BSR

In all fairness, the book->movie was based on the author’s time as Anna Wintour’s assistant, an experience she still suffers PTSD from. If anything, I’m guessing Streep’s portrayal of Miranda Priestley is far more sympathetic than the real-life Ms. Wintour. I loved The Devil Wears Prada, can’t wait for the sequel.

I think you’re onto something. Even though I’m Asian myself, but for a few exceptions I was never really into Asian guys. But now that I’m living in Manila, holy sh!t, my head is on a swivel checking out all the cute Filipinos. I’m sitting at Starbucks right now trying (but failing miserably) not to be too obvious while staring at one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen. Not the most beautiful just in the Philippines or Asia, but anywhere. Oh gawd, security is about to kick me out for stalking, eek! Once you get past the imprinting, there’s a whole wide world out there.

Even though the tango shows are indeed super-touristy, it’s still worth going. I just searched for “tango show” on Google Maps and picked the one with the highest rating that was within a 30-minute walk. OMG, it was fantastic! The tango was simply spectacular. Even the weakest dancer (watching several seasons of DWTS qualifies me as a ballroom expert) was pretty good, plus he had a magnificently cut physique. Hey, if you’re not a great dancer, at least rip your shirt off. If you plan on going to a steakhouse, it’s helpful to learn how to say rare, medium-rare, etc. in Argentina. I foolishly assumed they were the same as in Spain (eek!) and ended up having too-long a discussion with the server to figure things out.

It’s been a long time, 22 years, since I was in Cuba, yet I still vividly remember how hard life was for Cubans. I didn’t think things could get any worse, but oh my God, conditions have gotten so much worse. When I think of the suffering of the Cuban people, coupled with the beautiful poetry of José Martí, I cry every time I listen to “Guantanamera.”

Either you’re into cars, or you’re not. Those who aren’t too often assume that a flashy car is how an inadequate (whether penis size or something else) man compensates for his sense of inferiority. While that might be true in some cases, it ignores some men’s genuine love of cars. Flashy cars are adult toys: they’re beautiful, they’re luxurious, and they’re a shit-ton of fun. A great car transforms driving from a burdensome chore to one of life’s great pleasures. If you don’t see things that way, so be it. But don’t defecate all over a guy just because he enjoys something that you don’t. Live and let live.

I loved it (the movie, that is, haven’t read the book). Yes, it is a bit long (running time 2h36m), but I don’t see how they could have trimmed it down because every scene, every bit was critical to the storyline. To be honest, I wasn’t buying hunkalicious Ryan Gosling as a dweeby microbiologist PhD, but he does such an amazing job with the role that he totally won me over by the end. This might sound a bit nutty, but I couldn’t help but think of Lazarillo de Tormes (the American equivalent would be Huckleberry Finn) while watching the evolution of Ryland Grace, but instead of a boy, we see how the dweeb becomes a man. The movie has a bit of everything — comedy, drama, bromance, an edge-of-your-seat action scene, impending apocalypse — yet manages to weave it all together into one cohesive story. While I wasn’t much of a Ryan Gosling fan before (had only seen him in The Notebook), I’m like his #1 fan now. The role of Ryland Grace required some serious acting chops, and Gosling cleared that very high bar.

Three great TV theme songs: And my personal favorite:

In less than a month, gas prices have jumped 30-40% in the Philippines, which is bad enough. Even more worrisome is that the government says the country has only 45 days of supply left (the Philippines doesn’t have a strategic petroleum reserve like the US). Yikes, unless something changes, and fast, a gigaton of sh!t is about to hit the fan.

If your CD rate matches the inflation rate, then you’re sinking because you have to pay taxes on the CD’s interest.

Not by choice but by circumstance, I’m listening to a lot of Filipino pop music — cabdriver has it playing, piped through at the mall, singer at a restaurant. OMG, it is awful!

“Natural immunity” — what exactly does that mean? I think it’s people who contract HIV yet whose immune systems are never compromised in any way, but I’m not sure.

Since Kathy Griffin is or at least used to be a comedian, I couldn’t care less about her politics, including whatever LGBT advocacy. But I do care whether or not she’s funny. I’m guessing @BOZO T CLOWN and @PhileasFogg were never Griffin fans to begin with, but I certainly was. I used to search for and watch videos of her standup all the time and even watched her show “My Life on the D-List.” Unfortunately, something about the Trump presidency broke her brain, and she became so political that she stopped being funny. I’ve had to endure presidents I couldn’t stand, whose policies were in my opinion destructive, but their presidencies didn’t fundamentally alter who I was or how I lived my life. You grin & bear it and fight for or at least wait for somebody better to come along. That’s how any healthy, well-balanced person deals with it, but Griffin instead allowed her Trump hatred to consume her life and consequently damage her career. Griffin’s epitaph will be every comedian’s worst fear: “She used to be funny.”

Not that strange … I’m guessing he’s in some dire financial straits and was hoping he could squeeze you for it. I’d stay away from him like a broken Petri dish of Ebola.

