Bastet

I laughed at Julia's chunky peanut butter taste test, because I am the same way: I buy one that is just peanuts and salt, but what I really like is Skippy.

I know that. I said I wouldn't give credit in those situations. It's what I say every time.

That's never going to happen without replacement music, and this is a show I have no interest in watching with replacement music. The music was a character in its own right, and having less of it in the revival was noticeable. Exactly - the original order was for a 13-episode limited run. Cancellation isn't even really the right word. If it had done better in the ratings, CBS would have made an offer for another such season - and I'm sure everyone would have signed up (Charles Kimbrough for limited appearances just as in this season) - but that's not what happened. The revival could have continued, but was also self contained, so we got a nice little arc to spend with old friends and meet some new ones. No cliffhanger that will never be resolved, no WTF?! character death or offensive and/or implausible event that sours the entire experience. I'm content.

I really like the marinade (I just don't marinate the meat for anywhere near as long as the recipe calls for), and have used it on thighs and wings, too (plus bone-in chicken breasts that I then bake instead of grill), as well as shrimp and fish for tacos. It's versatile, tasty, and made of ingredients I always have.

Sorry it won't work for you, but thanks for posting this -- I haven't watched in eons because it's on at the same time as Jeopardy! (I'm on the West coast, but get the East coast feed, so HH was airing at 7:00), but now that it's on at 8:00 I can start tuning in again from time to time. And probably get promptly annoyed at all the usual things and wonder why the hell I'm watching, but that's what this place is for.

Coincidence - I'm marinating chicken breasts in Ina Garten's tequila lime recipe right now (tequila, lime juice, orange juice, jalapeño, garlic, and chili powder) and will grill them shortly. I haven't yet decided what to do as the veggie, but the salad will be mixed greens with avocado, a cilantro pepita dressing I made earlier in the week, and some extra cotija cheese and pumpkin seeds.

I don't know. Something she knows or should know you might not want him to have, something big, or something you may be buying yourself, yeah, she should check in with you. But general spoiling by grandma? That may just come with the territory (and may very well taper off as the newness wears off). You can definitely ask her not to send so much, as he has plenty and outgrows things quickly, so you don't want an overabundance of things for each short phase of his life. And tell her when she sends something you find objectionable that you appreciate the thought, but X isn't the sort of thing you want him wearing, playing with, reading (when the time comes), etc. But I think at some point you have to just start donating the excess, if Grandma is just going to do what Grandma is going to do.

Ellie looks so much like a friend of mine, who is a teacher, that I spent much of the game tripped out. I also spent a fair bit of time surprised: the missed DD of libel, Paul Allen, peripheral, and outrigger as TS, and no one at least guessing Alps and limestone given the clues and pictures. I knew Challenger was going to be a TS, but I still groaned when proven right. The space program is something people need to study before appearing on this show. With a Little Help From My Friends really surprised me as a TS after two of them bungled it, but maybe by then Ellie had confused herself and just didn't want to touch it. And I wouldn’t have given credit to the contestant who added a word from the lyrics that isn’t part of the title; the category asked for the titles, not any old collection of lyrics surrounding the quoted material one wants to chime in with. Maybe I'm just cranky because next week will be so melanin- and estrogen-deprived.

I'd have happily watched another season - no, this revival season was nowhere near as good as the show in its prime, but it was still enjoyable, so I was happy every week - but I'm not mad at a network for declining to order another season of a show that consistently under-performed in the ratings. They gave it a whirl, it largely didn't click with the audience for various reasons, so we're left with just that original 13-episode order. I can't get fired up about that. The initial report a few days ago reminded me I never tracked down the finale that I hadn't been home to watch, so I watched that online. It was like the rest of the season - a little muted and uneven, but with terrific relationships and some great moments and jokes. With it fresh in my mind, Murphy, Avery, and that adorable dog are a fine final image for me.

Not knowing many state/city nicknames helped me in that category, I think, because there was no, "wait, I think of [City] as [Nickname]" second-guessing going on. Almonds? Primarily grown in CA, so it's Sacramento. Crabs? The best come from Maryland, so Annapolis. Peach? Georgia Peach, so Atlanta. The only ones I actually knew as nicknames were Mile High (and that I learned originally by watching football - the Broncos play in Mile High Stadium) and the birthplace of civil rights.

Triple stumper - a clue none of the contestants answer correctly. In the pinned Mod thread, there's a link to our forum glossary, a listing of some of the abbreviations and other "inside terms" used frequently here. Welcome.

