Ketzel

Here's the Wicked Good Cupcakes press release on the deal. Kind of amusing how Marcus praises the product, O'Leary praises the company's success, and neither of them mention the other.

I have to say I am somewhat curious at what job would require a (free lance?) makeup artist to work 12 to 14 hours a day. And this is the second time a participant has come home from the boot camp to have to begin working 12 to 14 hour days (Dave the Chef, also). Obviously, if you are working over eighty or more hours a week, it's going to be hard to put in hours-long daily workouts, plus plan and cook healthy meals. And to me it also raises the question, if Brandi were actually working those hours, why would the PI be reporting she wasn't leaving her house? Was she only under surveillance on her days off?

What on earth has Lacey Schwimmer done to herself? Her face looked like a fifty-year-old's after bad plastic surgery and the plastered-on makeup didn't help. But her waltz choreography was lovely.

Sigh. Brandi going on the attack with Chris after he caught her lying to him brought back a lot of bad memories. There are so many people whose response in that situation is "How dare you catch me?" rather than "I'm sorry I lied to you." I'm always taken aback by people who get all indignant that they weren't trusted, after it's become perfectly obvious that they weren't trustworthy in the slightest.

From TV Guide: Nina Davuluri, 2014 Miss America, helps a 329-lb. 29-year-old makeup artist lose weight

Yes, Chris frequently says or does things that make me go "huh?" Like when he was shocked and disbelieving that Dave might be having a heart attack because Dave was "only thirty." As if there’s never been a morbidly obese thirty-year-old who launched all-out into an “extreme” exercise regimen, only to find his heart couldn’t take the stress? If that came as a surprise to Trainer Chris, he really has no business doing what he does.

Oh dear, this is getting grimmer and more complex every episode, and I am getting confused. I may have missed something last season, but why did Robbie do a 180 with regard to Gillian in the first place? How did he go from believing she murdered his beloved brother to sort of asking her to marry him? Why on earth would Gillian decide to confide anything at all to John? Is the house Alan is now planning to sell to Kimberly (another daughter?) the farmhouse, or does he own another house? Has Ellie abandoned the baby? I can't decide if Celia is slightly stupid or deliberately malicious -- who talks about the deeply personal details of her daughter-in-law's life, and conflicts with her father, to the daughter-in-law's boyfriend, whom she barely knows?

And never mind the whole “Dave is vomiting violently and repeatedly as he works out, so let’s rush him to the doctor” story line, that ended up with “Whoo hoo, Dave has the heart of an athlete!” So, ermm,what was up with all the vomiting? And then the “cardiologist” morphs into the “orthopedist’ shaking her head over Dave’s injured ankle, without actually providing a diagnosis, at least not that I heard. Was it a strain? A sprain? A tear? Was it a tendon? A muscle? The joint?

TV Guide: A 413 lb., 30 year old chef attempts to lose weight.

I guess there are a limited number of cat-human problems the producers classify as sufficiently "hellish." (1) Cat pees/poops outside of litter box; (2) Cat bites/claws people (3) Cat runs away (4) Cat scratches furniture/clothing/wallpaper etc. (5) Two or more cats in household don't get along (6)Cat yowls at night or otherwise interferes with human sleep or other human activity. I'm still hoping for a show about grooming a resistant long-haired cat, but I guess unless they find a cat that is willing to scratch the hell out of its human when approached with a grooming tool, it won't happen. I'd volunteer my long-haired cat, but she doesn't attack me when I try to groom her. Instead, she attacks the tool in my hand - it's cute but frustrating and is why she is now sporting a professional lion clip for the summer months.

I know, right? Even when Jackson explained in the most basic terms how and why an unfixed Tom creates exactly the kind of problems Vincent was exhibiting at home (and also a whole series of other problems as he roamed) the guy looked blankly into the camera and said, "I don't see what neutering has to do with any of this or why it would solve our problems." Not a credible response. I did appreciate Jackson's expressed exasperation when he said something to the effect of "this guy is willing to give his cat up to a shelter rather than have him neutered, and of course, the very first thing any shelter will do is neuter him."

Nice picture. I think he looks much better with the beard trimmed short. *shallow* I wish them a long and happy life together!

