Lucky

Where is this edit button? I looked at three different cities and did not see it. I found a mistake on my first read, but couldn't edit!

"The have theme mornings and nights, and their underwear parties are a must." If there was an edit button here, I would edit the above to say that "they have" theme mornings, etc.

All you need is a camera at each station so we can watch too.

We don't have to go to extremes to keep a "hot" body after childbirth! The NY Daily News reports on this woman, 8 months pregnant, who wants to still be in shape after giving birth. Is she harming her child? http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/california-mother-faces-public-outcry-posting-photos-lifting-weights-8-months-pregnant-article-1.1462242

Thanks Oz, and lurkerspeaks. I also appreciate the "likes." When I wrote it, I didn't really expect much of a response. The jet lag is now gone, and we are wondering where we might go next.

Frequent flyer miles can be had for lots of things besides flying, and I have accumulated tons of them by opening credit card accounts, checking accounts, and taking advantage of other offers. Our flight to Brazil was only 40,000 miles each. The catch was that the return trip was horrible. We were to fly GRU to DFW, stay there 12 hours, then fly to SFO, where we were to spend the night before flying home the next day in the afternoon. But, wisely, I went to the AA offices at the GRU airport, pointed out the lousy schedule, and got us rerouted directly home after going through customs at DFW. Not bad. But this post isn't about that anyway. On my United Mileage Plus page there was an offer of 50,000 miles for opening an Explorer credit card. Usually it is only 30,000, and the account I previously had opened, (and closed) only offered me 25,000 miles. So, I figured that they must want me back to offer me 50,000 miles. I was wrong. They let me open the account, spend the $2000 in qualifying purchases, and then denied me the 50,000 miles on the grounds that I had previously been rewarded when I opened the first account. Well, of course I protested, and they responded by citing the rule that only one offer was good in a 2 year period and I had had mine. So I wrote back and said, yes, but! You only gave me 25,000 miles, and now you are offering 50,000. You should at least give me the extra 25,000 so that I, too, got a total of 50,000 miles. They wrote back- I didn't fight this by email- and said okay, we will make an exception and give you the extra 25,000 miles. You know, that's often good for a free coach ticket domestically, nothing to sneeze at, right? So now my bank and I are on good terms again, and now I need to plan another trip. It goes to show that you shouldn't always take the first rejection!

Amazing and wonderful pictures. The H and I flew to Siem Reap a few years ago and really liked the place, as well as Angkor Wat. Lurkerspeaks, good ol' Wikipedia tells us: Angkor (Khmer: អង្គរ or នគរ, "Capital City")[1][2] is a region of Cambodia that served as the seat of the Khmer Empire, which flourished from approximately the 9th to 15th centuries. The word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit nagara (नगर), meaning "city".[3] The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a "universal monarch" and "god-king", and lasted until the late 14th century, first falling under Ayutthayan suzerainty in 1351. A Khmer rebellion resulted in the 1431 sacking of Angkor by Ayutthaya, causing its population to migrate south to Longvek. The ruins of Angkor are located amid forests and farmland to the north of the Great Lake (Tonlé Sap) and south of the Kulen Hills, near modern-day Siem Reap city (13°24′N, 103°51′E), in Siem Reap Province. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together, they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture. Visitor numbers approach two million annually, and the entire expanse, including Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom is collectively protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This popularity of the site among tourists presents multiple challenges to the preservation of the ruins. In 2007, an international team of researchers using satellite photographs and other modern techniques concluded that Angkor had been the largest preindustrial city in the world, with an elaborate infrastructure system connecting an urban sprawl of at least 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi) to the well-known temples at its core.[4] The closest rival to Angkor, the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, was between 100 and 150 square kilometres (39 and 58 sq mi) in total size.[5] Although its population remains a topic of research and debate, newly identified agricultural systems in the Angkor area may have supported up to one million people.[6]

I like Breaking Bad a lot, but I wait until the end of the season to watch them one after the other. So, I don't want to know what happens!

This morning I watched Cheyenne Jackson masturbate to orgasm. If there was any doubt it was him, he showed his face at the end. But now it can't be found. It's disappeared both from the site I viewed it on as well as Perez Hilton's. In case you are wondering, his dick is not all that big, but the orgasm was plentiful!

You didn't know that I speak with a lisp? Thanks for the correction!

I thought you guys weren't going to do spoilers!

And nothing here about the reports of Zac entering rehab earlier this year for coke and alcohol problems. (See NY Post: http://pagesix.com/2013/09/17/zac-efron-went-to-rehab-for-booze-coke-reports/) Let's hope the rehab worked.

