BSR

Italian bad boy Fabio Fognini has gotten in trouble yet again. He was defaulted from the Barcelona Open for audible obscenity (in response to a foot-fault call). If he hasn't learned his lesson by now (he's been on tour for 17 years), he obviously never will.

Whether you think Felix Auger-Aliassime has the perfect body is another matter, but for tennis purposes, I think FAA has the perfect body: slim yet muscular (strong but no bulk to slow him down), just the right height (tall enough for a good serve but not too tall - the 6'4"+ guys usually lack speed & agility), with nice long arms (a longer "whip" for the serve)

I totally agree with you about Western Mass! I spent a few vacations in the Berkshires & simply loved it. The funny thing is that I kept meeting Berkshires residents who wanted to move to Boston. As lovely as Western Mass is, life there is rather slow & quiet. So, a great vacation spot, but city folk don't want to move there. Also, folks in the Berkshires are as un-snobby as anyone you'll ever meet. I found them to be so warm & kind & friendly, all the qualities that make me love people from small towns.

I've spoken with a couple of people who worked in Alaska (both in the oil & gas industry). They both said that the toughest part of living there was not the looooong winter (they expected that) but the hostility of Alaskans toward non-Alaskans. They both thought it was snobbery until they found out that Alaskans simply don't trust outsiders. The general belief is that you only move to Alaska to get away from something, and the motive is usually unsavory. As much as both tried to convince Alaskans that they were just there for work, they just gave up & moved as soon as they could.

Is that a young James Franciscus? *sigh* I had such a crush on him! Uh, anyway, back on topic ...

Agreed, a neighborhood can be snobby, but I would hesitate to call a whole city snobby, forget an entire state. A friend was moving out of Beacon Hill because he wanted a bigger place. A significant fringe benefit of the move was to get away from all the "f*cking snobs" on Beacon Hill. But I would never say that the whole city of Boston is snobby (too many working-class & immigrant neighborhoods), much less the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Thanks for digging that up. It must be at least 2 decades since I last heard it, but I love the song.

It's been so long since I saw "Breakfast at Tiffany's" that I barely even remember the Mickey Rooney character. But I do remember the timeless Audrey Hepburn and hunky George Pappard (he didn't age all that great). I also remember loving the movie, mostly because of Ms. Hepburn. I'll have to watch it again one of these days, maybe just fast-forward through the Mickey Rooney scenes, not because the character is offensive but because he's trying way too hard to he funny. Comedy shouldn't be a Herculean labor.

Johnson's isn't full nude+full bar. But good thing Swinging Richards is still hanging in there.

Even though I wasn't planning a trip to St. Louis any time soon, it still bums me out a bit that B&B closed. There are so few full monty+full bar strip clubs in the US that the loss of one, even one I never really planned on visiting, is unwelcome news.

I can understand the desire for anonymity. If I'm lucky enough to attend a future Palm Springs weekend, I'd feel the same way. But (you knew there was a "but" coming, right?) how about in a future weekend some of the escorts get together & pose for some pics? Anonymity is less of an issue, even a nonissue, for them since they already have ads on Rentmen, etc. All escort photos would of course be clothing optional *hint hint*

When I lived in Boston, I told myself that the weather wasn't that bad. Let's face it, since you can't change the weather, you do what you can to cope, including kidding yourself that it's "not that bad." Now that I live in Las Vegas, I fully concede that Boston has some of the worst sh*thole weather on the planet: winter speaks for itself, spring is nonexistent (rainy & cold until it switches over to hot & humid almost overnight), and summer is impressively humid (not Miami, but pretty bad - average summer humidity is 75%). The 8-9 weeks of beautiful fall weather aren't nearly enough to make up for the other 44 weeks of suckitude. As much as I love Boston - the culture, the history, and most of all the people - I could never move back. Are Canadian winters milder than they were during my 3 winters there more than 50 years ago? Sure. But I'll bet my bottom dollar that but for a few exceptions (Vancouver, Victoria) Canadian winter still massively sucks. The last time I was in Toronto (Jan 2004) it was -10°F & -50°F wind chill. Maybe in a hundred years, Canadian winters really won't be that bad (if climate change is that severe, yikes), but for the time being, no thanks.

In a report on some of Madoff's victims, one couple featured was very successful. They worked hard, saved their money, and were living an enviable retirement - nice Manhattan apartment, beautiful place in Ft. Lauderdale - until they learned of Madoff's scam. They were in the process of selling their NYC place and were looking to downsize in Ft. Lauderdale because their real estate was the only equity they had left. Almost everything else was invested with Madoff. The man broke down not while he talked about his own losses but when he brought up all the family members & friends who invested with Madoff at his recommendation. That couple were just two of Madoff's thousands of victims. And the psychopath didn't feel a speck of guilt over the lives he ruined. Whatever he suffered near the end of his life, it's a fraction of the suffering he caused.

