BSR

With social distancing and all non-essential businesses shut down, I've been binge-watching like crazy, as are millions of other Americans. Since I signed up for Netflix, I've seen ... Toy Boy: I discussed this one in the other thread. Just awful, but I'll probably still watch Season 2 if they renew the series. Velvet Colección: the sequel to "Velvet," the greatest series of all time (imho), Spanish or English, at least the first two seasons. As much as I enjoyed seeing the old Velvet characters I know & love, the sequel falls miles short of the original. I did like the grand finale, however. The Cable Girls: the stories of 4 telephone operators, Madrid from 1928 to 1939. A great series, definitely worth watching. I raced through it and am on the edge of my seat waiting for Netflix to release the last 3 episodes. Élite: this one gets my biggest thumbs up. A murder mystery/drama set in a posh private high school in the Madrid outskirts. My big beef with the show, like so many teen dramas, is that the 20-something cast looks like they're in the 20s, not high school. But once you forgive them for that, the show is great soapy fun: cheesey-good melodrama, engaging characters, and a sexy cast not the least bit shy about showing skin. I loved the gay love story, Ander & Omar. Ander has a smokin' bod, and Omar's eyes just melt me. The actors have great chemistry, and you totally buy into them as a couple. I'm so glad they'll both be in Season 4. I doubt I'm the only one burning through Netflix. What series have you been binging? Any recommendations?

Unless you have as many kids as the Duggars, what on earth are you going to do with 5 gallons of milk?? It doesn't keep in the fridge for that long, and really, how much milk can you drink?

In Las Vegas, the Wynn and MGM casino hotels have all closed temporarily. No word yet on Caesars and other casinos on the Strip. The Strip casinos have never closed before, not for 9/11, the Great Recession, or any other reason. I don't think the Fremont Street casinos even closed for the World Wars (the Strip casinos were all built after WWII).

While Toy Boy's ratings during its broadcast run on Spain's Antena 3 were pretty weak, the series is enjoying a second life on Netflix. It's the number 9 most popular series on Netflix in the US, number 3 in Spain, and in the top 10 in many other countries. As awful as it was, I confess that I'm crossing my fingers for a Season 2. I just wanna see my sexy Germán as much as possible, wearing as little as possible.

I admire your perseverance. I made it as far as 0:18.

The difference between this new coronavirus and the annual flu is that the percentage of people infected who need immediate hospitalization and even ICU is much, much higher. Italy had just a couple of hundred cases two weeks ago, and now the entire Lombardy region's healthcare system has collapsed. Patients are being left in hallways or outright turned away because hospitals are beyond capacity. Doctors & nurses are working around the clock until they drop, sometimes literally. No, coronavirus is not an automatic death sentence. That kind of hysteria is not helpful. But it's not the annual flu either. It's more serious than that, and I fear our hospital system will soon be overwhelmed.

In response to the coronavirus, MGM Resorts has shut down its seven Las Vegas buffets. So far, Caesars plans to keep its buffets open, as does the Wynn.

Thanks for the link; it provides a lot of very interesting information. Coronavirus definitely affects the elderly disproportionately. The death rate of those 80+ is 14.8% whereas the death rate for those 10-39 is just 0.2%. It also has a disproportionate death rate for those with other preexisting health issues. People with heart disease die of coronavirus at a 10.5% rate whereas those with no preexisting conditions at just 0.9%. Also interesting that to date no children under 10 have died of coronavirus whereas many children die of the flu each year, although contamination of the flu is far more widespread than coronavirus is so far.

@Cooper, @latbear4blk & @g56whiz, thank you all for your responses. I took the plunge for a free month. I'm glad I did because Netflix offers so many other great shows I want to watch. Of course, I started off by binge-watching Toy Boy, which I am not glad I did. As expected, the acting & script were pretty lousy. Some of the supporting cast was OK, but the three leads - the framed stripper, his lawyer, and his sugarmama - were really weak, IMO. I stuck it out mostly to find out what happened. When all was revealed, oh please, who wrote that sh*t?? Unfortunately, it fell short of guilty pleasure because I liked only one of the strippers. Germán is so gorgeous that I would gladly watch 13 episodes of him reading from the phone book, as long as he's wearing a thong. How frustrating that he was such a peripheral character. The other 4 were fit young lads but just not my type at all. I did like the subplot with the gay stripper Jairo, however. I don't know if the show had an anti-prostitution slant. In the first few episodes, the protagonist Hugo vehemently insists that he's not a prostitute, but that attitude is common among dancers. Note that Oscar & Germán quite openly work as "chicos de compañía" to supplement their income, as does Jairo until he meets & falls for Andrea. While Marbella's year-round population is fairly small (140K), a lot of residents have serious money, and the hordes of tourists bring in a whole lot more. The existence of a stripclub like Inferno was one of the easier-to-swallow elements of the series. I wish they had shown off the beauty of Marbella even more than they did. I did like the choreographed stripper numbers, well-executed cheesey goodness. A second season looks unlikely for now since its ratings were pretty low, starting at 1.85 million but quickly dropping to ~1 million or less. An average rating of 2 million used to be the baseline for renewal, but Netflix & Amazon Prime have since changed the economics for television series. If there is a second season, I'm such an idiot that I'll probably watch, crossing my fingers that Germán has a much bigger role the next go-round.

