Bastet

I hate this show - celebrity or otherwise - yet still find myself watching the finale for the food (and this time I also saw the first episode because I was with a friend who'd watched The Jersey Shore). So I come in with no frame of reference other than my opinion of the two charities at stake and the food prepared. With all due respect to The Red Cross, I was rooting for Anne's contestant because of her animal charity. Both meals sounded delicious upon explanation, and generally looked delicious upon execution. With the major exception of the cremated chicken from Anne's contestant. Oh my god. Chicken is something easy to overcook, and, unfortunately, given that fact, something that tastes like ass a mere few degrees over. But how did that happen, for her to cook it so over-done given the prep work and supervision? They showed both contestants budgeting times and setting alarms, and I can't imagine their mentors hadn't allowed for each alarm to ding at the point where there was room to either pull out/off the heat or keep cooking for an appropriate amount of time. So what happened with the Cornish game hen? The thermometer reading shown on screen was 180+, which is already inedible unless you have the greatest sauce in the history of cooking, and then there was a talking head in which she said something like she'd never before seen a temperature reading beginning with two. So her chicken was at least 200 degrees?! Gross. Rachael's contestant could have pissed on her entree and still won.

Mine normally has a cat-only waiting room for those who need/want it, but they're putting new stuff in there and it was kind of a construction zone today. I just cannot fathom bringing a dog into the vet's office without a leash (even if it wasn't against policy); even if his dog was seemingly unflappable - and he was quite mellow - there are other animals and people around, an exterior door opening and closing onto a busy street all day long -- too many unpredictable factors for the safety of his own dog, if nothing else.

Cool; I wonder when/where we'll get those episodes in the U.S.

Puffs. Today's peeve: I took Riley to the vet's office for a tech appointment to have her anal glands expressed, and while we were waiting (for 20 minutes past our appointment time), an unleashed dog belonging to the idiot down the bench from me wandered over and stood up with his front paws on the bench trying to press his nose right into Riley's carrier. I put one hand in front of the carrier where she was, and used the other to further block the dog. The dog was simply curious, but Riley is scared to begin with. It's one of the reasons the vet's office - like every other one I've ever used - has a policy (and a sign to that effect) that all pets must be leashed or in a carrier. The tech who was talking to this moronic owner is the one who came over to help lead the dog away; Moron just sat there. I told him, "Leash your dog." I asked her, "Please enforce your policy." She went and got him a leash -- which he took with him when he left.

"I noticed that you don't have an ATM." "Oh, them things. Russ don't want to put one in, on account of you lose personal contact with the customers." "Yes, that would be tragic." (Sweet Home Alabama - a movie I hate, but must admit has a few funny scenes.)

But because the average shopper is not more efficient than a trained cashier, studies performed a few years ago showed that, in general, if there are the same number of people with the same number of items in line at a regular checkout line and a self checkout line, the former will move faster (I don't recall by how much). I often see people able to just walk right up to an open scanner, though, so there is no issue with the speed of other shoppers. I won't use them because of the potential impact on employees; many have trouble getting adequate hours - and thus livable income - as it is, and it was understaffing that created the "demand" for self-checkout lanes in the first place. I don't have the energy, or data, to evaluate the net impact to employees at individual stores, so I avoid them full stop just in case. (And I do the bulk of my shopping at an independent store that doesn't have them, anyway.) I don't care what anyone thinks about my purchases, including potentially embarrassing items, and I don't mind idle reference to something I'm buying - maintaining the mandated level of conversation with customer after customer has got to be mind numbing - but it's probably quite easy to cross into inappropriate commentary even inadvertently, so everyone is better served by sticking to more generic topics. As for people who answer a stranger's polite inquiry into how they're doing with an honest answer, I know the proper response is instead an "I'm fine, thank you; and you?" but I have to admit those "Life sucks" answers crack me up.

Like Roseanne and Jackie on Roseanne, I like the moment when, upon hearing such a story, the parent briefly pauses to consider whether to get pissed off about something that happened decades ago, or to get over it and laugh it off now that everyone is still alive and all grown up.

I know language evolves, but humility still means "a modest view of one's own importance," right? Maybe he meant "humiliation," as in the national shame that such an odious man is a presidential candidate.

Bingo. Well, nothing quite that dramatic (I turn the motion detector off so the porch light won't go on), but, no, I don't participate. I don't like kids, so spending an evening being interrupted by random ones does not sound like something society can reasonably ask me to endure. (I rarely went trick-or-treating as a kid - I thought it was dumb - so I don't feel like I have a debt to repay or anything.) Besides, it's Monday. That's a football night. But if there are any little girls roaming my neighborhood in pants suits, I hope they got good candy!

It was rightly overshadowed by her eloquent explanation of how horrifying and hurtful Trump's words and actions towards women are, but I loved when Michelle Obama said plainly that Hillary is more qualified than any presidential candidate in our lifetime -- more than Bill, more than Barack.

I've never heard of trick-or-treating during daylight. I disable the motion detector so my porch light won't go on, and for extra measure I don't hang out in the front room of the house (so it's dark) -- I do not do Halloween. I don't like kids, so I have no interest in spending an evening giving candy to random ones. I'll be out in my game room watching football.

