Category: Entertainment

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I never saw that coming…

As a child growing up in Florida, I remember going to Walt Disney World before they actually had a park.

We drove and drove and then there was a sign that said something like, “Welcome to the Future Disneyworld” There was a place to eat, and a gift shop of course. They also had mockups of the park as the designers envisioned it, and a nice little tour that explained what they were going to do to the area of what was essentially a kind of marshy chunk of land.

For a kid it was pretty neat, even though there weren’t any rides or much of anything else. After all I’d already been to Disney World well before it opened. Several years later, I went to Disney World and mostly remember the monorail.

Even then, large portions of what would become the entire park were still under construction. We were fairly regular visitors then. Each time we went it was a revelation because newer sections of the park opened. I recall ticket books and the like. That’s where the phrase, “E-Ticket Ride” came from.

After we moved out of Florida our visits to Disney World became less frequent and when I got to visit Disneyland in California, I was honestly disappointed. It was so small, noisy, cramped, and I guess due to the scale, it just seemed cheap. Yeah, Disney World spoiled me.

I think in the 35 or so years I’ve been in California, I’ve been to Disneyland maybe 3 times. At least one of those visits was back in the day when corporations could buy the park for an afternoon or evening and have private events. I honestly don’t know if corporations can still do that or if they would these days.

The last time I looked into going to Disneyland or Disney World I quickly dismissed the idea because it had become prohibitively expensive even with discount coupons offered by the company I worked for.

Occasionally, over the years I’ve been invited to join friends at Disneyland and after looking at the prices, politely declined. For that kind of money, I’d rather go to Las Vegas and enjoy more adult shows or entertainment. And so, Disneyland and Disney World dropped off my radar decades ago.

What I’ve been surprised to learn is that Disney World has enjoyed freedom from full taxation, and autonomy in their operations in Florida for 50 years. That kind of benefit had never crossed my mind. Like most folks, I assumed that Disney World had in fact been providing tax revenue to the state of Florida.

I applaud the Florida Legislators for stripping Disney of their tax exempt status. It sends a very clear message. Stay out of politics you’re a business, BE a business!

I suppose in truth they have indirectly paying taxes via sales tax and various tourism taxes from hotels, restaurants, airfares, and car rentals for tourists visiting the state. But no matter how you slice it, Disney had a dang good sweetheart deal. Even if they were paying reduced taxes, over 50 years that has to have added up.

You also have to wonder what the environmental impact of Disney World has on the vast tract of land they occupy. The trash alone must be monumental. Food waste, paper, plastic, human waste, you name it. Typically, Disney parks are immaculately clean. But in the case of Disney World… Where does it all go? What happened to the natural environment in that swath of Florida? Was any of it preserved?

To be fair, in the 60’s undeveloped Florida land was seen as opportunity and in need of development. Then, very little concern was paid to environmental issues. I strongly suspect that had it been practical the Florida Everglades would have been paved over for housing projects.

Disney could have kept its mouth shut about the Florida Parental Rights Bill. Certainly some of the Disney lawyers must have read the bill and informed Disney executives that much of the media hyperbole was not factual.

The Parental Rights Bill wasn’t an open assault on LGBT… lmnop people everywhere.

I do have a concern now that because of the wailing, gnashing of teeth, and over the top dramatics, that there may be an open assault on all LGBT people’s rights.

My concern is not due to the Parental Rights Bill. It’s due to the reaction and conflation of what I think of as the vocal lunatic fringe, the LGBT… lmnop, with the LGB community at large.

That conflation coupled with the “Normal” LGB community’s parroting of whatever the HRC or as OutSpoken puts it, “Gay Inc.” tells them to believe or think, may set gay rights back by decades.

The LGB community fought very hard for a very long time to win the rights that they were guaranteed by The Constitution of the United States. In many cases, those rights could arbitrarily be abridged for no other reason than they were homosexual.

LGB folks have the right to marry, to not face discrimination in housing, their workplace, or any other aspect of their lives. That was what we were fighting for, and we’ve achieved it for the most part.

Will we stand by while a lunatic fringe seizes our voice and uses it to polarize parts of the nation who tolerate us, into our enemies?

The gender fluid, crossdresser activists, should not, and do not speak for all the LGBT community. Nor do virtue signaling corporations.

