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Paul

offline 264 friends
joined on 09/18/03
last updated 12/21/06
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My Friends

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My Testimonials

April 19, 2008
you are pretty ok
June 28, 2007
Paul has retired from smut life to write children's books illustrated with an ink pen held in his urethra. He is a naughty boy, and will be missed from the scene, but many children will be the better due to advice from their dear uncle paul. Do tell us unkie, what is thee advice?
October 13, 2006
Paul is in for the little children. he would love to see them all join hands
and sing kum buy yacht. I don't know how he kisses and stuff, but I know
he's not one that will ever tell you a bad joke. And he makes the best
"buttcrack man" ever on stage.
January 11, 2006
A doll! I'm impressed by his professionalism and style and sheer charisma. And man, he wears a corset well! A delicious kisser, even if I didn't return the favor well, as I was a bit distracted at the time...
February 18, 2005
I'm mad at Paul... and I'm not talking to him....
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My Profile

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about me
I own a theater, I travel whenever I can, I do magic for a living, I love to try new things,
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My Recent Activity

Louche Absinthe Party - Friday May 2nd ( events » nightlife ) SAN FRANCiSCO'S MOST NOTORiOUS ABSiNTHE PARTY RETURNS TO WHiSPER FOR A CRYPTO-FLiPTO GREEN FAIRY BLOW-OUT BEYOND ALL PAST PROPORTiON!

Join the costumed revelry of vamps, tramps, posers, performers, dandies, demimondes, harlots, libertines, abs... read more
event starts Friday, May 2, 2008 - 10:00 PM
Louche - Absinthe Party - May 2nd - Whisper (in SF Goth) Our Notorious Absinthe Party 'Louche' is going off this Friday night, May 2nd at Whisper.
Fu*king amazing people, performers, and musique.

All the info at www.louchesf.com
discussion post on Sun, April 27, 2008 - 6:13 PM
Louche - Absinthe Party - May 2nd - Whisper (in Absinthe) Our Notorious Absinthe Party 'Louche' is going off this Friday night, May 2nd at Whisper.
Fu*king amazing people, performers, and musique.

All the info at www.louchesf.com
discussion post on Sun, April 27, 2008 - 6:12 PM
Louche - Absinthe Party - May 2nd - Whisper (in The Green Fairy) Our Notorious Absinthe Party 'Louche' is going off this Friday night, May 2nd at Whisper.
Fu*king amazing people, performers, and musique.

All the info at www.louchesf.com
discussion post on Sun, April 27, 2008 - 6:11 PM
Louche - Absinthe Party - May 2nd - Whisper (in Absinthe Connoisseurs) Our Notorious Absinthe Party 'Louche' is going off this Friday night, May 2nd at Whisper.
Fu*king amazing people, performers, and musique.

All the info at www.louchesf.com
discussion post on Sun, April 27, 2008 - 6:09 PM
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Paul's Life

We are stuck in the French Alps in the middle of a terrible blizzard. I may have to eat one of my friends. It’s a terrible choice to have to make... which of your friends to eat first. It’s worse knowing that right now they are thinking the same thing about you.

It was a simple plan… Not really a plan actually… A plan implies planning and that would have precluded the present situation, I will say instead that it was a simple idea. Fly into Milan with my cameraman, meet our interpreter, then drive to Pontarlier, the birthplace of absinthe. It was so simple that I didn’t really look at the map. Not really.

If we make it out of here alive and uneaten I’ll post some lovely video of the Italian and Swiss Alps. You will immediately notice the snow and perhaps think, “wow! Someone could get stuck in that snow and have to eat someone else”. But that’s how it is when you are in the middle of a situation; you sometimes lack the clarity of perspective.

I suppose I should tell you a bit about my friends. One of them is my long time friend and traveling companion Eric Masters. He agreed to come along and run camera on this fools errand. The other is Sherry O. Sherry is an artist who flew to Milan to act as my interpreter. Eric is bigger and has more meat but Sherry is probably more tender and won’t put up as much of a fight.

