Bastet

If Nancy Grace is still sitting there with her head intact, she shouldn't be saying it "literally" exploded. But that's not the kind of scenario being discussed. The scenario being discussed is one in which her head really did explode. If I told someone, "Nancy Grace's head just exploded," they'd logically assume I was speaking figuratively. So that's a situation in which I'd add literally -- because I'm using an expression that is normally used figuratively, so I'm emphasizing that, in this case, it actually happened. To bring it back to a more plausible scenario like the ones being discussed, let's say Nancy Grace watched a clip of something and then banged her head on the desk. If I say "Nancy Grace was banging her head on the desk in response to that clip," you might take that either literally or figuratively. So I would say she was "literally banging her head on the desk" to clarify. But I would never use "literally" to describe something that everyone would know by the context was literal ("I literally watched Nancy Grace's show tonight"); it's totally unnecessary.

Same here -- I've never heard any "official" rule that literally should only be used under such circumstances (and its definition certainly does not limit its use in that way), yet that has always been a personal guideline. Why would I bother to specify that I literally did something unless I'm describing something that would normally be interpreted as a figurative or hyperbolic declaration? Otherwise, the literally is implied (and thus superfluous).

Top surgery and bottom surgery are just non-technical umbrella terms for the gender confirmation surgeries a transgender person may undergo, differentiated between those happening on the top portion of the body and those on the bottom portion. So Jazz was referring to vaginoplasty.

Oh god, like back in the day when pretty much everyone wrote a check at the grocery store and the people who would wait until the end to start writing made me want to scream. Have everything but the total filled in! These are the same people who would then continue to stand there while noting the transaction in their check register. Just because you didn't want to pay extra for duplicate checks does not mean I need to wait for you. Ugh, flashbacks.

You need three, one of which will always be the Small Talk topic, and one of which will be either an All Episodes Talk thread or a specific episode thread (depending on the show). So you just have to come up with one more (from among characters, hosts, media coverage, quotes, favorites/least favorites, etc.).

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer will be on tomorrow evening, and even though I can watch the DVD whenever I want, if I get home in time, I will be tuning in, especially for the nightclub scene. I laugh so hard through all the interruptions and misunderstandings, and then keep laughing through the door slamming and turned-away suitors back at the house.

I live in a city that has outlawed plastic bags at grocery stores and similar establishments, but I've been using cloth bags for about 20 years (in fact, I still have two from just about that long ago). It's not a trend for me, just a longstanding belief that to do otherwise is wasteful in a way that is easily avoided. I don't watch much current TV, so I don't know what "type" of characters are being shown with the stereotypical reusable bag with a baguette and something green sticking out the top. It's not something to which I ever paid much attention, but I suspect it has been more common on TV than in reality. On Roseanne, they unloaded paper bags full of processed food, very in keeping with the Conner family's lifestyle, but that's about all that comes to mind.

I shop like a TV character. I always use cloth bags, I only buy carrots that still have their leafy tops (otherwise, they may be quite old), and, yes, I have been known to pick up a baguette.

I almost never watch Untold Stories of the ER because of the horrible acting, but I watched a few minutes this afternoon. A pregnant woman was in really bad shape; they delivered the baby and were still doing CPR on the woman while a doctor goes to update the patient's brother. Then there's a talking head with that doctor when she says after learning (via the conversation with the brother) there's no father in the picture, she knows she has to save the baby's mother. The hell?! If there had been a daddy waiting in the wings, she'd have decided, "Eh, that's enough CPR"? Really bad script!

Ha - same here. Get to class, write a note, fold it into some intricate design, tune back in to class, exchange notes in the hallway between periods, go to next class and read said note ... and then sit together at lunch discussing all the same stupid shit that was in the note.

Yikes, that version is hard core; the one I've seen has the slow motion of the woman watering her lawn, the boy on the bike, etc. seeing the accident, then going back to the driver talking about the picture she posted and replaying the whole thing. I text maybe half a dozen times per year, and never while driving because my phone is so old it would take far longer than even the world's greatest moron would spend staring at a screen. So I'm not the target audience for these things. But I have to concede the reality is has become commonplace, and not everyone being distracted by their phone is an idiot; neither they nor those around them deserve what can happen from one stupid decision that merely takes a different form from that which I may take. I hope these PSAs have an effect.

