BSR

Marton Fucsovic's results have been pretty dismal lately. Must be 'cuz the guy is so obviously out of shape ...

Well, the first part of your prediction has happened ... Retired Australian Open champion Barty announces pregnancy Ash is staying quite involved with tennis. She will be at the Australian Open as the mentor of 20yo fellow Aussie Olivia Gadecki.

The guy is pretty cute. If he ever takes out an ad on rent.men, that would deserve headlines.

I hit a really bad Netflix streak of 3 awful series. Avoid like a broken petri dish of Ebola: Diary of a Gigolo (beautiful lead but so bad it was painful), Who Killed Sarah? (promising start but went so downhill), and The Girl in the Mirror (stupid, pointless, made no sense). I stuck it out & finished all 3, hoping they would get better, even though I kinda knew they wouldn't. They were so awful that I stayed away from Netflix for a month or so. Fortunately I happed upon a couple of gems since. Smiley brought me back to Netflix, and I kept the winning streak going with Alpha Males, 4 40-somethings each going through his own version of mid-life crisis: when Luis's marriage fizzles out his wife leaves him for her personal trainer, Raul's girlfriend tells him she wants an open relationship, Pedro gets fired from his executive position and can't find work, and Santi's teenage daughter pushes him into exploring Tinder after his wife leaves him for her dentist. If you're thinking of the Ray Romano's Men of a Certain Age, that series has nothing in common with Alpha Males except for the age of the lead characters. MoaCA was a dramedy whereas AM is pure comedy, and the MoaCA threesome act like regular guys while the AM cuadrilla (foursome) are total idiots, albeit lovable ones. I cracked up a ton watching these guys make utter fools of themselves. Only minor problems with the show: apparently this foursome became friends by playing padel together, but you don't really buy it because they're just too different; a gay character is introduced, which could have been a comedy gold mine, but then he just fades away; despite a serious dad bod and lack of good looks Santi has no trouble bedding every single Tinder hookup, usually on the first date (does that happen in the straight world??). I gladly dismissed those quibbles, however, given how funny the show is. 10 30-minute episodes, very binge-able. The English dubbing is terrible, but good English subtitles available. I really hope Alpha Males gets renewed for a second season.

Why don't we have reality shows like this in the US? By the way, if you're curious what Basque sounds like, they're speaking mostly Basque, with a few sentences in Spanish thrown in.

Not at my local Kroger ... when regular eggs were $6/dozen, organic free-range eggs were *coughsputtergasp* $8!! Maybe after the holidays once people stop baking Christmas cookies and making eggnog, eggs will go down to a semi-reasonable price.

I was pretty horrified to see eggs for $5.99/dozen before Christmas. I thought for sure that price had to be for free-range or organic, but nope, just regular old eggs. Apparently a bird flu has killed millions of chickens, causing a severe egg shortage. I was going to make my own eggnog this year (love a boozy eggnog!) but once I saw those prices, I shelved my eggnog experiment until Christmas 2023.

Where my aunts live in central Florida, it's supposed to get down to 23° tomorrow morning. Yikes! Gotta wonder if that's a record.

This is what happens when there's no room at the inn ... a stray dog took shelter in a Mexican town's nativity scene. Once settled in, she gave birth to a big litter of puppies! Town officials have decided to let her & the pups stay, and the local animal welfare group is working to get all pups adopted.

Uh oh, somebody made a big boo-boo ... a 67-story condo tower in Manhattan is leaning 3 inches *gulp* The crazy thing is that even after they realized it was tilted, they still continued construction (because yeah, that totally makes sense). Now everyone is pointing fingers, filing lawsuits, and claiming $millions unpaid. Needless to say, buyers have fled the once almost sold-out tower like rats off a sinking ship. Yikes!

Doc Martin was so popular that it was remade in a number of other countries: Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Russia, and Spain. I watched the Spanish version Doctor Mateo, which had a similar run length and basically the same plot: big-city surgeon develops a fear of blood, moves to a small town to work as the town's GP, falls in love with a local schoolteacher, etc. I don't know if the British series was more drama or comedy, but the Spanish remake was definitely more about laughs. As corny & silly as it was at times, I busted a gut plenty while watching the show. Not sure why the lead character's name was changed from Martin to Mateo, but the fictional Spanish town was called San Martín. Although the Spanish setting looked nothing like the town in Cornwall, it's arguably just as picturesque.

Sobre el gusto no hay nada escrito (there's no accounting for taste) ... I think the old room looked dated & cheap whereas I quite like the new decor. Honestly, I don't understand the meltdown some brides-to-be are having over it. Then again, I don't understand the all the obsessing over wedding details in general. The two poshest weddings I've ever attended (both must have had budgets waaaaaay into the 6 figures), the couples were divorced within 3 years. Both divorces you could see coming from a country mile. Engaged couples should think a whole lot more about the marriage itself than the wall color of their wedding venue.

Your mileage may vary ...

I found this hot! hot! hot! clip from End of the Century. I liked the movie on its own merits, but the sex appeal definitely adds to its charms.

Another picture of the happy couple, posted on Reboul's Instagram ...

Smiley the Netflix series is based on a play that was a smash hit in Barcelona 10 years ago. When playwright Guillem Clua was asked to adapt it into a series, he had to make some big changes: expanding the main storyline, developing secondary storylines, and translating it into Spanish from Catalan. Yes, Smiley (the play) has a sequel, and Clua very much wants to adapt the sequel into a series as well, but that depends on Netflix. Early signs are promising: Smiley is the 3rd most-streamed series in Spain and in the top 10 in a number of Latin American countries, especially Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Carlos Curvas already had a big fan base in Argentina (Chile & Peru as well) because the original Merlí was a huge Netflix success in those countries. Trivia tidbit: Ramón Pujols, who plays nerdy fellow architect Ramón in the series, actually played 2-gym-going Alex in the play. Pujols was less muscle-bound than Carlos Cuevas but just as hunky, imho.

Bruno gave Alex Bringing Up Baby, a favorite movie for both of them.