quoththeraven

Large domestic cat in British Columbia mistaken for a cougar:

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/amp/entry/cougar-surrey-fat-cat-rcmp_ca_5d66ce38e4b022fbceb549cf/?__twitter_impression=true

Cats of a feather flock together:

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My apartment in Evanston, Illinois had a big bay window. It also did not have central air (built in 1920-something, part of the vintage charm) so a window air conditioner lived in the bay window. My cat loved looking out the window at the birds in the mature trees. One day, a bird landed on the AC unit and started teasing the cat. The cat figured out he couldn't get at the bird, but he still had fun trying to catch him. And the bird teased the cat every day from Spring to the time it migrated in Autumn.

It works the other way, too. The most alpha of my alpha cats (all ten pounds of her) discovered that the dogs next door could see her over the fence if she was on the roof of my car and enjoyed driving them crazy.

Otherwise she didn't spare a thought for dogs. What she hated were other cats, although she eventually reconciled herself to living with two of them once she sufficiently established her dominance over them. They were each twice her size.

One of the cats I have now figured out how to dispense water from the water cooler. I rigged a way to cover the buttons (using a cardboard box fastened with velcro) and the little stinker figured out how to destroy the box and get at the water.

 

Cats are smart, determined, and have nothing else to do all day.

One of the two cats the above alpha cat had to put up with liked the way a very primitive water dispensing unit gurgled when she pawed at the water. We had to stop using it because she would get water all over the floor.

Fortunately, she didn't eat dry cat food, so we were able to continue to feed her brother by using a similar automatic dispenser for dry cat food. He sometimes pawed the dry cat food out of the bowl for fun, but not in quantities large enough to be a problem.

I'm not a cat person, but I admit that I'm impressed by the cat associating the lamp with food. One of my teachers in high school told me that animals are dumb only because they can't talk.

Or with getting the hoomin's attention in order to get food. Very often the message I get from my cat is that I'm the dumb one (in the colloquial, not literal, sense) because I've missed all her previous signals and she's reduced to direct action.

Higher thread counts are less rough but they are more absorbent. I swapped my highest thread count sheets recently for some that don't have as high a thread count because they were getting clammy and uncomfortable from sweat.

From the department of cats are cute, but they're still assholes:

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From someone who feeds the cat when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom because it's preferable to the cat keeping me awake by stroking my face with her paws when I get back in bed. (The claws come out if I don't respond quickly enough.)

Obviously the bird is the dom in this relationship.

But they may get more than they bargained for! One of the "detectors" is whether there are two people in the potty, which could happen because an adult is accompanied by a child too young to be left outside alone or who is assisting a child too young to use the bathroom alone or because one person is ill or disabled and needs assistance. I can't wait until the doors fly open and people using the portapotty to vomit are revealed and drenched with water!

https://abc7.com/amp/society/new-toilets-detect-when-someone-is-having-sex-in-bathroom/5477133/?__twitter_impression=true

This really seems like a solution in search of an actual problem.

Btw, in male/female relationships, women get tired of sex with the same person faster/more often and benefit more from being able to play around.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/women-get-bored-sex-long-term-relationships/582736/

"Women in long-term, committed heterosexual partnerships might think they’ve “gone off” sex—but it’s more that they’ve gone off the same sex with the same person over and over."

@samhexum - that's an interesting Dear Abby...I'm actually a monogamy kind of guy - which makes me wonder why that couple even got married...

 

Not to mention that I thought polyamory was a triangle and not a quadrangle (I can't use "square"...it clearly doesn't apply on this one...)

Polyamory is whatever you want it to be. It can involve a closed circle, where everyone involved is in a relationship with each other, or an open one, where each member of a couple has other usually non-primary relationships, or where only one member of a couple sees other people and the other one doesn't.

My gentleman caller is polyamorous and sees people other than his wife. With the exception of me, they're all married. Most of them have partners who aren't able to engage in penetrative sex. If he wasn't seeing others, he would want to have sex with his wife pretty much every day. In that regard I suspect his polyamory may be a relief to her.

I prefer the terminology "open relationship" because it comes with less philosophical baggage than polyamory.

