Bastet

Exactly; one shouldn't have to personally "get" a bond to understand that one exists - I can't stand being around children, but I don't have trouble grasping the fact that parents love theirs very much - but even where one truly is baffled that someone cares so much about a living creature, keep the "It's just a pet; who cares?" thoughts unvoiced. As an analogy, I am afraid of snakes (for no legitimate reason, but phobias are by definition irrational). Like with children, I don't hate snakes or want bad things to happen to them, but I don't like them and do not want to be around them. I have never and will never experience a loving bond with a snake. But when I recently watched a vet show and saw a woman deeply distraught because her snake had been injured and she feared the worst, I didn't say, "It's just a snake; who cares?" She cares, obviously. Shifting gears, this morning was one of those times where Riley's actions were so perfectly timed with my words, it looked for all the world like we were having a conversation: Me, arriving with supplies for breakfast in bed: Ready for breakfast? Riley: [rises, stretches, and moves into position] Me: Do you know how lucky you are? Riley: [shakes head] Me, as I'm tearing up the chicken breast I poached last night to add to her food to entice her to eat a decent meal: Well, let me tell you a story. There are kitties all over the land who have to get up and walk to a bowl to get their breakfast. Riley: [cocks head at me] Me: And when they get there, it's all cat food; there's no people food. Riley: [meows with her mouth closed, so it sounds kind of like a whimper] Me: I know; the horror. The shaming worked, though; she ate all her food with only a little bit of chicken needed.

Holy crap with this, well, crap. I came into this thinking the celebrity edition would be worth watching because, while it and the regular series are fundamentally the same - a bunch of people playing the role of incompetent chef and vying for air time - professional entertainers are better than those looking to jump start their 15 minutes of what passes for fame these days. And, hey, at least the money goes to charity. But, great googly moogly, the producers seem to trust their experienced talent even less than their Central Casting finds, and have gone berserk with the forced segments. By all means, make a mastication joke - I can still laugh remembering the inevitable but funny jokes that ensued after John Madden referenced masticating a turkey during one of the Thanksgiving games - but don't run it into the ground. And the sound effects are even worse than the repetitive jokes. The novelty of actually recognizing one contestant isn't enough; Henny Youngman would groan at these one-liners, so I definitely can't hang.

As I've noted, I am not remotely a "royal watcher," but on the night (my time) of Diana's funeral (London time), I had just come home and wasn't tired or in the mood to read, so with nothing else catching my attention on TV, I opted to watch the funeral. I will forever remember two things from the trek through the streets: the "Mummy" card on the coffin and the angry look on Harry's face. William seemed to be going someplace within himself (or hiding behind his bangs) to get through it, but Harry looked angry at the world. As anyone in his position - having lost his mother at a young age and being forced to parade in front of the world - had every right to be. I really felt for him, because I'm sure that's the head space I'd have been in under the circumstances. I found it hopeful to learn in this documentary that Harry is so aware of the extent to which he shut down his feelings for a long time and still needs to fully deal with them. I think he'll confront it all to its full extent in his own time; that he recognizes what he has and hasn't processed is a great sign.

I thought they tasted far more like the inside of the can they came in than anything resembling cheese (or even cheez), so I don't think you missed anything, but they do seem to have an enthusiastic group of mourners.

You're ahead of me; I didn't know any of them.

I had to call both Vanguard and Citibank this morning, and it's a good thing I didn't put any money on my hunch, because going in I was fully expecting the call with Vanguard to be straightforward and the one with Citibank to be an argument, and it was the exact opposite. And, yes, we are obviously talking First World Problem here, but my fundamental peeve was that the Vanguard rep didn't know one basic thing and gave me wrong information on another (both of which I had to correct her on, but had I been equally ignorant, she could have really messed things up for me) and when it turned out they couldn't do things the way I'd been told they could, which cased a timing issue for me, I'm the one who had to come up with a solution. You shouldn't be employed to assist on brokerage accounts and not know/get wrong the stuff she screwed up. And she's been there for eons, I've just never needed to deal with her before. I won't be dealing with her tomorrow when I follow up, that's for sure. (I have to follow up with Citibank on Friday, so the opportunity for hassle remains, but for now they're on my "Wow, I just had a completely pleasant transaction with a major corporation" list. It's a short list.)

