Bastet

I have long hated the lyrics to "Baby, It’s Cold Outside" because of how they could be read one of two ways and, given the time in which it was written, the rape interpretation (which would have just been considered "seduction") was just as likely as the consensual one. So I prefer to just skip it. I recently had to buy a new cell phone (and had to go to the back corner of the AT&T store to find it since I just wanted a basic flip phone), and the sales rep was astounded it had lasted ten years. Since I make/receive at most a dozen calls/texts per year on it, I think it should have lasted longer than that. I’m sure this new one will croak within two. I hate our disposable society. My (electric) stove is from the late ‘50s and works beautifully. There is nothing mechanical or electronic that I have put in my house over the last ten years of fixing it up that will still be functioning 55 years from now, despite the fact I’ve bought the highest quality available. My Casablanca ceiling fan from the ‘80s has never needed work. The same model I installed in 2005, I have needed to replace the electronics on twice already. And companies will come right out and tell you they don’t make stuff like they used to. (Which is why warranties are now for ridiculously short periods of time.) Something breaks/breaks down? Just throw it away and buy a new one because it's not cost effective to fix it. I have an easier time getting parts - and information - for something made 40 years ago than I do something made 10 years ago. It's all disgusting.

I'll be damned, the Giants held onto a fourth quarter lead. The NFC East is still an utter mess and not a one of them deserve to be in the playoffs, including my G-Men, but this miserable season I will take any NYG victory and smile. The two late hit roughing the passer penalties on Miami were a study in contrast. The second one, damn right sock 'em for 15 yards. He came late and never let up. But the first? He came late, yes, but it was legit when he started in motion, he saw it, pulled back to the extent he could, held onto Eli's jersey to try and keep him upright, and then helped him up. The Giants should not have had to challenge to get that ODB Jr. catch ruled a TD.

I grin at every one of the Duluth commercials from that series of animated ads they've put out the last couple of years. (Although I'm still embarrassed it took me a few viewings to understand how ballroom jeans got their name.)

I don't use a hair dryer, but apparently battery-operated ones exist. I can't imagine them drying a head of hair in under an hour, but there you go. My mind swears she was putting batteries in there, but it's an old memory. I thought the white stuff was already there (isn't Amanda covered in it?), and the hair dryer was blowing it around. The hair dryer compartment into which she loaded whatever had to exist for something, and I can't think of what it would have been meant for other than batteries. And had she put chalk in there, it wouldn't have come out of the dryer when it was turned on. I have officially thought way too much about this. I'd watch it to find out, as I like that one, but isn't it from the horrible haircut block of episodes? Not sure I'm up for that.

Old obit somehow making the rounds again, right? Answering myself to say, yeah, that article is from his death in 2011. I thought at first it was the curse of TCM Remembers -- it seems like whenever each year's version is released, someone else promptly dies, and the 2015 edition was just released a couple of days ago.

It seems the opposite to me, although I don't watch nearly as much TV as I used to so I'm not seeing a representative sample. (Plus, I still play CDs, so, apparently, what do I know?) Pretty much the only thing I've ever liked about Blue Bloods is that several of the characters are seen casually drinking Scotch or other liquor without it being some "uh oh, they have a drinking problem" portent.

Not really, because the "we want to throttle each other half the time" dynamic between Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis had been there since the beginning. What sunk the show after consummation were some off-screen issues (their spats, filming for Die Hard going long so that by the time he was available again she'd run into complications with the pregnancy and wasn't available as much, Glenn Gordon Caron getting worse at his ongoing inability to deliver a script on time, an eventual writer's strike, etc.) but ultimately that post-boinking Maddie and David were written as if they were two different people than we'd watched for three years. (And, worse yet, David as the long-suffering victim to Maddie's unreasonable shrew.) The scripts were stupid. The characters were unrecognizable, and not enjoyable. There were endless reruns. They screwed that show up on multiple levels, some of which reared their ugly heads before the characters had it off, yet somehow it got whittled down to "putting your 'will they or won't they?' characters together ruins the show" as the takeaway.

Aglio e olio is how I eat spaghetti, so I checked out Ina's recipe after your post, vera charles. It's very similar to how I've been making mine; I just use a little less oil and a little less parsley. Some purists object to the Parmigiano-reggiano, but I love it. I do omit it when I'm making a version with shrimp, though (I marinate shrimp in the same flavors of the pasta sauce). As for tres leches cake, I love it. I've never made one, but I've eaten many a slice in my day.

I hate how they try to paper over that at the end, but the slap scene itself is very well done, and we have Kate to thank for it as it's all in body language and vocal tone. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I can't remember every nuance, but the plethora of emotions evinced by her reaction, and the order in which they manifest, are perfect for the character and the situation. There's shock, then the attempt to make it look okay, and then finally a firm gathering of herself and getting the hell out of there. We saw Amanda putting batteries in the hair dryer, right? (Isn't that what she was putting batteries into when she asked, "Is this thing loaded?") I cannot imagine running something with both a motor and a heating element on AA batteries, but apparently it exists.

Jay Glazer annoys me, but I will watch (especially since I don't care about that night's bowl game). The early renewal is great, but only ten episodes? Did that article reference a pick-up option for more? (I know it can't go on forever, but it's a nice source of revenue for them and is a factor in their adoption rates, so I want it to go on as long as they do.)

