Bastet

@Ancaster I'm not tech savvy enough to be sure all the ways people view content, but I know some don't see the TC forum in its entirety, just follow certain threads. There's a thread for relating experiences of dining in the cheftestants' (and judges') restaurants (which, until I went searching for the link, I'd completely forgotten I created years ago!), so it would be great if you could post your experience there so those who don't read this thread but are interested in such reviews and thus read that thread can see yours.

I laughed at how Luxe's owner changed her tune on him getting a shot when Dr. Hodges said the alternative is her giving him pills for two weeks. Olive's floppy ears are adorable. And Apollo the baby squirrel was beyond adorable, trying to suckle on the scope. Poor little guy; what a rough start in life. I wish we'd gotten an update as to whether he was able to recover and be released. I can't say I ever thought about it, but I was surprised to learn how long the molting process can last in chickens. Willow's segment had me a bit puzzled; there was much talk of what an experienced cat rescuer the owner is, and she was clearly knowledgeable, yet there were also several references to the time that had lapsed between when she found Willow's wound and brought her in because it wasn't healing and was clearly infected. I hate getting distracted by stuff like that. Was this our first time learning Dr. Ferguson had played college football?

Exactly. I, on the other hand, hate the Dallas Cowboys with every fiber of my being, as nature intended.

Yeah, there are zones on union filming projects, where if you go outside the X-miles radius, you have to pay transportation costs, and if you go outside the larger Y-miles radius, you have to put everyone up for the night.

Same here. I figured I was doomed based on the category, but I happen to have seen the name "Harley Quinn" written around this site enough to register it (because it always makes me think "Like harlequin, cute". I have no idea who she is/what she's from, but the diamond-patterned outfits part of the clue successfully led me to harlequin, and then Harley Quinn. I was as doomed as predicted in the love poetry category, although the missed DD of "mingle" was an instaget; for a second, I could not figure out how Marko went so wrong until I realized just as Ken started to say it that he was trying to rhyme with the wrong line. I figured the $400 clue had to be Dorothy Parker, but had nothing for the rest. Bowling was my other bad category, as I've never bowled (I know this is utterly unheard of in some areas; a friend who lives where pretty much everyone has their own bowling ball in a personalized case in the hall closet actually gasped when that came up in conversation). I figured the first one was strike, and guessed king pin, but I had nothing on the rest. I didn't keep specific track, but I got most things in the rest of the categories.

Yes, they emphasized convicted, with the lawyer saying it and Hetty later repeating it. There was nothing about debts - which would be paid out of the estate so her death wouldn't have preserved their wealth for Thomas - only about the charges Elias and Hetty were facing (and then Hetty alone, since Elias couldn't be found), and how, if convicted (which she would be, since she was guilty and he of even more things so if they put those on her, too, she's good and done for), their assets would be seized. As presented by the show, any financial implications for the Woodstone heir went poof as soon as Hetty joined Elias in not being able to be tried and convicted.

That's what I do with unknown numbers as well. I do. It's one of those cordless phone sets, where the main base has an answering machine, and then the additional handsets just sit in small charging bases.

Same. And then there are the people who only call me when they're on a long drive, so I get the added pleasure of pockets where we can't hear each other, the call drops and they have to call back, etc. Do you have DirecTV, by any chance? They eliminated the caller ID feature, so receivers with the new software no longer have that option available in settings.

According to an interview with Rebecca Wisocky posted in the Media thread, the creators came to her about a month before they shot the episode, saying, “We think that this is the direction that makes sense to go in with this.” When she'd asked them in the first season how she was going to talk about her character, not knowing how she died or what her ghost power is, they told her to just wait, they wanted to leave lots of doors open. So how long they'd been mulling this scenario over, I don't know, but they included her during that month in fine-tuning the right way to present this revelation. It's a great interview, all about this episode; here's an excerpt:

I know. As I said, it's just one of my pet peeves, people not knowing the difference, so if that's an episode's biggest problem for me, it's a damn good episode. It just came out in kind of garbled phrasing; I'll clarify.