Word. My mother once left me a message that she was at the ER with my dad. That's it. I missed it by about ten minutes. And, of course, when I tried to call her back on her cell, I couldn't get through, because by then they were where cell phone use wasn't allowed. I didn't know whether he'd had a heart attack, cut off his hand while sawing something, what. Thankfully, it was something far less serious -- which I found out after canceling a meeting and driving to the hospital. I'm not sure I've ever had to work harder to keep myself in check than upon waiting to be admitted entrance, bursting into the room, getting a brief answer to my "What's wrong?" question and then ascertaining, "So, wait, [this happened]? Nothing more and it's X cause and we just learn how best to treat it?" before letting myself launch into my "What the actual fuck is wrong with you, scaring me like that?!" rant. I even played her the message next time she was at my house, so she could hear how her words - delivered in her "this is my worried voice" tone - made that a completely inappropriate lack of information to leave when I wouldn't be able to reach her for a follow up. @bilgistic, I hope this, too, is something you'll look back on as an avoidable clusterfuck caused by thoughtlessness but with no lingering effect.

That was the only one I didn't get in that category. Shocking though it may seem, I actually do know some chapter titles, but I had no idea what the "Pentateuch" section referred to (I only know there's an Old and New Testament), so I didn't even try guessing one of the early-alphabet ones in my arsenal because the five somethings means nothing to me in this context. I've never read/seen Harry Potter, but with two close friends who are devoted fans, "Hufflepuff" popped out as a wild-ass guess that turned out to be correct; that one was pure luck. But it came out as "Huff ... el ... um, puff?" so I'd have never rung in with it in a game.

Yep, happens all the time (neither of my mom's two different chemotherapies have been among those causing hair loss, but if she undergoes one that is in future she'll likely join my dad and me in having curly hair), while my mom's best friend who had naturally curly hair saw her post-chemo hair grow back stick straight. Anyway, I hadn't noticed a difference in Alex's hair (it has to be beyond subtle for me to notice), but kudos to him making a parlor game out of "spot the hairpiece." I like his overall combination of positive attitude and parts of this really suck acknowledgment in media statements since his diagnosis. He doesn't owe anyone anything, but as one of the public faces of cancer he's providing a service in the midst of his personal battle by being so open. Good for him, genuinely.

I wasn’t sure which female teacher to root for, decided on my sister curly-haired woman, and then spent the game unsure whether I was amused or annoyed by her reactions to answering incorrectly/being beaten to the buzzer. I ultimately landed on amused. Hedgehog was a surprising TS because it was narrowed down to another __hog. End run surprised me, too. Only one of them getting FJ, and one of them not even coming up with one of the two, surprised me, too, but nowhere near as much as only one contestant getting the Annie Sullivan FJ. Sara's missed DDs caused my eyebrows to raise to varying degrees, especially the lack of "duh, of course" reaction when South Africa was revealed as the correct answer. Landing on all three DDs and not getting a single one right is not a good look, and I don't think they were challenging enough to make that a likely fate of any given contestant. I pre-called aperitif (in fact, it was the only a-f word I could think of before Alex read the next category), so I was amused to see that indeed show up. I successfully pre-called a couple of the answers in the Film Teachers category, too. I’m easily entertained.

Oh, I should have been clear; I eat it as a side dish. On the even more rare occasions (generally involving a hangover) I make a bowl of it as a meal, I don't cut it in half; I, too, make the whole box.

I was never a gotta make sure to watch/record fan, but I watched it regularly during its original airing and even watched a reunion TV movie. But when I came across some episodes in syndication a few years back, I found it almost painful - it was so clumsy and amateur - and never tuned back in.

