Bastet

I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt there, too, that they overlooked the legendary/based on part of the clue - even though McKayle also answered The Feminine Mystique in FJ, despite "fiction" in the category and "novel" in the clue.

I cannot believe Cuba and Thanksgiving were TS. I also knew Molly Pitcher, citizen, and glycogen, but didn't bat an eye at those going unanswered. The Hemingway/Cuba and Lincoln/Thanksgiving connections being lost on all three of them, though - that surprised me.

That NTSB investigator is one of the main reasons I like TF/Max. He's such a normal, grounded character and a solid investigator that I find him sort of soothing, and highly believable. Good casting in those episodes, because I think the actor playing Sgt. Whatever (the witness Scully takes to the bar) is a similar presence. Poor Pendrell, though; I liked having the little doof around.

I think that's one of the first quotes I posted in this thread, I love that exchange so much. When I watched the franchise via DVD, I liked The Closer, started getting tired of it, then Sharon Raydor came along and I perked up again, and then I fell in such total love with Major Crimes that I nearly forgot The Closer had ever even existed, but there are some moments from the original series that may remain in my memories forever, and many of them involve Brenda and Pope. Their dynamic was hilarious.

(From the media thread, that had drifted into episode talk.) When Roseanne and Mrs. Healy (Barbara, I think; it's funny none of us seem to remember her name) talk after Roseanne comes over, and Mrs. Healy finds out about David asking to move in with the Conners/Roseanne finds out she didn't know, Roseanne tries to defuse the situation, saying Darlene and David just took a shot at staying together, it's not the worst thing in the world; she prefaces it with something along the lines of "I don't mean to interfere [with a mother/son argument]." Mrs. Healy listens to her and says she doesn't need Roseanne butting in, telling her how to raise her kids -- "look at the two little whores you raised." That's when Roseanne does the fantastic, "Oh, I'm in this now." Which is followed by the equally fantastic, "You know, if your kid wasn't here, I would take the opportunity to remind you that people who live in glass whorehouses shouldn't throw stones." That, in turn, is followed by the even better moment when Mrs. Healy really gets ugly with David (the "you're a worthless little bastard" part), and Roseanne says, "Okay, I changed my mind; David, you can come live with us if you want to."

I figured he was making fun of the 672 times we heard Scully call herself or be referred to as a "medical doctor" in the original series, which made me laugh.

Ha ha! You two really do match in that picture. I'm glad you had such a nice time; it was clear how excited you were for it.

I disagree; I find asking guests not to bring/send a gift to an event where 99.9% of those attending would otherwise plan to do so is polite. Unlike simply leaving off the ubiquitous "we're registered at [store]" notation, this makes clear that despite whatever ideas float about this society around wedding gift obligations, they want nothing more than the gift of their guests sharing the evening with them. (Pervasive as those ideas are, there will probably be some who say - either to them or their families - they really want to do something, so they will be advised to make a donation in the cats' names to the animal shelter whence they came.)

Quite frankly, I'd find the card signed that way to be odd, just on general principle, and specific to Mother's Day, I can understand being taken aback - I would never give anyone other than my mom a Mother's Day card, so I can extrapolate to feeling odd as a mom getting someone else's name attached to such a card - but if you always do this on all holiday cards, I'm not sure why your mom chose to bring down her own day of celebration by getting so bothered by it. It's just something you do, and doesn't mean anything; it's a shame she not only took it in a different spirit than that, but chose to make that obvious and turn a pleasant day together into something uncomfortable. And if she said that in front of your girlfriend (am I reading it right, that she said it not just to you privately, but while your girlfriend was there?!), that's horrible. Even had Chris been the one to add her name, it would have been rude to snap at her about it, but the poor woman was just sitting there sharing the day with your family! It sounds heavily rooted in issues with your sexual orientation and dating life, and that's the real shame. I'm sorry a nice day devolved into that mess for you.

