BSR

LOL, in a bar back in Boston, I got hit on by a guy. He mentioned that we'd have to go to my place because his place wasn't an option. Right away, I could tell that it wasn't an issue of a wife back home, and I needled the guy into coughing up the real reason going to his place was off the table. First he said "roommates." After a couple of drinks, he admitted that he was a priest, lived in a rectory, and his "roommates" were two other priests. Unfortunately, he was nowhere nearly as attractive as the men of the cloth in this thread, so nothing came of it, except a knee-slapping story to tell all my Catholic friends.

"much better looking in person"?? Zoinks! he looks pretty damn good in those pictures!!

Didn't Larry Ellison buy the island of Lanai, or almost all of it? I don't know what his plans are exactly, but I doubt he spent half a $billion to provide a concentration camp for pedophiles.

In all my 13 years of Catholic schooling, years as an altar boy, decades of going to mass, I have never once come across a priest I found even remotely attractive. To be blunt, I'd usually take a look at a priest and think, "Uh, I'm guessing celibacy isn't much of a battle for this guy" (I hope lightning doesn't strike me for saying that). But just now I just came across a priest who, holy poop! I think is pretty damn hot. His name is Fr. Mike Schmitz, and he's the spokespriest for a site called Ascension Presents. I don't know much about the site, just saw a couple of his videos on YouTube. So what's the verdict, gents? Does this guy make impure thoughts race through your dirty little mind??

Oh, is that who that guy was? I thought it was Methuselah.

A couple of the big Nevada health insurance companies offer free flu shots to all members. I guess they figure the cost of the flu shots is far less than the likely costs of flu cases down the road.

I've never been to Lutuce in NYC, just the Las Vegas version a couple of times. Once was the "discount" pre-theater prix fixe menu. I forgot the price, but I actually thought it was a helluva bargain given the quality of the food and service. The other time was the regular six-course tasting menu. Yup, it's pricey, but for a special occasion (it was my mother's 75th birthday), I thought it was a fair value. I don't remember what I paid but do remember that the food was exquisite. I should mention that I never order alcohol when fine dining. The tab is going to be expensive to begin with. Adding profit-margin-pumping bottles of wine to the bill is just too extravagant for my budget.

Full disclosure, I haven't been to Dick's in a couple of years, but I did have a great time when I was there. I wouldn't say it's quite the Strip Club Nirvana that tassojunior describes, much closer to Chidude's description, but I did have a helluva good time. The quality of the guys definitely doesn't rank up there with the muscle and porn gods at Swinging Richards, but there were plenty of hot guys at Dicks to tickle my fancy. The one thing I liked was that the guys at Dicks seemed genuinely friendlier. Sure, they're there to make a living, but I don't get the feeling that I'm being hustled or that I'm a human ATM like I did at SRs. Like Chidude says, Dicks is definitely seedier, far from the upscale experience at SRs, but that's actually part of the appeal for me. I can feel comfortable at Dicks as an average Joe, as opposed to SRs where it felt like if you weren't an investment banker or a tech zillionaire, you didn't belong. If you're curious and happen to be in Phoenix, definitely give it a try. If you're looking for some bang for your buck, try Sunday or Monday when VIP lap dances are just $10 (normally $20) per song. Also, you'll note the dancers are a lot friendlier if you tip your guy after your first VIP. Word spreads like wildfire whether you tip or not.

That miniature pony is adorable! Yeah, we might see more and more of this. Apparently miniature ponies can be trained to do everything that a seeing-eye guide dog does. It's not much larger than a Labrador Retriever or the other breeds commonly trained to be guide dogs, and the miniature ponies can be house-trained. The big advantage is that miniature ponies live to about 25 whereas dogs live only to 10-15. Since the cost of a guide dog can be quite substantial, the greater life expectancy of the ponies is a significant advantage.

