Bastet

Despite declaring I’d be one and done with this show thanks to how much about the first episode annoyed me – and not watching last night’s because of that annoyance with all the gimmicks – I tuned in again tonight during commercial breaks in something else. How fucking stupid do they assume the audience to be? “If you get three questions in a row wrong, you’re eliminated” is a concept all but the most addled viewer can grasp. Yet, even with only watching in limited, short snippets, I heard the “one more and you will be gone” thing repeated several times. I don’t care how interesting the clues are; everything surrounding them is just short of unbearable. I should have learned my lesson when I tried to sit through Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? but wound up grumbling, “Shut up” every few minutes. I’ll stick to Jeopardy! This show treats its audience like imbeciles.

I knew all of them but the one about I Am Sasha Fierce, and that's the one where Alex didn't name the artist after the contestant gave the right sign -- I had to look it up (Beyoncé).

California weather allows us to start growing (and harvesting) strawberries early in the year. And it was warmer earlier this year, so harvest was about a month ahead of schedule. (April thru June is usually when they're at their best, but they're available into fall.)

I had to do this recently with the Los Angeles Times; they were delivering my Sunday paper*, but also THREE copies of a Saturday advertising supplement. It only took one call, which was a nice surprise. *I've long since switched to online reading to save paper, but it's so hard on my eyes that I still treat myself to the Sunday paper in hard copy.

Yes! The Walk is just a so-so episode to me, but I really love Scully in it. She's a badass in all the coolest ways here.

There were a lot of clues I found over valued in this game. The Rosa Parks clue was appropriate for Kids Week, the Catwoman clue belonged in the first round, white (mountains) was also over valued, eye roll was ridiculous as a DD, and the entire business abbreviations clue was better suited to the first round. Alex - as is so typical - sounded surprised when a woman correctly answered a science clue (chain reaction). In the clothing category, what was the wording of the blazer clue. Something about patriarchy? Despite my hatred of so many clues with photos, I don't automatically object to a category of world leader portraits. But the clues should be more difficult! I was a bit surprised What's New, Pussycat? and troglodyte were TS. And I'm surprised neither of the remaining two contestants came up with corset when they knew from Alex's reaction that girdle was very close.

That exchange between Scully and Det. Cross in the morgue is on my "Mulder, It's Me" mix tape, leading into No Doubt's Just a Girl.

Those two newest ones don't do much for me, but I liked the one where she's helping him rehearse and loved the holiday one.

I thought it was stupid to keep phrasing it in terms of erasing strikes, when that's not a good explanation of how they set things up. The rule is simple -- if you miss any three questions in a row, you're out. So if you've missed two in a row, you have to get the next one right in order to keep playing. The audience is perfectly capable of understanding the stakes, so the big red Xs and blathering on about erasing strikes when the contestant had missed two in a row was just one of the many things about the show that bugged me. As to the talk about banking, yes, that was in reference not to his money (I think he has to get through 50 questions before he can keep anything) but to keeping a category in which he's confident/has been doing well left up on the board to go back to when he's in a must-answer situation, rather than running through those categories early and thus only having the more difficult ones to choose from when it gets down to the wire. Which may be his strategy in not touching that one category so far.

All the different aspect ratios can really be aggravating. You probably know this, but just in case -- you could get rid of those black bars by changing your TV settings so that SD programming fills the screen despite not being designed to do so, but the stretched-out image always looks worse to me than the bars.

I need this on a t-shirt.

I can't stand Bring It On (as I recently posted in the Unpopular Opinions thread), but I really enjoy Clueless, and when I saw this thread title I opened it to post about Easy A. I had never even heard about it when it was in theatres, but when it went through a run of being frequently shown on TV, I decided to check it out based on the adult cast they'd somehow managed to get into what I assumed would be a stupid teen comedy. The next thing I knew, I owned the Blu-Ray disc and was screening it for friends. The film is equal parts charming and sharp and has some great things to say while entertaining you, and it's no wonder Emma Stone has gone on to a successful career (I'm assuming this was one of her first major gigs).

