Recon Cruise Factor

My friend, Neil the Erotic Hypnotist, and I have had a long-running competition for who can get the most cruises on Recon in a month. I tend to score higher earlier on in the month but he usually catches up. Lately, since he's been beating me and I've taken to pretending to be better than the whole thing. But I also tell him that it's not the number of cruises that count as much as the ratio of cruises to profile views. By that count, I beat him .29 - .28.

But the closeness of that ratio got me curious, so I started checking it on the profiles of other people I know, since Recon profiles display the number of times a persons been cruised and viewed as part of the profile. Out of  ten or so random profiles (with face pics) that I checked, I found that all of them had about the same ratio, somewhere between .2 and .3, and it made me start to think about if I've stumbled onto some kind of golden ratio for cruisiness.

It's possible that I just don't have a big enough sample and that these results were all outliers. I'm an art guy, not a statistician, so I'm no expert. But there's all kinds of fun ways these numbers could be interpreted. It could be the number of guys who are attracted to you versus the number who open you profile randomly. Or it could indicate the number of times a guy who has cruised you has jerked off to your pics over the past month. I guess you'd have to factor in the number of times each individual person has viewed your profile. But then there could be all kinds of other variables to investigate, like if they vary depending on fetish, etc. Maybe I should hire a site statistician to get on that.

As a side note, I know there are a lot of guys who are critical of the whole Recon cruise concept, but I like it. There's something unique about it compared to other similar social network systems like Facebook poke, Manhunt's wink, because of the fact that you can only do it once a month and the counters reset. I think there's a weird kind of community building aspect to it. A good portion of the men I cruise and who cruise me back are guys I've met at parties, events, and who I want to keep in touch with. In other cases, they're guys I've chatted with and think are hot but live too far away to meet up. Then again, I never understand how those 60 year old Eastern European guys always make it to the top 100 lists, with thousands of cruises.

Europe According to Gay Men

More maps at Mapping Stereotypes by alphadesigner

Blogging is Hard

I've been thinking a lot about blogging lately, but haven't actually been doing very much of it. It's been a few months since I really stopped paying attention to my Sitemeter. I used to watch that shit obsessively, especially when I was making ad money. There's a kind of peace that comes with not caring though. In the beginning, when this thing started getting readers, it became kind of a popularity contest. You get into watching the hit counter go up and doing what you can to try to increase it.

But lately I've been thinking back to those days when it was a smaller blog and getting all nostalgic. I've been thinking about how there are some drawbacks to having a bigger blog that gets over 1000 views a day. I've developed a kind of paranoia because I can never be sure now if, when I hook up with a guy, if he's a reader. Consequently, I've developed a policy of not writing about sex and hook ups, even though a lot of readers have asked me to write more about that. This may sound like overreacting, but I get messages from people all the time on gay websites, even on Grindr (!), from people who say they're readers. And I love that. It's awesome being reminded that there are people out there reading this stuff. In fact, one of the things that's turned me off blogging lately is that I've felt like I don't hear from enough readers anymore. I want more interaction. I think thats something that went away when I got heavy on the porn posts, but you do the porn because it keeps the numbers going up and, sometimes, you get some money out of it.

In a way I'm kind of glad that the audience has shrunk because, I rationalize to myself, the people who stay with it and keep coming back are the ones who are actually interested in the things I am, in what I have to say, and who like hearing the crazy rants of some mean fake-twink with leather and kink tastes and aren't just there for the porn, which you can see on just about any of the blogs that are out there. The bigger this shit got, the more porn I put up, the less comfortable I feel writing about myself. Plus I HATE the title, and always have, and it was chosen mockingly to make fun of a friend's site. But then this site got readers and I was stuck with it. That should be a lesson to novice bloggers, pick a title you're satisfied with because you're gonna be stuck with it. But this is all making me think that I might be making some drastic changes pretty soon...

Gay Film Trailers that are NOT about my Life

My friend sent me this trailer for Bear City saying it’s about me.

While I do like muscle bears, I’d have to disagree. Even though I recognize every bar in the trailer as being a place I’ve hung out. And recognize a few faces. And like leather and bowling.

I kinda miss the 90s…

This video from British TV has a behind the scenes look at the original Mortal Kombat video game and the process they used for photographing the actors who played the characters. It was pretty revolutionary at the time to use digitized images of real people in a fighting game. For this show, they got the who played Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage (as well as Scorpion and Sub Zero) to come hang out in their costumes and play the game against each other as their characters in that kind of cheesy TV way you would only see in the 90s. They’re kind of weird looking in real life… I was fucking obsessed with this shit when I was seven or eight years old.

