Lucky

Since I come here frequently, and have been doing so for some 20 years, I think I qualify as a regular. I also visit the gayguides.com site regularly, but not early as often as this site. Which isn't to say that I am the most prolific poster here. If anything, my posting is down over the years. So every once in a while I wonder if there are other gay worlds on the internet where guys come to chat like we do here. Or maybe interactive gay blogs, I'm not sure. Naturally I thought to ask you guys what you know, if anything, on this topic. What would be some good sites to visit? Thanks!

Asian drivers!

Brazil.

So I guess that high end jeweler loses out when people buy a $5000 watch instead of his $20,000 watches. Or is he just a snob? A $100 dollar investment in early Google would still have been an investment.

The woman whom I dealt with for years retired and now I know no one at the bank.

Yes, @TPOLL did not include links to these guys he is wondering about. But, he's new and may need some time to get the hang of things. He sure picked an interesting handle. Makes you think of big things to come.

It's a fact that watches are used less and less as people now carry cell phones with the exact time. I have never had an interest in owning a fancy watch, but I saw one advertised in the WSJ Style Magazine yesterday and love it. It's the Panerai Radiomir as pictured in my attachment. Turns out the watch costs almost $5000, and I guess that the strap is an extra $400 or so. But, if it keeps its value, then it's not a purchase but an investment. As already stated, there is less interest in watches today, but classic watches may still have a following. And, of course, if anyone here would like to gift me this watch, I would certainly appreciate it. And, if not, a trip to Thailand might find me at the Night Market, sporting a replica of just the watch I want! Who would know the difference? TheWallStreetJournalMagazine_20230310_039_1.pdf

That's odd. They are letting me move a much smaller amount on Tuesday...assuming that they are still in business!

Nice hat!

There are billions of shows streaming on the various channels. My preference in coming to this forum is to learn about shows with a gay context. If there is one, I would hope that the poster would say so.

Robert Kardashian and OJ Simpson were in the news a lot...back in 1995! Rock needs to update his jokes. Many of his viewers probably were not born in 1995.

It's amazing to me that this Silicon Valley Bank has failed. People and companies stand to lose millions and millions. The Wall Street Journal then suggested, or so I saw it, that First Republic Bank might be the next to go. Well, that's my bank. Yes, I have (much) less than $250,000 with them, so it is insured. But wouldn't there be a period of time that the money is unavailable as the FDIC gets it in gear? I like First republic, I don't want it to fail.

Just for the record, Totally Oz attended the Palm Springs Weekend a few years ago, and he and Daddy conversed amicably. Any tension between them seemed to have dissipated once the Hooboy estate issues resolved. At least, that's how I saw it.

NY Times columnist Roxane Gay takes on the Chris Rock special: After Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in front of the entire world at the 2022 Oscars, we wondered how Mr. Rock would respond. And then, just over a week before the 2023 Oscars, at a taping for his Netflix special in Baltimore — which happens to be Jada Pinkett Smith’s hometown (a particularly petty choice) — Mr. Rock entered the fray. His rejoinder was set up as a climactic moment at the end of a live Netflix performance of Mr. Rock’s new show “Selective Outrage.” But when he was supposed to deliver one of his fiercest blows, Mr. Rock was apparently still so rattled by the slap incident, he flubbed the joke I imagine he spent a year crafting and perfecting. In a moment, all our anticipatory energy dissipated. Mr. Rock tried to recover, and retold the joke correctly before proudly declaring that the reason he didn’t hit Mr. Smith back was because, “I got parents, and you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people.” And then, he dropped his mic. In the awkward void of his mistake, I was struck by just how terrible the last joke was: silly and unartful, not at all profound. By the way he strutted offstage, Mr. Rock gave the impression that he nailed the punchline. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. The mic drop might have been a triumphant ending if the comedy that preceded it wasn’t so uneven, and often stale, certainly unfunny. There were not nearly enough of the kind of jokes — prescient, hilarious, sometimes uncomfortable but relatable sociocultural observations — that were once Mr. Rock’s hallmark. He had a good bit about the Kardashians and poked fun at Lululemon’s $100 yoga pants juxtaposed against the company’s woke marketing. But while those jokes were amusing, it was a bit bewildering that this is what he was spending his time on. It’s quite unfortunate, really. Mr. Rock has previously had a fair amount to say about wokeness, like many successful comedians of his generation. He and his peers have achieved immense success, but still don’t know how to cope with the cultural shifts that naturally occur over a long career. Instead they want to keep the conditions that gave rise to their success forever preserved so they can say whatever they want and trust that their audience will love them for it. As they come to terms with the impossibility of achieving that stasis, they direct their frustrations at woke culture and lament the freedoms they once had without realizing they still have freedoms they think they’ve lost. They just aren’t making comedy in a vacuum. The audience isn’t always going to laugh. And the audience will, sometimes, hold them accountable for what they say. The best part of the show was a brilliant riff about the Jan. 6 participants crawling all over the Capitol like a scene from the 1968 film ‘Planet of the Apes’. For a moment, I was reminded of Mr. Rock at his best. But then came the lazy, out of touch jokes about trans people — not the worst we’ve heard, but still, just strange and ill-considered given the alarming rise in gender fascism that imperils the trans community. As he often does, Mr. Rock discussed the tribulations of dating women on a transactional basis (having to buy shoes or pay for car repairs) as if it never occurs to him to date women from his socioeconomic milieu. He had a lot of energy for Meghan Markle, claiming that many of her experiences with the royal family were not racism but just standard in-law troubles. He called Ms. Pinkett Smith “bitch” (and had something similar to say about Will Smith). He made a halfhearted joke about infidelity even though the Smiths have said they are in an open relationship. While Mr. Rock wouldn’t fight with a Black man in front of white people, he was perfectly willing to take jabs at Black women in front of that same audience. It is … interesting that Mr. Rock ends by implying that Mr. Smith wasn’t raised well, conjuring (in front of white people) the trope of the fractured Black household, after deriding (in front of white people) at least two Black women and using the best weapon at his disposal to respond (in front of white people) to Mr. Smith. It reminded me of a clip that has been making the social media rounds for years: Louis C.K., Ricky Gervais, Mr. Rock and Jerry Seinfeld are discussing comedy, and the N-word comes up. Mr. C.K. and Mr. Gervais gleefully use the N-word with impunity as Mr. Seinfeld, visibly uncomfortable, tries to steer the conversation toward something less ridiculously offensive. And in the middle of all this is Mr. Rock, grinning, unflinching — in front of white people. Given how long it took for Mr. Rock to formally respond to The Slap, I’m not sure there was anything he could have done to rise to the occasion, given his apparent inability to evolve as a comic. Mr. Rock was slapped in front of a massive global audience. No matter what consequences Mr. Smith faces and how lucrative making jokes about it may be for Mr. Rock, he still has to live with the humiliation and pain. Instead of sitting with that vulnerability, turning it into brilliant humor, he resorted to puerile schoolyard taunts. It was such a wasted opportunity. Instead of making me laugh, he made me feel so very sad. For him. Instead of standing up to Mr. Smith — a live, global Netflix broadcast being a great equalizer — Mr. Rock chose to stay very small. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/11/opinion/roxane-gay-on-chris-rock-special.html

