BSR

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.

Thanks for the tip. I downloaded tunnelbear, but unfortunately Spain is not an option as one of the virtual locations.

Hello techies! I downloaded a VPN app for my phone and tablet that allows me to watch TV programs from Spain that would otherwise be geoblocked. I tried to download the same thing for my laptop, but it doesn't work. Does anyone know a VPN program that I can use for a laptop? By the way, is use of a VPN illegal? In which case, everything above, when I say "I," I mean "a friend." Thanks in advance!

Thanks for posting this vid. I actually saw it before, during my YouTube tango binge, but I really enjoyed it a second time. The lighting, the cityscape seen through the studio windows, and of course the talent of the two gents make for a beautiful performance.

I just found a male-male number performed by the world champion I mentioned in the above post. The choreography is simply amazing:

I came across these videos a while ago. The two dancers are very good (to my untrained eye). I've read that tango is the only style of ballroom dancing that was often danced by two men back in the day (like early 20th century). Since one of the ways a woman judged a man was by his tango skills, guys would get together & practice tango to up their game (not sure if that's fact or urban legend). That early tradition of male-male tango was revived recently with the Queer Tango movement. Also, professional tango dancers occasionally revive the male-male roots of tango. Queer tango usually has the same eroticism as "heteronormative" tango whereas professional male-male tango performances do not. Here is a great number performed by two brothers: I just love tango. I spotted a really handsome tango professional (former world champion) on the Internet, and my crush inspired me to watch all his performances on YouTube. It was a great way to gain an appreciation for the art form :-D

Beautiful photo, but zoinks! it looks like the end of the world.

On Tumblr I follow an account that posts pix of naked guys with small cocks - smallsmallerthesmallest if you want to do a search. The captions are even derogatory sometimes. But the guys are always naked (how else would you see their size?), and I find about 90% of them are smokin' hot. Most of the guys are probably a little smaller than average (porn probably distorts our notion of "average"), but I even find plenty of the teeny-tiny guys really sexy i guess I'm not much of a size queen.

I can't help but think that there is a method to his madness. Running a Rentmen ad runs about $100/month (someone please correct me if that's off), and this guy has been running an ad for years. Maybe every once in a great while, he finds a client willing to cough up the cash or a sugar daddy willing to keep him for a while. My guess is that he gets lucky only once in a blue moon, but often enough to justify the cost of the ad.

Mike, I'm curious, where does the Australian Open rank in the hierarchy of Australian sporting events? For example, in the US the biggest sporting event by far is the Super Bowl, followed by the NBA Final, and the World Series. Sure, the US Open is a big deal, but it's a peripheral sport at best. Even the biggest US Open matches draw just a 6-7% TV ratings share. In contrast, for some big Wimbledon matches as many as half of British households are watching. From my very distant vantage point here in the US, it seems that the Australian Open's significance in Australia is closer to the Wimbledon end of the spectrum, but I'd like to get an "insider's" perspective.

I can understand the "heteronormative approach" because of the risk,of pregnancy. If a man has sex with someone else and that woman gets pregnant, the ramifications are awfully weighty. If the other woman decides to have the baby, then the man and by inevitable consequence his wife will pay a heavy emotional and financial price. If a woman has sex with another man & gets pregnant, the fallout is similarly life-changing. To those gay men who have an open marriage, if it works for all involved, more power to ya!

What makes the brutal heat even worse is that the court absorbs so much heat. The air temperature was about 40°C (104°F) for Novak's match, but the court temperature was said to be 60°C (140°F). Running all around a tennis court in those conditions isn't uncomfortable, it's physically dangerous. True, tennis is a business, but the AusOpen is well-suited to continue in excessive heat because the three stadium courts all have retractable roofs. In excessive heat, just close the roofs and crank up the AC. Those courts feature all the big stars anyway, so the TV ratings will be just fine. On the outer courts, just delay play until 6 pm and play into the night (all the courts have lights).

Hustlaball is hardly comparable to a workplace like a bank, or even a Hollywood producer's office. Would I lick a guy's asshole uninvited? No, definitely not, but I can't say I'm shocked that somebody, drunk and all horned up in a sea of near-naked men, would do so. That said, I didn't witness the incidents in question. At face value, it sounds like the kind of thing that, as Lance points out, you pretty much have to put up with in that setting. But if I saw first-hand what happened, I very well might agree the guys in the audience went way too far.

I've never attended Hustlaball, but from pictures & videos I thought that touching the dancers was standard procedure. Has anyone who has attended confirm or deny? If touching the dancers was the norm in past years, did the unwritten rules change because of the Me Too movement? If touching the dancers was not the norm in the past, then I can understand the complaints. If it was the norm, then I have a harder time sympathizing. True, you should never touch another person, especially in an intimate area, without consent. But if touching was the norm in past years, then the dancers knew what they were signing up for.

All the never-ending tucking & sliding & storing would get old pretty quick, although it sounds like the resident of this micro-flat is quite used to it. If this micro-apartment were priced according to square footage (Barcelona is not a cheap city), then perhaps I could get used to it while enjoying all the money I'm saving. This particular unit looks much more live-able than most micro-units I've seen.

I don't know if they're the dead eyes of a sociopath, but he does have that "dead" look of a too far gone drug addict. One of the symptoms of meth addiction is violence, often in the extreme. The motive for murder might have been a deep-seated conflict between the two, or Woodward might have been sparked into violence over nothing at all.