Kristin's Chenoweth's speaking voice makes me want to either puncture my eardrums or sever her vocal cords, it's that annoying to me (we're talking misophonia levels of dislike here). While it was one of the lesser reasons I quit watching in season six, it was on the list.

No new episode tonight, but there's a new episode next Saturday, preceded by an all-day marathon. (I wish it was the other way around, but, alas, Animal Planet doesn't consult my schedule when planning its programming line-up.)

Yeah, I prefer the original Thomas Crown Affair, but the Brosnan/Russo remake is a pretty fun movie taken on its own. I just looked up Diagnosis Murder (I remember its existence, but I never watched it); I didn't know Michael Gleason was a writer and exec producer on that for a time. I haven't watched much of his other stuff. I've seen Peyton Place and McCloud from before Remington Steele, but nothing that he did after (unless maybe I checked out Murphy's Law -- the synopsis sounds vaguely familiar).

Couldn't they just say, "It makes people's ears bleed and they run their cars off the road trying to change the station"?

Like someone in this or another thread, I wish Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga were singing a different song, as I hate the lyrics to that one, but I like their voices together.

I still hear Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer on the radio every year, even though I pretty much avoid Christmas music like the plague; I caught it Sunday night driving home from my parents' house, and it's one of the few I'll stop and listen to. I don't remember ever hearing the others you listed on the radio. (I do remember playing my 45 of the Chipmunks one, though.)

Feeding, perhaps? (I haven't seen it, but thinking of words that would make sense in that sentence and could be misheard as beating and dating, that's what springs to mind.)

I like Padma, but that bothered me, too. Why not just say something like "Thank you" to let them know the diners were all done with their commentary? "You may go now" sounded ... well, exactly as you described so I need not come up with my own.

Elegy and eulogy are two different words, although they both discuss someone who has died; an elegy is a type of poem. The hippie plant lady is also my favorite of Laura's undercover disguises. But I pretty much love all of them, because I enjoy how she enjoys it - and that she's believable at just about anything. It's one of the things I liked most about Sabrina on Charlie's Angels, too, so I guess I'm a sucker for it. Laura is one of my favorite characters, and really should be mentioned more in discussion of positive representation of women on television. For what we saw on screen, but also how she got there -- a big part of the reason Laura is a better-developed character than many of her TV sisters is that Stephanie was very protective of the way she was written AND Michael Gleason was cognizant of the fact having female characters written almost exclusively by men is inherently problematic. Now, unfortunately, this didn't lead to him hiring more women as writers (although thank heavens the one he did hire was Susan Baskin), but it did lead to him listening to what Stephanie had to say and making changes in response. Laura is a realistic and relatable character, which means she has flaws but is well developed so that we understand why she's doing or saying the thing she shouldn't be doing or saying. Like you, I rarely get frustrated with her, and when I do it's not for long.

Oh, she did quite a few TV movies, because I was in quite a TV movie phase back in the '80s/early '90s and watched just about all of them (and pretty much haven't seen one since). For a while there, if it wasn't Judith Light, Jaclyn Smith, or Joanna Kerns, it was her. Caroline is probably the most remembered, but there was another good mystery, too. She's so great on stage, so she really found her niche there. And I respect how she realized all the really good actors guesting on the show were from the theatre, and decided she wanted to work to be that good, too. I like actors who really care about the craft of acting, not just the perks.

Gee, didn't you know -- all those ethnicities are interchangeable. Just ask Hollywood. Hell, it's surprising they didn't cast a Caucasian actor. The Greatest isn't as good a film as it should be given its cast, but it's interesting and he's good in it. It's nice to see him with an age-appropriate woman, too, but of course they're already married (and troubled), they take a back seat to the younger characters, and all that jazz. And as a bit of trivia, he personally called a reluctant Susan Sarandon - reluctant because she'd done similar roles already - and convinced her to sign on.

Most of Brosnan's films are things that don't interest me, so I haven't seen him in much since the show. I like him in stuff like Evelyn and The Greatest, though; I wish he'd do more like that. I wish screwball comedy would make a comeback, period, and if it did I'd love to see him in one.

Wow, that commercial is awful. So he spent her whole childhood forcing Star Wars shit onto her even though she wasn't into it, and now she's taken it up because it's the only way he'll interact with her?

I'm working on week two of missing the show, and still behind on clues, but the archive is up through yesterday, so I'll confine my commentary to that one. Wrist (for the carpal bone) took three contestants to answer, when carpal tunnel syndrome became well known 15 years ago? The Khyber Pass (connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan) as a $1600 clue? A picture of Rita Moreno in DJ? Sir John Gielgud didn't surprise me as a TS, though it wanted to. I didn't know the dog breed for FJ. I love me some mutts, and there are thus maybe a dozen breeds I can identify by sight, and fewer by description. Nevertheless, King Charles Something came to me, yet I couldn't come up with the Something.

I didn't have Cooking Channel until fairly recently, so I only saw its programming during free previews. The one episode I saw of Kelsey, she made something awful looking with frozen meatballs, so I was not impressed. I've never really gone back to her, but I've heard she's better than that. I wonder if she hadn't cut herself (and thus left her food to burn) if she'd have passed through to the second round, but I'm still looking for something to impress me. Debi Mazar's Tuscan husband over played his "gee, what is this American style of cooking?" hand, and I don't really have words for someone who would take beef tenderloin and make a quick stew out of it. So this would come down to rooting for a charity, but I fell asleep and can't remember what anyone chose.