Christmas Steve Party

Normally, Santa Claus would send in his family photos to me for publication. Thanks to the NSA, he doesn't feel that is necessary anymore, as they are all on record in the White House already before they are shot. I had therefore to do some fast talking with the guys in black, and they leaked some photos of the Northpole Inc. office party to me. It was held by special invitation from Christmas Steve.

DusTom, Tomstin, or DaBlack?

Just Jared has published the first photos showing Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black together after Tom Daley's YouTube video bombshell. The pictures were taken when they were leaving the diving center of the University of Houston Texas. Neither of them has confirmed if they are in a relationship, but pictures talk, too.

Data Loss in Winter is Preventable

All of us own electronic devices that contain important information that we would hate to lose. Winter cold can be a factor in crashes happening to those devices. If handled correctly, this need not happen to you. But as electronic devices are getting smaller, we tend to forget about their whereabouts more easily. Keeping track of them is just part of the deal.

Teenage Angst Literature

Teenage boys like to turn to a certain type of literature. It is literature that deals with people outside the norm; this resonates with teenage feelings of not belonging anywhere. The literature is so much part of growing up, it has become a rite of passage. The let down for all teenagers is usually when they find out that their parents have read the exactly same books in their teenage years, too.

Make Your Car Roadworthy For Winter Safety

Winter holidays are fun. Going into the mountains for skiing and fun in the snow is always a thing to look forward to. It is more enjoyable if you manage to arrive in one piece instead of ending up in a ditch. It might also be worth a lot of money as many countries hand out hefty fines if you haven't readied your car for snow and icy conditions on roads and mountain passes.

Tom Daley: Proud Coming Out

Now Tom Daley has decided that we all need to know. He's such a nice boy. And the way he did it was so typical Tom Daley you can't top it. His video message to the world is extremely personal and perfect home movie stuff. I have provided a link in the article.

Your Free Apps Feed Big Brother

Free Apps come to your phone at great personal cost to yourself. Most free apps suck information from your mobile phone, tablet, or laptop without your permission or knowledge. And this includes information you really would prefer to stay with you.

Police Vultures (The Animal Kind)

No, I’m not talking about the human vultures that you will find in any human organization. I’m talking about flying vultures that are under training with German police. It is planned, as should be quite obvious when reading any vulture’s job description, to use them in the search for dead persons in rugged terrain.

Wine For Christmas: Gum Arabic Vintages

You might be considering giving away some good bottles of wine as Christmas presents. Any wine aficionado will be thrilled by such a gift. On the other hand, you might want to reconsider once you know what is really inside a bottle of wine.

Was Eye Candy For Mojo

This post used to be about a play called Mojo by a guy called Jez Butterworth. Due to circumstances out of my control, this no longer is so. The content of this post has changed and to find out more you will need to read it further down. Please accept my apologies, but all shall be revealed.

Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde

Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde (variously spelled as Tristan and Isolda, Tristan and Yseult, or Tristan and Ysolt) is the Romeo and Juliet of German opera. The mere mention of the names gives the connotation of unhappy lovers in a secret relationship with an unhappy ending. There are many versions of the story available that almost everyone has at least some idea of what is going on which makes it one of the ‘easier’ works by Richard Wagner to watch and actually know what is happening on stage.

Homosexuality Grounds For Granting Asylum

Homosexuality may be a reason to grant asylum to fugitives coming to the European Union. This was decided by the European Court of Justice. Three men from African countries had filed charges against the Kingdom of the Netherlands for recognition as refugees with the right to apply for asylum. Their home countries are known to punish homosexual acts with heavy prison sentences or even life imprisonment.

Refusing to Grow Up: Justin Bieber

2013 has not been the year for Justin Bieber. From beginning to end, he was intent on living his bratty phase to the fullest, probably something he missed doing at 15. Now, you would expect him to grow up, but he just showed that he is not yet ready to behave like a 19-year-old.

Intersex Children Allowed in Germany

Tradition demands that a child is born as a boy or a girl. Tradition ignores the fact that one in 2,000 children is born with characteristics of both sexes in varying degrees. Germany's government and parliament have listened to these people. It is now to become Europe's first country to allow babies with characteristics of both sexes to be registered as neither male nor female. There are good reasons for doing this, and some consequences that have yet to be sorted out.