I like to read reports that members post about their travels. Tomcal has done Rio and Brazil due honors, and it would be folly to try to imitate him. Likewise with Oz. Just take notice of his posting today about taking the train to Cambodia! Others too offer good reports. I just don't feel up to the competition. So my trip to Rio last week would start by thanking tomcal and lurkerspeaks for encouraging me to use rioapartmentrentals.com. They put my husband and I into a good 2BR apartment with an ocean view (Okay, you had to stick your head out the window to see it) in an area above the Copacabana Palace and a ten minute walk to Cardeal Arcoverde Metro station. There was an abundance of groceries in the area, and staying in an apartment gave us more of a feel for living there. We enjoyed our favorite restaurants: Bella Blue, Sequiera Grill in particular, as well as a downtown visit to the historic Confeiteria Colombo, which took us back in time to enjoy a meal with long-dead cariocas! Yes, we went to the saunas. Club 117 is no longer the top one, in our opinion. In the past, I have always liked it. We went on two occasions, and both nights had a completely different cast of boys with an exception or two. But these guys know their value, and it was rare to hear an offer below R100. The H went with a guy, had a great time for the agreed price, and then was stunned when he had dressed and the boy hit him up for another 50. It's always been common that guys try to get a little more money, or a drink, but after the fact trying to raise the price was a new one for us. We did say no. The main difference I noted in Club 117 was rudeness on the part of the boys. They would push their way through a crowd, or run up/down that narrow staircase without regard to anyone in their way. For the first time, I felt that the front desk was rude. In general, I think Club 117 has too much attitude. You might think that too if you went to Meo Mundo, where attitude and rudeness are almost unheard of. I had never been there before, and my first visit felt a bit overwhelming as it was so crowded on a Monday free cabin night. Once I relaxed a bit, it seemed to be a very friendly place, and prices were back in the 60 to 80 range. And what beautiful guys! An angelic looking fellow showed up at the right time to make my night a success. The H was having his own 7th heaven, and we left quite satisfied. I skipped free cabin night at Club 117 on Tuesday as I just didn't want to deal with the crowds, and H says they were big crowds and the place was so warm he couldn't wait to leave. Not that he would leave too soon. We tried Meo Mundo again on a Wednesday night and were disappointed at how quiet it was. That was foolish of us as it soon became crowded again, and we were now among familiar faces. H met a guy whose name seemed to be Haka, and this guy was the toast of the town. What a personality! I am told his dick is enormous too. We had originally intended to go to Meo Mundo on Saturday night. I followed instructions here and took a taxi there, but somehow the address I had read here said 118 Teofilo whatever, when the actual address is 18. So we instead went to Point 202, always my least favorite sauna. But this particular night was really good. Lots of muscle boys, but not the 117 attitude. I must have gone with the only non-muscle boy there, but we had a great time. Everyone was quite friendly, and the woman working the desk was a great improvement over the stuck up guy they used to have. We took a night off and went to Ipanema for some shopping. We had been there on Sunday as well for the Hippy Fair. We also went touring downtown. On Friday we flew to Porto Alegre, where we stayed at the new Cosmopolitan Palace hotel. It was nice, and any worries as to whether boys are allowed in the room abated when we saw that the lobby had several women of the night hanging out. The only "male of the night" I saw was very cute, but wore makeup to enhance his looks. We went to Porto Alegre because the Rock in Rio Festival was beginning, drawing some one million people to Rio. I didn't want to deal with the crowds so flew south as a previous visit there with tomcal was quite a success. I learned (hard) the value of having tomcal around at a sauna. He knows everyone! But the two of us (H and I) found it much harder to penetrate (figuratively) the local crowd. Essentially, the boys didn't give us much of a chance, and so many of them seemed to be taken already, especially the cutest ones. That left slim pickings, but doable. We were told that many of the guys might be in Rio for the Festival- just my luck. But both nights we went to Mixx bar after the sauna and enjoyed the colorful crowd there a lot. Shopping was also fun, and the Thomas Pub provided one of the best meals I have ever had. (It wasn't Pub food either!) One incident that hurt my view of Mezzaninu Sauna was the adding of a cabin charge to the bill. It took me a minute to realize it, so when I spoke up the desk clerk said it was too late to protest it as he had already run the charge. So, I asked to speak to Roy, the owner whom we had met last year. The clerk was quite surprised at that, but said he wasn't in. Nonetheless, the irreversible charge was refunded once the owner's name came up. Innocent mistake on the bill? Sure, why not? We had a good flight back, but are now jet-lagged, but satisfied. You'll note that I have no pictures, and what happened with me and certain young men at the saunas will stay between us. As much as I enjoy reading others' stories, mine always retain a few facts just for myself! Sorry!

I followed the lead of others here who used rioapartmentrentals.com.