Eric and I flew into Milan from Düsseldorf. We met Sherry under the fountain at the train station and headed for Pontarlier. Pontarlier is easy to find using google earth. You just type it in and you fly instantly to that point on the screen. Finding it on a map proved to be a bit more difficult; actually driving there through the Alps is proving to be a long and arduous task. Sherry whipped out the biggest map I have ever seen in my life. It was longer than the car and taller than her. We finally found Pontarlier and decided that the fastest route would be through the Italian Alps, under the Grand Tunnel Saint Bernard, into the French Alps and voila.

We arrive in town and immediately run into the old Pernot Fils factory. It’s now owned by Nestle. They make strawberry and Chocolate quick for export to the UK here. As you drive into town the smell of chocolate is overwhelming. The whole place smells like a nice warm glass of hot cocoa. I have looked online and cannot find the absinthe distilleries anywhere. They just don’t have websites like we do in the states. No address. No phone number. All I have to go by is the labels that say product of Pontarlier France.

Pontarlier is the birthplace of absinthe… Sort of… Various recipes for absinthe had been kicking around the region for generations. Local healers used it for everything from Menstrual cramps to purgative. In the late 1700s Dr. Pierre Ordinaire sold the recipe for absinthe to the Pernot family who begin making it in the town of Couvet Switzerland. He started out making about 30 liters at a time. In 1805 Msr. Pernot moved across the border to France to avoid paying the heavy French import tax and the rest is history. By 1908 the Pernot Factory was producing 25,000 liters a day.

By 1925 there where four absinthe Distilleries in Pontarlier producing a combined total of over 100,000 liters a day. At the time that absinthe was banned in France in 1914 there were 22 distilleries in Pontarlier and two more just outside of town.

There are only two distilleries left in town. They both make absinthe as well as Brandy, Anise Liquor, and a local specialty called Sapin. Sapin is made by distilling down pinesap; it tastes like licking a pine tree. Pontarlier is not a big town but we have no idea where to go. I pull over a cop and ask. The police say “Follow Us” (only they say it in French). A mile and a half later we arrive unannounced at the Distilleries Françoise Guy with a police escort.

If you are interested in seeing how Absinthe is made I will have a video up in a couple of days that takes you through the process, but basically it goes like this…

A variety of herbs are put into a vat. These include locally grown Wormwood and Anise from Spain along with a few others that they wouldn’t talk about (secret recipe). These are put into a big copper vat, which is filled with 98 percent alcohol. They put a lid on top of this and heat it up until the alcohol evaporates. When the alcohol evaporates it takes the essential oils from the plants with it. All of this travels through a short copper pipe into a cooling coil where it condenses and becomes absinthe.

The stills here are over a hundred years old. Made of brass and copper they look like something out of a museum. Called alembic stills, they have been producing liquor for a hundred and 118 years. François Guy first used them to make absinthe in 1890. After the ban they were used only for brandy. When the ban was lifted Guy’s great grandson broke out the old recipe and started making absinthe again. The smell is spectacular… When you walk in to the room it transports you from the city in winter to a spring mountainside. There is nothing in the world like that smell.

We spent about an hour taking a tour of the distilleries. They kept giving us samples. Sherry got too drunk to interpret, Eric got to drunk to shoot and we all got too drunk to drive. By the end of the tour it was hard to understand what they were talking about because Sherry keeps breaking into song and Eric further impedes the translation process by muttering to himself then laughing out loud. If the distillery manager had any illusions about the seriousness of our intentions they have now been dashed.

We have been warned by the staff that there is a storm coming in to the mountains. “Stay here” they say (except they say it in French) but I don’t think they mean stay with them. I think they mean we should haul our drunken asses to a cheap hotel and sleep it off.

We roll out of the Distillery Guy and head for the only other distillery left in town. Distillery Emile Pernot, where they make Un Emile and Denisette among others. We met François Trenent, the owner. He bought the factory three years ago from Emille Pernot. Msr Trenent takes pity on us and shows us around. He pours us more drinks, pats us on the head and sends us out into the snow to fend for ourselves.

Absinthe is classified as a spirit not liquor because it has no sugar added during the distillation process. It is also classified as an aperitif because it is supposed to be consumed before a meal to improve the appetite (as opposed to a digestive, which would be for after a meal). Speaking of which… I am getting a bit hungry. Sherry is passed out in the back seat. I don’t think she would notice if I just took a nibble off of her leg. Then when she wakes up later I could blame Eric… I think she would believe me. It’s good to have a plan.

