Phaedrus

Well, ladies. I'm not sure if I should tell you about this, but I feel I must give you fair warning. The plumbing at BBM Towers has been undergoing a re-fit of late. While Lee and OD have been working hard, progress has not been all we'd hoped (you've all seen guys attempting DIY, right?) and so we've had to make temporary arrangements. This was fine... until last night Lee decided that he was going to cook for us. We were expecting something simple (like beer) but no... Lee decided he was going to attempt... curry! And so he did. Of course, we here at BBM Towers don't go in for your run-of-the-mill namby-pamby curries. Oh, no. We have real mens' curries, which are so hot that we have a ready-made excuse to drink lots of beer at the same time. Yesterday, however, Lee surpassed himself. All was going well, until he suddenly gave us a funny look and said he was going to the bathroom. After a few minutes, OD and I thought we'd better check up on him; the rumbling noises were becoming disturbing. But just as we got outside, to our temporary accommodations, we saw... this: Fortunately Lee's piloting skills are rather better than his culinary ones, and so he managed a pretty good landing on the roof with his impromptu rocket-ship, and was none the worse apart from a few singed bits here and there. But we gave up on the curry, and we've decided we're going to have to add armor-plating to the new bathroom specifications.

Johnny Cash, singing about dinosaurs. Awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw8uTiSnYk4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Happy birthday!

Well... I'm assuming the original question was about interactions here and in other online venues... I think it's great if people give some kind of indication of what sort of a person they are. Often (not always, but often) when I choose to see someone that I haven't seen before it's on the basis of some form of prior interaction online, which has made me think that we'll get on well in person. It's not an exact science, but my hit rate isn't bad. And as Cat said, I consider it somewhat useful for a SP/MA I've never met before to have some sort of an idea what kind of a person I am before arranging to meet, or not. Having said that, this is very much an open forum. Much of it is completely open, and anyone who bothers to create an account can see most of the rest... and so I'd consider it wise for everyone to be at least somewhat cautious about what they reveal here, unless you're completely open about your CERB-related activities with pretty much everyone you meet. Like others, what I post here is... edited highlights, not the whole story.

Tasmanian Dad accidentally films his partner with his teenage son A Tasmanian man set up a video camera to capture paranormal activity instead filmed his partner engaging in a sexual relationship with his teenage son, a court has heard. The 28-year-old woman pleaded guilty to five counts of having sexual intercourse with a minor in Tasmania's Supreme Court, The Mercury reports. Crown Prosecutor Jackie Hartnett told the court in October last year the woman had gone to the boy's room to discuss his driving lessons, but this had eventually led to intercourse. The following day, the woman's de facto partner set up a video camera in an effort to capture evidence of paranormal activity in the house, but had forgotten to turn it off. When he returned reviewed the footage, he saw his son and the woman kissing and cuddling. She downplayed the incident when he quizzed her about it, but his son confessed that they had sex three times. The man called the police and the woman admitted during a video recorded interview to having sex with the boy twice and admitted knowing he was sixteen. She was ashamed and embarrassed by her conduct, but mistakenly thought 16 was the age of consent. Ms Hartnett told the court that in the following weeks the woman followed the boy to another part of the state where they had sex several times in a hotel room. She has been remanded in custody and is due to be sentenced on Monday.

Well, I'm late. Again :) Hope you had a fantastic time, Carrie... sounds like you did!

Good idea. Better yet, make it a steel box, and make sure it's connected to ground, so devices cant transmit or receive data. And as a bonus... no phones ringing halfway through, ever again :) For now. Give it a few years, and these things will be getting to the point where they won't be readily distinguishable from a regular pair of glasses. I don't want to sound alarmist, but I don't think it's too early to be thinking about this stuff. Someone, somewhere is going to get badly burned by it; I hope it's nobody here.

Space exploration: I'm in!

