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The visitor guest room is probably a HHI trope in many cases, with the house hunters rarely having guests to justify the higher rents. But I can believe that a young couple, going overseas for the first time, not having ever been out of the country previously, will have family and friends over. Or at least it's their intention and belief that people will visit them. As it happens, this couple is planning to go back because her sister just gave birth so they're not completely independent of ties to family. Emotionally they may not want to let go of the people who were in their lives. Whereas some people can make a lot of friends easily and don't have quite the same energy to maintain ties to family and friends back home. Maybe that's why they didn't talk about determining the budget and the type of home based on plans to travel while they're in Europe. The husband said that posting in the UK was important for his career and the wife had to give up her young career in order to go with him. So they're probably thinking they will return to the US as soon as they can. Again speaks to their emotional dependence to their social circle back home. They may think of this time as a necessary evil, not something they're embracing necessarily as a unique opportunity.

Maybe they searched for places within their budget and found that this town had a lot of rentals in their price range and even offering 3 bedrooms. They said their first choice was Oxford. Or maybe they plan to run a meth lab.

I haven’t finished the season, just an episode or two left, but I agree with most of the criticisms here. It’s been all soap opera-ish with the relationships and hookups. I would add that they are going to school but they have time to go to fancy clubs almost every night it seems, where they can have alcohol all the time. No doubt privileged kids can get around rules and laws more easily but do they have any interest in maximizing their chances to get into an elite university? Or they don’t worry because family connections will get them in? Some of the venues were incredible, like when Omar followed Andre and Patrick what looked like a gay sex club, which seemed luxurious but two kids under 18 are admitted there? Does Spain have no laws against sex between adults and minors? Looks like Zander and Patrick were only hooking up with each other but what would have kept them from hooking up with adults at the club? Mencia was sleeping with an older man. Maybe in the last two episodes someone will think to report him to the police for having sex with a minor? I saw an article this week saying they will cast a trans actor for next season. The cast for next season was shown and most of them are back. That means Guzman an Samuel will be on all 5 seasons of the show. Maybe each season isn’t suppose to represent a school year? Otherwise they should have graduated and went to university like Nadia no later than the end of season 4.

Bill doubles down on his rants against Covid measures. Trots out the old, “only the old and fat” are being hospitalized or dying! Theme again. Says protect the vulnerable but let’s all go back to normal. It’s not “my responsibility” to protect other people. Is there a better example of Republicanism than that statement? He says 75% of all Covid deaths are people over 65? Officially, we’re approaching 1 million Covid deaths in the US, though the excess death numbers suggest it’s much higher. But that means 25% of the 900k Covid deaths have been people under 65, or about 225k deaths in two years. That is still a huge number. Way more than a bad flu season for people of all ages or the approximately 40k deaths from car accidents. Not as big as heart disease or cancer, which each kill about 600k Americans a year. But a lot of those deaths are to older people as well. Do we not try to reduce heart disease or cancer? None of those other causes of deaths involve a highly contagious virus. Well the flu is contagious but not to the extent Covid is. Point is, we can determine how many people are killed by Covid, to an extent. Bill also referenced a Johns Hopkins study which claims lockdowns didn’t prevent a lot of deaths. This study is getting a lot of play on Fox News, which claims the liberal media is ignoring it. Well these are not from the JHU medical school or public health school. They’re 3 economists, libertarian, with history of opposing Covid measures. They’re hiding under the JHU name but they’re not all at JHU anyways. https://nationalpost.com/health/johns-hopkins-study-finding-lockdowns-do-little-to-prevent-covid-deaths-flawed-critics-say The article quotes scientists cr8tiquing the study but anyone paying attention the past two years know it’s BS. The countries which locked down the hardest, most of Asia and both Australia and New Zealand, have way lower Covid death rates than the US, Europe, South America. And Bill kept wanting to show where medicine has been wrong throughout history but quoted an Oprah claim on AIDS or talked about HSA not profiling but instead searching grannies at the airport. Well he should have been questioning the field of public health, which is not the same as medicine but a lot of people in public health have medical training. For instance Fauci probably hasn’t practiced medicine in decades but he was instrumental in dealing with AIDS back in the 80s — probably a matter of time before Bill goes after Fauci like Republicans are doing.

