Was your flight canceled? Did you go home for Christmas only to find, Christmas night or the next morning that you're going to have a terrible time getting home... other home?
The business model that is prostitution at luxury hotels.
As for Charlie Sheen:
Insiders were skeptical Sheen "stiffed" Anderson for $12,000. "The first thing they do is take an imprint of the credit card," one pro said.
What? They walk around with little credit card machines? "No, they're too bulky," the woman said. "The girls just roll their lipstick over the carbon paper to get an imprint."
Lipstick! Carbon paper! Come on. If they're wearing Chanel, you'd think they'd have one of these things:
It's fun watching that video about an iPhone Square and thinking about prostitutes using it. It's so everything-but-prostitutes.
He was born Yertward Mazmanian in America in 1924 with just three fingers on one hand...
"Then a Japanese girl told me about a beautiful beach called Anjuna with just some houses and nobody nearby. We all went there. I was 40 then and the rest of the freaks were 20-year-olds," he said.
Spending nearly half a century in Goa, Eddie sometimes ran a soup kitchen and in 1975 started the Anjuna flea market as a place for hippies and other foreigners to hang out or barter goods. At first, "only freaks came," Fernandes said. "People gave things away, or it was only free ... it was like a party." Now the Wednesday market, like Goa itself, is thriving as trade hub for food, clothes, jewelry and other commerce.
Goa today attracts a different breed of visitor, hungry for new-age experiences or just hoping to fall off the map for a while. Nearly 2.4 million tourists each year — almost twice Goa's population — have helped keep the nightlife throbbing and restaurants in business. A hotel-building boom has produced 25 five-star hotels along with many high-end guesthouses.
Can someone do a quick calculation of the carbon footprint? And please — everyone join in — explain why behavior like this shouldn't make global warming skeptics out of us all. If the emergency were really what it's claimed to be when we little people are urged to drive tin-can cars, no moral leader would travel this way. As it is, I can't understand why Obama and his group are willing to look like such hypocrites.
To ensure fool-proof security, the President’s team has booked the entire the Taj Mahal Hotel, including 570 rooms, all banquets and restaurants. Since his security contingent and staff will comprise a huge number, 125 rooms at Taj President have also been booked, apart from 80 to 90 rooms each in Grand Hyatt and The Oberoi hotels. The NCPA, where the President is expected to meet representatives from the business community, has also been entirely booked.
After the Spain trip brought the first extended bad press of her time as first lady, the White House, and some of its allies in the press, pushed back by claiming Mrs. Obama will still be much in demand. News accounts suggested her "sky-high popularity," her role as "cultural and fashion icon" and her "incredible force" will boost Democrats across the country.
Key words: "of her time as first lady." Michelle Obama got bad press galore during the 2008 campaign. She got her image readjusted — feminized, really. She became the wonderful mom, fashion icon, and purveyor of vegetables. You can just imagine how much she liked doing that. But as she stretched out within the hyper-feminine role imposed on her, she got into the manifestation of femininity that rubs people the wrong way. Too much shopping and free-spending on superficial, materialistic pleasures. It's the classic feminine protest against confinement in a feminine role. Don't like it? Then don't limit powerful women that way. But if Michelle Obama isn't limited, most people won't like her. We saw that in 2008. I mean, I liked her, but it didn't play well generally.
There are 54 different types of mosquitoes in Wisconsin, he said. "The ones that will make or break a summer we call summer floodwater mosquitoes."
They can lay eggs and those eggs will stay dormant for as long as three years. "It's almost like little time bombs out there," Pellitteri said. Once standing water hits them, they hatch....
"It's just crazy. This is unlike anything we've ever seen before with mosquitoes, that's for sure," said Tom Leonard, assistant store manager at Elliott's Ace Hardware in West Allis.
"I've been doing this for 30 years. This is the first time where almost every customer through the door says, 'Where's your mosquito repellent?'"
We had a terrible encounter with mosquitoes last week in the Kettle Moraine here in southern Wisconsin. But on Monday and Tuesday, we were all the way north, at the Apostle Islands National Seashore, where we went on a long hike through the woods, wore no repellent, and got no bites. Yesterday, we were hiking a little further south, at Morgan Falls and Copper Falls, and though we were able to hike without resorting to repellent, we got a few bites. So people bitch (and itch) about the mosquitoes in Wisconsin, but the northern tier is also Wisconsin. Check it out! We saw some highly scenic places, and though it's the peak of the season, we were often the only or almost the only people there.
