Bastet

3.5 There are a few more I'd prefer not to eat (and one I've never tried, so I have no idea - Nutella), but won't eat/drink? Three and a half. The half comes from eggs - it's only the yolk I won't eat; I love egg whites. The three are beans, bananas, and coffee.

She hasn't; same blouse, same hairdo, same necklace. And, of course, same wonderful line delivery.

Boy, language really does evolve; I didn't know "smile" and "vomit" were now synonyms.

I believe the poster was referring to the fact the characters did not stay in contact (other than some gift he sent her, - I'd stopped watching well before then, so I just know from mention in forums) after he left. The actors are indeed still friends.

Roseanne was very good about that with both Becky and Darlene. Same with Sharon on My So-Called Life (but one of the planned storylines for the second season that never happened was for her to get pregnant <sigh>). It is very sad that so few examples come to mind, especially from the era in which I watched the most TV ('80s and '90s). Yep. But I think it ultimately worked better as a storyline for Natalie than Blair (and it's telling that when they decided to write one of the characters as having sex with her boyfriend, their go-to was the thin blonde one).

Now that I've listened to Yearwood's lead-off single, I like that one, too; what an exciting year in music to get new albums from both Trisha Yearwood and, especially, Tanya Tucker, after all this time.

Me too! It's like something right out of the show: Also out of my own life, as that happens to me occasionally -- I hardly ever use my cell phone, and very few people have that number; what I primarily give out is my office or home number (depending on whether it's professional or personal, obviously). Every once in a while I get someone who assumes every number is a cell phone number, and the "I tried texting you" conversation ensues.

What a lovely tribute to a lovely dog; I particularly enjoyed all the "monkey see, monkey do" stories. My condolences on this terrible loss for you and your children.

Tanya Tucker's voice gives me life.

I did, too - "this [something something] company" was right there in the first part of the clue, so the company is what they're looking for and the tidbit after the semicolon about the state is to help you figure it out. The chit chat TS surprised me, but I figured lame and lamé was going to go unanswered (I worked backwards from the fabric and got it, but starting with injured likely wouldn't have got me there in time - quite a few words for that come to mind before I get to lame). I correctly predicted the Petronas Towers would be a TS, too; contestants don't tend to do well with that part of the world. Only knowing about half the NATO alphabet was a good thing for me in FJ; among the letters I do know, Xray was the only thing that would have been discovered. (But it was also a reminder I really ought to learn the whole thing.)

The first thing that struck me about Mark’s storyline with his dad is that he’d have never had that transformative time with him if his mom hadn’t died first. It’s a pretty compressed time frame in which to lose both your parents, so that’s horrible in one way, but if his mom was still alive, his dad’s illness would have played out in San Diego, with his mom taking care of him. Mark would have made sure he was getting proper medical care, checked in with his mom regularly and probably even visited a couple of times (during which he and his dad continued to just talk about projects around the house), but his dad would have died with their relationship still distant and strained. Despite the many wonderful scenes between Mark and his dad in Chicago, including their final ones, my favorite part of the arc comes after his dad’s death, when Mark himself is dying and trying to connect with Rachel before he does – he recognizes the teenage version of himself in Rachel, and recognizes his dad in the current version of himself. Like Rachel, he grew up resentful of his father’s career-induced distance (both physical and emotional). But now he knows that wasn’t a black-and-white situation; his dad made mistakes that caused lasting damage, but he wasn’t malicious and suffered his own wounds. Fundamentally, he was loved. I get choked up when he tells Rachel he’d take back every negative thought about/interaction with his dad if he could, but it’s okay that he can’t. It’s a wonderful gift to leave her with; when she gets older and starts to properly process their relationship, she’s going to feel guilty for her part of it, but she’ll have that conversation to look back on, and know he understood it from both sides. He knows full well she won’t get what he’s saying now, she can’t -- she has to grow up to gain that perspective, just like he did. And he won’t be around for her adult self to hash it out with the way he was able to with his dad. But he’ll have left her with the knowledge he died understanding all those “if only” regrets she’s having now, and accepting as his due the negative thoughts she had then.

