Bastet

That is a great moment. I also think Dan in the bedroom saying, "She's going to get pregnant, she's going to forget all about school -- This is it! This is her life!" is so poignant. Although he's generally happy with the choices he made about getting married young, settling into work, and starting a family, he wants his kids to make choices that give them more options. He's terrified she's going to slip into what's comfortable, and wind up stuck. His "I want my daughter back, I want my bike shop back, I want things back the way they were before I screwed it all up" is equally moving. And I love the tension break with Roseanne reassuring him he didn't screw up, and Becky doesn't blame him, concluding with a frustrated shout of, "She's really, really happy right now!" and saying, "Wait a few years until this whole marriage thing goes to hell, and then she'll blame you." And I like that Becky's plan is not entirely stupid. Not her brightest idea, certainly, just not completely without thought. Things didn't work out like they'd planned (go figure), but Mark had a good job waiting for him, one that would let him in the union. She was going to get her GED and then go to community college in Minneapolis instead of Lanford. It would have been better to let Mark go do his thing (like she'd been planning to do once Darlene talked some sense into her), but him asking her to marry him and come with him and her saying yes isn't as ridiculous as it appears at first glance. (And I love that she tells Roseanne getting married was Mark's idea, and he didn't have to ask -- it's not like he's marrying her for her inheritance. Roseanne's reluctant little chuckle and, "Good one" is great.)

It drives me crazy to see them not wearing masks while operating.

No clue how that happened, since I saw the right URL pop up in the link box when I pasted, but I fixed it for future reference (and am glad you found it anyway).

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That good-bye between Becky and Darlene is perfect. And the extra comedic relief of D.J. tossing a "Bye!" over his shoulder as he runs past ("I hope you know how hard that was for him") is great, too - as was how excited he was to see her when she came home. It was so nice seeing a family on TV who clearly loved each other without having to speak as if they were Hallmark cards come to life. Sarcasm and snark among families is a lot more prevalent on TV now than it was then; the "shouty" sitcoms of the '70s that attempted to inject some realism into the presentation of family life were refreshing, and then there was a lot of gloss in the '80s, with some beautiful exceptions like this show.

I finally watched the season premiere, and didn't miss Chris at all. The equipment test of the paper towel holders annoyed me; Adam spent all that time on what was wrong with the rejects, and then explaining why the tension arm was best -- but he never demonstrated how it worked when tearing off a towel. He'd shown how the standard arm doesn't let you tear off a towel one handed once the roll is down a fair bit (because now there's too much space in between), but didn't show how the tension arm worked so much better. And while I have no doubt the tension design works great for holding the roll in place while you tear off a sheet, I wanted to see if it created too much resistance while you were pulling on the roll -- did it drag? It was just very disappointing not to see the winner demonstrated; it would have added very little time to the segment, and any extra time could have easily been taken from all the grousing about the designs that didn't pass muster. I liked the cast-iron steak with compound butter segment, though; I have a NY strip steak, which isn't my favorite cut, in the freezer. I don't normally make sauce for steaks, because I just want to taste the seasoned meat, but that butter sounded delicious and, since it's not my favorite cut, I'd be more inclined to add a sauce. So I think I'll defrost the steak next week and cook it the way they did. I was surprised they took it off the heat at 120 degrees, though; for medium rare, I take mine off at 130.

Hmm, do we live close enough for me to come dispose of your bugs? (I won't kill them, though, just relocate them - unless they're dangerous.) FlyingEgret, I'm so sorry about Selena's diagnosis, but very glad to hear she's feeling like her old self again. I think you are making the right choice; "If it was someplace other than the kidneys, I'd recommend treatment" is not an uncommon phrase in talking about feline cancer. I wish you two much more good time together.