Oh, definitely no strapless. Two have tank straps (which is what I was looking for, so I can wear a regular bra), and the third has spaghetti straps. So does the bridal gown, so she has to wear a strapless bra, too, but she's only a B-cup, so it's a lot easier for her. And, yeah, beyond the cloying matchy-matchy thing I don't like about everyone in the same exact dress, it's pretty rare for one dress to look good on multiple people (in our case, I'm tall and curvy and her sister is short and flat; I'm amazed we even had one dress in common on our list of possibilities), so I think it sucks to make one or more people in the bridal party - women who are your family/friends, no less - buy a dress that is not only overpriced for something they'll wear once, but is something they're not even going to be happy with themselves in. One of the three dresses would never work being hemmed into a knee-length dress, one would but would still very obviously be a bridesmaid dress, and the third might be passable as a cocktail dress if shortened like that, but I doubt it. When I try them on again to make my final decision, I'm going to take a good, hard look at that last possibility. I don't subscribe to any of the rules about who can and can't wear white (especially since the white gown tradition got perverted into some virginal nonsense for quite some time, which I find as offensive as it is ridiculous), or who can and can't have a big wedding. "You do you." I just reserve the right to roll my eyes at all of it in private, and I'm truly surprised more people don't do something simpler -- just get married, and then have a regular party, without paying an "it's a wedding, so we can gouge you and get away with it" surcharge on everything. But, hey, at least they're specifying no gifts - he mentioned the idea of registering somewhere, and she was appalled; they have a house full of two of everything already. And, since they're both atheists, too, I don't have to listen to some guy go into a random sermon in the middle of the vows. Because that's another peeve - weddings and funerals that sound like church services into which the people supposedly being celebrated/remembered are nominally inserted.

I saw the second half of the two-episode season finale while out of town, but just got to see the first half tonight. I can't remember much of the one I saw last weekend, other than the dog who had a couple of pounds worth of matted fur shaved off his body, which is crazy! Poor Shaggy. And poor Moelina, but, as Lizzie said, at least she died peacefully and surrounded by loving people, rather than alone and suffering on the streets. Fuck her owners with a chainsaw (and with a collar and leash on her, she had owners); if they didn't have the resources to care for her when she got sick, they had far more humane options that turning her loose in the streets, and if they'd just taken basic care of her, she may never have become sick in the first place (if it started with heartworm and then she developed secondary conditions after heart failure set in). LOL at Tia setting up dog crates for the babies; hey, at that size, sounds like a good playpen to me. And it was refreshing to hear her say if she became a grandma, great, if she didn't, great; she just wanted whatever her kids wanted, for them, and for her she didn't care either way. Now she's pretty well swimming in grandkids, which is kind of funny. I loved Jordan's adopter saying the instant bond expectation so many people have is unrealistic; if it happens, hooray, but if it takes time, that's just fine. As the owner of a shy cat who leans against me, I loved seeing shy Jordy lean against her. I remember her from being the one to call Tia and crew in for that long rescue by the freeway, when Tia was trying to get back down for Mondo's wedding; it's cool she has remained part of the VRC family.

She and her fiancé are both pretty lazy, they'd been engaged for a couple of years and bought a house and moved in together without making a single move towards planning a wedding, they're in their 40s and 50s, he's divorced with grown kids -- add it all up, and I really thought I was never going to have to actually do this thing. I figured they'd either decide there was no need to get married at all, or at least decide not to fuss with a wedding and we'd just go to City Hall and then I'd take them out for a nice dinner to celebrate. But at some point he started making "we need to plan a wedding" noises, and finally they went out and looked at a venue, decided it would work, and picked a date.

So what happens to her? Because the spoilers all being about men - Mulder, William, Skinner, CSM - running around killing people bothers me, and I'd like to know what Scully is doing in all this.

