Bastet

No show tonight due to election coverage, and due to election anxiety I had a hard time concentrating long enough to read the archive, but I tried to take a break and play. Lebanon as a TS surprised me; Hezbollah is still active and still in the news, even if none of them remembered the specific incident with Anderson. Turkey I knew, too, but geography TS almost never surprise me anymore. Same with Malaysia. Columbus was a little surprising, just because of the year given. Phantom of the Opera a bit, too, because of "apparition" and the length of its run. I knew alluvial as riverbed soil, but that may be due to Battlestar Galactica (the remake) as much as anything else, so that one didn't surprise me. And, yeah, "University of Auburn"?! As one who isn't a fan of the comics, I never knew how Mary Jane shoes got their name. I got the answer just based on the strap, but now I know the origin. Thanks, J! And, while I got the clue based on the castle, I also didn't know Balmoral was a shoe. Looking it up, I'm going to need some distance from my election-night drinking to understand the distinction from an Oxford. I also didn't know sugar was no longer produced in Hawaii; I went to a sugarcane field on one of my visits there, but I'm not sure if it was the one in the clue. I was flat-out embarrassing in the "Books of Romans" category - not a single guess! FJ was an instaget, though - um, thanks, Mom, for breaking your back this spring, so that I refreshed my vertebrae knowledge? (It was thoracic, and she's long since fully healed.) I'm pretty sure I'd have come up with it anyway, but that recent history made it easy.

That's why I said on-camera, but I could have made that more clear.

Actually, Becky got a great moment in that arc when she got to call that specific thing out ("When did you ever buy me a cake for bringing home a decent grade or helping out D.J. or doing the laundry or any of the other million things I do while Darlene sits around and sucks up all the attention?" to Roseanne and "You're just a whiny little basket case who's milking this depression thing for all it's worth. So here it is, the middle of the afternoon, and you get to do exactly what you want. Excuse me, I've got a zillion chores to do, or Mom and Dad will kick my butt" to Darlene) and both of them acknowledged her grievance and made things up to her.

Yep; other than commercials, it's the easiest on-camera money in the business. (And, yes, of course, they care about these characters and each other, and are happy to be back telling these stories again, too.)

Again, completely irrelevant to the fact they had the quoted conversation.

I've never seen any of the Indiana Jones movies; they don't interest me. How the character and her past relationship with him wound up being written and filmed is one subject, but the fact these men initially sat around and discussed making her 11, 12, or 15, and talked about a child seducing her father's mentor as if that's an actual thing, is its own subject, and isn't affected by what they wound up with. Not one of them said, "This is fucking disgusting, and I can't even believe it would be suggested; no, she needs to have been capable of a relationship with him that was non-coercive if we're going to allude to one." They just, by virtue of casting, aged her up a few more years, into inappropriate but not illegal. They didn't back off of their original "interesting" idea because it was a reprehensible crime.

What a thoroughly disgusting conversation.

Yes, with the pregnancy scare and again when they were waiting for amnio results when she was pregnant with Jerry. If Harris is pregnant, I would fervently hope she'd get an abortion and it would be ridiculous not to even consider it, but I don't think the show is willing to go there, so I think it will be someone else. I originally thought Becky, because of "unexpected" rather than "unplanned," but once the show got going I figured Geena got pregnant while home on leave, and that's why she'll be around -- she gets sent home from her active duty overseas assignment because she's pregnant.

I read the archive, so I didn't see the wardrobe, but add me to the list of "cold shoulder" haters. I did great in the first round, but was very hit and miss in DJ. I'd have bet zero in FJ, and that would have been the right wager -- I suck at kid lit categories. I read a lot as a kid, but that was a long time ago, and I am quite purposely not around children as an adult, so most of the books they ask about don't come to mind. And the Paddington books I never read in the first place. Instead of trying to think of book characters, I should have run through British train stations.

It was a breakfast for dinner night here -- egg white scramble with bacon, asparagus, spinach, and gruyere.

It's audio only, but here's the section of Kathleen Madigan's Bothering Jesus comedy special in which she complains about the people on House Hunters:

I know my satellite receiver, computer, cell phone, and bedroom alarm clock adjust themselves automatically when DST begins or ends, but I have absolutely no memory of the fact my home phones do (it's one of those answering machine/base with multiple handset deals from Panasonic). I've had them for years, and I don't ever remember them doing it before today. My parents have a newer, similar version, and I had to change theirs manually this morning. I would have sworn I had to do the same with mine, but when I went to do so upon arriving home, it was already on standard time. It's like it developed a new function, but that can't be right (and would be freaky). So that means I'm losing my mind even more than I thought because it's not even like when my alarm clock did it when it was fairly new and I thought, "Oh yeah, I forgot that adjusted automatically." There is absolutely nothing in my memory bank about this happening previously. (And, no, I didn't just leave them on standard time when DST began; I dutifully change all the clocks for each time change.)

Well, bummer, but 8-1 is still damn good, that was a good game, and I like the Saints. The Rams have some more tough games coming up in this second half of the season (how did we get here already??), so we'll see how they do.

There are women on staff, but I don't know if any of them are parolees. I know Tia has answered this question before, I just cannot for the life of me remember what she said.

