BSR

I was just stating an opinion, like everyone else does in this forum. Feel free to disagree or ignore it. Happy posting!

To me, manchego & gruyere are not examples of prepackaged or prepared food. Come on, who makes their own manchego? Shredded mozzarella or cheddar are, however, since you can easily grate your own. I've seen recipes that advise against bags of shredded mozzarella because it contains additives that affect how the cheese melts. Making your own pasta looks simple enough, but terribly messy. I used to buy DeCecco until I discovered that the local supermarket's premium house brand has the exact same taste & texture.

All Catalan-language movies/TV shows are dubbed into Spanish with the same actors since all Catalan speakers are bilingual. Even though the quality of the dubbing is top-notch, I still can't watch the dubbed version because I just get too annoyed that the sound you hear & the actors' lips are so out of synch.

Maybe he's a US citizen? Either that or he flashed border agents his wanker & was waved on through.

On Rotten Tomatoes, quite a disparity between the elites' opinions of The Closer and the audience rating: Tomatometer 46%, audience score 96%.

Whether you shave your chest or not is up to you. But if you're hairy with the top 2-3 shirt buttons undone, I'll stare at your hairy chest like I'm under hypnosis. Just so ya know ...

You're not alone. A cousin was a die-hard Sopranos fan. His reaction at the ending: "Please tell me the satellite dish went out." He was in a bad mood for days after the finale.

The subtitles don't even match the dialogue in the original language. If available, I watch Spanish-language movies/TV shows from other countries (i.e., any country outside of Spain) with Spanish subtitles because I miss just a little too much of the dialogue otherwise. You'd think they'd just grab the script & plug it into the subtitles, but nope, plenty of discrepancies. It drives me nuts.

LOL, that's the one I want to watch. Unfortunately, since I stopped following it around episode #80, I'd have to watch almost a thousand episodes to catch up -- that's some serious binging. But I'm tempted because two of my big crushes have joined the cast: Ignacio Montes (Jota) and Luis Fernandez (Ivan). I watch "Dos vidas," which is OK. I'm in a Facebook group where everyone complains about how awful the show is. 1) it's not that bad, and 2) why do you keep watching? "Dos vidas" has a limited run, should wrap up early 2022. Maybe then I'll start catching up on SyP. If you spot "Al filo de la ley" (it's available on TVE, no VPN necessary), it's definitely worth watching. It's your typical law office drama, but Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia totally makes the show. Of course, he's as handsome as ever, but in this show his character is just killer-charming. You can also laugh at his abysmal attempt at a Spanish accent where his lisp floats in & out and his porteño inflection is constantly kicking in. I'm on ep. #11, only 13 total. I'll be so bummed when I finish I had to post a pic of Ignacio Montes, just 'cuz.

At Fenway, any fan who steps on the field and gets caught was hit with a $1,000 fine. That was in the early 2000s, the fine has probably gone up since. It was comical to see the friends of a drunk or overenthusiastic fan (like trying to catch an foul ball) frantically grabbing the guy's arms, belt, anything just to prevent him from spilling onto the field. Since the Boston PD liked the revenue, they would hunt you down to the ends of the Earth to nail you with that fine. I wonder what the rules/laws are in other cities.

For a couple of months this summer, I had to drive my mom to physical therapy. Because the sessions were just 45 minutes & there wasn't a good hangout spot near (like Starbucks), I just waited in the car, engine off, windows down. At least I could park where the sun wasn't hitting me directly. It's called sucking it up, no big whoop. When I see what you're talking about, I wonder how the hell did we ever get so soft.

Given soap operas' higher production costs and lower ratings, I was surprised to find that 4 soaps are still running. I watch a soap, a Spanish "sobremesa" ("table talk," given that label because they're on in the afternoon after the big 2pm meal). While it's better than American soaps and latino telenovelas (imo), I can't say it's great art or anything. But I'm hooked, and it does help keep my Spanish up.

