Charlie

I happen to think that Novak may turn out to be a greater player than Roger or Rafa, at least statistically. I also think that it is unfortunate that many tennis fans don't appreciate him as much as the other two. But I have watched many of his matches since he first appeared, and I know that many fans react negatively to the kind of enthusiasm that the Serbian fans show for him. Swiss fans have always been less numerous and rather subdued at Roger's matches, and the Spanish fans have long had many great Spanish players to root for. It is natural for the Serbs to be extremely proud of the first great Serbian player, and it is unfair that there is probably anti-Serb ethnic prejudice in the general tennis community that carries over to Novak. As I have written elsewhere, he was unlucky to come along when the Roger/Rafa bromance had already captivated the media, and he was regarded by them as an unwanted intruder in their script--a third party often gets turned by them into a villain rather than another legitimate contender for GOAT. Novak has made it clear that he is aware of that favoritism shown to the others and resents it, which probably makes the Serb fans even more demonstrative. I don't think Monica Seles was ever treated or regarded in the same way, since she was actually an ethnic Hungarian, played for Yugoslavia rather than Serbia, and became a US citizen while she was still a top player. I remember clearly that many fans and even commentators at the time didn't know where she was from in Yugoslavia and thought she was Croatian, like Iva Majoli and Goran Ivanisevic.

It may be an Amish-looking beard, but the Amish do not get tattoos (they believe the Bible prohibits them).

The Serbs are wildly enthusiastic for Novak because they have no other international figures to cheer for. In fact, if they were less jingoistically demonstrative at his matches, the rest of the world might appreciate him more on his real merits.

Longevity is hard to predict just from genes. My parents and grandparents all died natural deaths, but my father's life was shorter than either of his parent's lives, while my mother was much longer-lived than her parents--she lived almost twice as long as her father. The strange thing was that my father was always very healthy until the last six months of his life, while my mother was often sickly when she was young, yet she easily shrugged off colon cancer when she was 70 and breast cancer at 88. I have already lived longer than my father did, but I can't imagine living as long as my mother.

My paternal grandfather had six sisters; Aunt Annie lived to 101 and Aunt Clara to 103. My mother's cousin Grace lived to 100. My mother herself lived to 102. I knew all of them well, because I was an adult when they died, and enjoyed listening to them talk about life in the days before modern technology. Aunt Clara was born when Abe Lincoln was in the White House. My mother was born before the news about the Wright brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk had made the newspapers (radio still hadn't been invented then). People always say, "Oh, with your genes you will live to 100." I certainly hope not!

My hiring days ended before there were so many options, so I always used cash, and still would today.

We couldn't afford Guy Lombardo for our prom. He was more likely to be there at New Year's Eve.

My HS senior prom was at the Roosevelt. I hope the rooms have been updated since then.

starting with Damon and Pythias. (Any photos of them?)

I am reading Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley, about the titanic struggle between Christians and Muslims for control of the Mediterranean in the 16th century. The vivid descriptions of the conditions endured by the citizens of Malta during the three month siege of the island by Ottoman forces in 1565 is a humbling counterpoint to complaints about our 2020 lockdowns.

Back. The front seats would have had a big floor mounted gear shift between the seats.

I'll bet that car saw a lot of action.

A friend of mine found a young partner on SilverDaddies who turned out to be an expensive disaster. But he went right back and found another one there, and they are still together last I heard.

Querrey was apparently more worried about himself or his wife becoming ill and having to go to a hospital in Russia for COVID treatment, but panicking and fleeing the country in the way that he did was unwise. He will almost certainly be suspended from the ATP tour, because he has jeopardized the system for everyone now. It was foolish to take his wife and infant son with him to St. Petersburg in the first place. As long as COVID protocols for tournaments are an issue, he will probably be denied entry to any tournament by the hosts, even if he is not suspended by the ATP.

He describes himself as "Native American." How many Native Americans speak German and Italian but can hardly write English? Nadia is probably his girlfriend.

Comrades in arms.

Do they all have big dicks? (Of course, something is missing but it is the ad: where's a photo of his big dick?)

Some of those pictures are reminders that in the 19th century, displays of affection between men were not necessarily considered sexual. Even today in more traditional societies, like rural India, it is not uncommon to see male friends holding hands in public. The photo of men dancing together is also a reminder that in many places in the Old West, women were rare, and if men wanted to socialize after working, they had to do things like dancing with one another because there were no women for partners.

In the plays and operas, Count Almaviva is basically an attractive scheming sexual predator. Don't forget that when Rosina carries on about her love for "Lindoro," she is unaware that he is a completely fake persona which Almaviva has assumed in order to court her.

The follow-up opera in the set of plays by Beaumarchais on which the Figaro operas are based is Le Nozze de Figaro, in which the now married "Lindoro"/Count Almaviva is trying to bed Rosina/Countess Almaviva's maid Susanna, much to the distress of the Countess. (Susanna is not the first of his extra-marital escapades.)

Nice tie-in to the bald mannequins in the store front.

Don't forget that in the follow-up story, "Lindoro"/Almaviva becomes an unfaithful husband to the poor girl.?

Oh, does that bring back fond memories!

Flippers are looking for houses that are not worth anywhere near as much in their current condition as they would be with some renovation, and I suspect that your house is not like that. They are usually looking for unoccupied houses in decent neighborhoods that the owners want to get rid of quickly. In our last house in Palm Springs, our nextdoor neighbor had turned his house into a "safe house" for recovering gay alcoholics in an AA program that he ran, and he moved into another house he owned in the neighborhood. When he died, the heirs wanted to get the house cleared out and sold as quickly as possible, so they sold it to a flipper for much less than the Zillow estimate, which is based primarily on what other houses in the neighborhood have sold for, regardless of its condition. The flipper did a major clean-up and cosmetic renovation, and sold it for more than the Zillow estimate.

Rafa's thinning hair has been noticeable for a few years, but I doubt that he will emulate Agassi (and now Mannarino) by shaving it all off.