Skirt Cafe is an on-line community dedicated to exploring, promoting and advocating skirts and kilts as a fashion choice for men, formerly known as men in skirts. We do this in the context of men's fashion freedom --- an expansion of choices beyond those commonly available for men to include kilts, skirts and other garments. We recognize a diversity of styles our members feel comfortable wearing, and do not exclude any potential choices. Continuing dialog on gender is encouraged in the context of fashion freedom for men. See here for more details.
dillon wrote:In a Denver hotel at the moment still doing combat with an ugly head cold...and losing. I definitely didn’t bring warm enough clothing for Colorado. The last time I was as in CO was 2015, in June, and Durango and Cortez were both rather toasty. But like the freakiness of climate all over, they had a hard snowy winter here, and one that seems to plan on wearing out its welcome. When we drove over the high passes to Silverton, snow was still up to the eaves of the National Forest rest area. They had 20 to 30 feet over the winter. But it’s all fine. I’ll plan better next time. And it’s undoubtedly one of the most amazing and beautiful places on Earth.
One observation in Old Colorado City, next to a restaurant where we had brunch, was a business called “Blunt Mortuary.” And right across the street was a weed shop! Ominous...
Just back from a long weekend in York and its surroundings, in a camouflage pattern utility kilt every day. No adverse experiences at all but several positive ones. As we crossed the bridge between platforms at York Station, a man's voice in the crowd coming towards us called "Nice skirt!" In my ear he passed me, but I didn't glimpse its owner. At the beer festival in Malton, a young mother with a baby complimented me and told me that she'd been trying to persuade her husband, who was with us, to buy a kilt. Elsewhere in the town, a woman in her sixties, also with her husband, said just the same thing.
But the oddest experience was at Robin Hood's Bay, where we went to walk the coastal footpath to Whitby and back. Leaving the car park, I noticed that a tall man walking towards us was possessed of not only a large, bushy, sandy-coloured beard but also an ankle-length grey skirt, worn with an outdoor jacket. He beamed at me as he passed but was gone before I'd had time to say anything about skirts.
Driving out of the village on our way back to York that evening, I thought I'd spotted him again, on the pavement. But while the skirt was the same, the beard was not sandy but black -- and a string of rosary beads was dangling from the waist.
Until that moment, the possibility that this was religious garb simply hadn't crossed my mind, because monks and nuns are so rarely seen in the street in England. But I did get that smile.
denimini wrote:Well, I had to vote (I wanted to anyway) last Saturday.
Is voting still mandatory in Oz? Part of me wishes it was here in the USA.
Yes, still compulsory. I am ambivalent about it; some people just do a donkey vote, marking preferences in order down the form and often countering my vote without any thinking involved.
Anthony, a denim miniskirt wearer in Outback Australia
denimini wrote:Yes, [voting is] still compulsory. I am ambivalent about it; some people just do a donkey vote, marking preferences in order down the form and often countering my vote without any thinking involved.
I suspect the prevailing thinking is that without a solid opinion on matters, what will result is statistical noise and the signal will still emerge from it. Whether it counts or not is another matter...
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
denimini wrote:Well, I had to vote (I wanted to anyway) last Saturday.
Is voting still mandatory in Oz? Part of me wishes it was here in the USA.
Yes, still compulsory. I am ambivalent about it; some people just do a donkey vote, marking preferences in order down the form and often countering my vote without any thinking involved.
Sounds like it might be just as well to give those folks the option to stay home.
Dust wrote:Sounds like it might be just as well to give those folks the option to stay home.
Yes, and no. "Yes", because they're not necessarily adding any meaning to the endeavour, but "No", because one wants participation in the process so voter suppression and/or voter apathy to undermine the process. Both are relevant in the USA, some would say rampant, and making participation mandatory would hopefully reduce the latter and obviate attempts of the former. Make it a national holiday, enact fines for non-participation, and for companies that do not allow voters to participate make the fines painful enough to affect the "Bottom Line".
