BSR

I'm so glad we've moved beyond the days of calling them "practicing heterosexuals."

I take the 5th.

Spanish actor Imanol Arias was a handsome enough young man, but now is a stunning silver fox.

To me, an unofficial national anthem is a popular song that expresses a people's pride in and love for their country. The two best examples I can think of are "Guantanamera" and "Waltzing Matilda." The lyrics of "Guantanamera" were taken from a couple of poems by José Martí, whose love for Cuba shines through in his writings. "Waltzing Matilda" is an Australian bush ballad, folk music that depicts life in the Australian bush. The "Guantanamera" video is Joseíto Fernández, the man who first set Martí's poetry to music. The "Waltzing Matilda" video is Andre Rieu playing an instrumental of the song while the whole crowd sings the lyrics. Does the US have an unofficial national anthem? The best I could come up with is "Yankee Doodle," but we don't really sing it any more. For other countries, I thought of "Bella Ciao" for Italy (enjoying renewed popularity, ironically enough, thanks to a Spanish TV series), "Girl from Ipanema" for Brazil, and "Danny Boy" for Ireland. Can you think of any others?

Not residential nor for sale, but the architecture was so good I had to post it here:

Does anyone live in or near Gorda, California? Because gas there reportedly hit $7.59 a gallon *gulp*

I vote for the yawning pillow. PS: if a forum member is insufferably verbose, you can always set him to "ignore." Not that I would ever do such a thing, of course.

I could listen to only half the song before turning it off. OMG, this song makes me puke. I'm not surprised this song went nowhere in the US but totally baffled it was a monster hit in so many other countries. It sounds like we suffered some of the same Europop nightmares, just years apart. The song posted below was a monster hit in Spain the year (1987-88) I studied there. Musically speaking, the song also makes me puke, but at least the singer has a really great rack (which, granted, is lost on me). LOL, I see that YouTube age-restricted the video.

Or a hopeless narcissist. I have no idea who this woman is, I just saw some of her demands thanks to your post. Maybe she is so smokin' hot she'll find some guy who will fulfill all her requirements. But if she were indeed that irresistibly sexy, then I have to wonder why she hasn't already found someone like that.

For many people of faith, a sense of community matters. Yes, you can pray and hear a sermon/homily alone in your living room, but in order to commune with others, share experiences, give and receive advice, the faithful need a community gathering. As a practical matter, churches rely on in-person attendance for donations because virtual attendees rarely send checks by mail. You lose your place of worship, whether in person or virtual, if your church can't pay its bills.

As much as I love pearls, I think men who wear them look like idiots. "Look at me! See me bending gender norms! Ooh, I'm so edgy!" F*cking spare me.

My favorite Alexander Pope couplet: Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer What a snarky bastard. He's my idol!

I saw some clips from their Vegas show. For a couple of 40-somethings (Ricky turns 50 on Christmas Eve!), Enrique & Ricky look great. I knew that Enrique's parents divorced & that he went to live with his father in Miami. I never understood that because Julio was touring all the time & wasn't home much. Enrique was basically raised by his nanny. The reason Enrique & his older brother were shipped off to Miami was that his parents feared for their safety after his paternal grandfather was kidnapped by the Basque terrorist group ETA. Yikes!

I was thinking he's just really, really into Burger King.

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.