Oh, she needs us to drink ourselves silly (well, not that she wants the wedding party and half the guests to be sloppy drunks, which is not something we'd sign up for even if she did, just that there need to be a good number of pleasantly tipsy people climbing into cabs at the end of the night) to hit the $10k minimum they had to agree to in order to get the venue Saturday night instead of Friday, because their expenses don't get them there alone, and with a fairly small headcount, the food isn't going to get them there, either, so they need their guests to get up from the tables (where there will be wine) to do some damage at the (open, of course) bar; otherwise, they're just paying the difference between $10k and the total they actually reached, so money for nothing. (Although, if it's $500 or less difference, I think they don't have to pay; maybe even hitting $9k is okay -- something like that.) And we have a lot of freedom with the dresses - so far, we're picking both style and color (when I talk about liking X number of the options available, I mean among all the dresses the store had on hand in my size to be tried on - we, not the bride, came up with our list of dresses we wanted to try on based on online browsing, and then the consultant suggested some others), and I think it would only be if she really hated what we each came up with that she'd ask us to choose a different color. I really don't see her deciding to have us choose my third choice (that was also on her sister's list) so we can be in the exact same dress unless we decided we were good with that. I think it looks better to have different dresses (same color is nice, though, so I'll try to agree with her sister on one), so I'm not leaning that way. Last night, she said she'd buy my crazy-ass bra if I liked that spaghetti strap/backless dress best, because she wants me to have the dress I want, but I explained the added expense of a special contraption for my breasts is just an annoyance -- it's that it's probably going to be uncomfortable that bugs me. Because I've never been a "one must suffer for fashion" person - bullshit; I want to look good, yes, but only if I'm also comfortable - but I really like this damn dress. My peeve is with me, and the fact that's the dress I like most (that was one of the consultant's suggestions - the other two that wound up making my top three were ones we had on our list - and I wanted to smack her with it when I wound up liking it). I need to go try one of those bustier-type bras on and see if I think I can spend hours in one, and then make my decision on the dress. So, it's not bad, but I do find the tradition of bridesmaids paying for their own dresses weird; even with the latitude we have in choosing, I'm still being put in a costume rather than just showing up in a nice dress from Macy's that I can also wear to cocktail parties. The whole wedding industry is one big crock to me, really. She's spending more on my treatments at our spa day (and it's the spa I go to, so I'm getting the exact thing I'd normally treat myself to as a gift from her) than I'm spending on a dress (plus, I get good food and drink at the reception; I did the tasting with them, so I know the menu options are good), so, even if you want to reduce it down purely to finances, I come out ahead. I'm not annoyed with her, just the whole idea of this production, but I knew I would be going in (which is why I tried to say no, but she explained that it was important to her for me to be the one standing there with her, and I decided that was much more important than my issues with marriage in general and weddings specifically). And hers is so much less of a production than what's typical these days - in terms of the wedding itself, and the fact I did not have to do a shower or bachelorette party at all - so I only complain here (well, and to my mother; she's my mom, it's her job to listen to me complain <g>). I want her to like the look of the event and of the pictures, and enjoy herself, so, since she's not an "It's my day!" Bridezilla, I'm going with the flow in real life.

There are several ways they can go with David not accompanying the rest of the family for their move back to Lanford (necessitated by Galecki's lack of availability, but also really easy to write for two characters who got married as teenagers, and because of a fetus); Darlene's relocation is - per the released clip of the first episode - positioned as resulting not just from her losing her job (and who the hell would move from Chicago to Lanford for better employment opportunities?!), but also that things are going to hell at home -- Dan and Roseanne are rationing their medications, Roseanne and Jackie aren't speaking -- so they can write Darlene and David as divorced, legally separated, or even less formally taking a break/living separately due to circumstances, and any which way will feel organic.

Today's peeve: the bridesmaid dress I like best is a) the most expensive and b) would require me to buy a strapless/backless bra (extra expense, plus uncomfortable) because it only has spaghetti straps (the others have tank straps) and a low back. Yes, the world's most reluctant maid of honor finally sucked it up and spent a couple of hours trying on dresses; I found three possibilities in all that - the one I like and two I could be satisfied with. Of course I didn't like any of the knee- or tea-length options, which I could maybe, possibly, probably not but conceivably wear again; it's going to be a long dress I'll wear to the wedding and promptly donate. Sigh; a disposable dress. Which wouldn't be quite so annoying if I'd liked any of the options that were only about $100, but of course not. The bride's sister was supposed to go today, too, but I haven't heard yet what she found (she's on the opposite side of the country). My third choice is one that she'd suggested when we were looking online, so if she likes that one in person, we could go that route and have totally matching dresses. I'd rather stick with same color, two different styles, or coordinating colors, different styles, as we've been talking about, but it's not my wedding (thank the universe). I just greatly look forward to the three of us making a decision on style(s) and color(s), buying the damn dresses, and not having to talk about it anymore! I also got to pick my massage, facial, and mani/pedi for our spa day (the day before the wedding) this morning, so that's something to look forward to. And as I was walking in for my appointment, there were two women walking out, one of whom was wearing a baseball cap that had "Bride to Be" written in bling. I had a moment of appreciation I could be dealing with a lot worse.

