Bastet

The recaps are here (and, yes, you did Jersey Devil). Which I'm now re-reading, and loving this commentary on Mulder openly perusing a nudie magazine at work:

"I'm scared I might ... die." I can't believe she isn't related to someone in the production, because there is just no reasonable explanation for casting her. I started watching the show early in the second season, and finally saw the pilot the summer between seasons two and three. It's a little awkward as these things are, but I'm sure that had I caught the original airing I'd have been interested in the series from the start. And I'm certain I'd have fallen in love with Scully the moment she said, "What I find fantastic is any notion there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there, you just need to know where to look."

From the TJ's newsletter: Yeah, I'm going to need to eat this very soon.

Heh; it's not something I'd have asked her about, but yes, I passed her on a hiking trail and was ridiculously relieved to see her hair had grown out. I don't know why that haircut bothers me so much; I don't like Amanda's normal hairstyle, and bad hair abounded in the '80s, but for some reason I find that cut so awful on her it actually lessens my enjoyment of the episodes.

I use "I don't understand. Did you trip over something?" whenever someone says they "accidentally" did something that was not at all accidental. I don't root for Cal (sorry, C.J.) since they're Pac-12 rivals, but any time I watch them play I think of this (after Sam watches C.J. toss a "Go, Bears" into a press conference): "By the way, my Princeton Tigers could whoop your Cal Bears any day of the week." "At what?" "Logarithms, possibly."

That's the idea, I believe - joelene mentioned it way back when, and it seems the perfect way to wrap things up would be to vote our way down to a favorite from the top three (or whatever) of each season.

Is that the one where the Porsche is subjected to a long, drawn-out demise? I remember that the protracted death of the Porsche was an inside joke, because that car was forever breaking down and delaying production and that's why they opted to give Lee a new car. But I don't remember if it was one of the many re-ordered episodes. I just sit there and roll my eyes, because not everyone is touchy-feely (I'm certainly not; in fact, one of the easiest ways to bug me is to be touching me for no reason), so the absence of such things isn't automatically a relationship indicator. Amanda is right in this instance, but not in her blanket statement, so I just kind of sit there and say, "No, Amanda, that's not what people do, that's what some people do." Yeah, I don't think Kate is any great thespian, but she's a solid actor and she's really good in that episode, playing three roles - Amanda, Karen, and Karen-as-Amanda - differently. I really, really wish that episode was not filmed during the Haircut From Hell period; it would be even more watchable.

I don't know, remember that game on TWoP with the ++ and --, where we were doing the best of the whole series round and Bad Blood was in the lead for the entire game and then at the last minute something else - Memento Mori, maybe - shot ahead and won? Maybe Detour will squeak in or something. (Like you, I assume Bad Blood will win this season handily, but I'm just saying I've been surprised before.)

The defense definitely did not help, and the entire offense has to sit right next to Eli Manning when we're counting up who was responsible for that performance. Eric Davis said this morning on NFL AM that it was bad enough on television, but when you watch the coaches' film you can see that, over and over again, offensive players are not in the right spot. Ben McAdoo's new scheme didn't work at camp, it didn't work in the preseason and it's still not working yet -- they have the same old problems in a new way. Time will tell, but it's rough to watch.

I think an island can be great, but the kitchen has to be able to accommodate it. I hate when HHs walk into a kitchen and bemoan, "There's no island." Well, no, there isn't, because there isn't room for one. "There isn't enough counter space" is a perfectly valid complaint, but the absence of an island doesn't automatically equate to that. There's a difference between the "I'd like an island because ..." buyers and the "An island is on my checklist of things I've been brainwashed into thinking every house should have" crowd. HH attracts the latter. The size of my kitchen makes it almost look like it's missing something without an island. But, realistically, there isn't room for one with the way things are currently laid out -- I hate islands that create a situation where walking between it and the cabinetry feels like shuffling through a cattle chute. I spent days with graph paper, working out various configurations, before I hit on a redesign that allows for an island that makes sense, functionally and visually. Only because of that will my kitchen have an island when I redo it.

Boy howdy. With season five, on the other hand, I'm still coasting along with episodes I barely remember. S4: Home Paper Hearts (ouch!!) S5: Unusual Suspects The End

Take out "with his arrest" and you've pretty much summed up the show for me.

