teebax

I usually like Ruby, but she got on my nerves a little bit this episode. I know they're playing up the gender roles for comedic value; I just don't find that funny anymore. I feel like it's been done to death. That being said, Jennifer is definitely a national treasure. My favorite Ruby episode is the one in which she and Pops kept cursing each other out. Good times.

As a former oboist (still have mine but haven't played in years) I absolutely loved this episode. And if there are no famous oboists, there certainly should be! It takes talent to make that thing sound remotely good. The stuff with Hitchcock and Sully didn't bother me. I was worried it might since they're characters I like in small doses, but it was handled well. Holt continues to be my favorite current sitcom character. Braugher is killing it in this role.

I have heard comedians talk about how we don't kiss our dogs but not that we didn't like them. I can tell you with 100% candor that I would never kiss my dog on the mouth. I know their mouths are supposedly cleaner than ours, but I've seen my dog lick his own ass. I'm not kissing that. Mine lives inside and used to sleep with me. Now he has arthritis in his leg, so it's difficult for him to get onto my bed. He has a dog bed right next to my people one.

I agree that the bigoted purse lady should have lost because I don't believe her story. How could you? And her bag was already all fugged up, which is why she tried to clean it. That being said, if I were the salon's insurance agent I would advise them to keep the cleaning products somewhere else or at least locked up in the bathroom. All it takes is one curious kid to go to the bathroom and drink something with bleach in it. Just like JJ is boycotting cell phone cases, I'm boycotting dog bite cases. I'm so over them. We need someone to revamp Animal Court and get some of these cases off of my court shows!

They rarely ask about German words since it doesn't give Alex a chance to show off his French!

Somewhere buried in the recesses of my mind is an episode of Designing Women. The late great Meshach Taylor (well, his character anyway) is asked by one of the ladies why black people don't swim. His response, and I'm paraphrasing here, was that black people don't swim because there's no money in it. If you could swim your way out of the ghetto, it would have been River Jordan instead of Air Jordan.

Romney said it during the last presidential election. I won't post the links here, but you can Google it; it really happened. I think there's a YouTube video as well.

I haven't seen the case yet, but MM is not Spanish; she's Cuban.

Whineandcheez, I think the episode discussion is in the main thread. This is where we come for off-topic stuff. I'm not even sure how the welfare discussion started, but I wanted to weigh in with my two cents. When Nike, Shell, Fiat, GM, Ford, Intel, Alcoa, and Boeing get over $30 billion, and the total we give to corporations tops $100 billion, that makes my blood boil. That's way more than we spend on social welfare, by the way. But nobody gets outraged about it. These are companies turning a profit, with CEOs collecting handsom bonuses. How is that any different from a JJ litigant who lied about who lives with her so she can continue to collect benefits? Or a guy who is collecting disability while working construction under the table? I'll tell you how. Social welfare scammers go to jail if they get caught. Yes, many of them don't get caught, but some of hem do. And the penalties are harsh. Corporate welfare is perfectly legal. So, no, two wrongs don't make a right, but only one of those wrongs is actually illegal. I do think they should crack down on scammers, who take money they're not entitled to. But before we focus on that, I'd really like to see a backlash against corporate subsidies. It's easy to look with disdain at a poor person and call them a loser. But it's much more nuanced than that. If a person's choice is between barely scraping by on minimum wage and sitting at home and getting more, is that even a choice? Look at what minimum wage is where you live. Now look at the cost of living. If it rose with inflation, minimum wage should be over $15 an hour. If it were, maybe some of these people gaming the system wouldn't feel it necessary to do so because they could legitamately support their families. I was unemployed for six weeks from late Novemebr until mid January. Do you know how much I collected from the generous folks of Arizona? $240 a week. And that's for someone who used to clear over $70k a year. It was barely enough for my mortgage. I didn't qualify for any cash assistance because I had the temerity to have money in savings. I found another job and ended up okay, but imagine that scenario for someone who was making $25k a year when they lost their job and had no savings or credit because they were living check to check. Yet we wonder why people go unbanked. And we wonder why they don't just tug up their bootstraps and get a job. We wonder why they don't just borrow money from their parents, as a recent candidate for president suggested. I'm just saying that it's not that black and white. It's easy to point at a neighbor down the street and look down at them because they're accessible to us. I wish we instead pointed at the tycoon on the hill.

Thanks for the recaps. Y'all have saved me from having to watch another dog case. I'll fast-forward to the second case, which sounds interesting.