Godsdamn, this was old-school Ghosts. This season has not been bad, far from it, but it hasn't matched the firing on all cylinders brilliance of the first two seasons until tonight. My only problem was people repeatedly using "cement" when they meant concrete (cement is an ingredient in concrete, which is what was getting poured), only getting it right once, but that's a personal pet peeve, so if that's an episode's biggest flaw, it's a damn good episode. All of us who figured Stephanie's boyfriend was the one who actually got sucked off are proven right, yet that was such a blip in the episode. (A blip that gave me a chuckle in the flashback, where her reaction was "Seriously?!" then "That was rude" and immediately followed by "I'm going back to sleep".) Because, my stars, the reveal of Hetty's death. Her accidental OD celebrating Elias's death explanation was great on its own, but then to find out that's a cover for the real story, and why? Just perfect, and a fantastic weaving in of the stuck in a hole story, to explain why Thor, Sas, and Isaac not only didn't know about Elias's vault (I freely admit I did not pick up on that at the time), but didn't know about Hetty's death. Isaac's non-verbal reaction when she reveals her ghost cord to save Flower, while everyone else is focused on Flower, was so fitting their relationship, as was him telling Sam and bringing her to talk to Hetty. Isaac and Hetty are two of the most myopic ghosts, but they're getting there, and, as they do, their love for each other has always been a bright spot. And then the classic sprinkling of great lines throughout, the little moments, like Sas protesting he is "literally the storyteller" when Isaac takes over, Trevor saying having to pull, not push, is his greatest challenge yet, Thor's inadvertent "she said 'I'm well'" reveal of where Flower is, and "Pull the plug and save our girl, you miserly bastard" when it turned out the ghosts don't show on Facetime so their only hope was Jay not wanting to spend the money to fill in the well. Plus it leaves open the possibility to later come across the Puritan ghost wandering the dirt, on a show that perpetually has to work to explain the appearance - and disappearance - of additional ghosts the longer it goes on. Fantastic episode.

They're all just varying points on an inherently predatory spectrum, a legal loophole where someone adds product and turns an illegal pyramid scheme into a legal (here in the U.S. and other, but not all, countries who regulate such things) MLM. (If most of a particpant's income comes from selling to true customers, that’s a business. If most of it comes from selling to people they'll have to recruit to become sellers themselves, and then they recruit others, and the percentage of their commission is how the money is made, that’s a legal pyramid scheme.) The income gulf between these MLM leaders and their distributors is huge, and it's not the same as looking at the same gap between CEO and worker, because the middle rungs of the corporate ladder are at least made up of salaried employees with benefits. What really gets me is the feminist façade used to prey on low-income women, with promises of autonomy and entrepreneurship; it's design, not coincidence, that these are pitched to women by women. Another disturbing aspect is how MLM leaders use many of the same indoctrination tactics as those used by cult leaders. Bottom line, most don't bring in decent money shilling this stuff; the overwhelming majority of MLM participants make little to no money, and in fact a significant percentage lose money. There are three general reasons for this: 1. The buy-in model. First, the company doesn’t spend a penny on training and marketing – participants pay to do it themselves. Then, obviously the cheaper a seller can buy the product, the more profit they make when they sell it. But to maintain access to those discounts, they have to keep buying; there are levels to attain, badges of honor with greater benefits at each, based on how much is bought. (And there are poor buy-back policies for unsold inventory, so people wind up with garages full of this crap they can't unload.) 2. There’s an inherently limited supply of people to recruit – that’s why the real winners are the person who started the business and the first people recruited. 3. You create your own competitors by recruiting other sellers from your social network, which is how these are structured; it benefits the owner, but not the participants. I think the best thing to do when a friend has been sucked into one of these is to gently present her with the facts, but if she's intent on learning the hard way go to one party, make clear you won't be recruited, and only buy something if you actually want it and think it's a good deal (I have a couple of Pampered Chef products I still use to this day).

