TampaYankee

Are you on dial-up? I haven't noticed a significant delay in loading the flirt ad so that is why I ask. IMO your issue is not with the owners and mods but the members. We don't make the community, the users do. Oz often posts topics which wither on the vine. Me less so but occasionally. Maybe the topics are of little interest but that doesn;t keep others from creating their own interesting topics. IMO there is just less interest in online exchanges these days as there is in submitting reviews. The participation energy inthe online community has diminished from several years ago. Maybe it has become old hat. I dont know why but I see the result. It is true at daddy's too. They have more particiption by some long term posters but it is still a pale shadow of former days. The old energy was driven by a core of very interesting posters or by controversy and conflict. We have gotten beyond the C&C. Most of the interesting posters have moved on. Few have come forward to fill in the vacancies. This is an issue for the community not the site admins, IMO. We cannot make people contribute. A nice option. However, I doubt we would seriously undertake an attempt to make custom alterations to the forum software. That would screw us on developer support and future upgrades. We could ask that the developer consider building that option into a future upgrade. Please be specific about your issue. Are you are referring to Favorites Persons, reviews, profiles, other? Our private messaging system is a mess. I am not confident that I reliably receive messages. I know that I cannot always reply to messages due to software bugs. This was screwed up when the messaging function on the site was integrated with the forum messaging. We have never gotten it right and we have yet to get is straightend out. Hopefully a site rebuild will keep the functions separate.

Please make specific recommendations about which forums. Keep in mind that merging forums is probably not in the works. Thus we are left with locking certain forums or just deleting them without any previous history.

We offer a path for non-paying members to avail themselves of free enlarged photos. Few take advantage of that option.

Steven, Congrats to you and David for your compassion and fortitude in undertaking a very strenuous, successful effort to raise money for the AIDS benefit. $8K is a wonderful contribution to the effort and I suspect the memories will last a lifetime. TY P.S. Now you join Oz in the Club: 'Peddling Ass for Charity'.

Just received from escort/dancer MattCums.... Hi webmaster, I received a suspicious email from a "client" offering me an enormous amount of money to do a trip to london ($2000 a day for a week). He offered me the world but then asked that I pay his "travel agent" half the plane fare before he would send me half the money. He asked for my bank account number to transfer the "funds" once I sent his travel agent the money. I can forward you all the emails from this scammer. He said his name is Andrew Smith and he saw me on your site, but of course my review is negative so why would he contact me for such a huge date? This person is obviously going down the list of escorts hoping to entice them with a huge jackpot date and rip them off of several hundred dollars. He asked me for $700 to pay to his travel agent before he would wire me any money. Said the travel agent was Judahtravels@yahoo.com and his email is smithandrew009@yahoo.com Please warn your escorts of this scam. Very convincing emails, except for the email from the "travel agent" who obviously was foreign and could barely write english. Let me know if you want me to forward you the emails. He also insisted that we chat on AIM, and when we chatted on AIM it was obviously to trick me into giving my bank account number and fooling me into sending the fake travel agent money. Matt Cums SF P.S. Here is the laughable email from his "travel agent" DEAR SIR MY NAME IS JOHN MIKE......MR SMITH ANDREW IS A GOOD FRIEND OF OUR COMPANY WE HELPED HIM WITH HIS VISA TO COME IN HERE TO LONDON ENGLAND WE WILL HELP YOU WITH THE PLANE TICKET, ALL WE NEED FROM YOU IS YOUR NAME,MAILING ADDRESS.TRAVEL DATE AND LEAVE.THE ROUND TRIP TICKET OF ECONOMY FIRST CLASS ATTRACT A FEE OF $1200.WE ACCEPT PAYMENT VIA WESTERN UNION MONEY TRANSFER.REPLY ME BACK ASAP SO WE CAN START WORK ON THE PROCESSING. HOPE TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU JOHN MIKE JUDAH TRAVELS

You do get around, don't you?

Oil up another $11/barrel in one day and headed to $150/barrel by July. Will the good news never end? I am happy that my commuting days are behind me. The bad news... I heat with propane, the price of which virtually tracks with gasoline. Electric space heaters are in my future once again. Fifteen years ago I removed expensive electric home heating in favor of cheap propane. What's old is new again.

... one down, four to go.

Oz, it sounds like you are waiting for Utah to institute gay marriage.

