DOA's Saturday Puzzles An Answer Key for The Book of Witching Word Find

 Here you go, puzzlers, in case there was that one word you couldn't spot.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles A Rebus for November 30, 2024

Time to wake from that Thanksgiving Day leftovers food coma and start the brain back up.  There are five Saturdays somehow in the short month of November, so it's Rebus Week. Enjoy! Click to enlarge if needed.

Five Things Friday November 29, 2024

 When the first thing your spouse says to you is that it’s Friday and there’s no Five Things zzzzzzzz.  I have been a fiend getting ready for Thanksgiving, and now a little break before I go into Christmas mode. Posts late, but present, check.

One:Thanksgiving was good, all the food, all the cleaning and organizing, but it wasn’t THIS perfect.

Two:  I finally found a tasty yet simple recipe for Apple Strudel. It is a nice alternative to apple pie. 

Three: My husband was Mr. Perfecto for the holiday so no reflection on him.

 Four: ‘Tis the season for shopping and hiding gifts as needed.  

Five: Your weekly Vintage Christmas display.  I’m not a fan of Jadeite, the green serving ware, but it does have some charm when added to a Santa display.

DOA On TV November 24, 2024

 

NCIS and Matlock are on hiatus this week  and next week, and I did not watch the Great British Baking Show yet, so there's only Survivor.  In one of those historic shifts, we have cable now for Internet only, and the cable box was poofed back to Xfinity.

I have subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney/Hulu, and now I've picked up Paramount Plus Showtime via Amazon.  It's a bit hinky finding my way to the local TV station so I can watch live TV on my iPad, but it worked and I can watch Survivor upstairs where it's warm.

 

Survivor 

Don't you love how they show snakes slithering around during certain conversations?  I guess there are too many snakes still going strong to have them be an effective tool right now.

 In contention for Survival vote out of the night were Genevieve and Gabe.  Gabe was the vote of the night. Somehow his threat level and arrogance got to enough people so off he went.  Kyle is on a run and got immunity once more.  They should have voted for him last week instead of Sol, but if he powers his way to the end, good for him.

Speaking of Sol, he came into tribal with an open vest and wowed everyone.  Gabe says in an after interview he had nail polish on and red shoes.  He was stunning.  It poured rain throughout tribal adding to the look.  Here's a screen grab from someone who added a snarky comment on the picture.  Not mine.  It will be fun watching his wardrobe choices as we go, right?

The other show I watched this week was Strange New Worlds season 2.  I had kept my previous subscription to Paramount just for Picard.  When that ended I let it go.  I wasn't enamored with season 1 of the show.  Many of the characters were borderline likeable, I thought.

Enter season 2, and the show was completely different to watch. Many characters were given episodes that featured them, and in every case they were more relatable and likeable.

After watching the first episode of the season Broken Circle , I thought "this is the best Star Trek episode I've ever seen."

The stories were all engaging, including one which was a musical episode (I love musical episodes), and one in which a couple of characters from the cartoon Trek series Lower Decks visited the live action Trek characters via a time portal.  

They used the young James Kirk (pictured above) in several episodes.  It's fun to see him at this time in his life. He's not quite the same character we know, but he's interesting.

Ethan Peck's Spock is my favorite of all the versions.  He's everything that he always was, but he's a softer version, with a bit of humor.

In a dramatic final episode of the season James Montgomery Scott pops up.  He's adorable.  

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key For the November 16, 2024 Puzzle

 Hi, hope you enjoyed this month's Cryptogram.  It's a quote from Aristotle. Click to Enlarge.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles A Word Find for The Book of Witches

 The Book of Witching by C J Cooke is her newest novel.  It follows two mothers centuries apart trying to protect their children.  I reviewed it this week on my Merlyn blog, among other titles.

https://merlynperilous.wordpress.com/2024/11/21/review-backlog-november-21-2024/

 

 

Five Things Friday November 22, 2024

Happy Thanksgiving, next week. By this time next week it will all be done and there we will all be rolling back and forth full of turkey and dressing.

One: Speaking of the holidays, I found this which really sums up one of the joys of Christmas which is decorating every inch of the house.

Two:  I know this is a throwback to all those old memes that tried to snare your favorites and birthday info, but just don’t answer out loud…

Three:  I never get my turkey baked just right. It’s always icy inside and Tom’s secret parts don’t want to come out for anything.

Four: Here’s a proper TDay greeting.

Five:  Let’s all practice our He Man voice!

DOA On TV November 17, 2024

 

 NCIS: Origins

In episode six Incognito, Petty Officer Greg Piccolo is found dead in his apartment with salacious love letters from a pen pal lying near the body.  According to these, he was supposed to meet his fantasy girl, but he ended up dead.  Complicating things is the fact he works with top secret documents.  A co-worker of Piccolo’s points out that microfiche with Tomahawk missile plans have been replaced with blank fiche pages.

