Total Eclipse of the Heart

Ran across this on YouTube. It's a remake of the song but they changed to lyrics to say exactly what was happening in the video. Kinda funny and well done.

Energy Commerical for American Values

From a TV commercial:

"I don't think you can live the American lifestyle without energy"

"We have all of this energy here in the US we have wind, we have solar
obviously, we have oil"

"I think we need to do maybe some off-shore drilling."

"I think we have the can-do, we have the capability, we have the
technology..."

"The solutions are here, we just need to find them here, at home."

The irony is that the commercial was created by BP as in British Petroleum.

Naked Weekend

Had a great weekend. Twelve of us winded up going to the friend's country house. There were 4 couples and 4 single guys. We spent time enjoying each other's company. The property has a great log cabin. It's not one of those rustic cabins having all of the amenities of a typical house. There's also a screened in gazebo with both a bed and a couch. I'd love to sleep out there one day, but the BF isn't very adventurous when it comes to sleeping arrangements so I haven't done it yet. There's also the heated, salt-water pool, which was set a very comfortable 86 degrees. The land is surrounded on three sides by wetlands and they've cleared a path so that you can take a nude hike and take it all in.

There are two traditions that we almost always wind up doing, and Saturday night was no different. In addition to the obvious drinking that takes place, the hosts always serve rounds of tequila or schnapps shots. I can remember at least 3 shots Saturday night. The second is what we call New Orleans shots. The key to the NO shots is to bring along a few people with lots of foreskin. I think you get the idea. We also went through 2 large cans of whip cream too.

The beauty of such outings is the closeness and camaraderie. There's absolutely nothing to do except enjoy each other. I imagine this might be torturous for some, but if you're a people-person and enjoy the people your with, it's absolutely great. The only downside was that we couldn't take any pictures. We brought the camera... and the battery... but forgot the memory chip. Oh well.

Fez

I never watch this show, but does anyone else think that Fez on That 70s Show is sexy?

Update

Last weekend with my cousin and his partner was fun. He's a full 8 years older than me, so we weren't really in the same age group growing up. I was much closer to his younger brother. This being the first time that we hanged out together in gay settings, we both found ourselves reverting back to early childhood memories of each other. He still remembers me as the 3 year old that hates getting his hair and fingernails cut and is so quiet. I guess we were both in somewhat of a time warp.

I haven't played tennis in almost two weeks now as a result of trying to play when I should have been recuperating. After getting an excruciating cortisone injection in my wrist last week I think I just might be ready to hit a few tentative balls this week.

Looking forward to the weekend away naked this weekend with friends. I think it'll be good for us. I've been feeling kinda blah these past 2 days, which very well might be related to being less physically active than normal. Anyway, the idea of being nude in a beautiful pool, on lots of land, with really good friends and absolutely nothing to worry about sounds just about perfect right now.

I received an email yesterday tell me that this weekends will be the Bay-2-Breakers race in San Fran. I'm a little disappointed that I'll not be able to go. Oh well, there's always next year.

Another friend has decided to visit me while I'm in Barcelona bringing the total to 4 plus possibly one more. The BF is decisionally-challenged and still hasn't decided even though I fly in just four weeks. Now I'm researching my communications alternatives so that I can still communicate with the BF as well as with others for work by phone. I was thinking to register for a Vonage SoftPhone, but hadn't realized that the Vonage free calls to Europe was to landlines only. So now my backup plan is get a free Skype account for the BF and a paid account for myself. Then I'll forward my local cell phone to my paid Skype account. It should allow me to (a) talk to the BF for free, (b) receive calls and voice mails placed to my normal cell phone number, (c) place calls to people back in the states.

Star Trek

Just have to say (no spoilers) that Star Trek was fantastic. I grew up on the original series as a kid although I never could get into the subsequent shows too much. Somehow they made it interesting and action-packed without being dumb while still managing to incorporate just enough of the essence of the original. As a result, we have what I think is the best movie I've seen in a while that is fresh and possibly paves the way to another 40 years of entertainment.

Solidarity Unto Oblivion

The Republicans continue to circle the wagons and disown those that even suggest that perhaps things should be done differently. And the person at the center of it all says that Obama's objective is job loss, unemployment and reparations (audio). By reparations, he's referring to compensating blacks for their/our centuries of slavery followed non-equals status.

Whether reparations are warranted is not even the point. The point is that the leader of the party (I only call him this because no one in the party seems to want to even nominally refute this point) directly and purposely states that Obama's goal is the destruction of the country through unemployment and then to take whats left from the whites and give it to the blacks through reparations.

There is a dedicated few that buy this hook, line and sinker. Luckily, the public at large does not. And with a leader such as this and this kind of talk, it'll be a while before the Republicans become credible.

