Lucky

You are no doubt serious in your remarks, so I take it that you endorse hitoall telling a new poster to "stay away from us." I about gagged when I read what he wrote. Who is he to say that in the first place, and who is he to speak for "us?" We need new posters, people who actually have something to say. So we have him telling someone to stay away, then another telling lurker speaks to stop posting about his trip. Not a good day for MER. If you want to support this, fine. But I was shocked by it, and I can't imagine a new lurker coming in if he expects to be told to "stay away" by someone who himself is quite recent. As I said when our posts crossed, if someone has something to say that is intelligent or witty or interesting, then fire away. Don't just post any crap that comes to our mind if you want this site to attract anyone looking for some interesting conversation.

Can you imagine how a ladyboy would do on American Idol?

Maybe she was waiting until son Patrick was of age and she could feel that she had done her job to make sure he didn't become like his father!

If people post something that is witty, intelligent, interesting, or even just one of the above, then I hope they post a lot. Monopolizing a board with inane comments is tolerable only because there is an ignore button, which I do use on occasion. Lookin doesn't post a lot, but when he does, I read it. We need more of that. Wouldn't it be best to known as someone who has something to say, and only speaks when he does? God knows I have posted some wasted comments, so I am tolerant, but only to a point.

Holy Christ! I can't imagine someone would send you a private message like that. I have told you that both the bf and I are enjoying your posts immensely. Yes, we are shocked at the high prices, but mainly because we have tickets to Rio later this summer. So I am interested in those subjects. I have been to the Sequeira Grill many times and it has always been good and economical, but if no more, I want to know. So please don't stop telling us of your adventures. At a time when so much inane posting is occurring, your posts have been a warm change.

300 baht! I can only imagine what a Red Bull would cost. In Brazil, that's what all the boys seem to want at the saunas, and it quite expensive too.

Vietnam is not Thailand. It is a communist country, and, as such, any pay to play action would be considerably hidden. I found nothing of interest when I went to Saigon. The few bars listed as gay-friendly appeared quite straight to me. If you find anything, please let us know.

Please know that your reports are being avidly read by the bf, who never reads the message center. Hey, I am reading them too! Expensive place!

Ditto!

Well, call me shocked. SPOILER ALERT FOR WEST COAST!!! DON'T READ PAST HERE: Only one man standing, and it's not mine!

This NY Times article points out how hard it is to have a cheap weekend in Rio- unless you just want to hit the beach! $100 Rio

After meeting Lady GaGa last night, Idol contestant Scottie McGreery felt the need to kiss his crucifix, apparently to ask god for forgiveness for having met with the sinner. The right wing Christian vote, as well as the redneck vote, is his. The question becomes whether the fans of real music will actually vote for the proper winner, James Durbin, whose voice can easily contest with Adam Lambert's. The voting is closed, and the result will be known tonight. My thinking is that the younger girl will be sent home tonight, then Scottie next week, leaving a finale of Haley Rineheart and James Durbin, which Durbin, of course, will win. (Don't blame me if I screwed up a name...I did it from memory at 730 in the morning!)

He left an indelible mark on my face:

Hold on, guys. Minutes from now he is turning his back to me, and sitting down!

Congressman John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, is known to have been raised as a devout Catholic. But now, Catholic professors have united to inform him that his policies violate basic teachings of the Catholic Church. Boehner is to give the commencement address at Catholic University of America, but the professors there are the ones who lead the letter-writing effort. Attendees at the event hope that they will see the famous Boehner tears as the Congressman, notorious for crying in public, will feel shamed by his own church.

I sure like the thread title.

Feeling guilty, are you? Trying to deflect the blame to BN. For shame!

Mystery deaths plague Thai hotel Did a three-star Thai hotel inadvertently kill six of its guests while trying to poison bed bugs? Between January and March, six people suffering from virtually the same medical symptoms died after staying at the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai or using its facilities. Authorities maintain the deaths are just a coincidence. But an investigation by New Zealand's "60 Minutes" news program discovered high levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, a chemical used to kill bed bugs, in the hotel room where New Zealand backpacker Sarah Carter, 23, died in February. Reporters pretending to be guests took samples from the room. The UK Daily Mail reported that Thai police recently raided the company in charge of eradicating insects at the hotel. "I think (Carter) has been killed by an overzealous sprayer who has been acting on the instructions of the hotel owner to deal with the bed bugs," United Nations chemical expert Dr. Ron McDowall told the Daily Mail. McDowall said the symptoms experienced by Carter were consistent with chlorpyrifos poisoning, which causes headache, nausea, dizziness, muscle twitching, weakness, increased sweating and salivation, unconsciousness and convulsions. He explained that it's difficult to confirm poisoning from blood samples because chlorpyrifos is quickly absorbed by the body - "it only has a half-life of a day or so." The symptoms shown by all six victims - severe chest pain, vomiting and fainting - are often associated with food or water poisoning. Indeed, police initially dismissed the deaths as food poisoning from eating toxic seaweed. Shortly after Carter's death, a retired British couple, George Everitt, 78, and his wife, Eileen, 73, were found dead in their room. They had eaten seaweed at a street food booth, but another guest had a different meal there and also got sick. She recovered. The death of Bill Mah of Edmonton - found in his hotel room in January - was attributed to "suspected natural causes." A young Frenchwoman and a Thai visitor also died at the hotel between January and March. A report that a Berkeley woman died after staying at the hotel was incorrect. Mariam Soraya Vorster, 33, did suffer the same symptoms before she died while visiting Chiang Mai in January, but she was staying at a guesthouse in the city. Her husband blames the food she ate - sushi and seaweed. The Downtown Inn remains open, with rooms starting at $41 a night. 'Bed bug pesticide poisoning' killed Californian woman and six other tourists in Thailand (UK Daily Mail) Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/hottopics/detail?entry_id=88696#ixzz1LzfecEwD

So I went to gaythailand.com and saw that someone else had used your same exact post! You must have a doppleganger!

He probably thought at first that it was an April Fool's joke, but poster Four Aces must have won bigtime since he has not been posting here since April 2d. I know he didn't share any of it with me.

JKane, thanks for the link. RonP608, welcome to the boards!

Now I have firefox 4, even though only 2 days ago I was upgraded to a newer 3. something. I have lost control of my computer as the firefox page won't do anything I want. The address bar is hidden, I added the Google toolbar but Firefox refused it. Why? The OP was correct, Firefox 4 is a piece of shit.

At least now we can quit pretending to be a friend of Pakistan and let India have a go signal to nuke the country. We can do that, can't we?

Thanks. Things got worse as apparently I now have Firefox 4 which I hate and have switched over to Chrome. Firefox would not even let me install the Google toolbar, and somehow my address bar got lost and I just gave up. So far Chrome has not added the AVG toolbar.

Many times when a program updates, they sneak in a toolbar, such as yahoo. You have to uncheck the box to keep the toolbar from installing along with the update. Recently my free AVG antivirus started updating and I unclicked the box to add the AVG toolbar. I like the one I have. Well, they ignored my request and installed it anyway. So I went to toolbars and clicked restore default settings. That got rid of the AVG toolbar...until the next update, when it reappeared without notice to me. I prefer Google search, but they put their own search box more prominently. So, I completely uninstalled AVG, but the toolbar remains, even when I click restore default settings. What now?