BSR

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.

Zoinks! you have my undying admiration! Even though I spent 3 years of my childhood in Canada, one year in almost arctic Brandon MB and two years in Toronto, then lived in Boston for a couple of decades, I was never that tough in cold weather. Now that I live in sunny and (in the summer) blazing hot Las Vegas, I'm pretty sure I'd be the world's biggest wuss in single-digit temps. The thought of riding a bike in way-sub-zero windchill almost gives me a heart attack. But I gotta hand it to ya, you are indeed saving buckets of cash by taking CitiBike everywhere. When I lived in NYC, my friends used to tease me for being the Cab Queen because I took taxis so often (no Uber back then). That's a vice that adds up far too fast. Perhaps New Yorkers grumble about the cost of the subway, but I think the fares are quite reasonable. But if you're not even taking the subway, then your bank balances must be tickled pink

You even take CitiBike in the dead of winter? A friend of mine back in Boston rode his bike everywhere, even in the worst of Boston winter, because he didn't have a car and found public transportation too inconvenient. It looks like an awfully chilly winter in the Northeast, so if you take CitiBike in these temps, wow, more power to ya!

You never take cabs, Ubers, or the subway?

I know someone who's a Louis Vuitton salesperson. She said you'd be surprised by how often people buy steamer trunks, despite their exorbitant cost and questionable practicality. She said the buyers use them for their private jets.

In my opinion, it all boils down to one question: If you can't enjoy your money, why bother working?

Or maybe this (ex-)client is just a cheap selfish f*ckface. My theory is that assholes sh*t on other people if they think they can get away with it. Would this client go into a convenience store and try to steal $60 from the register? Probably not because with the witness plus security cameras, there's a good chance he'd get caught. But he had no problem stealing $60 from you (shorting your fee by $60 is flat-out theft in my book) because he knew he could walk out the door before you realized you'd been shorted. Even if you counted the money right away, he could just pretend to be mortified about his "innocent" mistake, no big deal. They say that we are so quick to see in others what is true of ourselves. If so, then this ex-client trusts no one because he's a lying, cheating sack of sh*t and assumes the same of everybody around him. Karma has already caught up to this asshole because any person who trusts absolutely nobody lives an awfully lonely life.

That reminds me of a Gary Shandling joke. He said that whenever he was feeling bad about himself, he would go to the supermarket, take a package of kielbasa, and shove it halfway into his pants. Then when a woman told him, "Excuse me, uh, I think you have a kielbasa in your pants," he pretended to get all embarrassed and said, "Oh, gosh, thanks."

I've only skimmed through this thread, but has anyone mentioned Steve Grand? If that delicious non-country (apparently he hates getting labeled as a country singer) escorted for $500/hour, the five Benjamin's would fly out of my wallet so fast, they'd shatter the sound barrier.

Currently, a cable TV subscriber must select a whole package of channels, i.e., the broadcast networks plus dozens of cable channels like Discovery, USA, TNT, ESPN. These packages give the cable TV subscriber a couple hundred channels even though it seems almost everybody watches just a handful on a regular or even semi-regular basis. Each channel carried by your cable provider comes at a price. For some like ESPN, it's huge. I've heard as high as $20/month. That's right, some cable subscribers are paying $20 a month out of their total cable bill for a channel they might never watch. Other channels cost almost nothing, but collectively these dozens (hundreds?) of channels add up to a monster cable bill. I keep hearing chatter about "debundling" cable channels. That means that a cable subscriber would get all the broadcast channels and then pick & choose other channels a la carte. So, for example, you could pay for basic (the broadcast channels) plus ESPN and Tennis Channel, and pay ~$45/mo instead of the $100+/month for the full bundle. The upside for the subscriber is obvious, but the downside for a lot of cable networks will be disastrous because a lot of them will lose almost all their current subscribers. I don't know what exactly is preventing the debundling of cable packages. With so many subscribers cutting the cord, the pressure on cable providers to debundle mounts. The percentage of cord-cutters among millennials is particularly high. I cut the cord about 7 years ago, in part because of exorbitant cost, in part because I was watching too much damn TV. But if cable TV were debundled, I'd probably re-subscribe.

I can see the need for cell coverage in national parks in cases of hiking & climbing accidents or animal attacks. No matter how careful and responsible people are, these kinds of emergencies are going to arise. If cell service can speed up the dispatching of emergency services and help track location, then I'm all for it. If you fell and broke your ankle in what felt like the middle of nowhere and you could decide there and then - cell coverage or no cell coverage - I'm guessing a unanimous vote for cell coverage. But is it possible to get coverage all throughout a park with just cell towers along the periphery? I can't imagine it's possible to put towers up within the park, yet many parks are so vast it's hard to imagine coverage extends all the way through. William, can your brother get coverage all over Yellowstone?