LOL, I once saw a movie about a bunch of cockney kids, and I swear the accents were so thick that after a few minutes, my brother and I looked at each other and asked, "OMG, where are the subtitles?" After about a half-hour, you could start picking up what they were saying, but it was hard to follow the movie since we had basically missed the first 30 minutes. "Aguila roja" is available on the Internet, Aguila roja all nine seasons But before you get too excited, you need two things to watch it: 1) a VPN to trick the website into thinking you're in Spain because access is geoblocked 2) an understanding of Spanish because no English subtitles are available; Spanish subtitles might be available, not sure

"Gran hotel" started with a great premise: a poor maid in a luxury hotel goes missing, and when nobody seems to care much what happened to her, her brother shows up to find out what happened. Unfortunately, this intriguing mystery gets reduced to almost a side plot, and the main storyline becomes the soap-ish love affair between the brother (who takes a job as a waiter at the hotel to go undercover) and the daughter of the family who owns the hotel. I didn't care much for the plot lines of the series, but I absolutely loved the visuals: the clothes, the cars, the gardens, and most of all the spectacular hotel. The hotel shown in the movie is actually the former summer palace of the Spanish monarchy. The beauty of the former palace made my jaw drop, and the visuals alone made it worth watching what was otherwise a fairly mediocre show. I think there are a bunch of Spanish series available on Netflix nowadays. If it's still available, I highly recommend "Velvet," perhaps my favorite TV show of all time, in Spanish or English. It's about the great once-in-a-lifetime love between Alberto, the scion of the most prestigious house of fashion in Spain, and Ana, a poor seamstress. He takes over the reins of the family business when his father dies, only to discover that the house in financial ruin. To save the business, he has to get a massive loan, and the only man who will loan him the huge sum has one condition: that he marries his daughter Cristina, who's been in love with Alberto since they were kids. You can imagine, complications ensue. Besides, the great love story, all the side plots involving the other characters are engaging and entertaining. I think I watched every episode in the first season something like five times. Seasons 1 and 2 are brilliant, Season 3 is pretty good, Season 4 kinda sucked because Miguel Angel Silvestre wasn't available for filming until the very end. Still, all in all, I absolutely love the show, and at some point in the future will probably go back and watch all the episodes yet again. I confess, the only TV shows/movies I can watch in Spanish without subtitles are from Spain. Movies/shows from Mexico & Argentina I have to watch with Spanish subtitles (eek! reading English subtitles while listening to Spanish would fry my poor little brain) because otherwise I would miss too much.

Wow, thanks for this! No specific plans as of now, but going to Buenos Aires has been on my bucket list for a long time. I'm so happy that I have a resource like Daddy's for when I do finally get there. In the meantime, reading the board is like a crash course in Argentine slang

He looks a bit thicker with muscle in the 2018 photo, although not hugely so. It makes me think that he packed on the muscle naturally, as opposed to using steroids or whatever else. I saw Nick Jonas a while back when he had a short stint on "Hawaii Five-0." He's actually a pretty decent actor.

The story of the 300-pound pig that ran wild through an airplane cabin and even tried to enter the cockpit always cracks me up. The high jinx and hilarity continued even after the 300-pound porker got off the plane: "Once the pig was off aircraft, another passenger had to push while the two women pulled to get it in the elevator. The whole time, the pig was squealing so loudly everyone in the terminal heard it." OMG, you can't make this sh*t up!

When a big-name Italian restaurant opened here in Las Vegas, they took a similarly snooty attitude. When the local paper's food critic asked for just water, she was told that only bottled water was available. When she asked why she couldn't get a simple glass of tap water, the server told her that it interfered with the taste of the food. She snapped back, "So I assume you boil your pasta in bottled water?"

Servers aren't trying to impress anyone with their memorization ability; not writing down the order at a table is standard operating procedure for posh restaurants. Writing down the order is considered too diner-ish.

My question is who are the women who marry these "ex-gays." First of all, I would think that most 21st century women have enough of a clue to be able to spot a gay man and therefore dismiss any notions of a romantic/sexual relationship. Then, if a woman did find out that a man she was interested in was indeed sexually attracted to men but was trying to pray the gay away, you'd think she'd just roll her eyes and walk away. Maybe you're lonely, maybe you're even a bit desperate, but come on. What self-respecting woman would go ahead and get involved with a guy like that??