Where he stands politically or privately on gay marriage pales in comparison to what his administration would mean for supreme court appointments and the resulting influence on gay marriage and other rights in the future, IMO.

Not through my telescope. Welcome to the World of Globalization and wreckless international adventurism, not to mention our long-term head-in-the-sand perspective supported by energy industry lobbyists. I believe we are looking at the beginning of a paradigm shift in energy resource utilization and its impact on society. I doubt that things will ever be quite the same again. Consider that the appearance of a hurricane within 1000 miles of the US or a minor bellicose action or remarks from some third world countries causes the energy futures market to quake. On the plus side, eventually the dollar will regain some, maybe much of its former value -- maybe. That will help lower the price of oil, possibly by an appreciable fraction, but nowhere back to where it was. We still must compete with growing appetities of China and India for overseas oil sources. To the extent that oil costs decrease, the price pressure on food and other commodities will decrease. We will accommodate circumstances over the long run, not without pain, with more conservation efforts and efficient autos and home heating units and, if we come to our senses, nuclear power; as well as affordable effective fuel cell technology. Other alternative energy sources will come on line because they will finally be competitive with the high cost of fossil fuels acquistion and use. Over the longer term, without a breakthrough in battery and fuel cell cost and efficacy, there will be a shift back to cities, big and not so big, where long commutes will give way to public transportation. On the other hand, companies will come under pressure to accommodate more online work from home. Casual air travel will become a memory for many. I wish we could go home again... but this isn't Kansas anymore. What factors got us into this predicament and which of those factors are reversable? The dollar is reversable if we choose to make it so. Will Iraq and Iran become free of turmoil and be happy peaceful producers with oil spickets wide open? How long will Saudi Arabia remain free of strife? What is the future of Venezeula and Mexico as accommodating oil producers? Will OPEC open the spickets for the good of all? Will China and India go into permanent recession thereby removing pressure on world energy sources. Will the Gulf of Mexico become a hurricane-free zone? It seems that we have reached a tipping point with so many factors that can potentially impact the acquistion of oil that a problem with one of them causes impact to world oil prices beyond its proportion. IMO things will get better but not good -- if we get our dollar back from the brink of bankruptcy-- good as defined by a year ago. But any improvements will have a limited shelf life as the economic and political pressures outlined above continue to affect the markets. Only development of alternative energy sources can help to allieviate permanently the long-term pressure on the markets. Additional drilling can help in the short term, but this is a patch at best, definitely not a long-term solution. If viewed as the latter we are doomed to repeat the past when the oil embargo of the 70s demonstrated our precariousness with respect to energy supply when we thumped our breasts in concern then buried our heads in the sand. My advice: sell the SUV yesterday and start a garden today. I know this sounds like the sky is falling but for some, like long-haul truckers, layed-off airline employees and moms feeding families, it is. For many others it just represents a notable decrease in the standard of living. I hope I am proven wrong.

Well now that I think it over, all I know is that it wasn't my input. I assumed it was yours but it could have been one of the programmers unfamiliar with the gay vocabulary.

Shaved heads are ok to hot on some black guys but doesn't work for me on white guys. Too much reflected light and sometimes shine -- a distraction for me.

To offer a peak behind the curtains a bit, this was Oz's choice way back in the early design phase. Not even sure he remembers. At the time I thought it seemed a bit oblique. Then I thought about it. The dilemma you raised above hit me and more... men, boys, hunks, hotties... I could imagine any of these labels might not be a good fit to selected escorts on any given day. The genious of Oz's choice hit me... or the efficacy anyway. I view this 'gay'site as a non-straight site. A haven for gays, bi's, crossdressers, preops, having a place to gather and advertise if they wish. Our thrust is gay male escorts because that is our 'mainstream', but others are welcome as well.

Are they the only airline to offer nonstop service?

