Lucky

Many review sites will remove bad reviews at the request of the advertiser. I hadn't noticed this with Amazon, as they seem to have many bad reviews on books that stay up. Yelp is known for taking away bad reviews when the company buys ads.

Merry Christmas to all, and many thanks to Totally Oz and Tampa Yankee for managing the premises. Since everyone is adding pictures, I'll go one better. Here, for the first time ever on the internet, is a picture of Lucky, taken on the occasion of his very first visit to New York City!

Hectoring...browbeating...encouraging? It's all semantics. My point is that the sometime posters and the lurkers come here and they want content to read. And I am one of the biggest content contributors, certainly not the only one. But I like to have content here to read when I come here too. If you don't see this as a community forum where we share the responsibility to keep the place lively, then I am in the wrong place and might as well stick to installing Roku devices. If it bothers you so much to be reminded that you have to contribute as well as take, then I might as well spend my time installing Roku devices. Of course people have other things to do and may not have the same interest in the forum as the bigger content contributors do. But at least this thread has people thinking about what they expect when they come here, why they post and whether the place is important to them. If the conclusion reached is that you would miss it if it weren't here, then the logical conclusion seems to be that you need to do your part to keep the place going. Okay, Lookin? Cameo complete? On to the New Year.

Everyone can have their own opinion on the best way to get new members, but when stating them, please mention which ones you have personally tried and how they have worked for you. For me, every once in a while I get tired of internet posting. I see the same people all of the time, nothing new happens. It always seems that I am one of the top posters of the day, and I would like to see others have that honor more often. So, I am going on holiday to try some new things, perhaps my newly hooked up Roku. In the meantime, enjoy posting. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukkah, and Happy New year. See you in 2012.

My comments are not directed at regular posters here, folks like you who have been with the site since the beginning and have made real contributions. Right now there are 115 "guests" online. I am speaking to them.

This from the guy who tries to get catfights going? You will soon have top billing for most posts of the day, I hope you make good use of it.

More of a ridiculous question, RA1. If they didn't feel welcome to post before, why would stating the facts make them feel any differently? The point is that if they want to continue coming here and finding something interesting to read, the free ride is over, at least as far as I am concerned. One can tell that I am just tired of it. Some of these lurkers- you know who you are-post at Daddy's, but cannot figure out how to post here. Right, Sam?

You ask an important question, BiBottomBoy. Posting definitely seems down. I re-posted the August Challenge to remind folk that we could not take things for granted. If we want a viable and interesting forum, then we have to make it so. That post died a very sudden death. We have 100's of lurkers, as evidenced by the occasional record number of posters online at once. But they are not really posters, they are parasites. They come here to read the reviews and forum posts that the rest of us have contributed, take whatever enjoyment they can from them, and move on, not contributing a shred of info themselves. I am tired of entertaining these drolls. If they want this website to be there for their enjoyment, then it's high time they got off their asses and started posting. I am tired of looking at the list of top posters and seeing the same names all of the time. Yesterday I was in the lead for a while with only 5 posts. That's just pathetic. I recognize that for many of us, life intervenes. Other obligations arise. But, if you are dedicated to keeping this site viable, then you have to have a plan, a plan to actually make time to post each day. IN 2009, a contest was held to reward a prolific poster. He took his prize of $1500 and then relatively disappeared. Okay, yes, he followed the rules. But many of us looked up to him as an example. If a prize winner cannot stick with the site, what hope is there for the rest of us? My New Year's resolution will be to reduce my facetime at Male Escort Review. Perhaps if others could not count on production from some of us regulars, they might take it up themselves- not that I have high hopes. We have tried the carrot for some time, gently prodding folks to get involved. Well, it's time for more than that. If you want the site, then do your goddamn part.

I have found treats hat are made in the USA, but they are hard to find. Most stores carry only Made in China treats. The packaging looks nice and American, but...

In case anyone read this, I did finally visit the Ultimate Rewards page for this card, and see that there are only 8 loyalty programs to which you can transfer points, United being one. I also tried booking a hotel on the site, and then booking it at Expedia. The Ultimate Rewards site charged $10 a night more. So not as good as on first look.

We know that the Chinese love to put lead in children's toys, so why should we trust them with our little doggies? It's virtually impossible to find dog food these days that is not made in China...well, at least dog treats. When I see my kids getting so excited as I whip out the moo-shoo-bark treats, I worry if I might not be slowly killing them. Then the Chinese would probably import their dead carcasses back to Beijing to serve as some delicacy at a State Dinner invoking Mao. How did we let China obtain control of our dog food, and thus, our dogs? Especially once you know this: China Pet Policies

It would be great if you could join us. Has Oz confirmed already? We got free tix on AA for 40,000 miles each. Such a bargain, I know.