It brings attention and money to the impoverished places around the world, but this NYT op-ed, by Kennedy Odede says it shouldn't be done.
I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.
When I was 18, I founded an organization that provides education, health and economic services for Kibera residents. A documentary filmmaker from Greece was interviewing me about my work. As we made our way through the streets, we passed an old man defecating in public. The woman took out her video camera and said to her assistant, “Oh, look at that.”...
I once saw [a tour go] into the home of a young woman giving birth. They stood and watched as she screamed. Eventually the group continued on its tour, cameras loaded with images of a woman in pain.
Odede stacks the deck with these anecdotes about completely inappropriate photography. Rude tourists with cameras are a notorious problem in many contexts. I'm sure proponents of slum tourism would assert that they follow good rules for photography, or they could fix the existing tours by enforcing new photography rules.
So the question remains, is the tourism wrong apart from the bad photography? I think it is, but then, I am not the slightest bit tempted to travel like this.
I can't imagine thinking that I am a better, more engaged citizen of the world because I spend money and effort to go look at things in person that I am capable of learning about the way I would learn about history: by reading. If I can't understand and empathize by reading, that is my problem, and I'd be ashamed to try to solve that problem by imposing my physical presence on people who are suffering.
"For the $1,475 basic fee, Zhou and Chao will arrange for a three-month stay in a center -- two months before the birth and a month after. A room with cable TV and a wireless Internet connection, plus three meals, starts at $35 a day. The doctors and staff all speak Chinese. There are shopping and sightseeing trips." What a fabulous product! Talk about travel souvenirs.
The Republican National Convention launched a website blasting what it considers Obama's "leisure activities or missteps" during the oil disaster, like playing golf, attending concerts and vacationing in Asheville, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; and now Maine."
Obama has also faced criticism for scheduling a trip up north, instead of vacationing in the Gulf, as he advised other Americans to do.
Aw, come on, what is the problem? Republicans will complain about anything. Why aren't they happy to see him doing things other than governing. That government is best which governs least....
Good morning, people. Did you get your coffee okay this morning? We went in search of a local café — I won't say exactly where — and after much maneuvering through numbered avenues and streets — let's just say the Mississippi River sets a grid awry — we found the place that seemed right. On inspection it seemed a bit twee — like a theme park recreation of a "café" — but what about WiFi? No! I need my coffee and blogging, even on vacation. This is what I do. Is it too much to ask? A little coffee and WiFi in the morning? So we take the latte to go — back to the hotel lobby, which has WiFi. The lobby also has coffee. Free coffee. But I don't like that coffee. Am I too fussy? I typo'd "fuzzy." Am I too fuzzy? Yes! I am! Without my coffee in the morning. And my WiFi. I am sharpening up now. The latte's half gone, and this post — the first post of the morning — is nearly written.
Ever since I ran across this website, I have had a terrible time picking a hotel from websites. I look at every picture and wonder what's just outside that frame. And I'm ultra-suspicious when a hotel website doesn't feature the premises at all, but some people who are obviously not going to be in your room. I mean, are you supposed to project yourself into these characters? If I go there, a beefy, handsome guy will have me rolling in the bed, clutching my belly in helpless laughter.
See the big red sign in the background in that photograph? Here's my picture from the same room:
The guys are RLC and Meade (my 2 husbands).
(And here's my old blog post about 12 Bones. We need to do a summer drive that takes us back down that way again. I'd like to spend a few days in Asheville and eat every meal at 12 Bones.)
I have so much more time and subject matter for artistic projects in the summer, and with classes ending on Wednesday, I was looking for inspiration in the earliest examples of photography on this blog.
5. Attending and interpreting a genuinely interesting artistic event: Here and here.
6. I could use my drawings in a bloggy style. That reminds me: Palladian has done a magnificent job of presenting his drawings on line. Check it out. I used to travel with a pen and a sketchbook instead of a camera. I was highly influenced by this book. You have no idea how much time I spent, traipsing about, alone, looking and drawing. I don't know if I could go back to that, now that I've found digital photography. But I think there are alternative things that you can do, combining drawing and photography. I wonder if I'll ever get back to something like that....
7. Another idea is to get a new lens for the SLR camera and see what happens.