In order to get back to some home improvement projects, I first need to clear out and reorganize my workbench and garage in general so I have room to work. Since it's hot anyway, when I was done with work this afternoon I figured I may as well sweat and be productive, so that's what I've been doing for an hour or so. And I just unearthed two files that I looked "everywhere" for two years ago and couldn't find. (I have my work files and most of my personal files in my home office, but paperwork on things that are in the garage, yard, or bonus room attached to the garage are in a filing cabinet in the garage.) For some reason, the garage is the place where I am incredibly lax about putting things back where they belong when I'm done with them (maybe because I often think I'm going to use them again later in the project, or am in a hurry to fix something). Instead, I set them down, and then if I'm not diligent about it, months have gone by and I've set more and more things down, and then I just give up until much longer has gone by and I truly can't work in there anymore without taking the time to put everything back right. So things can get pretty buried, and these files did. Obviously I figured out the info I needed back then without the manuals, but I remember the time I spent looking for them. Obviously in all the wrong places. But now they're back where they belong, and I've unearthed the flat surface I use for painting things (it's a piece of plywood about seven feet long by three feet wide, sitting on saw horses and covered with an old bedskirt). Progress! There is still the case of the vanishing pipe wrench, though. One disappeared seven or eight years ago, and I've cleaned/organized multiple times since then, as well searched under the house, up in the attic crawl space, behind the water heater, etc. and that thing is nowhere to be found. There's a screwdriver I know is under the house and an ice pick I know is in the attic space and I just have to get them next time I have cause to crawl to the sections they're in (no way I'm going in either space just to retrieve those items), but the pipe wrench is a total mystery to me. I have one smaller and one larger, but always seemed to wind up wanting one the size of the missing one, so I finally bought a replacement several years back, figuring the first one would promptly turn up, but no dice. Okay, water break over; back to work. Damn.

Oh my, this would be me if I traveled full time -- I hate going into unfamiliar grocery stores! I don't particularly enjoy grocery shopping under normal circumstances (it's fine, so long as I can go when there aren't many people - especially of the child variety - in there, but I don't go so far as to like it), and to have to wander around guessing where things are, double back when I guess wrong, etc. shoots it all the way over to substantial irritant.

It's frightening to me how many people don't know. I was showing a friend how to do some plumbing repairs at her house, and told her to go shut off the water. She had no idea where it was. When that story came up at a party, half the people involved in the conversation didn't know, either. Water, gas, electric - know how to cut the supply! Same here. It's my least favorite repair category; lots of F bombs, indeed.

My condolences on the loss of your dad, @DeLurker. My grandpa died in his sleep at 89; he was ready, and it was time. It was still sad to be without him, but I was very grateful for the peaceful end he had. I'm glad your dad's peaceful passing is giving you comfort, too. It's still a difficult time, and I'll be thinking of you.

It sounds like they're fine, because the only thing their Facebook says about the flooding is "Cy-Fair Animal Hospital is collecting supplies for the various local rescue groups who will be heading to the flood zones. We are wanting to aide in these efforts!"

No shade felt, and I own the "Um, really?" nature of my ignorance on this. With pop culture, I'm increasingly like I am with parallel parking -- I've generally got it, and I've even been known to maneuver into a spot that looks smaller than my car, but sometimes I wind up sticking half out into a lane because I somehow missed a wide open space. Halsey is that big, empty stretch of curb, because I got nothing.

It was quite a moment to see Olson snap during a game. Pete Carroll took such a shine to him when he was a young fan, inviting him to take part in so many team events, then fast forward to when Sarkissian signed him to a scholarship, and now Helton gave him the chance to finally take the field.

I'm not the original poster, but I hadn't heard the name Halsey until this thread either, and those lyrics didn't ring a bell, so I Googled to bring up a video for the song, and, nope, never heard it. So then I looked at her Wikipedia page, and she's been around for several years, so I don't know how I've missed hearing about her/hearing her songs, but I have, because none of them that I looked up rang a bell. I'll have to give her a listen.

