BSR

I agree that we're due for a recession, probably a bad one, but as bad or worse than the GFC? Some troubling signs (like the collapse in commercial real estate), but far from 2008's harmonic convergence of stupidity and recklessness. Florida's real estate market is fascinating. On the Gulf Coast, inventory is exploding. Owners crushed by homeowners and maintenance (hurricane-proofing) costs are selling and fleeing. Prices haven't collapsed, yet, but 10-fold increases in the number of properties listed can mean only one thing for prices. On the other coast, wealthy buyers are flooding South Florida. Some sold their homes in NY & CA and have a moving truck of cash to spend. Many work in tech or finance. Miami continues to attract a sh*t-ton of rich foreigners. So many luxury condos are being built in South Florida that a glut would seem inevitable. But apparently they're selling like hotcakes, and buyers have real money this time, not the no-money-no-problem buyers from pre-2008.

I am always a bit freaked out when @José Soplanucas and I agree on an issue, but despite those reservations I'll weigh in here. You claim that some jurisdictions "consider it rape," but the linked legal abstract gives a very broad definition: 'rape by fraud,' an action whereby a person obtains sexual consent and has sexual intercourse of any type by fraud, deception, misrepresentation, or impersonation. Depending on the interpretation, any dishonesty -- a guy lying about his income, a guy telling someone he loves them when he doesn’t, a guy who says he has a hotshot job when he's really a grunt -- every little fib under the sun, any BS that cads have spouted since time immemorial retroactively revokes consent and presto! change-o! makes all cases of what was originally consensual sex a Class A felony. Sorry, but that's not rape. That's the Cult of Victimhood run amok. Our overburdened courts need to focus their limited time and resources on legitimate cases of rape, not "your honor, he promised to leave his wife for me!" It is not my intention here to trivialize what happened to @Tony_tx. That assh*le manipulated & cheated you, and you have every right to be angry. But I have to draw a line here because there's a Grand Canyon-sized gap between fraud and rape.

Assh*les are often masters of manipulation. That's how they manage to treat people like sh*t yet get away with it time and again. In the moment, you were unable to respond to the red flags because he pressured you with tricks like the family member who was (never) coming to pick him up. I can understand why in the wake of this con, you respond by switching to a policy of payment upfront. Plenty of escorts say the same thing during initial communication and even in their ad. But as many here have advised, doing so will turn off a significant number of prospective clients. Maybe take a breath, or even a brief break from escorting, and when the anger fades, come up with your list of rules, e.g., no discounts, no haggling, money on the dresser, etc. @Jamie21's list is a great starting point. The next time and every time you see a red flag, just stick to your rules come hell or high water. In other words, to state the obvious, ignore the client's attempts to distract or manipulate you. Hopefully such measures filter out 98% of the schmucks while avoiding the turnoff of payment upfront.

Dunno, but they should make one ... as long as it doesn't star Billy Eichner.

I guess the "couple" could claim that they haven't been dating long, but even with that story, the chances of getting tripped up are uncomfortably high (at least for my pain threshold). That is a tangled web I'd rather not weave.

I finally got around to seeing Bros. The reviews on this thread and elsewhere set my expectations so low that I actually ended up liking it. That's not to say, however, that I thought it was a good movie. I went into it with a touch of animus against Billy Eichner after he blamed the bomb at the box office on homophobia. It's called personal responsibility, pal, a concept you should have learned decades ago. I don't get these narcissists who reflexively blame their failures on everyone but themselves, like when the female Ghostbusters cast blamed sexism for their bomb. Nope, in both cases, the movie sucked. I disagree that Eichner played the "typical" New Yorker, stereotypical more like. Either/or, I can't say I particularly liked the character or Eichner as an actor. Same difference perhaps, because I'm pretty sure Eichner was simply playing himself. The museum board also grated on me. While I do appreciate the ability to laugh at oneself, the lines and the actors' delivery came off as way too forced. It all felt like a desperate stand-up comedian trying way too hard to be funny, so he ends up just being cringe. It wasn't all bad, of course. I was pleasantly surprised by Luke McFarlane and his character. I wasn't a fan before because I didn't care for him in Brothers and Sisters, but he was great in this. I also loved the guest stars Harvey Fierstein and Debra Messing (even though I couldn't stand her on Will & Grace). And I loved the scenes in beautiful Provincetown. Does P-town really look that postcard-perfect? The movie's best scene was the one toward the end with Eichner and his straight female friend, where she talks him into trying again. They were two normal people having a conversation that sounded like the way real people speak. If the movie had done a lot more of that, as opposed to trying waaaaay too hard, I would have liked Bros a lot more than I did. PS: they should film an alternate ending as a bonus extra for DVD/blu-ray, one in which McFarlane ditches Eichnar and all his high-strung neuroses to run off with the hunky high school hockey crush.