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
dillon wrote:In a Denver hotel at the moment still doing combat with an ugly head cold...and losing. I definitely didn’t bring warm enough clothing for Colorado. The last time I was as in CO was 2015, in June, and Durango and Cortez were both rather toasty. But like the freakiness of climate all over, they had a hard snowy winter here, and one that seems to plan on wearing out its welcome. When we drove over the high passes to Silverton, snow was still up to the eaves of the National Forest rest area. They had 20 to 30 feet over the winter. But it’s all fine. I’ll plan better next time. And it’s undoubtedly one of the most amazing and beautiful places on Earth.
One observation in Old Colorado City, next to a restaurant where we had brunch, was a business called “Blunt Mortuary.” And right across the street was a weed shop! Ominous...
Would that mean no change to the climate?
Gusto, in the depth of our mutual cleverness, we must have missed each other’s jokes. Or maybe it was just me, ha ha. Rolling a “blunt” is what we called, forty years ago in my misspent youth, “twisting up a doob.” I’m sure the fine gravediggers at Blunt Mortuary were there first, but just found it lightly ironic that they had a source of “blunts” as a neighbor. I fully intended to avail my nostalgia of Colorado’s cannabis laws, but felt so shitty most of my time there that I just passed on by the numerous dispensaries. Bad news for “herben outfitters,” good news for the distillers of Old Forester.
As for climate change, a warmer atmosphere holds substantially more water. Combine that with a cold winter (polar vortex winter where the upper Mid-West of the US was colder than the polar region) and whattaya get? Snow, and lots of it. And there is nothing about climate change modeling that precludes very cold winters for some parts of the planet. Just one more economic cost of our political foot-dragging. However, having suffered through several droughty summers in a row, Coloradoans were not displeased with a big snowpack in the elevations of the Rockies.
As a matter of fact, the sun DOES shine out of my ...
This weekend was the Federal election Downunder. Every, and I mean every poll leading up to the election declared that the Liberal/National government had no chance of winning. Come 9pm Saturday night the Liberal/National won and will govern in its own right. One reason why every poll was wrong was that people are now too afraid to speak out because of the extremists on all sides. It is a very sad world. And what was on the Left social media after the defeat was pure hate and worse.
geron, for the past few years I've been warming the populace up ready for your visit. The citizens of York are probably used to seeing a skirted fellow around. So I know that you wouldn't have had any problems. You should have PM's me and we could have had a meet.
I believe in offering every assistance short of actual help but then mainly just want to be left to be myself in all my difference and uniqueness.
As did I the last time I participated in an "election".
Yeah, I went in a Utilikilt or something similar to the last election. It was months ago, and really a non-event. Had a nice chat with some folks outside afterwards.
john62 wrote:This weekend was the Federal election Downunder. Every, and I mean every poll leading up to the election declared that the Liberal/National government had no chance of winning. Come 9pm Saturday night the Liberal/National won and will govern in its own right. One reason why every poll was wrong was that people are now too afraid to speak out because of the extremists on all sides. It is a very sad world. And what was on the Left social media after the defeat was pure hate and worse.
John
Sounds like the US after the last election. All of the leftest media started calling every one of the right all kinds of names and accused them of all kinds of nasty things and it is still going on.
"It is better to be hated for what you are than be loved for what you are not" Andre Gide: 1869 - 1951 Always be yourself because the people that matter don’t mind and the ones that mind don’t matter.
Fred in Skirts wrote:All of the leftest media started calling every one of the right all kinds of names and accused them of all kinds of nasty things and it is still going on.
Of note is that this goes both ways. The right-wing media does precisely the same things which is why I cannot stand either for more than several seconds at a stretch.
I'll stress it again: This is by design. It is intended to divide the populace, and it is working perfectly. "Right" and "left" are horns on the same bull.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
