Mondrianyone

Lucky I didn't think of Hewlett-Packard or I might've gotten FJ wrong. I've only ever heard Mel Blanc's name pronounced as "blank," so I Googled. Turns out that Blank was the original spelling, and he changed it to Blanc based on having been told by a teacher that he'd be doomed careerwise with a last name that labeled him as a blank. No mention that he changed the pronunciation to go along with the French spelling (his parents were Russian-Jewish). What I found funny was that finally someone weirdly Frenchified a name and Alex corrected it back to the non-Frenchified version. I think the end times have arrived. I'll alert the media.

To me that makes it even worse. I take that to mean it's infecting every area of discourse and every level of education. So it annoys me more. (And we both just used "So" correctly.)

I had to laugh when JJ told the twisted sisters that sneaking guys into their rooms at night wasn't how Romeo and Juliet got started. It was exactly how Romeo and Juliet got started! He didn't stop with a dramatic little conversation at her balcony. I guess JJ skipped the scene where Juliet was sneaking him out in the morning. And then had her nurse shave the side of her head. (Kidding about the last part.)

Or both. He might improve his cognitive status if he picked up a book or something, rather than Gladys Kravitzing his unfortunate tenants all day. No wonder they did most of their business under cover of darkness.

Oh, no! I feel another song parody coming on. I'll try to keep deep-breathing till it passes.

Also, try nuking them in the microwave for up to half a minute for lemons, less for limes. It increases the amount of juice by a great deal.

I didn't mind CK in the original shows--in fact, I kind of liked him. The way he and the others interacted seemed like the product of long-established, comfortable relationships, and he sort of played the useful idiot most of the time. (It also didn't hurt that he once talked about the best concert he'd ever been to, and I was at that concert as well, so I felt a connection. Plus, we went to the same school. He felt like someone I could've known.) But he's getting on my nerves little by little on this new show. He's using the same old shtick--I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, is it going to be too spicy? If I made this, it would be a bowl of slop. Etc., etc. We get it, you're the dumb one (even though you're not), and they're going to stun you with their brilliance. He hasn't adjusted his interactions to fit the new people and keeps trying to fit them into the slots occupied by people he had a long history with. Switch it up, I don't think the new cooks are into it. And don't always make it about you--it's clearly uncomfortable for them to play along. At least it's uncomfortable to watch (for me anyway).

I think at one point she scratched her neck under her wig and then put her hand back into the bowl of rice. I'd call that a Board of Health moment.

Thanks! The only parts of the clue I remember through my sleep haze mentioned a German import and the protector bit. Maybe he thought AKC stands for "Armament Keepers Club."

He said Heckler & Koch, which is a German weapons manufacturer. He was obviously thinking about their handguns. (This is the non-girlie part of my knowledge base. I work on lots of thrillers, so I know a scary amount about guns, ammo, plastic explosives. . . .) I was half asleep during the game, so I can't remember what the category was--if it was dogs, then this was a pretty stupid answer. But otherwise it kind of fits the clue--and it does have the same first and last letter, if you count both words as a unit.

There were some photos from Dr. PP in that search string. I had to squint when I looked at them. Seeing video might send me over the edge. ETA: We just watched the motorcycle case. She was nuts. No pretense of actually addressing the basis of the actual case. She was determined to be right, so she made the case about what she wanted it to be about rather than what it was about. I like this show when it's fun to watch, not when she goes off the damn rails. And why do I have a line at the top of my reply box that say "REQUIRED" in red type? Is it just me? I don't know what it means.

Me, too. It's kind of alarming when I think about all the categories I tend to run: flowers, gemstones, fashion, shoes, poetry, needlework, cake decorating, menstrual issues (they don't have that last one especially, but they should). That's a nauseatingly girlie collection of topics. I need to bone up (sorry) on jock itch and mixed martial arts. The only TS I remember is Runnymede, but I know there were others.

Lipomas can occur on the head. My friend's dog has a pretty big one on her head right now. Only open this link if you have a strong stomach. (The pictures are of lipomas on people, not dogs.) I'm sure that must be true--too big to aspirate--when the cyst is that huge. I probably wouldn't diagnose someone on the Net even if I were a doctor. Which, fortunately for everyone, I'm not. And also fortunately, my friend's dog has no plans to be a litigant on JJ. But I told her to wear sleeves, just in case.

