legaleagle53

Yeah, don't bother with the pizza or pasta in Venice -- they're strictly for tourists, and you'd get much better fare in Rome and points South. Venice's cuisine is predominantly centered around seafood, particularly capitone (eel) and baccalà (codfish). In fact, there's one restaurant in Venice that very emphatically states that it serves "no pizza, no lasagne, no tourist menu." And it's not just because they don't know how; it's also because they don't care to learn! Oh, and as a note to the guys -- in Italy, men are expected to dress up a little when they go out, especially in the evening. Only tourists would be seen walking about in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops; native Italian men wouldn't be caught dead in them!

Just make sure y'all have had your shots before you start watching. From the sound of it, it may be possible to catch something nasty just from the television!

Now, why doesn't that surprise me?

Hey, mods are human, too (aren't they?)!

Boston Rob and Amber just had their fourth child, another daughter by the name of Adelina Rose Mariano. Rob just tweeted the following: Congratulations to him and Amber! Oh, and Tony Vlachos just had his second child -- a boy -- yesterday. He tweeted a pic of his 15-month-old daughter giving her 15-HOUR-old brother a big-sister kiss on the cheek; it was the cutest thing I've ever seen!

You know, all this discussion still has left one unanswered question in my mind regarding this week's episode: If a mime falls in the forest, and there's no one around to see it, does he still not make a noise?

Ah, true -- and how could I have forgotten about that one? That's another movie that probably should have gotten more Oscar love than it did (it got seven nominations in 1994, according to Wikipedia, but zero wins). Of course, I'm also still incensed that Evita got shut out in 1996, especially in the acting categories. I personally thought that Madonna, Jonathan Pryce, and Antonio Banderas all should have been nominated, as should the movie itself. Maybe people think that Madonna was basically playing herself throughout the movie, but I feel that this was the role that proved that she really could act, especially in the scene where she is told point-blank that she is dying. The look of simultaneous fear and resignation on her face is hard to describe, but she totally sold it, and I totally bought it.

I thought I read a few years ago that everyone is actually required to go through choreography, even those who supposedly get direct passes to Vegas (or wherever it is they go these days after the auditions), and that the distinction between those who are expressly sent to choreography and those who are sent directly through to Vegas (or wherever) is just for show.

Colin just tweeted that he's wrapped up production on his movie: He's probably already started re-growing the scruff even as we speak.

You're remembering correctly, but the pathos of the scene becomes even more apparent when you add that his daughter is in the hospital because she needs an operation, and he has just found out that the operation has been canceled and his daughter discharged from the hospital because he couldn't pay for the operation (apparently, that was still legal in those days; I can't think of a hospital today that would be allowed to get away with that sort of patient dumping. When I had my first pacemaker implanted a few years ago, the staff made a point of telling me not to worry about lack of money or insurance as a problem; they said they'd get me fixed up first and deal with making payment arrangements afterwards -- and they did!). Actually, what's always fascinated me about that movie is that it's the only modern non-gay-porn movie I've ever seen that boasted of an all-male cast, except for the original version of 12 Angry Men, and the casting was pitch-perfect, in my opinion. In fact, I have to wonder how the story would have played out if there had been a few female real-estate brokers in the mix; I wonder whether we'd have had as much of the salty dialogue as we got with the all-male cast.

It actually is in Portuguese; the subtitles are in Spanish, however. That's probably what's throwing you.

Revenge is about to own this thread and evict all the previous occupants, if what I'm hearing about the upcoming season is true.

DWTS isn't the only member of that franchise that has taken pros from the ranks of SYTYCD. Its British parent, Strictly Come Dancing, currently has Pasha, Anya, Jeanette Manrara, and Iveta Liukosute on its roster (at least I think Anya's still on the show) -- and Artem was a pro for a couple of years over there as well before he transferred to DWTS (in fact, he won in his very first season).

Ah, thanks for the clarification, @ramble (are we allowed to do the @ thing here?).

Hasn't production already ended on Bachelor in Paradise? If it has, then the reception of Marquel on the Internet and the call for him to be made the next Bachelor would be irrelevant, as there would have been no way to predict his popularity during Andi's season when it hadn't even aired yet at the time that BIP was in production.

Yeah, a large part of my job involves work in Family Law, and it's taught me that there are always (at least) two sides to every dispute. Therefore, I'm not ready to demonize Jayce's ex-wife as the ultimate Bitch from Hell who ruined his life; there's undoubtedly a reason that the Court ruled in her favor, and we simply don't know, and unless she chooses to comment on the episode, will never know, all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the custody battle. That said, I can understand how stress over the custody battle slowed Jayce's progress down. It's a known fact that stress causes the body to produce cortisol in response, which is a hormone that tends to inhibit weight loss by promoting the storage of fat rather than permitting it to be burned off. Had Jayce been able to manage his stress levels better (which is not to say that he shouldn't have cared about the outcome of the custody battle; he should simply have accepted that he could only do so much to influence the outcome and that the Court's decision was ultimately out of his control), he might not have had so many setbacks (and incidentally, the fact that he did ultimately succeed in cutting his body weight nearly in half speaks volumes about his ability to overcome those setbacks and put them in perspective). One thing I missed, however, was the explanation for why Jayce was so terrified of water that even getting into a pool at waist level set off major panic attacks in him before he finally learned how to swim. Did he nearly drown as a child or something?

To tell you the truth, I agree with you. I have no problem with Christians who actually do walk the walk as opposed to merely talking the talk. It's just that I think we can both agree that so-called "Christians" who feel that they have to remind us of their beliefs and standards every five minutes are a pain in the neck. If Mariano Rivera doesn't fall into that category, then if he wants to do the show, I say more power to him!

That "Team America" thing worries me. It was America who kept Evil Dick in the house long after he should have been booted out, after all.

If she does do the show, I'm just glad that at least Tristan McManus won't be stuck with her. She'll probably get either Tony or Artem.

Interesting that the legs are almost all in Europe this time. They might as well call it "The Amazing Race Europe."

That didn't stop Candace Cameron Buré. We'd probably just have to hear about it 50,000 times, that's all.

Bonus points if he speaks fluent French, n'est-ce pas? ;-)

Personally, I think the hat is hideous. It makes me want to tweet her and ask her her name and what planet she's from.

Not to nitpick but while she didn't directly pull the trigger, Zelena was responsible for Neal's death. And she couldn't have cast the Dark Curse, first of all because Rumpel expressly rejected her as a candidate for the original task on the grounds that the heart of "the thing she loved most" belonged to him, and allowing her to cast the Dark Curse would have defeated the purpose of casting it in the first place (it would have been hard for a dead Rumpel to reunite with Baelfire in our world, after all), and because aside from Rumpel, the person she loved the most was Zelena herself. Whose else's heart could she have used to cast the Dark Curse? There's also the problem with the Second Law of Magic which states that magic cannot be used to make someone fall in love with you. Granted, Zelena was able to break the Third Law of Magic (under which the past cannot be changed) with no difficulty, but that doesn't mean that she could have magically made Rumpel fall in love with her. Had that been the case, she could simply have used the dagger to do so.

"The FOX reality HIT?" Excuse me while I collapse in hysterical laughter over that one!