TotallyOz

Brasilia - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday described Democratic candidate Barack Obama's victory as an "extraordinary event" and asked the US president-elect to lift the decades-old embargo on communist Cuba. Lula said Obama's historic rise underlined the democratic aspects of US society. "It could only happen in a democratic regime in which society expresses itself." The Brazilian president also expressed a desire for the next US president to end the US-imposed embargo on Cuba. "We await the end of the blockade on Cuba, because there is no explanation for that blockade." Lula, however, also cautioned that there is "a very big difference between winning an election and governing a country like the United States ... Let us wait until he is inaugurated to see what happens." He urged Obama to have "a stronger and bolder relationship with Latin America and Africa," and said that Obama could seal "a peace agreement with the Middle East, where a deal has been sought for decades and decades and has not been achieved." http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/24...ba-embargo.html

SAN FRANCISCO—The San Francisco City Attorney's office says he plans to challenge the validity of a ballot measure that would change the state constitution to ban gay marriage. Spokesman Matt Dorsey says City Attorney Dennis Herrera will file the legal challenge in the California Supreme Court if the measure passes. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Proposition 8 is leading with 52 percent of the vote. But there are still as many as 3 million ballots left to be counted. The first lesbian couple to be married in Los Angeles County after the Supreme Court threw out the gay marriage ban also plans to announce a lawsuit against Proposition 8. Attorney Gloria Allred says that lawsuit will argue that the measure is unconstitutional. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci...?nclick_check=1

I didn't get to see the ads. I did give to the cause but I guess that didn't help too much. I really didn't think a ton of new democrats showing up and voting would hurt the cause. I was honestly a great deal shocked. I am not in USA and have relied on the news overseas. But, I thought that California would certainly do better. I guess there still is a great deal to overcome.

Not only was it a very eloquent speech, it was also done very fast when they called the election. He did not wait and hemm and haw. He stepped out fast and graciously. He is a very good American and a true here IMHO.

A new day is dawning and I wish his people the best in preparing for the coming years to come. It was a hard fight and I am many sacrificed a great deal. This historic election has captured the hearts of the world. I hope it really is the new beginning we have been promised.

Hard to believe. But, with 90 percent of the votes counted, it looks like this may pass. WTF

I was having breakfast with a guy this morning and he is here on holiday. He has a few regular boys he sees and enjoys his time here. He has one boy that is trying to hook him for a long term deal. The Farang told him that he was here to be a butterfly and not to fall in love. He said he would be good to the boy but not looking for a LTR. I can see the benefits of this and I often say that I would love to be this way but I seem to be more a LTR kind of a guy. I still like to play but am always open to the long term thing. I wonder how many people that spend the majority of time here are looking for a steady as opposed to the flight of the butterfly? I was at a party last night and there were many older distinguished gentlemen there. Many of them seemed to be in LTR and not looking for play. For some of them, the word Sunee or Boyztown would be hard to swallow. Me, I love the bars and the activity of the night and all that goes with it. I do have a boyfriend for a long term but I also love the other end of the spectrum.

I was out with friends and had a boy with me that was a family friend of the BF and a farang I had met was talking to us and all a sudden touched the boys dick to see how big he was. The boy was absolutely flabbergasted and shocked. I didn't know what to say. The boy handled it well but it made him not only uncomfortable but very embarrassed. He is with me quite a bit and knows I am gay and like guys but I have never touched him other than a hello hug. I hope this doesn't make him leery to go out with me again but only time with tell. I do wonder if some think that every single person in Pattaya is a hooker? I know that some Farangs treat the boys and girls like that. While I will gaze at every beautiful boy I see, I know there are limits and boundaries. Some don't and in a city like Pattaya, I wonder if the longer one stays here the more those limits seem to fade?

The beaches of Pattaya have been slow and most have stayed away for quiet a while. Each time I went there were few boys and even fewer customers. Yesterday, the sun came out and it was a wonderfully hot and sunny day. The boyfriend and I went to the beach. My oh My what a wonderful day. The motorcycle lot was overflowing. The beaches were packed with families and tourists alike. The place I normally sit at was so packed they had to add extra chairs for us. There were many faces familiar to me and many I have never seen before. Eye Candy was everywhere. The weather was absolutely perfect and the breeze was nice. My manicurist was extremely happy to see me. It was so nice to have the feel of sand in my toes as I made it home in the late afternoon. I much prefer that to the mud and water I have had recently after each trek out. I hope this is the end of the rainy season but you never know. If it is, it was one fucking amazing way to end. It was just like s sudden transition and wham bam thank you mam.

