BSR

Hold the phone! Lets wait to see just how bad conditions are in Melbourne 15 days from now. Qualifying starts on the 14th, the main draw starts on the 20th. Worst case, qualifying could be relocated to another location with better air quality. Moving the qualies would be expensive and cumbersome, but feasible. Obviously the main draw cannot be moved. Something just occurred to me. I hate to say this since I'm such a die-hard Novak fan, but I have to wonder if Novak's talk of delaying the tournament isn't just some gamesmanship on his part. Compared to Rafa & Roger, Novak struggles far more with outdoor conditions because he wilts in the heat and goes bonkers in the wind. When the head of the players' council and a 7-time AO champion talks, Tennis Australia listens. If Novak can spook Tennis Australia into closing the roofs, his odds of an eighth trophy increase substantially.

True enough, fans might very well stay home. Since most of the assigned-seating tickets are already sold, Tennis Australia might not lose that much revenue, although they would suffer a fan backlash if they refused to refund unused tickets. They'll cross that bridge when they come to it. But fan attendance won't affect TV revenue because those contracts are already set. While I don't know the specifics of the AO budget, it's probably safe to assume that the revenue from TV rights is substantial. Even if the stands are somewhat empty, all matches on the 3 big show courts will be played and broadcast, which is all the TV outlets need. Even in adverse conditions, Tennis Australia will be able to salvage most of their anticipated revenue. As much as all tennis professionals are fastidious about their health, Novak is particularly so. He strictly follows an all-organic vegan diet, for example. But if anyone think he's skipping this year's Australian, they're crazy. He, along with fellow Big 3 Rafa & Roger, will play wearing a gas mask if need be. My guess is the same is true of the "Big 3"* women - Serena, Naomi Osaka, and Bianca Andreescu. * In quotes because the concept of Big Three of men's tennis is well-established; women's side not so much.

Spot on. Any delay would ruin the tournaments scheduled during the new AO dates. Plus who knows how long the wildfires will continue? What if it's rescheduled yet the air quality is just as bad if not worse? Double disaster. The AO is unique in that the venue features three retractable-roof stadiums. If air quality is an issue, they could always beef up their air filtration systems (an expensive but feasible fix) and close the roofs. Of course, this would give an enormous advantage to the top-ranked players who are always scheduled to play on the big show courts. Lower-ranked players would complain, with good cause, but that is a better solution than canceling the event altogether. Tennis Australia depends on the Australian Open for most of their budget. The four Slams are incredibly lucrative businesses that generate tens of $millions for their respective tennis federations. Tennis Australia uses the profits for tennis development, especially the training of juniors and players just starting out who can't afford the staggering costs of coaching, fitness training, and travel. Without the revenue of the 2020 AO, Tennis Australia would be devastated.

He has a few videos posted on YouTube. With his good looks, great personality, and chef skills, you would think he could develop a successful culinary channel on YouTube, but it hasn't panned out for him. Despite making a fair number of cooking videos, none of them have even a thousand views.

I also noticed how many died from motorcycle/car accidents. While I do not know the details of those accidents, just the sheer number seemed awfully high. There are two types or "styles" of suicide, direct and indirect. Direct would be slashing your wrists or swallowing a bullet. Indirect is a bit trickier. Instead of doing something as obvious and final like jumping off a bridge, the individual takes excessive risks - driving too fast, doing too many drugs, mixing drugs & alcohol - with the subconscious goal of suicide. I'm sure some of those deaths were just accidents, nothing more. But the alarmingly high number, especially in the context of how many other porn stars directly committed suicide, makes me think that with some of them at least, the desire to self-destruct played a role.

Hmm, interesting that he lists English as one of his spoken languages yet writes his ad only in Spanish. You would think that even if his written English weren't great, he could ask a friend to help out with the translation. That said, he's spectacular & the vast majority of Miamians speak Spanish, at least a little. I doubt his Spanish only ad copy is hurting business.

