Bastet

Susan Sarandon's character in Safe Passage, whose son scoffs, "Yes, Mother, assume the worst; it's really best for everyone"? My mom. She wasn't a helicopter parent, thankfully, but her mind is prone to the worst-case scenario -- I think if she hadn't consciously kept herself in check, she could have been. I had a bike from as far back as I can remember, and all us kids in the neighborhood were constantly riding around. Lots of great memories for me, too. Oh, more good memories -- I always sneaked off to do that when we visited my mom's cousins, who are farmers. Such fun for the suburban kid!

It has a search box (once you go to a season page; it's not on the home page). I've missed the show so far this week, but now that the archive is updated, I've caught up. Wow. I cannot believe how easy last night's clues were. I even got several of the Bible clues right. That "Name the painting seen here" FJ clue is just mind blowing.

Same here. Between that and Al Jazeera America going off the air, I am quite bummed about my TV news options. If PBS NewsHour disappears, I'll be lost.

I have no idea how old I was when my mom would no longer make sure she was there when I got home from school -- junior high, maybe? Sixth grade? I don't know, but somewhere around that time is when I got a key (I remember the key ring, and the style is how I can place the general time frame) in case I was on my own for a couple of hours after school. I remember the first time I was allowed to stay home alone for the weekend, though -- I must have been 15/16ish. I was over the moon. And then one of the cats decided to scare me by suddenly sitting up in bed and staring out into the hallway. So I had to turn on all the lights and do a full sweep of the house before I could get back in bed. I never had a babysitter; when my parents went out for the evening (or on holiday) either I stayed with my grandparents/they came over and stayed with me or I went to my best friend's house. I was a bit envious of kids who had random teenagers as babysitters; it sounded cool (of course, in horror movies it always led to mass murder, so ...).

That's what bugs me about the commercial -- of course the spray is going to dry faster than the gel.

They didn't always do that. For years, I watched a re-run of Total Access in bed right before going to sleep. But the past couple of years, I'd never be able to get to sleep after that shout fest. Between that, how short the stories have become, and all the crap they have up on the screen like ESPN, I can't stand to watch much of the time.

With some exceptions, I don't tend to get annoyed when someone assumes I celebrate a holiday I don't. But, on the flip side, I don't go around wishing people a happy anything unless I know they celebrate it, and I don't find that takes any energy at all, let alone exhausts me.

I just read through the Solange discussion, and had to go look it up, too -- to me, ratchet is a noun or verb, not an adjective, so I had to check Urban Dictionary to learn exactly what she was being called (since I figured she was not being compared to a socket wrench).

I love Monday, too. Alpha I really can't remember. I know I watched it; I was already watching only semi-regularly by this point in the series, so there are some I missed, but I remember rolling my eyes at this one - just no clear memories of what I was rolling my eyes about. And now when I think of it, I just think of the video posted up thread:

I'm glad that particular person was receptive to getting two new kittens the day after her cat died, but I hope her students and their parents knew that rather than assuming. And, quite frankly, I doubt they did. And I don't like that video of it (which of course they took and posted, because heaven forbid anyone ever just do something without trying to become a YouTube sensation for it) has "gone viral" as if it's a great idea across the board. Everyone is ready (to get a new pet after one dies) on their own time frame, and for many people they would not remotely be emotionally ready one day later. Also, not everyone who loves cats wants kittens; some prefer adults. Sure, kittens are the cutest thing in the world, but they're more work and they have much greater chances of finding a home, while the majority of adult cats in need of homes wind up being euthanized for lack of shelter space. Also one kid said they bought the kittens, and some people do not want to support buying rather than adopting pets. So, if the teacher is happy to have the kittens, this worked out well in this particular case and those kids have hearts of gold for seeing their teacher's pain and wanting to do something to make her feel better. But it is generally a bad idea to give pets as gifts for a variety of reasons, and it's potentially insensitive as hell to give someone a pet the day after theirs has died. So I have very mixed emotions in response to that story.

The thought of wishing anyone other than my mom a happy Mother's Day is weird to me, so I'd never do it for that reason alone. But, beyond that, hell no would I ever say "Happy Mother's Day" to some random woman whose circumstances I don't know -- maybe she's not a mother but wants to be, maybe this is her first Mother's Day without her mom, maybe she opted not to procreate and doesn't appreciate the assumption that every woman of a certain age must have done so. Etc. I would not want to inadvertently offend, or especially hurt someone that way, when it's so unnecessary. Weird; in ostensibly taking me to the first unread post, the site took me to one several posts down from it, so I didn't realize auntlada had made the same point already. Sorry.

