TotallyOz

Agree. Each one of these little victories just keep the pile getting higher and higher.

I have fallen in love with my IPad. I don't know how I ever lived without one. The BF really loves it and the only drawback is that we seem to fight for time with it each day. The battery lasts for about 10 hours and there has not been a day that we didn't deplete the battery. LOL I am curious what some of you that use the IPhone and IPad, what are your favorite apps? For me, I love 10 Pin Bowling. I find it addictive. I have yet to beat Firecat's score yet but I am working hard on it. Only about 20 points away. I also love the Crosswords app. It downloads about 20 crosswords from newspapers around the world every day. I can then work on them in my spare time. I usually only complete one per day, but I love the option of a variety of puzzles and it keeps track of the time it takes you to complete each one. The Kindle App is a must for those that have the Kindle and books from them. They transfer over pretty automatically and it is great to have all my Kindle books on the IPad. Anyone have other recommendations?

I downloaded this months ago and have to say that it is the best money I have spent in ages. I love it. It makes the sound on my Mac Itunes come to live. I honestly never expected a program would be able to do this, but it does. I give him 5 Stars! Here is a review: Digital Power Station (DPS) for iTunes By Lex Friedman, Macworld.com - April 2, 2010 Digital Power Station (DPS) for iTunes from Bongiovi Acoustics is a plug-in that aims to optimize the sound you get from your Mac as you listen to music or watch movies. I’ll admit that I was pretty skeptical about how much impact such a plug-in could have, but I’m delighted to report that I was a fool: DPS’s effect is immediate, impressive, and almost entirely pleasant. In fact, the plug-in has now ruined me for iTunes without it. DPS needs three bits of information to start working its magic: How you’re listening (headphones, built-in speakers, or external speakers), which specific model you’re listening with (as specific as which size iMac you’re using, for example), and whether you’re rocking out to music or watching a movie. Once your settings are all set, you push the large B button. The first thing you’ll notice is the loudness—DPS boosts the low-, mid-, and high-range frequencies alike, which in turn causes a significant dynamic boost. But the second thing you’ll notice is how much fuller your music sounds. DPS adds significant clarity, depth, presence, and punch. Bass becomes bassier, instrumentation becomes more well-defined, and vocals shine front and center. DPS works similar wonders with movies and TV shows. The plug-in’s Movie setting tries to balance out the dynamic range by ensuring that quieter passages get bumped up and louder ones don’t overwhelm you. I tested an iTunes movie rental and an episode of 24 that I ripped from one of my DVDs. In both cases, dialogue became much more prominent, and the overall soundtrack sounded superb. So how does DPS do what it does? The technology behind the plug-in was originally conceived years ago by Tony Bongiovi, a record producer and recording engineer (and yes, the second cousin of perhaps the second-most famous New Jersey musician). At the time, Bongiovi was attempting to get better audio in high-noise environments, like airplanes. What once necessitated serious hardware now can be powered fully by software. As he explained it to me, the DPS plug-in analyzes the source material in real-time, and reassembles it live to accomodate the deficiencies of the specific speakers/headphones you’re using. (SRS Labs’ similarly-priced SRS iWOW Premium for iTunes, on the other hand, offers different presets for different music genres.) The patented process is essentially the same concept as DVDs that offer movies with digitally remastered audio. To get the most out of DPS, it’s recommended that you disable iTunes’ Sound Check and Sound Enhancer features, as well as the built-in equalizer. That’s because of the plug-in’s real-time approach; it “listens” to your music and makes adjustments based on what’s happening in each song individually. In spite of its greatness, DPS isn’t perfect. Sometimes I found that vocal-heavy music sounded too punchy, and some live recordings skewed a bit more trebly than they sounded with the plug-in disabled. But frankly, even when I thought DPS’s optimizations slightly misfired, I still preferred listening with the plug-in turned on. And if you’re using third-party desktop speakers, or any non-Apple headphones, you’ll need to cycle through various unhelpfully-named presets—like Universal Earbuds 1, Universal Headphones 2, or Universal speakers 1 through 5. It’s a bit confusing, but I experimented until I found the setup that pleased my ears the most. And Bongiovi told me that customers can submit information about additional speakers or headphones that they use, and the company will attempt to buy those products and create custom profiles to optimize the plug-in specifically for those devices. Macworld’s buying advice If you listen to a lot of music or watch a lot of movies and TV shows in iTunes, Digital Power Station (DPS) for iTunes can make the experience a more pleasurable one. To see if you’ll like the results, grab the free trial and give it a test drive before plunking down $30. http://www.bongioviacoustics.com/ Main Site http://www.dpsplugin.com/ Product Download

