Bastet

I have no idea what that fourth thing would be - there were ribs, slaw, and mac & cheese on that plate. They didn't like any of them, although they didn't dislike the ribs. That still puts him fairly even with Fatima - they didn't like her nachos, and they didn't like either of his dishes. So does the fact he made two things and didn't succeed with either one tip the scales in favor of eliminating him, or does the fact he did more than she did tip the scales in favor of eliminating her? I suspect they disliked her nachos a little more than they disliked his mac & cheese, and the slaw was a non-factor (individually; as part of deciding how the teams performed, the fact Joe and Adrienne put forth three elements that went together would be contrasted with the fact Fatima and Bruce put two completely separate dishes together).

Yeah, I don't care whether someone is an asshole or decides to present themselves as one - either thing makes them a jerk, and I dislike both equally. I had Katsuji's food once (at Mexiosher), and it was good (nothing to get excited about, but good), but after seeing him on the show, I grab food elsewhere when I'm in that part of town. He's not worth my money.

What did he make that they liked? I thought they found each element less than it should be been: the ribs (Adrienne) were the least flawed (I think there was only one thing they didn't like about them), then the slaw (I have no idea who made that), then the mac & cheese (Joe). I'm so used to that, it took me a moment to realize four people were up for elimination; Joe and Adrienne's dish came in last, so someone on their team would be eliminated, and that would clearly be Joe. (When deliberating about who of the four should go, they immediately dismissed Adrienne, because the ribs weren't great, but they weren't elimination-worthy compared to the others.) So when I realized they were talking about who among the bottom four, not bottom two, would go home, I got nervous for Fatima.

Yes, I really meant either/or - whether it's a power miter saw or miter box with hand saw, if you can lay your hands on one, you can do the job. And, hey, with the miter box you get a little workout for your arm at the same time. I liked playing with clay as a child; maybe that's why I like it? But, depending on the extent of the damage, especially at a corner, it may not be worth messing with. I'd get twitchy looking at chewed up wood, so when I hit this "They seem to be done, but I'm not sure" stage of chewing, I'd go for the temporary fix just so I wouldn't react every time I walked in the room. But if that wasn't an issue and/or the damage was such it would take me more time to repair it (because that, too, is several steps) than replace it, I'd just wait until I was confident it would be left alone, and replace then.

I didn't see the episode, but that sounds awful. For me, a sitting area in a bedroom is a total waste, as I do not sit in my bedroom. So, if I needed more room to store clothes than the existing closets provided (unlikely; I manage with the original closets of my 1938 bedroom, so I can make do in most situations), and there was an area of the bedroom that would just exist there serving no purpose, turning it into a closet would be logical. But, goodness, turn it into a closet, don't just shove clothes into that area and leave it unenclosed. How ugly that must be.

All you need to know is how to use a miter saw. Unless you're someone whose brain just doesn't compute the angles, or don't have/can't rent a miter saw, it's an easy job - measure, cut, nail, fill, sand, prime, paint, done. For now, I'd do the wood putty fix. Replace later when you're confident the dogs won't eat your not-so-hard work.

In that wonderfully brutal fight in the season eight finale (after the heart attack, when it turns out he's not doing any of the things he's supposed to do to protect himself against having another one) - he calls the girls failures, and says it's because Roseanne failed as a mother. (Of course, with that turning out to just be part of the book, that wasn't something he actually said, but something Roseanne wrote him as saying - that fight becomes even more intense to me when I look back on it through that lens, as Roseanne working through her own doubts about herself as a wife and mother in the aftermath of Dan's death - and, depending on what the revival keeps and doesn't keep from the "some of this was fiction" reveal, who knows what its status will ultimately be. But, at the time, that's when their gripe with each other's parenting - namely, her doing/having to do the bulk of it - reached its apogee.)

That's one way to make Graham Elliot more tolerable, indeed, but I could happily go the rest of my life without either twit appearing on my screen again.

Which is why I would love for that final shot to be, at long last, the wrap-up of the damn William storyline.