Not yet, but you will -- making it sortable is something that's being worked on. You can keep up with how the various fixes and customizations are coming along in this thread.

Between emojis and "on fleek," I didn't even need the stupid song to make that unbearably annoying. But, I must say, the one real (non-emoji) woman's reactions were pretty funny sometimes.

I can definitely understand keeping the room decorated as Roscoe's room, rather than Christy or Bonnie moving all their stuff in there; he's supposed to have two homes, and if he feels like he's a guest crashing in someone else's room at Christy and Bonnie's, that's not really going to feel like a proper home (of course, the kid slept in a closet, so ...). But why share a bed when you don't have to? I would think Christy would go sleep in Roscoe's room when he's not there. I only watch this show sporadically (which I should probably rectify, because it always makes me laugh, I like the cast, and I love the relationships among all the female characters), and I wasn't home this week, but for once I recorded it because I am dying to see the Allison Janney/Richard Schiff walk-and-talk reunion.

I think it would surprise me if anyone didn't do that. Anyone alive and watching TV when that commercial aired, anyway -- maybe not those for whom it was "before their time." That finally happened, and I missed it? Welcome to the 21st century, clue writers. Now keep it up. I haven't been watching the show much at all lately as I haven't been getting home in time, but I don't particularly care about missing Teacher's Tournament episodes -- they usually wind up pissing me off because the clues have been dumbed down. Not to celebrity J! levels, but noticeably. It's offensive. I would hope that they'd gotten better about that practice, too, but I see from commentary here that it's still happening to at least some extent.

Different circles, I guess - among professional women I knew who got married around that time, probably 40% declined to change their last names. Those who'd married earlier, though, had generally changed to their husband's last name -- a good 95% of them. So, to me, this takes place in the time when that really started being accepted.

I'm not familiar with his work, so I have no idea whether this is futile, but: I hope Joan Crawford is written as she really was, not as the cartoon she's often portrayed as. I mean, I hope Bette Davis is presented accurately, too, but there's less worry there. They were both interesting women, and their relationship is certainly fodder for entertainment, so if done properly this could be good. Especially with that cast.

Ugh, definitely too many margaritas for Cinco de Mayo. I agree Remington makes sense as what she winds up calling him; he has no "real" name in the traditional sense, but he is Remington Steele. It's the identity he's stuck with the longest (and one he intends to continue with), certainly the one that means the most to him, and it's who he is to her. I just hate the name Remington - and think it's an especially awful name to have to call out during sexy times - so while it makes sense she'd transition from Mr. Steele to Remington, I'm glad I don't have to hear it. Speaking of names and our visions for their lives after the show, my fantasy conversation after they get back to Los Angeles and figure out how to play at being married involves Laura telling him that while she knows they have to make things look good for INS, she's dropping this hyphenated last name bit post haste. If it's not something she'd have done if they'd married for real, she doesn't need to do it to prove something to immigration; this was the '80s, not the '50s, so INS can cope with the fact a woman (especially a woman with a career) keeping her name isn't any indication of a sham marriage. As soon as she introduces herself to clients as Laura Holt-Steele, she's dismissed in their eyes -- how cute, the boss man is letting the little woman play detective. Sure, some of them will know coming in that they're married, and, either way, not everyone is sexist enough to assume she only has the job because of her husband, but it's a common enough problem that her professional life is going to be a lot easier if she remains Laura Holt. Plus, I like the dichotomy of names being largely meaningless to him, but an important aspect of identity to her.

Ha! Well, the universe knows I might kill someone if hungry enough, but Steele was the one with the growling stomach, not Laura, and he wasn't there when she put two and two together to implicate Rita and set her up for termination. Speaking of Steele's quest for food, we must fan-wank that hunger seriously warps his brain between the time he takes everyone's chili dog order (with each one just wanting one thing left off, despite the fact their orders sound convoluted; he breaks it down to "no onions, no mustard, no whatever" before heading out) and the time he can't come up with anything other than four orders with everything on them. But also when the killer cop shows up at their hotel room trying to lure them out with the fruit basket; he's ready to go chow down on anything edible until Laura reminds him they didn't order room service, but why didn't he order food as they sat there rattling off street names to figure out where Seymour had laid the trap everyone was after?