Here's the lead, Hugo Silva. I had never seen him with short hair ... wow! http://todotele.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Hugo-Silva-Los-Nuestros.jpg And one of the Special Ops guys, played by Sergio Torrico ... http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mU24eE9Pl_o/UdFW6Zq6VRI/AAAAAAAAgYY/k2hFVVEzxeY/s960/197039_433446776739767_1912389102_n.jpg These two were what made me want to watch "Los Nuestros" in the first place. It turned out to be a very pleasant surprise that the miniseries was as good as it was.

I didn't really know where to post this, and this thread seemed as good a place as any ... I just watched "Los Nuestros" over the Internet. I never know what to expect of TV miniseries, usually not much, but wow, this one blew me away. It's the story of two Spanish kids who get kidnapped in Mali and the Spanish Special Forces who rescue them. Everything about this production is first-rate: the storyline, dialogue, acting, action scenes, production values, EVERYTHING! And yes, a few of the actors are smokin' hot. My only minor quibble is not enough shirtless scenes, but now I'm just getting picky. Unfortunately, no subtitles in English (or any other language) are available, so your Spanish has to be at least decent to understand what's going on. Here's the link to the first (of three) episodes: http://www.mitele.es/series-online/los-nuestros/temporada-1/capitulo-1/ The links to the second and third episodes are lower on the linked page. Each episode is about 80 minutes, so the whole thing is about 4 hours long. It flies by, though, I was on the edge of my seat for much of it. Also, you do have to put up with a few commercials, just one or two 20-second ads per 80-minute episode. A bit of advice: don't try to jump back or forward in the video, because that messes up the playback. I kept trying to re-watch the shirtless scenes which caused the player to re-start at the beginning of the episode and re-play the ads. "Los Nuestros" was so good that I'll probably watch the whole thing again, and no, not just for the shirtless scenes

Your Spanish may be fluent, but your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. No, of course you can't learn to speak a foreign language fluently in the classroom. But by hiring native speakers, students will at least learn what the language really sounds like, and thereby gain some degree of oral comprehension. American schools really need to revisit their approach to teaching foreign languages. Like I stated before, I am constantly shocked & disgusted by American kids' level of Spanish despite all their years of study. The question I love to pose is to ask them to explain the sport of baseball in Spanish. It's pretty simple & easy, one could do it with just a basic level, yet kids always give me a blank stare as if I had asked them to explain nuclear physics in Spanish. I figured that the ridiculous CA certification standard was some feel-good, diversity-motivated push. Merit? What the hell is that??

Well, if a "Spanglish" speaker, with no degree or certification, can get licensed to teach Spanish in California public schools, then that sounds like a case where government royally f*cked up (gee, as if that never happens). I ran into a high school classmate in my mid-20s. We had both been to France recently, and we were both in the same French class senior year of high school. We weren't friends but I remembered her well because we were both "French nerds," that is, two of the few kids who were really into studying French. She was laughing because when she went to France, after 4 years of HS French (but with a teacher who spoke with an American accent), she couldn't understand a single word French people said but could understand every word when Americans spoke French. I don't know if there will ever be an official ranking of World's Most Useless Skills, but if one were ever compiled, "the ability to understand Americans when they speak a foreign language but not a word when natives speak that language" would have to be right near if not at the very top of that list. This is a case where you can have your cake and eat it too. In Spain, with its sky-high unemployment rate, there are countless unemployed Spanish majors. I'm guessing the same is true in Mexico and other Latin/South American countries. You could recruit Spanish major university graduates from those countries, put them through a crash course on how to teach Spanish as a 2nd language (3 months or so), and hire them to teach Spanish in American schools. Before they arrive, make sure housing and transportation is arranged. Of course, you would need to set up a support system for these new teachers, such as connecting them with the local Mexican (or Colombian, Peruvian, etc.) community and ensuring they have help with issues like visas and taxes. Set them up with a go-to contact, someone to help them maneuver through all the day-to-day issues like getting a cell phone, setting up utilities, getting cable/phone/internet, dealing with a parking ticket (kaben zotz!), etc. After the first year, you can set up the next year's teachers with a big brother/sister to mentor the newbies. I think such a program would be highly feasible for Spanish teachers. For French, German, Italian (does anybody in the U.S. even study Italian in high school?), and Mandarin, the degree of difficulty is higher, but it's still feasible, in my opinion. This could definitely work in big and medium-sized cities, maybe even in small cities. For rural/isolated areas where there is no support community for foreign teachers, I'd favor online courses for the kids over classes with an American speaker of the foreign language. Yes, of course it's important to be learn proper grammar when learning a foreign language because only with correct grammar can one learn to read & write in that language. But one of the principal goals should also be the ability to communicate orally, to be able to speak and to understand that language. I don't argue for native-speaker teachers so that kids can nail down an authentic, pass-for-a-local accent. A native accent is difficult to pick up after 14 years of age and nigh impossible after 18. I argue for native speakers because you can't possibly know what real Spanish (not Spanglish, mind you) sounds like if you study with an American teacher with an American accent and pronunciation (I have yet to meet an American Spanish teacher who truly mastered the Spanish "R"). Look, I'm not trashing my HS French teacher: she had a degree in French, she spoke with correct grammar and pronunciation (for the most part), and she knew how to teach French as a foreign language (but couldn't pronounce the French "R" to save her life). But four years of serious study yet you don't understand a word when you get to France? My HS classmate could communicate just fine if she begged the French person to slow down (a LOT), but the moment they started "speaking normal," she was lost. Four years of serious study with a native speaker wouldn't guarantee fluency, but at least she would understand a respectable degree of real-world French, not just classroom French. By the way, when I was in Spain almost 30 years ago, the teachers insisted we say estacionar instead of aparcar because estacionar was the true Spanish word whereas aparcar was an Anglicism. But from the last year and some that I've been watching Spanish TV, it seems nobody says estacionar any more. Spaniards all say aparcar nowadays, like "tengo el coche aparcado en doble fila."