Well, boo, but Alison had a nice run and I'll see her again in the next ToC. I had a horrible first round for a regular game. I ran crossword clues and got all but one in patience, but I almost blew literary characters entirely, only knowing Puck, and missed two each in the rest. I got back on a more typical track in DJ; I ran Juilliard and patients and got all but the hackathon TS in words, missing two each in the rest. And I got FJ. I still remember all the states in alphabetical order thanks to "Fifty Nifty United States" in sixth grade. I knew it wasn't Alaska or Arizona, put a pin in Arkansas as a possibility, but figured 1) it was probably an older state than that and 2) FJ wouldn't be so easy as being another "A" state; I had oodles of time left, so kept singing. Obviously not California or Colorado, but, a-ha, Connecticut!

I recognized her right away from an episode of Major Crimes, in which she played a hilariously horrible person, so that may have been part of why I enjoyed her so much here.

I kind of wanted more on that whole When we were 15 and 16, our parents told my sister and me we were old enough to have our own apartment story. I wasn't paying anywhere near as good attention as I should, being totally unfamiliar with the supper club concept, but I believe I heard someone say there was schnitzel.

No, she said if Darlene doesn't do well in her trial period, she doesn't get to keep this manager position, and she can't turn down the promotion and stay safe in her lunch lady job, so unless she holds onto the manager position, she'll be out of a job and thus the tuition benefit.

I have two landline numbers, home and office, and on the two of them together I don't get anywhere near as many spam calls as I get to my cell phone. Since I hardly ever use my cell phone, I sometimes go pretty long stretches without even checking it, and it's annoying to have such a long list of numbers in the missed calls log to go through and block. And spam texts to delete.

Since I loathe egg yolk, I didn't want to eat anything in the first round, but just looking at the rest of the dishes and imagining not finding that one component vile, I thought I'd have liked Kaleena's and Charly's (until Tom said Charly made a mistake with the meat), but dismissed Soo's for having too much bread. For round two, I couldn't believe Charly made fresh pasta. All three sounded pretty equally good if he'd managed to nail the pasta in that amount of time, but without that execution, obviously he's going home.

I don't think in a team challenge the money should automatically be divided up into equal amounts for each chef, especially when they have a list of required courses, because some courses require costlier ingredients than others. But when they decide, as a team, who's going to make which course and what each of those dishes is going to be, the budget needs to be part of that discussion. Not wait until the check-out line of a notoriously expensive store and, golly gee, we've gone over. I'm pretty sure we've seen them take things off the bill, not just put them aside before even being rung up.

"The Kish with Dish?" Ha. I really enjoyed the QF in this week's episode of TC, so I like that this show chose that challenge rather than the EC to be inspired by. Always nice to see Gregory, and especially to hear him and Kristen agreeing how limited the list of "Mother Sauces" is, not to mention getting another Haitian's take on Charly's winning Creole sauce (which reminds me I liked Charly adding Haitian to New Orleans in Kristen's comment upon his familiarity with the sauce) for that take on the challenge. I like the combination of green things he talked about as typical of Caribbean seasoning as Gregory made his epis, even though that wound up being a brief addition to, I think, just one of the sauces. And I love him saying he has one more try at TC in him, having been a finalist twice before -- "I'll be 60, but it'll be great". The bread and pickle ice cream segment made me laugh. "It's not gross." And then "It's not good" about combining it with one of the sauces was even funnier. Interesting tidbit that Gregory was most scared of Tom, while Kristen was most scared of Gail.

I've only watched part one so far, so presumably the documentary gets into this, but the biggest problem is not how NASA handled or mishandled things following this launch, knowing the specifics of what they knew about this particular foam strike. That is obviously a big part of the conversation, but, like with the known o-ring issue that ultimately destroyed Challenger, the biggest problem is that NASA knew of the potential for catastrophic (which is what they use to describe total loss of shuttle and crew) damage as a result of "shedding" foam, and had in fact seen numerous non-catastrophic instances of damage from foam breaking loose from this particular area of the tank on previous flights, yet overrode their own safety rules in continuing to launch anyway with foam that so easily broke free, reclassifying it it as an acceptable risk because the worst case scenario hadn't (yet) happened.