But Daniel didn't know Steele was his son when they met up, when Steele just happened to be calling himself Harry at the time, so why would that coincidence lend more credence to that name than any other? If Daniel had initiated the name, and after he'd figured out Mr. Steele was his son, that would be one thing -- but, even then, didn't the mom who'd have named him do so while Daniel was in prison, unaware there even was a child (I've not watched season five since it aired, so I'm working on hideously vague memories) -- but it was the name young Steele happened to have been using at the time, right?

I don't know why this discussion on naming people Remington got me thinking about it for the first time after all these years, but it did. Bob Butler came up with the original concept, and Michael Gleason was brought in to flesh it out; Gleason is the one who said it needed to be a two-person show, where we see someone pretending to be the fictitious boss (Butler's concept just had Laura maintaining the illusion of a superior while solving cases). So I don't know if the pitched series was even initially titled after that fictitious figurehead, or if that evolved as the concept did. Laura's "it's from a typewriter and a football team" explanation for the strange name appeared in what was originally the pilot (but aired second, as we all know), so they came up with that background early on. I'm just wondering if Laura's story mirrors how Butler and/or Gleason came up with the name Remington Steele when inventing this character, or if they hit upon it in some other way and just came up with the Remington typewriter/Pittsburgh Steelers story for the script. Either way, as I said, I think the story works for Laura and makes me grin - even though I think it's a rather ridiculous name, so does she, but the story of how it came to her makes it all better. I still have no idea what she calls him in bed, though. Mr. Steele is just odd, but Remington is quite the awkward mouthful. And a big, fat no to Harry. That's no more - in fact, less - his name than Remington, and while it rolls off the tongue better, it doesn't suit him, nor is it how she's thought of him. They need something that works as an inside personal thing, but damned if I know what it is. (Am I really thinking about what one fictional character calls another in the throes of passion 30 years after the fact?! Maybe one too many margaritas for Cinco de Mayo.)

I'm excited! I don't have Netflix, but my parents do, and I watched all of season one a couple of months ago while cat-sitting at their place. They'll be gone for two weeks at the end of this month, so I'll be able to do it again. (That's how Netflix works, right -- all of season two will be available as of May 6?) I love this show.

I'm not sure there's anything specific to elaborate on. My speculation is Kate's dislike of Cheryl was both one of those perfectly natural situations when you just don't mesh at all with someone from jump for reasons even you can't articulate, and a patently unfair case of holding her frustrations with the changes (and lack thereof) Cheryl's casting represented against Cheryl personally. I mostly liked Sabrina, and then the Sabrina/Kelly combination, so I didn't particularly notice the lack of Sabrina/Kris interaction as compared to how it had been with Sabrina and Jill. I'm sure I would now, though. I find the Cheryl Ladd/David Doyle friendship really sweet, and that was noticeable to me on screen even at the time. And I love that Farrah, Jaclyn, and Kate remained so tight. Hell, Kate (the first of the three to battle cancer) called Jaclyn from the doctor's office when she got the news and Jackie* rushed right over before Kate and the doctor had even finished talking. *That's how Kate and Farrah always referred to her in things I saw/read, so that's how my mind thinks of her in relation to either of them, even though it comes across stupidly informal about someone I don't know personally.

Apparently, there is a trend in certain circles of naming children Remington after the gun. I'm going to go with the "If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything" mantra on that one. But bringing it back to the show, has Gleason or Butler ever said whether they came up with the name based on a typewriter and a football team, or whether they came up with it some other way and later came up with the backstory for how Laura dreamed up the name? (I love the idea of her sitting around one weekend, wondering what she's going to name this fictitious figurehead, looking at the typewriter she's using for paperwork and then at the Steelers playing on TV and thinking, "A-ha!")

Museums making almost all their new film exhibits exclusively 3D. They put together these great films to supplement their new exhibits, or sometimes the film is the exhibit -- and then present them in a format that those of us with (severe to moderate?) motion sickness can't watch. Thanks a lot. The federal government conducted a study on motion sickness (or "simulation sickness") brought about by viewing 3D content, and half the subjects experienced it. That's a lot of people to exclude from what should be a community space. (Yes, I know all the tricks. No, they don't work for me -- at some point, I wind up closing my eyes and just listening.)