Organic: What the Label Doesn't Say

As everything these days sells better when labelled organic, I wondered what is so new about it to make it either hip or hype? Reading this will help your health and your purse.

Pope Francis vs Stephen Baldwin

Stephen Baldwin joins the haters, and Pope Francis shoots sharp against religious fundamentalists. In his latest sermon that received wide recognition, Pope Francis attacked the religious right wing as sick people suffering from an illness. Stephen Baldwin meanwhile joins the fascists in their sickbed and takes part in a gay healing conference.

French Gay Marriage Shambles

Trust frogs to make a mess of things. First they allow gay couples to marry. Then it turns out that not all of them are allowed to marry. And then the fascists try to hijack the constitution to invalidate the constitution. They tried that one in 1934, too, in a blatant push to invite Adolf Hitler into the country. Gay marriage has opened Pandora's box on persistent French fascism.

The Adnan Januzaj Think Tank

This post is directed at Adnan Januzaj, but anyone is welcome to read it, obviously. The English Football Association has acknowledged the total lack of home grown soccer talents and is hunting down promising foreigners. The whole farce is played out to distract from the fact that the FA is led by a bunch of incompetents. But this post, as I said, is by way of advice for a young soccer prodigy.

Hot Cheap Halloween Costumes

This is a special for all you pumpkin heads. Halloween is coming any moment now and the usual trouble is the decision what to wear. I have collected some ideas for you that don't need a lot of material, if any at all. There might be a few lucky ones among you that can go without any disguise at all. Narcissus was naked when looking into the pond, for instance. Or maybe a mask is all you need to wear.

Tai Woffinden: British Home Grown Speedway Champion

Britain is able to support home grown sports champions still. Tai Woffinden became Britain's first world speedway champion since 2000. He secured six points he needed to top the roster in Torun (Thorn), Poland. He is one of the sportsmen proving that the FA (Football Association) and the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) should be disbanded immediately.

Kissing is Dead in this Era

I have to castrate this article to conform to the dirty mind of some dirty old man responsible for placing ads with Google Adsense: Channels showing you know what and explicit pictorial overload swamp all aspects of everyday life and dominate news and social media. We live in an era of publicly displayed private things and of people making a spectacle of their emotions. The good old private and sincere kiss seems threatened by extinction. French philosopher Alexandre Lacroix accused the explicit show of people doing certain things of having committed murder on kissing in his last book Contribution à la théorie du baiser.

How To Pack Your Rucksack For Hiking

When you go for long hikes, a rucksack is an essential bit of kit to take along. It is there to take up all the stuff you might need while being on the way for several hours. If you pack it right, it will be a big help and hardly any trouble; if you pack it wrongly, it will be a pain in the neck and possibly dangerous. Packing a rucksack is not rocket science, but taking some care with it helps a long way.

Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser

When you mention the name of Tannhäuser, people either look blankly at you or assume you refer to the famous opera by Richard Wagner. The opera is correctly called Tannhäuser And The Singers’ Contest on Wartburg, and Tannhäuser is the titular hero in it. Tannhäuser was also a historical knight and singer songwriter.

Soccer Special: Louis Tomlinson

Louis Tomlinson played soccer for charity and went down in a tackle. You don't get that as a headline in normal soccer. But this tackle sent Twitter ablaze with tweets. Louis Tomlinson hurt his knee and left the content of his stomach on the turf. These things happen, usually when amateurs play soccer. Headlines don't come easy, and Louis Tomlinson really did his part to get them noticed in a field they don't normally dominate.

Through The Looking-Glass

Mirrors are mirrors, you would think. But even if you are a stickler for reality, a mirror is sometimes not what it seems but might be a means of secret observations. You may see them in most crime series on television. But even outside of fiction, cases are known where such observation on the sly took place in locker rooms or bathrooms.