Per the rules of the game, yes I'm accepting it ... while making slight fun of you for it. If I'm Alex, probably with some awkward joke.

I generally only stop to watch seasons two through four, and didn't discover the show until it was in syndication, but I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it and wound up watching the series the whole way through and buying the first four seasons on DVD. It sounds terrible on paper, and I don't think much of McEntire as an actor (hell of a singing voice, though), but the cast works well together, Barbara Jean and Van are terrific characters (when they're the two who read worst to me on paper), the evolving relationship between Barbara Jean and Reba is worth the price of admission, and the writers do a pretty good job of exploring the dynamics of a blended family. It's alarming to watch Scarlett Pomers get so skinny, and it was an interesting choice to never address Kyra's absence. But I love what they do when she comes back -- "Where have you been?" It's a ripoff of Roseanne when Lecy Goranson returns as Becky, but it works here too. Does anyone who watched in real time remember if it was known at the time her absence was due to treatment for anorexia? Because Kyra's "Getting something to eat" answer seems like a reference, especially since they did it twice.

I think of three; those two, and Oklahoma St. If I was answering any of those universities, I'd write out the name. But for BYU, I probably wouldn't have thought to write it out.

His words feature prominently in the "racism" section of my ever-expanding Quotes file.

I still find it distracting that the person who chose the wig is apparently colorblind, but I like the tone of these little tidbits FOX is doling out.

When it comes to pet food commercials, there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the food and the cuteness of the ad. Few of the higher-quality brands even run commercials, so we see ads from Purina, Friskies, Iams, etc. No matter how cute the ads are, I'm not feeding my cat that stuff ... but I do enjoy watching them.

I love the way he says genre; in that montage of Alex pronouncing foreign words, genre is my favorite.

I couldn't decide whether to think it was unfortunate her friends were so dense on the subject or sweet she is so unequivocally a girl to them that they thought it wouldn't be any different for her than any of them.

The heel breaking off Susan's shoe in Bringing Up Baby wasn't supposed to happen, and her "I was born on the side of a hill" routine in response was a Katharine Hepburn ad-lib that Howard Hawks left in because it was so funny and so perfectly in keeping with Susan's character.

When you're home with a sick pet, having "awesomely bad" movies to watch can help distract from the worry. The programming gods have smiled upon me this week -- yesterday was Troop Beverly Hills and today Tremors. I like to think that when there's nothing fantastically craptastic on TV, all will be normal. Tremors is just everything. The fantastic Kevin Bacon is almost incidental. Reba McEntire and Michael Gross as the survivalists, "Sierra" (Finn Carter's role on As the World Turns) as a hero, the not-so-special special effects ... love. And, for a film so silly, I find myself quite sad when Conrad Bachmann and Mimi Besch bite it.

That, on its own, comes very close to making HBO worth the added expense. What a fantastic piece; thank you for sharing, and I hope this social media era in which we live - which I lament for many reasons - results in it being widely disseminated. So, in this, the social topic, let me introduce myself. I'm a civil rights lawyer in Los Angeles - my primary focus is on women's rights, but I've had my hand in many other types of cases; in a world teeming with injustice, I have a hard time limiting myself - and I loathe candid reality television as much as I love documentaries. But the importance of this show is, so far, letting me set aside my objections to the staging, recreation, etc. that permeates the genre. I'm just pleased it's on the air, and look forward to discussing it.

Granted, I don't hang around with many graphic designers/developers, so maybe we're all just ignorant, but I've never heard .gif pronounced with the soft G; it's always the hard. I skipped tonight's episode to watch I Am Jazz (for which I'm trying to set aside my hatred of candid reality programming), so I'm a little bummed to have missed Alex talk about his X-Files appearance.

I've only caught one segment of a follow-up show so far, but I enjoyed seeing what the owner had done with the place since moving in. Christina and Tarek do a great job targeting the mass market, but it's by nature repetitive (and generally not my style), so it gets boring to watch. Seeing the house personalized was interesting.

Or worse, shortening. In which case who can blame them for not eating it? But I don't fault them, anyway -- with numerous takes, it can become an issue.