Mondrianyone

Thanks for the links, Otto! When I'm done reading, I'll know everything there is to know about Svalbard--and still nothing about electronvolts. ;o) We have the entire I, Claudius set on videocassette. And we still have the technology to watch it, scary as that is. Never throw out any electronics unless they explode on you, that's our motto. Well, this is a first. When I clicked to like your post, DXD526, I got a message saying, "You are not allowed to like posts by this poster." I think I did it anyway. Someone is really trying to keep us apart, apparently. Some husbands don't give their wives anything for Christmas. (Feel better soon!) I liked you, Mike, but come on with the no questions on DDs. You've watched the show before, right?

For the first time in recorded history, I sat down with a pen and paper beside me and listed every TS I got: Black Hole of Calcutta, scow, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Elsinore, Henry Moore, Saint-Gaudens, and Rodang (just kidding, Alex). I've never heard of Svalbar (sp?), didn't know electroVolt (sp again?), and wouldn't have gotten the Hunley if I were waterboarded. Oh, and Augustus, if that was a TS. Also got stoker and getting water--I obviously need a better recording system! Or a secretary. That seems like a lot of TSs for one game. I wish Hallie had won, despite her very dumb answer for FJ. She had me at Austin Boston.

I got cognomen, but I thought the fabric was shantung (which in retrospect seems like a weird choice for pajamas). If I'd been playing, I would've written Caruso's full name for FJ, just in case they thought I might've meant David Caruso. I'm glad Cindy lost to someone as nice and smart and seemingly normal as Sam. Nothing about him bugs. So far.

He's 90 years old. He's a great singer, still active, and also a wonderful painter. I'm willing to cut him some slack.

I was actually sentient enough in 1970 to have read the piece in New York magazine that had "Radical Chic" in its title--that wasn't the whole title, but I'm too lazy to look it up. It was about a party that Leonard Bernstein held in his apartment for the Black Panthers. Then there was a book called Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, combining that piece and another one. So if the clue said there was a book called Radical Chic, I don't think that's strictly true. (I don't think it did, did it?) But she got it anyway. When she was doing so badly at the beginning, I figured she'd finally hit the wall. This is a pretty impressive display of what the human will can do. Yay, Cindy!

The one that says that's why "I have trust issues"? I can relate! It's a fun site--thanks!

I truly hate raisins. I even have a T-shirt that says "Raisins Ruin Everything." But for some reason I don't hate dried cranberries--I think it's the little bit of tang. They also don't seem to acquire that gummy, semi-dried snot texture of raisins. So I put craisins in my curried chicken salad, and in most other recipes that call for raisins.

And it's also a play on "Ad Men."

Thank you, Dish Network, for not believing me when I said I needed a new receiver, not just a new HDMI cable, so that I couldn't watch Cindy win again, but I'm glad she did! And now when I finally get to see the game, I'll be a genius, having read all your correct answers in advance. And I can't wait to find out what the clue was that elicited "caulk" as a triple stumper. "I'll take Sloppy Sealants for $400, Alex"? Is Previously assigning alphabet avatars to everyone who doesn't have an avatar? Just noticing all these new letters.

Our satellite receiver picked yesterday to go on the fritz, right as I was about to watch the J! episode it had just recorded. Today I managed to watch by other means. I'm so glad I saw Cindy not only compete but triumph. Feeling very throat-lumpish yet happy. These days I think we all need examples of goodness and bravery and intelligence to inspire us.

Yeah, but April of 2015. One in April and one in December of the same year would be pretty close to a medical miracle. ;o)

Totally agree. I don't feel comfortable providing the requested information either, for the same reasons you mention.

Isn't Judy one of the producers on her own show? I've never looked at the credits to check, so I don't know this for sure, but it's almost a rule in TV that when a star becomes very identified with a show, that person gets a producer credit. My point being that if she's bored with the cases put before her, she's almost certainly in a position to change that. If she doesn't get involved to that extent, then it's on her. And I couldn't agree more that part of her pre-show prep should include looking up local statutes. Just yesterday there was a case where she had to ask Byrd whether the registration-expiration date would be on a windshield sticker for cars registered in New Jersey. He just shrugged. My non-lawyer best guess was that it's on that little corner square on the license plates (that's how it used to be in NY). How hard would it have been to check that out in advance?