I love Evernote. I would not make it through a day or a week without it. I love the way it helps me to organize data and to have it handily available for me. Evernote is (from Wiki): Evernote is a free suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archival. A "note" can be a piece of formattable text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can then be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, and searched. On supported operating systems, Evernote stores and edits the user's notes on their local machine. Users with internet access and an Evernote account can also have their notes automatically synchronised with a master copy held on the Evernote server. This approach lets a user access and edit their data across multiple machines and operating system platforms, but still view, input and edit data when an internet connection is not available. Where Evernote client software is not available, online account-holders can access their note archive via a web interface, with more limited functionality. The Evernote software can be downloaded and used as "stand-alone" software without setting up an online account, but will not be able to upload files to the Evernote server, or use the server to synchronise or share files between different Evernote installations. As well as the keyboard entry of typed notes, Evernote supports image capture from cameras on supported devices, and the recording of voice notes. In some situations, text that appears in captured images can be recognised using OCR and annotated. Evernote also supports touch and tablet screens with handwriting recognition. Evernote web clipping plugins are available for the most popular internet browsers that allow marked sections of webpages to be captured and clipped to Evernote. If no section of a webpage has been highlighted, Evernote can clip the full page. Where suitable hardware is available, Evernote can automatically add geolocation tags to notes. The online service also allows selected files to be shared for viewing and editing by other users, and allows integration with Twitter for storing or forwarding "tweets". Users can also use the Twitter system to add notes to Evernote remotely, by sending tweets from any Twitter-capable device. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The cost for Evernote is 45.00 a year. I find it totally worth it. I like the ability to have extensions installed in my browsers and I see a page that I want to remember I just hit my Evernote button and it is now in Evernote with all data, the url, etc. If I forget the name of the article, I simply type in one word into my search in Evernote and it will appear. It allows me to easily find things that I have saved in the program. I also find it easy to store data there. For example, I have tons of photos. I don't like lugging them around with me. Every month, near the end of my upload limit, I upload all my photos from IPhoto for safe storage. This gives me a way to back all of them up. Also, I have family that I want to be able to access all my personal information. I had my sister install a copy of this on her computer and she keeps that synced. Now, if she needs to know my flight info, she goes there and it is pulled up. If she needs to see a copy of some document, it is there. All my PDF's are synced and all the words inside them are search-able. I LOVE Evernote! It is one program I cannot do without. http://www.evernote.com/

Understood. But, don't forget the Yin Yang principal.

Thank you. We do appreciate the effort and hope others join in as well.

http://www.kocnet.jp/index.html

I have now had 2 versions of the Kindle and I love it. The DX is the larger one and that is the one I currently have. They have International version which allows for download of books just about anywhere which is great for those that travel. I have a new IPad and it too is great! I have been using my Kindle App on it and all my books from Kindle and Amazon transferred over. I have to say, the extra features that are on the IPad are worth the money but I also like to play games, surf the net and check e-mail. The Kindle is fantastic and I still use it but it seems less and less since the IPad came out.

Great photos. Love the twinks!

Offers were made. Offers were ignored. I guess an influx of cash made the offer moot. Me too. Congrats! You are kidding? The myths of needing cash have been melted away over the years. If anyone actually believed that they were not dong their homework. I also beg to differ, when he comes back and asks for more money, again more will be given. It reminds me of the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker love affair of my youth. Good analogy. We welcome your One Finger and the four other ones as well.

