Lucky

"CharliePS" cannot be Googled. Try it! But be exact.

No longer will photos be able to tell a lie. A scientist is working on a system to determine which photos have been altered, and by how much. Could dick sizes become more realistic? Will pecs shrink on our top male models? Will butts no longer be perfect on certain porn stars? Read on! Truth in Photos

My week was about 7 days too much! Michelle Williams may have played the character of Marilyn very well, but geez, what insufferable insecurities! I have never understood the appeal of Marilyn Monroe and this movie did nothing to help me out. Most men want to kiss her, I just wanted to slap her. The cute Eddie Redmayne, who I saw on Broadway with Alfred Molina in Red, where he was just fantastic, proves his acting chops again in this movie. Except for the part about wanting Marilyn...he must really be acting! The sets and scenery are beautiful, Judi Dench delightful in a small role, but Marilyn is so annoying the movie is hard to sit through. (Sorry, the title is My Week with Marilyn. I guess I was trying to shorten it when I wrote the heading.)

Google has changed the world, as well as Wikipedia and other info resources. One can sit at dinner and disagree on something, while the other discreetly checks his smart phone to Google the true answer in seconds. Takes some of the fun out of it, but then one never has to come to blows anymore!

If you give credence to Wikipedia, and I do, here is what they have to say: Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth Nations. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but some non-retail employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,[1] although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,[2] have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.[3] The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.[4] Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black".[5]... (Posted simultaneously with bibottomboy's post)

I am not sure how much reading you do, but I know that I read a lot. I did read the book from which this movie is made, and decided I could skip the others in the series. I have no desire to see the movie. In short, this is, to me, the most over-hyped book to come along in ages. There are plenty of gay friendly novels out there, you just have to be on the outlook for them. The Art of Fielding is one that comes quickly to mind.

A consortium of my friends and I just bought the company that tomcal works for. We are ordering him to spend 100% of his time on the road, and providing him with the ultimate in secret cameras. His first trip is to Denmark, then over to Cambodia and Laos, and finally some R&R in Des Moines. I have assigned myself to his previous routes to Brazil and Prague!

From the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, we learn that the new owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team is gay: It's news because not many in the world of professional sports are out: Gay Warrior

It has been some years ago, but one time a newly discovered friend of mine took me to the Suriwong Hotel in Bangkok, known for its clean rooms that rented out for short periods of time. As we stood waiting for a room to clear, we saw a Japanese businessman, in suit and tie in the nightime heat, waiting with two newly found female friends. He seemed very content, and I'll bet that's what the Japanese women said about Casteran!

Articles from today’s Sunday New York Times that have some particular interest for the gay reader, and not in order of importance! In Weddings, we see the cutest story of the day: Alexander Mackay-Smith Kempson and Zachary Clayton Altman, both baritones, were married Saturday evening at the Tribeca Rooftop, an event space in New York. Dona D. Vaughn, a Universal Life minister who taught them in the opera program at the Manhattan School of Music, officiated. The couple met in 2007 at the music school, from which Mr. Altman graduated and from which both received master’s degrees in voice. (Among the biographical details, we learn that Mr. Kempson’s father is a senior tax counsel for General Electric. He must be pretty good. Wasn’t GE noted recently for paying zero taxes?) Our story ends with this: The couple began dating in 2008, a year after they met. The next year they appeared in a Manhattan School of Music production of “Die Fledermaus,” directed by Ms. Vaughn. Mr. Altman sang the part of Dr. Falke and Mr. Kempson Gabriel von Eisenstein (normally a tenor part). Both characters were vying for the affection of Rosalinde. In real life, Mr. Altman recalled, “we were pretty entrenched in our relationship at that point.” He said that Ms. Vaughn lightheartedly reminded them, “You need to make gaga eyes at Rosalinde, and not each other.” (The other gay couple who received a Times announcement today was also married by a friend who had become a Universal Life minister for the occasion.) Cute Wedded Baritones THE SUNDAY Review includes an article by a woman who stayed married to her husband for nine years after he announced that he was gay. They thought they were doing it for the children, but, as she notes: “We thought they didn’t notice any change, and we were mistaken. Secrets have a way of seeping into the atmosphere. Kids are natural observers. They watch parents like hawks, and they know when something is wrong, even if they don’t know what. I desperately wanted the charade to work at home — we were doing this for the children.” The sad conclusion of the article is: “When they finally learned the truth, our sons were more disturbed by our deception than by the facts. Our reasons didn’t seem to matter anymore. Truth trumps lies every time.” Article on Parents' Secret Another piece in the Sunday Review begins: “JUST before Christmas in 1952, J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the F.B.I., let President Dwight D. Eisenhower know that the man Eisenhower had appointed as secretary to the president, his friend and chief of staff, my godfather, Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr., was a homosexual.” Whereupon Mr. Vandeberg’s gay godson writes of the damage the possibly closeted Hoover did to the closeted godfather (and no doubt, countless other gay men and their families.). It’s worth reading in whole: Hoover's Gay Damages It’s not a column on a gay subject, but The Haggler, a columnist who purports to solve problems for individual consumers, takes up the subject of a site that posts reviews of consumer opinions on car transportation companies. The site receives all of its revenue from those very companies, so its fairness is called into question. Other review sites have been criticized for removing bad reviews when the offended company bought advertising on the site. Good thing this doesn’t happen with escort review sites! The Arts & Leisure section headlines with “Switched at Rebirth,” a story of the new version of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, opening soon on Broadway with Harry Connick, Jr. The gist is that the new show switches the character Daisy with one named Davie. It didn’t interest me either. You Can See Gay Forever If you are a fan of cute Irish actor Cillian Murphy, you may be happy to learn that you can see him up lose and personal in his new one-man show Misterman, opening Wednesday for a three week engagement at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Article on Murphy Show Did you see something of interest in your Sunday paper? Post it right here,if you choose. After all, this is NOT the Lucky Reader!

