BSR

Does your young friend absolutely have his heart set on the LV socks? 1) I don't like the socks, and 2) if your young friend is wearing a $330 pair of rather loud socks, the rest of his outfit needs to be similarly posh. A pair of LV socks with an ensemble from Chez Tarzhay would look ... odd. How about a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes and matching belt? Unlike the socks, they don't scream "LV" and would match up well with any decent, not necessarily posh outfit. Plus you could buy the shoes+belt for $400 less than the 6-pack of socks.

I just searched the US LV website. I didn't find socks like the ones in your post, just 2 sets of 6 pairs of socks for *coughsputtergasp* $1,990(!). To add insult to injury, the patterns are FUGLY. Even if you're a billionaire, anyone who spends 2 grand on ugly socks needs to get their head examined.

Marcos Giron, 29yo currently ranked #57

Great photos! All the models stayed in great shape. A couple even have a much nicer body today than they did 17 years ago. With only one exception, I found the older version more attractive than their younger selves.

I do most of my grocery shopping at Smith's (Kroger) and Trader Joe's. At Smiths, I've definitely noticed prices creeping up, but more than that, I notice that far fewer items go on sale and when they do, the percentage discount is a lot less than in the past. At TJ's on the other hand, I haven't noticed any increases at all, at least not on any items I buy regularly. It amazes me that they've been able to keep prices so low. Unfortunately, TJ's is pretty far from me (I do a big shop only once/month) whereas Smiths is less than a mile. The cheapest gas is still $4.59/gallon in my area.

I finished Boundless, the story of Magellan & the man who actually first circumnavigated the globe but never gets credit for it (at least not in this country). A little cheesey, not the most convincing shipboard scenes, but I liked how the series filled in the gaps (I only knew the bare bones of Magellan's voyage). With early 16th century technology, Magellan left the port of Seville with 5 ships and 239 men. Almost 3 years later, only 1 ship and 18 men made it back. It's a helluva story. It could have been told better than this miniseries did, but I guess Boundless did an OK job. 6 35-minute episodes on Amazon Prime Video.

The recipe you describe sounds a lot like an opera cake. Here is one of my favorite YouTubers to guide you through the fairly involved recipe:

I doubt I'll have any more luck than you did in finding the old recipe, but it sounds like a dacqoise with French buttercream filling. Google "dacqoise" (it's a pretty standard French recipe), then make a French buttercream, adding melted but cooled chocolate. You can add Kahlua to flavor the buttercream, just 1 tbs max otherwise it might split. Cut the dacqoise in 4, fill the layers with your buttercream, et voilà!

Wow, 67 years calling games for the Dodgers, going all the way back to the old Brooklyn team. Of the thousands of games and tens of thousands of at-bats he covered, this call is arguably the most famous: I used to be so obsessed over the Red Sox it bordered on mental illness. After living in Las Vegas a while and getting back into tennis, I eventually stopped watching games. But watching this call gave me goosebumps. Once a baseball fan, always a baseball fan. Rest in peace, Vin Scully.

I just finished Yosi, the Regretful Spy. I agree, the series is excellent: top-notch script, acting, qnd direction. My only problem with it was that all the time jumps were confusing. I was able to follow them but really had to focus. That quibble aside, this little-known (at least in the US) series is definitely worth your time. 8 50-minute episodes on Amazon Prime Video. Season 2 started shooting in May, but no word yet on when it will start streaming.

I didn't do the math, but now that I realize I spent 36 hours watching one series, yikes! Oh well, I never watch TV or movies in English, only in Spanish (my second language). I know I spend way too much time watching Netflix, but I rationalize it by telling myself I'm improving my Spanish. Mind you, I doubt I'll ever need to know all the Argentine prison slang I learned while watching El marginal, but that's another issue.

True enough, but to quote the immortal wisdom of James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid!" (no, I'm not calling you stupid, LOL). Although people do consider a number of non-economic issues in their right track/wrong track view, I think the economy has always been and will always be the overriding concern of the vast majority of Americans.

