Gaybutton

It's nice to see that Koh Kood, in Thailand, got a mention. Apparently it's wonderful if you happen to have money to burn. I read the article the Times provided and clicked on their link for Koh Kood. I stopped reading when I got to the part about how prices start at US$1788 per night for two people. That's dollars, not baht. I think I'm going to have to somehow muddle through life without going to Koh Kood, or at least the resort referred to in the article. Of course, there's always the chance of being the next big winner on the lottery . . .

It must be some sort of problem on your end. I just tried it again and it worked from here, in Pattaya.

I just tried it. It worked for me.

Hmmmm, I don't know whether to use my own pics or to fake it with some from my collection of nude pics of Ernest Borgnine . . .

Did you read about our

I doubt it, but you can always offer to send your picture by Email. Also, on Gay Romeo, there is an option to upload your photos without having them appear at all unless you approve them to appear in specific messages.

The following appears in the BANGKOK POST: _____ Portugal MPs Approve Gay Marriage Portugal's parliament Friday approved plans to legalise gay marriage, less than three decades after revoking the country's ban on homosexuality, but rejected proposals to allow same sex couples to adopt. The bill passed with limited public controversy in what has traditionally been one of Europe's most socially conservative countries. After less than three hours' debate, Friday's parliamentary vote went mainly along party lines, with the left-wing majority backing the measure proposed by Prime Minister Jose Socrates and the right-wing opposition voting against. It will now be reviewed in committee before coming back for a final vote in parliament, and could gain final approval before a visit by Pope Benedict XVI, due in Portugal in May. Socrates said the aim of the legislation was to remedy decades of injustice towards gays, recalling that as recently as 1982 homosexuality was a crime in Portugal. "I am of a generation _ as we all are _ which is not proud of the way it treated homosexuals,'' the prime minister said before lawmakers in parliament. "This is a step that will seem completely natural in the near future, in the same way that gender equality, abortion rights and unmarried couples living together are normal now. "Gay marriage has been approved by numerous countries and will be approved by many more. I have no doubt about that.'' In contrast to Spain, where the run-up to the legalisation of gay marriage in 2005 brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets, the bill in Portugal provoked only muted opposition even from the political right. Ratifying the bill would mean Portugal joined the list of European countries allowing gay marriage, which currently includes Belgium, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and Norway. A number of other European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, permit same sex civil partnerships. Some of the fiercest debate on the bill came over proposals from the Left Bloc and Green parties to extend adoption rights to same sex couples. They said that by not allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt, the government was effectively making them second class citizens. Defending the government's decision to exclude adoption rights from the gay marriage bill, Socrates said the issues at stake were different. "Adoption is a different matter from marriage, because adoption does not only involve free, consenting adults. Adoption is not a couple's right, it is the child's right,'' he said. Socrates also rejected a demand backed by the right for a referendum on gay marriage following a petition which collected more than 90,000 signatures. Gay rights campaigners outside parliament greeted the result of Friday's vote with cries of joy and celebrated with champagne and wedding cake. While normally vocal on the role of marriage and the family in society, the Catholic Church refused to mobilise on the issue, which Lisbon's Cardinal Patriarch Jose Policarpo said was "parliament's responsibility''. A recent poll showed voters were fairly split on the issue of on gay marriage, with 49.5 percent against and 45.5 percent in favour. However the same survey by the Eurosondagem institute showed a clear majority (68.4 percent) of Portuguese opposed to adoptions by same-sex couples.

It's a Nana Plaza lady-boy bar in Bangkok.

Why should you? If you love drag shows, then Pattaya is perfect for you and you have plenty to enjoy here. Different strokes for different folks.

Unless they fixed it within the past 15 minutes, since your post, the hacking doesn't appear on this end. I just had a look and the site appears to be perfectly normal.

In Pattaya both The Ambiance and Le Cafe Royale are quite popular. If you stayed before at The Ambiance you might be pleased to know that now they have an elevator. In Bangkok, the Tarntawan Place is popular if you wish to be in the Silom-Suriwong gay area.

As an aside, you know what I don't see much of in Thailand? Emo boys. Am I missing something? Maybe it hasn't really caught on here because they can't understand just exactly what it is supposed to be. Neither can I.

For where?

As an aside, I'm curious as to why you recommend traveling overland to get there. I haven't made the trip myself, but I have heard that the roads are horrible.

You can find hookups on Gay Romeo at just about any time. You don't have to wait for 1:00~2:00 am. I mentioned that hour because that's when there are more bar boys online at one time than most other hours of the day. But bar boys are certainly not the only boys worth meeting and it's not as if that's the only hour that's worth being online.

I'm glad there's one, at least, who actually sings. Yes, the venues are full. I think the majority like these acts. It's the majority of those posting about them, including me, who dislike them. Obviously many people do like these acts. And yet even on this thread so far there have been no posts from anyone who says they do like these acts. I have nothing against these acts. It's certainly fine with me if most people enjoy them. But as for me, forget it. I don't like them and I'm not going. I'm sure the venues that present these acts will find a way to somehow survive the loss . . .

Next time I'm in Bangkok I plan to find out. One restaurant in Pattaya I have yet to try is the A La Turca. It's a Turkish restaurant. I don't know anything about Turkish food, but I understand it's very similar to Greek food. The Pattaya Mail published a review several years ago: http://www.pattayamail.com/588/dining.shtml

Same-Sex Marriage Trial to be Shown on YouTube January 7, 2010 (CNN) -- A California judge ruled Wednesday to allow cameras in a federal courtroom to document a challenge to Proposition 8, a measure banning same-sex marriage. The courtroom footage will not be streamed live, but will be uploaded on the Web site YouTube daily, CNN affiliate KGO reported. Proposition 8 passed with about 52.5 percent of the vote in November 2008. A lesbian couple and a gay couple who were banned from marrying filed a suit challenging the constitutionality of the new measure, the affiliate reported. The nonjury trial is to begin on January 11 in federal court in San Francisco. The rare decision to allow cameras in a federal courtroom was influenced by intense media attention, court officials said. The legal battle over Proposition 8 has prompted passionate debate and in the past has spurred protests outside courtrooms. Opponents of the ban say it improperly altered the state's Constitution to restrict a fundamental right guaranteed in the state charter. Ban supporters say Californians long have had the right to change their state Constitution through ballot initiatives.

Knowing the way things work in Pattaya, they'll probably just blare recorded opera from the sound trucks - likely about 7:15am.

I'm adding that to my "I Don't Get It" list too. Personally I think the performers are the ones who most like it. I might like it too if the people singing, even the elderly entertainers, actually would sing instead of this lip synching. Lip synching is also on my "I Don't Get It" list. What on earth is entertaining about watching anybody lip synch? Why not just hire real singers? There are plenty of talented singers around who would love to have a job. But from my point of view, who needs lip synch? If I want to listen to Ethel Merman, I'll buy a CD. Somehow, watching someone in his mid 70's, dressed in drag and looking absolutely ridiculous, who is lip synching is not exactly my idea of the manner by which I want to be entertained. But it is my idea of a very good reason to walk out. And people keep asking me why I don't go to bar shows.

I don't think any of us can tell you specifically which bars in either city are going to have the boys you like. What I can tell you is there are a hell of a lot more bars in Pattaya than in Chiang Mai and most are within walking easy distance of the gay hotels. Based on what you are saying, I would think the Sunee Plaza bars in Pattaya is your best bet. Between the open-air beer bars and the go-go bars, you're bound to easily find what you're looking for. As for accommodations, I would suggest Howard's Guesthouse ( http://www.howards-pattaya.net ) or Two Guys Guesthouse ( http://www.twoguysguesthouse.info ). Both are gay accommodations, inexpensive, popular, and less than a two minute walk to Sunee Plaza. Since boys seems to be what you are looking for, then there's no question. You want to come to Pattaya. You can even find all the boys you want without setting foot in the bars at all. There are plenty of freelancers around the Sunee Plaza area. There are also plenty at the gay beach area. You might also want to look at our threads about the gay personals sites (Gay Romeo seems to be the most popular): http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4184-how-does-gay-romeo-work http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4540-gayromeo-vs-the-other-sites http://www.gaythailand.com/forums/index.php?/topic/4985-boys-bangkok-drinks-now-300-baht If you want some help if you decide upon Pattaya as your destination, I am always very happy to take people around personally if I am in town and available. If you want to meet me and have me do that, all you have to do is send me an Email and let me know when you're coming. My Email is gaybutton@gmail.com

Toshiba Unveils TV that Converts 2-D to 3-D By Brandon Griggs, CNN January 7, 2010 Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) -- Toshiba on Wednesday unveiled a "smart" TV the company claims will convert 2-D signals into high-resolution 3-D programming. The ZX900 Series Cell TV models, available with 55-inch and 65-inch screens, will go on sale in the United States later this year. Pricing was not announced. Toshiba says the LED TV will have the capability to take any 2-D content, including sports broadcasts, movies and video games, and convert it into 3-D in real time. "It's unlike anything that's out there," said vice president of marketing Scott Ramirez during Toshiba's press event at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show. "This is the new 'it' TV. It's the one everyone is going to be talking about." The TV's biggest strength is a multimedia processing chip previously used in advanced PCs and high-end gaming consoles. Toshiba claims its Cell TVs will have 143 times the processing power available in current TV models, although that boast was hard to immediately verify. With many manufacturers unveiling 3-D and "connected" TVs at CES this week, Toshiba will have stiff competition for the "it" TV title. But its ambitious Cell TV tries hard to offer something for everyone: Like many new or next-generation televisions, Cell TV will allow you to transfer media files from your PC onto the TV's hard drive so that you can display photos and home videos on its screen. The TV's Internet connection will offer access to streaming content from such partners as Netflix and Pandora. Finally, Cell TV will also work as a video phone, but with much higher picture quality than most simple webcams. "You're going to look crystal clear at 55 inches," said Ramirez. In other TV news from CES Wednesday, Sharp unveiled something it called "quad pixel" technology that it claims will change the way TV consumers see color. Sharp's new Aquos LED models add a fourth color -- yellow -- to the traditional red-blue-green trio of primary colors, which the company says will enable it to display more than a trillion different colors.

I agree with every word of your post. Many of the boys on Gay Romeo are bar boys anyway. If you enjoy the bar scene and enjoy finding boys in that manner, that's wonderful, but there's nothing wrong with understanding that's not the only way to find willing boys. Also, Gay Romeo is not the only web site on which to find personal ads and nice boys. I've met boys from: http://www.ratefun.net http://www.silverdaddies.com http://www.gboysiam.com/picpos I haven't regretted meeting any of them and have had wonderful experiences with them. On the Gboysiam site, many of the boys include their telephone numbers on their profiles. I never call them out of the blue. I start by sending a text message. Sometimes I get a response and sometimes I don't. When I do get a response, that's when I call. The only negative I've experienced was being naive enough not to recognize that sometimes the boy is using photos that are not actually of himself, but photos he grabbed off the internet. It doesn't take long to recognize who is and is not using genuine photos of themselves. Most are genuine. If they post photos in which their heads are excluded from the photo, that's usually a dead giveaway that it's not the genuine article. But even then , that doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't worth meeting the boy. One time the boy turned out to be far better looking, to my eyes, than the phony photos he used. When I asked him why he didn't post genuine photos of himself he said he was shy about using his own photos, so he just used photos he found that had a body similar to his own. The point is there are alternatives to the bars. Some say that they're only in Thailand for a limited time on a holiday, so going to the bars is the quickest and easiest thing to do. That's not necessarily the case. You can easily make arrangements before you even make the trip. Once you're here you can also walk into any Internet shop and get on Gay Romeo. There are at least a few boys online virtually 24 hours a day. If you find someone you like and offer to pay for a motorbike taxi to bring him to you, often you have him with you by the time you get back to your hotel. I have found that one of the best times to get on Gay Romeo is between 1:00am and 2:00am, Thailand time. Many of the boys head for the nearest Internet shop when the bars close if they haven't been taken off. Use common sense. Just like the bars, make damned sure to check his ID card before taking him to your hotel room.

Yes, as a matter of fact that's what I'm saying. You know why? To this day I still have never been in the Copa, so I have no way to see the difference. Having never been in there, I have no idea what they charge for their drinks. I don't go to any of the bars all that often in the first place, but when I do it's very rare for me to go to the Pattayaland bars.

Have you ever tried translating Thai words, phrases, web pages, etc, using Google Translate? Do you usually end up with unintelligible gibberish? Have a look at the following article: _____ Breaking Through the Language Barrier By Matt Ford, for CNN January 6, 2010 (CNN) -- Communications technology has shrunk the globe, but there remains one large boundary to all this togetherness: language. So far businesses can only spread as far and as fast as they can find people speaking a common tongue. However, researchers at IBM may be about to punch a hole through this barrier. The multinational currently has 100 staff working on an internal project named "n.Fluent" that offers instantaneous translation across a variety of platforms. "We have a web page interface, where you type in a URL and it automatically translates the web page for you," Salim Roukos, chief technology officer for translation technologies at the company's T.J. Watson Laboratory in New York, told CNN. "We also have an app that you can put on a web page and when users arrive... they can pull down a menu and change the language. "The ability to translate URLs is something that our customers love a lot, because once you translate the page, you can click on all the links and suddenly you are exploring the foreign language web as an English speaker." At the moment the software is still in development and only available with IBM, but the company's intention is to take the project to market. They are also developing versions for instant messaging and mobile devices. "n.Fluent" began in 2006 as one of 10 innovations sponsored by IBM's chairman Samuel J. Palmisano. The company decided that the language barrier was a key issue, both for global businesses and companies with clients worldwide and so resolved to find ways of addressing the problem. "The core technology... is work in progress, but it is significantly advanced that for many languages we can do accurate translations," says Roukos. But IBM is not the only tech giant convinced that language is the next barrier to be broken online, and Google are currently working on a tool that will translate not only web pages -- but web searches as well. At the moment Google only searches English words on web pages when given an English-language query, but the company hopes soon to be able to open up sites of any language to users. "Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world's web sites," Google's vice president Marissa Mayer told the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper recently. "And then invoked the translation software a second and third time -- to not only then present the results in your native language, but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through." Away from the Internet, NEC are hoping their new device, the Tele Scouter will mean conversations won't get lost in translation. Unveiled last November the device is a set of headsets and glasses that can automatically translate spoken words and display them on a tiny retinal display. Still a prototype, NEC believes it could be used by technicians to translate manuals. Crowd-sourcing to greater understanding Vernacular and jargon can be particularly problematic for translation software, so "n.Fluent" has been designed to learn from its mistakes and pick up specific terms used within IBM. To do this the project has been opened up to all 400,000 staff working for IBM around the world, and uses this "crowd sourcing" to access their expertise to feedback on the project. Over a two-week period in October last year IBM launched a "worldwide translation challenge" to its workforce, which resulted in two million words of text being translated. Incentives in the form of charitable donations and other prizes were offered to staff who took part. "Every single interface has a pop-up window, so if you happen to be bilingual you can make corrections," David Lubensky, an IBM specialist in the "real-time" aspect of translation systems, told CNN. "Many IBM-ers have more than one language, so we can get them to translate and use that to improve the quality." IBM believes the technology will be particularly useful for companies that produce a large amount of support content, such as technical manuals. These tend to be dynamic, as new bug fixes are found or updates added, and they also need to be accessible to a multi-lingual customer. Rapid, accurate translation of such literature published online can deflect calls from call centers, and bring significant savings. Alternatively, when a company has its workforce spread across the world "n.Fluent" hopes to allow documents from a client that arrives in one language to be quickly assessed by a geographically dispersed team. "So far we are much better at Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese," says Roukos. "It's harder for languages like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, but we're working on it. "It's not only the sentence structure, but also how explicit the language is. There is a little bit more assumed from the context in Chinese and word order can change." Although "crowd sourcing" has proved extremely effective for IBM during the development of "n.Fluent", there are still aspects of working remotely with huge numbers of people that can be improved. "There are two challenges," says Lubensky. "Firstly, getting a sustainable, enthusiastic community can be difficult. The goal is to have an ongoing interest, to make it part of the fabric. "The second issue is quality assurance of content; how useful is the feedback, how many mistakes do people make and how much impact will they have?" Whoever wins the fight for market share, be it IBM, Google or others hoping to close the language divide, advanced translation software looks set to make a huge splash and businesses should get ready: it looks like the world may be about to shrink yet again.