The French sports daily L'Équipe was the first to report that Novak Djokovic had surgery this morning to repair his torn meniscus. Wow, just 1 day after diagnosis! Novak had an elbow injury in the 2nd half of 2016 and all of 2017, but decided on surgery in early 2018 only after exhausting all natural healing options for those 18 months. None of that kumbaya sh*t this time, LOL. I'm guessing that part of this change in mentality is due to Novak's desperation to have one last chance at Olympic gold. Recovery time will be ~3 weeks, which all but kills his chances of playing Wimbledon. In 2021, Taylor Fritz also tore his meniscus at Roland Garros but recovered from surgery in just 3 weeks and was able to play Wimbledon, although he was a lot younger then (just 23) than Novak is now (37!). Also, Fritz was just looking to play some matches & win some prize money whereas Novak enters a Slam only if he thinks he can win it. While shut out of Wimbledon, Novak should be good to go for the Paris Olympics, where the tennis starts on July 27. He's been very open & vocal about just how much he wants that gold medal. Hey, at least he still has a chance.

I think all men with great legs should wear shorts this short. Bring back the 80s! By the way, this is Nourdin Batán, a Spanish actor of Moroccan descent. He transformed his body by doing crossfit. Helluva difference between the before and after!

Sounds fun, but your report of all the smoke really turns me off. I absolutely HATE smoke: makes me feel like I'm gonna cough up a lung, not to mention it makes my eyes water, your clothes reek, your hair (what's left of mine, at least). UGH! Oh wait, cute sexy guys full Monty? One with his manhood pointing due north better than a compass?? Yuppers, just added Lucky's to my bucket list.

I think @Vegas_Millennial's comments were more sociological than political, and for what it's worth, I agree with him. People's social circles aren't necessarily composed of people exactly like them, but far more often than not, one's friends are at least similar. Rich people have rich friends. If you asked the Fortune 400 how many of them have a friend on food stamps, I'd bet my bottom dollar that number is zero (OK, maybe 1, always an exception). Jocks hang out with jocks, artists hang out with artists, musicians with musicians, and (as I can attest) Filipinos hang out with Filipinos, even those who speak perfect English and have been in the US for decades tend to have mostly Filipino friends. If you're completely closed off to associating with someone different from yourself, I agree that's an unhealthy attitude, but jocks with jocks & musicians with musicians is just human nature. Of course, plenty of immigrants learn and even master English, but a certain percentage does not. Sometimes that's age -- English proficiency for citizenship is waived for 65+. Sometimes it's because between working full time (sometimes 2-3 jobs) and raising kids and taking care of a house, an immigrant just doesn't have the time & energy. And in some cases, they simply don't want to. A friend who runs an immigrant-services nonprofit says a lot of immigrants didn't really want to come here but did anyway because they feared they would literally die in their home country. Since they have every intention of returning, even some who have spent a decade+ in the US, they don't really want to learn English because to them that would be admitting that their dream of returning to their home country will never happen. The exact number of immigrants who don't speak English is difficult to pin down because immigrants who don't speak English are often too embarrassed to admit it nor will they respond to a survey in an unfamiliar language. But with a bit of googling, I found that 8.3% of US residents lack proficiency in English (hard data from the US Census), and 1-3% lack even basic knowledge (an estimate based on US Census data because getting an exact number is impossible). Small percentages but millions of immigrants. Hey, there's a reason California prints voting ballots in 30+ languages.

It's not just American. I met a group of Brits who had retired in Marbella but none of them had even a basic level in Spanish. Their social circles are all fellow Brits or Europeans who speak excellent English. All the locals they deal with speak English, and for the occasional situation when that's not the case, it's easy & cheap to hire a translator. This group I ran into is hardly the exception on Spain's Mediterranean coast, where plenty of expats have established English-speaking communities. It goes beyond the anglosphere as well. Plenty of long-time US residents do not speak English at a functional level. That's why the California driver's exam can be taken in 32 different languages.