They said they chose it on a map. They said they ruled out London because of costs? But they didn’t particularly seemed interested in spending much time in London, though it was only a 35-minute train ride. But dining and entertainment in London may be more pricey. Also didn’t mention travel to Europe either. Instead their splurge is wall climbing? Speaking of walls, that sad gray wall wasn’t the dealbreaker she claimed it was. He talked her into the cheaper place by saying $200 in rent savings would be used for getting a cat? Does a cat cost that much to feed and take care of? Maybe they’re getting to travel and they didn’t show it. I think they could have made the cheapest place work by setting up her workspace in the main bedroom or the living room. Most of the time that second bedroom wouldn’t be used because they wouldn’t have guests all the time. And it’s not clear that she’d always be working from home either. The space of the two bedroom is enough for a couple. Three bedrooms is overkill unless they started having children right away.

Been awhile since I played UC4 but a lot of the action is scaling buildings and there are often guards up there. So either you go in guns blazing or you take them out without shooting. If you go guns blazing you get shot at in all directions. So you hang by your hands/arms from a ledge and reach up and grab a leg and toss them over. Quite a feat when you think about it but these moves means throwing people over several flights of stairs or more, sometimes into the water. Maybe these guys survive but there are clearly sections where he's shooting while under cover of a bush or a part of a building. These are not in self-defense. Nate is in these places because he has an agenda, to find something which leads to something or someone else. Remember, he's a treasure hunter, not trying to rescue someone like those Liam Neeson characters.

Originally had a trip planned to Corsica in summer 2020. So I rescheduled to 2021 and the trip encompassed Corsica and Nice and parts of Provence. Ended up not going to Corsica at all because they required their own PCR test 72 hours before arriving. The itinerary was to fly and spend a couple of nights in Nice and then fly to Corsica for a week. But I wasn't sure where I would find a PCR test in Nice in time to get the results and fly to Ajaccio. It turned out however, that France gave free tests to both residents and tourists in June and first half of July. So I did get a free PCR test to visit Monaco, which also required PCR test. Too late to visit Corsica though. I don't know if Corsica dropped their requirement by the fall when these legs were filmed but maybe part of the protocols was frequent testing that the producers paid for. For the most part, once you arrive in the EU. travelers from outside the EU weren't required to re-test each time they crossed EU borders. That included Switzerland, which is not in the EU but goes along with many of the same travel policies.

The cut scenes in the games depicted a kind of happy go lucky, wisecracking guy. Certainly they built up a story for him and other characters which is movie-like. But the action in the game is that he kills a lot of people. All bad guys of course but still, all that action and no PTSD? What is the type of person who can commit so much violence, a lot of it lethal, without feeling guilt, lots of it? He's not defending himself or people who are vulnerable, he's chasing treasure and adventure. How will the movie handle this disconnect? Or they just won't show as much lethal action.

Rue doesn't have a father, Jules doesn't have a mother, doesn't seem like Lexi and Cassie have fathers either. Kat has both parents I believe? Fez and Ash had a grandmother, no parents. Nate has both but his father is a mess and mother seems checked out, doing her own thing. Forget Maddy's story exactly but wasn't her mother depicted similarly, as a queen bee type? Anyone else? Rue can blame her behavior on missing her father but Gia seems fine. Same with Cassie, Lexi isn't a mess like her.

I don't remember those but those sound interesting, more indicative of the culture of the place. The canyon run was cool too but obviously let Ryan and Dusty not only catch up but run past some teams. That's fine, but I don't think TAR has been only about being the most physically fit -- there are other shows which do that and I don't think they're nearly as popular as TAR.