Even though Madoff bragged early on that the authorities will never find the money he stole, apparently about 80% has been recovered. Of course, everyone wishes it were 100%. And even if Madoff's victims get all their money back eventually, they missed out on the capital gains they could have made by investing in legitimate investment funds. I almost never wish anyone a painful death, but Madoff undoubtedly deserves to be an exception to that rule.

We don't really know for sure what will happen on May 1. Yes, statewide restrictions (except the mask mandate) will end May 1, but individual counties will decide for themselves what capacity limits they want to maintain. That said, it seems that the capacity limits are already being flouted. I talked to someone who was at the Bellagio recently & reported it was jam-packed, despite a supposed 50% capacity limit. I went out to eat on Easter, and despite a supposed 35% capacity limit, ~80% of the tables were occupied.

IMO, Paul Newman hit peak sexiness in his early 50s. The combination of silver hair with those killer blue eyes, plus a body most 25-year-olds would envy, just slayed me.

I just hope you get a diagnosis soon. No matter what your problem turns out to be, not knowing is even worse. At least once you know, even if it's bad news, you can take the bull by the horns & deal with it. Best wishes for what lies ahead.

I remember another psychic story. A while back I went to Coney Island with a friend. At the time, she was head over heels for some Egyptian guy & talked about him every waking moment. When we saw a gypsy fortune teller, of course my friend had to get a reading because she wanted to know what her future was with the Egyptian. I just rolled my eyes because I assumed all psychics were scamsters (this was before my visit with Raymond). I figured psychics either told you stuff so vague that it could apply to anything or they told you what you wanted to hear so you would keep coming back. Well, my friend gave it away from the start when she asked what about the Egyptian. The gypsy woman told her straight up, "You will not marry him." When she asked why not, the gypsy couldn't say. My friend was so upset that she didn't ask about anything else. Well, whaddya know, the Egyptian turned out to have not just 1 but 3 wives, and he was trying to get my friend to marry him to get a green card.

My psychic "power" isn't as strong as yours. At every single wedding I've ever attended, the thought "these two will be together forever" sometimes hits me, sometimes not. In all the cases where the thought occurs to me, the couple is still married. When it hasn't, they're all divorced. You might argue that this is just my judgment based on my knowledge of the bride & groom, but it happens even when I'm the +1 & don't know the couple at all.

It's not up for sale, but Putin's house in Sochi, Russia, certainly is an interesting work of architecture.

I have, and it was an interesting experience. Before I even sat down or uttered a word, Raymond (the psychic's name) said, "Canada." I sat down & asked him what he meant. He said he didn't know, just that the moment he saw me, he got a strong sense of Canada. Now, since I'm Filipino & wasn't wearing anything with a maple leaf or a Canadian sports team, nothing about my appearance would clue him in to Canada. But the previous weekend, I had been in Toronto for my beloved grandmother's funeral. She took care of my brother & me a lot the 2 years we lived in Toronto because both parents worked more than full-time. OK, I was intrigued. He went on to say that he sensed a very strong presence, someone from Canada, was with me that day. He couldn't pin it down more specifically, just that that person's spirit was with me and would always be with me. He went on to say that he saw the trip to a wedding in Baltimore I had planned for the upcoming weekend. Mind you, this was with no clues or prompts on my part. He saw my conflict with Michael & knew I was rather anxious about it. He also saw money problems (I was low on flow at the time) but assured me I'd be fine financially. My conflict was with Mike (OK, he was a teeny bit off because nobody called him Michael), one of the other groomsmen in the wedding party, with whom I just didn't get along. In fact, our once tight-knit tennis foursome (we had been on skiing weekends together, summer share down in Rhode Island, a trip to the Virgin Islands, and a bachelor party in Vegas) had pretty much disbanded because another guy & I just couldn't take Mike any longer. He also said that I would meet the great love of my life when I'm 58 & would live to 92. Let's see if he got those two things right. My friend from work had gone with me & gotten a reading from another psychic that was a total waste of time & money. After we compared notes at dinner, she went to see Raymond the very next day because she desperately wanted him to see a future with a guy she was obsessing over at the time. He got a few things right, but saw no future with the guy. Indeed, she had a very brief relationship with the object of her affections, but it ended quickly & badly. So, anybody else seen a psychic? Did they actually see some things that turned out to be true? Or was it a total waste of time & money??

I I'm so sorry about what poor Bubba's dealing with. I wish him, and his human, all the best.

I I'm so sorry about what poor Bubba's dealing with. I wish him, and his human, all the best.

LOL, not quite. The reason my grandmother could eat ice cream every single day without gaining weight was that she didn't eat that much else. When my aunt spoke with grandma's primary care physician, he was actually glad that she was eating ice cream because otherwise she was at risk of being underweight. It should be noted that ice cream in the Philippines has a lower butterfat content and a lot less sugar than American ice cream, so it's actually not that bad for you.