Next stop Venice – if we make it out of here alive.

Fri, March 28, 2008 - 6:35 PM permalink - 4 comments
 
Peter and I spent yesterday at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (pronounced Gren-itch). The royal observatory is where time starts and ends, it is the center of the world. It is the most important place on earth. Of course Peter and I keep getting weird looks from the staff. Why does everyone think we are a couple. It may be my giant white fuzzy pimp coat.
Be advised... This blog isn't very funny and may not be interesting unless, like me, you are into the history of math and cartography.

By the early 1500s travel to and from the new world was a constant for most of the western world. Spain, England, France, even Portugal and Germany had holdings into he new world. Shipping with the far east was a big part of commerce and the slave trade in Africa made up a big part of the economies of most of the western European countries. Unfortunately no one knew where they were. Not if they were on board a ship that is... By the middle of the 1500s any competent sea captain could find his latitude using the instruments of his time, that is to say he could determine with great accuracy how far North or South of the Equator he was. Finding out how far East or West he was at any given time proved to be a huge problem.

After a merchant fleet of British ships crashed off the coast of Sicily killing over a thousand British sons the crown put up a reward of 20,000 pounds to anyone who could reliably solve the Longitude problem. The equivalent of several million dollars in today's market. This prize attracted a lot of solutions. My favorite was a ring of barges circling the entire world sending up flairs to let sailors know where they are.

It turns out that the two best solutions to this problem were both proposed at about the same time. One solution involved a precise listing of exactly where various celestial bodies where on any given night. Sir John Flamsteed spent forty years of his life at the Royal Observatory creating just such a cart (Edmond Haley - of Haley's comet did the same thing on the southern hemisphere). It turns out that if you use this chart with good instruments, the right training and calm seas you can find your location to within a few miles. Because the charts were all done from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich it became the place from which everywhere else was measured, 0.00.00 Longitude, the Prime Meridian.

But a more economical way of determining where you are is by knowing precisely what time it is where you are and precisely what time it is somewhere else. Using simple geometry you can then determine exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds difference you are from that location. The North South vertices of our planet are divided up into 24 meridians or longitudinal lines. Each about a thousand miles apart at the equator (the lines converge as you go toward the poles). So if you know that the sun is exactly at noon where you are and you know that you are exactly two hours, 25 minutes, and 35 seconds earlier than somewhere else (let's say Greenwich England) than you know that you are 2,595 miles to the west of that location. Each hour difference is 1,000 miles, each minute is 16.7 miles, and each second is .27 or about a quarter mile. San Francisco is about 8 hours before London so it must be about 8,000 miles away (it is). So all you need is a compass a sextant, and a very good watch set to noon at a known point somewhere in the world. That somewhere is the Royal Observatory in Greenwich which is the prime meridian or first meridian. 0.00.00 degrees longitude.

It took a hundred years before a watch maker named Harrison from a little farm village made a clock that was accurate enough to solve the Longitude problem. The most accurate clocks of the time were only accurate to within a few minutes a day and were not suited to use on board a ship where waves tossed it, the temperature changed constantly and salt and water eroded the works. I've attached a picture of the first Harrison Clock. It took five years to make and was not accurate enough for navigational use. It took him twenty more years... The final timepiece looks like a big pocket watch. It's about six inches across. It was accurate to within a second a week. A very big difference indeed.

The Royal Observatory became the place where everyone else set their watch by. Is still the place that time starts and the whole world sets their time to GMT or Greenwich Main Time.

The guard just winked at me... He thinks I'm for hire or hiring. If London had prettier girls maybe people would stop thinking Peter and I are a couple.

Next stop Amsterdam.
Thu, March 20, 2008 - 7:39 AM permalink - 5 comments
 
My flight attendant thinks I'm gay. I'm flying back to London for the first time in six months and I happen to be flying with a friend. He happens to be a very handsome British man with boyish good looks, an innocent face, and that sweet upper class British accent that marks a man as cultured and charming. His charm is a great counterpoint to my brash American, bull in a china shop sort of demeanor. The steward seems to think that we make a cute couple in an opposites attract sort of way.