Doesn't that assume that all people infected have been tested? If you're young & healthy, you might have had it & recovered without ever getting tested.

Thanks for that tweet thread. Her analysis sounds spot-on. Even in the most conservative scenario, our healthcare system will be overwhelmed in just 2-3 months.

The Coachella Music Festival is being postponed to the weekends of October 9 & 16. All the same artists are scheduled to perform. If the coronavirus is contained and panic subsides, Coachella can still happen, just 6 months later. As for the Indian Wells tennis tournament getting rescheduled, I have my doubts since every week of the tennis calendar is already filled. There is chatter of moving Indian Wells to the week of Shanghai (also a Masters 1000 tournament with the same number of ranking points & almost as much prize money), which assumes that China will not have coronavirus under control but the US will. Or if it's under control in both countries, IW is assuming that Shanghai will just forfeit its spot. That sounds like a lot to assume, and you know what happens when you assume.

I never got into Doubtle Stuffs, too sweet. But this could be a big-time guilty pleasure in the very near future ...

Not that I really need an excuse ... Masturbation boosts your immune system, helping you fight off infection and illness

In light of my previous comment about cottage cheese, you can imagine how I feel about it in lasagna. But even ricotta (which I don't mind as much) doesn't belong in lasagna, IMO. I much prefer a bechamel layer. Crapfest! Now I have a ferocious lasagna craving. Not exactly diet food ?

Cruise lines operate with staggering fixed costs and thin profit margins. Most lines just break even with the passenger fare & rely on additional spending (drinks, shore excursions, spa, etc.) to make a profit. I shiver to think of the losses that mass cancellations will cause.

Whenever you sneeze in public, shout, "I don't have Coronavirus! I swear!!" with the guiltiest look you can summon. Then watch the crowds part like Moses & the Red Sea.

A question for all Toy Boy fans, is it worth watching? I read on imdb.com it's so bad that it's good, that is, the plot & acting are pretty bad, yet it's a great guilty pleasure. I'm sure all the eye candy helps. I'm thinking of signing up for a free month of Netflix just to binge-watch the show. The catch is if you do a free month, you aren't eligible for another freebie for a long time. So if Toy Boy isn't guilty-pleasure good, I'll just save my free month for another time. Thanks in advance for all opinions. PS: does Netflix offer the show in original Spanish? Dubbing drives me bonkers.

OMG, that is the cutest little creature I have ever seen! I saw a feature about miniature ponies trained as guide animals. Miniature ponies can do everything a seeing-eye dog can do. They're about the size of a Lab or golden retriever, two of the most common breeds for guide dogs. Miniature ponies are house-trained and don't need horseshoes, regular sneakers will do. The big advantage of miniature ponies is that they live for ~25 years whereas Labs or goldens only 10 or so. Since the time & cost of training a guide animal is substantial, the longevity of miniature ponies is a huge plus.

"No time to explain ... just hop on"

A pearl of wisdom from porn goddess Jenna Jameson: "I'm busy canning and fermenting food not because of the coronavirus, but because these damn Bernie zombies just might take over the US."

I got a bit nervous when I heard that local Chinatown businesses are suffering because of fear of coronavirus, even though there hasn't been a single case in Nevada. So I went to Costco to load up. It looked like a regular Friday afternoon, superbusy as always, but no panic-buying. I have enough in my pantry & freezer to last me ~1 month. While I don't expect things will deteriorate to the point where the supermarkets are empty, I do feel more comfortable knowing I have food to last me a while. Hmm, I should have stocked up on Twinkies. They keep for like forever, and in case doomsday hits, I'm guessing Twinkies are prime bargaining material.

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I'm guessing that he doesn't specialize in the boyfriend experience.

I once ate cottage cheese as a child. I have yet to fully recover from the trauma.