And fuck that new Mortal Kombat “Rebirth” trailer.

International READ a Qur’an Day

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself increasingly distressed by events in this country. I haven’t felt this sad about the anniversary of 9/11 since the first one, back when it was still assumed to be a day of mourning. It became increasingly clear over the years that interests in this country preferred to make the anniversary a day of blind nationalism. Now it seems that 9/11 is on the verge of becoming something even worse – a holiday for hate. There are people in this country who are bent on using the day to intimidate and terrorize Muslims in this country and around the world. I fear that incidents such as the planned book burning in Gainsville, Florida are not the only such acts of intimidation that will occur. What can we do to stop them? By making 9/11 a day for not just tolerance but also for compassion. That’s why I’m proposing that we observe this Saturday as International Read a Qur’an Day. (UPDATE: Yes, I just realized I’ve been beaten to this by half a day, but the following all comes from me.)

I don’t write about it as much on here, but I’ve always been interested in learning foreign languages. For the past year or so I’ve been attempting both Hebrew and Arabic, which both belong to the same language family and share a great deal of similarities. As difficult as learning Hebrew is (for an ex-Catholic…), Arabic is ten times more difficult. It’s an extremely complex and rich language. One of the best ways to learn about the language and the culture has been to pick up a copy of the Qur’an and actually try to read some of the text – resorting to the English translation, ultimately, but still making a valiant effort. My guess is that out of the non-Muslim readers of this site, very few have ever picked up a Qur’an and read a passage or two. I highly recommend it. If you come from an Abrahamic faith, chances are you’ll find something that you can relate to. Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews, they revere most of the same prophets. Islam has a long and rich intellectual and artistic history that shares a similar origin with Judaism and Christianity, and has given the world so many things.

I’m not a theological expert on Islam or the Qur’an, but I like to read a surah (chapter) from time to time and listen to the recitation as I go along, trying to follow with either the Arabic text or the English translations. I’m not sure what the best passage to recommend would be for this occasion. I’d definitely take suggestions from any Muslim readers. My own suggestion would be to start with the very first surah, “The Opener,” Surat Al-Fātiĥah.

بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ ﴿١﴾
In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. (1)

الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ ﴿٢﴾
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds; (2)

الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ ﴿٣﴾
Most Gracious, Most Merciful; (3)

مَلِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ ﴿٤﴾
Master of the Day of Judgment. (4)

إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ ﴿٥﴾
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek. (5)

اهدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيمَ ﴿٦﴾
Show us the straight way, (6)

صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِمْ غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِمْ وَلاَ الضَّالِّينَ ﴿٧﴾
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray. (7)

 

I think it can be a good gesture for non-Muslims to show a kind of compassion or solidarity with their Muslim or Arab neighbors and co-workers by reading some of the text or maybe trying to pick up a few words in Arabic and having a conversation with them about it. Even just small talk can go a long way with making people feel welcome, by building communities. That’s the true way to stop hate and terror from all angles, by showing love and understanding to our neighbors.

Here are links to a few sites where you can find online versions of the Qur’an with translations, transliterations, and recitations.

Qurany.net

Quran.com

Follow me on Twitter! Please!

I resisted Twitter for a long time, but I finally gave in a few months ago and I’m hooked. I tend to updated it a lot more than this blog, since I can’t update a pervy gay blog from my computer at work, but I can spare about a hundred characters to bitch about random stuff. This might be a little confusing, but my name on twitter is not MDW Blog or mascdudewriter or anything like that. It’s more simple:

martinijoey

So follow me on there. And no, I’m not on Facebook.

The Tri-State Area from Space

This awesome picture of the New York City metropolitan area was taken by Astronaut Douglas Wheelock from the International Space Station. My house is totally in there, along with where I work, and just about every place I’ve ever lived. It’s kinda weird to think of it like that. And I’m guessing at least 15% of you readers are in this picture somewhere too. Click to enlarge.

I’m not a fan of this ‘Glee’ show, but…

This picture is pretty awesome. It’s come up about ten times on my Facebook news feed in the past two days but I haven’t felt comfortable “liking” it on there since I’m not out on my profile and have almost no info about myself, so I guess this is to show my approval. I can’t decide which guy is my favorite, though I might have to say the guy in the denim. I kind of like the one chest on the one with the leather vest too. God, I hope that’s not what I looked like my first time in a leather bar. I doubt I did, but when you’re like me and people tell you all the time that you look 16, it’s hard to shake that concern.

 

Rolling Stone