I've read that in real life, one has to have already carried and be raising a child in order to be a surrogate. So that would mean the pregnancy she announced as the show drew to a close would be real, and she has at least one child. But we've only seen Harris, Mark, and Mary in promos and on-set photos so far, so they may be ignoring that season nine pregnancy (and real-life surrogacy requirements, if what I've seen posted is universally true) and writing Becky as child-free in the revival. In real time, she could have had that kid and she/he be off at school or otherwise living elsewhere now, to explain the absence, but with the way they've aged down Harris, that Becky/Mark kid would also have to age down, and thus should be with her if she/he existed. From the clip of episode one, I get the vibe she doesn't have a kid, but we'll see.

Three TS surprised me tonight: Queen, horses, and autumnal equinox. For the last one, I fully expected someone to say "equinox" and get a BMS prompt, or maybe improperly guess vernal equinox instead, but I never would have expected no one to think of "equi" given that detailed explanation that all but included the word "equal." The horse clue in the Jeep category was another one where I thought it was easy to reason your way to it, without actually needing to know the fact. And Queen, as others have said, was pretty much there via process of elimination, especially once one contestant ruled out Bishop -- another one where you didn't need to know it, but could reason your way to it. FJ was very easy for me; CA and the year meant it pretty much had to be a tech company, and the wording of the clue made it obvious to me it was a company where the founders' names were not in the name of the company. So, it was the two Steves' Apple as the obvious answer. I loved the medical specialties category; that has always been on my list of dream categories -- I know more about medicine than the average bear, but not so much that I can over-think a clue, so I almost always get medical clues (terminology, specialties, diseases, etc.) correct. I also know a lot about space, so the solar system category was right up my alley, too. I vaguely remember watching The Flinstones, but apparently retained a lot of it, because I ran that category, too.

I just looked at some videos, stills, and synopses from an article posted in the Revival thread, and it turns out she's cleaning (in the second episode) because she's bringing Andrea (Sarah Chalke, the woman for whom she's going to be a surrogate) over to meet the family later, and wants things to look better than they are (thus getting rid of all the fat pictures). In a clip from the first episode, we learn that she's not living there (she's giving Darlene grief about moving back in with mommy and daddy).

Ah, so Becky isn't living with Dan and Roseanne, only Darlene has moved back home. Cool. Of course, that's just the first episode - who know where everyone will be by the last one.

It's ham-fisted as hell, but the episode doesn't bother me; I remember very well how different the America portrayed on TV in the '80s was from the one that actually existed, especially when it came to the rise in homelessness at that time, so I appreciated the shows that tried to bring attention to the problem. I wish they weren't so Very Special Episode-y about it, but I give points for trying. Especially this one, including the vulnerability of senior citizens to homelessness.

I love when she shuts him down when he starts to complain about his parents not being around much. She was such a stereotypical old woman character, but they played off each other so well it was enjoyable in spite of that.

Back when local news was watchable. I met him in the mid-nineties when he was at KCAL, because a friend worked there briefly; he seemed like a personable guy. And, yes, they did love to tease him about being in Independence Day (whether journalists should ever play themselves/fictional reporters on TV/film is a point of contention in the profession).

We have a fair number of holidays that are not on a set date every year, but on the first or last [day] of a set month. Thanksgiving being a prime example -- it's the fourth Thursday in November. Mother's Day is the second Sunday in May, and Father's Day the third Sunday in June.

You just gave me a moment's panic - Mother's Day is in May here, and I know that, just as I know you're in England, but for a second I thought we were days away and I hadn't made any plans for my mom. (Instead of a gift, I take her somewhere each year - a meal and a museum, gallery, play, or something - and then my dad and I make dinner at my parents' house.)