I have to pull out a Karaoke night every now and again. When I first came to Pattaya, my first night was a blast. It was so fun to watch. The more times I went, the harder it became to stay awake for me. The deal I had with the first BF was maximum 2 nights a week. I think I got suckered in on that one as that is what he said was normal. LOL He also told me 30k bath a month plus all expenses and an entertainment budget was normal. I had a friend that would suffer through these karaoke events with me and we would both watch our watches until we thought it was safe to make a quick exit. Now, I find that it is easy thanks to Blu-0 at Major in Pattaya. You can get your own VIP room and not have to deal with all the hassle of a ton of guys wanting to sing all night. The rooms are very clean and fully services by wait staff. On top of that, they have very comfortable couches, great flat screen TV's and it is easy to relax and enjoy the night. It is still hard for me to stay out all night long but I will occasionally do it. The rates for a room is 300 bath an hour. What an excellent price. Take the guys bowling and end up in your own private room where they can mix with their friends and enjoy each other. It is a great way to spend a night and a great price IMHO. Anyone know of more places like this?

For those of you that have boyfriends who are going back to the one day a week high school so they can finish their degrees, this is the weekend they must register. They need to find a school, get their papers from their family home and an ID. I have been told that this is the weekend for most parts of the country that they must go and talk to the teacher.

PATHUM THANI: Most people have been warned at some point not to flush condoms down the toilet for risk of blocking the outflow pipe and having a nasty overflowing toilet to deal with. But who has ever seen it actually happen? The management of one short-time hotel in Muang District discovered, to its chagrin, that a steady input of second-hand prophylactics can block not only a toilet, but indeed an entire neighborhood sewage system, leading to streets flooded with filthy, condom infested water. Short-time hotels in Thailand are known in the vernacular as ‘drawing curtains’ hotels for their signature feature, a curtain that allows couples to pull into a carport and enter their room completely out-of-view of prying eyes. Such hotels typically coexist quite peacefully with the people in the neighborhoods where they are found. However, this was not the case for a short-time hotel in Pathum Thani’s Tambon Ban Klang in mid-October when the local tambon administration organization (OrBorTor) was called in to deal with flooding around a certain love hotel that was left unnamed in the report. The OrBorTor promptly sent a team over to pump out the water and see if they could discover the source of the unpleasant output from the city sewers. After a while, the pump suddenly stopped sucking. When the workers opened up the machine to get to the bottom of the problem, they found a gooey mass of used rubbers blocking the machine's internal workings. The workers, noticing the seedy motel’s sign flashing nearby, quickly surmised how the street’s sewer had become so clogged. When the OrBorTor contacted the hotel management to request that they tell their customers to be a bit more careful with the detritus left over from their illicit trysts, the management abruptly denied that their establishment was in any way connected to the problem. Uncon- vinced, the OrBorTor authorities sent engineers back to the spot to check out the management’s story. Upon scrutinizing the effluent pipe leading from the hotel to the public sewer system, they found it awash with floating condoms. The OrBorTor, understandably keen to protect their constituents from having to put up with streets of condom-filled sewage water, hit the hotel’s owner with a temporary closure order, insisting that the ‘facility’ would have to remain closed until such time as it could guarantee there would be no recurrence of the unpleasant situation. Predictably, the real losers will be the hotel cleaning staff, who will soon have a deeply disturbing sight awaiting them when emptying the bins. http://www.phuketgazette.com/queernews/index.asp?id=6882

Having spoken to boys who live in Bangkok and often travel 2 hours to go to University and live with their family to save on expenses, the study below does not surprise me in the least. From Bangkok Post: Nearly a third of Thais are willing to put up with a two-hour commute to and from work, making Thais the world's most committed commuters, according to a survey by the recruitment consultancy Robert Walters. The survey asked respondents how long they were willing to spend travelling to work, offering options of under 30 minutes, 30 minutes to an hour, an hour to two hours and more than two hours. Some 31% of Thais said they would be willing to endure a one- to two-hour commute and 15% were prepared to spend even longer travelling. By contrast, only 18% of Chinese and a similar number of Americans were prepared to travel up to two hours. Singaporeans have it easier. Given their country's relatively small area and highly efficient transport network, 57% of the respondents were only willing to spend between 30 minutes and an hour commuting. Interestingly, only 10% of Malaysians are willing to spend more than an hour travelling to work, despite their country's larger size. James Vessey, country manager at Robert Walters Thailand, commented that people in Thailand are clearly willing to do more in securing the right job, but in most countries the time people are willing to spend commuting is limited. When locating headquarters, companies should consider travel, because it will clearly be a factor in their ability to secure the best staff, he added. http://bangkokpost.com/311008_Business/31Oct2008_biz34.php

Ran across a word that I needed to know the meaning of and had to find some research on it. limn \LIM\, transitive verb: 1. To depict by drawing or painting. 2. To portray in words; to describe. Oh, yes, I write, as I limn the familiar perfections of his profile, "you look very well." -- Kimberly Elkins, "What Is Visible", The Atlantic, March 2003 In telling these people's stories Mr. Butler draws upon the same gifts of empathy and insight, the same ability to limn an entire life in a couple of pages. -- Michiko Kakutani, "Earthlings May Endanger Your Peaceful Rationality", New York Times, March 10, 2000 But used faithfully and correctly, language can "limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers." -- John Darnton, "In Sweden, Proof of The Power Of Words", New York Times, December 8, 1993 Limn is from Middle English limnen, alteration of luminen, from enluminen, from Medieval French enluminer, from Late Latin illuminare, "to illuminate," ultimately from Latin lumen, "light."

Last night in Sunee I was talking to a boy outside of Erich's new restaurant and all of the sudden a motorcycle starts up about 10 feet from me and starts high speed in full throttle and runs right into me and the boy and then into the motorcycles behind us. Both the boy and I were fine and not hurt as we were able to move back quickly as we heard it coming at us. My hand is still a bit bruised and my foot is sore but other than that, no serious injury. The guy driving may have been drunk but I was told he had an automatic and when he went to start, it locked into high gear and took off fast. The BF said that the same thing happened to him before. When walking anywhere, be careful and listen to the sounds around you. You never know when a flying motorcycle is on the way.

I may be in Khon Kaen at end of January for a week. Where would be a good place to stay with high speed Internet? What is the city like? Weather like that time of year?

UTTARADIT: Government officials in Uttaradit have been put on high alert after a teenage couple was caught having sex right outside the culture office in the Provincial Hall on the afternoon of September 20. On that day, the town was packed with people coming to watch a festival being held in Phraya Phichai Dap Hak Sports Stadium, opposite the hall. Uttaradit resident Thongsak Yammansri told reporters that he happened upon the canoodling couple at about 2 pm, after he felt the urge to relieve himself while watching the procession of floats displaying local fruits and beauty queens. As he was wandering past the offices of the provincial election commission and culture office, Thonsak was shocked to see two teens, whose ages he estimated to be no older than 17, brazenly making love in broad daylight on a stone bench. “When I saw them I was shocked,” said Mr Thongsak. “I wanted to stop them, but was embarrassed. So I just made a lot of noise so they would know they had been spotted. When I came out of the toilet, they had already gone. That day was a public holiday, so the government officers were not working. Also, most people were watching the opening of the festival, so there weren’t many people around,” he said. “I guess they were a young couple who wanted to give it a try, but didn’t have money for a hotel room,” conjectured Thongsak, who said he feared it could be the start of a worrying new social trend. “I can’t believe that today’s young people could be so daring – and in such a bad way; having sex in inappropriate places with no fear of being seen,” he lamented. Sairung Thadajang, from the Uttaradit Provincial Cultural Office, said that after hearing about the incident in the press she was very shocked and immediately went to examine the spot where the couple were caught. “Teenagers nowadays see all sorts of things on the Internet and don’t know what they should and shouldn’t do,” Ms Sairung complained. “Underage sex is a big problem in society now. The Culture Office has tried to combat it by controlling Internet use and arranging cultural activities to give youths something to do, but only some groups are interested,” she explained. Uttaradit Vice-Governor Jakrin Plianwong said that he had not yet been informed of the incident, but would now be investigating it in full. From now on, members of the provincial volunteer guards will be asked to increase patrols in and around the seat of the provincial government to ensure there is no recurrence or other untoward events taking place there, he said. http://www.phuketgazette.com/queernews/index.asp?id=6874

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Impoverished Cambodia has doubled its 2009 military budget to $500 million (311 million pounds) following this month's border clash with Thailand, officials said on Wednesday, an increase that is likely to anger its donors. The National Assembly is expected to approve the new budget next week, with the military accounting for 25 percent of all spending, said Cheam Yeap, head of its finance commission. "This incident has awoken us to the need for our soldiers to be better equipped. We cannot sit and watch Thai troops encroach on our border," he told Reuters. "Our army needs to be more organised, better trained, with newer bases and well-fed troops." Three Cambodian soldiers and one Thai died in the October 15 firefight in the shadow of the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, a stunning set of Hindu ruins that have been claimed for decades by both countries. Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE49S23V20...

The economy is struggling in most parts of the world. People have lost retirement investment and their portfolios are down. Many have said they are unable to return to Thailand next year as it is cost prohibitive. We are here are help with our High Season Give-A-Way. The prize:: A roundtrip ticket from your city to Thailand anytime during 2009. We will book this for you (via Rhonda and Norcross Travel or another travel agency to insure discretion) for up to 1500 USD. The way to enter: Every day we will tally the number of people that have 3 or more posts. Winner (to be drawn by independent witnesses) must have made 3+ posts, on any given day, and also at least 150 posts over the competition period (November 1 – Feb. 28th). To qualify, the posts must be reasonable quality. One or two word posts will not count. While this post is in the main Thailand forum, there are other forums here as well and all qualify. In the first week in March, we will have a drawing and the person whose name comes out of the hat will be the winner. We will have the drawing in a public place in Pattaya or Bangkok with observers to watch the entries and the results. Rules* The prize must be taken before December 31, 2009. There is no cash equivalent offered. If the winner is unable to travel to Thailand the prize will be offered to 2nd place and so on. Judges decision will be final. Administrators and Moderators are ineligible. *The competition and its rules are subject to change if circumstances are beyond our control. Added Nov 3 for Clarification: Everyday we keep a tally. Each day you post 3 or more posts, you get one slip of paper with your name on it. If you post 3 or more posts each day for 10 days, you get 10 slips of paper put into the hat. If you post 3 or more posts for 60 days, you get 60 slips put into the hat. The more days you post 3 or more posts, the more slips of paper you get in the hat as long as you have 150 over the contest period. Thus, the more days you post 3 or more, the more likely you are to have a piece of paper drawn from the hat.

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 Scotch Whiskey. 1. Post your photos here and post as many as you like and want to enter. 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 night of the meet and greet. If unable to attend, we will find a convenient date when you are in Thailand for the prize.

George is hosting an event for all the forums in December. We would like to have a little fun with this as well here at GayThailand. So, 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. 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 the meet and greet. 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.

At the disco last night, I made a few promises for short times. One was for 2 O'clock today as I do love an afternooner. But, as I was typing here at 8am, he showed up in my bedroom. My gardener let him in as she knew him and recognized him from more than a few visits. I looked back and said, "why are you here so early?" He said I told him 2 and he wanted to come and woke up early to be here. I often forget that the word usage for Thai time is different than my usual words so I need to be more clean. Anyway, on that note, I am off for a bit (with a smile on my face as I love a morning visit even more than an afternooner) with a note to myself to be more clear on times from now on.

After a hard start with the fish pond in my home months ago, I was very happy to return to the Land of Smiles and see not only had my fish lived but they were getting bigger. It made me feel wonderful that the boyfriend had feed them so well that their little bellies are bigger and they are growing and growing. I am not sure the boyfriend felt the same about my Brazilian boyfriend who fed me even better and I grew and grew on my little trip down to see him. When I am in Brazil it is an insult to the boyfriend's mother not to eat with her every day and she thinks that desert is a required part of the meal. Anyway, I guess the fish and I both grew on my trip away from the Land of Smiles but it is much nicer to see them grow than it is to see me grow.

I remember the old names much better than the new ones but the old K boys is hopping. I was there the last 2 nights and over 45 dancers I counted each night. They have a nightly show with drum beating that is fun to watch. The place is lively and enjoyable. If you are visiting Sunee, you need to drop by for a visit!

A Thai friend of one of my special guys had a Birthday yesterday. I brought his friend into town to surprise him and threw the boy a birthday bash. We started out with a group of about 12 at bowling and dinner and then moved the party to Body Language around 12:30. When we arrived, no one was there but within an hour the place was jamming. Tons of cute eye candy both on and off the stage. I found 2 of the coyote dancers as hot as they come and tipped them accordingly. There was also plenty of eye candy in the crowd and a lot of full tables. The place seemed to be packed by the time I had to call it quits at around 3. Our group had grown from 12 to around 25 but not sure where they all came from. LOL Some I knew, some I didn't. Some I really wanted to get to know more had I had more time. This is a gay club with gay staff and wonderful management. I have yet to have a bad time there and I hope that they keep on thriving! Last night was a hoot and it makes me want to try it again this week. BTW: the new boy I got reacquainted with yesterday is staying with me for a bit. He went to the club with me. I posted in another thread where he had been away from Pattaya for years and he has never worked in a bar. What I also didn't know was that he has never been drunk on whiskey. I was stupid not to ask and not to watch him but he got wasted. When we returned home he was as drunk as they come. A few trips to the bathroom to throw up and I got him in the shower to get some water on him (and the smell off him) and he went to bed. I didn't sleep a wink as I was too worried about him. I did have him drink 2 Propels before he fell asleep and take some aspirin. He is sound asleep in my bed now. The rough part of the night is gone and over and he made it through. I have yet to find out how he feels when he wakes but I am hoping for the best. New Rule for me: Always ask everyone that you take drinking if they have had whiskey before!