TetRefine

Putin is just asking for a disaster with this Olympics. First off, Sochi is normally a Black Sea warm weather vacation town. According to many, its nowhere near cold enough consistently to hold a Winter Olympics. I bet they will have problems with the weather. Secondly, enacting the very strict and brutal anti-gay laws has basically made them a target for Western opposition. Thirdly, there is a very angry Islamic insurgency just several hundred miles away, and you can bet they will do everything they can to kill people at the Olympics in some way. By all sources, Sochi and the surrounding areas has been turned into a police state within a police state, but even that can't stop all things. In short, Putin is setting himself up for a disaster on the world stage, and I seriously question his judgement for it.

Vice makes some great documentaries. This one was no exception. It's nothing I didn't already know, but seeing it just makes me sick and makes me damn thankful I was born in the US.

James, you actually expect NFL players to act like civilized human beings?!?! Come on now! /sarcasm That being said, I'm Seattle all the way. My hatred (but strong respect) of Peyton Manning goes all the way back to his Indy days in the '00s where the New England v. Indianapolis games were the must sees of the year.

I didn't mean the fun all stops with marriage. I was thinking more along the lines of the wild, crazy, uninhibited fun that you have in your youth before marriage usually comes to an end with marriage. Fun in marriage simply takes on a different, and (usually) tamer form.

For the NFC, I agree with you James. But still overall I think its the Patriots. Except for the Miami game, the way they played at the end of the season and then destroyed the Colts using only what everyone thought was the weakest part of their offense makes them on top for me. Also, I thought this was really funny.

A good friend of mine who graduated last year is getting married in September, and has left it up to his best man (who's another good friend of mine) to plan the bachelor party. Considering how hard this particular best man likes to party, I can imagine it will involve at the very least a lot of booze and strippers, and god only knows what else. It should be fun. And I've never heard it called a Stag or Hen party. Here in the US they just call it a bachelor or bachelorette party, and the groom or bride basically gathers their closest friends and they go buck wild for a night since the fun all stops with marriage. Kinda like a last hurrah I guess.

In a twisted way, yeah I guess. And they have already added one very nice skyscraper to the skyline, so I'm not gonna complain if they add another. Ever notice how all the major buildings in Philly are glass that look tinted blue from a distance?

So I figured since we have a Song Of The Moment Thread, and various "best songs of...." threads, why not start a favorite song of all time one. Just post a song that you love above all others and would take every time over other songs. Bleeding Out, by Imagine Dragons. I love this song and could listen to it for days. They are freakin' amazing.

I still maintain he will be welcomed at any gay porn studio if he "retires".

Comcast has crappy service and high prices, its true. But they are responsible for a lot of good paying jobs in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, which is something the city didn't have much of when its was in severe decline from the 1960s to the early 1990s. So people around here kind of cut them a break.

New York has by and far the most impressive overall skyline, but I still maintain Philadelphia has some of the most beautiful individual buildings. Its skyline may be small by large city standards, but the big ones it does have are stunning. In my opinion, better than most buildings in New York or Chicago. My favorite, One Liberty Place and Two Liberty Place. One Liberty was the tallest building in the city until the Comcast Center was finished in 2008 I believe. Its true that it is not as imposing or awe-inspiring, but its still a beautiful skyline. Then again I might be biased.

Jealous that you're stuck cheering for a second-rate team?

Do you use Tumblr? If so, what kinds of things do you follow/repost/original post?

Thats true. Urban decay has never happened on this scale and this severely in the US that I can think of. Its happened to less important, less well known cities in America, but never to a city as prominent or as once important as Detroit. To go from 1.8M in 1950 and a booming, well-paying economy to under 700k people now with no economy, no jobs, and becoming America's largest ghetto is just sad to see. Yea this stuff happens in third world or has been counties, but its hard for Americans to grasp because its the first, and many people thought it couldn't happen here.

PM me. My answer is very politically incorrect and I don't feel like having to defend myself from 10 different directions. Its much easier to do it one at a time.

Detroit needs an entirely new industry to take root there, or else it'll just end up a permanent dump. God bless anyone who'd wanna live there.... On the bright side, Detroit's downtown is experiencing a renaissance of sorts and regrowth, but thats a small slice of the city. If you want to see an interesting look at how bad Detroit has become, watch Burn, a documentary about the severe decline of Detroit through the eyes of the city's firefighters.

The reason I think hockey is the most progressive of the big four is far too political to delve into here. Sigh. Where's the Soapbox when you need it.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes! And Zombie, I like that cake.

I agree. He was such a hottie back in the day when he had his MTV show. I had zero interest in skating but watched it because of him. Now he's covered in black and grey and when his skin starts to sag he's gonna have blobbed up black and grey skin. Sigh. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to get them. I'm just saying I don't think they look attractive on people without muscles or a decent build. The actual tattoo itself can be cool, but I just don't think they look good overall on people who aren't well built. Thats MY personal taste. There is no definition, but people can mostly agree on what is a nice, and/or attractive body. The Denver firemen have nice bodies. Not my first choice but you can't deny they have nice bodies. Looks like the start of a muscleboy gay porn scene to me. His neck looks skinny because of the pose he's in. When you flex your arms up and your chest out like he's doing, it pushes back your shoulders and elongates and stretches your neck, which is why his looks disproportionate. I bet if he flexed his arms in the front and his shoulders forward his neck would look huge because that pushes your neck down and forward. And I bet when he relaxes his body his neck looks proportionate.

As someone who is 21, and about to enter the workforce full-time in the next couple months, ENDA is far more important to me than marriage equality. I have a long-time (for my age) boyfriend, but have no desire to get married. To me, marriage represents settling down, and getting into a boring, predictable, suburban routine that at such a young age I want no part of. In ten years it'll be different, but not right now. I plan on going into policing, which is a very hetero-normative, macho occupation where being gay isn't exactly a sought after trait in most police forces. So it would be nice to have that security of not having to fear being fired just for liking other guys. Like everything else in life, it all comes to down to prioritizing the equality fight based on who's funneling in the money to fund it. The gay rights movement is funded by wealthy, urban, older, white gay males who don't need job security because they are already financially and economically secure. They don't have to worry about job security. But they would like to be able to marry, so they donate to groups like the HRC, etc. with the condition that it is used to push their agenda at the expense of other priorities that matter more to other groups. ENDA, HIV-AIDS, and other issues in the gay community have been close to abandoned because those funding it have other priorities. Here's the thing. The older gays can throw as much money as they want at the problem, but it'll only do so much. The real campaign for changing people's perception of LGBT people is being done by the under 30 crowd just by being normal and well-integrated into mainstream society. We show we can fit in just like everybody else, and it's helped shed the outsider status that those generations before us bore. Of course there are other factors at play too, but I believe its the biggest part of it. I'll take a passage of ENDA any day over a passage of a federal "marriage equality" bill any day. But that doesn't mean to say I'm not happy about the progress being made on the marriage front either.

Gay penguins and pairing to raise eggs and chicks is old news.

Case in point on why I think that unless you are built, tattoos just aren't appealing for guys.

I can't wait to rub this one in when I get back down to Philly.

Depressing, but a good cover by a great band. Last Kiss, by Pearl Jam.