Pre-Weekend Update

One of my older cousins is visiting this weekend along with his long-term partner. It should be pretty good seeing them as we haven't seen each other in the past 3 or 4 years. I think (but not sure) that he's pretty conservative, so I'll be skipping some of the activities this weekend. A friend just moved into a new place with his partner and is hosting naked cocktails early Friday evening and another friend is doing something similar on Saturday. I think we'll skip those.

The weather has sucked for a week now, but in selfish kind of way, that's been good. My wrist has been hurting so I wouldn't have been able to play any tennis so the weather has made me feel like I haven't missed anything. I just came back from the orthopedist and he gave me a shot of cortisone, so hopefully that allows me to get back on the court by early next week.

Here's a story... I work at a very small company and we had hired a new guy about a month ago. Since we share office space with a larger company so our offices are not really that close to each other. Combine that with the fact that he works in a different group and I work from home some days and you can see why we hadn't spent much time together.

So we run into each other in the kitchen one day while I was getting the obligatory morning coffee. The conversation went something like this:

Coworker: So you had a good weekend?

Me: (Thinking for a moment and remembering that I had gone to party that weekend. I didn't post anything about it, but had written posts about other times I had at the same time here and here and others) Actually I did. I went to a party that was quite
enjoyable.

Coworker: I love parties, but prefer house parties to parties in bars.

Me: Totally agree. This was a house party at a place where the owners
love hosting and specifically organized their basement for hosting
parties.

Coworker: Where was the party?

Me: Maryland.

Coworker: (neighborhood name redacted)?

Me: Err.... Uh.... No. (ok, I lied)

Coworker: Because I went to a party in that neighborhood once. There were
so many guys I couldn't believe it!

Me: Okay, gotta go.

He obviously knew. I guess I just wasn't prepared, but I did tell him that it was indeed the place he was thinking of. Anyway, I thought it was kind of funny.

Wilderness

I hate routing for Republicans, but believe that human nature spells certain doom for a one-party system. So we need them to do their job and offer a real alternative so that we can vote against them.

I just ran across this article from Time that speaks to the multitude of woes of the Republican party all of which could be talked about at length. However, my thoughts today are focused the statements made by Joe the Plumber.

According to the article, Joe says that he is so outraged by GOP spending that he is quiting the party. I think this would have been perfectly reasonable... ONE OR TWO YEARS AGO WHEN THEY WERE IN POWER! Why has he suddenly gotten religion on this topic?

Well, I'll interpret this in the context of his other off-the-wall statements and appearances such as his "news" reporting from Israel and not allowing gays around his children.

Is there any question why the GOP is dying when Joe and Sarah become their chief spokespeople?

Just Burgers

Okay, I realize that this is just a photo-op, but it's still pretty cool. Obama and Biden go out for a burger, wait in line and pay with their own money. I know, I know that the cash was staged, but still!

Choose to Be Different

So often we are punished for being different. Punished for being gay, too short, too fat or in some circles perhaps for being too dark. We all live in self-created cocoons to protect ourselves from the world outside. Unfortunately these same protections also isolate us and make us lonelier, and worse.

Why can't we say hi to a stranger? Well, he might think we want something... or maybe that we want sex. Maybe he'll reject us and not say hi back.


But we can choose to be different. We can say "hi" to someone for no other reason than wanting to see them smile.

Summer Approacheth

Yes, the days are getting longer and weather, milder. So what's going on?

• I've been trying to play more tennis, but am now plagued by a hurt wrist, which has been bothering me for the past few days (none of the obvious jokes!) I'm seeing the orthopedist on Thursday because I want to get back on the court as soon as possible.


• I have all of my trips to Barcelona made and am really looking forward to it. I've invited several friends to come visit for a few days. Two are coming for about 5 days in early July and another just booked airfare for a week in mid-June. He'll even be joining me in immersion classes!


• Went to a pool party this weekend. Yes, one of those so don't ask! I have to say that it is so nice to be able to "socialize" (hmm) around a pool with others. God I love summer!


• A group of friends are planning to do a naked get together in the woods in about 2 weeks or so. So far I think they'll be 10 to 15 of us. The larger groups will come later in the summer. The smaller groups are so much fun and relaxing just being relaxed and naked in nature with great people. I'm really looking forward to it.


• I've made my reservations for GNI. I had such a good time last year that I just had to do it again. Unfortunately, we'll only be going for the 2nd half-week since I'm already taking too much vacation as it is. Already 4 friends have booked, so it should definitely be a good time.


• My gay cousin and his partner will be visiting us this weekend. He's pretty conservative (at least I think so), so I'll be on my bestest behavior.