Or perhaps after a price hike, the escort suffers a net loss of clients yet makes the same amount or even more thanks to the higher rates. Maybe the escort loses clients and his overall income decreases but he's happy to take the "pay cut" in exchange for more free time. Hey, whatever works for him. Not in this thread but in others, I've read some clients expect to be grandfathered in at the old rate. Like @MikeBiDude says, I can't think of a single case where I am grandfathered in at the old rate. I don't understand anyone would expect escorts to be an exception. To me, that expectation would be a telling indicator of an unprofessional client. So if he leaves in a huff, all for the best.

Wow, while that didn't exactly fill me with Christmas cheer, thanks for posting the video. So sad ... at least I got an answer to so many cases of "whatever happened to ________?"

In class in Salamanca (Spain, not Mexico) just to kill time while waiting for the teacher one day, I asked a German classmate how to say "I don't speak German" in German. He said it a few times, and I tried to repeat what I heard, but I must have been way off because he just held up his hand and sternly told me, "Just say it in English; they'll understand you." The beginning and the end of my German education. Back on topic, another option is to not even bother mentioning your preference to speak Spanish, just respond or start talking in Spanish. I dealt with the situation a fair amount in Spain. Perhaps because of my appearance (I'm Filipino), occasionally Spaniards would initially speak to me in English. Forget asking or stating my preference to speak Spanish, I just responded in Spanish. Everyone caught on without missing a beat.

Uh ... he listed his age as 24??

When I read the first article, I had to laugh. Come on, "pigloo" is pretty damn funny. But after reading the second article, you stop laughing. There has to be a way to change the economics of the issue. The sums cited for hunting feral pigs sound awfully high. $150-200?? Why not drastically lower the license fees to encourage more hunters and thereby minimize the feral pig population? By the way, I had wild boar once at an italian restaurant (authentic Italian, not Italian-American). It was absolutely amazing, like pork except more gamey & much richer. It sounds like my "wild boar" could easily have been feral pigs trapped in the US (as opposed to true wild boar hunted in Europe). You almost never see wild boar on menus in the US, yet feral pig populations run amok causing great environmental and economic damage. It sounds like feral pig trapping just isn't lucrative enough. Normally I oppose government subsidies, but in this particular case, it might be a good idea.

The first video I posted was more of a modern-day queer tango number. Here is a more old-school routine, closer to the dance's origins that @Tangogent mentions, a couple of tough guys duking it out on the dance floor. By the way, one of the dancers Fernando Gracia (the slightly shorter of the two) is a former world tango champion. When you see the ease with which he executes the complicated footwork and tricky lifts, you can totally see how this guy is a world champion.

Thanks for the tip on how to get access to his reviews. Wow, I can't stop laughing! Even funnier is that he says in his ad copy to read his reviews *snort*

The English half of his ad is a word-for-word translation of the Spanish ad copy, with two exceptions. The "up to 50 years old" line appears nowhere in the Spanish write-up. He also omits the paragraph about "write when you are sure ... " I guess you could always ask about the age limit, although I myself would hesitate to because he seems awfully touchy about asking questions ("do not write to ask what is already said here!").

I'm a huge fan of queer tango, have been for years. If you type "queer tango" into a YouTube search, tons of great routines pop up. This is one of my favorites:

One of my favorite songs of all time, the beautiful poetry of José Martí set to great music. Here is the best version I found on YouTube, sung by Cubans from all over the world. My favorite singer is Equis Alfonso (1:52). Wow, the man's voice is like silk.