The Don Juan stereotype for opera superstars has been around for a couple of centuries; men whose careers depend on convincing a live audience that they are consumed with passion for women they are making love to on stage may find it easy to identify with the Don Juan role. What makes this less acceptable is the claims that Domingo retaliated by damaging the careers of those who resisted. It also makes things very awkward for those whom he obviously favored, like Ana Maria Martinez, whose relationships with him will be questioned. Opera companies and orchestras have always felt it was good business to protect their great artists from public exposure whenever they got in trouble, as the Met did with James Levine. The whole business model is now under review.

That so-called "business model" was always rotten, illegal , unethical and wrong and took advantage of the marginalization of whoever was preyed on, whether female singers or teenage students. All that's changed is that more people are willing to call it out.

For a slightly different perspective:

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@ArVaGuy, you might appreciate this.

I've had it up to here with the recriminations between baby boomers and millennials. There's always overgeneralizations and the Boomers sound like old folks yelling at people to get off their lawn. Blaming Boomers for everything that's wrong is equally annoying.

Why doesn't anyone drag Generation X into this? Are they now too old to get dumped on? I seem to remember a time when they were blamed for everything, back when they were the young whippersnappers. Seeing as they are reputedly more apathetic and apolitical than Boomers or Millennials/Generation Y, it seems to me they make better targets of disdain if one absolutely must engage in intergenerational disdain.

I helped get myself into the medical condition I'm in now by putting work ahead of my health, so complaints about supposed laziness and lack of work ethic don't ring a bell with me.

Full disclosure: I'm a Boomer and my daughter is a late millennial.

A sex worker is using their body for the services they perform. Whether it’s biased, bigoted or not, they are not entitled to service every prospective client.

 

On a lighter example, let’s say a potential client hasn’t showered in a month. He is not entitled to receive the services of the escort because he requested it. The sex worker has the right to say no.

 

I believe in transparency. Although you are correct in stating that it’s a bit much to expect escorts not to be judged on their preferences, I feel that the idea would have positive results overall.

 

1.) escorts who do not have racial biases would increase business from new clients.

 

2.) escorts who have racial biases will get what they are looking for.

 

3.) potential clients won’t have to wasted time, playing the guessing game of who will want to do business with them.

 

Although I agree with you 100%, the world we live in has realities that just aren’t fair, and we have to deal with them

There's a difference between refusing service to someone who is smelly, gross and unhygienic and discriminating on the basis of race.

Clients who are larger need to be realistic about physical possibilities (for example, a client with a large belly may not be able to top effectively) but an inability to perform with overweight clients is going to not only lessen an escort's potential clientele but flies in the face of the whole reason many people hire. Same with racial and ethnic preferences. That is why I say people with such preferences shouldn't be escorts in the first place. It's like being hired to working in a cafeteria and insisting you won't touch dirty dishes. (I had the pleasure of working with someone like that in college.)

Curious as to what shapes other's definitions of this term. Of course I could look up and know the parameters from the internet and other sources regarding categorization of generations. I am more interested in an in your own words description. I see members refer to millennials on here periodically, so what does the term mean to each of you?

It's only helpful to use a term if there's some agreement as to what it means. Pew suggests 1981-1995 for millennials, with everyone born later falling into the post-millennial/Generation Z category. (Millennials started out as Generation Y.)

http://mentalfloss.com/article/533632/new-guidelines-redefine-birth-years-millennials-gen-x-and-post-millennials

That makes the oldest millennials older than most of those who have already responded think.

This is a reality, and I’m not necessarily sure if I have a problem with it, as escorting is a very “personal” service.

 

Whether it’s social or morally right or wrong is another discussion. But in an Industry where it’s requried for someone to touch, taste, prod and maintain and erection, preferences do come into play.

 

I haven’t had escorting services yet, but tons of massages and I always make it clear that I’m black. Some guys don’t like black guys (their reasons aren’t important to me), and that’s fine.

I’d just rather know that up front and discontinue the conversation, rather than have an awkward moment on the table, or weird communications.

 

As I’ve stated in another post, I’d encourage all service providers to actually state their preferences (race, age, body type, etc.) and would hope they wouldn’t be judged on it either. I’d rather not waste my time in engaging with anyone who does not like me.

 

I’m not saying bigotry is acceptable. I’m saying that the rules are a bit different in the sex industry.