On the subject of mandatory study of a foreign language, I'm all in favor of it for little kids but oppose it for older kids (middle school, high school, college). From 3 to 7, kids pick up languages like a sponge. If you took kids that age and just had them watch an hour of children's programming in another language every day, you'd be amazed how much they learn and retain. But make sure the teachers for the 2nd language are native speakers because I don't think it does kids a bit of good to hear a foreign language spoken with an American accent. Obviously, I would exempt kids from immigrant families who were struggling to learn English. While the native English speakers are in Spanish (or Mandarin, or what have you) class, the immigrant kids get extra instruction in English. Time & energy focused on a 2nd language or intensive English instruction would take time away from, gee, fingerpainting, but that's a tradeoff that I'm willing to make. But with older kids, foreign language study is such a bleepin' waste of time and energy. First and foremost, the quality of language instruction in the U.S. sucks. I often strike up conversation in Spanish with American kids who have studied Spanish for a number of years in high school and college, and their Spanish almost always sucks royal. Even the occasional Spanish major often doesn't speak great Spanish. There are a lot of non-native speakers who teach foreign language, and that's just a complete waste of kids' time. Because students spend years studying the language spoken in an American accent, when they hear real Spanish (or real French, or real German, or what have you), they're at a loss because they've never heard the language spoken in the native accent. So the system is forcing kids to study a language, taught by lousy instructors who far too often don't speak the language all that great themselves, while American students fall further and further behind their peers around the globe in reading, math, and science. Eliminating the foreign language requirement won't solve all the woes of the American educational system, but forcing kids to study a foreign language sure as hell isn't helping them any. Here's an anecdote about how powerful TV is as a learning tool for foreign language study. I knew a guy back in Boston who admitted to housing three Palestinian friends who were here illegally. They thought they could get student visas but for whatever reason couldn't. They could get them for the fall semester, but they couldn't afford the travel back and forth. So this guy took the three in, and they basically "hid out" from January until the start of the fall semester. With little money and the fear that Immigration was after them, the three just sat and watched TV all day and all night. If they weren't eating, sleeping, or in the bathroom, they were watching TV. This was before the Internet, so they had little to no access to Arabic media. The up side to all this was that by the time they were "legal" in the fall, they could understand every single word of English - slang, colloquialisms, familiar language, idiomatic expressions, street talk, folk wisdom, EVERYTHING! It didn't matter how quickly an American spoke, how badly he mumbled, or how much slang he used, these guys understood every word. Once they started their program in the fall semester, they were the envy of all the other foreign students. Wow, who would have guessed that watching every single episode of "Three's Company" could serve to further a person's education?