I am too old now for jogging, and my knees wouldn't allow it anyway. But I like Hoka shoes!

What utter nonsense!

I like being on time and appreciate others who do as well.

@Unicorn, you are quoting the NY Times article, not me. Just to be clear.

Mask report was misunderstood: nytimes.com The debate over masks’ effectiveness in fighting the spread of the coronavirus intensified recently when a respected scientific nonprofit said its review of studies assessing measures to impede the spread of viral illnesses found it was “uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses.” Now the organization, Cochrane, says the way it summarized the review was unclear and imprecise, and that the way some people interpreted it was wrong. “Many commentators have claimed that a recently updated Cochrane Review shows that ‘masks don’t work’, which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation,” Karla Soares-Weiser, the editor in chief of The Cochrane Library, said in a statement. “The review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses,” Soares-Weiser said, adding, “given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask wearing itself reduces people’s risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.” She said that “this wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize,” and that Cochrane would revise the summary. Soares-Weiser also said, though, that one of the lead authors of the review even more seriously misinterpreted its finding on masks by saying in an interview that it proved “there is just no evidence that they make any difference.” In fact, Soares-Weiser said, “that statement is not an accurate representation of what the review found.” Cochrane reviews are often referred to as gold standard evidence in medicine because they aggregate results from many randomized trials to reach an overall conclusion — a great method for evaluating drugs, for example, which often are subjected to rigorous but small trials. Combining their results can lead to more confident conclusions. Masks and mask mandates have been a hot controversy during the pandemic. The flawed summary — and further misinterpretation of it — set off a debate between those who said the study showed there was no basis for relying on masks or mask mandates and those who said it did nothing to diminish the need for them. Michael D. Brown, a doctor and academic who serves on the Cochrane editorial board and made the final decision on the review, told me the review couldn’t arrive at a firm conclusion because there weren’t enough high-quality randomized trials with high rates of mask adherence. While the review assessed 78 studies, only 10 of those focused on what happens when people wear masks versus when they don’t, and a further five looked at how effective different types of masks were at blocking transmission, usually for health care workers. The remainder involved other measures aimed at lowering transmission, like hand washing or disinfection, while a few studies also considered masks in combination with other measures. Of those 10 studies that looked at masking, the two done since the start of the Covid pandemic both found that masks helped. (It's a very long article! https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/opinion/masks-work-cochrane-study.html)

Why not add the links that @Emir did and leave your doubters speechless?

What were the lines that made you laugh out loud?

Here was Chris Rock's chance to shine, a live TV broadcast of an original comedy show with the opportunity to respond to the infamous slap he suffered at the hand of Will Smith. Rock stunk. He seemed off his game, constantly repeating himself and mangling lines. If it weren't for vulgarities, the show would have been about ten minutes long. But he did get back at Will and Jada, pointing out that she was promiscuous, something that should have offended Will much more than Rock's minor jokes. In the process, rather than look good with his rebuttal, they all looked like rich lowlifes.

The high cost of going somewhere that doesn't want you.

That's impressive. All the way from Down Under to little ol' Palm Springs!