I think there is just something wrong with the producers of this show. In the face of a great, genuine tragedy, they still keep amping up their silly fake drama and the whole thing was in such overwhelmingly bad taste that it made me nauseous by the end. My god, a military man suffering from PTSD commits suicide by throwing himself off a building into a trash compactor, leaving behind a widow who blames herself for his death, and a young child diagnosed with PTSD as a result of experiencing the trauma. And those two lamebrain trainers think the right "challenge" for the widow is to JUMP OFF A BUILDING IN FRONT OF HER CHILDREN? By the way, lamebrain trainers - if you had supposedly trained the woman to be able to run ten miles in honor of her dead husband, how is it she was in such bad condition that "her body started breaking down" less than halfway into the run? You think someone whose back is freezing up, and whose hips, knees and ankles were causing terrific pain at that point was maybe not physically ready, which I think was your failure, not hers?. In fact, it was totally obvious to me that she wasn't physically ready to run that distance when she effectively dropped into a fast walk less than a mile into the race. And I couldn't help but notice no mention was made at all of her ever coming close to that distance even once during her "training." But didn't it make good TV to watch her emotionally manipulated into finishing the whole ten miles? No mention was made of the shape she was in the next day, either. Well, at least she lost weight, got a makeover, found a new beau and had skin removal surgery. Whoo hoo! (BTW, did I get it wrong, or did the opening sequence say she had three children? If so, what happened to the third one? I kind of hope she (?) refused to be part of this bizarre tribute/exploitation of her father's death.) Ugh, just ugh.

I think that's typical of any kind of obsessed crafters. I've seen the homes of devoted scrapbookers, historical re-enactors, doll makers, furniture designers - they all look a few weeks away from clinical hoarding (although the scrapbookers tend to be more organized, ime.) I say this with love and respect for these people and with a slightly uneasy glance over my own shoulder at the towering pile of art supplies, tools and unfinished projects that fill the home office I am supposed to be doing actual, paid work in.

I don't find any of the characters particularly likeable, but I do find them interestingly real and complex. This is one show I don't watch for the story - I watch the acting, which is amazing, imo. It's a unique experience for me, watching a show without a rooting interest in some way, but the writing and the craft are so good, I stay committed anyway.

I think Gillian told Judith she'd slept with John because John was acting like an asshole stalker and she was afraid Judith would either figure it out, or that John would tell her and make it seem like he and Gillian were having a relationship, not just a drunken one-night-stand that she immediately regretted.

We already know some of the owners are lying about some things - after the infamous "Pump" episode, the people effectively admitted they never had any intention of keeping Pump, no matter how Jackson managed to modify Pump's behavior. And there was some feedback from the people with the Sphynx cat that they had had no intention of giving up the cat no matter what they said on the program. Plus, you often have guardians claiming to have put up with unbearable behavior for years and years with no explanation of why they had reached a breaking point at exactly the moment the show was casting. So we get a show with a lot of bad acting and pointless dramatics (and now stupid human tricks by Jackson.) My preference would be to eliminate all the "from hell" and "the cat is a whisker away from euthanasia!" emphasis and substitute more education instead. I don't think Jackson trots through the house, meets the cat or cats, sits down with the owners, announces the homework assignment and leaves. I want more info on cat psychology, more on how he deals with human resistance and/or ignorance, more explanation of why and how the homework will lead to improving the situation, more demonstrations of "catification." And I want fewer shots of bloody hands and shins and fewer "serial killer" references.

Poor Frankie, another perfectly nice cat whose world was turned upside down and inside out by his people, and who was communicating sadness and distress in the only way he could. I was somewhat taken aback at Jackson's comments on how angry and borderline out-of-control Daniel was, ranting about how disgusting Frankie had become and how he had to go. To me, those outbursts came across as bad acting and nothing more. Every time he went into a tirade about the cat with his wife in the frame (the one who originally adopted and adored Frankie) it was obvious that Desiree could barely keep herself from laughing.(Equally over the top was his expression of love for the cat after Jackson solved the problem for them.) One clue that he was pretending to be enraged was his reaction when Jackson told them to line the bedroom wall that Frankie had taken to marking with five different litter boxes. I find it hard to believe that someone as furious and disgusted by the cat would be calmly accepting of the idea of installing multiple cat boxes in the bedroom, but Daniel was apparently just fine with it. Was Jackson pretending to be so worried about Daniel's "extreme" response to the cat? Or was he genuinely taken in by what I imagine to be production's instructions to the guy - "Now, when Jackson gets here, we want you to really unload on him! Make him believe you are ready to throw the cat out now, if he can't fix the problem! Don't hold back!"

As they showed Carl assembling his costume, I (who hadn't heard him say who he was going for) kept wondering why he was making a black and white chicken suit. Unlike Carl, Miguel apparently really did learn something and I though he earned the judge's choice. And I was very impressed with Jesse this time around, especially when he did such a great job of re-creating the metal elements in resin after figuring out the metal elements in metal were too heavy. Although I did wonder why he couldn't have figured that out before casting all those little armor plates in metal - did I miss something?