Let the LGB community speak for ourselves. Generally, we just want to live our lives, love who we love, live quietly, and be left the hell alone.

It’s time for the LGB community, the real LGB community to stand up and roar.

The first and best place to start is roaring at Disney and the “lmnop” fringe by siding with the Florida legislature. Yes, I said side with Florida lawmakers.

Children should not be sexualized in the schools, Full DAMN Stop!
Parents have the responsibility for their children’s behaviors until they’re 18, Parents should also have the right to generally determine what their children are taught in public schools.
Public schools prohibit teaching a religious belief system, it could be argued gender fluidity is simply another belief system.
Disney World should be paying fair taxes and should not enjoy a sweetheart deal if they’re going to enter into politics.
Disney World is an entertainment venue, not a Political Action Committee. If they choose to be a PAC, they shouldn’t be, in effect subsidized by Florida tax payer dollars.

Most LGB people knew there was something different about them from an early age. But at that early age, the difference was irrelevant to them. Something that was an occasionally passing thought, quickly and easily superseded by a sparkly butterfly, or the next baseball game.

The time to address the difference is when the difference becomes an irrefutable issue that occupies a lot of a child’s brainpower. For most, it started at puberty, 3rd graders typically aren’t there yet.

After children have entered puberty, and are questioning all the weird changes in their bodies and minds, I’m all for providing useful education and the knowledge that they’re not alone or abnormal. Until then, let children be children and don’t trouble them with sexuality or pronouns.

I call upon my brothers and sisters in the LGB community to stand up to the insanity. Say “No” to the fringe, remind them that we are inclusive but that a larger majority of us are quite content being the gender we are, and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Remind them that it is our work, our voice, and our lived lives they are usurping. Perhaps remind them of the old adage: They’re nothing scarier than a full grown adult queen.

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Why we can’t have nice things…

Four years ago I was leaving a grocery store near my apartment when a complete stranger walked up to me and commented on my watch.

It wasn’t uncommon for my colleagues to notice it or comment on it. It was not even that uncommon for a clerk in a shop to notice my watch, (particularly if they were male,) and say something like, “nice,” while looking at my wrist.

That day in front of the grocery store, this guy who appeared homeless commented about my watch in a very loud voice. He said something like, “That’s a really nice watch, what did that set you back 10 grand 15 grand?” What caught my attention was that he was speaking loudly enough for pretty much the entire shopping plaza to hear him. I’m a suspicious person, and in the back of my brain a thought popped in, “Why is this guy announcing this? Is he calling to an accomplice?”

I politely said in an equally loud voice, “Thank you for the compliment, it’s amazing how many compliments I get on this cheap $200 Hong Kong knock off. Would you like to hold it? “

At that point the man lost interest. Thank god he didn’t call my bluff.

This event was about the 3rd or 4th I’d experienced in 2 weeks. Admittedly, I wasn’t living in the best neighborhood at the time, but up to that point I hadn’t felt particularly unsafe.

The watch in question is not a knock off.

I purchased it 14 years ago for about 7K. I’d lost a rather large watch collection in a fire and decided that I simply wanted a single very nice watch that I never took off. I’d worn my watch continuously since I put it on in the store.

There were some who scolded me for wearing such a nice watch while doing yard work, working on a car, building, painting, swimming, or just living. I really thought nothing of it.

It is my watch, and since it was the only one I owned, it was easier to keep it on my wrist than to keep track of it, if I took it off.

The watch itself has held up very well. I sent it in for routine service on its tenth birthday. The service center gave it a tune up, and a clean bill of health. complemented me on two things. 1) it was in excellent shape and 2) that they’d guessed I wore it every day and thought that was very cool.

They didn’t even charge me for the replacement of 2 links in the band that had taken the brunt of a saw kickback. The watch band had saved me from a very nasty cut on my wrist. As part of the service the watch was also appraised. I was a bit shocked, and pleased, to discover that my watch had more than doubled in value.

After the repeated incidents in public where the watch garnered unwanted and intrusive attention, (it’s still considered rude to ask a stranger what they paid for something isn’t it?) I decided it was time to put my beautiful functional timepiece in a safe and buy something cheap and ubiquitous.

I’ve enjoyed the lockdowns over the past two years because if I’m around home, or in my little mountain town I’ve been able to wear my nice watch. I also wore it with complete confidence on a recent trip to Florida. Some men in Florida noticed my watch, they just nodded in appreciation, and smiled. You know… “Old School Politeness.”