For those point whores like me, I take advantage of every opportunity I can to accumulate more points. If you are traveling or have a future trip planned or just want to get some extra points, use the below to get 5,000 points on your next stay at any Intercontinental Hotel (Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza, etc.). I did this and it worked for me. Priority Club members: go to http ://www.priorityclub dot com/register (NOTE: I intentionally didn't put a hot link here so that the link can't be traced, obviously just remove the spaces and replace the dot above with a .) Enter code 2162, this should get you 5K bonus points on your next stay (stay must be completed within 90 day of registering)

For those point whores like me, I take advantage of every opportunity I can to accumulate more points. If you are traveling to Gay Thailand or have a future trip planned or just want to get some extra points, use the below to get 5,000 points on your next stay at any Intercontinental Hotel (Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza, etc.). I did this and it worked for me. Priority Club members: go to http ://www.priorityclub dot com/register (NOTE: I intentionally didn't put a hot link here so that the link can't be traced, obviously just remove the spaces and replace the dot above with a .) Enter code 2162, this should get you 5K bonus points on your next stay (stay must be completed within 90 day of registering)

I was having a conversation with a gentleman I have known for a while. He is not a good friend but merely someone I chat with from time to time. We were talking about how long he had been retired and I asked him how old he was. He got visibly upset and said that is not a proper question to ask anyone. I get asked that question often as people think I am 60 but am not quite that old yet. I know that asking ladies their age is not kosher. I didn't think it offensive to ask a guy his age. Am I wrong? Did I commit an error?

OK. The official Gay Thailand report on the IPad 3G. First, it is amazing. The speed is incredible. The versatility of the programs almost compares to Gaybutton's versatility. I love the look and the feel. There are just too many programs out there not to love this thing. In the USA, all the stores I went to were sold out of the WiFi only version as I was trying to pick up one for a friend. I was not successful. I did get the 3G version for myself and I was able to test it and while it is not 3G speed in LOS, it is not 3G in USA either. It is very sufficient to do e-mail and casual Internet work. For Thailand, I suggest that if you want to use it on the 3G, that you go with 12Call. Buy a new Sim Card. Put 700 on that sim card. Call the company and tell them you are going to be using a blackberry and that you want the Unlimited Package. This will get you a savings of over 300 baht per month. The plan costs 650 per month. Forget all you have read about it being blocked. That is not true. You don't need to jailbreak it. It is as simple as putting a new sim in. HOWEVER, these are mini SIM cards just like the new IPhone 4G. So, you will have to trim it down. I suggest going to Tuk com and having someone do that for you. Then, you insert the Sim in and you are ready to go. So, to sum things up. If you want an amazing device that works on the telephone network in Thailand for e-mail and Internet: 1. Get a Sim Card. 2. Put money on it for the first month and then don't forget to deposit money online for other months. (Why? If you need to call them, you can only call from a 4G IPhone to talk to them). 3. Call your provider to sign up for Unlimited Internet. 4. Insert a pin to eject the Sim. 5. Take out ATT (Shitty Ass company from USA) and put in your new Sim. Turn On and surf. If you have questions on the process, let me know. Lastly, I love this device. The battery is amazing and the graphics are awesome. My favorite program is a Crossword program that downloads the newest crosswords from about 20 of the best places daily and stores then for you to play with. Second best program is the Kindle for IPad (IPhone). It lets you read all your Kindle purchased books on a great screen.

I have a free Gold Upgrade certificate that I can use by November. I was planning on flying back to LOS with this. But, trying to book out of USA anywhere other than LA proved impossible. Thai would not book Dallas or Houston. I could have booked with Continental but was told I'll have to pay double baggage and use 2 tickets. Continental was trying to charge 6k USD to book with them to use Thai Air out of LA. What a true Pain. Any suggestions for next time when I am trying to leave from Dallas or New York?

We are going to have a photo contest. The rules are simple. 1. Post your photos here and post as many as you like and want to enter. (They can't be photos that you posted last year for the contest. You are still welcome to post those entered last year but none of them will be eligible for this years contest prize). 2. The photo must be original and taken by the poster who posts it. 3. The photos will be judged by a group of impartial judges with the top 10 selected 10 days before the All Forums Meet and Greet. 4. The top ten will be voted on by the members here and the winner will be the ones with the most votes. Only one vote per registered. Prizes will be given away on night of our choosing. If unable to attend, we will find a convenient date when you are in Thailand for the prize. The Prize is a bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey.