He should sue her. But he probably won't. Also, I don't think that $6K was a loan. He repeatedly said, "I gave her six thousand dollars," and she never contradicted him or objected to the word "gave." JJ dropped the ball big time on this one. She took a lot for granted with very little proof.

Bouquet of oysters was my favorite answer of the whole game. If a guy gave you a bouquet of oysters, there'd be absolutely no doubt about what he was expecting from you.

Except if you name your child Soda, in some parts of the country he'd be called Pop. Which could be confusing for a little kid. ;o) Tatface was named Barksdale, like the drug-dealing brothers on The Wire. Apropos of nothing. Maybe she could get a job in collections. I'd pay her anything just to go away. Were the Battling Boggses the two heavyset people who . . . I don't know what their story was. I'd seen them before, and I knew I didn't want to see them again. She was wearing pink and he was wearing blue. I assume that's so we'd know which was the girl and which was the boy. I deleted them after a minute and a half. Some days life really is too short.

I loved the colors of her outfit. Reminded me of a Warhol print I used to have. Bye, Justin. Thank you for not being annoying and for starting at the top.

I heard it as "Pawnshop," too, so I made it a point to read her ID next time it came up. It's Ponchot. Which if it were up to me I'd pronounce "PonSHOW," since it looks French. But they were saying "Pahnchaht"--to rhyme with john-shot. I can't remember her first name, though.

Your friend's theory is for sure better than anything I can come up with! That's probably very close to the truth of what otherwise seems like a head-scratcher. (I've been to debutante school, so of course I personally don't scratch my own head. I have people for that. But you know what I mean.) I couldn't believe that one was allowed to just slide by! And not only her own death but, according to plaintiff, her kids' deaths as well! I once quit a job and answered my phone in Spanish whenever they called to find out where I was, but that's the closest I ever came to pretending I didn't exist. And I was a lot younger then. And had no kids. And harmed no puppies. But seriously, she faked her whole family's death to avoid responsibility for a sick dog? Come on, Judy, think of your audience!

That makes sense. I still don't understand, though, why they'd have to be posted publicly before they could be edited. That seems completely illogical to me. But so do lots of things. ;o)

I was wondering about this. Does anyone know why he would have to post the photos online in order to edit in the fake background? I don't remember the programs he mentioned, but I'm assuming one or more of them works by delivering the product to a website--unlike, say, Photoshop, where you buy the software and do the editing on your own computer (or at least that's how it worked last version of Photoshop I used, the Jurassic version). And if he did have to post them online, couldn't he post them on a private site, so no one could see them until they'd been edited? A lot of the photo stuff seemed confusing to me.

And why does a business that trains girls to be debutantes, a pretty pointless social construct, qualify for nonprofit status? I thought you had to be useful to the community in some way to qualify. Okay, I just Googled it. Per Wikipedia, a group falls under "category 501(c)(3), whereby a nonprofit organization is exempt from federal income tax if its activities have the following purposes: charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering amateur sports competition, or preventing cruelty to children or animals." I don't see how teaching girls etiquette and how to bow in white gowns does any of those things.

Maybe she doesn't know the difference between "minimum" and "maximum." Or maybe she meant one and said the other out of nervousness. Because you're right--what she said didn't make sense. Another possibility is that she somehow knew there was no longer an insurance policy, and that's why she went the JJ route. I'm sure she must've known that the defendant didn't have deep pockets personally. So JJ probably looked like a good gamble. At least there's a free trip to L.A., if nothing else. I agree that Judy had no idea how not-high that fence was. A friend of mine has two Rhodesian ridgebacks, and they could've gone over it without batting an eyelash.

According to the dictionary definition, a tricolor isn't just any flag with three colors, it's "a flag of three colors arranged in equal horizontal or vertical bands" (Webster's 11th). So the French and German flags would be tricolors, but the American flag wouldn't, even though they all have three colors.

I'm remarkably open-minded when it comes to stupid earrings. I once owned not one but two pairs of skeleton earrings, one of which had rhinestone eyes and the other of which glowed in the dark. And I still hate tassel earrings. They just look to me liked you ripped the trim of the drapes and stuck it in your ears. I also thought that Sunny's giant spring ring was the dumbest thing possible to wear while chopping vegetables. And I couldn't stand the special guest. And get off my lawn.