Tom Daley Calendar 2014

As you might know meanwhile, any excuse to write about Tom Daley is good news. And getting you on to Tom Daley's Calendar for 2014 is certainly worth the while. The official launch date is set for the 10th of September, but you can probably pre-order now. Getting a diving bonanza lasting for a whole year should be worth the money.

Gareth Bale Soccer Transfer Record

Gareth Bale so far only laid claim to being Tottenham Hotspur's sexiest player with an option on the same being the case for Wales. But now he is aiming to become the most expensive soccer player in the world, well over the measly £80 million ($125 million) once paid for Cristiano Ronaldo. If nothing else, this explains why America desperately needs the Major Soccer League. All that money, and it is not earned by Americans. It's unethical.

1D, 2D, or 3D? Confusing in More Than One Direction

I don't know if you're confused, I definitely get confused now. With a boy-band called One Direction (or 1D) whose members are possibly interested in two directions (boys and girls to spell it out) and bringing out a movie in 3D, who wouldn't be at least puzzled? But this multi-directional approach is probably one of the reasons for their success. And the movie, make no mistake, could make them the billion Dollar boys.

Teen Choice Awards: 1D Twilight But Biebless

The Teen Choice Awards were awarded last night. Since 1999, teens and twinks are invited to vote for their idols to receive the prices once a year. There were no surprises as Twilight, One Direction, and Justin Bieber collected several prices.

Wrong Footwear Makes Hiking Dangerous

Hiking is the perfect fat burner. But you have to do it in the right footwear, or you might expose yourself to unnecessary dangers. Before setting out to countryside, the hills, or even mountains, go get some decent shoes or boots. Converse, sneakers, or slippers are not made to trek for hours through rough, wet, or slippery terrain. Slithering down a rain soaked muggy hill in shoddy shoes is not my idea of fun.

Turkey Apprehends Israeli Spy

An Israeli spy has been caught in Turkey by the inhabitants of a rural village. They captured him despite the grave personal danger to life and limbs and dragged him to the provincial governor's office for interrogation. Even under duress, the spy refused to confess and was eventually let go. Suspicions were not allayed as the suspect winged it immediately.

Diving World Championship 2013

Any excuse will do, I suppose, to post some pictures of my favorite teen hunk Tom Daley. Admittedly, a World Championships is a good excuse, wouldn't you agree? The 15th FINA World Championships this year is held in Barcelona, Spain. From five years ago, we already know that Barcelona probably has the most spectacular venue anywhere in the world. And then there are the boys in their sporting dress, if you can call a guy in skimpy speedos dressed. And it's all revealed on TV before the watershed.

Expensive Games by Free To Play

The top-selling apps in app stores are free games. How can games costing nothing make loads of profit for their developers? Using "Dragon City" as an example, I’ll try to show the tricks that make our "Free to play" games extremely expensive. Free to play games are anything but free, if you take a closer look at their principles.

Daniel Radcliffe Crippled on 24th Birthday

Actor Daniel Radcliffe was catapulted to fame as the boy who played Harry Potter. His story has become inextricably linked to the wizard. But he managed to step out of his own shadow and all his clothes and appeared naked on stage in Equus. Next came his singing debut in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to take New York and the Broadway. On his 24th birthday, Daniel Radcliffe is set to play a cripple in the West End.

Giving up: The Key to Success

What we admire most in top athletes like Andy Murray is their tenacity in pursuing their goals. Sports' superstars pursue extreme goals demanding the highest level of performance. And yet only a handful ever reach that pinnacle of success. Because truly successful athletes have an advantage over their less successful rivals: They can detect unreachable goals on time and redefine their goals.

Jerzy Janowicz and Andy Murray

Every day, Polish workers (but not only) show Brits what it means to work. Will a Polish journeyman circuit player named Jerzy Janowicz show world number two Andy Murray what it means to play tennis? If you go by what the betting odds show with the bookies, there is little chance of that. But there is also a lot of local support for no reason other than that he is a fellow Brit hidden in the money put on Andy Murray.

100 Years Tour de France

It must be summer! Once the Tour de France is on TV, the sun must be shining and it has to be warm at least. And this year, everything should be double if you believe the hype the tour organizers made about it all. I somehow doubt that they can get out two suns, and pity the racers if they get into double temperatures. And if it goes after the world's most famous cheat, the cyclists will do double doping.