Been taking some photos of the boys you know in the Land of Smiles? Well, lets see those smiles. Post them here and get a chance to win a bottle of Whiskey. 1. Post your photos here and post as many as you like and want to enter. (They can't be photos that you posted last year for the contest. You are still welcome to post those entered last year but none of them will be eligible for this years contest prize). 2. The photo must be original and taken by the poster as it is a Smile contest, hopefully it will have a boy or girl with a beautiful smile. 3. The photos will be judged by a group of impartial judges with the top 10 selected 10 days before the All Forums Meet and Greet. 4. The top ten will be voted on by the posters here and the winners will be the ones with the most votes. Only one vote per user. Prizes will be given away on a night of our choosing. If unable to attend, we will find a convenient date when you are in Thailand for the prize.

We are going to be upgrading our forum to newest version. This entails us making a back up, adding new and then bringing back all topics. You may see some features not working properly. We hope to have this done by week's end. My apologies for any inconvenience.

I am currently in NYC in a very overpriced hotel the size of a shoebox. However, I am having a great time. I have been helping friends with the events of Broadway Cares / Equity Fights Aids events for this weekend. When I lived in NYC, it was one of my favorite weekend (other than the Black Party and Gay Pride Week). I had dinner with some friends from law school and caught up on old times as one of them is having a grandchild. OMG. I am getting old. I did not get to spend too much time in NYC this week but it was a fun weekend. It was so different from my weekends in LOS. What's your idea of the perfect weekend? Do you generally prefer unstructured time or a busy social calendar? Charity work? Bar hoping? Being alone working the crossword? Catching up on e-mails?

What is the most disgusting food you have ever eaten in LOS? My Aunts and I were discussing the trip I took them on a few years ago and the things they saw on the streets. They are VERY southern and picky eaters. I told them that I have tried just about all the things on the carts that roll around. Eating the grasshoppers were perhaps the most disgusting for me but only because I could tell what it was. What is the most disgusting food you have ever eaten in LOS?

I am not breaking up with my beloved. He and I get along great when I am out of LOS. However, my best friend in USA just broke up with his BF and is having a hard time. How do you recover from a bad break-up? The proverbial pint of ice cream? Quality time alone? Going out with friends? Getting laid? Going to the bars? What are your personal healing strategies?