Service is different when they think you are gay... I've never noticed before (apparently I have not been perceived as gay before). There is an extra gen-a-se-qua in the service. A desire to help that goes above and beyond. They treat us like we are honeymooners. "Can I get you some Champaign?", "would you fellows like a snack", “You know the seat divider between you goes up so you can be more comfortable. (Lots of winks)” “Would you fellows like a blanket”, "Can I fluff your pillow?"... My steward actually said that... "Can I fluff your pillow"? Now that is service. I don't care what he thinks about my private life Just keep swinging on by with the Champaign. ("From first class, just for you two" - wink) and pillow fluffing. Who are these smooth skinned boys who fly the friendlier skies.

I have often considered becoming gay for business purposes, grant money, tax benefits, stylish cloths. But now I am seriously considering a life style change for the purpose of travel. It's like a secret society. A cult of well-dressed men catering to one another's needs. If you looked at Peter and I together I don't think you would assume we were romantically involved. If you did peg us for a couple than I would definitely be the daddy (or Pitcher as they are referred to in the parlance of pretty boys).

Here comes the steward again… More Champaign… oooowww and snick snacks. Yummy.


It’s fun being gay on a plane.

I would like to point out for the benefit of my mother (who is still hoping for grand kids) that I am still heterosexual and that I like women way too much to be gay. I suppose I could be bisexual and just tell people that I am gay when I am traveling. Yes… that’s what I will do from now on. Snacks Yummy.
Tue, March 11, 2008 - 6:33 AM permalink - 9 comments
 
Lesbian wedding and fish day in Køpenhagen

I have been duped. I had been led to believe Danish girls are good looking. Calumny. Half-truths. Bullshit. I’ve been here for an hour and haven’t seen a single Amazon hottie. This country is devoid of Paul bait. A wasteland of aging chicks with sagging asses and sun dried skin. Nothing good looking lives Copenhagen. This wedding is going to suck.

I’m in Køpenhavn (Copenhagen) to celebrate the union of two souls. One of my oldest friends is getting married. Her name is Katrina and her fiancé is Anna Faith. They have been living in all kind of sin for 7 years, but California refuses to recognize an actual marriage between them because they are both girls.

Katrina happens to be Danish and they recognize gay marriages in Denmark so they had the ceremony here. I happened to be in Europe so I went. Katrina promised me a bevy of sexy young bridesmaids all drunk and ready for a green-card wedding (with benefits). I’m not holding out a lot of hope. Shit half the girls here have mustaches.

The idea of Viking warrior princesses is certainly appealing but like many ideas made real the actuality is a bunch of mannish women with beards and big forearms.

An hour in Denmark and unless things change for the better in a big way this whole country sucks. I mean Copenhagen is charming and quaint but not quaint enough to justify the hideousness of the population. It’s like England (the world capital of unattractive women)… It seems like the girls should be hot, the accent is sexy; but twenty years of pub food and beer takes a toll on a girls body, skin, face, and teeth.

Four hours later and I have to admit Copenhagen has grown on me a bit. This afternoon I took a canal tour of the city and spent a few hours in the NY Carlsberg Glitter www.glyptoteket.dk/ . It is the most beautiful museum I’ve ever been in. It’s so open, so well designed.

The Glyptotek has an exhibition of Impressionist painters. I got interested in the impressionists when I got into absinthe and began studying them as part of my research into the history of that time period. I’ve come to really appreciate and love a lot of the work so this was a real treat for me.

Seeing twenty of Degas works in a row was eye opening (what a commercial sellout he was). The Renoir’s where vibrant (as you would expect), and to see a Monet in person is very different than seeing a print or an image online. But my surprise and delight we in finding a few painters I had never heard of or seen before. Jacques-Louis David’s portrait of the Comte de Turenne done in 1816 was immaculate (though not part of the impressionist period or style at all)
www.glyptoteket.dk/13743415...FD4.W5Doc
and Camille Pissarro’s Portrait of Nini from 1884 was stylish, beautiful, and fresh. I had never heard of Pissarro before… Her work is stunning.
www.glyptoteket.dk/13743415...FD4.W5Doc

Of course for me the highlight was to see Édouard Manet’s The Absinthe Drinker from 1859. Of course that is the image attached to this blog. This is the painting that started the whole Impressionist movement. Seeing the painting that changed the conversation in art was inspiring. Following the Hegelian dialectic conversation in art for this period is particularly noteworthy as here more than any other period in art history you can see the rapid shift in art, which mirrored a shift in society that was profound, ubiquitous, and important. It’s not that this particular work of art changed history, rather this particular work of art mirrored changes in society that took place with a speed that was unmatched in history.

