" (and Roseanne saying "Cities in Illinois") in the original series' season one mall episode. Great opening; Darlene and Jackie are terrific together. And the "Oh, hi, we've never met before ..." scene with Odessa feels like something out of the original series (and Dan's "no honking" reminded me of Mark picking up Becky for their first date). We never saw Darlene go to Rocky Horror, and that's not really who she was then, but I'll go with it; Harris blackmailing her is fun. ("She should only have one, but she has two" - ha!) "A drunk could swerve over here and kill all of us, if we're lucky." The flat tire segment was funny on the surface, but Darlene wouldn't have been stupid enough to text both secret lovers in texting everyone she knows, separately, to come help her (and, good gods, call your first option, e.g. Dan, and then if he's not available call the next person, instead of making everyone you know trek out to the access road -- or, you know, learn how to change a tire). I'm glad Darlene got her ass double dumped like it belongs. The veneer is nicer this go-round, but fundamentally she's been acting like as big an asshole as she was during her Chicago years as a teen and she deserves to have it finally blow up in her face. I didn't like Ben last season, but he's been written better this season, and I respect him for how he handled his end of the break-up. I also appreciate the writers skipping the tired trope of making the expendable leg of the triangle a villain to prop up the connection between two main characters. (Dear Lords of Interesting TV, Logic, Reason, Realism, Good Sense, Healthy Relationships, and Doing Right By Your Kids: Please let the "It's time to move on" break-up between David and Darlene hold.) If you've broken up "so many times," get a fucking clue! It can be hard when you got together so young you're each other's first loves, and you share kids, and there are still aspects of your relationship that work very well, but at some point you have to be an adult. It's time. And it's a much more relatable story on a series that has always sought to speak to realities of the American - especially the working/middle class, more likely to marry and procreate young - experience. The alcoholics in recovery I know, along with those I've seen post in online discussions about other shows in which the issue is raised, would say it's a lot more tempting, when drinking is forbidden, to slip during quiet shitty times at home than while around others and focused on working, even if that's at a bar (or restaurant serving alcohol, which Becky's been doing all this time); it's kind of Recovery 101, and Dan needs to educate himself further. But the root of his fear, especially as it's tangled up in his notions of being The Protector, makes sense. And, ha, Becky played that well, pouring out all Dan's beer and teasing him about how he shouldn't be a bartender because of the way he drinks. I also like Louise outing Dan's trying to put the kibosh on the idea in that trio's initial scene. (I don't love the missing apostrophe on the box of toys in their later scene together, but it's realistic.) This was a good episode, and if they can stay true to the Conner-Healy family's realistic and best trajectory, it could also be a turning point in that storyline. But they've had and abandoned that before, so I'll just enjoy it for what it is in this episode.

Unfortunately, I was distracted for much of the game, but I did get to see - and answer correctly - FJ. I also got to laugh along with those in the studio at Inca and Aztec being ruled out, then the final contestant swooping in with Maya (which she may well have known all along, it’s just funny how many clues lead contestants to know it’s one of those three and then guess from there). And I saw the clue giving Tarana Burke proper credit for "Me Too," which made me happy. I also saw the Panic! at the Disco clue, but while somewhat distracted, and in that state my brain received "Brendon Urie" as Michael Urie, so I thought, "That guy from Ugly Betty fronts a band?" (I wouldn't have known it even if I'd read it correctly; I've heard of the band, but don't know anything about it.)

Last week's adopters were still in the same home that had been inspected, while this week's adopter had moved. So VRC could say "send us pictures of the new place" or do a new home check. Add in it being a rescuer with numerous animals (personal and foster), not just a person adopting a pet, and they need to make sure she hasn't overestimated her expanded space and taken on too many dogs. Again, they could go with pictures, or a new home check. With the production company paying for it, of course you do the home check, which has the bonus of publicizing the TX rescue. So, yeah, not even surprising, let alone out of line.

I did, too, and it probably would have been a "we've decided to accept that" situation. Also six letters, it refers to sweet, soothing, pleasant, etc. sounds, which does not necessarily mean soft, but could, and some definitions explicitly mention soft. The clue specified when speaking "softly & reverently," so "hushed" is the better answer, but I think they'd give credit for "dulcet" too. Something I forgot to mention: Had I been watching the show rather than just reading the clues, I'd have joined Alex in being happy the contestant pronounced Qatar correctly.