I have no problem with that one (if she didn't lie during their later discussion when she was significantly under on her estimate of how much her ingredients cost - which I'll grant given how it was presented - she still didn't properly consider the budget and her part in it while selecting ingredients or at the cash register, and not getting it until Tom made it explicit that she didn't think about the budget limitations when deciding to make a two-part dessert and, regardless, do one thing great instead of two things okay, on the other hand ...) -- Kristen didn't say they had to take whatever recipe card they first picked up, she just said something along the lines of you don't have to shuffle through, just take one, at which W. Kamau Bell laughed and said well, shuffle a little, or similar. And I laughed too, because of course; if it's such a loosey goosey thing like that, with no clear rule that we're going in this order and Chef 1 is assigned Card 1 and so on, yeah, take a look at the next card if the first is a recipe you'd rather not make.

Sad that only moms brought their kids, and only brought sons. But at least the women who wanted to learn weren't shown enough to be presented as inept ditzes who don't even know what a wrench is, let alone how to use one; I was nervous about that based on the episode description. These lessons are a cool way for Dan to make some extra money, and I think when he's not inexplicably doing them every night of the week it's something he'd really enjoy. Do them once a week and it'll work fine. (A combination of working, social security, and pension should not only now at 70 be possible for Dan, and there's way too much to try to make sense of in terms of whether he worked for the city garage long enough to fully or only partially vest in a plan, and why he called it a union pension rather than a government pension, and how which one it is would affect his social security [he's old enough his hardware store income doesn't], so I'll just go with it. The importance of owning the house outright and how that goalpost kept moving is a long-standing story of the franchise.) "I don't like to turn on the lights, it attracts people." Ha. Darlene's boss was such a caricature - "Mary Todd Lincoln's older, crazier sister" - but she made me laugh anyway. Darlene telling Harris if she won't help in this ridiculously huge way Mark won't be able to keep going to school was so out of bounds, but I do enjoy Harris just rolling with it because if she pulls it off she can pull the "hamburger" card forever. It would be nice to see Darlene keep this management job; there are still tales of misery to mine, but she can use her brain, which will help her mood (well, a little; it's Darlene), and put her in a better position not just financially but in terms of her options once Mark graduates.

How did Danny wind up having to sacrifice the majority of his portion of the budget instead of everyone having to take some of their stuff off the bill – was it really just because he was the last at the register? On the other team, Rasika disproportionately sacrificing had a stated reason – she has immunity – but if there was one for him, I didn’t hear/see it (I was distracted at the time, but everyone else in the Live Chat thread was pissed too, so I don’t think there was one). Of course, budget didn’t make him over-season his tahini, but thankfully a couple of others on his team screwed up far more than that; they were clearly the losing team, but he wasn't in danger of going home. I cringed when Charly started cooking his fish so ridiculously early, so no surprise it was hella overcooked. I’m sad to see him go, but he seemed a clear choice since it wasn’t just that he destroyed the fish, he didn’t get enough spice in the pikliz, either, when he knew the heat's what makes the dish. Nice for Dan to get a win on a challenge that is a local favorite of his. I wasn’t all that excited just looking at it, but I appreciated hearing from the diner who said she normally doesn’t even bother with the relish tray because it’s boring, but his was special. I liked the QF challenge. At least Charly won that, with a dish inspired by his mom, sweet after him saying he thinks a lot about wishing he could tell her all he’s grown up to do since her death. Also, I love W. Kamau Bell, and laughed at him knowing those were fight muscles, not gym muscles, on Manny.

Yeah, that second dish for the dessert seems to be what made it take up a bigger chunk of the budget.