There never was a girl, but the team finds they can get to the person who is now selling the plans for 30k.  They just need to send Lala and Gibbs incognito into a private club, working closely with the FBI to get them in and out safely as they go in unarmed.

It’s Lala’s story this week as she is feeling boxed in at home and at work by the expectations of others.  She’s uncharacteristically emotional in many scenes, but this isn't as we’ve come to know her,  usually she’s got a hard tough shell.  That crumbles a bit this week.   There’s a bit of sexual tension between Lala and Gibbs and Lala and a guy from a bar.  She has issues this week alright.

This is Gibbs’ first time out in the field undercover, and he is anything but relaxed.  He’s almost robotic, in fact.  Better luck in two weeks, everyone, when the next episode airs.

Survivor

The last nice person in the game got popped this week,  Sol Yi. 

Targeted by the low snake Genevieve for getting her pal Rome out, she managed to get the vote for Sol through, though Sue and Kyle also had their names tossed about.  It’s frustrating the other players still see Genevieve as a quiet unassuming girl.  Other than that, there was a good four part challenge with the first four to lose also losing their vote at tribal, with a chance to earn it back.  The last four players still in the challenge at the end went head to head, or rather foot to foot trying to stay on increasingly narrow bits of wood without dropping. It looked painful!

 

Matlock

In episode six Sixteen Steps, Julian and Olympia are getting a chance to re-try a case where a baby formula manufacturer was responsible for the poisoning death of a nine month old.  The last time they tried the case it failed.  They feel it was partially because the mothers of the baby were not put on the stand.  This time, the warmer snugglier of the pair has agreed to testify.  When she falls ill from the stress of the upcoming trial, her wife who is very hard and angry and self protective says she will testify.  You can see in the practice sessions with Olympia and her team that the woman will not engender sympathy, particularly as the defending attorney is determined to make the mothers seem neglectful and responsible.

 

Somehow, they need to find a way to get her to show how this affected her, and when Olympia talks to Matty about her daughter, she sees a way. 

The team does find the answer to how the formula was contaminated, but it is the testimony of the mom talking about her child and walking sixteen steps back and forth at night when he’d wake that is so heartbreaking.

 

Great British Baking Show

Things are more competitive than ever in the tent, and Illiyin’s cake top just slid right off.  I felt so bad for her.  She left the tent this week.  Here’s a case where all the contestants are wonderful, so I’m happy to see any of them win.

 

Downton Abbey The Motion Picture

 I wanted some comfort TV this week so I finally watched Downton Abbey The Motion Picture (awkward title).  The King and Queen will be stopping at Downton for one night and the household and staff are beside themselves trying to prepare.  No need, it seems, as the Royal staff come with the King and Queen, from a Housekeeper to valets, to a chef.  Downton staff are rudely told to stay out of the way.  With a bit of plotting schemed up by Mr and Mrs Bates, the Royal staff is supplanted at the last with household staff and all is successful.  

There are side stories for Edith, Mary, Violet and Thomas. 

Lovely to see them all back.

 

DOAs Saturday Puzzles: An Answer Key for the 11/9/24 Secret Code Puzzle

Well, that was easy, right?   The quote is by Woodrow Wilson after having seen the film The Birth of A Nation.

It is like writing history with lightning.  And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: A Cryptogram For November 16, 2024

 Time to do some more decoding!  I'm using the Discovery Education Puzzle Generator this week.  Let's mix things up, you say.  Click to enlarge.

Five Things Friday November 15, 2024

 I’m well into my Christmas shopping and am finding great gifts for people. It makes me happy and I know they will love it.  Even my spouse The Grinch.

One:  Need extra storage or display space? Painting an old drawer and hanging it on the wall could add unexpected charm to your home.

Two:  Have some fun rocks you’d like to paint? These snowmen are adorable.

Three:  The Vintage Kitsch Christmas type groups are active again. Here’s the sort of display I love. Dang I saw the green elf heads last year and didn’t get them. They kind of intrigued me, kind of creeped me out. 

Four:  I don’t know why these didn’t catch on.

Five:  As they say in Pandaria, Slow Down.

DOA On TV November 10, 2024

Here we are with another week of TV.  I watched my regular series and tried out a couple of new ones.  We're getting to that season where curling up with a good book or binge watching a show is just the thing.

NCIS: Origins  Last Rites

This week belongs to Mike Franks and an old case he solved.  Solved the case, never found the body. 