Impressionism was fueled by disenfranchisement and dissatisfaction with the way society treated its artists and the way the art world treated its own. This was happening at a period when workers were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with work conditions, the people of Europe becoming less tolerant of the last vestiges of an aristocracy that contributed nothing but took much, and a bourgeois class that exploited the common worker without remorse. People began to examine their circumstances and to question authority, tradition, and their own decisions. More important they began to do something about it. Broad swaths of society began to realize for the first time that they could do, could be anything they chose to. Manet’s break with tradition was not the impetus, nor even an important contributor to this movement, rather it was a mirror held up to society at this vital time in history.

www.glyptoteket.dk/13743415...FD4.W5Doc

OK. I am beginning to like Copenhagen. We all went out tonight for a pre-wedding dinner. It was very nice. After dinner everyone went home. I hit a few clubs. As I am walking down the street a couple of guys ask why I am dressed nice. I tell them that I just came from a celebration of Saphotic love. They don’t know what that means but they invite me for drinks then take me on a tour of Copenhagen clubs. I have to admit the girls are a lot prettier at night. I don’t know if it is the make up, the lighting (or lack there of) or if it is just because they have shaved. Whatever it is they are getting better… A lot better.

Today is Fish Day in Copenhagen. Happy Danish children play with fish as vendors sell a variety of seafood. There are fish rides, and fish food, fish fish fish. The town square reeks of oceanic plunder.

A trip to the Rosenberg Palace was all I could manage to fit in. Again the art is fantastic. All the art was anonymous but there were a few standouts. One painting of the Temple of Babylon in particular. There were a lot of clockwork pieces that blew me away and a lovely collection of arms. Not enough time unfortunately because the wedding is about to start.

It’s billed as a traditional Danish, Jewish, Lesbian wedding. Don’t get me started. The important part – the only part that matters is that Katrina and Ana Faith proclaimed their love and their intention to be together for all time in front of their friends and family. Ritual and dogma mean little. They gave their word to each other with witnesses. The bond won’t be recognized in the states, but it will be recognized between them, their families, and friends. Isn’t that what really matters? I think so. Marriage is a commitment between two people – the rest be damned.

After the wedding there were speeches, performances, music, and dancing. It was the best traditional Danish, Jewish, Lesbian wedding I’ve ever been to. So much love, so much support, so many unshorn women.

The next day the paper ran a story about the wedding. It talked about freedom of expression, and how unfair it is that some people can’t celebrate their love just because they do not fit the traditional mold. I’m glad I could be there to witness, to share, to support my friend’s love for one another. I joke around and play the cad but I am a romantic at heart.

Next blog… Unicorns and bunnies. I promise.


By the way I'm home and expect to stay that way for a couple of months. I'm available for drinks, food, dancing, or sex.
Wed, September 12, 2007 - 3:02 PM permalink - 3 comments
 
First things first. If you are reading this and you are my mother, my niece or a person of moral conviction stop now. I will write a blog about bunnies and unicorns next week. This missive is graphic and full of tales of poor behavior and bad decisions. The author does not condone the use of drugs, prostitutes or same sex marriage. I live by the words of my favorite libertine author (Oscar Wilde) who recommends “all things in moderation especially moderation”.

OK. So this wasn’t the worst birthday I’ve ever had but it was on the weirder side. I’m writing this from the cabin of a cheap airline headed for Copenhagen. One of my oldest friends is getting married tomorrow. It’s not a real marriage. They are both girls so it doesn’t count. It’s not even recognized in the US because we are God-fearing people who know that lesbians are destined to burn for eternity in a Christless hell. A hell filled with people who don’t go around persecuting anyone who doesn’t believe in their brand of religion sounds like heaven to me. Especially if it is filled with girls who kiss each other. But to each his own.

I did not get laid on my birthday though I did get hit on by a Harvard professor, a Columbian hooker, two drunken Russians, and a smooth skinned boy from France. I am sitting next to a six-foot tall Danish girl who looks like she is still rolling from last night. Probably ecstasy. She is still in club wear and her long legs look even longer in her tiny little skirt. She keeps reading my notes over my shoulder… Nosey Danish girl.

The plan for my birthday was to go sightseeing but I ended up sleeping until five. I started my birthday at Gorky Park, which is a little café I like.

It was sort of my last day in Berlin and it was my birthday. I had planned on hooking up with this Ukrainian super model for an evening of dancing at Treasure. But I got a call from a Friend to take me out to a birthday dinner at a small French restaurant near by and then everything went sideways.

It’s a fashionable place with fantastic food. They have a couple of hunters who bring in fresh meat every couple of days. The menu changes depending on what gets caught. Fantastic food. I got hit on by a poly sci professor from Harvard. We talked about art for a while then politics. She was a little to right wing for me, which was too bad because she was totally hot and way into the idea of slumming with an artist for his birthday… Tre bohemian.

We blew out of there and met up with my friend Pine at the local Russian mafia bar, CCCP. We are supposed to go to treasure so I can hook up with Dasha (the super model) but we get talked into going to a Brazilian brothel to buy drugs. I want to be clear. I wasn’t buying drugs. I don’t do drugs. (If you are my niece and you are reading this… Drugs are bad. So are Columbian brothels and lesbians and so are nosey nieces who where told not to read this in the first paragraph so when you end up in therapy know that I warned you- assuming, of course that you are reading this, which you should not be) My friend wanted some blow and who better to get it from than a bunch of Columbian hookers? She asked me to go with her. It seemed like fun and Pine was into it so I went along for the ride.

We get there and they don’t have anything on hand and we have to wait but we can’t wait unless we buy a girl… My friend Pine agrees to “Take one for the team” while we wait. Sitting in one of the bedrooms drinking a Luke warm cola while we wait for the drugs and my friend to come I get a call from a girl I am dating back home. The headboard and the hooker in the next room are making a lot of noise and it’s hard to hold a conversation.

It was all a bit surreal. Weird but fun. Mostly weird. Chatting on the phone when the blow finally arrives and my friend starts lining up rails for all the girls and the madam while I’m trying to have a conversation with this girl back home. Then I get beeped by the supermodel wondering where I am. My friend is trying to get me to do a line with her and I keep trying to explain that I really don’t do coke but my German is so bad that she doesn’t understand so I have to explain it in bad Spanish to a Columbian hooker who translates it into bad German while snorting thick rails of Columbian fluffy. One of the other girls is trying to give me a birthday present (if you know what I mean). She has a lovely smile with two very nice teeth but I’ve just never been into prostitutes. Even for free (except for one – You know who you are. Shit make that two).

Just then Pine shows up looking very relaxed and I just want to get out of here so I can hit up the supermodel and get the same relaxed look on my face that Pine is sporting. We finally get out and end up back at CCCP chatting with this multi-millionaire who is explaining to me that Kiev is the place to invest in real estate and going into how to park your cash in offshore accounts and who to bribe when my friend, Pine starts telling me that he has met his soul mate. “She got hit in the head when she was a kid and it messed up her sense of smell. She can’t smell bad smells.” He goes on to explain that she is perfect for him because he can quietly break wind all night long and not offend her in the least. “She is perfect”. We each have our own criteria for perfection.

For instance I happen to like Danish hotties who party all night in tiny little skirts and catch their flight home a little bit dizzy and read other people’s writing, which is very naughty. I just want to take this girl into the bathroom and toy with her affections.

This is the Danish girl…. I just grabbed your computer. I going now to the bathroom at back of the plane. I am bad girl to take your computer. You come and spank me.

That was weird. She just grabbed my laptop and typed that then kissed me on the cheek and took off. I gotta go. I’ll be back.


OK. Shit like this does not happen. I’m not going into detail but this is now officially the best morning after my birthday ever. Hold on... she wants the laptop again.

You are tricked. I am not really Danish. I am from Norway. Silly American.
Fri, September 7, 2007 - 3:08 AM permalink - 14 comments
 
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members » Paul link to this profile: http://people.tribe.net/paulnathan