Thanks, Kevin! OK, let's see if this works. Instead of just cutting & pasting the link, I'll try to embed the link for Sauna Thermas (totally random website choice, not like I spend all day thinking about beautiful, naked men milling about). ETA: Success! Thanks a bunch!

I used to know how to do it but have since forgotten. Instead of just cutting & pasting a link like this: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/classic-scottish-shortbread-recipe there is a way to make the text read "Scottish shortbread recipe" that is highlighted in blue text and can be clicked on to open the web page with the recipe. Can I get a quick how-to? Thanks!

"fussy for the sake of being fussy" pretty much sums up how I feel about a lot of contemporary cuisine. Instead of focusing on flavor, I get the sense that too many chefs are so wrapped up in being creative, different, and edgy that they ignore how the food actually tastes. Chocolate mousse made with coconut oil, hot chiles, and cranberries might be daring and ever so cutting-edge, but it also tastes like sh*t. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with innovation and putting a new twist on things. I don't exactly want everything I eat to be straight out of the 18th century. I just take issue with all these avant-garde culinary grads who are making it all about themselves, "look at me! look at how I'm breaking all the paradigms!", instead of focusing on the only two things they should be focusing on: the food and the customer. By the way, I know a guy who worked at Joel Robuchon Las Vegas for a while. He said that the restaurant takes a substantial loss every single month and that the MGM keeps it running just to keep the high rollers happy. They lose $thousands a month just in broken and stolen dinnerware. I've never been to Joel Robuchon (I've only been to the casual version L'Atelier so far), but apparently they have beautiful china that is custom made for the restaurant and costs a bloody fortune. Of course, the occasional accident happens, but the lion's share of the losses result from diners stealing the plates as souvenirs

I don't have any first-hand knowledge, but according to their website, it looks like it's still going on. A few years back, I met a guy who danced at Sapphire's & asked him what the deal was. He said that men are welcome to attend, but they usually sit in the back, not because of discriminatory seating like the 1950s but because all the seating in front is reserved for pricey bottle service, something only bachelorette parties pay for, not gay men who usually come alone. He also said that only a few of the dancers give lap dances to guys. Like I said, this information is a few years out of date.

Yeah, everything is fusion this & tapas that nowadays. As much as I love my pintxos (the Basque spelling), I absolutely despise this tapas craze. Tapas today are what everybody used to call appetizers. If you want to order two or three, go ahead, nobody's stopping you. As for the un-trendiness of French cuisine, it bums me out to see classic French cuisine fading from the gastronomic landscape. I simply love classic, country French cuisine. All this trendier-than-thou BS is just so damn annoying.

I wish I could be more helpful, but I haven't been to a Las Vegas gay bar or club in years. I think Piranha still has go-go boys, but not sure. Hopefully someone else on the board has more current information.

I loved "Cuatro lunas"! The four moons are four gay-themed stories: 1. A young boy's emerging homosexuality and his parents' reaction (very sweet and touching) 2. The romance between two university students, complicated because one is closeted 3. The disintegration of a relationship between two thirty-somethings 4. An old man's crush on a gay-for-pay sauna boy Not all four stories have a happy ending, yet all are very gay-positive without coming off like a cliched ABC After School Special. The highlight for me personally was a brief full-frontal of my biggest Spanish actor crush, Antonio Velazquez The problem I have with a lot of gay movies, or perhaps I should say straight-to-TLA-Video movies, is that the overall production quality is so poor: cliche-ridden scripts, lousy actors, wooden dialogue. "Mulligans" isn't just a bad gay-themed movie, it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, period. In contrast, I loved "Burnt Money" (despite its ending) because everything about the film was first-rate: great script, Goya-worthy actors (the Goya is Spain's equivalent to the Oscar), quality production values. "Eyes Wide Open" is another of my favorites because of its excellent quality, despite its sad (yet inevitable) ending. "Cuatro lunas" is the best of both worlds - a quality production with an uplifting ending. If you see it on Amazon Prime or Netflix, it's definitely worth watching.

I've seen plenty of coyotes here in Las Vegas, but only on the outskirts of the city. I've never seen packs or individual coyotes in more densely inhabited areas, and certainly nowhere even close to the Strip.