This is where my bleeding heart is going to show and probably offend someone, but my ire is much more directed toward corporate welfare than a few people who might be scamming the system out of a few bucks here and there. I couldn't tell you what anyone is buying with their food stamps or cash benefits because I'm too busy living my life and taking care of my own business. Whenever someone complains about what someone was buying I am always surprised, since it would never dawn on my to inspect anyone else's purchases, or their method of payment for that matter. I think the powers that be have done a masterful job of making Americans focus our anger on people who are in the same economic situation as themselves instead of where it should go: the fatcats who aren't paying their fair share. If we just closed the loopholes and had a flat tax we would have enough left over to feed anyone who needed it and then some. I wish more of us voted with our dollars and stopped doing business with companies that are benefiting from our tax dollars, but if we did that we'd probably have nowhere left to shop! TL; DR version: I just can't muster up that much anger for someone on the dole who is getting a few hundred or thousand dollars when corporations are getting billions.

I live in AZ, and almost everyone I know here has a pool, so we do swim. I wear my hair natural, so the water isn't an issue, but when I used to relax it I wouldn't go near sprinklers, much less get in a damn pool, unless I was getting my hair done the next day. I think swimming is popular here because there's not much else to do when it's sweltering in the summer. Wait. We don't like dogs? Boy, I'm doing this whole black thing incredibly wrong. I love to swim, and I love my dog. Black Jesus, please help me!

This show introduced me to Leon Bridges, whom I'd never heard of and probably never would have heard without his appearance on the show. His album is one of my favorites now. So I at least try to listen to the musical guests. Who knows? I may find another new talent I really enjoy.

I grew up in the 80s, and our community pool was not open to blacks. They achieved this by making it private and charging a nominal membership fee. Problem is, they only sold memberships to whites. We had a few restaurants in my city that were the same way: no blacks allowed. Lest you think this was some backwoods, redneck town, it was a thriving suburb of Philadelphia. I finished high school in 1990, and all these places were still segregated then. I don't know about now since I left after graduation and never lived there again. Anyway, my parents signed us up for swim classes at the YMCA, so that's how we all learned to swim. We also had to take swimming classes as part of our school curriculum, which was easy because our district had a few pools. But I can totally see why a lot of black folks can't swim: no access to pools.

It's like that cracker eating meme. Her haters really, really hate her. I can't tell you how many times I've seen SNL called out for favoring her, when the show has consistently shown it will take swipes at anyone who does something funny. It's not their fault most of the derp comes from the GOP side. Seriously, they've shown clips of actual GOP debates during the last two episodes, uncut, and they were funnier than anything the writers could have written!

If not for court shows, I wouldn't know so many people didn't use leashes; I thought everyone did.

I'm not a Kanye fan, so I didn't enjoy either of his performances tonight, but outside of that I thought it was a really good show. The cold open was one of my favorite political ones they've ever done. I agree that it was much more clever than what they usually do. I also like how the GOP debates have provided enough humor that the Weekend Update crew has been incorporating them into their segment. Melissa did what she does. I liked the horror movie sketch because her reactions aren't too far from my own,mother few times I've attempted to watch scary movies. Leslie was great this episode. I didn't mind her breaking; her laughing actually made the sketch funnier for me. I think they did the Rachel thing because of the James Burroughs tribute that's been promoted, so while it seems to be a bit late it's kinda topical right now.

I'm glad I wasn't in the coffee shop when they had the actor pretending to be a rude customer. My reaction would not haven been fit for television. Those folks in Portland seem really nice. The second that woman interrupted my order I'd have been on her like white on rice. And if I heard someone call a barista a moron I'd a have a few choice words for them too. I hate that so many companies subject their employees to abuse because they really think the customer is always right. One of the joys of having my own business is telling nasty customers to kiss my ass.

Harvey doesn't hate women because he's gay; he hates women because he's a pig. His orientation has nothing to do with it.

My beagle is lik that. If he catches a scent, he will totally ignore anything I say. That's why I keep him leashed, which is a concept most court show litigants can't seem to comprehend.

Your post reminds me of one of my favorite e-cards:

Thanks for the info. Like I said, I didn't know if it affected the game or not, but I really hated that ruling. Why put the information in there about the book if you're going to accept an answer that isn't the name of the book? I wish they'd have some consistency.

I had a problem with a ruling. They should not have accepted Insubordinate for Insurgent, since the clue referenced the Veronica Roth book. I think that ruling cost the guy from NC State the game, but I could be wrong (don't remember what the scores ended up being.) I kept waiting for them to adjust the scores based on the errors. Can one of you confirm?

I'm thinking Vegas. But if my car breaks down, you know I'm suing you for the repairs!

Thanks for the recap. I'm working an odd shift right now, so I have to be pickier about which shows I watch first on the dvr. It looks like I can save this episode for when I'm doing my chores this weekend!