My cheap watch is an Apple watch. It’s nice, but having to recharge it daily is a pain in the butt. The advantage is that everyone has one and in that homogeneity is safety.

No-one is likely to mug me for an Apple Watch.

The sadness is that my beautiful, simple, functional, watch sits in the safe. I do wear it if I’m camping, diving, or know that I’m not likely to encounter crowds of people. I also wear it more in the Winter when a jacket or long sleeves afford cover for it.

Within the past month or two, I read a news item where a man in Los Angeles had been robbed of his Rolex, at gunpoint after an induced car accident.

Today There was a report from England in The Sunday Times talking about an apparently organized group of thieves who are targeting high end watch wearers. The article is here and it’s brazen.

Most of the men report being approached by lovely women asking for their signature on a petition or something. In some cases the women become handsy and quite forward, talking non stop. In a few cases they’ve offered sex or other enticements.

Often the men are so flabbergasted they don’t realize their watch is gone until the woman has left.

I’ve heard of expensive hookers, but these guys aren’t even getting blow jobs for their 10 to 20K!

The article mentions that the thieves seem to be targeting Rolexes.

The supply of Rolexes is thin and the resale market is booming.

Rolex among other high end watches retain their value worldwide. They’re easy to transport, and with a hot resale market the thief can dump the merchandise quickly.

I’ve been jonesing for a watch that I can safely wear daily that doesn’t require recharging or batteries.

I guess you could say I’m bored with the Apple Watch and its attendant software updates, power requirements, and fiddling.

I think fondly of my nice watch. Ten years, one watch, and zero trouble. Ahh, simplicity!

I’d been looking at a nice simple Omega. But that too is a high end watch and subject to the same targeting by thieves. That being said, I may get one anyway.

I suppose that a venerable Timex might be the best way to go.

It does make me wonder how long will it be before we’re all driving the same car, all wearing the same clothes, all wearing the same watch, and all using the same mobile phone?

Is that where this is going, will we all be stuck with a “one size fits all” solution just to fight crime?

That’s not freedom. That’s the old Soviet Union, North Korea, or China. I want the freedom to have nice things without worrying about becoming a target.

I’m also just old school enough to want a concealed carry permit and a stout .45 on my hip. I’d rather leave the thieves gut shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. (Why gut shot? Because it’s an agonizing death.) People don’t usually think of me, and mercy at the same time.

I find myself thinking that all it would take is 1 year of would be criminals stacking up in the morgues, and crime would be almost nonexistent. I figure we’d either run out of criminals, or criminals would decide crime itself was too risky.

Unfortunately, especially in California, criminals have been given the upper hand and they’re continuing to press their advantage. Apparently this is also true elsewhere in the world.

Maybe I’ll go with a Timex until I’m able to move to a state where they’ve remembered, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Maybe sometime in the near future folks will wake the hell up and realize The “Wild West” era came to a close in part because we all agreed that a robust police force was preferable to daily shoot-outs at the saloon.

That’s provided that the morons running things haven’t burned the history books or forgotten how to read them.

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I read the “News” today… I Feel like I’m in a time warp.

Everything I read was reminiscent of the Obama Years.

Perhaps this time around is a little more chaotic but nothing has changed.

Reading the news was a bit like watching a soap opera. You can skip days or weeks, but when you do get around to watching, you haven’t missed much, if anything at all.

I did happen to notice that Kamala Harris is notably absent and has been for at least a week or two.

President Biden is still bloviating on about the Russian / Ukraine issues, While the President of the Ukraine has been quoted as saying the issue is resolving.

Justin Trudeau is being heckled in Parliament and openly laughed at. I’d guess his career is at an end. Doesn’t Canada have a no confidence vote?

Ah well, the soap opera goes on, and nothing changes, except the price of goods and fuel. They keep going up.

I’m as disinterested in the “News” and politics as I was during the Obama years. The nut jobs have full control of the asylum and the midterms can’t come soon enough.

Maybe this time we can get some people in office that actually do their jobs. I’m not holding my breath or anything but I’d love to see a bunch of non-politicians swept into office. You know, folks that had businesses and employees and actually produced something.

That is, of course, until they were forced out of business by mandates and lockdowns.