I faced a similar dilemma in 2000. Neither of my choices, McCain & Bradley, made it to the general election. I sat out that election -- the only time in my life. I came to regret that very much as we were saddled with the worst and most damaging president in the history of our country IMO -- not that my vote would have changed anything. (Side note: McCain 2008 bears no resemblance to McCain 2000) For all who consider sitting out this next election ask yourself this question: Am I willing to sacrifice my constitutional Right to Privacy? Not only is this the lynch pin to Roe v Wade, it has been the lynch pin for striking down the anti-sodomy laws, laws that criminalized homosexual behavior, over the last two decades. Make no mistake, the so-called strict constructionists have been striving for decades to overturn this 'derived right' since the original Roe v Wade, stare decisis be damned. They are on the cusp of getting a 6-3 or 7-2 majority that would prevail for the next 20 - 30 years. Don't rely on a Democrat Senate to hold the barbarians at the gates either. The president proposes, the Senate disposes. Thus, though the Senate can stop an appointment, ultimately it must live with a Presidential choice. Witness the Roberts/Alito cases. At last, having the end-game in sight after decades, do not expect the strict constructionists to blink. At best, a stand-off would leave the Supreme Court a crippled undermanned court that would leave most decisions handed down to be interim only -- waiting to be resettled when a full court is seated. This is not an acceptable long-term circumstance as many other important cases will need to be definitively resolved by the court. There are many other important issues for sure. For many, some of those issues may rise above the Right to Privacy: paying a few dollars more or a few dollars less in taxes, presenting a more diplomatic or more militaristic foreign policy to the world in defense of oil supplies over alterantive fuels. Keeping the best medical care that money can buy even if only those with money or those who have none can access it, provided it is not a preexisting condition. Lots of issues. Maybe some of those are more important for others although I do not see any so consequential over the long term as the right to keep the government from intruding in my private life, IMO. Rights have always been less important for the majority than for the minority.

We did not change it. Escorts with profiles have the option to use profile photos in the reviews. They can choose and change the 'primary' photo for their profile as they wish. That photo is used for the review thumbnail. Trey has been changing them over the last few days.

Sorry that I don't have any info other than his web page is defunct. http://members.aol.com/TonyZerega/ http://www.tonyzerega.com/

Where do you find these things!!

Charlie, I'm sorry about your unfortunate circumstance. I wish I could answer your question but I am uninformed about the specifics of sex offender rules and regs. I do suspect the details depend, in part, on the state you reside in. Although the horse is already out of this barn this is a lesson for others. NEVER rely on the escort's word alone about age. If there is any doubt, any doubt about age, then ask for a picture ID. For discretion purposes it is easy for the escort to cover his name and address with his thumb/fingers leaving photo and age visible. If he is unable or unwilling to cooperate with this request then take a pass. Respect the law or be willing to accept the consequences and don't rely on the escort to protect your interests. NEVER ever rely on the escort's word alone if there is the slightest doubt.

While the ruling is great news, I wish this would have waited until next year. It is unfortunate that this wedge issue receives an elevated profile as we head toward the general election. I don't know the specifics of the California constitutional ammendment process but I fear that discrimination may be enshrined in the California constutution at then end of the day.

The ratings have been augmented to include 'Satisfactory' to the existing list. In the end it seemed better to add the new category rather than rename the existing 'Once is Enough'. Some suggested that 'Once is Enough' is more negative in tone, thus renaming could have upgraded a rating that some reviewers did not intend.

News about an ongoing operation by D.C. police aimed at arresting male prostitutes and the male customers who seek their services surfaced last month when a male undercover officer posing as a hustler arrested the mayor of District Heights, Md., for allegedly offering him $40 for sex. See the full story at the Wasnington Blade: http://washblade.com/2008/5-9/news/localnews/12534.cfm

Sebastien, I'm curious where you filmed HisFirstGaySex and BoysFirstTime vids. I know some have been filmed in Montreal and others in Miami. Jusrt curious about your experience. TY

Taking the pulse of the neighborhood... It has been brought to my attention by an interested member that the present ratings do not permit a 'Satisfactory' rating for those encounters which fall short of Great but don't warrant a 'negative' rating. Way back when...when I created the review page, I sort of considered 'Once Is Enough' to be the middle of the road 'satisfactory but no reason to repeat' option. I always interpreted 'Satisfactory' that way from the reviews I read. That was how I assessed my personal 'Satisfactory' hires. Maybe my perspective was too harsh. Maybe Once is Enough is right on but sounds more negative than intended. I did not have a negative intent in mind for it. Maybe I should rename 'Once is Enough' as 'Satisfactory' rather than make a new 'Satisfactory' category? I think five categories should suffice to capture all experiences. However would the renaming option change substantially mischaracterize reviews already cataloged? Any opinions?