Andrea didn't come off like a fan to me; her reaction to him was of the Wow, that guy is attractive variety rather than OMG, it's Jon Worth. She's initially as low-key as Sharon, simply noting that he looks great in the interview room in spite of the horrible lighting. She later doesn't even react when he's standing right next to her in Electronics, because she's focused on the fact the husband hasn't said what they need him to say in order to nail him. She doesn't get giddy until Sharon sends Jon in to deliver that great performance and he indeed goads the husband into giving up the car's location. It's after Jon returns to Electronics that she gets caught by Sharon just gazing at him, and then she tries to explain-walk her way out of the room until Buzz calls her out. By the time Jonny makes his fawning comment about Mike ("I knew he was a badass, but had no idea he could be so smooth") she's back to joining everyone else in their WTH? reaction (I love Provenza's fake vomit in response). So I like that her one moment of OTT attraction is rooted as much in him helping them make their case as it is in his physical appearance (and he's a lot cuter than those ugly-ass designer bags she fawned over in "There's No Place Like Home," so her standards for drool-worthy are improving). I think both those things, and so many more, showing the balance between oblivious (but not mean-spirited) star and nice guy mean that was how the character was always intended - as someone to laugh at, but also like. Fundamentally: He's there because he wants to help, but his concept of helping is, "Anything I can do, just let me know and I'll have Kiki do it." That's the character in a nutshell, and then the whole episode is examples of how he's both those things. Like the primping -- his initial response to the badges of the "fallen" is somber, and he muses that it's not just a job. But then when they just leave him standing there because they're stalling for time, he catches his reflection in the glass and fixes his hair. And how he's genuinely happy to sign autographs and meet the squad, so he can put faces to the stories he's heard from Mike, but when Provenza prints out his DMV photo, he just treats it like another headshot to sign and finds it fun to make the board. Or, your other example, talking about how the circumstances mean this was a premeditated murder, and that's horrible, and then getting distracted by sushi. He's always like that, and I really like the balance. Shifting gears, I somehow - surprising, given how much I love the spot-on characterization of Kiki - didn't notice until this last viewing that she spends the entire time at Rusty's party over by the kitchen bar on her phone. Ha - another perfect touch. Jon invites himself to this random kid's HS graduation party, so she has to go, but she spends the time "backstage" as always, working away on her phone.

Kraft mac & cheese is my guilty pleasure, but I don't like it reheated, so I make half at a time (which is still way too much of it for one person to eat, but that's why it's just an occasional guilty pleasure). It's easy to divide the pasta and the bag of neon cheese chemicals in two; there is one cup of pasta per box, and two ounces of neon goodness per "cheese" packet. What's impressive is that my dad used to divide it up into six servings when he was a dirt-poor college student renting a room with a hot plate.

It should just be a tie-in for the tournament (Amazon Alexa is the "presented by" sponsor).

That's what surprised me about her not only forgetting to spell it, but still not getting that was what she'd done wrong when Alex reacted and gave her the chance to correct herself (she squinted at the clue to see what she'd possibly misread, yet still didn't grasp the category), that they'd just returned to that category the clue before, so the spelling should have been fresh in her mind. My other surprise was cacao as a TS; the clue instructed them not to make the spelling mistake, one contestant made it anyway, and the other two just stood there. Cheat and typing as TS surprised me a little, but that was the big one. Vicki had a couple of eye-raising wrong guesses, but I knew she was going to get retroactive credit for calcium; that was my answer based on ___ carbonate as an antacid, but it didn't fit the "clever" part of the clue, so I wasn't sure what they were going for. I'd have bet zero based on the FJ category, as I've never been a comics fan, but it turned out to be something I could guess (even though I have never actually read or watched anything Peanuts, it's so ubiquitous I've picked a lot of it up via cultural osmosis over the years, so somehow a kid with his blanket popped into my mind).

I'm not surprised - my preferences never lined up with the ratings. I was a Guiding Light fan, and recorded it every day, and if I was home I would sometimes watch As The World Turns, too. But I didn't much care for Y&R and actively hated B&B (even for soaps it had such bad acting and ridiculous writing). Most people were the opposite, because those two were consistently higher rated.

None of those were at play today; we had Spanish, English, and Civics/World History.

Yeah, that bugged me, too, but I also felt the overall set of clues weren't insultingly different than normal like yesterday's. I’d have been rooting for Tara even without “knowing” her, as a black woman facing two white men. (If demographics didn’t lead me toward a contestant, I’d have gone by subject taught and rooted for the Civics guy.) Sorry you didn’t have a better game, @teebax (AKA T. Bax – so simple now that I know), but I hope you enjoyed the experience. And I liked your interview, about your life experiences prior to teaching adding to what you can provide your students and affecting the way they perceive you. Congratulations all around. My biggest surprise was that only one contestant got what I figured would be a triple instaget for FJ. Snowpack was the TS that surprised me most (mud pack surprised me, too, with pack spotted by the category), but I think I should only be surprised that the CA guy didn’t know the right term (given how, in perpetual drought, we hear every year about whether or not the snow pack was adequate). The teardrop TS in the anagram category surprised me because Trevor guessing “tear” gave extra time to figure it out. But it was pretty early in the game, and him being wrong may have led them to try to think of totally different words, rather than the correct variation of tears. I was also a bit surprised three of the classic literature clues were TS, but I shouldn’t be, I guess, because that seems to happen a lot.

Wow, is that what it's down to? I haven't watched since the mid-90s, when there were four each on CBS, ABC, and NBC.