It seems to me those are the people who have the time, the knowledge, logic, and will, to stand up to the establishment powers and say, “NO!”

Maybe, they’d be able to set things back on course by applying their business acumen and common sense.

The one thing I’m certain of, is that all of the career politicians of any political stripe need to get THE BOOT.

I’m probably just whistling past the graveyard. There are a lot more people caught up in their individual divisiveness and specialized causes than there are people who look at the larger picture. I’m fairly sure that whoever is elected in the midterms will just be more of the same old crap.

Well, back to ignoring the news for a week or so unless something really interesting captures my attention.

I’m over the soap opera.

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Here’s an Interesting Stat

I just cancelled Amazon Prime.

I was paying 12.99 per month since about mid 2019.

In that time I’ve had four packages delivered and watched 25 movies.

For ballpark comparison, let’s just call it 380.00 over the time I’ve had the service. None of the packages arrived via anything except the free UPS delivery. Apparently the stuff that I wanted from Amazon was not available to ship via Prime.

As to the movies…

Well 380.00 / 25 = 15.58 Per Movie. I know that more than a few of those movies were 3.99 rentals.

As a point of comparison, I won’t pay 14.99 for movies on Apple TV. I’ll wait till a movie I want is on sale for some price below 10.00. And I have the rights to view that movie as many times as I want.

Yes, there were some movies that were available on Amazon Prime and nowhere else. But those movies have become fewer and some of them are no longer available in the Amazon catalog.

I’m not saying that Prime is a bad deal for everyone. But it was a bad deal for me. It duplicated what I already had as far as music went. I use Apple Music. The video quality of some of the movies was poor and I, as a rule hate commercials before actually getting to the movie. I hate commercials on paid services in general. Amazon wasn’t as bad as Hulu has become it was just more expensive. Hulu is next on the agenda, I’m not watching much on their service either.

I had maintained Amazon Prime for the series, The Expanse. Funny thing about it was that with the character Alex being killed off at the end of last season, I couldn’t muster enough interest in watching this season to actually sit down and watch it. The actor that played Alex was accused of sexual harassment and was therefore immediately removed.

Having been sexually harassed by women, I take claims of harassment seriously. I also believe in due process, and let’s face it men don’t get due process ever. Even if the charges are completely dismissed, the accusation lingers, forever coloring everything they do and profoundly affecting their careers. Accusations of sexual harassment leveled against women on the other hand, are largely ignored. They are just as damaging to male victims but nobody cares.

I don’t know if Cas Anvar was actually guilty. The accusation alone is enough to destroy a male actor these days. In the series of books, Alex wasn’t killed off.

The whole cast is great, I’ve enjoyed their performances. But for some reason, I just completely lost interest in the story. Perhaps it was end of series malaise, perhaps it was something more. I own the first four seasons, I don’t know if I’ll spend the bucks to add season 5 and 6 to the collection or not.

I find that my interest in movies, TV, and even music is declining. I suppose it’s just that I’m not in any mood to sit down for two or three hours of haranguing about social justice, the end of the world, or whatever the cause de jour may be. Give me a good book instead and I’ll be happy.

In any case, I just cut 155.88 per year out of my budget. I guess I can apply that toward my gas or grocery bills.

I’d say, for everyone to take a look at parasitic monthly billing. It’s really easy for that stuff to accumulate and be forgotten about. It’s probably not going to put a lot of money back in your monthly budget, but these days every little bit helps.

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Have the “Woke” & Transgendered Folks killed porn?

I’d say yep!

Well, they helped for sure.

There used to be some great porn being produced. I’ve got a bit of a collection, but oddly I haven’t added to that collection in quite a while.

There’s just not much of interest these days. A lot of the venerable porn production companies are (or were) located in California.

Over the past few years, I’ve been seeing fewer movies and a lot more compilations from old films being repackaged as “New” movies.

There used to be a lot of good productions that dealt with subjects such as bondage and domination. The current crop of films isn’t nearly as entertaining. It’s like now the directors and script writers are worried about offending someone.

The beauty of porn was that it offended some people. Those who were offended had a simple choice, continue watching and be offended OR turn it off.

There have been porn movies I’ve seen that were totally not my particular cup of tea. Did I whine about it? Nope! I exercised my god given right to find something else to watch.