So, a hypothetical question... for now, but one which will become real in the not-too-distant future. Ladies, picture the scene... you've arranged to meet someone; possibly a new client, maybe someone you've seen before. He arrives. You open the door to your incall, and as he steps in, you notice he's wearing the latest in technology... those all-seeing, all-recording spectacles which Google has announced recently. They take pictures and video on demand. Hopefully all that stuff is turned off, but... it may not be, either through neglect or malice. Hell, the camera could already be recording, and you won't have a clue whether or not this is the case. What do you do? You can ask for them to be turned off and left in a pocket, perhaps, but if anything was being recorded when you opened the door then all your effort at obscuring your face in photos is suddenly, potentially blown, if your visitor is either careless or has more nefarious intent. It's a nasty problem. I see no good solution. And, guys... cool though they may be, if you get these things... never, ever, wear them to a meeting with a SP! Yes, I know many of you are thinking, "Well, obviously!" - but I suspect this is going to end up like the threads on hygiene and no-shows and negotiating rates and all those other things that you'd hope would be obvious but nevertheless pop up over and over and over again.

One of the golden rules of navigation: if you don't care where you are, you ain't lost :)

This is made of a piece of white board, a lot of nails, and a single length of black thread. The artist's website is here.

Brutal, but effective.

Congratulations, Mikeyboy!

Dozen shot dead at Baghdad brothel Unidentified gunmen kill at least 12 people in area of Iraqi capital where alcohol shops were attacked last week. Unidentified gunmen have shot dead at least seven women and five men at a brothel in the Iraqi capital in the same area where alcohol shops were attacked last week, security and medical officials have said. The attack took place at a two-storey house with a backyard surrounded by a sheet metal fence, in a quiet residential part of the Zayouna district of east Baghdad on Wednesday, the AFP news agency reported. The attackers apparently carried out the killings with silenced weapons, as residents of the area said they did not see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Soldiers and police mainly armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols cordoned off the site, which was visited by high-ranking officers. Reporters were not permitted to enter the house, or to take photographs or video. The attack on the brothel follows another on alcohol shops in the Zayouna area. On May 14, gunmen restrained federal policemen at a checkpoint in the area, then shot dead 12 people at a row of adjoining alcohol shops nearby. Both prostitution and alcohol are prohibited by Islam, the religion of the vast majority of Iraq's population. Zayouna is an upscale, mixed district of Sunni and Shia Muslims, where a number of brothels have opened in recent years. With the latest attack, 399 people have been killed so far in Iraq this month, according to AFP figures based on reports from security and medical officials.

Okay, but this is what the block button is for :) Admittedly if you unlock your feed it can still be seen by anyone who's not logged in... but they can't interact with you. Fair enough, but I honestly don't see that it's your job to parent them :) And to be honest, if I were really worried about kids' wellbeing I'd far rather they were reading your twitter feed than some of the other stuff out there. If you'll forgive my saying so, I think there's a false sense of security here. Everything you put online, anywhere, is out there. If there's something you don't want known, then the only solution is to never post it anywhere in the first place. Obviously this is much harder for the ladies, who have to reveal a certain amount of themselves in order to advertise... but I honestly think something like locking your twitter feed simply gives a false sense of security. So, yes: strictly limiting our feeds to Kylie stuff or Smithwick stuff or Phaedrus stuff and leaving out personally-identifying information is good and worthwhile and necessary for anyone who wishes to maintain their anonymity. I'm afraid I think locking a twitter feed is somewhat useless and possibly counter-productive on this one. And this is what bemuses me so much about the whole locking thing. What use is marketing that most of the world can't see? If it works for you, then great, but I can't imagine it's good for most people or most business models. And to return to the (somewhat snarky) point I made yesterday: when you impose a condition on others that you're clearly not prepared to abide by yourself, what kind of marketing is that? Again, if it's working for you then that's awesome, but I don't see the general utility of it. And on a side topic: IIRC she outed herself, on her own terms, but had to do so to preempt a former boyfriend had made a deal with the press to dump her in it. True. And since you mentioned her, she's on Twitter too, and well worth following.

What exactly are we supposed to be ashamed of here? The simple exchange of sex or companionship for money, or some other material consideration? Everybody's done that; show me a sexually active person who claims to have never been involved in the exchange of a sexual act for something in return, and I'll question their honesty, self-awareness, or both. All we do here is make the transaction more open, so that all parties know up front what's being offered on each side, which strikes me as a thoroughly good thing. The fact that society as a whole can't really cope with being open about these things is a problem with society. And we, who are simply more honest about what's going on than most, are supposed to be ashamed of ourselves? Sigh.