Tagalog (Filipino) is technically the first language I spoke, but I learned English very quickly after starting kindergarten. My mother tells me it only took me a month to learn English & speak like a Canadian (K-Grade 2 in Toronto). Of course, I speak with an American accent (very Bostonian, but not the "famous" Boston accent), but my enunciation is very Canadian (Canadians tend to enunciate better; Americans tend to mumble). Every couple of months, someone will ask me if I'm Canadian even though it's been over 40 years since we left Toronto. Unfortunately, I learned English so well that I forgot how to speak Tagalog, but I understand it well because my mother still speaks to me in Tagalog plus I heard it with my aunts, uncles, and parents' friends my whole childhood. I wish I could still speak it because you get treated like royalty in damn near every hotel and hospital you stay in if you speak Tagalog. I think the Quebec separatist issue was a bit of a delicate situation when we lived in Canada because I remember French class every day for those 3 years of school in Toronto. I studied French in high school & college, but remember little of that. But all those classes at a critical age did stick with me. I'm amazed that sometimes I can understand almost everything some French speakers are saying (but other times almost nothing), whether Gallic or Quebecois French. If I ever won the lottery and had endless free time, I think I'd re-learn French because the writings of Camus were the most beautiful works I've ever read, in any language. I lived in Spain for a year when I was 22, and my Spanish was excellent at the end of that year. Over 25 years later, I ran into some Spanish tourists here in Las Vegas, and we had to speak English (eek!) even though their English was pretty poor (typical amongst Spaniards) because my Spanish had deteriorated that badly. I was horrified but had no idea what to do about it until I discovered a Spanish TV show on Hulu. I got totally hooked on it but was aghast to discover that only half the show's episodes were on Hulu. That turned out to be a blessing in disguise because in my quest to find a way to watch the rest of the show, I discovered tons and tons of Spanish programming (that is, TV shows/movies from Spain, not Univision, Galavision, Azteca, etc.). Almost every single day for over a year now, I watch one episode of a Spanish TV show per day. This is quite a commitment because episodes in Spain run about 70-80 minutes. My Spanish has rebounded tremendously. I can't write Spanish as easily as I once did, nor can I prattle on endlessly like I used to. But on the rare occasion that I run into a Spanish tourist here in Las Vegas, the moment I hear that Castilian accent, the Spanish comes flying out of me. It's also very easy for me to speak Spanish with a tourist who doesn't speak any English. It's like a switch clicks in my head, and again the Spanish comes flying out of me. But if a tourist is from another Spanish-speaking country and speaks English, even a little, forget it, I have to speak to them in English. Aside from Castilian Spanish, the easiest Spanish for me to understand is from Argentina because (I'm so ashamed!) I got hooked on the world's WORST telenovela from Argentina when I first got back from Spain, and as awful as it was, I watched it 5 days a week religiously for over 2 years. I love the sound of Argentine Spanish; it's by far the prettiest and most elegant accent, in my opinion. With Mexicans, it's weird. About a third of them, I can understand every words they're saying. Another third, I can understand most of what they're saying, but the occasional word or phrase I don't catch really bugs me. And the last third, OMG, they might as well be speaking Italian, that's how little I understand. I do remember that the reverse is also true. In Spain, the American kids, some of them were even Spanish majors, couldn't understand anything the teachers were saying at first because even if they had studied Spanish for years, it was all Mexican Spanish. English has really become the international language, mostly thanks to the European Union. Kids in Europe might study French or German or Spanish, it all depends, but almost all study English. And because English is so prevalent in non-English speaking countries, the Chinese are in a fervor to learn English. One of China's recent self-made billionaires made his money by starting the most successful chain of schools for learning English. I spoke with a Brit recently who worked for a German firm with 90% German employees, but because it was an international company (aerotech) with clients all over the globe, only English was spoken in the office and at all work functions. Because English really has become the international language, I don't think American schoolkids should be forced to learn other languages. If they want to, great. But many colleges require foreign language study in their distribution requirements (mine did), done to appease the strident multiculturalists, but a waste of time and energy if the kid's not interested.

I think there's a big difference between renting out a home via AirBnB/VRBO and a condo. A single-family residence has a lot more privacy, and the impact of travelers coming and going should be minimal to anyone but Gladys Kravitz. AirBnB condo renters, on the other hand, are far more intrusive on the other condo residents: the constant in & out traffic, the oftentimes late hours of that traffic, the racket of luggage being wheeled around on hardwood floors, etc. If I lived in an SFR, I wouldn't care much if a neighbor rented their house out via AirBnB, as long as the renters weren't throwing wild parties, cooking meth, or hiding out from law enforcement. The condo complex I live in has a strict NFW clause prohibiting AirBnB/VRBO/etc. rentals. With units above and all around me, I don't think I could stand to live in a condo building that did allow such rentals.

