mike carey

Valid and important counterpoint. Nonetheless, I think his moment of (sort of) epiphany was important for him to share.

Joke of the week (from the SMH) Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School. "Well, Mum, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely. Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.” “Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?” his Mother asks, dumbfounded. “Well, no, Mum, but, if I told it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!”

Never organised an event of the scale you're talking about but I have organised work lunches and the same guidelines apply. By all means get a rough idea of preferences, but once that's done book the restaurant, set the menu options and advise everyone where and when. If people don't like it they don't have to attend. On the original question of why PS and not Orlando, simple. The organisers had ties there and wanted to set something up. It's the Palm Springs weekend, it's not the annual forum weekend. Similarly, the DC lunch (when it happens) isn't an event looking for a location it's an event at a location (and timed to coincide with another separate event [MAL]).

Don't jump to conclusions about people you meet. This guy was annoyed by the guy next to him in his management class until he found out what he was actually doing.

I do barrack for them. When they play Collingwood! (I remember when I was first interested in any way in Aussie Rules it was said that there were three teams that started with F, Footscray, Fitzroy and f**king Collingwood.)

For the hell of it I did a search on a flight aggregator for flights on a random date about three months out from now. PHL-PHX-PSP $315, PHL-LAX $226 (that was a direct flight, there were cheaper one stop flights to LAX) both fares one way. Both happened to be on American. Those might not be the best deals, and maybe RT would be lower, and the site returned the fares in AUD so I converted to USD at today's exchange rate. I agree that if you were set on a direct flight, driving from Phoenix might be preferable to driving from LAX (as might Las Vegas).

Happy birthday.

@WilliamM, understood. Changing planes is something I can't avoid (I could catch a bus to Sydney to avoid one change but check-in is much easier in Canberra). Travelling to the US on QF I can fly direct from Sydney to SF, LA or DFW, anywhere else involves a change, even flying QF to NYC where it's the same flight number but a different aircraft (A380 to LA, B747 on to NY). I suspect changing to an international sector would carry more potential risk than a domestic change.

I agree LAX can be a challenge, but flying into Palm Springs is a breeze and although a car is useful you can easily manage without one for this event. That saves a bit of the extra money that it costs to fly there rather than to LAX. I'm not sure that flying 3000 miles is much more of an imposition than flying say 750, you'll often have a connection in either case. Others have commented on the lack of late notice accommodation, and that was discussed prominently here when the event was first scheduled with people urged to book then if they thought they might attend. PK made it known that he had an extra booking at the CC up till a week or so back, so there was an opportunity there, and I have seen at least one other post here about a reservation about to be given up.

There may well be better places than Palm Springs to be this weekend, both for escorts and clients. But that is not the point. People attend the event because they know there will be a level of camaraderie and they know that certain escorts and clients will be there. That is far more of an attraction than any other city where you may happen to have some number of escorts present. This is an event, it's not a random weekend in Palm Springs. No one is forcing either escorts or clients to attend but they know that they will meet each other in social settings that will not be available elsewhere. They know that the social environment may result in appointments. That's why people are there rather than in some other city where they may be able to meet an escort.

Well, that would make things interesting! And here was I thinking of meeting you for a coffee!

That's how it works, and fairly quickly. For those of us unable to attend, the mystery remains. At least I have last year to remember. Has anyone brought ginger beer?

Perhaps T3's characterisation of why a potential client would not pre-meet or send a pic was ill-advised (as he acknowledged), and perhaps any attempt to explain why they would not do so is similarly ill-advised. But that is his business model and it seems to work for him. Your conclusion that you would not hire him is your prerogative. I would hire him, whether he would accept that hire is a separate question. At the moment it's all hypothetical anyway.

It will no doubt have escaped the attention of most participants in the forum but for the past week the Commonwealth Games have been underway on the Gold Coast in Australia. It's sort of a low rent Olympics for athletes from the Commonwealth. There are 53 countries, but a total of 70 something teams (the countries that form the UK compete separately and various territories (say the British Virgin Islands or the Cook Islands) compete separately. There have been world records and the media highlight today was the attendance of Usain Bolt. There is also competition in sports that don't figure in the wider world of competitive sport. Think lawn bowls and netball (the latter a 7-a-side sport vaguely similar to basketball, played almost exclusively as a women's sport). (Canada and Australia split the women's and men's beach volleyball golds.) One feature of the games is the incorporation of para sports in the main program, so we are seeing disabled events being reported in the same breath as able-bodied athlete events.

Who?

Antidote perhaps?

One disparaging name for Aussie Rules is 'cross-country basketball' and there is some validity in that description. Players mark each other across the field, there is no 'front line' the way there is in American football or the two rugby codes, there is a limit how far you can run with the ball without bouncing it (like the travel rule in basketball). It is also a game that works better at the ground than it does on television because you need to see the sweep of the game across the field unlike rugby/NFL where you can see what's happening by focussing on the players around the ball. (Disclosure: I'm a member of the Sydney Swans (effectively that's a season ticket) and have been since 1996. But the game is alien in Sydney, the football of choice there is rugby league and to a lesser extent rugby union: perversely the Swans' crowds are bigger than most rugby code crowds.)

Do you think so?

This summarises the tragedy of the ice hockey team that had so many of its members killed in Saskatchewan.

*Sad face* Yes, I know I left out the next bit: (if it happens, great but not a priority anymore).