My gym here has launched a longevity program that features, among other things, red light and cryotherapy. I did a bit of googling on both. Red light therapy has proven benefits — skin rejuvenation, pain relief, inflammation reduction — and claims plenty of benefits to date unproven — athletic performance gains, weight loss, anti-aging. The proven benefits of cryotherapy are even fewer — helps with soreness after workouts — and plenty of unproven claims not worth mentioning. I just tried one session of red light therapy. It didn’t get nearly as hot as I feared it would, and I feel pretty good afterward. It’s quite inexpensive here in Manila, so I’ll probably sign up for the intro 10-session package. After that, see how I feel and reassess. Have you done one or the other, both? How did it work, or not, for you?

Great advice, except that I have to wonder if @Gar1eth is actually quiet and reserved. As much as he initiates and weighs in on threads in this forum, I have to think he’s a chatterbox, or at least someone who wants to be chatty but has yet to figure out how to go about it. My first thought after reading the original post is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If both of you are OK with long and frequent silences, then keep doing what you’re doing. But I get the sense that Gar1eth isn’t OK with it, or at least is somewhat uncomfortable with it. Then my advice would be to get into whatever sport is your new guy friend’s favorite. Every single sports fan on the planet loves to talk about his favorite sport/team/player. Before you protest that you’re simply not a sports fan, give it a try. Find the cutest/handsomest/hottest player on his favorite team and just follow that player. If I can watch a hot guy read the phone book, I can certainly watch him play a sport I don’t understand. Listen to the commentators & analysts because good ones really help you understand the sport. And once you’ve figured a few things out, ask your guy friend some questions. Since every sports fan is full of opinions, I’m pretty sure your friend will gladly share his despite how quiet he is otherwise. As a tiny tyke, I became a die-hard tennis fan only because a young Bjorn Borg was sex on a stick. Even though Borg retired decades ago, I grew to love tennis for the sport itself, hotties aside. Lest you think you’re too old to get into it, I was well into adulthood when I became a die-hard baseball and football fan. Two of my best gay friendships sprung from mutual love of a sport. While we can talk sports for hours, conversation always strays into other topics as well. Yuppers, not just straight guys bond over jock talk.

Theatre actors would make more if they put out.

Look at him. I’m sure plenty of guys are happy to pay $500/hr.

Crap! sorry, but I can’t find the tweet in my feed. Too bad, it was a lean, cut boxer at a weigh-in, clueless about the wet spot on his briefs. Hopefully this sexy boxer shows up … https://x.com/caughtnaked100/status/1955213158219464900?s=46

I love how he seems utterly clueless about the wet spot in his undies … https://x.com/the_daily_goon/status/2035040295788728660?s=61

In general, when entertainers stop entertaining and start ranting about politics, I lose all interest. Even if I agreed with everything Kathy Griffin said, I’d be bored stiff because I paid my hard-earned money to laugh, not to listen to politics.

I love Palermo Soho! I stayed in Montserrat for 3 months because it was close to my language school, but I spent most of my free time in Palermo Soho. Super gay-friendly, chic yet unpretentious (my take), it’s a fantastic neighborhood. If you’re a coffee-lover, ask a local to recommend a good café because most coffee in Buenos Aires ranges from mediocre to downright awful. On weekends I went to Vive Cafe, “next door” in Palermo Hollywood, a Colombian coffee shop where they do coffee right. Most tourists do a tour of La Boca, but I didn’t like it at all: it has an interesting history but way too touristy for me. I would recommend a tour of the Plaza de Mayo that covers the history of the widows and mothers of los desaparecidos, a profoundly sad period of Argentina’s history but critical to understanding the country. If the weather’s nice, I would definitely visit the beautiful Japanese Garden. I would also walk around Palermo Chico, the fanciest BA neighborhood where all the embassies are. If you haven’t already picked your hotel, I would stay at the St. George in Puerto Iguazú, 20-25 minutes from the Falls: modern rooms, great pool, terrific breakfast buffet included. If you want to stay inside the national parks (plural because both the Brazilian and Argentine sides are national parks for their respective country), be prepared to pay megabucks. The Melia on the Argentine side was sorely in need of a renovation yet was literally 10x the price of the St. George. The Belmond on the Brazilian side is more like 12x the St. George, but at least it’s beautifully maintained. I preferred the Brazilian side (a panoramic view of the entire Falls) over the Argentine side (walkways that are almost right on top of the Falls), but you gotta do both. I highly recommend the boat ride along and under the Falls. Just bring a change of dry clothes because you’ll get soaked. I wish I could remember the place in Puerto Iguazú that serves 1-kilo ribeyes for just $50 (at the exchange rate then) because it lived up to all expectations for Argentine beef. Since steakhouses were a lot more expensive in BA, I did an asado Airbnb experience. Besides being less expensive, you learned about all the customs and traditions of an Argentine asado. This might seem like a silly tip to Southern Hemisphereans like @mike carey and @José Soplanucas, but remember that the sun passes through the north sky, not the south. My first day walking around, I checked Google Maps for the route to my destination, checked where the sun was, and started walking. 10 minutes later, I was baffled that I was walking in the wrong, opposite direction. Duh! the sun does the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere.