Riobard

If you personally benefit by saving money staying in a cheaper place I can see deviating from your stomping grounds. I and others here have stayed in hotels not too far n/w from Lagoa, east of the park (Iberapuera?). I think mine was a Days Inn about a 10 minute walk west on the same street as Lagoa. Adequate. But I prefer Jardim/Paulista ... and pretty quick to the Metro near Lagoa. If you are fully expensed, I recommend remaining in your familiar zone.

I have always had a thing for Josh Duhamel. Now greying a little. Mm mm mm. Enjoyed the clever plot twists and turns and surprise ending.

Just starting S4. So many programs with which to keep up. And I am sucked into discovering what new version of the quirky little pigtail Maestro pulls off?

I must be less cynical. I think the message is that there have recently been hundreds of YF cases clustered in a relatively small area of Brazil, considering the immensity of the country. 10% of these have died, some of them foreign travellers. The country has been trying to arrange large-scale vaccination. Vaccination is the lowest common denominator for individual prevention and to ward off an urban outbreak, because urban spread of YF mimics the transmission patterns of Zika, Chikungunya, and dengue ... human to human via mosquito. There are enough red flags to suggest that many of the preliminary conditions for the first major urban outbreak in 90 years have been reached. Vaccination as prevention is one person at a time. It is two-pronged in that it protects you and you cannot be the source of another's exposure. Simple math, N of 1, multiply by a lot, factor in our good fortune in terms of access compared to inhabitants of the African continent.

Things change quickly ... CDC just recommended vaccination for visitors to anywhere in Brazil.

I got the vaccination last Fall (non-fractionated) prior to travel to Minas Gerais. A significant proportion of new infections in SP state have occurred within 15 kms of SP city; a significant proportion in RJ state occurred in Teresopolis area, within 100 kms of RdeJ city. Not a bad idea to get inoculated, as high density pop areas are hot zones if and when YF is introduced. Having had 2 subtypes of dengue, I have a great deal of respect for Aedes Aegypti buggers. Currently, the odds of exposure remain low but can be deadly.

His new standup special "Humanity" now on Netflix. He has still got it.

I also get a kick out of the way some react emojis are employed, a sidekick that is ... right out of the Rosencrantz-Guildenstern playbook.

Point taken, but if you read between the lines I avoided saying something much ruder to anyone bellyaching about not having the "type" they prefer for sex. If you don't grasp that I am suggesting it is silly to complain about the proportions of skin tones when there are other harsher realities, that is a lesser problem for me than if I were to use more direct finger-wagging. But, thanks, in the end I still managed the roundabout way. I also don't completely get some of what is written here, but I don't mind a brain-twister here and there.

Single-origin out-of-Africa theory makes us all more the same, physical features irrelevant, than these staggering variations in product economics.

Of course you mean blood, tartegogo, because one drop of my panties is also not a rule I could follow there.

I agree there is a selection of Caucasian DNA and/or predominantly Caucasian admixture chaps in all the saunas I have visited in Rio, SP, BHz, PA, Fortaleza, and Salvador. Though my last time in Bahia dates back 2 years. One of my faves at 117 was incontrovertibly white thru and thru but quit a year ago. There are relatives by marriage in my family who are fair-skinned blue-eyed blondes, yet 1/4 Senegalese. There is a set of 1st cousins at 117, one a gorgeous mulatto/moreno, the other could pass for a Windsor (and he speaks English due to apprenticeship in a Commonwealth country). Though none of this is a stretch.

I'd have thought a club server would be more receptive to being induced to let you gorge ta on his picle, or at least laugh it off.

You can obtain a SIM chip and contract at a service centre without a CPF. Many of you know this. I have used day pass, one-month, and longer-duration gym memberships without a CPF, but paying the total up-front obviously. Interesting to learn of the airfare variance, though as a foreigner I have found the regular domestic fares to be quite reasonable. I appreciate learning about the steps to obtain a CPF. Does not hurt to have one, particularly if purchasing local bus, airline, entertainment events, etc online.

Food waiters and tipping ... I consistently see a 10% service charge on the bill. It is not sales tax. When I ask if it is a propina I get an affirmative answer. The wireless credit card gadgets do not have a gratuity step like in my home country. I thought that absence reinforced the idea that the 10% is an add-on benefiitting the server. I could be wrong, but I thought this 10% practice operates for meals as well as bar drinks without food. But if the 10% is essentially base wages I would possibly change my custom and tip a meal server above it.

Re: STI "occurrence", we all have the same access to research abstracts and papers. No need to hit the CDC library for the latest meta-analysis. Bear in mind that incidence or prevalence rates are not the same as transmission rates. One of the skull or groin lozenges you suck has a reasonable probability for containing STI viral or bacterial particles. There are many co-factors that determine whether you will have been gifted with them by the light of subsequent days. You have to make precaution decisions based on what is theoretically possible. I just want to suggest accessing any clinical prevention remedy that exists. The rest is discretionary behaviour.