Don't sweat it, Marylander1940. Deej's posts are brimming with more unnecessary nastiness than any other participant's posts on Daddy's. The job of moderator is an unpaid position, and I can't imagine people are queueing up around the block to do it. Just be grateful that someone is willing to do it, and try to let the unnecessary nastiness slide like water off a duck's back. Back on topic, if I recall correctly, Aiden doesn't claim to be straight. He certainly was, or thought he was, when he started at Corbin Fisher. But once he took the plunge, he realized just how much he enjoys riding the baloney pony. There are almost countless videos in which Aiden comes twice, three times, and even four times as the result of getting f*cked. He might be primarily attracted to women, but wowza! the boy sure as hell does love getting plowed!!

So I guess his hair seen in the linked feature is a toupee, which is a bit disappointing. But wow, he's one helluva handsome man at 55. I actually like his look better now than in his pretty boy youth.

First, you have no idea how much I envy your trip to La Habana. It's been 11 years since my trip, and I've been dying to go back ever since. There was so much that I enjoyed, but the one thing that stands out the most after all this time was learning about the day to day lives of Cubans. Life under communism is so different that it's impossible to sum up in a few sentences. My Spanish is fluent, so I was able to talk to Cubans everywhere. The hardship they endure, and their amazing ability to somehow find happiness despite that hardship, still make my eyes pop whenever I think of it. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can find a few Cubans with decent English. If your suitcases allow, pack bars of soap, powdered laundry detergent, and packages of socks & underwear. You'll find no shortage of people who will be profoundly grateful. Don't give money away, but tip everyone who helps you. A convertible peso or two is a godsend to maids, cab drivers, servers, bartenders, tour guides, etc. The official restaurants are awful (what do you expect? they're run by communists), but the private restaurants (paladares) are amazing. Treat a handsome cubano lad to dinner at a paladar & you'll have a great meal with a very appreciative companion. Just remember that the service fee at paladares is not a tip; it's a fee to pay for the staggering monthly tax on paladares. A baseball is worth its weight in gold in Cuba, and an authentic MLB ball twice that. They play pickup baseball on every street corner, usually making do with a rock & scrap lumber. And a new pair of American sneakers is the Cuban equivalent of a Louis Vuitton bag, except way better. If you're feeling really generous, buy a standard size of Nikes or New Balance (10D?) and just give them to your handsome cubano after dinner (or whatever other evening activity). He might just break down & cry.

I could only think of two phrases similar to "repeating like a broken record," that is, references to things once commonplace but now antiquated or no longer in existence. One is ending an argument or declaration with the interjection "full stop." People (mostly your grandparents if not great-grandparents) used to tack "full stop" onto an argument whenever they wanted what they just said to be the final word, e.g., a New Yorker telling a Bostonian "the Yankees are the greatest team in the history of baseball - 27 World Series Championships - full stop!" "Full stop" refers back to telegrams, which had no punctuation. Periods were indicated by "stop," and the end of the telegram by "full stop." I imagine few young'uns know the reference because we stopped sending telegrams decades ago. The other, a personal favorite, is "hotter than a two dollar pistol," which used to mean that someone was super-angry, e.g., "after finding out about his wife's affair, he stormed out of the party hotter than a two dollar pistol." The reference is to a cheaply made gun, whose barrel was rough and poorly fitted. Upon firing, the bullet met with a lot of friction resistance, which made the barrel extremely hot. With modern manufacturing, a hot barrel is no longer an issue, hasn't been for maybe a century. I like to use the phrase when referring to a sexy gent, e.g., Ben Kieren is hotter than a two dollar pistol!" :-)

http://33.media.tumblr.com/991708f5f756fc0c32ec02ac88b4c5cb/tumblr_nflgu9rwvs1rboqfio1_500.png

docjim, I hate to disappoint, but there is no longer a male strip club in Las Vegas. Share Nightclub used to have their own strippers, complete with an upstairs area for semiprivate (not completely closed off) dances, but they seem to have abandoned that part of the business. Then for a while they rented out the space to Adonis Las Vegas until the new general manager recently kicked Adonis out. Xavier, head of Adonis LV, has been scrambling to find a new space, both for regular Adonis as well as the famous nude parties, but contrary to all the hype about Las Vegas as Sin City, the city council and local police are remarkably strict about strippers and lap dances, especially when alcohol is involved. Some of the local bars/clubs have occasional nights of go-go boys, but that's probably not what you're looking for. I know, who woulda guessed that Sin City could be so lame??