I’ve seen some newer movies where the female or male wasn’t what they initially appeared to be. These movies are not my cup of tea. So I found something else to watch.

There’s just something about a female who disrobes and has tits and a dick. It’s not like I’m transphobic, it’s just that I don’t find that erotic. I feel like I’ve been the victim of bait and switch and it totally kills the mood I was going for.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of the old production companies now appear to be owned by one or two conglomerates, this is having a homogenizing effect on the movies that are being produced.

There aren’t, for instance many older performers. The entire cast seems to top out at 22. In some cases this is perfectly fine, but I personally have a tough time maintaining a suspension of disbelief when a 20 something male is being called “daddy” or is supposed to be some kind of dominant macho leather stud.

I mean no disrespect to the actor, but honestly, a guy that young hasn’t lived it and it shows. His balls have barely dropped.

The females too, are so young. I have a tough time believing they’re experienced enough to know what they’re doing or actually enjoying it. In the back of my mind I’m wondering things like, “how could she be so experienced? Was she abused?” Then the mood is killed because I’m thinking about that.

In Bi or Gay porn there’s the same problem. All the dudes look like they’re boys not men and I start thinking paternally again.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of the performers I used to look for, aren’t making films with any frequency either. That could be a function of them tiring of the industry, or age, or ageism, but it’s become obvious they’re missing from the scene.

This particular phenomena caught my attention because it was so sudden. Almost like a light switch being flipped.

The porn printing industry (books and the like) also seems to be dying. I know from the warning labels on some of the books I’ve looked at, that an author now has to identify every single act.

“This book may contain Penetrative acts, bondage, forced sex, rape, torture, descriptions of prostitution, kidnapping, etc, etc, etc.”

This list is long and tedious. It’s obvious that the publishers are seemingly afraid of anything that might be uncomfortable for a percentage of the readership to read. To that end they’re creating the equivalent of trigger warning labels.

Come On! Get a grip!

The beauty of a book is that if something is too intense, you can skip ahead. Pornographic stories are NOT supposed to be taken as anything serious. It’s not like they’re an instruction manual, they’re fantasy.

Here’s a sex instruction manual I put together off the top of my head.

Step one, obtain consent.
Step two, become intimate and stimulate your partner.
Step three, remove articles of clothing as desired or needed and continue with touching or other stimulation.
Step four, oral stimulation may be applied to any part of the body, to heighten the arousal state.
Step five gently explore sensitive orifices with whatever genitalia is available if desired. Substitution of tongue, or digits is allowable.
Step six, scream, yell, grunt, as orgasm occurs
Step seven, lie in each others arms… Smoke if you’ve got ’em.
Step eight, Repeat as necessary.

Even this basic manual is skewed toward the multi-gendered so as not to offend.

The Original manual was much simpler.

Step one, Kiss kiss kiss.
Step two, lick, lick, lick.
Step three (optional) suck, suck, suck.
Step four, thrust, thrust, pump, pump.
Step five, Smoke if ya got ’em. Repeat as necessary.

A pornographic story takes these basic notions and expands on the possibilities in a safe fantasy. Most of the stuff written in pornographic stories are wild and outlandish. They’re things or situations that you’d never try in real life. But through the magic of human imagination we can experience these outlandish activities in a safe simulation space within our own heads.

Why on earth would an adult looking to purchase and read a pornographic novel need a warning label?

“Daddy’s Dungeon” as a title pretty much tells you what you’re getting into. The cover art is also a really good tell tale.

If there’s any question you can read the synopsis. Most of the time these days, you can even read a sample online. Back in the day, in an adult bookstore you’d flip to some random pages and read the action. Then you’d make a decision to buy the book or not.

As a male, I’d flip to a chunk of the story, read a bit, and decide based on the swelling in my crotch if the book was worthy of my hard earned money.

OMG! I might just have offended someone with my CIS gendered appreciation of my erectile pleasure!

That’s the problem! The majority of men that I know, enjoy and derive deep satisfaction from our erections. There are however a fractional percentage of folks that find that glorious feeling uncomfortable. These people have decided that since THEY don’t enjoy it… NO ONE should.

To that end, they’ve become a vocal minority who are mucking up one of the single best, basic, and free thing that people do.

Screw!

Then they’ve gone on to destroy even the release offered by sexual fantasy.

Here’s a thought. You do you, and I’ll take care of me.