I'm not that bothered that he had to withdraw from Roland Garros because he was never going to win it anyway. But I do worry that he'll have to miss Wimbledon, where he does have a decent chance. If it's a bad tear, he might even miss the Olympics. If he does miss the Paris Olympics, ouch! because Novak desperately wants that gold medal, and this summer is his last chance. Roland Garros is guaranteed to crown a first-time men's singles champion because none of the guys left in the draw has won the title. My pick is Sinner, with Alcaraz a strong number 2. I'll be surprised if either Ruud or Zverev takes it, and I'll keel over if de Miñaur hoists the trophy.

He uses "Latinx" in his ad. That's all I need to know. Hard pass.

Does the real Leo look better or worse than the photos in the ad?

I have to wonder just how serious this FBI+DHS warning is. Do they think there's an uncomfortably high chance of a terrorist attack? Or is the likelihood low but not zero, and the warning is more of a cover-their-ass move?

Interesting comments about wealth inequality, but it's still laughable to blame the wealth gap for the explosion in shoplifting. If the vast gulf between rich & poor triggered skyrocketing theft, then we would see it all over the country. Instead, we see it mostly in just a few cities, ones which not coincidentally coddle criminals instead of punishing them. If your local DA believes that cash bail is racist and that criminals are actually victims, expect your local pharmacy to lock up the shampoo. Miami's gap between rich and poor is wider than most. Billionaires and centimillionaires from around the globe own 2nd (3rd? 4th?) homes, $multimillion part-time pads, while so many Miami residents work low-paying service sector jobs. Where are the flash mobs of thieves, the locked-up Hot Pockets, the lucite cases? Nope, none of that sh*t, because Miami actually sends thieves to jail. You obviously have some passionate opinions about wealth inequality. You should start up a separate thread about it instead of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

I get your point, even if I don't necessarily agree. But can you prove that this greater gap between the top 10-20% and the rest is what causes this explosion of shoplifting?

Today's crisis is costing retailers $billions and forcing them to resort to locking hair dye up in lucite cases. Can you provide any stats as to how widespread it was in the 80s? I'm sure it did happen, but I'm guessing the problem was more isolated cases vs. today's epidemic, unless you have evidence to the contrary.

So cut it in half. $2.2 billion is still a sh*t-ton of shoplifting. And if you watch the video, none of the thieves is stealing bread to feed their families, LOL.

NY lost $4.4 billion to shoplifting in 2022. The shoplifting crisis is real, not some overblown trending topic. Your theory about fewer security guards is a possibility, I guess, but in all the discussion of this explosion in shoplifting, I've never seen anyone cite that as a cause. Can you back up your claim? I do agree that the shoplifting crisis is very much a localized phenomenon. It's not nationwide, just in cities with soft-on-crime policies. Once people figured out that they could steal all they wanted and get away with it, shoplifting exploded.

Has income inequality gotten even worse? Perhaps, although the gap between the Vanderbilts & Carnegies and the millions of immigrants who came to NYC with just the shirts on their backs was a helluva stretch. Please note that there was no Section 8, Medicaid, or food stamps in the Gilded Age. Back in the day, the poor literally starved. Blaming the very recent explosion of shoplifting on income inequality is bullsh*t that might play well in ivory tower sociology departments, but nobody in the real world is buying it.

What a steaming pile of cowplop. Huge wealth inequality has plagued NYC for decades, even centuries, yet this explosion of shoplifting is quite recent. Toothpaste wasn't locked up in 2019. I think the root cause is a lot simpler: if you can steal and get away with it, you're going to keep stealing. Hey, it's a heckuva lot easier than working for a living. No alarm clock, no boss, waaaaay better pay, choose your own hours, and best of all: no jail! Back in 2022, just 327 individuals were responsible for ~30% of NYC's shoplifting arrests, yet despite their brazen recidivism, most of these super-repeat offenders were still free as a bird instead of behind bars. What changed? In 2019, a no-bail policy for nonviolent offenders was established. City DAs with abysmal conviction rates see criminals, even those who commit violent crimes, as "victims." These policies create a sense of lawlessness in which criminals are like kids in a (free) candy store.