If I could only get pizza delivered, I'd be cranky. I cook probably 90% of the time, but I also love being able to just pick up the phone and have someone bring food to me. One of the things I most appreciate about my neighborhood and its surrounding ones is how many good independent little restaurants there are, and most of them deliver -- I can get Chinese, Thai, Italian, Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. (I'm particularly excited about having a Mexican restaurant that delivers, because that has never happened to me before -- and it is delicious, authentic Mexican food [I like American Mexican food, too - just not Tex Mex - but I love the real thing].) There are a couple of sandwich places that deliver, which is nice for when I don't really have anything in the house to make for lunch, but don't want to stop working - or get into real clothes - to go grab something.

So am I. I have significant issues with Sixteen Candles, such that I can only watch it by fast-forwarding through certain scenes, but, although The Breakfast Club is less offensive on its face, Sixteen Candles is somehow the one I'd watch more readily/more often of the two.

Yep, and that's the kind of situation where you'd still get a decent number of people determined enough to pry open a locked tank cover, so shit could still happen should gas become a crazy-hot commodity again. It's the "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if I put X in the gas tank" punks too young to grasp the potentially serious consequences that are stymied by not having easy access. And, jeez, remember how long the lines at the gas station were at that time? One would think that with only, say, half the local driving population eligible for gas on a given day, things would work out, but it was chaos.

So some obnoxious kid can't decide to pull a very expensive "prank" by pouring something in your tank. Anyone who really wanted to get in could pry it open, obviously, but it eliminates the mischief risk.

And where a male/female couple consists of one cuddle sleeper and one normal sleeper, on TV it will always be the woman who wants to cuddle and the man who wants to be able to sleep without someone breathing on him or restricting his movement.

“We have the bad guy on camera”? Not the suspect? The subject? The bad guy? I think next week I’m going to record the show, so I can fast-forward through the cops and just watch Fire Rescue and see if I like it more. Because I’ve tried for weeks now, but I just can’t hang with this. I don’t much like the cops, other than Roni (and in the case of the Robb/Bethany duo, I really kind of hate them). And there’s too much of the cops (probably because the producers are in love with the aerial footage) and not enough of the others; I don’t enjoy seeing people get arrested, I enjoy seeing people get helped. I find the editing suspect. I just don’t dig this show, period. I’ve only spent a day in Tampa, while I’ve been to New Orleans a few times for a combined total of nearly a month, so I figured that disparity was a significant factor in why I view the people of New Orleans more fondly than the people of Tampa, but this show isn’t doing anything to make me want to give Tampa more time. In fact, at times, it feels like a deliberate attempt to make the people of Tampa – other than the police/fire rescue folks featured – look bad. I loved the paramedic dealing with the meth addict, congratulating her on quitting for herself, too, rather than just for her kids. They also did well with the cardiac patient who refused to go to the hospital – being frustrated, but also compassionate. (And dude was correct that he was fine; the EKG was normal, and then it turned out the defibrillator was misfiring.) Happy to have an extended commentary of an old New Orleans episode on now; that will undoubtedly be more interesting to me than the new Tampa episode.

I would need a Roku or Amazon stick; my TV isn't set up for that (and I will not watch programming on my 19-inch computer monitor). They're gone enough that I get my fix often enough -- I just have to make sure they're gone every time a new season of this show is released.

I watch this show quite sporadically, so I don't know -- has that ever happened before, where someone did not get a single bite of food on any of the plates? I felt embarrassed for him - although he handled himself well in front of the judges - but he never once went into hurry-up mode. He clearly realized at several points along the way before it was just too late that he was working too slowly, yet never sped up. That pissed me off so much! "That's an excuse, isn't it?" No, asshole, that's an explanation. Same here; I thought she'd put forth the best dishes overall, and was surprised - and quite annoyed - when they crowned the other guy the winner (especially because they mentioned those damn bowls as one of the reasons).