I like the symmetry in the storyline of the first two episodes, where the divide between the decision makers on Galactica is mirrored in the emerging divide between the final four, and what winds up being a bloody civil war between the six remaining models on the basestar. That last part is now another part of what the hybrid in Razor said coming true, so what does that mean for the fact he said following Kara would lead to humanity's destruction? Interesting. Setting the hybrid's warning aside, since the characters don't know about it, I really like the muddy waters that on one hand Laura is the only one thinking clearly, because Bill and Lee are incapable of doing so when it comes to Kara – Kara is dead, yet she’s standing there on the ship; what can that be other than a cylon trick to lure them into an ambush if they follow her supposed path to Earth? But, on the other hand, what is the path they’re on based on? The idea it’s revealed to Laura by the gods through ancient texts and visions. So, really, there’s no science on either side; whose "miracle" do we indulge? There was a terrific deleted scene in He That Believeth in Me, in which Starbuck goes to talk with Athena, saying she now understands what it's like to have everyone stare at you with fear and suspicion, thinking of you as a thing rather than a person, and expecting to bond over that only to have Athena tell her she’ll be watching her closest of all, because she knows how the cylons operate; Helo wants to believe the best of everyone, but she thinks the president is right, and if it was up to Athena, she’d have tossed her out an airlock the moment she landed. It was a great scene on its own, and to give additional weight to the later scene with Sam, where Kara wonders if the cylons made her one of them when they had her on Caprica; the Starbuck/Athena scene was a nice bridge between her previous defiance to the very idea of being anything other than herself and this worry that she’s a cylon. But, even without that backdrop, the Kara/Sam scene is great, when he assures her that if she’s a cylon, she’s been one all along, it doesn’t change who she really is, and he’d love her no matter what – and she says if she found out he was a cylon, she’d put a bullet in his head. Hold that thought, Kara. Laura, who previously wouldn’t touch a gun, shooting at Kara was a great scene; of course if Madame Airlock believes her to be a cylon, and thus a threat to the human race’s survival, she’s going to pull the trigger. Did she miss because, as she said, doloxan fraks with your aim, or because, as Adama said, she had doubts? According to Moore, it's fate - Kara's destiny means Laura had to miss. Pah; I like the doloxan theory ... although, yeah, that was really close range. The conversation between Laura and Bill after that was incredible. Just sit back and watch two pros show you how it's done. The characters know each other so well, and are almost totally unguarded with each other by this point, so it’s this beautifully intimate thing as they start to talk, but it also means that when it gets ugly, it gets Ugly; they both quietly went for the jugular, and didn’t miss. Because of both the beautiful and the ugly, they felt married in that scene. And then when Laura is playing with her hair to soothe herself as she tries to get back to work, it starts falling out, and she finally gives into the tears? Heartbreaking. Lee moving from the military to the government is an interesting choice. There was a very obvious cut in his farewell on the hangar deck, something between him and Laura, so I was hoping for that to be included in the deleted scenes, but we just got Moore talking about it in the commentary – it dealt with the fact she hasn’t forgiven him for the stuff at Baltar’s trial, and Moore wanted the mood of the scene to be entirely celebratory, but it would have been dishonest for Laura to just be patting him on the back like everyone else, so they just skipped over any interaction between the two of them. With Lee going to be on the Quorum, I hope we’ll see that dynamic explored somewhere down the line, because how far their relationship has fallen since the Captain Apollo days is very interesting - and sad - to me. Baltar’s changing reaction to his acolytes and their lair was hilarious – from having no desire to be king of the fools, preferring being hated by everyone to being loved by that lot, to embracing his cult leader role as the latest extension of his child of god fantasy (with a stop off at once again asking someone to kill him and put him out of his misery, and it not happening). Other than the amusement, though, thus far I could do without that storyline, including another version of himself in his head and his thing with Tory, but we’ll see where it goes. Oh, and commentary revealed what that ship I asked about last season, the one with spokes and a ring that turns, is simply called the Big Ring ship by Moore, so I guess it does't have a real name. He always wanted to set a story inside it, so we could see what it's like to be in that spinning ring, but they could never afford it, so then every time he saw it in establishing shots he wanted to blow it up. But when they did the battle sequence in the season premiere and it got hit, he decided it should just be damaged, not destroyed; he couldn't let it go in the end.

The original post was about reboots of eponymous shows, though - Roseanne is a revival (as are Murphy Brown, The X-Files, and Will & Grace, but those aren't named after the stars like the cited Jerry Seinfeld, Lucille Ball, and Dick Van Dyke shows).