Maybe you don't feel like we're in a recession, but what matters is general sentiment. Today's RealClearPolitics right track/wrong track average says that only 17.5% of Americans think we're headed in the right direction whereas a whopping 74.8% think America is on the wrong track. Those are devastating numbers, clearly indicating that the vast majority of Americans do not share your optimism. Yes, the unemployment rate is low, but the labor force participation rate is also low: for June 2022 62.2%, 1.2 points lower than in February 2020 63.4% and far below the all-time high of 67.3%. "I think inflation may well have already peaked" ... well, we've certainly heard that before, starting back in Jan 2021, again in Jun/Jul 2021 ("inflation is transitory"), yet here we are with a 9.1% inflation rate, the highest in 40 years. I have an uneasy feeling that much of this so-called "recovery" was thanks to gobs of zero-interest lending (zero because interest rates were below the inflation rate for years) and mountains of investor cash. Lending will surely tighten up; as I discussed in my previous post, investors might or might not cut off their firehose of cash. If/when this flood of easy money dries up, then we'll know how "real" this recession is.

I heard an interesting report about zombie companies, i.e., companies that run at a loss but survive thanks to a steady supply of investor cash. Apparently ~40% of tech companies are zombie companies. Everyone's hoping to become the next Amazon (which lost hundreds of $millions before it became the behemoth it is today), and for years investors were willing to keep ponying up. But all good things come to an end, and easy money is no exception. If (when?) the money supply tightens, most of these zombie companies will go belly up, and waves of tech workers will be unemployed. That's the $64,000 question: will investors (A) panic and decide to cut their losses? or (B) stay the course, thereby keeping these zombie companies afloat? Let's hope cooler heads prevail, because if Scenario A happens, we're in a heap o'trouble.

Food Insider was split: one picked Atlantic Fish Company, the other Boston Sail Loft. My fave was always Legal Sea Foods. I could eat 2 bowls and still want a 3rd. The problem with Legal is that most of their locations have interiors that remind you of your old high school cafeteria.

I think I was in the 3rd grade when I discovered Leave It To Beaver afternoon reruns. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was totally hooked on the show because of Beav's hunky older brother. Thanks for the memories. RIP.

I just finished El Marginal, a kidnapping tale in which a judge sends an ex-cop to rescue his daughter held (believe it or not) inside a men's prison. One man against a hopelessly corrupt system, sadistic guards, and ruthless prison gangs -- the protagonist faces one hell of an uphill battle. Thanks to a great script and brilliant acting, El Marginal hooks you in from the start, but the show's brutality makes it tough to take at times. It's definitely worth watching, just don't expect a warm-fuzzy after every episode. Audio is only in original Spanish, but English subtitles available. I saw it with Spanish subtitles because I missed too much of what the prisoners were saying. The characters outside the prison were easy enough to follow, but the inmates' dialogue was like a crash course in the most impolite Argentine slang. 43 50-minute episodes, yet I binged it in 3 weeks.

Did you see The Innocent? I mentioned it upthread, a Spanish series based on one of Coben's books. It was so good that I became a total Coben fanboy and added some other Coben-based series to my (ridiculously long) watch list. Coben's deal with Netflix is to adapt 14 of his books. A number are already available, others in progress.

More pix of Robert Farah. Wow, the guy loves to show off, but with a body like that, who can blame him?

I just finished Parot, a series (10 1-hour episodes) on Amazon Prime about a controversial policy that allowed early release for prisoners whose sentences were considered excessive despite having committed truly heinous crimes. Two storylines run in parallel: a sadistic rapist seeks revenge by ruining the life of his victim while a serial killer is systematically killing off the ex-cons released thanks to the Parot policy. Whereas the revenge-seeking rapist is cold-blooded, calculating, and fully in control of every step in his diabolical plot, the serial killer is slowly losing control, getting sloppier with every murder. As we gain insight into the serial killer, we understand why he's unraveling, but the revenge-seeker was harder to swallow. I couldn't believe that a violent criminal with such a sick plan could at the same time be so perfectly rational and methodical, never making the slightest mistake. That said, I still enjoyed the series, but I wonder how much of it was my bias because I found the lead cop smokin' hot. When the plot dragged or became a bit unrealistic, I was in a more forgiving mood because maybe the hot cop might take his shirt off in the next scene. Gotta give the actor props -- in his early 50s yet still fit enough to do scenes in his undies! But if the cop isn't your type, you'll just be bored, LOL. Javier Albalá, the 50-something who can't keep his clothes on ...

Colombian doubles specialist Robert Farah

An Argentine medical school student posts nudes to his Twitter account ... WOW! https://twitter.com/niico_cabrera/status/1551176487616872448?s=20&t=aatCfTEls835FTiEKafyow

In Spain, this guy would indeed be described as "rubio" (blond). "Brunette" is for dark brown, almost black hair.