mike carey

Early to the piece as is often the case, Happy Birthday to one hot man, Junior Benz (@JuniorNYC), hope you have a great day and enjoy the hell out of it.

I would travel to see a guy. I would probably only do so if I wanted to go to that city already, but you never know. Would I go to NYC, DC or LA, no doubt. Are there escorts I'd go to LV to see, yes (hello @peterhung85). If Eric, Mike Gaite or TB (or some others) were in Spokane, when I wanted to see them, definite maybe.

Mike, I won't say your on my list but I'm damn ready to try.

I wonder how many tourists will want to visit Königsberg or Stalingrad. Or how many will want to visit the site of the martyrdom of the tsar at Yekaterinburg.

Of course! *Pours bottles of GB over Victor*

Not so fast! Whether the shorts are ugly or not, they come off.

As you would expect, his passing was one of the topics on the daily news panel show on ABC TV here. Their go-to quantum physicist (I kid you not, smart guy on all sorts of levels) had a different take on that. He said Hawking ran over people's toes to break into conversations because it would have taken so long for him to do so using his voice simulator. I suspect both versions are true.

I'm not saying me + lance isn't in my thought process. I'm a simple man.

Oh, you two get a room. Preferably with a webcam.

I suspect that at this time of year, in Detroit, sailing is not an option.

To me, PC is a synonym for respectful, and mostly claims of things being 'too PC' can be refuted by asking exactly how you can be too respectful. That said, the term has become more widely used as code for all sorts of sentiments. I don't think there is anything wrong with being uncomfortable with usage or themes in music and literature from another day. If anything can be too PC, it could be expecting the works to be changed to reflect today's sensibilities. Even then, using 'too PC' has the undesirable effect of blurring the difference between contemporary respect and a desire for historical revisionism. When looking at old works, context is everything. If it reflects the prevailing views of the world from its time, by all means avoid it if you don't like it, but your discomfort should not be the basis for editing out the things that you don't like. Also, don't underestimate the ability of others to enjoy if for what it is, and even to reflect on the outdated views it shows.

It's sort of an oblique application of Occam's Razor, simplest answer is best. Sugar has a known number of kJ, known effect over time on blood glucose levels and known effects on things like teeth. Artificial sweeteners were seen as an uncomplicated way of replacing the sweetness in foods and beverages but it is turning out that their effects aren't as uncomplicated as we first thought. IIRC along with other things already mentioned they mask the satiation reaction we have to eating and drinking. We'd be better off weening ourselves from our collective sweet tooth rather than finding ways to remove the energy content from sweet foods. Or accepting that sweet foods contain kJ and eat accordingly. Easier said than done, I know, but looking for a magical method of removing energy from food has brought unintended consequences. In any case, the main sugar problem isn't from eating sweet foods that our great grandparents would recognise it's from the sugars added to foods that they would not. Corn syrup/fructose added to drinks (in addition to empty kJ, it has different physiological effects to sucrose or glucose), low fat products that have sugar added to make them more palatable (IIRC low fat yogurt with its sugar has more kJ/g than regular fat yogurt). (Sorry, got to the end of writing that and realised I'd used kilojoules (kJ) rather than calories for the energy content of food.)

Happy birthday, have a great day!

Disclosure: I had Eric's password, not sure whether he told me or if I saw it in his profile. My quoted comment was for comic effect.

@Eric Hassan, your private photo password is in your ad? FML

But every cat in the twilight's grey, every possible cat.

Thanks for sharing this Brian. A beautiful, heartfelt tribute to this man you shared some of your life with. I'm so sorry to hear how it ended.

I can only commend you for playing along with @peterhung85's joke of using faux broken English. For one of those poor foreign gentlemen, his English is near as can be to perfect.

They'll never know Pan Am either.

Umm, no, rom com is not a new young'uns term. It's been around at least since Bridget Jones's Diary or When Harry met Sally.

I would have thought driving the full length of Route 66 was worth it just for the bragging rights. A wildly tangential aside. The captain of the England cricket team is Joe Root. In test cricket (the really serious version) players wear white shirts and trousers. In the less serious one day and twenty over versions, players wear coloured clothes and have their names and a number on their backs. Root is not the captain in the shorter versions of the game, but he was in the team for one series here this summer. In those games he chose the number 66 for his shirt. It took a while for the penny to drop, but there he was with Root 66 on his back.

That's the Cabana, not the Backstage.

I certainly use it, but mainly to call people in the US, and my fairly basic mobile phone plan's included minutes can be used on domestic or international calls. It's just more convenient (and sensible) to use my home internet data rather than those minutes. (There can also be issues calling or texting numbers provided by services like google voice.) Here, many phone plans include all calls. I realise there are real issues making international calls from some countries.

Not everyone outside the US uses WhatsApp, for example only about 10% of my contacts show up as having it. Unless you have confirmed with them that they have it installed ATM, I wouldn't assume that they use it. IDK either if using the + makes a difference, but it may be what WhatsApp uses to identify the start of a phone number. In any case it's a good idea always to use it if you ever travel outside your home country. The + enables the phone service to automatically use the correct international dialing access code from the country you're in (unlike the US, it's 0011 here). (All my Australian contacts are in my phone in the +61 format [with the leading 0 in the area code dropped off] rather than the standard domestic format. Although if I'm calling a new number I use just the 8 digit number if it's in the same area code, and the leading zero area code format for others, not the +61 format.)