I hate, hate, hate when we lose DST - it already gets dark so friggin' early this time of year, and now we're making it an hour earlier. But I am going to be really excited tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off and it feels an hour later. As soon as that wears off, though, it's just grumbling until DST comes around again.

Jaime Pressly has given birth twice, the last time to twins. The light color of the suit and all those crystals on it didn't disguise that fact, but it also showed how thin she is despite having her figure stretched out like that in the past. I'm in decent shape, and I'd love to look that "dumpy" in a bathing suit.

Boy, the producers sure love those swimmer puppies, don't they? I will have to wait until the late-night airing to watch tonight's episode with Hannah, but I finally watched the re-run of last week's, when Caleb went to join Cardigan. Watching the big sister get down on Caleb's level and then roll over onto her back was adorable! I like that the new parolee (with the great voice, but I'm blanking on his name already) followed Mariah's instructions to not go into the cage of a few dogs who take time to warm up to new people, but spent the time to let her/him get used to his smell and voice by feeding treats through the gate and chatting. As she said, it was the perfect balance of taking initiative while respecting the dogs' boundaries (and her instructions). I like how they're always happy for the parolees who are able to use their employment history at VRC to get a higher-paying job with more potential, acknowledging this is meant to be a stepping stone, but are also a little bummed when they - and the dogs - have to take a chance on/get used to someone new. And I love how the person giving the parolee who's leaving (sorry; it's just a day when I'm not retaining names) is his best friend, but he wouldn't hire him based only on friendship; it wasn't until he proved himself reliable at VRC that the friend made the offer.

Which game?

I hate tapered-leg pants (straight-leg, boot-cut, or wide-leg [trousers, not jeans] for me), so skinny pants really aren't my thing. Of course, the women they allow on TV almost universally have the body type that looks good in skinny pants, so that might explain why they're more prevalent on TV than in real life. What cannot be explained is how ubiquitous they are in stores, when the majority of American bodies are not flattered by that cut. Re. greasy hair on an unshowered person, that's not true of naturally curly hair, which tends to also be naturally dry, and should not be shampooed frequently (rinsed and conditioned, yes, but not shampooed) -- 24 hours without a shower, and our hair is just starting to look great, not greasy. But, yeah, non-curly characters made up to look like they've been sick in bed for three days really ought to have some Vaseline run through their locks as part of that process. (I still use "heat of a thousand nuns," too, even in "real life" sometimes, forgetting it's specific to TWoP and no one else will know why the hell I'm saying that.)

Riley sleeps on whatever part of me is creating the highest surface for her, so if I'm on my back she's on my chest, if I'm on my side she's on my hip, and if I'm on my front she's on my butt.

Great googly moogly. A few days ago, I was perturbed to look across the street and see neighbors had turned on their Christmas lights (yes, turned on, not put up -- they leave them up year round; they have additional decorations they put out on the front lawn each year, and I can only hope I don't see those for at least a month), and now tonight the neighbors next to them have put up their own lights. It's spreading! What the hell, people? It is barely November (and was still October when Fuckwit One started this). These folks are as bad as the Hallmark Channel.

They were great! Their dynamic was fun; I love the mutual blackmail. And he played the funny in a way that elevated the "kids are only like this in fiction" writing, while she was the perfect blend of the TV/movie stereotypes of good babysitters and bad babysitters, balancing out to a very real character I cared about in short order. Their segment was a highlight.

I did, too, and then corrected myself in time. I live in Los Angeles, but I don't do cruises. So I have the increased geographical knowledge that comes from proximity, but the popular port aspect comes from friends/neighbors talking about their Mexican cruises, not personal experience; it evened out to me getting it wrong, but then doing a "No, wait" correction as time went on without any of the contestants ringing in.

I learned two things from this episode: 1) Horton, of Horton Hears a Who! fame, is an elephant (I know the title as one of the Dr. Seuss books, but that wasn’t one of the ones I read, and I’d never given any thought to who/what Horton is) and 2) Paisley is named for a Scottish town. I got both of those based on the rest of the two clues, but I did not know those specific facts. Actually, three things, now that I think about it -- I did not know Jeremy Irons had a son who is also an actor. Atrium was a little surprising as a TS, as well as The Great Communicator. Maybe atmospheres and Ampere, too, but, eh -- I wasn't particularly struck by anything going unanswered tonight. I was bugged by some clue values, though -- the Alexander Graham Bell and earthquake clues belonged in the first round. And render, too, I suppose, since if I know a Bible quote, it’s not worth DJ dollars. Wow, how embarrassing to confuse Truman for FDR. I felt sorry for her. FJ was pure guess based on the elements of the clue, rather than knowing the fact at hand, but it was an instaget and one I was secure in.

That was my favorite scene. I found this just a so-so episode, but I loved their offense at being called Grandma and Grandpa, promptly followed by Bonnie yelling at them to pull up their pants. The "Bo" thing was a ripe-off of Roseanne, when Dan only got "Rose" instead of "Roseanne" tattooed on his arm because it hurt too much to go on, and he tried to (falsely) claim he calls her Rose all the time, but I laughed anyway, especially when "Bo" started catching on. This episode illustrated why loaning money between friends is a bad idea, but Jill was really good about it, especially in the face of Christy being an unreasonable brat.