Oh, speaking of cute penguins, watch this to the end (with your sound on):

Heh; I like DeLurker's answer. But it's basically your own little cubicle on the airplane. You have a seat (that turns into a bed), a little table, your entertainment center, etc. and it's all encased in some sort of partial "wall." Lots of different configurations, depending on airline/aircraft, but that's the general idea. I like the fairly simple one on Virgin Atlantic.

I'll get even more first world and say my peeve is that those pods are getting worse with each redesign. They're comfortable as beds, and the privacy is definitely nice, but they're on the verge of uncomfortable as seats on some aircraft because of how narrow they're getting.

Maker's Mark. Lots of it. By election night, I may have to upgrade to Brianna's "medication" from Grace and Frankie: “It's a very delicate balance of cannabis, 12-year Scotch, and Zoloft."

I've always declined the "I Voted" sticker as just a waste of paper, but since this year I've decided to take up ideas discussed in another thread and wear white (for the suffragists) and/or a pantsuit (for Hillary), I'm going to take one and add it to my outfit.

And aired a "parental advisory" with it.

Oh, the rules are totally different for pets. Riley really only wakes up when I move, but if I want to go right back to sleep and she wants attention instead, she may get a whiny, "Riley, it's still sleepy time" but then she gets kisses and snuggles. If a person wants my attention before I've woken up and decided to stay that way? There will be no kissing or snuggling, that's for sure. And, unless the building is on fire, the Chairperson of the Board is waiting in my office, or the Supreme Court has just handed down a ruling that affects half my cases, DO NOT accost me as I'm walking through the door. Combining my two greatest peeves - people, and mornings - is unpleasant. I want to put my stuff down, turn on my computer, check my messages, and come to terms with the fact I'm working out of the office today rather than from home. Then speaking to me will result in more than a grunt.

The fact they're widely referred to as American militias rather than domestic terrorists kind of lays the groundwork for not holding them properly accountable (or at all).

That has been popping my eyes out of their sockets, too. For me, talk of how precarious abortion rights are (Casey took a sledgehammer to Roe, and states have been chipping away at the remaining chunks ever since) and what happens when women don't have access to safe, legal abortions is everyday chatter. Of course, I'm a civil rights lawyer with a focus on women's rights. But it's a semi-regular topic among my non-colleagues, too; we're older, yes, but for most of us abortion was legal by the time we started having sex. If what "back alley" and self-induced abortions entail really isn't fairly common knowledge anymore (so does the picture of a wire hanger with a circle around it and line through it, like "no more," just leave the average young person scratching her/his head?), then that's one of the reasons many of those who identify as pro-choice don't get particularly riled up around the issue of abortion rights when it comes time to vote. I have my issues with Hillary, but her willingness to grab this political third rail in both hands and say, "Women should have the right to choose, period" is much appreciated. Ambition is a good thing. When women are ambitious, it suddenly morphs into a negative. Fuck that. Hillary is ambitious, and good for her, and good for us, because her determination to succeed has been for herself and for the good of others/society in general.

One of the things so infuriating about Trump's "it's rigged" nonsense is what while it has been well investigated and documented that voter fraud is so rare as to not register, every.single.election shows us that, on the flip side, instances of voter misinformation and intimidation jeopardize and even outright deny people their right to vote. Stuff like those poll workers asking for ID in a state where that is not a requirement, and far worse, happens, and not infrequently. That is a legitimate problem each election. Fraudulent voting? Not so much.

The issue wasn't that Carter's didn't choose him, it was that the agency never even submitted him to the client, because it hadn't asked for kids with special needs. It's the same idea as acting roles that don't specify a race; all too often those get read as "white" and casting directors don't look at/agents don't send people of color. A character of non-specified race should be open to actors of any race who fit the characteristics that are specified. Similarly, if Carter's just says they want, for example, cute kids ages 1-3, the agencies should offer up their clients who fit those criteria, not just the "typical" clients who fit those criteria. The mother pointed that out, and the agent acknowledged it was an error to assume that a call not specifying kids with Down Syndrome meant no kids with DS should be submitted. So, yeah, there are more substantial forms of discrimination this kid will face - and the mother is inherently annoying the same way any parent working to get their little kid into the industry is, and with her "he has no limitations" crap - but she's right that it matters what we see. If the only time we see people with Down Syndrome in advertisements (or on TV) is when it's specifically about the fact they have DS, that's problematic, because it makes their disability their sole characteristic (and perpetuates the lack of awareness/understanding about the wide variety of characteristics, experiences, and abilities among people with DS).

Are you going to report them? Here there is a hotline, but I just did a quick search and didn't find an equivalent in Illinois (meaning a hotline manned by the State; there are voter protection hotlines provided by the ACLU and numerous other organizations).

You beat me to it, ABay; I was going to say it sounds like a nice retirement plan.

Even if he was a successful businessman, it wouldn't be a reason to vote him in as president; governments are not supposed to be run like businesses, and in fact doing so is a pretty sure path to bad news.