Andy Towle at the blog towleroad.com reports" Gay Teen Novel 'Two Boys Kissing' Makes National Book Award Longlist for Young People's LiteratureThe National Book Awards released its longlists today for Young People's Literature and Poetry. Among those up for the award in Young People's Lit is David Levithan's gay teen novel Two Boys Kissing. Levithan's novel interweaves the stories of a number of gay teens, foremost among them one couple who decides to break the world record for longest kiss. Wrote the L.A. Times' Louis Bayard of the book: Levithan interweaves all these players with surgical skill and with an unabashed attention to bodies. If the book's title doesn't get it banned from a thousand school libraries, its frankness will: "Peter lingers his hand down Neil's back, slips his fingers beneath his waistband, rests on the skin there, the heat. Neil moves in the opposite direction, his hand rising under the back of Peter's shirt, between his shoulder blades. ... Neil touches the nape of his neck, then slowly retreats back down, fingernails raking skin…." What sets this book apart from Levithan's previous work (including the charming "Will Grayson, Will Grayson," co-written by John Green) is its yearning for tragedy. For brooding over these youths is a Greek chorus of ghosts: the generation of gay men who lived and loved and died in the first onslaught of AIDS. "We are your shadow uncles," they declare, "your angel godfathers, your mother's or your grandfather's best friend from college, the author of that book you found in the gay section of the library." Among those longlisted in Poetry is Frank Bidart's Metaphysical Dog. Towleroad book critic Garth Greenwell praised the book in a review earlier this year. For nearly half a century, Frank Bidart has been obsessed by a single theme. In this brilliant new collection, he calls it “hunger for the absolute”: our seemingly inescapable need for purity and perfection, for some significance that transcends the organic. Whether this hunger leads to philosophy or religion, politics or love or art, it both instills our lives with meaning and makes them intolerable. ...I’ve been reading Bidart for more than half my life, and with this new collection I feel again how much his work has become crucial to my sense not just of poetry but of my own "ordinary divided unsimple heart." Bidart’s work is one of the unfolding wonders of the literature of our time. Read this book. Posted Sep. 17,2013 at 6:00 PM EST by Andy Towle in Awards, Books, David Levithan, Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/#ixzz2fC0ysLwn (For some reason, propriety perhaps, the boytoy software will not permit me to post a picture of the book.)

Last Friday I was able to change dollars for Reais at the rate of 2.35, and today at the rate of 2.30 I could not find a good rate for my traveler checks, with flat out refusing them and the other offering only 1.80. Still, Rio feels much cheaper than it did on my last visit.

Would cheep e-books be designed for little chicks to read Easter stories?

Since I first saw this post, I have been stretching my mind, using both cylinders, trying to think of a time when Oz might have had a public disagreement with someone. I can't come up with one! Isn't that amazing that a guy with so many posts is so calm and collected all the time? And kitty claws? I so doubt that! But I do see where it can be hard to be both a poster and an admin. I'd have a separate name for one of them.

I guess when it is in an Arts & Literature forum, the idea of two boys kissing loses some sexuality. So I thought I might juice it up a bit with pix of...

Great video! Thanks, Townsend P. Locke. Were you in Melbourne for the paper convention?

Eric Bana is gorgeous in this movie, where he stars with Rebecca Hall in a legal thriller about defending a terrorist in the post 9-11 age. Reviews are mixed, and it is definitely flawed as well as fatalistic. I would recommend it for the small screen, but I did enjoy it and thought most of it was well done. It's unsettling, and that may account for some of the less stellar reviews, but it does raise important questions and was easy on the eyes with Eric Bana as well as the London scenery. Slate: "But there are enough genuine moments of surprise to make this genre exercise an invigorating one." NY Times: "“Closed Circuit,” a slick, tasty slice of late-summer nonsense from Britain, comes soaked in gunmetal blue and paranoia. The anxiety is well founded: they’re watching us. A lot — especially through the ubiquitous closed-circuit television cameras that dot London like neighborhood constables or plague sores, depending on your view of life in the surveillance state. Millions of these cameras watch over Britain, at least half of which seem as if they’d been tapped for this movie to lord down from lampposts and buildings over the little people below, including a concerned-looking yet manly Eric Bana and an equally fretful, fetching Rebecca Hall." LA Times: ""Closed Circuit" is a crisply enjoyable, professionally executed paranoid thriller of the "everyone is out to get us" variety. In an earlier, simpler day, its plotting would have been dismissed as far-fetched, but that was then and this is now."

When did he become Edward? Are the two of you personal friends? Do you know him at all? Why the first name basis?

I agree with EXPAT on this partisan rhetoric, but it's a fact that the British and the American people have tired of Mideast wars. And they should be. It may come at some cost to the Syrian rebels, but frankly, they aren't exactly our allies. This entire country has been anti-American and helping stir shit in the MidEast, and now the chickens come home to roost. I abhor chemical warfare, but a few bombs after the fact that seems to be the Obama plan isn't going to help. We need a rest and a recovery here before we can help other countries in the Mideast.

Isn't it interesting that the Pope can now be credited as a credible world leader again? Not to say all is well, but it's sure a breath of fresh air. But then, who am I to judge?

The LA Times today has an interesting review of novelist David Levithan's new book, Two Boys Kissing. It gives us a good look at the novel, but also tells us about a previous novel he wrote, Boy Meets Boy: http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-david-levithan-20130901,0,2856052.story But, at only 208 pages, is it a novel or a short story? Well, if it's interesting, then it doesn't much matter.