 

A husband who killed his wife and lover in a grisly mess then buried their bodies in separate locations is on Death Row and due to be executed in two days.  At some point in the past, Franks promised the woman's twin he would find the body.  He became obsessed with it, and attacked Hope, the killer, in prison.  

Anna's sister was contacted by Hope to get "absolution" and then he would reveal the location of her body.  Franks worked the case alone in the past, but now he has Lala and Gibbs and Randy to help.  It turns out Hope murdered yet another person, giving the team a pattern to the burials which leads to Anna's body.

Franks is out of control in several scenes, and even fights with his wife Tish over the case.  At the last, he races to the prison where Hope is getting lethal injections just to let the man know he won, they found the body.

Survivor

This week's episode featured that fan favorite The Survivor Auction.  After scrabbling in the morning for tubes in the jungle that contained money, the players had to spend down their money as fast as they could.  The person who had the most money at the end of the auction would lose their vote at tribal.

For once, the food was really great stuff.  It didn't look to me as anyone was just really digging in and eating, though.  Don't they know once the auction ends your food is gone?

Just two gross things this time around: those giant fish eyes that are the size of a small cake, and live wriggling grubs on a plate.  Gack.

This week there was a male and female who were immune: Sue and Kyle (his third in a row).  Lots of scrabbling before and at tribal.  A tie between Sam and Sierra resulted in a re-vote and Sierra left in tears.

Matlock  Episode 5 Claws

Olympia's team is working on a class action suit for prison inmates who were in particularly gruesome conditions before recent changes at the prison, including a new warden.

The key witness is a former inmate who works in a beauty salon as a nail artist.  Before she can testify, she relapses and begins taking drugs again.  Matty recognizes she's high and tells Olympia the girl can't be a witness.  They talk to several other potential witnesses, but once they hear Katya has relapsed, they're afraid and won't testify.

  

Matty goes to a drug house to find Katya to see if she can identify her dealer, maybe he was a guard at the prison?  This is a huge horror for Matty and her husband who have been to places like this before looking for their daughter.  It's almost more than they can do.

No luck there with Katya, but back at the beauty salon, Matty asks to see the tape of the day Katya relapsed, in particular a woman who was with Katya a long time and was disturbingly rude.  Matty recognizes the woman though she's wearing a hat.

Matty and her husband are trying to keep their grandson out of the cases now so he can have a normal school life.  It's tough without him!

On the other hand, Matty's office mates Billy and Sarah are starting to feel left out of the action as Matty shines in every case.  It's as if the writers don't quite know what to do with them now.

The Great British Baking Show: Dessert Week

This week it was meringue, spotted dick, and a tiramisu showstopper.  Aside from a few cracked meringues, it was all spectacular stuff from everyone.  I confess it's been a rough week, so I made it to the part where they said One Minute Left! on the showstopper, then I opened my eyes and the credits were rolling. zzzzzzzzz. 

Dylan has been really working hard each week and he got star baker.  Sumayah was done in by a mix of lemon curd and coffee that didn't go over well with the judges.

Her work is spectacular, but the talent this time around makes it so hard to eliminate anyone.

Christiaan's Showstopper

Yellowjackets

I've heard about the show for a long time, and now that it's on Netflix, I watched the first episode, which was its pilot.

The Yellowjackets are a high school soccer team that gets a spot in the Nationals.  They're getting a ride to the Nationals on the private jet belonging to the parents of one of the girls.  Diverted to airspace over Canada to avoid storms, the plane crashes.

The show is split into two timelines: 1996, the year of the tournament and airplane crash, and 2021 where the survivors of the crash carry on with their lives and dodge a reporter who wants the real story of what happened during the nineteen months they were stranded in the wilderness.

Each timeline features a teen and an adult actress for each character.

It isn't clear what goes on after the crash, though there are a few scenes from that time showing the girls dressed in bizarre outfits as if they were primitives.  It's pretty clear there's cannibalism.

There's quite a bit of character reveal before the crash.  There's a lot of competition and cruelty in the girls as a group.  Everyone seems to have a terrible home life.  Lots of sex. I can't say I liked a single character in the past or present.

Because of that, I will leave my viewing at one episode, and not watch more.

Territory

Not having seen any version of Yellowstone, I was curious and thought I'd start with a fresh new series that features a family and its challenges running a cattle station in Australia.  I have seen the first four episodes, and will watch the last two.

When the heir apparent to Marianne Station is injured after falling from his horse, and then is devoured by dingoes, the Lawson family is thrown into a scrabble for who will be next to run the ranch.  Everyone wants the job, nobody seems capable.

I don't understand why patriarch Colin Lawson doesn't just step back into the role, polishing his apparently rusty skills a bit.  While keeping the place afloat, he could be training in several of the family members vying for the role.  He could see who is actually capable.

