lookin

And don't think you've gone unnoticed, my pretty little cupcake! . . .

Funny, last week I was talking with friends about this very subject. The one luxury I'd love to have would be a health-conscious chef: someone who spends all day finding the freshest, most nourishing ingredients possible, and turning them into meals that delight the eye and the palate and leave me feeling well nourished. That would be an incredible indulgence!

Pretty nice work nonetheless!

I wonder if global warming will one day send more of us back to our birthday suits. Yesterday, I asked a couple of City boys what they thought about all the fuss. They confirmed what I've heard before, that it's a response to the stroller moms who have moved to the Castro to raise their families and now form a vocal subset of Supervisor Wiener's constituents. Like Lucky, they do not enjoy seeing their neighbors' dangly parts and perhaps feel that their offspring might be irreparably harmed by skipping down the street and suddenly coming face-to-crotch with an unclad community member. It made me wonder if their children were born with a distaste for nudity, or if it was something they learned during their early days in the nursery. I felt bad for them, and wondered if it would be possible to make neighborhood nudity a fully-disclosable item in any real estate transactions, like roof rot and mold and lead-based paints. It also made me wonder what role evolution will play in resolving this issue and if thousands of years of being born naked will someday evolve into the first live birth in which the newborn pops out fully clothed. And would the neonatal garments have designer labels, or would they be purely utilitarian? Once I started wondering, it was hard to stop, and I found myself wondering if my own street presence, even though fully - if not fashionably - clothed, might also prove offensive to the more aesthetically attuned inhabitants of our fair City. I'd feel terrible if the sight of yours truly mincing down the street in skimpy shorts, weather permitting, would cause the slightest discomfort to even the most finely strung of my fellow citizens. And what if I did learn that my appearance out in the open offended others? I wonder if I could bear it, although I'm not sure I'd have the discipline to spend the rest of my life indoors. Unless maybe I had some company. Clothing optional, of course.

Big news indeed and no doubt a blow to the denizens of Dore Alley and Folsom Street. Let's hope your neighbors are a broadminded bunch.

And cute too!

Likewise, I'd follow you anywhere! And, in the case of at least one delightful escort, have. Plus, I just gave you a well-deserved 'like' that ties us up, so to speak. Not for long, I'll wager, as I'm sure you've got a couple of doozies in the queue. Agree with my fellow posters that 'likes' are fun. I think it's a very convenient way to give a 'thumbs up' to a person's post. And, for me, it's a good way to learn if one of my posts that I thought was funny or interesting turned out, in fact, to be a stinker. I don't think it's a perfect substitute for actually telling someone you liked his post, but it's useful all the same. The only snag is that I don't always log in when I read posts so I can't give or see 'likes' unless I go back and re-read all the posts when I do finally log in. Over the years, I've had to do that in order to see some pictures too, so it's not the end of the world. But I know I miss some. Another interesting feature is that you can look at your profile, or someone else's, and see a list of the posts that they have given likes to and another list of posts that they have received likes for. In some cases, where a person likes his own posts, the same post will show up on both lists. I haven't yet got around to liking my own posts, although it seems like a handy feature if one is looking to show how much he likes himself. If you're a numbers guy, it's a lot easier to see how many likes you've received than how many likes you've given. However, you can see on your profile how many 'pages' of likes you've given. I'm on page ten so, at fifteen likes per page, I know I've given a few more likes than I've received, which seems about right in my book. All this talk about 'likes' has got me humming an old tune from the Kingston Trio called The Merry Minuet. Hope you like it! THE KINGSTON TRIO "The Merry Minuet" (Sheldon Harnick) They're rioting in Africa. They're starving in Spain. There's hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain. The whole world is festering with unhappy souls. The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch and I don't like anybody very much! But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud for man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud. And we know for certain that some lovely day someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away. They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran. What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

No doubt they are searching for a way to honor your recent parsimony and keep you in the fold.

A logistical tour de force! And to think you did it without a motorcade.

Do you think we're scaring off the new customers? . . . Maybe. We do tend to run our mouths a lot. . . . . . Especially when we're talking about Benjamin Nicholas. . . . . . . . I guess we could be a little quieter if somebody comes in. . . . . . . . . . . . Don't look at me! I can't get a word in edgewise.

At last! A contest I've got a shot at winning. Starting at 1440.

It plays for me, both last night and this morning. You might want to try again. Watching Paul Ryan channel the Koch brothers and finding out exactly how the Tea Party got started - and why they're not likely to go away - is worth the price of admission.

If you can watch one hour of TV this week, try this one. It's a stunner. Once you hear these people speak, you'll know what's happened to the American Dream. Whether we can still salvage our democracy remains to be seen.

Careful, you'll give him a big head.

AdamSmith asks his bar-mates if they've tried the chimichanga. They follow him up to his room.

Never mind! That little correction at the end does appear to take some of the steam out of the kettle. Still, it's a juicy tale, and I bet Karl Rove is kicking himself for not knowing about it a week ago. Wonder how long till he declares the election invalid.

Yes, my name really is Lion, but my friends call me Kitty.

They don't call me the Feckless Fawner for nothing!

Not by me he wasn't, and it remains a source of wonder why we have this enduring need to set people up as 'examples' and then rend our garments when they fail to live up to our expectations, as they nearly always do. The guy may be a terrific general, but I've never seen a particularly strong correlation between running a war and being a faithful husband. I wonder if we really believe that "This time it's different! This is a leader who will never cheat on his betrothed. He will always pay his taxes and he will never tell a lie." We must know better. All anyone has to do is look back over this very Forum and we'll find lots of threads dealing with idols who have feet of clay. We can't keep making that same 'mistake' over and over again unless we're just plain nuts. My current working hypothesis is that we set people up as 'examples' just because we get so much pleasure from gloating when they fall off the pedestals we construct for them. If anyone was ever crazy enough to try setting me up on a pedestal, I'd kick the damn thing over before the plaster was dry.

What happens in Kabul stays in Kabul.

I try to stay away from generalities, where discomfort may arise from cloudy intentions, and focus on something more specific. Rather than tell a guy he looks like he works out, I might try telling him he's a dead ringer for a guy in the book I just started reading. If, in spite of my objectivity, he still feels a bit uncomfortable, I find that dropping my voice an octave and adding a friendly "Bro" or "Dude" can sometimes ease any temporary awkwardness.

Not once Paula Broadwell got ahold of it.

Rarely go to a nice restaurant except with friends (see Budget thread) but when I eat alone at my favorite dives, it's always with a book. In fact, it's about the only time I get any pleasure reading done. One thing I enjoy about this thread is imagining living near you good folks and having the occasional dinner out. I'm sure we'd get stared at plenty, but we could always blame it on the other guy.

Tell me! I could shadow mine everywhere it goes and still be home for breakfast.