What you need to look at is calories; the average cat needs 200 calories per day. (Riley is a smaller-framed cat, and only gets 180 -- when I fed her 200, she got too big.) With the timeline, I would suspect something in the food irritating his digestive system. You said there had been no changes in his diet, but he's getting people food nightly -- is it the same people food each night, or something different depending on what you had for dinner? Try eliminating the people food and see what happens.

"Too thick, Becky?" "I think I just broke a rib."

Okay, no hairballs, but what is in the puke -- regurgitated food? If so, and these early-morning puke fests are after he's been served breakfast, he's probably eating too much at once, and it comes back up. If that's what is happening, you'll have to put down a little bit of a food at a time rather than giving him access to the whole meal at once.

Oh my, not that I often hear Pump Up the Jam anymore, but ever since that episode, whenever I do, I picture that scene. Dan's non-verbal observation, plus Becky's embarrassment at having been caught -- terrific.

I just can't with, as they say, blended Scotch whisky (single malt, please), but I do keep a bottle on hand for guests who want to ruin Scotch with several other ingredients; it has long been Johnnie Walker, and, after this commercial, it will probably long continue to be.

"Thick thick?" Such a beautiful moment; we'd seen Becky give Roseanne the silent treatment, with how both parties were right and wrong and how hurtful the punishment was, and here we see the same thing instigated by a parent. And, yes, I love that the reconciliation is a milkshake and a goofy handshake to accompany a brief conversation, plus a sarcastic remark by a disgusted Darlene, rather than some overwrought I love you, you love me blubbering.

In that era (when it comes to mainstream media), marrying a man was a quirk for a brother to have. As was cross dressing.

Yeah, I have never once opted for full-serve instead of self-serve, because a) I am not paying extra for it, and b), even if it was the same price, I'd rather just do it myself and be done lickety-split.

Are you sure that's what is going on? Because if everyone excludes this person in recent years, even freezing out people who mention her/him, yet other seniors are invited, there must be something more than "Old people, yuck" behind the exclusion. So if there is some horrible witch hunt by the whole rest of the family against this one relative going on, I think you should get your righteous indignation on and tell all those people about themselves; stand up for the unfairly maligned (and take the poor black sheep on a nice little outing the day of the baptism; the two of you have a good time together and to hell with the rest of 'em). But if there isn't some ugly reason behind all this, I think you need to allow for the fact other family members feel differently about this person than you do (they don't have to be close to or even like someone just because they're related to them), and either attend or stay home based on your interest in celebrating the occasion, but otherwise stay out of it. You obviously know the people involved and I don't, so all I can go on is what you've detailed. And I read it and think, okay, they're not close to this person and thus didn't invite her/him. Or maybe they're assholes. And then I read more and think, okay, so a bunch of people stopped inviting her/him four years ago -- perhaps something happened, and there's a reason she/he is persona non grata. Or maybe they're assholes. So if they're all being assholes, I'm in favor of trying to figure out why they up and decided to be that way four years ago. I'm just saying that, from the few details described, there's nothing that points strongly to asshole from this outsider's perspective.

I don't think their guest list is your business, and thus wouldn't find it appropriate to question them further on why this person isn't invited; you already asked if you could invite this person (which wasn't your place to do), and they said no. If the exclusion of this family member is for offensive reasons, and truly is cold and cruel, I think it's great to say you won't be attending and why. Complete with Julia Sugarbaker-style verbal take-down or Dorothy Zbornak-style zinger, should you so choose. But that's not clearly indicated here; just because you would invite this person, or can't think of a reason they wouldn't, doesn't mean they don't have a reason that's a perfectly logical pruning of the guest list. You say this person has been left out of all family events. Just those hosted by the relatives in question, or everyone in the family who has hosted an event? (And, yes, people absolutely can invite you to a family event without inviting your wife and child, just as you can decide whether to attend alone or take offense and cut ties. Because depending on the nature of the event and/or the reason only you were invited, it may be perfectly logical to exclude spouses and/or kids, or it may be some serious bullshit.)