MJ85

I suspect that competition with other Prides or other events in general - as noted above - is a large part of it. Around here in the Tri-Cities, ours has changed dates four times over the course of the decade: It began in later June, and was held on the 4th Saturday in June for its first three years (6/25/11, 6/23/12, 6/22/13). In 2014, amid changes to the group who planned the event, it was delayed until August. (8/16/14) For whatever reason, the new leadership elected to then move it to July. The change was intended to be lasting, but in fact it only lasted the next two years. (7/25/15, 7/23/16) Amid a second round of group changes, it moved back to June last year. The date last year (6/10/17) was intended to coincide with an event that we decided to partner with. That didn't go as well as we hoped, so this year we pushed it back to the end of June (the 30th to be exact), which has the benefit of not competing with any relatively close Pride here in Michigan. Which brings me to my next point. In deciding to finalize our date for this year, the biggest sticking point was how to either not compete with other Prides at all, or how to compete as little as possible. Last year's Pride ended up on the same weekend as Motor City Pride in Detroit, which made a number of people up here unhappy - never mind that Motor City is a full weekend, whereas ours is only Saturday. But on that point, here's a rundown of the main Prides that ours have to worry about competing with: Ferndale - was June 2 Motor City (Detroit) - was June 9/10 Lansing (titled Michigan Pride), Grand Rapids - both are this weekend, June 16/17 Flint - June 23 (is not particularly large BUT is the one that is geographically closest to ours - ergo, competing with them is a VERY bad idea) *Traverse City, as noted above, has their main festival on the same weekend as Flint, but as Traverse City is a couple hours' drive north from the Tri-Cities, there's not a heavy level of competition with a Flint or others. Our Pride is also not overly large - but with the appeal that a Ferndale/Motor City/Lansing/Grand Rapids have, it's easy to have ours lose out to theirs. Chicago also has a level of appeal around here even with how far away they are - I just checked their date; for whatever reason, they're having Pride this weekend and their Pride Parade next weekend (June 24). (Why on earth they're splitting the two, I'd like to know. ) Lastly, it's my suspicion that the appeal of having Pride during Pride Month in June has certainly increased. Last year for sure this was the case, and not just for our area - Lansing had held theirs as late as August in the past, but last year moved it back up to June. Most if not all of the others, however, have consistently stayed in or near June. (Ferndale will sometimes be at the very end of May, but only on years where the calendar aligns just so - like when a weekend falls on May 30/31 or May 31/June 1. Their aim has always been to "kick off" Pride season, essentially, by having it the weekend after Memorial Day.)

LOL. Realism died the moment the Eagles made it this far. With Wentz out, who would have predicted that they would? The mere fact that they weren't favored to even get by Atlanta, let alone Minnesota, makes the fact that they're not favored to win here either, not worth all that much. Having said that, I want to see Brady & Belichick make it #6.

*scrolls up, reads* When I read this last night I interpreted it as you were having an actual breakup, not...an abstract breakup, so to speak. (I thought it was you and your boyfriend were breaking up, not you were breaking up with the club scene. )

So - what happens now? Where do you go from here?

When you get the news that a friend you would hook up with on occasion has overdosed on heroin...

This past weekend was Pride in my area. (Voted for Rally as it seemed like the closest option for if one goes to Pride but there isn't a parade.) For our after party, we had to find a friendly enough venue; the one gay bar/club we had around here closed up shortly after Pride in 2015. Still, it went off very well. And by chance I started reading a story I hadn't yet read just the other day.

Heh, just as well; I'd agree that the above was already lengthy enough. Hmmmm. Where would that go? Feel free to PM if you want so we don't keep spamming this.

Well - you do cut off suddenly at the end there, like that was only half the night anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But in actuality this feels like it'd be a Part 1 of 2.

Sorry - I'm going through a 2012 musical compilation game on another site at the moment and could not resist.

Testing this to see if I remember the posting code (...oh! No code needed!), though it also happens to be true of the moment.

I will chime in with the first non-fiction entry. Because histories of things fascinate me.

Happy birthday!

I'm not really a fan of that video, to be quite honest. Between what strikes me as deliberate choices in selection (the guys, the stats), the fact that at least a couple of the "standards" seem very of-the-moment, and the fact that the video as a whole is altogether too busy with too much going on at once ...by 4:00 I was completely "over it" and clicked off the thread page.

For your consideration...there are two previous "Gay films" threads. One is quite a bit older: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/16686-gay-films/ The other, not so much: https://www.gayauthors.org/forums/topic/40672-lgbt-filmsmovies/ Try these.

On the other hand, James's unfortunate Fail-con meme prophecy now bears fruit. But I'll be nice and won't post any of them here. Instead, I'll go for one of the variety that I was truly looking forward to... (I would've posted one that I saw that had five Kevin Hart reactions, but: 1. It has a mis-spelling in the first one. 2. It's HUGE, maybe twice as large as the one right above. )

You mean, who the other two Patriots voters were? LOL. One down, one to go I suppose... I went into this favoring them, though having seen what Atlanta could really do during the NFC Playoffs (didn't get much of a chance to see them during the regular season), they had me convinced that they'd have been a worthy winner if they had instead. Plus I don't have anything against the Falcons at all. That said, I was watching the game with a rabid Pats hater raving for Atlanta, so the big early lead wasn't exactly the most pleasant thing to sit through.

Hmmm, well would you look at that - sometimes the minority has it right all along.

Ah yes, the Browns (who were NOT supposed to beat San Diego this season, damn it! )...

^ Sounds a lot like us Lions fans up here in the Mitten. But hey, at least your guys are making a second trip to the Super Bowl - we've yet to make one.

Guessing it doesn't matter that the Falcons beat your favored Packers (quite badly at that) to earn their trip?

Please see subject(s). And...go! (ETA: WHY does the title get auto-corrected? I want it to be able to display the proper Roman numeral "LI", and while the poll question cooperates, the thread title won't, not even after I try to fix it.)

You mean this isn't a thread about Unsolved Mysteries? (Someone had to go there... )