Bastet

“Avery Robert Brown” – Hee, I love when moms full-name adult children, and it’s perfect that Murphy named her son after her mom and Robert Kennedy. I liked the reference to Dan Quayle’s "glamorizing single motherhood" freakout about her pregnancy, and I loved their bet – Avery won’t make it through 24 hours of extended coverage without losing it on Haggerty vs Murphy won’t make it through without nodding off. They continue to be the best part of the show. But there's much more I like, including another round of great lines: “He runs a zoo, and all he does is throw raw meat to his audience.” “Where truth goes to die.” “Yes, of course that is just one poll – ours” “The only one we trust” It was a fun take on 24-hour election coverage in general, at both networks: - Replacing one pretty young sycophant with another, Trump calling in to his buddy and still going on about the Electoral College, no collusion, fake news, and witch hunts, hours later - Pat dressed like Miles, Frank on energy drinks (I love how Joe Regalbuto kept his leg shaking under the table the whole time), Corky losing it with the in-show version of Joe the Plumber and the 15 other people in East Winnsocket, and "After 17 hours, some of us are a little punchy” followed by everyone finally losing it, with Miles sending in Pat. “Welcome to the next two years.” And then the tag: Elections have consequences. Vote. That was powerful, especially closing an episode that explicitly noted Democratic voter turnout in midterm elections is typically pathetic, but this year may be different.

I only tuned in just as the FJ clue was revealed, and I got it - because those were the only two German rivers I could think of. I thought it was going to be one of those two, plus a lesser-known river, so I was excited to have guessed right on my one and only question for the evening.

It's a man who says it, and then the woman next to him says, "Well, it does." (I love all those "turning into your parents" commercials, too):

I've never heard it pronounced any other way (but I've never eaten one, so I'm far from an expert), so I went looking, and apparently there's a regional divide on that, even within the south.

Oh, was there a visual to go along with that Dyson FJ clue? I played that game via the J! archive rather than the show, and when there's a visual/audio portion of the clue, there's a link to it, but it never shows up/plays for me (maybe my ad blocker?) so I have to just go on the text of the clue. For that FJ, there's no link to a picture on the archive. I got it just based on Ballbarrow + British guy + household devices, but wasn't as surprised as some other posters that two of the contestants missed it. If there was a picture included with the clue, showing the wheelbarrow ball that looks so much like the vacuum ball, I'll have to join them.

I was on fire in the first round, and got them all right. The category about erroneous death reports was fun, and I always love vocabulary categories. I was a little surprised no one got Dick Cheney or cranium. Mayan was my biggest surprise as TS, but not on an “OMG, really?!” level. I didn’t do quite as well in the DJ round, but it was still a good one for me. I loved the song titles category. The Gene Simmons Halloween category should have been in the first round; those clues were all better suited to it than DJ. Given how poorly contestants often perform in geography categories, I was pleased to see the world capital clues all get correctly answered. I had horror movies on the brain after all the Halloween-themed categories and the incorrect guess of Freddy Krueger for Michael Myers (as a major Halloween fan, I actually groaned at that one), so like a poster upthread I pre-guessed Psycho for FJ based on the category. I laughed when the clue was revealed and I knew immediately that was, indeed, it.

I am so very much not a Halloween costume person, so if I ever had to wear one for some reason, it would be a brand of "costume" like Geena's shirt. I hope it wasn't some "people who celebrate Halloween are going to hell!" reason behind her not participating, because I liked it. I also liked her gleefully going along with Becky's candy swap so long as she got half. While I'm not into them myself, I appreciate creative costumes on others, so I'm still laughing at Becky's. I would say she's had some of my favorites over the years, but, really, I've liked just about everything from everyone on this series.

That's what he said, verbatim. But perhaps what he meant was "they should be able to wear whatever they want, within reason, and this particular costume shouldn't be a problem." Everyone involved in the discussion was instead written to speak in sweeping terms, which was the problem with it; it yielded some funny lines, and it wasn't awful, but it just wasn't handled with the sharpness and nuanced wit the show used to be famous for. Shifting gears slightly, when Dan said something about Halloween being 24 hours where there are no rules, Darlene responded, "Those are the Purge movies, Dad." I'd never heard of those films, but about an hour later when I was scrolling through the programming guide, there one was, with a summary about a night in which nothing is illegal. Good timing.

Good luck on sticking to that limited exposure thing once she's home; I lasted one night of closing the bedroom door on poor, sad Baxter who slept on the floor in the hallway right on the other side of said door before saying screw it, and letting him radiate me.