I thought I had posted on this, so please stop reading if I have. I have opted out of credit card mailings, which is right now to my regret. The bf gets them all of the time. He got one from Chase Sapphire offering 35,000 frequent flier miles. Then, a week later, they upped it to 50,000 miles, so we took that offer. No foreign exchange charges either, and they waive the annual fee the first year. I could get that card online, but would have to spend $3000 in first 3 months to get the 50,000 miles. He got them after his/my first purchase. What's even better is that they are not exactly 50,000 miles. He can use them for those, yes, but he can also use them to take $500 off his bill. I haven't gone to ultimaterewards.com to see all of the benefits yet. I do understand that he can apply the miles to any frequent flier account he chooses to...or, hehehe, I choose to. But I am canceling my AAdvantage card since they were so rude when I was in New York. I got 4 alerts about an $87 charge. So, after 11 pm, I spoke for 20 minutes with some guy in India, convincing him that I was the authorized user of the card. When done, he said I then had to call yet another number and enter a PIN that he would give me. I said, no, I am going to bed. What I will do is tear up the card and never use it again. And I did so. So, now I need a new card. I am ineligible for the Delta AMEX bonus since I already had it once. The United card I have with Chase is not so good now that they have the Explorer, which, among other things, allow free bag check. They are giving 40,000 miles to new customers, but existing ones get only 5,000 and no fee waiver. I like the free bag check though. We get it on Delta through the BF's AMEX card. So, who is up on all of the new offers? I hear I just missed one on British Airways giving away 100,000 miles. Hopefully none of you have signed up for the WalMart card with its $20 signing bonus! (One way to check offers, but I heard that with an invite you can get as many as 100,000 miles from Citi. https://creditcards.citi.com/credit-cards/view-all-credit-cards/)

No, they actually do want the password to the router. I guess that they need it to access it. So I was smart enough, hehe, to figure out finally how to log-in to the router. I did so, and then changed the password. Did Roku then take the new one? Get real! Somewhere back in an old router I must have created a password that I no longer remember. But, even if I did, changing it now should overrule any older one...or so you'd think.

Today's news: I went to TW to get a new modem and return the old box. It took about one minute! I connected the new modem- no problem! I connected the router- minor problems! But better signal to 2d computer,for sure. Plus, my internet connection to the PC is now blazing fast compared to the old box. Problem: Roku recognizes the new wireless, but still will not accept the password. This is odd because the new wireless did not ask me to establish a password. Even the default password does not work.

The Lucky Promise: All hookups will be successfully finished today! Well, not the man on man ones...

Apparently they waited two days to announce the death. Isn't his son a little cutie? I just want to grab those love handles and poke some sense into him.

So glad to be of help! I have been both in the park and near the Chain Bridge. The park made me want to stay, the Bridge allowed only temporary comfort!

Did the author get this right? Have you felt this in a foreign city that seems to have charms your hometown does not? "I waited on a park bench under the shades of some trees in the nearby Blahtpark, just a harmless-looking tourist taking in the sights and sounds and smells, savoring the sense of loneliness and freedom that comes from solitary sojourns in strange lands, where all the everyday things seem subtly wondrous and different and new, where there's no one to please or disappoint or explain to, or where the traveler finds himself suspended between the beguilement of the comforts he left behind, and the allure of an imaginary future he senses but knows he can never really have."

What? They are not both in English?

Lookin was kind enough to help me realize that I did indeed have an ethernet port. It just wasn't yellow. The Netgear cord is bright yellow and inserts into a bright yellow plug, so I thought these things were all color coordinated. My wireless router from TW is also my modem, so if I unhook the router, I also unhook the modem, and then have no internet access. I first need to return the box to TW, get my modem back...no, I didn't say my mojo....and then start all over again. My new router will have a password that Roku can recognize, and we will have better range too. All will end well!

I still wonder what the title of this thread is supposed to say: Rick Perry's Gay Partners Come Out Of The Woodwork Who came out to speak on Rick, I mean, really came out names, dates, places? What specific gay acts occurred and were revealed by these people? What woodwork did they come from? Did they stay out or return to hiding? Why were they hiding? Are they making themselves available to the press for follow-up interviews? And, finally, is the sum and substance of what these woodwork-free individuals have to say enough to conclusively determine that Perry is gay? And, if so, why is he till in the race?

Shameless is on Sunday nights at 10 on Showtime, not that I have seen it yet. Here is a Wikipedia link with lots of info on the show: OZ Loves This Show

In today's adventure,I returned to Best Buy, where I easily found my salesman. He then tried to sell me an ethernet card with a port on it. Well, I do remember buying ethernet cards for the computers. So he said I had all I wanted. ( Turns out I was wrong about not having an ethernet port. It just isn't yellow.) But what about the computer I want to send the signal to? The router box has nothing to attach to the computer so it can receive the signal. So, he sold me that, sent me home, telling me it wasn't rocket science, but if I couldn't hook it up, their Geek Squad would. The new router has no place to afix the cable cord, which the current router does. So now I realize, or think I do, that when Time Warner brought its router here, that their box is a modem and router combo, or so it seems, because if I return this box to TW, I have no modem to connect the router to. Isn't the modem the thing that TW gives you to hook up to our computer so that you can get their internet? I remember a little brown box. Well, I don't have that anymore. So, I called the geek Squad to come help. They said that I had to come into the store to hire them. I said, you mean a third trip to the store? If I have to do that, I will simply return everything we bought and hire someone else do do the job. Lookin, I was not making the mistakes you mentioned. I did erase the marks and did not enter into the Google search bar. Nor did I choke the chickens. I appreciate all of the advice, but it does seem that I cannot get this ship righted. Meantime, the neighbor whose unsecured router we snuck on last night wised up. It's now secured!

Thanks, Lookin. it has actually gotten more complicated now. Since I have reset the router, it has no password other than the so-called default password that doesn't work. I am unable to log in and change it, since the 3 addresses provided me by SMC do not work. I want to get rid of the Time Warner router anyway. The Netgear router I bought yesterday cost $80. The TW router costs $10- per month! I have probably already paid over $200 for it, yet don't even own it! So, the plan is to get a router that does not require an ethernet port, enter a brand new password, see if Roku will accept that password, and, if so, then I am in business. The David Ignatius book was one of those "couldn't put it down" kind. I stayed up to midnight to finish it. Even 15 years later it is timely.