Gah Tom, that old reference was something I watched in re-runs the summer I nannied in NY. I was hormonal and surrounded by pregnant women for most of my days. Those episodes made me a mess.

I really liked season 1 of Downton, and then season 2 was pretty meh but the Christmas special was great, and this season has had its ups and downs but I haven't watched the finale yet.

Oh Gary!

That was awful.

Can someone please tell me what the Downton Abbey foofurrah is about?

I really liked S1, watched S2 but with less caring, and then deleted S3 from my machine thinking it was S2 reruns, and didn't feel sad about it, so....just curious.

ita: [link]

Hubby is oddly into Downton, but he likes foreign soap operas. I have no patience for soap operas or soap opera elements in other shows. People have problems, I know, and they interfere with daily stuff, but problems for the sake of doing something with a character are annoying.

I'm editing several pieces about hydraulic fracturing. My brain went numb 500 words ago.

See, I'd enjoy that.

Thanks, Tom. That article seems to put a weird amount of responsibility for the plot onto actors and not writers for a bit, but I think this is an interesting criticism of a narrative:

puts the responsibility of [...] processing [...] on the viewers, not on the show, which is where it belongs.

And that's an interesting thing to keep in mind, from a meta, analysis point of view.

See, I'd enjoy that.

It actually got better as he started to explain the process and the terms, but first thing on a Monday I could use something like celebrity gossip to wake me up.

I'm editing a writer now who includes sentences like this:

But besides aiming to heighten enrollment rates, schools are often required to urge and encourage current students to complete their programs of study. In this way, a sufficient number of conferred graduates could make for better reputations and augment the tradition of competition among all universities and colleges positively.

I want to strangle him. Or possibly beat him to death with Strunk and White.

I'm editing an article by authors who make abbreviations plural by adding apostrophe + s, yet when they use a possessive (like "the patient's therapy"), they don't use an apostrophe.

FIST OF DEATH.