Yep, same here. There are two or three I dislike, a bunch I don't care about or can't even remember, and then a few I like and a couple I love. Playing this game makes it clear why this is the season XF went from an obsession to just a show I liked. (And here are the six that would have to be gone before I'd vote for Kill Switch: Patient X, The Red and the Black, Unusual Suspects, The End, Folie a Deux and Chinga. Chinga I like, but not as much as Kill Switch.)

She was another one whose voice made it impossible for me to watch the whole episode - I don't care what anyone sounds like naturally, but purposely speaking like some teeny-bopper as an adult sends me 'round the bend - but I caught his refusal to call that thing a fireplace and laughed out loud in agreement. I also liked the contractor asking him, "So, you want a natural product that's perfectly symmetrical?" or something like that. I wouldn't have put up a cracked tile, either, but it sounded like he was also complaining about them not all being the same size and shape, when that's kind of the point. I did not like the countertop/backsplash combination at all.

Season five is still easy (a full six episodes I'd pick off before getting to Kill Switch, so I'm going to need a moment), but now season four is hard; after Terma, I have to start eliminating episodes I like. S4: Terma Demons Home S5: Patient X The Red and the Black

Kill Switch is going to be my Humbug of this season's rankings.

I'm just thrilled for it to be football season again, but, man, I could not care less about this late game. Much respect to Chris Canty for saying he disagrees with the media's decision to broadcast the video: I agree, and everyone else I know who has worked in the DV arena has been saying the same thing all day, but whatever various people have concluded on the airing of the footage, I've seen precious few consider the impact on the victim. It's oddly refreshing to hear it coming from one of Rice's teammates. Dave Zirin is one of the few sports journalists I've seen express the same concern.

I suspect it's going to be a while before anything replaces "That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works" as my favorite line from a current commercial.

Of the myriad reasons a victim is slow to leave her abuser, I have yet to see stupidity be the answer. I predicted the Giants would lose, as I think the offense needs some time to gel, but seeing it happen so decisively was still frustrating. I'll need a moment to talk myself out of the "it's going to be another long season" knee-jerk reaction.

I'm not bothered by the absence of things like this, but I really appreciate it when it's included. It's one of the many things I like about Roseanne, one of the first shows I remember routinely having characters doing mundane, daily tasks in the background, while talking, etc.

The number of female characters only tells me so much; having women among the main characters is one thing, but having female characters who are more than appendages to their male counterparts is the real hurdle a TV show has to jump to be worth my time. If her function is just to advance/thwart or decorate the story of a man, I'm not interested. If the television landscape as a whole wasn't so pathetic on the gender front, I might be fine with an individual show in which women were largely absent, sidelined, embodied sexist clichés, etc. if it otherwise entertained me. I used to be. But it has been too many years now with too little progress, and I'm just tired of it.

And Janay Rice. The one person who shouldn't be embarassed by her actions in all this now has to live with the knowledge the whole world can watch her being attacked.

Having this question posed has made me realize I am not much of a cookie person. I know I've tried an Oreo (yuck) and something from Keebler that had chocolate drizzles on it (so-so), but otherwise I think the only "store bought" cookies I've had are the Girl Scout thin mints (very tasty). As for homemade, I really only eat chocolate chip (which I absolutely love in many forms, but my favorite recipe is still the Nestle Toll House one) and then sometimes decorated sugar cookies at Christmas. I make peanut butter cookies for my dad (from his mother's recipe) every Christmas - as an homage to when I used to leave them out for Santa - and I eat some dough while I'm arranging them and a few cookies hot out of the oven as I'm baking them, but then I never touch them after that.

Understanding the actions of one who is a victim of domestic abuse requires understanding the mindset of one who is a victim of domestic abuse, because they're living it in a different way than we're observing it. And that's a complicated - and individual - headspace to get in, but there are common patterns, and merylinkid did a great job laying them out. Also the "you know how I get when you ..." reasoning that follows the apologies, telling the victim she provokes the behavior - and could thus prevent it. So when she "fails" to prevent it - because there's always some new thing to add to the list of provocations - she's got yet another reason to feel pressure to not come forward/withdraw her claim/plead for leniency. And the myriad reasons few DV assaults result in conviction is one of the reasons the NFL's new policy is unlikely to ever lead to a player being banned under that policy. And Gooddell knows it. He thought he could release that memo and save face for the league, conveniently putting the PR fiasco of Rice's anemic punishment behind him just in time to start the season. For Janay Rice's sake, I'm disgusted that the video was released, but I'm not sorry Goodell and the Ravens will again have to account for their actions.

S4: Tunguska Terma Gethsemane S5: Patient X The Red and the Black