I've had sebaceous cysts, too. But not right in the middle of my forehead, and not anywhere near that size. Sometimes they just go away, and sometimes they can be needle-aspirated. I've never had a scar from one. Hers could also be a lipoma or a bone growth, or probably a number of other things. But I prefer to believe she's smuggling avocados, and no one can talk me out of it. ;o)

I've been watching Alex Trebek since the get-go. If it isn't correct by now . . .

I do a dead-on imitation of Kellyanne Conway being interviewed by Anderson Cooper. And Carol Burnett singing "Shy" from Once Upon a Mattress. I can also sing the "Marseillaise" in French. (I might win the whole game just on the strength of that, if Alex has anything to say about it.) It never occurred to me that any of these dubious talents were appropriate for my Jeopardy! chat, but apparently everything's on the table these days.

Are you saying that the tragic tale of "a poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed" didn't qualify as a drama for you? Not to mention the underlying themes of the cee-ment pond and Tony Soprano's ducks in the swimming pool. Tsk-tsk. ;o)

I always love the gemstone categories, 'cause I can run them like a boss (unlike the sports ones). I got the "jet" TS, which I don't think anyone has mentioned yet. Jonah's father has some hugely impressive credits in Hollywood. Maybe that's why Jonah seemed to feel entitled to win. Or at least that's how it looked. An interesting tidbit about the Chrysler Building (which I didn't bother to confirm by Googling, so let's hope my memory is right): Those triangular light insets at the top were part of the original plan, but the technology didn't exist to do them properly at the time, so they were shelved. And then someone unearthed the plans and found it was possible to do the lights, so they did, in 1981, more than fifty years later. I remember when it was first lit up at night--beyond magical. Also, some brave women mounting a gargoyle or two. I have to lie down on the floor and clutch the carpet when I look at these photos.

I haven't gone back to rewatch the part after she goes out the door, so I can't begin to comment on that. But isn't Byrd there precisely to protect JJ against people who are off their rocker? I was really shocked when this loon got all the way to the bench, when he's been very clear about stopping much less threatening folks who've started to move in that direction. The whole thing was definitely weird, that's for sure.

But she also did walk right up to the bench with her phone to hand to JJ. Without any interference from Byrd on that either. I thought that was very strange at the time, so maybe there is some validity to the whole fakey thing. Was it sweeps week?

This is exactly how I spent my TV break today. Two mean, arrogant, entitled sacks of double-X chromosomes for the price of one. It almost makes you want to rethink that whole feminism thing. (Not really, but yikes.) Some of this stuff, if you wrote it and pitched it for a movie, you'd get laughed out of the story conference. What are the odds that when Tamara (and what is it with that name anyway? does it breed nastiness and entitlement as soon as it hits the birth certificate?) decided to confess to B&E, the person she chose turned out to be the plaintiff's sister?!? That doesn't happen in real life, until it does. It never occurred to me that the walk-off was staged, but I think I FF'd too far past the commercial. I'm keeping this one, though, so I have to go back and look. I guess this is why I can't bring myself to quit JJ.

I only saw the last few minutes of that case because high-school girls' basketball went late, so I was wondering if that thing had been mentioned in the part I missed. Jeez, lady, forget the rent and run, do not walk, to get that thing looked at. She has a serious medical issue or she's smuggling avocados over state lines. Subcutaneously. One at a time. Either way . . . Very scary.

It's actually not grammatically incorrect to lead a compound subject with the "I" pronoun. It was just drilled into people that it was impolite to put yourself first, so we started thinking it was a grammar issue. I blame those damn Victorians, but I have no idea when it really started. I don't think I was there. Why is a guy named Alan Harrison using the Spanish inverted exclamation mark in front of his name? I bet he was thinking of Semi-Tough, which actually is a movie about football. I might start calling that tendency to argue a ruling while the cameras are running the Pranjal Corollary to the Pranjal Gambit. This could get complicated.

Weird Alice. I don't know, but I'm pretty sure somebody's gonna end up with a toilet roller in his eyeball. You and me both. Love.

Oh, you all are too kind. I'll be handing out lyric sheets, and I expect everyone to sing in unison the next time there's a lousy ruling. Which should be in three, two, one . . . I had completely forgotten that Alex Jacob also sang the alphabet backwards. What the hell? Aside from two grown men expecting credit for doing toddler tricks, that makes Rob's copycatting even creepier. It sounds like he wants to skin Alex and wear him like last year's Versace (™Real Housewives of Jersey). Stop it right now.