lookin

Two Wodehouses! I feel vindicated! It's been fifty years since I slipped one of his out of the family bookcase, started reading, and started laughing. To this day, I can take any one of his books off my own bookshelf, open it to any page, and be chuckling within a minute. Two minutes and I'm laughing out loud. I'd never attempt to try mimicking his style in a post, though I think I once allowed that something gave me the pip. And some of my captions seem to end on a downdraft. Hadn't thought to pin it on Wodehouse, though I may may picked up something after all these years. One fellow who did pick up something is Joe Keenan. He's not Wodehouse but he comes closer than I'd ever have thought possible. Not English at all, his main characters are two gay guys in New York City and their close female friend. The two books I've read, if anyone's interested, are Blue Heaven and Putting on the Ritz. Keenan went on to write for, and eventually became the executive producer of, Frasier. Some of the best writing on TV, in my opinion, and occasionally a plot line straight out of Wodehouse.

Oh, Ethyl !!

If they delivered on the I'm gonna come now! holler, you could name your price.

Very well said! I didn't vote in the negative categories (6, 8, 9) which Lurker said was OK. And I had a couple of nominations in most of the other categories, which he also said was OK. Even then, I don't think my votes reflect all the different views I hold throughout the years. I trust Lurker though and I'm sure if he thinks the results would do any harm, he'll manage to lose the ballot box on the way to the convention.

I'm sure the laid-back denizens of Humboldt County would be more welcoming of you than you are of them. Though you may want to bring your own bong.

Well, he's on again, but a fat lot of good that does me. My "Free Chat Has Expired"! It actually expired a couple of days ago, but I thought it might reset every day or two. Not a chance! OZ has got that thing locked as tight as a rusty nut. I've never felt I had the self-discipline to turn my credit card over to one of these chat sites, no matter how tempting the bait. I guess especially when the bait is as tempting as The Young Mister Johnson. So I suppose he'll just have to carry on without me, and my Visa will stay in my pocket. Along with my own rusty nuts and everything else.

Just last evening, I happened to watch a program on da Vinci in which this very painting was featured. The ermine, or stoat, is said to be the spitting image of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan at the time, and at once the lady's lover and Leonardo's patron. The Duke, however, went on to marry someone else, as did Michael Jackson.

All right, fellas, I think it was just a fly-by.

Of course her guests will be throwing Minute® Rice.

I'll be glad to take the extra ticket. I have a friend who's dying to attend.

Dunno which is worse: my fear of heights or my fear of arugula.

Have him Call Me and I don't mean Maybe!

He's b-a-a-c-k! http://www.boytoyflirt.com/rooms/blake_johnson/

Perhaps that's what OZ is off arranging. Wonder how many credits that will cost?

Actually, the genes we carry today have evolved over thousands of generations for most of which we humans have been hunters. So the example of hunters helping one another is one that is quite relevant to our genetic makeup today. You raise a good point that evolution is ongoing and we do not hunt much today. And these days selfishness may be a very viable strategy for passing our genes to the next generation. I'm sure it will register a blip in genetic evolution but, hopefully, it won't overwhelm the large reservoir of genetic material that guides us toward altruism. But that's only a hope and, as far as I understand, evolution is based on what works rather than what we hope will work. Until we take it into the lab that is.

Fine! But I'm keeping Balmoral.

Yes, I recall seeing that 'Piece of Work' film a few years ago and she was either working, or on the phone trying to get work. LA, Vegas, Jersey City, it didn't seem to matter. I've really enjoyed all these threads on her as they give a much more comprehensive look at who she was. One of the most impressive things to me was the enduring relationships she formed. She had a bunch of folks who stuck close to her all her life. (Sorry, MsAnn, out of 'Likes' already and here it is, not even lunchtime yet!)

Indeed it is. It's called 'reciprocal altruism' and, according to one of my favorite reads, it works something like this: Let's say you and I are hunters and we meet in a clearing. I haven't caught anything in a week and am close to starvation. You have just caught a fat rabbit and hand me one of the juicy hind legs, thereby saving my life. You still have plenty left to eat so, while you're giving up a valuable resource, you're still likely to be OK. A couple weeks later, we meet in the same clearing and this time you're the one down on his luck and I've just caught a fat rabbit. Remembering how you saved me, I pull off a juicy hind leg for you and we both live to hunt another day. And, most likely, our genes get passed along and this 'altruistic' behavior becomes genetically encoded. If it weren't for this 'reciprocal altruism', we'd both be dead much quicker and our 'selfish genes' would be much less likely to get passed along. At some basic level, we humans know how to read these qualities in others and can select our mates accordingly. I know that, personally, I'd never marry a guy without knowing what's in his genes.

Please pardon this small sliver of light amidst the gloom, but a UN scientific committee announced today that the Earth's ozone layer is beginning to mend, following our 1987 agreement to ban chlorofluorocarbons. There was a statistically significant 4% improvement between 2000 and 2013 and, by 2030, two million cases of skin cancer will be avoided. "It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together," said Nobel Prize winning chemist Mario Molina. Naturally, I'm thrilled that CFC's aren't the problem they were a quarter-century ago, but won't pretend I don't miss some of the good spray we had back then.

I'm pretty sure that counts as a compliment down there. It's when they say, Bless your heart! that you need to worry.

In another thread, MsGuy posited that there were only so many ways to say, "Boy, that kid sure gives me a stiffie." While this may in fact be the case it seems that, in the millennia that folks have been lusting after youthful hardbodies, there must have been more than just a handful of such observations. One I recall, from an old book on lust through the ages, is that of a Persian gentleman that went something along the lines of, There's a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach but, alas, I cannot swim. Can't think of it at the moment, but there's another one on the tip of my tongue. I understand AdamSmith is on the hunt for such phrases through the ages. Anyone else have any favorites?

Funny! Is this another one of those "challenges"? If so, I think this time my money will be on AdamSmith. Could make for a fun thread.

I think these folks who go willingly toward the tragedies to offer what help they can are amazing human beings. There was a segment last night on Frontline that followed the work being done by a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Sierra Leone. They built a sixty-bed field hospital a few months ago that they thought would be big enough to handle the victims from a cluster of surrounding villages. It wasn't. And isn't. Yet they bring every patient they can find into the hospital, treat what symptoms they can, hydrate them, and try to keep them alive until their immune system has a chance of kicking in. Remarkably, about thirty percent manage to beat the illness. They also track everyone the patient was in contact with, and educate everyone in the patient's home village as best they can. Some villagers are afraid of going to the hospital, thinking bad things may happen to them there, and some hide from the medics. Everything about this battle is uphill. Yet these medical workers soldier on, case by case, not only accepting whoever shows up at the hospital, in whatever condition, but also driving hours to find sick villagers they've heard about and bring them back. I'm not much on 'role models', especially from the world of politics and entertainment, but these folks who go into the world's hell holes to do whatever they can to help make things better are folks who have much to teach, and they've got my full attention.

Perhaps we're just a little slow. Even the Academy gets a few weeks to return their Oscar nominations, no? Also, it somehow never occurred to me that I didn't have to vote in all the categories, and I was having trouble with the ones that came across as a bit negative (6, 8 and 9) and even the ones that could easily have multiple winners (all the rest). We are, after all, an intimate little group here and I kept feeling like the relative who would have to tell Cousin Velma that her Ambrosia Abbondanza was perhaps only the second best I ever had. And only since she started using the canned Kiwi. Fact is, nearly all posters here excel at one thing and another at one time and another. But I'm still working on my ballot and busy shearing off the hanging chads. ¡¿Que?! I know I've personally wheeled my mouse to the bottom of around a hundred of your posts and hit the 'Like' button, and added supporting prose a number of times. Not sure if you get 'Like' notifications but check your profile and you'll see that you've got more than eight thousand as we speak! Not really 'nobody cares' territory unless, of course, we're all just a bunch of nobodies. Of course, there may be more direct ways to sing your praises and I'll be checking into a few other options.

There's an app for that.™