Phaedrus

....said the man in speedos.

Excellent stuff, Julie! Congratulations!

OBJECTION!!!! You may NOT mention The Avengers without posting gratuitous pics of ScarJo looking outrageously hot. You're welcome.

Good shout, madam. +1 from me. But don't eat the little red chilies they give you with the pho. Oh, go on then, eat one. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Hey, any kind of association is good enough for this thread. But if you're going to bring Offenbach into it, then you're totally getting Orpheus in the Underworld.

OD: great to have you back. RG: please stop touching your wood. Or at least, turn the webcam off. :)

File under "Funny, because it's true".

To expand on this... and before I do so, I should add that this post is in no way aimed at the OP - I'm just throwing it out there for anyone who may appreciate it... I'm sure most SPs would be delighted to give you a massage as a prelude to other activities, if you asked for one. However, you should NOT go and see MAs thinking that after you've had a massage from them you'll get... more. The ladies who choose to be MAs rather than SPs do so for a reason; while I'm sure the reasons are different for everyone, you may rest assured that if any MA wished to do FS on a regular basis, she would simply do so and advertise as a SP. And yes, you'll doubtless hear of MPs or particular MAs that will give you "more". I have no doubt that there's truth to some of these rumours... but please remember that going in *expecting* this sort of thing is a sure route to disappointment and a lot of questions to which the answer is, "No." Again, I must emphasize that the last couple of paragraphs weren't aimed at anyone in particular... but if half of what I've heard is true, it needs to be said.

Back at ya... the mighty Orinoco!

To be honest, I really don't have an issue with just putting an envelope down somewhere after I arrive... just make sure the lady you're visiting sees you do so :)

Tromsø, Norway. No idea why.

Arejayell, I had *infinite* dreams. You can't raise me, by definition. And a mere twelve certainly doesn't cut it :) Anyway, just for you... dreaming is just imagining things while you sleep...

Ebbw Vale, which is more pronounceable than it looks.

Well, I'd say that was the right thing to do. I'm sure nobody else, whether MA or not, wants your flu :) I know some do. I'd have thought most would. If they catch your flu then they can't work for a few days, and that hits them in the pocket. MAs and SPs don't get sick leave, last I looked.

Wow! That's a long time! To celebrate, here's a rare picture of Spud from the archives.

This sort of thing came up recently. I don't have much to add to what I said there. However, I'm sure that if you let the SP you're seeing know your preference, she'll be more than happy to have no, one, or several SOs for the duration of your encounter :)

I was quite disappointed with the food when I was there. But if you just hop over the river, you'll find Brasseurs du Temps, which has very good food. And better and more interesting beer, for those who care about that.

Happy birthday, Emerald!

I'm amazed and relieved in equal measure that LeeRichards hasn't jumped into this thread yet...

Ice-fishing: you're doing it wrong.

All the best, Erin. We'll miss you!

Two problems that rail freight has, that road doesn't. Firstly, rail doesn't go door to door. Even if you do the bulk of the journey by rail, you've still go to get the container to the train on a truck, and then get it off the train and onto another truck to get it to its final destination. This takes time and effort, and therefore money; at present, it's cheaper to send most things by road. And that's assuming there *is* a viable rail link for most of the journey. The only things that are likely to change this are massive investment in rail infrastructure (hugely expensive in a country the size of Canada), massive congestion on the roads, or rising oil prices. Secondly, passenger and freight trains don't mix. Those mile-long trains carrying coal or ore or whatever don't move fast; passenger services can't afford to get held up by them (at least, not if they want to have any passengers). And that means you have to have multiple parallel tracks; again, expensive. As for passenger services... last time I investigated, going from Ottawa to Toronto or Montreal by train cost around the same as driving... but you have to get to/from the station at each end (hassle, expense), wasn't much faster, and the trains just weren't leaving at convenient times. And that was from central Ottawa to central Montreal/Toronto, which is pretty much the ideal case; if I'd been looking at going to/from suburbs it wouldn't have been even a remotely close call. The huge advantage of the car over almost everything else is convenience and flexibility. Rail can only compete with the car under two circumstances: when there's a lot of trains, and cars have additional costs associated with them (e.g. the daily commute into large cities), or when the speed of rail is enough to overcome its other downsides (long trips). If you had enough track and ran enough trains to make rail a viable alternative to the car in most cases, it'd require massive initial investment and huge subsidies to run. And long-distance, if you're not taking too much luggage with you, planes are cheaper, for the simple reason that you don't need the infrastructure. You just have to build airports; there's no need to lay track between them. This also means that air routes can be added and removed and changed as the market dictates, in a way that rail can't, so you don't get stuck maintaining unprofitable infrastructure.

This is relevant... sort of. You're only as old as you want to be.