This is brilliant. I used to be a die-hard country fan until the genre changed into something I don't even recognize any more. How I miss the old days of Brooks & Dunn and Willie Nelson. Country music nowadays is just garbage. Florida Georgia Line? Kacey Musgrave? You couldn't pay me enough to attend one of their concerts. Country music had three primary themes: a corny sense of humor, traditional bedrock values, and the white man's blues. This rather unconventional, 21st century country song is actually a throwback to the old school, that corny sense of humor - like "She Got The Gold Mine, I Got The Shaft," "Lord, It's Hard To Be Humble (When You're Perfect In Every Which Way)," and "I Got Friends In Low Places." I love it! On a related yet completely unrelated note, here is a guy from Mongolia who doesn't speak English yet somehow learned to sing the George Strait classic "Amarillo By Morning" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXkoY4-HmZs

Although I've never ordered cheese in lieu of dessert (too much of a sweet tooth), I've been to a few restaurants that offer a cheese course at the end of a meal. All of them were posh spots on the Las Vegas Strip. While I've heard of the tradition at private affairs, I've never attended a dinner party with a cheese course. @mike carey must have fancier friends than I do I think the custom stems from cheese's affect on blood sugar. A diabetic friend (type 1) says cheese helps keep his blood glucose in check. It has to be a high-fat cheese, and he doesn't need much. So it makes sense to nibble on some cheese after a rich meal, whether at a posh restaurant or a fancy dinner party.

After living in Spain, I got in the habit of eating salad or vegetables after the main course. I disagree that it's an affectation. Consuming fiber at the end of the meal (well, except dessert) just makes sense, because it aids digestion. Even at some fancy restaurants, when I ask that the salad be brought out after the meal, they will mistakenly bring it out before the main course, presumably because habits are tough to break. I don't really care if the server might think I'm weird or pretentious. I'm the one paying, and salad at the end of the meal is a reasonable request.

Even at Cracker Barrel, such service merits a complaint to the manager. At a posh spot at the Bellagio, it's downright unforgivable. Server positions at fancy Strip restaurants are impossible to get unless you have the right connection because those servers make some serious bank. Friends who have worked at a number of different Strip restaurants tell me that they averaged ~$500/night in tips. On top of that, they are making far more than the typical server wage. Instead of the $5/hour national average, servers at Las Vegas Strip restaurants make $12-13/hour, plus get excellent health insurance. In other words, your lousy server was making ~$150K/year. Restaurants that offer top-notch wages should be hiring top-notch servers. Unfortunately, in the "it's all about who you know" culture of Las Vegas, far too often the manager hires his girlfriend's cousin with no experience over a qualified applicant. So two takeaways about dining at posh Strip restaurants: 1) I never ever tip more than 20% because the steep menu prices are paying the server's pre-tip $13/hr wage, and 2) absolutely say something to the manager if you have a problem with the service. In light of what you're paying, and how much those servers are making, anything less than impeccable service is unacceptable.

R.I.P. Shelley Morrison. I still crack up when I think of her bitchy banter with Karen Walker. I didn't know that her character was supposed to appear in just one episode. Obviously many many fans loved her character as much as I did.

Is in-store traffic down? Or overall sales? I know that brick & mortar sales are down significantly but assumed that online sales more than made up for that drop.

I wonder if Carroll's reaction had something to do with race. I've heard from a number of older blacks that it was quite common back in the day (during segregation, pre-civil rights) that blacks were addressed by their first names whereas whites in similar circumstances were addressed as Mr./Mrs/Miss (this was before the advent of Ms.) + surname. I get that young'uns don't abide by the same norms as the older generation, especially with social media putting everyone on a first-name basis. I'll give the benefit of a doubt to any young person who addresses someone by their first name, presumptuous as it may be. But I also understand why Ms. Carroll felt the need to correct the young fan.

Yeah, a couple of times. Las Vegas is more of a "cash is king" city than most because so many people make their income in cash, whether on the up & up (waiters, bartenders, strippers, poker players, etc.) and the not so much (use your imagination). With so much cash in circulation, there's also a lot of counterfeit bills in circulation. I've been passed a counterfeit $20 and $100. The fake $20 was annoying, but the fake hundy hurt. I scrutinize bills I take a lot more carefully now. An expensive lesson, but that's life.

My response to this relative would be "Starve, Bitch!", but maybe that's just me. Back to Palm Springs ...