The whole godfather thing was funny. Was Vinny really salty about Mike choosing him as godfather? Then Pauly trolling him repeatedly on why he wasn’t good enough to be godfather. If he was faking, Vinny’s petulance was convincing. Mike mentioned more than once that Pauly was rich. Jenni or Snookie said “how can you get baptized when you’re 55?😊 Then that sad little vessel where he was going to be dunked, MTV went a little cheap there. Pauly cracked that it needed to be washed. The choir is cool but is it part of going big? They let the booze flow when the cast gets together but the catering doesn’t seem all that, they were opening supermarket plastic boxes so probably a deli platter rather than some fancy charcuterie board. The doves release is going to be each of them throwing one up in the air. Mike thinks they sound like crows. At the little tank they were talking about how Mike’s head would be submerged going face down. Mike says to Vinny “like what you do every weekend.”😄 The pet psychic segment was funny. Deena knows it’s ridiculous, Angelina’s little dog talking to the psychic who gives Angelina relationship advice. But she’s really worried about iron deficiency because a pet psychic told her so. Really the notion would be offensive, a stranger getting into your personal life but only because the dog is telling her. Obviously a setup for the show but some or all of them believe in psychics probably. Producers making these reality TV stars look dumb for repeatedly sitting down with psychics, believing in curses and other old mumbo jumbo or the girls KNOW it’s all nonsense but they’re playing along for the show? Angelina seemed to be taking it seriously. None of them mocked the absurdity except maybe Deena wondering if they’re suppose to listen to the psychic, who’s relaying what Peanut is saying.

I bet they sprinted down to the kayaks, got their heart rates up higher than others pumping up the boat, taking it up to the dam and then paddling it as fast as they could while others were going at a more leisurely pace. They're not in fear of being eliminated but they probably suspected they could have been in the running still to make the first departure time. Almost caught up to the flight attendants.

Matt and Trey have always been both siders haven't they? Not surprising they'd hew to that.

It was a big part of the season. They chose to emphasize it when they could have dropped it. Rayna accused Heather of apologizing so she wouldn't get cancelled from the job. Why didn't Heather just drop it? She apologized and Rayna chose to be cold to her. So you let that go, you can't make people like you or accept your apology. Her dropping to her knees in the finale was ridiculous. If the producers didn't suggest it, the presence of cameras probably made her (and other people in general) act in ways they normally wouldn't. In any event, Heather and Rachel were talking about how they'd both like to do another season with each other. That would suggest the producers have told them they'd like them to do more seasons or that's the plan unless Heather did something stupid or some old tweet comes back to haunt her. Rayna will probably never be cast again. Her story is now supposedly about wanting to learn to be a chef herself. She may appear on ancillary shows like Gallery Talk or whatever nonsense Bravo is trying to push. So Heather probably knew even when the incident first blew up that she'd be doing more seasons while Rayna would be gone in a week or two.

Yeah I can see them totally going there. He poured more wine into her glass. She's still under age right?

Seriously, a vigilante and a thief? So he only beats up bad guys right, never makes a mistake? Does he wise crack while he punches people, is that suppose to be his personality?

The description made it sound like there was a risk of spilling the milk from those tanks but it was not an issue at all. Maybe if they let them drop off the saddle? Plus the distance looked very short, unless it was editing. When the guys switched tasks, it would have been a lot quicker for them to run over to the mule station but pushing that jeep up probably slowed them down. So the only challenging part was putting on the saddle correctly. The Roadblock, Ryan told him to go as fast as they can and he'd follow. I guess those slides were cleared out to make sure you couldn't hit the rocks on the side, same with the zip line. Good CV test but the other part of it is plunging into the cold water but it didn't seem that bad. As for spacing the departure times apart, I don't know what the typical time penalty is for racers who come in last in an NEL when they do the extra task. Guess they got off easy just being 15 minutes behind the second group. But 15 minutes may not be too short compared to some other speed bumps in previous seasons.