Ugh, Graham Elliot again; at least he and his stupid glasses were minimally featured. I was hoping Mustache Joe’s call home edit meant he was going to bite it, but, alas, it was a false alarm. Close, but no cigar. I fucking loved him being up for sudden death after the QF, especially for being pedestrian after shit-talking the basic nature of Carrie’s toast – which came out on top – though. It was interesting to see how two or three of the contestants seemed to be rooting for Other Joe in the sudden death round. And that some of the judges seemed pained to have to let him go, too. It was also interesting, given how popular it is to substitute cauliflower for a traditional ingredient, that all three dishes underwhelmed Tom. Padma grousing about pasta and polenta was my favorite part of the episode. In honor of this year’s Super Bowl, we’re catering to a team that couldn’t get into the big game with a ticket. I know, it was filmed in advance, but that just amused me. (As did hearing Chris talk about the Eagles, whom he probably had little real hope then of representing the NFC. I’m a Giants fan, so, boo – until they play the Patriots, and then I become a big fan for a day. Go Philadelphia!) I tripped on how large Carrie’s pot was; that was like a Scooby Doo witch’s cauldron. Her and Chris’s poutine looked good, even though fries aren’t my thing. They did seem to be the one team that remotely elevated typical tailgate food, so good for them. And winning Super Bowl tickets?! Hell, yeah! For both, but especially, in hindsight, for the Eagles fan. Fatima and Bruce’s paired dish didn’t seem a very good pair, and Fatima’s nachos on their own seemed like a blunder. Mustache Joe and Adrienne’s mac & cheese, ribs, and slaw, however, sounded like a nice mix in theory, but a soggy fried mac & cheese, and every other element also being less than it should be, although the ribs perhaps just a bit off? It’s hard to pick between Fatima and Mustache Joe without tasting the food. Personality, I’d save her every day and twice on Sunday. But this is about food, and their failures seemed pretty even if going just by nachos versus mac & cheese. Who, between Mustache Joe and Adrienne, did the slaw, or was at least primarily responsible for it?

Number one is Sophie's choice for me; they're both so versatile, and so delicious in those many incarnations. (Two is cats, hands down, and three is I don't; I've always loved those types of problems.) It's an obnoxious initial response if that's all there is, but I think it would have been a fun addendum to a profile - asking those who like the "regular" part of his profile to include those answers in their response.

I can - and do - watch the original two seasons of half-hour Scooby Doo, Where Are You? episodes regularly, and in perpetuity; I have that series on DVD and will with some frequency pop it in to fall asleep to (I'm usually coming home tipsy and/or so disgusted with the world I seek to return to childhood when I do). The two seasons of hour-long The New Scooby-Doo Movies episodes with cameos that followed I have on bootleg DVD, and will watch much more occasionally. After that, nope, altogether; I'm done after '75. And fuck Scrappy.

I thought you were referencing the little bit we saw of the blog in the episode in forming that opinion, so thanks for the clarification. So: Ah, yes - if that's on the site (and is something "official" rather than the fan-submitted stuff; I've no idea, as it's not the sort of thing I'm interested in checking out), that obviously casts a different light on Jackson's parents (which is a shame on several levels, IMO), but I indeed think that's something completely unintended by this episode, but something created later to fit in with a storyline developed after this was written and shot.

As someone who lives for football season, I'm fairly intrigued they stumbled upon three contestants who neither knew, nor studied in preparation for competing, some basic things, not to mention could not simply read the words of one clue and discern "offsetting." The Cowboys clue being a TS gave me a good laugh, though, since I fucking hate the Cowboys and the "America's Team" bullshit; not so much if none of the three could come up with it. I can't believe no one came up with non-partisan, especially when one contestant got them most of the way there by guessing bi-partisan - complete with Alex pausing to consider if that was close enough. I got some other stumpers, too (including the TV shows and FJ), but those and Lawrence of Arabia were the ones that surprised me.

I think if CC goes that route near the end, he - and you - will be picking up on something Wong had no intention of laying down. We know, via this interview, that Wong cast Jackson as a one-off, but Carter was taken with him and decided to incorporate him later somehow: Wong, as the parent of an adopted child, wanted to show that Jackson had enjoyed a good life with his parents: That's what I've always wanted, so I wouldn't want to see that fucked with.