I have logged several months overall of living within a 10-minute walking distance to the Gloria/CandidoDeMendes intersection without incident. I tend to feel more on guard walking from Tonelero up Siqueira Campos to 202, likely because there is theoretically more foot traffic between the favela and the Metro station, and later at night there is a short span without much of a sidewalk crowd. Car hijackings do occur in the city, but the chances overall are obviously quite low. When I take an Über, however, I sit in the front passenger seat so that I am not telegraphing "Hey, this is a tourist in an Über."

Exactly! More for them, as the little bit of research existing suggests that up to 20% of men who pay for sex are found to have an STI on routine consultation, without necessarily having had telltale symptoms. Male commercial sex workers also tend to be more lax than female sex workers, and the research suggests that up to 40% of male sex workers not on the street would spot-test positive for an STI, a higher rate than for female sex workers and for men who have non-commercial sex with men. But many of those transmissions were contracted from clients, not difficult math given the volume of tricks turned. These estimates are at the high end of confidence intervals. In other words, the true rates are likely lower, or depends on the group and other factors, but these figures are still sobering. And in your face at the clubs the big head can see the potential chain of transmission on full display even if the little head is clueless. I myself fellate without a condom some of the time, but I get tested regularly, am immune against HepB, and take PreP when sexually active, just for good measure though it is far less imperative. In a foreign country I do not want to deal with the local system in the event of accidental exposure. I would suggest the most important precaution in the travel sex playbook is to be immune against Hepatitis B, by vaccination, or you may have previous exposure and clearance. I caught HepB and was extremely ill through protected sex many years ago, via the kissing part. It is not a wimpy virus in terms of transmission. Acute HepB can be very serious, even kill. I have had none of the more garden-variety STIs that can be acquired in the saunas in Brazil. I consider this to be luck more than smarts. We probably most of us have HPV.

For those keen on a version of the Vidigal Beebs look. there is a fellow "Roberto" available in Madrid. Also not consistently shock-dyed.

LOMG, chase down Miguel if you can and spare me no detail, please?! I emphasize he is not known to be in the sex trade ... hence, his photo. Want to keep it discreet, but we can be groupies, no? Mmmm mmm mmmm.

Again off topic MR's. Best ass in show NMM this Wed. Damn ... been wanting to meet Miguel Almeida for ages!

This month at 202 entrance Thursdays is reduced from 60 to 30. Suites continue free Mon/Wed/Fri.

Hehe ... u r there, aren't you, redxs? Don't shut us out. U r likely hella busy but please remember to keep us in the loop!

Who's who and the question of tipping housestaff: Gratuities are, of course, optional and appreciated. The mix of staff, generally, is: -Reception for computerized account, keys, payment, sometimes the towel/flipflop dispensing -Bartenders -Management troubleshooting types floating around -Music/show coordinator -Suite cleaners, sometimes also floating as locker attendants -Locker-room attendants, sometimes the towel/flipflop dispensing Are cash gratuities pooled and shared amongst the total group or any subgroup? No, it's each man/woman for himself. Me, I am a modest tipper and my focus is the cleaners and attendants. Per visit, i dispense single cincos. This is typically 10 total for the 2 women at 202; 20-25 total to the locker attendants, the 2 women supervising the suites and the floater cleaning the overall premises and some suites at 117. Overall, on any one more extended Rio visit these low wage earners may benefit more from me personally than many GdePs I sample. But anyone cleaning up my poopy cummy condoms deserves a tad extra, in my view. To each his own. Have a safe, prosperous, and fun-filled visit.

I think it is about how, where, and whether to critique, not just about positive versus negative tone prerogative/rights Rotten Tomatoes is a good comparator. Hired reviewers and often amateur commentators comment on a film. The composite yields an emoji ranging from a superlative tomato, ripe tomato, to splattered green tomato. But reviews are simply out there ... not "Dear Ms Gerwig, direction props to you ... not Hey, "Mr Ivory, you took too much screenwriting license altering Aciman's novel ... me no likey". There is plenty of option to weigh in on most BT topics. For example, you can opine "that film was lacklustre in plotline", "that book was too long", "that sauna sucks big time". But person-to-person, as lopsided and contrary to freedom of expression as it may seem, we are called on to bite our tongue and restrict feedback to feel-good emojis or a positive comment. A personalized negative commentary simply does not get well-absorbed even if seemingly buried within a larger quantity of positives. Etiquette trumps rights. The overarching principle is not freedom of speech, "x" amendment rights. It is self-reflection and manners. Do not count on readers to read between the lines and soften your expression for you, even if you did not intend to come across as harsh. The current example reflected that the commentor's attention span, patience, and literary style preference did not match up well with the OP's narrative, though it worked for others. Nothing wrong with that. It simply necessitated cultivating self-awareness and exercising good judgment about how to express the reality. I certainly myself have to try to finesse this better. I too struggle with whether to take the rap versus getting into a bit of a pissing contest. But look how much time and effort was spent in the aftermath, all that attention span time resource diverted from the OP's quadrilogy!