You'd have to practically eat the poop to get it (even if your cat a) was infected - which as an indoor cat, he is unlikely to be/have ever been - and b) happened to be shedding the parasite at the time you touched the poop and then touched your mouth). Sounds like you're on top of it, but the CDC gives a nice, simple breakdown for pregnant women.

I hate "Must be nice" type comments. When I get a "Must be nice" reaction to something I'm doing for myself (because I've worked, planned, and saved to put myself in that position), I say, "Yes, thank you, it is," and move on. One of my peeves: DVDs that, when the programming is over, revert to a menu that plays a snippet of music on a loop. I hate falling asleep while watching a movie, episode, whatever, and then waking up after it's over because that same 45 seconds of music, over and over, has wormed its way into my brain and annoyed me into waking up.

There's a link in that to Bobby Bell's moving piece on finally completing his college education at age 74.

I'm a one and done viewer as well. I enjoyed challenging myself via the questions, but there was far too much extraneous chatter for me to put up with. I'll stick to Jeopardy! Also, were it not for stringent quiz show rules, I'd be convinced this was scripted. Plus, I believe - although I wasn't devoting my full attention by this point - one of the clues included an inappropriate apostrophe. If I saw correctly during my quick glance ... Don't tout yourself as a test of geniuses and then screw up something so basic. (I think it was in the '80s movies category, even though the category title was properly punctuated.)

I think it should be, especially in entertainment media.

They include real juice, and sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. (Some bottles in the US sold as Mexican Coke had HFCS, so when trying to get the "real thing" version here in the US, buyer beware.)

I love Swiss Chard. I don't grow it because a neighbor grows a ton of it and shares, but if not for him I'd definitely save some space for it. I use it in Deborah Madison's "Bright Lights Chard Gratin" recipe when I want a treat.

Based on the category, my wager for FJ would have been a big fat zero, and when I first read the clue, I thought that would have been a good thing -- I had no idea there was anything written on the cross. But limited knowledge helped; the only place associated with Christianity I could think of beginning with N was Nazareth, so I guessed my way into a correct answer. I'm a bit surprised Witness for the Prosecution and The Verdict were TS. I'm still annoyed by Jack Daniels being accepted, especially after today's correction of the "Pebble" error. I think of that as one of those built-in possibilities everyone would be on the lookout for; either from being so used to hearing/saying Daniel's and forgetting to correct for the clue seeking the person rather than the liquor or from thinking Jack's last name was Daniels rather than Daniel, that's an anticipated mistake. So when a contestant makes it, I expect it to be caught.

B is for Bermuda, where Blanche went with Richard and his kids. "Even little Richard came up to me and said, 'Don't worry, this happens all the time.'" "Little Richard was in Bermuda?" "Yes, Rose, he was burying Fats Domino in the sand."

What a mess. What I'm seeing on the air is still great, so I'm thankful for that, but how long can people hang on? Yes, a lot of this is typical (as horrifying as that is), but come on.

Ha -- one of the few things I always miss.

Your ears did not deceive you; he appended the S. I thought for sure they'd correct that after the break, but, nope - it slid right by. I can't decide which TS surprised me more -- heifer or Chirac. Maybe the latter; the French History category was pretty easy, and then they go and blow a clue from modern times. I thought the Goodyear clue was over valued as a DD, since the category spotted contestants the first name. And I thought the Tarrytown clue was one of the easier ones in the Sleepy Hollow category, so I was a bit surprised that was designated as a DD. I thought Zurich for FJ, then realized I was in the wrong country. I got Frankfurt, but didn't have a lot of faith in it.

I like parts of it, but I loathe with the heat of a thousand suns the whole "it [stuff like bathing a sick person in holy water] works, and it works because they believe it works" thing. There were two or three people - although I'm blanking on who else other than the prop master - who had worked at other jobs on the series, put forth good ideas over the years and caught her attention that way, who were then given the chance to write an episode. I like that Roseanne gives props to the network for giving her the ninth season after she'd been perfectly honest that she wanted to really go crazy experimenting with different ways of telling stories.