What attitude? She offered a DD wager consistent with her own strategy and the scores at that point of the game/confidence in the category and dollar value combination (having compiled extensive data on not just where DDs were likely to be found, but how likely she was to get one right depending on placement, per her Vulture interview), wholly ignorant of James's "all in" history and not even having experienced a big DD bet by him in the one game she played (he only landed on the first-round DD, and hit it right off, so could only bet $1000). So she had no context for Alex's "influenced by James" reaction to her wager as she waited for him to reveal her DD clue, and was naturally confused. She had, like every other contestant, filled out the requisite form with several tidbits to be selected from and asked about in the interview segment(s), and during her second interview was instead asked about James, the magnitude of whose run she hadn't even had a chance to wrap her mind around given the short span of time between 1) learning how many games/dollars he'd won, 2) playing her winning game, and 3) starting this game (all while trying to focus on, you know, competing on Jeopardy!). So she fumbled for words to express an answer to a question not among those she'd expected to be asked, and answered it honestly - they all qualified to be here, so they're all capable of winning depending how factors come together, and she was thus confident in her chances. The horror?

I just watched "In a Bed of Rose's" for the umpteenth time, and the reference to Arnie got me thinking. In episode three, we learn she hasn't slept with anyone since Charlie died, but she's getting serious with Arnie and he's invited her to go on a cruise with him, and she's torn on what to do. At the end of the episode, we learn she slept with him - and had a great trip altogether. So it would seem they're going to keep dating. By episode 13, she's ready to marry Dr. Jonathan Newman, so she must have stopped dating Arnie. Two episodes later is when she sleeps with Al Beatty. Her next date three months after "killing" him is Arnie. And it must be the same Arnie - not another Arnie she met but did not date during those three months - because she says she adores him, he's very special to her, and she's already slept with him, so if she doesn't sleep with him when they go away this weekend, he'll think she doesn't like him anymore. So where has Arnie been in between? The easy answer is they were dating non-exclusively, but if she's having sex with at least one other man and dating another one so intensely she's contemplating marriage to him, she really ought not get on Blanche's case about the way she goes through men.

Yeah, it looked like confusion to me, kind of an "um, okay, I have no idea what you're talking about, but can I please have my DD now?" low-key version of WTF, which would make sense because, as I said, she didn't actually know what he was talking about. 1) She hadn't seen James play at all until she played against him, let alone enough to know "all in" DD bets were his MO, 2) his one DD in that game was the first clue, so he could only bet $1000, and 3) and she'd made it a true DD on the first of her two DDs in her first game. So she'd naturally be taken aback to hear it said doing the same in her second game - which taped shortly after her first - was because she was following someone else's example.

I cannot believe there was a “name the people in this picture” clue for John and Jackie Kennedy! Are you kidding me with this shit?! On the flip side of picture clues, I was pretty surprised no one recognized Ho Chi Minh (or at least figured it out between clue and picture). I’ve even seen that exact photo before. National Geographic Society was one I thought someone would at least guess. But only two TS (and no wrong guesses) in the first round is pretty good. It was a good game in general - although none of them are particularly good at song titles - that I unexpectedly did get home just in time to see, yay. For FJ, I can't decide if I would know that fact if I'd never been to Spain, but I don't think so.

She didn't; it was the first game to tape that day, so she hadn't seen him play. (This per the Vulture interview I linked above.) She didn't know his number of games and amount of winnings until shortly before taping, and she never saw him play. After beating James, she had to go pretty quickly to taping this game. So Alex's "influenced by James, huh?" comment exists in a very different context to her than it does to Alex (or to us, watching these months later) -- thus the reaction.

According to yesterday's Vulture interview, she played the strategy she came in with, not something she changed to out of necessity because of James's style of play. So I'm bummed I won't be home tonight to watch her give him the stink-eye over that comment.

Yep. Those Magic Erasers are one of my favorite things for how well they clean the bumpy texture of my (white) refrigerator. I also love them for wiping gunk off painted surfaces, but I have to be judicious with that, because over time they will indeed take the paint right off.