Review of a new gay-themed film from the Economist. LGBT history “120 BPM” is a passionate tribute to gay activism Recreating the protests of AIDS campaigners in the 1990s, the film holds lessons for social reformers today (Edited to add this image. I couldn't post it from behind the firewall when I posted the article, but The Economist tweeted it just now.) IT is a successful time for films featuring gay subjects. From the Oscar-winning “Moonlight” (2016) to the celebrated “Call Me By Your Name” (2017), they are garnering critical acclaim and encouraging public discussion of how the struggle for acceptance endures today, even in societies which have legally enshrined equality. “120 BPM (Beats per Minute)” is the latest such film. An unabashedly passionate depiction of the work of AIDS activists in Paris in the early 1990s, it has resonated deeply with audiences. At its premiere at the Cannes film festival last summer, critics were in tears; it won several awards, including the Grand Prix. At a recent preview in London, viewers sat dumbstruck during the credits before standing to applaud. The film’s protagonists are part of the Paris branch of ACT UP—the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The film shows the collective strategising and arguing over how to rouse a society that is, as they see it, callously indifferent to thousands of gay people dying from AIDS each year in France. Their protests form much of the film’s drama as they campaign for the release of AIDS treatments and challenge prevailing homophobic attitudes. The film opens with them storming a medical conference, handcuffing its speaker to a post and covering him in fake blood. It’s an unplanned escalation which prompts questions about whether violent stunts alienate people who might sympathise or compel them to listen to the message. They continue to shock and provoke, breaking into the offices of a pharmaceutical company, dousing its walls with fake blood and accusing its staff of being “assassins […] with blood on your hands”. They forcibly enter a school and distribute condoms to its pupils. Throughout these political statements, a tragic personal narrative anchors “120 BPM”. Nathan and Sean, the two main characters, fall in love; Sean subsequently dies of AIDS in his 20s. Their relationship is an assertion of the possibilities of love in the direst of times, and their intimacy is a fervent defence of gay romance and life in a society that often views gay people with contempt and devalues the lives of AIDS sufferers. In one scene at the school, Sean leans in to kiss Nathan in front of a student. The boy dismisses their protests saying: “I’m never going to get your AIDS bullshit, I’m not a fag.” The truculent and captivating tactics are faithful to the spirit of ACT UP’s campaigning work and Robin Campillo and Philippe Mangeot, the writers, were involved with the organisation in the 1990s. Founded in New York in 1987, its activists’ work included marching up to the White House, dousing its fences in fake blood and throwing the ashes of one of their members inside its grounds to protest the first Bush administration’s fumbling response to the AIDS epidemic. ACT UP’s Paris chapter was founded in 1989 and its members used similarly public tactics to their American counterparts, including covering the obelisk of the Place de la Concorde with a giant pink condom. “120 BPM” also shows some stunts which Mr Campillo imagines the collective had staged, such as turning the River Seine red with fake blood. Yet “120 BPM” is moving because it feels far more than a reflection on a bygone moment of AIDS activism and gay stigma. Despite its setting, the film’s close-up shots and its characters personal battles give it an urgent and perennial feel. In its portrayal of ACT UP’s indefatigable fight for medical treatments and equality, it captures the dogged persistence required to spur inert authorities and hasten social change. These messages about the contingency of progress and the trials of activism remain applicable and instructive for gay people and AIDS sufferers, but also for other contemporary activist movements. Today’s political moment—in which some fear that populist politics are fuelling hatred towards racial, national and sexual minorities—may explain why the film has echoed with so many audiences across the world. “I think the film has been longed for because we still need this militant activism,” Mr Campillo told a French film website. His characters’ irreverent crusading and euphoric protest, even as death looms, are a fitting tribute to such work.

One of the things that was recommended to me last year (when average daily temps were 10 degrees (F) higher than this year's forecast) was to take a ride on the aerial tramway. It goes up to over 2500m elevation so you would need warm clothes for that. (That's 8500' for you imperial measurement users.)

I remember when I first started reading gay hookup sites I saw guys who said they are total tops in hookups but totally versatile in a relationship. I think that sums it up. People have their preferences but they are influenced by circumstances. I understand the OP (or is that OR's) frustration that some men don't accept that an escort is a top if he ever bottomed. That is crazy. To the extent that that view influences escorts to say they are total tops I sympathise. But I don't think many escorts would say that. How many escorts are so focussed on the 'I only hire total tops' market that they advertise as such. Most clients (I suspect) who want a top want someone who can do the job and don't care if the guy has bottomed once. (I would add that I have read here that the best tops are those who have bottomed and know what it's like to do so). I suspect that the real issue is that most escorts prefer to top, so seeking one who bottoms is a negotiation, but there are guys out there who advertise as bottoms. Don't assume that the total tops are catering to 'only tops' clients, that may be what they really want. And for clients, spare a thought that an escort may be versatile in private but choose to be only a top professionally. If that's what he wants, get used to it.

So, a university sends out an all-students note warning that cougars, the big cat variety, had been seen on campus. What could possibly go wrong? Well, this...

Not everyone speaks Farsi as their first language, they make up about 60% of the population. About 20% are Azeri (a Turkic language) and 10% are Kurdish. There are smaller groups of Arabs and Turkmen amongst others. The history of Iran/Persia is complicated with all sorts of nuance both implicit and explicit. When I was in the UK in the late 70s, the Daily Telegraph still referred to the country as Persia.