 

Now housing, banking, education, and employment should never involve these factors. But in who one will have sex with is a grey area, regardless of how vile racism (or any other “ism”) is.

 

And quick funny,

The first experience I had with a masseur who didn’t like black guys was actually black... lol....

 

Go figure....

Sorry, it's entirely appropriate to judge them for these preferences. If they're so important, then don't become a sex worker.

(I agree it's better if they state the preferences up front, but come on, suggesting that should be a judgment-free experience is asking too much.)

If you’re not a cis-gendered female, I don’t see why that article

would color your decision to use Descovy or not. It’s all about the

FDA getting pissed that they didn’t include cis-gendered females in

their study.

 

Fair enough, but it doesn’t invalidate their findings. It just limits the

generalizations you can make to the population as a whole. There

is little reason to believe it won’t protect cis-gendered females, but

the drug company choose to punt on the topic. Unfortunately, it

looks like the FDA panel is trying to punish them for this, and thus

potentially keeping the drug out of the hands of patients that it

HAS been proven to protect.

 

It’s gender politics....masquerading as science.

Considering that for years research has ignored women and thus not noticed differences in presentation of symptoms or the efficacy and safety of drugs, calling this "gender politics...masquerading as science" is insulting. The people who have died, suffered and been misdiagnosed because women aren't included in studies would disagree with you.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1591917/agency-thrives-ditching-social-media-influencers-focus-traditional-pr

 

Even though this has been the name of the game for the past five or so years, I have yet to be swayed to purchase anything that an Influencer of any genre (style, travel, fitness, food) proclaims to be "epic," "awesome," or "you would not believe."

 

Part of it is because I'm a grouchy (not very) old man, I suppose.

 

A lifetime ago, I worked in traditional media. The standards we had to uphold were very strict: Never feature just one brand in a story, always get quotes from multiple sources, do not run text from the press release as is, travel incognito, etc.

 

This, along with having to actually write in complete sentences with proper grammar.

 

Influencers nowadays (I'm sorry if I'm painting such broad strokes) don't even need to put #ad in their posts: The lack of personality in their words is a dead giveaway that they were sent a box of clothes and were asked to talk about it in their social channels. Poor writing--and my God is there a ton of them--turns me off completely, earning the account a spot in my ignore list.

Actually they do need to disclose that they're sponsored, but many of them are ignoring FTC guidance to that effect.

Based on the most common compliment I've received, my epitaph will be "she was smart."

"Smartass" and "pain in the ass" (as in dogged) have also been mentioned.

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I don't usually read the Bay Area Reporter, but I had to come to SF, so I read a copy. Inside was an ad for the Berkeley bathhouse "Steamworks" in which they advertised "Dark Mondays," in which one presumably goes around seeking sexual encounters in the dark. I don't understand this one bit. Do some people really get pleasure having sex with men they can't even see? What's the point? I personally like to have sex with as much light as possible, since I only have sex with handsome men. Also, I don't understand why people close their eyes while having sex.

I personally need to be staring into the eyes of the man I have sex with to have orgasm. I once hired an escort who kept closing his eyes, and I kept asking him to keep his eyes open--instructions which he kept ignoring. I wasn't going to be able to reach orgasm, but he finally kept them open long enough for me to release my juice. I wanted to ask him why he couldn't just keep his eyes open. Was it physically painful, somehow? What's the big deal? Of course, I never hired him again, although he was very handsome and had dark hair and blue-green eyes.

Do you close your eyes when you sneeze? Some people close their eyes when they are close to orgasm or at it.

As also mentioned, anonymity is a turn on for some, and darkness enhances the anonymity. Not everyone cares about their partner's looks at every encounter.

Was Willy altruistic too?

 

I don't know if you know Curious Zelda (she's on Twitter), but she looks like my previous cat would have if she had bulging eyes.

This is Curious Zelda.

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The other difference between Sofia and Zelda is that Sofia had a white-tipped tail.

No, but he was a sneaky escape artist. His cuteness and sweet nature (peaked ear Scottish Fold) made up for it.

What is a peaked ear Scottish Fold?

That cat looks like my dearly departed, beloved Willy.

Was Willy altruistic too?

I don't know if you know Curious Zelda (she's on Twitter), but she looks like my previous cat would have if she had bulging eyes.

Some cats are altruistic (see above); some cats aren't.

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