Yeah, that's what bugs me. There's her dating history, and her behavior when she dated a younger man, but more than that it's that she doesn't say "in their late forties to fifties" (even leaving off 60s), she specifies "forties" as if that's her natural age range for potential boyfriends, and no one comments. If that's who she's looking for, fine, but people are going to comment on the age discrepancy in general and certainly on the fact such men are her nieces' contemporaries. That's just reality. We just saw her out with Becky and Darlene, evaluating men at the bar, and if she was consistently scoping out men her nieces' age, she - and we - would hear about it. She can tell them to get stuffed, and rock on, but especially in this family? The issue will be raised. That his age was specified and the discrepancy with hers wasn't, when I add in the "we haven't decided if Andy exists in this universe" stuff, just makes me wonder what they're saying about Jackie's canon. I hope nothing, and go ahead, Jackie. But it's oddly specific, indeed.

Most of her partners were the same general age as her, and when she did date a younger man, she was really freaked out about it (and that ended so well [not that Fisher's age was the problem]), but now she's so casual. Sure, a lot could have changed in the years since we last saw her, with a general "I don't give a fuck; I want what I want, and am not looking for anything else" attitude that comes with age, but it's just odd how they made a point of his age and her target age range for boyfriends without comparing it to hers. (And she's still turning a blind eye to flaws and hanging on some twit's every word like he's better than her because he's more educated, so boo for that bit of continuity.)

I was really bummed the timing of the revival season of Roseanne meant no new Halloween episode, so I’ve been excited for this. It wasn’t up there with the classics, but it was good – and Sharknead O’Connor was fabulous. No, Dan, Mark shouldn’t be able to wear “whatever costume he wants” to a school function. You may want to argue he should be able to wear that particular first costume (I have no idea what it was – something from a violent movie/game I guess?), but the school absolutely has a right – and an obligation – to set limits. If he wanted to go as a Nazi or in blackface, would you be telling Darlene the same thing? I doubt it. I loathe when reasonable restrictions are lumped in with ones unreasonably broad, so as to paint all limits as “PC nonsense.” The cultural appropriation question with his Frida Kahlo costume was more interesting, but still handled broadly enough to be dismissive. They kind of came back around with Dan and the principal both being mostly wrong, as men are - that was old school, but it just wasn’t handled with the sharpness and nuance it deserved and that season 2-5 Roseanne would have. Alas, Darlene wanting to go in and “spend $10 I don’t have on ring toss so I can win a goldfish that will die in my car” and “Darklene” were great. Jackie recounting the drive home with Harris was also funny, as was Dan telling Harris she can play in Roseanne’s car, not drive it. And then his compromise. Darlene unable to insult on command, and then being the non-entertaining kind of rude, was a funny idea, but I think she’d have come up with better stuff than that. “You didn’t get a job insulting people?”/”I was overqualified” made it completely worthwhile, though; that was great. Yay for the return of the Muslim neighbors, and I love the way Dan played along with the kid’s invisible man costume. That’s so Dan. The interaction between Dan, Jackie, and the new boyfriend was vintage, too. But 48? Okay, it's less than ten years off the actor's age, but why make a point of that and of Jackie talking about how hard it is to find good men in their 40s in Lanford. Why is that the age range she's looking for -- are they retconning her age, too, making her the really little sister? That was weird.

It was another archive night, so I couldn’t see the playbills, but I still got three of the titles just from the author and the puns within the clues. I know I shouldn’t ever be surprised by geography clues being TS, but Cape Town did surprise me a little. As did Columbia as the journalism school. FJ was an instaget; I have a Dyson vacuum, so I’m readily familiar with the design, and hearing his accent in all the commercials meant the British part of the clue confirmed it for me.

As long as they didn't say "SSN number." "PIN number" and "VIN number" (and "ATM machine") irritate me. While we're on language peeves: Gift as a verb. I know it is a verb as well as a noun, so it's not improper, but hearing/seeing it used as one bugs the shit out of me. It's not on the level of female as a noun (outside a medical context, that always comes across as demeaning), but it's up there.