SAN FRANCISCO — Lawyers arguing a landmark federal case involving California's same-sex marriage ban made their final arguments Wednesday, with supporters describing matrimony as an institution intended to promote childbearing and opponents saying the U.S. Supreme Court had recognized it as a fundamental right. Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson delivered the closing argument for the two, same-sex couples who sued to overturn voter-approved Proposition 8, claiming it violated their civil rights. He told Chief U.S. Judge Vaughn Walker that tradition or fears of harm to heterosexual unions were legally insufficient grounds to discriminate against gay couples. "'We have always done it that way' is a corollary to 'Because I say so.' It's not a reason," Olson said at the start of the five-hour hearing. "You can't have constitutional discrimination in public schools because you have always done it that way." Former U.S. Justice Department lawyer Charles Cooper, who represents religious and conservative groups that sponsored the 2008 ballot measure, countered that cultures around the world, previous courts and Congress all accepted the "common sense beli ef that children do best when they are raised by their own mother and father." "The plaintiffs say there is no way to understand why anyone would support Proposition 8, would support the traditional definition of marriage, except through some irrational or dark motivation," Cooper said. "That is not just a slur on the 7 million Californians who supported Proposition 8, it's a slur on the 70 out of 108 judges who have upheld the decision as rational." Walker is being asked to strike down the ballot measure that banned same-sex marriages in California five months after the state's highest court legalized the practice and after an estimated 18,000 couples from around the nation had tied the knot. The judge heard 12 days of testimony in January, but closing arguments were delayed until Wednesday to give Walker time to review the evidence and because of a skirmish between lawyers about putting additional material from the 2008 campaign into the trial record. Walker did not indicate when he might make his ruling in the trial, the first in federal court to examine if states can prohibit gays from getting married. Whatever the judge does will be almost surely be reviewed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and could land before the Supreme Court. Olson invoked the high court often during his closing argument, stressing that it has afforded prisoners serving life sentences and child support scofflaws the right to marry and refused to make procreation a precondition of marriage, as evidenced by laws allowing divorces and contraception. "It is the right of individuals, not an indulgence to be dispensed by the state," Olson said. "The right to marry, to choose to marry, has never been tied to procreation." Judge Walker pressed Olson on that point, noting Proposition 8 supporters have gone to some lengths to argue that gays and lesbians only can have children with help from a third party, unlike opposite-sex couples. "That is a difference," Walker said. "And why is that difference not one the Legislature or voters could rationally take into account in setting the marriage laws in California?" Olson said that argument would only work from a constitutional standpoint if the ban's backers had proven that allowing gays to wed was a threat to heterosexual relationships, a requirement Olson said had not been met. "You would have to explain or make some statement that allowing these other individuals we represent here today to engage in the institution of marriage would somehow stop people from getting married ... or cause them to get divorced," he said. Cooper used his closing argument to try to persuade the judge that it was up to the plaintiffs to prove that voters lacked justification for outlawing same-sex marriage, even if they acted only out of fear of the unknown. He urged Walker to sidestep the "judicial tsunami they are asking you to sail into." "The plaintiffs have to negate every conceivable rational basis that might explain the policy at issue," he said. Cooper's repeated efforts to use the procreative abilities of opposite-sex couples as the rationale for Proposition 8 drew a series of challenges from Walker. The judge asked if similar arguments were once used to keep interracial couples from marrying, and if procreation was so central to marriage, why didn't the state refuse to sanction marriage by infertile couples or couples who choose to remain childless? "It is Orwellian, but isn't that the logic that flows from the premise that marriage is about procreation?" Walker asked. Cooper answered that it would be impractical for governments to test couples to see if they were capable of having children before they marry or to require those that were capable to sign pledges that they would have children. With respect to laws that banned interracial marriage, Cooper said, "those racist sentiments and policies had no foundation in the historical purpose of marriage, and in fact they were at war with it." During Olson's rebuttal, the judge seemed to wrestle with whether he should declare Proposition 8 unconstitutional when public opinion appears to be moving toward accepting same-sex marriage, which is legal in five states and the District of Columbia. A premature judicial edict, Walker said, could harden public opinion in the same way as the high court's 1973 decision legalizing abortion. When the Supreme Court invalidated interracial marriage bans in Virginia and 14 other states in 1967, "there was already a tide running, a political tide with respect to interracial marriage," Walker said. "Do we have a political tide here that is going to carry the Supreme Court?" "Your honor, there is a political tide running. And I think that people's eyes are being opened," Olson answered. "But that doesn't justify a judge in a court to say, 'I really need the polls to be just a few more points higher. I need somebody to go out and take the temperature of the American public before I can break down this barrier and change this discrimination." http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hOiMLmsztmiGlNvjNLQLw4N41h1QD9GCNNJG0

"She Loves It When You Poke Her Face" “When it comes to gag factor, Lady Gag Gag’s got it,” says Kevin Johnson, Marketing Manager of Pipedream Products. “This is going to be one of those boxes people are going to collect and display proudly for friends to come over and talk about. We definitely recommend everyone stock up because she is going to sell out fast!” http://www.pipedreamproducts.com/email/060110-Press-Release/060110-Press-Release.html

The BF wanted to be sure I paid UBC when I was away from Thailand. Why? The World Cup of course. He had not touched the TV in 3 months. But, now he wants to watch all the games late at night with his friends. When the UBC bill came, he SMS me to make sure I knew there was a bill that needed to be paid. I found this poll on live journal and thought it was great.

Has someone you loved and respected ever done something you consider despicable? If so, how did you deal with it? Did you try to forgive them? Did it permanently change your feelings for them?