That was rather the point, for me - neither one was wrong, so there was nothing to change. The situation was untenable, and that's what made it sad. They loved each other, they'd been married a long time and always made it work, but now they were in a situation where he couldn't quit/cut back on his hours and she couldn't live with a husband whose job realities meant their relationship was almost non-existent. He shouldn't quit (nor was she asking him to, another thing I love about the break-up -- no ultimatum). She shouldn't live like that. So it had to end.

Yep, Raul. He's memorable to me because his death was the only time I ever didn't want Shep off my screen.

I love that about it, too. It's much more mature and nuanced than what we normally see on television. I might want to fault Leo for being consistently absent and even forgetting their anniversary, but he's absolutely right that for the time Bartlet is in office this job is, indeed, more important than their marriage. Then I might want to be annoyed with her for not understanding, given how long she's been married to a politician, but she's not being irrational in saying she can't live like this; it would be impossible to have truly known how it was going to be in this position versus his previous ones, and spending up to eight years married to someone who is mostly only home to sleep is a big deal, so if after a year of that she knows she can't deal with it, that's fair. They're neither one wrong, and it simply can't work anymore. I prefer that so much to storylines where one party is clearly at fault in a break-up.

I'm kind of surprised more people don't do this (at least a granite backsplash, period, even if it doesn't go all the way up to the bottom of the cabinets), but that's because I don't like backsplashes that are different from the countertop. Tile countertop? Same tile for the backsplash. Granite countertop? Same granite for the backsplash.

Roseanne, The Golden Girls, Seinfeld, and Designing Women I could watch episodes of daily for the rest of my life and never get sick of. And when they're in syndication, I pretty much do watch daily. If Murphy Brown was on, or available on DVD beyond the first season, I'd be the same way with it. Now that Mom is in syndication, I'm watching a lot of that. Whenever I catsit at my parents' house, where there's Netflix, I watch Grace & Frankie. I am kicking myself for not recording Cold Case when it was in syndication, because I loved those weekly marathons. I used to watch Major Crimes a couple of times a week in addition to what was on air (first run and syndication), and hope to get back to that routine, but right now I'm still a little raw. There are a handful of The X-Files episodes that I've watched a gazillion times and will watch a gazillion more by the time I die. I recently did a re-watch of seasons one through seven and ten, my first in a very long time. I don't watch them as often, but every couple of years or so I'll re-watch Remington Steele (except the last "season"), Cagney & Lacey, My So-Called Life, Moonlighting (the first three seasons), Absolutely Fabulous (especially the original three seasons), Cybill, Sports Night, and The West Wing (first four seasons). I used to watch Scarecrow & Mrs. King on the same schedule, but the two times I tried in the last several years, I hated the show and gave up in short order. I go through moods with Reba; sometimes, I'm really into watching anything from seasons two or three over and over, and sometimes I'm not into the show at all.

Moore said in the commentary that Jacobsen asked him if she could use her native accent or if she had to do an American one, and he told her to speak the way she normally does - he doesn't want actors to have to concentrate on an accent rather than just perform organically (Jamie Bamber they made do an American accent only because Lee is Bill's son, and they didn't want to do a "well, the kids grew up elsewhere" storyline to explain them speaking completely differently - it was already enough of a stretch they'd cast a non-Hispanic actor). He expected the network to complain, because network execs always worry viewers won't understand accents or don't like listening to "foreign" accents, but not a peep. Maybe they'd already gotten over themselves when viewers didn't have any problem with Lucy Lawless's New Zealand accent.

Ha - and with that as her wrong guess, I did indeed think about the same thing. ("It's one of the ones about duty"/"They're all about duty.") But not knowing which one the "He is an Englishman" lyric came from is one thing, and not knowing buccaneers = the one with pirates in the title is another.

Sweet Home Alabama was on TV tonight for the umpteenth time, and I hate that movie other than a couple of scenes, but one of them - "People need a passport to come here" - was coming up, so I stopped and watched the bar scene and realized for the first time in all my years of watching bits and pieces of the film that Bobby Ray is Coyote. What a dumbass that I never put this together before.