I started following Trey Yingst on Twitter because he was doing the best reporting from Afghanistan. Now that he's back stateside, I still follow him because he's f*ckin' hawt!

"La Marseillaise" has always been my favorite national anthem, by far. The scene in "Casablanca" sealed it for me, so stirring and patriotic. Since my high school French was never any good, I never understood a word. Yikes! I didn't realize the lyrics were so violent! "They come ... to slit the throats of our sons and wives" & "Let's march so that impure blood waters the furrows of our fields." Wow, they weren't kidding around. Anyway, I posted the scene from "Casablanca" and another video with the French lyrics and the English translation. Vive la France!

French singer Emmanuel Moire, same song. He's probably 29 in the first video, 42 in the second. Much hotter as a 40-something, in my opinion. But his voice is just as pretty either or.

Granted, it's hard to argue with success. When you look at the guy who's been following this crazy diet for 3 years, it must be working for him. But eating all raw meat? Even salmonella-risky raw chicken?! Even if he somehow avoids food poisoning, how does he get past the taste?? Undercooked chicken is bad enough, but raw, blech! Yet raw-meat lover Weston Rowe claims, "I am in better health both physically and mentally, better than I’ve ever been in my life." Despite eating hundreds of pounds of raw chicken for years now, he's never gotten sick once. OK, I'd f*ck the guy in a heartbeat. But I am never sitting down to share a meal with him, hellz no.

Yes, fortunately the car was unoccupied. Also lucky that the noise & spectacle didn't cause an accident. For any drivers passing by at the time of the boom, that is one hell of a distraction. You gotta feel sorry for the owner of the BMW. When your car is still new, even a little scratch is upsetting. Imagine walking back to your car and seeing that!

My aunt & uncle who struggled to make ends meet when they lived in NYC are "rich" now that they live in Manila. The Philippines has no standard percentage for tipping, just whatever you give to the server is appreciated. By the way, all tips are shared equally amongst staff, including cooks & dishwashers. They always tip between 10% (at more expensive restaurants) to 20% (at cheap eats where the checks are low). Their server will often look at the tip (my aunt & uncle have never tipped more than 20%) and ask, "Are you sure? This is too much," like my aunt & uncle must have made an arithmetic error.

As the old saying goes: When you marry for money, you spend the rest of your life paying for it. Being kept is no different.

To all Brazilophiles, How much Portuguese do you know? If your Portuguese is (very) limited, are you still able to get by? How do you work things out with sauna guys & escorts with limited language capability? I've always wanted to visit Brazil, but my pronunciation of Portuguese is hopeless. I'm afraid that even if I made an effort to learn the language (which is notoriously difficult), Brazilians wouldn't understand me because of my awful pronunciation.

I don't know what shocked me more, that Playboy had a man on the cover or that Playboy was still in publication.

Did you ever go to Lamars before it got sold? The old Lamars donuts would turn all of us into Homer Simpson. The new Lamars tastes meh, like any other donut. Forget 20%, I'd pay a 200% increase for a dozen of old Lamars donuts.

Pepe Ocio, Spanish actor. This is probably just my personal preference since he was very handsome as a young man.

My eyes popped when I read that a version was done in Basque. With only ~750,000 Basque speakers, there's not exactly a huge market for Basque music. A friend in Spain has a Basque friend. Of course, I asked him to speak Basque for me. It sounds like no other language on Earth. Wow, you can find anything on the Internet nowadays. I actually managed to find a video of the Basque version. I couldn't figure out how to embed the Vimeo vid, but hopefully this link works ... Zu zara

A Spanish series "Un paso adelante" (one step forward) just became available on Netflix. It's pretty much a copy of "Fame," except that this school for the performing arts is in Madrid. Be advised, the plots and dialogue are pretty bad, almost painful at times. But you can fast forward through them to watch just the dance numbers, which are absolutely top-notch. Some were so good I rewound & rewatched them 3-4 times. One flamenco number I must have watched at least 10 times.