Tennis: Mr Darcis Says Nada

Wimbledon is always good for a surprise; but some surprises really surprise. Steve Darcis from Belgium put Rafael Nadal out of the tournament in the first round. He managed this after his start into the grass season by losing to Stanislas Wawrinka in the first round at s'Hertogenbosch in Holland a week ago. It put an abrupt end to Rafael Nadal's dream comeback, but is a dream comeback for Steve Darcis.

Outing Others

Outing others can take several forms. There are homophobic individuals or groups and haters who do it out of spite and pettiness. There are gays who do it out of wishful thinking or in a moment of pique. And then there are boys asserting their bragging rights. None of these scenarios are pretty.

Gigathlon Six Day Challenge Race

Are you feeling bored by a mere triathlon? Is the Iron Man just a piece of cake for you? Then it is time to get into Gigathlon. The Gigathlon race in Switzerland for 2013 is a six day event starting in Chur in the East and ending in Lausanne in the West. The distance to cover is roughly 1,400 km (870 miles) long. Are you game?

Brighton Craft Fair

Do you like flea markets? When going for a leisurely shopping browse, there is nothing more satisfying than a visit to good arts and crafts fairs. Combine meeting chatty strangers with window shopping as a sort of free therapy. With the occasional surprise find thrown in you’ll get all the excitement of a treasure hunt. Then bargain as if you were in the oriental bazaar. Who needs a holiday after that?

Narcissus in Modern Times

Narcissus’ (or Greek Narkissos) story has been brought to us by many sources and in many guises. It bears repeating here, as it is still highly relevant to today’s society; or maybe it is even more relevant today than it has been in a long time. Join me and meet the modern Narcissi or Narkissoi.

Your Picture for a Dating Site

When you upload pictures to a profile on a dating site, it has certain advantages if you do this just right. Even not doing it wrongly can help. In general, there are certain things you should take on board before you do so to keep you out of the worst blunders.

The Body Image of Man

Women have a problem with their body image, we are told over and over. But a little study showed that men are just as self-conscious as women about their body shape. I have always been in favor of equality; sharing minor traumas seems only right therefore. In the end, though, it comes down to making the best of what you have.

Where Do You Look First?

Countless studies have shown to researchers that humans flicker their eyes to the left of a person facing them. This happens to you as well when you use a mirror as, obviously, you're facing your mirror image. This automatic reaction has implications on your everyday life you should consider.

Wear Skirts if Shorts Are Not Allowed

People with nothing better to do in some institutions and businesses feel called upon to decide what people are allowed to wear. Apart from their own atrocious dress sense, these executives have no other motivation or call to do so except self glorification on having implemented at least something in their otherwise useless life. Therefore, if shorts are not allowed, check the rules; skirts usually are allowed. Guys, get your skirts out!

  

France Joins Gay Marriage Countries

France has taken the plunge and joined the group of countries that allow gay marriage. Despite massive protests organized by the far right, fascists, self proclaimed Christians, and other reactionary political and religious groups, parliament passed the new law with a more than comfortable majority. The law is expected to be in force by June.

Europa League: Chelsea FC vs FC Basel

FC Basel was receiving compliments from soccer (football) clubs all over Europe for the defeat it handed to the Tottenham Hotspurs in the quarter final of the Europa League. Once again, Basel showed that they enjoy their status as underdogs. They will fill the same comfortable position against Chelsea FC against which they were drawn for the semifinal.

No Spring, Good Thing

We are missing out on spring. Everybody is moaning about it. Time to list all the positive aspects this has for you (and me). After all, the proverbial silver lining on the clouds is easier to see when there are clouds. Wouldn't you agree? Join me in enjoying the spring that never was.

Easter Bunny Special Edition

The Easter Bunny is one of the great remaining mysteries of our world. Now that the Higgs Boson has been found, only Atlantis can steal the show. And they don't do chocolate in Atlantis, so who cares? Lets go and delve deep into Easter Bunny history and see what we can find. And maybe we can also uncover its hidden friends in high places, who knows.