Nah, he decides a ne'er do well grandson who doesn't want the job is his new heir.  The kid is a thief and allows himself to be a lackey for a truly slimy fellow thief.

Here's another show where it's hard to find likeable characters.  I like granddaughter Susie and think she's a much better bet than Marshall, her half brother.  I liked Emily, wife to drunken Graham, till she revealed her ruthless nature.  I was really rooting for her.  I also like Nolan Brannock, an indigenous cattle station owner who wants to compete with bigger cattle stations but keeps having bad luck and bad people coming his way.  Colin the patriarch is a monster, let's just say.

Even so, beautiful country, fascinating culture, I hope something good happens in the last two episodes.

DOA's Saturday Puzzles A Rebus Answer Key for the 11/2/24 Puzzle

 One puzzle maker wouldn't change the word "walk" into a picture, this one wouldn't come up with some clever way to break up crab into a puzzle bit.  There just sits the crab, not walking or anything.

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight. 

Aristotle

DOA's Saturday Puzzles: A Secret Code Puzzle for 11/9/24

 Welcome to a new Variety Week Puzzle.  I had to dig to find the puzzle generator for this one.  The quote is in a "secret code" made up of picture symbols.  Use the key at the bottom of the puzzle page to decode this week's puzzle.

Five Things Friday November 8, 2024

 Lots of options for Five Things this week.  These are my favorites.

One:  Five points for the correct spelling of the word.

Two:  I always like the phrase brudder from anudder mudder.  Or some thing like that.

Three:  If you’ve ever had an MRI, this explains a lot.

Four: Downton Abbey these are not.

Five:  What could be handier?

DOA On TV: November 3, 2024

 

NCIS: Origins

In episode four, All’s Not Lost  a school teacher’s home has been entered by an assailant who shoots her.   The 12 year old girl who lived with her is missing, presumed kidnapped by the killer.   Was the teacher the target or the girl, whose father is serving overseas?

Once again Lala tries to intervene to keep Gibbs from working a case. She feels Gibbs will be undone trying to rescue the child when he had been able to do nothing to save his own child.

It turns out Gibbs is more motivated than anyone, and he finds her while the team is out looking in the woods.  Despite efforts from Lala and the Office Manager (?) Mary Jo to talk to Mildred about the killer, did she see him, can she describe him, the girl shuts down their efforts.

When Gibbs steps in, completely comfortable taking to a little girl in just the way a father would know how to approach a tough topic, she feels safe enough to help him with a description using a flip book with different facial features in it.

Unfortunately, the killer finds the girl and a tense fight ensues in a dark basement, with the girl hiding under the steps.

Lots of heartbreaking moments for Gibbs in this episode.

Only Murders In The Building

In the finale of this season My Best Friend’s Wedding the murderer is revealed.  Interestingly, the trick of how the killer shot from the west wing of the building, then made his way over to clean up and hide Sazz’s  body is solved.  The killer was her stunt protégé who could easily scrabble along a ledge nobody noticed all along.

Charles and Oliver bravely want to break into Dudenoff’s apartment to rescue Mabel using the same path. They do, taking a shorter route.  The two of them on the ledge is pure slapstick comedy.

 

All is wrapped up, Oliver and Loretta get married, though she’s off to New Zealand for a new show.

Tossed in at the last is the victim of season five, seemingly dead in a fountain of wine (?).

 

Survivor

People may complain about advantages, but they can be great.  While everyone is dozing, Sol finds a hidden advantage at the reward feast.  He is on a team who is safe from tribal.  The advantage asks him to give the advantage to someone on the team which will be going to tribal.  Rachel is the recipient, and she can use it to leave tribal safely and not vote or be voted on (she was the one going), or she can block a vote.  She only reads aloud the part at tribal that allows her to leave.

Brilliantly, this leaves the Tuku tribe members stunned and at a loss, because they all had plans that included Rachel, the only non Tuku in the group.  They scrambled quickly, and voted out Tiyana, the stewardess who had just emotionally spoken about how important it was for her to make the jury, which she did not.

During the entire process Sol gave an award winning performance, looking and sounding surprised and astounded by this turn of events.

 

Matlock

With episode four The Rabbit and the Hawk, Matty figures out who in the law firm was responsible for hiding opioid information for a big pharmaceutical company.  The guilty party pulls off a particularly dirty move that affects the current case for Olympia and company.  Then he goes golfing, happy with his work.

Matty now has to find a way to prove what he did.

 

The Great British Baking Show

Featuring an Autumn theme, with pies and cakes using traditional fall ingredients.  What spectacular work for all of the bakers, but my beloved Nelly went home. Though her showstopper looked great, the flavors proved to be very much disliked by the judges.

Illiyin's cake.