During a booze-soaked movie night several months back, a friend and I watched that for the first time since back when it first came out (when we both found it quite funny), to see what we thought of it now. We were mostly sitting there either mildly chuckling or wondering when it was going to get good, and then we hit the speed boat scene. We laughed so hard we were crying and choking.

I'm making chicken stir fry tonight, too. I'm marinating the chicken in peanut oil, lime juice, garlic, and ginger, and will stir fry with snow peas and bean sprouts. That wasn't what I was going to make tonight (I was going to make shrimp tacos), but I found the bean sprouts I'd forgotten about in the crisper, and they need be used ASAP and I'll be gone tomorrow night, so I defrosted some chicken and marinated for stir fry.

I remember that link from when the commercial first started airing. This is the sort of thing where it's incredibly frustrating to me that, among the many people an ad campaign passes through, no one considered the issue (or did and dismissed it). I think it's fantastic to show someone sleeping alone when you're showing a montage of people loving the bed you're pitching, and I imagine the reason we didn't see only couples was that it wouldn't be an accurate slice of life montage that way and could be offensive to those who are perfectly content (or, even prefer, as in my and others' cases) not to share their nice, comfy bed with another human being yet are frequently ignored or presented as sad and lonely because of that. Similarly, the racist stereotypes about black woman enumerated in that video/article aren't any big secret, either, so whatever the initial intention (conscious or subconscious) in casting, how did it not occur to any one of those numerous people that having the one singleton be a black woman - especially one with her skin tone and hair - was potentially perpetuating a horrible, ongoing stereotype and thus, hey, we don't want to be part of that?

Typical USC - open the season against an opponent they should beat the ever-loving hell out of, start strong, and then just quit playing. At least this time they got it together in the end so as not to start off with a loss, but this is getting old.

Coincidentally, this came up in recent conversation, so it's fresh in my mind; it's dyscalculia, and it's a mathematics disorder, so in the most simplistic terms it's referred to as the math equivalent of the reading disorder dyslexia. I did only a cursory search for articles to find a good explanation, gave up on evaluating them, and will just post this from Mental Floss.

To which I respond by yelling at the TV, "Whatever the hell you want it to be!" The kitchen and bathrooms can't be anything else without significant remodeling, but pretty much everything else can be used however the buyer wants. Bedrooms, obviously, but even rooms intended as living rooms or dining rooms can be used in a different way if someone wants. If you want a library, gym, game room, office, sewing/craft room, meditation room, whatever - pick a room and furnish it that way. I know a buyer can walk into a room and because of its layout, it being an additional room beyond the number she or he was looking for, etc. and think, "Hm, what would I do with this?" But the flummoxed or indignant, "What is this supposed to be?" reaction needs to go.

Thanks for posting that; it explained well why I rejected the show based on just a few scattered episodes. "Adorkable misogyny" is a good phrase for how the male characters' harassing, manipulative, entitled behavior towards women is presented as kind of pathetic, but harmless and even kind of endearing; just another personality quirk. I also like the rejection of the writers' use of lampshading to try and get away with the sexism and bigotry.

I never felt any sexual tension between Mark and Susan. They had nice friendship chemistry together, and I felt a little bit of a crush - and then, after his marriage fell apart, a yearning to slip into something comfortable and familiar - from Mark, but I never felt any desire from Susan. So that stuff at the end of her (first) tenure felt forced to me.

I don't remember the others by title and don't care enough to look them up, but I liked The Supremes, so I'm going to briefly jump back in to cast another vote ranking it number one. If me not ranking the rest causes tabulation problems, here you go (ranking based on the order in which I like the titles): 2. Eppur Si Muove 3. Shutdown 4. Talking Points

I didn't see that one, but Jason Biggs is the actor from American Pie. I checked his IMDb page and, yes, he appeared on an episode early this year.

Did my ears deceive me (increasingly possible; those assholes seem determined to chase after my eyes in the deterioration race), or did the chef eliminated in the first round keep saying "melody" instead of "medley." I was yelling at her through the TV to yank those radishes and carrots off the plate. I think the leeks could have worked, but the rest was too much. I love seafood pizzas, so I pretty much drooled throughout round two.