I generally don't watch the interviews (other than rare occasions when I wind up not changing the channel/staying in the room during commercial break for some reason), and I indeed missed this one. The timing does make the gesture particularly sweet, so thank you for sharing that tidbit (to give a hopelessly vague apology/due props, I think at least one other poster noted it as well; this is just the post that really drove it home for me). I've seen some of that quoted here and in my email, and I appreciate what I've read. I wouldn't expect anything less from anyone in this position, but it's still nice to see. It is so insulting to Emma to diminish her well-earned victory that way (yet, sadly, so expected, especially with a woman being the one to out play him), and, while less egregious, it's also insulting to James as a player/competitor/strategist, which, given his line of work, is probably even more aggravating to him than it would be to most.

I know. I wasn't complaining about the thread being used, just noting that I hadn't yet trained my brain/finger to pause before clicking on Next Unread Topic as I'd done for years in order to avoid that thread. I don't use social media, and none of the news outlets I read mentioned it, so if I hadn't read it here this weekend, I never would have come across a spoiler elsewhere -- if I had just been diligent in my clicking here, I wouldn't have known in advance. And that would have been a different - and a bit better - viewing experience, but, as I said, I still enjoyed the game. I was never as invested in him winning or losing as many people; I watch for the clues, not the contestants. In spite of that, as time went on I got a bit bored with the blowout wins, but that had me rooting for closer games (no matter who won), not specifically that he lose. But I don't care that he lost, or what his record is, either. He played very well, using a strategy different than those employed by previous big winners. I enjoyed seeing it, but really not any more than I enjoy the game normally, because of what interests me about it, and I don't care that his run is over.

I was spoiled this weekend, because I'm so used to just next unread topic-ing my way through this forum I didn't develop the habit of stopping to make sure the resurrected spoiler thread wasn't the next unread topic. Oh well. I would have liked to watch it not knowing the outcome, but I still enjoyed watching the competition and seeing everyone's reaction to the result. I was a little surprised by the one TS of cigarettes, because "these" rather than "this" spotted it being something referred to in the plural; I'd have thought cigarettes would have sprung to at least one of the three minds (especially with the way the game was going).

Mine, too. But that's no surprise, since that one was far and away my favorite of the original commercials being referenced in this one. That woman cracks me up.

Whenever our (the immediate group of neighbors) mail gets mixed up, it's the same scenario: House A didn't have any mail that day, but instead of skipping the house, the carrier deposited House B's mail there. That means House B got House C's mail, and on it went (I have no idea how far). No big deal, because I know the neighbors on each side of me, so we just go drop the mail in the right slot (and a lot of it is junk we wouldn't miss anyway). This happened just last week, with me being House A, and the mail I got for House B contained nearly half a dozen bills/financial statements (I flipped through the pile just to make sure there wasn't something of mine stuck in there). If I was the type of person who just threw away mail that wasn't mine (or who was into identify theft), that would be a big deal.

And often for no purpose other than because they can. When show runners' concept of their show is "awful people doing messed-up things with lots of blood, tits, and f-bombs" and they loosely concoct some plots around that raison d'être, it shows. It's different than creating a show that happens to contain some of those things. And none of it should be the only kinds of dramas being made and promoted anymore, since the ratings proved audiences also enjoyed having lighter, character-driven shows in their lives. But USA and TNT both ran screaming from what they were doing best to try to fully immerse in the "dark, edgy" pool. Which means neither network has drawn my interest since, but if there was a balance to their programming, I might have become interested in something new while watching one of my regular programs.

There is carpet in precisely one room of my house. Want to guess in which room Maddie deposited every single one of her hairballs? Riley doesn't do hairballs, but a few times a year she eats too fast and throws up her food; she always does it in "her" bathroom (where her litter box is), behind the toilet. I find this oddly brilliant. I, too, gag when cleaning up puke (not hairballs, but regurgitated food puke). I never used to, but middle age has brought some interesting changes all around, including to my previously cast iron gut: I am now easily nauseated by bad smells, and by cat puke. I hope your dog's stomach settles down quickly - for everyone's sake!