I hope that you visited the Liberace home in Palm Springs. It can be noted by the lamp chandeliers at the entrance.

Karzai must have had a fit over the Pakistani raid. He has said in a war between Pakistan and the US he would support Pakistan. It's that kind of gratitude that prevails in Afghanistan and makes me think we should never have entered the area.

Did the hotel price go down from your previous stay at the Crowne Plaza? Thanks for the report, I enjoyed it.

:...(It's acutally funny but very violent and cynical.I In that novel he just happened to mention at times the various economic problems befalling London." Geez, I need a proofreader. It's "actually" and the problems were befalling "Ireland" not London, although there are certain similarities. And I totally missed Lookin's comment that it was his gayness that he loathed, not himself, although it seems to me that they are rather intertwined. If people wore the pictured clothing to a salon in Palm Springs I think it would be a rather short meeting!

Do they own any strip bars on St. Catherine Street?

I actually liked Green Lantern. Well, I liked Ryan.

Lookin, I had just finished a novel by the Irish writer Ken Bruen called Headstone. (It's acutally funny but very violent and cynical.I In that novel he just happened to mention at times the various economic problems befalling London. I recommend the novel to anyone who likes dry wit and can handle some big-time violence! It also helps to be a cynic. Anyway, the writing is just vicious. So, after that, I wanted to know more about this Irish Economy, so I went to Google and found this interview. And that's how it happened! Maybe should have saved it for the Lucky Reader.

British film director Terence Davies has this to say in today's Irish Times: “Being gay has ruined my life!” he nearly shouts. “I hate it. I’ll go to my grave hating it. Which is why I have been celibate. One-night stands are not for me. I was not good looking. I did not have a good body. Nobody was interested when I was young. Now I am old. I am still not good looking. I know what I am. I will always loathe it. It has killed part of my soul.” Reading the interview with him, he does seem to be an unpleasant sort, but interesting: Interview with self-loathing director

Signing up just today is AdorkableJ. I know nothing about him, except that it is an interesting name. Is he adorable? Is he an adorable dork? Both? I hope he tells us!

So those greeters at WalMart have been cast, not hired? Surely then they are cast for their white hair, just as the A&F boys are cast for their white pecs. SAG cards anyone?

It took a lot of googling, but I finally found an Asian greeter at A&E: Does he meet the right image?

A Google on the topic resulted in multiple instances of lawsuits being filed against this company for racism. "In a 2004 lawsuit González v. Abercrombie & Fitch, the company was accused of discriminating against African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and women by preferentially offering floor sales positions (called Brand Representatives or Models) and store management positions to whites and men.[65] The company agreed to a settlement of the class-action suit, which required the company to (1) pay $4 million to African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and women who applied and were not hired or worked in certain store positions, (2) revise its hiring, performance measurement, and promotion policies, (3) revise its internal complaint procedures, (4) appoint a Vice President of Diversity, (5) hire 25 recruiters to seek out minority applicants, (6) discontinue the practice of recruiting employees at primarily white fraternities and sororities, (7) include more minorities in marketing materials, (8) report to a neutral court-appointed monitor twice per year regarding its progress in those areas, and (9) report to the court once per year.[16][18] Now, of course if FourAces is right, they wouldn't have agreed to diddlysquat (sp?) But, even after the agreement above, their face is almost entirely white. Lots of good those 25 recruiters did! Here's a lighter look at A&E: Nude Clothes

I first saw these pics at towleroad.com, a gay blog. There, some commenters note the lack of color, but others ask why A&F should add any color. The latter seem unaware of laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring. How would you like to be a young man who shops at A&F, say, a young Asian man? You've got their products, but they show an ad with the Abercrombie boys and there is not an Asian face in the crowd. Hopefully, the young Asian man will quit shopping there. But no doubt A&F is telling him that he is NOT an Abercrombie boy. In our designer driven society, that is quite the putdown, at least for a young man.

Sure looks like it is going to be a White Christmas!

"no new taxes to pay for it," Staying on topic as far as the no new taxes thing, I got a flyer in the mail from some dipshit state representative. Oh, he's my state rep! He's complaining that the courts have ordered the state prisons to release prisoners due to overcrowding. He wants that stopped. But these same people don't want to pay for more prisons, or for better care, better training for better corrections officers and better parole officers, why even more of them too. Judges salaries are smaller than most experienced lawyers make. There is a whole campaign to reduce pension and health benefits for government employees. Yet when the consequence of that hits home, they just yell and scream. No practical ideas for how to solve the problem of prison overcrowding. No asking themselves why they were so gung ho to put more people in prisons. So,okay then, keep those prisons stuffed to the gills, with bad food, bad conditions, bad healthcare, lazy and corrupt guards (no, not all of them), and gangs that unite in the prison yard and carry out their membership on the streets when they get out. There are no free lunches.