I thought she was the one who adopted the dogs, too. Certainly, the boyfriend wasn't acting like he cared much about them either. (Unlike the one from a few weeks ago with the "sensitive gag reflex" around the cat his wife had adopted before they met, who clearly adored his own dog.) And he wasn't living there at the time of the show because of all the "disgusting" and "unsanitary" cat behavior, so I don't think they were his dogs, living there without him. But honestly, what kind of person has a cat for twelve years and then brings two untrained high energy dogs into the house? It's just a mean thing to do to an older cat and she showed absolutely no insight and no compassion for Precious at all.

Ten thousand dollar vow renewal bride looked to me like a linebacker from the waist up and a sausage starting to explode starting from the bottom up from the waist down. The second strapless gown she put on was so much more flattering on her, I couldn't imagine what she was seeing in the mirror when she fell for the first fugly one. Virgin Bride's father was an obnoxious ass. He was right about the stripper fairy outfit, but still obnoxious.

Yeah, the swimming phobia was another WTF part of the storyline. If I recall correctly, when Jayce arrived at the boot camp, Chris gave him the usual lecture about a new start, a new opportunity and ended by asking Jayce if there was anything he had really really wanted to do that his weight prevented him from doing? And Jayce responded (with apparent enthusiasm) "Swimming!" And Chris promised Jayce would get his chance to learn to swim. So I took that to mean swimming was something Jayce thought he would really enjoy, but self-consciousness about his weight, or actual issues with his weight, like joint pain (?) had prevented him from learning. I was expecting him to be scared-but-happy to learn to swim. And with no warning, we are suddenly switched from "Jayce gets to try something he always wanted to do, but couldn't because - fat" storyline to "Jayce must confront his most feared obstacle in order to move forward in his life" storyline, complete with Jayce weeping over his traumatic childhood water accident experience. And dragging the guy out into the open ocean in Bora Bora or wherever they were came across as just cruel, even with Ryan Lochte as a cheerleader, which led me to wonder if the producers started the swimming storyline with the same expectations that I had, only to have Jayce fall apart in the middle of it all. Because if swimming was a goal, not a fearsome obstacle, then it made sense to give him the experience of swimming in beautiful ocean waters accompanied by an Olympic champion. If a fearsome obstacle, then, well, not so much. I'm not saying Jayce wasn't traumatized by a water accident as a child. I am saying the show couldn't get its act together enough to present a coherent, comprehensible storyline. Even if the story changed in the middle, couldn't the editing keep up?

But she didn't do anything on camera, or say anything on camera or even appear on camera making gestures like the "bad father" from that other episode I can't remember at the moment. We only heard what Jayce and his parents described as her behavior, and while that definitely played into the Evul Ex-Wife storyline, they aren't exactly the most unbiased, credible sources under the circumstances.

Another basically unbelievable backstory being forced on us as if we were idiots. Clearly, Jayce has been fighting obesity (or rather, surrendering to it) since he was a child. Isn't that sad enough? Why hoke up some stupid fiction about Teh Evul Ex-Wife Who Undermined His Confidence And Robbed Him Of His Child, when it's perfectly obvious his weight was one of the contributing causes to the divorce, not the result of it? (Even he moaned that his wife called him a "fat loser.") And it's not as if we couldn't see him on camera with his son, and on the phone with his son, plus repeatedly seeing the "You deserve this!" booster speech his son made to him as he headed for the boot camp. Frankly, the whole thing sounded like a pretty typical custody dispute, probably revolving around child support payments. I wonder what the wife's side of the story is? She sure seemed to be winning in court (and I am wondering if the "paper" she "threw" at his parents when they came to pick their grandson up for the reveal show was an injunction preventing Jayce from putting the kid on camera again.) Was that country song that he kept playing every chance he got the same song he sold to Jason Aldean? It sounded like it, which makes me think if it was, it wasn't all that interesting a song and didn't he want to showcase something else? And if it wasn't, then all of his stuff sounds very similar to me, which is not so good for an aspiring songwriter. But whatever, he lost a lot of weight, good for him, hope he keeps it off.

I couldn't tell if it was the editing, or for real, but the woman had a very odd affect when it came to the cat. Lux was her baby, her darling, but she was terrified of Lux and didn't trust him? She was very afraid Lux would attack her actual baby, but she didn't prevent the baby from yanking the cat's tail, and was unwilling to let Lux go to another home, even after she was told there was no guarantee Lux would not have another FHS-triggered incident that might put the baby at risk? I may have misunderstood, but I thought the father was saying that he kicked out at Lux as a punishment, not in order to get Lux away from the baby, and then Lux turned on him. And I have to say I cannot imagine a situation in which I would lock myself in a bedroom and call 911 to deal with a housecat. I mean, I am not exactly Andre the Giant, but I do outweigh my own cat by more than a hundred pounds, and I own a broom. Herding a group of cats may be difficult, but I think I could herd a single one into the bathroom, no matter how dementedly he was acting, and then call my vet, not law enforcement.