I visited Corsica once, want to go back. Corte is in the middle of the island, kind of distant from the coasts. The island is known for some serious treks through the mountains. The coastal cities are stunning though, beautiful aquamarine Mediterranean waters with cliffs and caves along the southern coast. I hope they go to one of the coastal towns on the next leg.

Every leg since the restart has had a physical challenge of some kind which at least one member had to do. Not too physical, all the racers are able to finish but fitness obviously helps some racers do it faster than others. I'm trying to remember if previous seasons had similar number of physical challenges, in particular something that required endurance as often as these 3 legs have been. I think that is why the two guys have done well, though they did well in the navigation in the previous leg to go up those stairs more times than other teams and still win the leg. In previous seasons, there is usually one or two detours or road blocks where upper body strength helps as well as just the ability to run a couple of miles. The kayaks could have been that if several teams were racing at the same time to inflate, then carry the kayak up to the dam and then paddle upstream to the pitstop. But it seems the downfall of all-female teams is often one of these tasks in which upper body strength is needed. Maybe for the restart, these endurance challenges where they're probably hiking/running/climbing a couple of kilometers were the easiest to set up and they couldn't do more of the things like singing in Scotland.

Heard a review on NPR Fresh Air. Reviewer liked it but described it as a former military guy deciding to go vigilante as he goes from town to town. He wants to get off the grid or keep a low profile so he pays cash for everything — where does he get cash? But he’s this behemoth who raises hell wherever he goes? How does that work with keeping a low profile?

Well if it was real, it had a weird color, kind of orange. The color made it easier to notice.

I believe previous Olympic bids were associated with bribing of IOC officials, not just outright money but wining and dining them, getting them prostitutes. So maybe Prince will do something shady along those lines or getting them in compromising positions and blackmailing them, like Chuck blackmailing Buddy in this episode. But that would be so against Prince's brand. Maybe he will agonize over it but still do it and that's his downfall. Though the way they established this character, he would just win the bid because he's convincing and good and a winning personality.

What rest are you referring to? You quoted the part of my post which was directly about electricity. There's a book called Lucifer's Hammer, about a big comment which strikes the earth, causing tsunamis and earthquakes, pretty much ending civilization. Before every chapter, they have a quote which supports what happens in the narrative, like things going haywire. One thing they cited was how society would break down and people would in fact be fighting each other for scarce resources. That Cracked article says the opposite. But we've seen behavior when society breaks down, even temporarily. For instance, people often loot after a hurricane or natural disaster. Or when wars break out, there have been cases of former neighbors literally imprisoning or even killing each other. There are predictions of more wars as climate change force people to try to migrate away and into places where people don't want the refugees. For instance the Arab Spring is partly attributed to prolonged drought conditions. Even this show depicted people fighting over scarce resources. Jeevan got attacked but before that, he was hearing on the short wave radio that there was widespread fighting in some places, with people warning not to go to certain places.

One thing that struck me, these larger homes still had narrow staircases. I think all 3 did? Or at least one of the larger homes, #2 or #3, also had these types of steep and narrow staircases. I've only been to Amsterdam in Holland. It's well understood why those canal homes were so narrow and thus had narrow staircases. It was to maximize use of space but also they taxed homes at one time based on their width, so they built them narrow and tall. I don't think that's the case any more with how these homes are taxed. That tax regime was from centuries ago. So you have the larger homes, one in the suburbs. Maybe the Dutch got used to those narrow staircases and prefer them? Because the two larger homes had room for the kind of expansive staircases you see in other countries, including the US. I wonder what happens to seniors though. I'm sure there are single story homes, away fro city centers. You'd think there would be a lot of turnover if people get too old to go up and down those stairs.

Seems like another case where one of the house hunters, in this case the wife, is playing the city vs. burbs script. She really didn't push hard for the two places in or near the city when it came down to making the decision. Wonder if the house hunters have any input on the fake choices they come up with or the producers find them and then give them a narrative, such as being in the city to make it appear like they seriously consider these other places when it's often the case that the house hunters have already chosen or are already living in their home.