In the revival season of Roseanne, Becky was planning to use her surrogacy payment to buy a house. With a house now out of reach since that fell through, it seems she's looking to buy a mobile home instead - she wants to own rather than rent, and this is the way she can do it. They already did the "living in an actual trailer (the kind intended for camping, not living) in a stereotypical trashy trailer park" storyline in the original series, when she and Mark returned to Lanford. So I don't think they'll go down that road again - that was the only thing they could afford then, whereas now it's something she's choosing over an apartment. It's not going to be great, and it's just one more thing that falls short of what she'd hoped for, but I don't think it will be something awful. She'll make it work. It's why I will be incredibly disappointed if she's the unexpected pregnancy; she is just taking the first teeny tiny baby steps to get her life on a better track, and a baby would completely derail that.

You do when it's tented for termites, for about three days. There are foggers that require you to clear out for several hours. There's probably stuff in between.

Dammit! We were just getting to my favorites, and they haven't even gone all the way through the series once! They went from saturation - the block on Fridays, which was repeated the following Wednesdays on LMN, plus a block on Sundays - to just the block on Fridays, and now nothing. I hoped they were just moving it to LMN, or maybe doing like Hallmark and changing their schedule to air awful Christmas movies until January, but The Closer is gone from their list of shows, not just off the schedule (and the list does included syndicated programming, yes, not just Lifetime originals/movies). Boo!

After the movie, my friend complained, "Gas station bathrooms don't have stalls; it's just a toilet and a sink." I squealed, "You've actually used a gas station bathroom?!" It was funny that they had her recoiling in disgust when she opened the first two stall doors, at least. Did anyone catch the cameo in real time, rather than being "wait, what? cool!" surprised upon seeing the credits? I noticed the many ways that classroom scene was a nod to the original, even including the teacher being heard but not seen, but am not remotely familiar enough with to have caught that it was her voice we were hearing as the teacher.

That was a V8 head slap upon reveal; I'd never heard of the publication, but once I uncovered the answer, I, too, wondered why the hell I didn't guess W given the category plus the clue basically saying "the five these letters form the basis of fact gathering." That was a moment's thought for me, too, wondering if I was jumping to a fake-out answer based on the title that most who weren't well versed in Shakespeare would also fall for, whereas if I knew his plays better than I do, I'd know it was actually something else.

As usual on football nights, I opted for the ball game, but thanks to the archive, I was able to read all the clues. I got Delaware, breakaway, and Tempest, but none of the TS surprised me - well, maybe W once I really thought about it. My learn something new for the day was learning the name for playing dead (I got it based on the clue, but had never heard the word before; I have filed thanatosis away in my mental trivia bank). The Arcade category made me want to go find a place (without kids) to play Skee-Ball. I wonder if I’d like it anywhere near as much as I did as a child. FJ was an instaget for me; I’ve never read the play, but moon and moonlight being “aptly” used numerous times took me there immediately just based on the title.

Also, they just don't have time to do an episode focused on election results; the earliest slot they could possibly get it ready for would be 11/15, and that's quite a stretch (they're planning a quick turnaround for the finale, but that's such a crazy time frame they're only doing that once), so that takes them to 11/22, which is Thanksgiving. Is it even airing then? If not, it would be 11/29. Better - especially since the fictional show is a morning show, so even with extended coverage they'd be covering exit polls rather than returns - to do an Election Day episode that can air shortly before the election, and then weave short mentions of election results into subsequent episodes that are focused on other things (they may even be leaving a minute open in the next episode for an insert).

No, the brand of her food line (for people) is Rachael Ray, and includes "EVOO," balsamic vinegar, and some seasonings. I'm not sure if it's in production anymore, but at any rate it came out well after the show started, and the show is where she began the EVOO crap (where she'd say "E-V-O-O," and then every time immediately follow that up with the explanation that she means extra virgin olive oil). Charmin. Toyota uses "Let's Go Places."

Okay, I said because I don't care about baseball the way I do about football, a Dodgers loss wasn't going to ruin my week, and it's not. But now that it's here, ruin my night, yeah. Last year, fine. But this year? Forget winning, couldn't we have lost to any other team than the Red Sox, by which I mean any other fan base than Boston sports fans? (To be clear, some of whom I like dearly as people in general among those I know - I just can't stand any of them as sports fans, specifically.) I'd suffer Yankees fans far more gladly. But, the Red Sox were the far better team, and deserved the championship, hands down, so props.

Pat Sajak buying a vowel on his phone made me laugh, too, but, yeah, that was my favorite part of the celebrity roundup (even though Matt Mansplaining Damon bugs me).

I'd worry that I disturbed my neighbors, but I think my shrieking of, "Are you fucking kidding me right now?!" came out at a pitch only dogs can hear, and there are no dogs for several houses.