Auld Lang Syne of the Times

Eydie Gorme
What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Hits as of now: 41,198

Lumbar Tending

I think maybe I shouldn't have criticized that chair masseuse
for making me feel guilty about being so tight.
Since then, I've had the most amazing back pain -
bad enough that it send me to bed a couple of times yesterday.

I like that drawing though, but I had to give the doll my green eyes; otherwise, the voodoo magic wouldn't work, you see.

Insert Pithy Title Here

This face, by the way, belongs to Blaine Cook, who
- if it's the same guy - sometimes looks much older than he does here.

Hits as of now: 40,781

Rubbed the Wrong Way

Something odd just happened: on the way home,
I stopped at a local bookstore to indulge in a chair massage.
Unlike some places, these people are well-trained and generally
know what they're doing, so I trust them more than some others.

I've done this a few times in the past, and I'm used to having
the masseur comment on how stiff and uptight my back is.
(as if my back wouldn't be stiff and uptight like the rest of me!)

But this was the first time I've had one complain
that I was so stiff that I made her have to work too hard.
Whiny bitch!

I had some time to play around online the past couple of days, so I've come across some new (to me, at least) 'blogs to add to my list of sites that I don't have time to visit more than once a week.

Boys Will Be Boys caught my attention with his Corbin Fisher guys masthead. So far this seems like another collection of random guys, but this one has a few I've never seen before. And anyone who appreciates Paul Walker is worth checking with periodically.

American Urge hasn't been updated since early November, so I may have again found a 'blog that died before I first laid eyes on it. But page 1 had both Kerry Degman and Edilson Nascimento on it, so at least I like the guy's taste. 'hope he resumes posting.

I've only visited Deep Dish a couple of times so far, and to be honest what I've seen is far from deep. But it has been entertaining, and I'll keep going back, if only indulge the fantasy that the guy on the masthead is actually the one writing.

Through my darling Auntie Vera (I hope I can call him that), I discovered Rants of a Diva, a 'blog written by a cute 20-year-old college student to talks about movies more than I do. Visit him if only out of respect for his tagline: "Forget Eve...It's All About Me."


And
thought-provoking though free of eye candy, a friend emailed me a link to Your Hillbilly Aunt Shelle and her post entitled "An Agnostic's Guide to Surviving the Bible Belt."

Of course, Austin is relatively un-belted for the most part, but we're right in the center of the state where the Governor once declared that "If English was good enough for Jesus, it ought to be good enough for the rest of us!" so this column may tell me some useful coping mechanisms.

Hits as of now: 40,374

Brief Commercial Break Your Heart

Having just survived another bout of the holiday
dedicated to greed and excess, here's many, many
WORDS FROM OUR SPONSOR

And now
A WORD FROM AN ESPECIALLY SCUMMY SPONSOR

Hits as of now: 39,885

Christmas Ornamentation

Finally, my unsolicited junk email brought me something worth seeing.

Merry Christmas from Caribou Barbie!

Christmas Garland

If anyone can identify the dark-haired guy who sings "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," please let me know his name.

Hits as of now: 39,178

Take a Good Luke

As part of my Christmas feast for the eyes, here's another helping of Luke Guldan. Don't talk with your mouth full.

Sure, this boy is everywhere online, but he deserves to be.
And I never promised to be very original here.

Normally, once a guy like this takes his shirt off,
I'm not one to want it back on. But with a shirt on,
nothing distracts me from those eyes of his.

Hits as of now: 39,090

Shelf Spacing Out

Rather uneventful day today. Cleaned a little. Worked a few hours, without actually finishing anything. And took an actual nap for the first time in a very long time.

The only thing I actually finished today was to count my books. And there are about 1,600 of them. Hmm, I thought I had more than that.

Anyway, now that they're all shelved and counted, the next step is to cull through them and get rid of many of them. For the remaining four months of this lease, I plan to dedicate my free time to getting rid of a lot of the stuff I've accumulated: books, papers, clothes, etc. My 18-months of unemployment/near homelessness has really altered my priorities in a good way. Now that I see how little is really vital for life, I don't want to have all this stuff around.

Hits as of now: 38,893

Fortress of Solitaire

If you haven't seen it already, you might be interested
in checking out the photographs of David Gandy as Superman
in the Jan 2009 issue of Vogue. Normally I ignore magazines,
but these seem worth the look.

Notice the restrained way Superman isn't looking up the little girl's dress.
...while the woman is watching.

Come to think of it, he doesn't seem very interested in either woman. Hmmm...

Mistletoe Jam

O SCREW THE CEREMONY! WHO DID THE FLOWERS?
2 mins 30 - SFW

IN-FUCKING-CREDIBLE
2 mins 30 - NSFW bc of language

And now
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

BAH! HUMBUGGERY
NSFW bc of language
(and the inappropriate use of a 60s childhood icon)

41 SECONDS
A short film, where the titles and credits are probably longer than the film itself. Just like RETURN OF THE KING. Auf deutsch, but it's got subtitles
3 mins 45 - Possibly NSFW

Hits as of now: 38,129

Field House of Dreams

Sports I wish I knew more about...

I don't know whether it's because of all the football... uh, sorry: soccer... that gets played around here or because I decided to get in better shape myself or some residual fascination left over from the Olympics, but lately I've been very interested in sports.

Not just leering at the sexy bodies they produce, but actually wanting to watch and understand and appreciate as others play AND getting out there and playing myself. This is totally not like me. Normally I'm far more interested in movies, history, and murder mysteries.

I wonder what's behind it.

Hits as of now: 37,893

It's just so... so... AAARGGH!

Brace yourself for a disgusting story...

This East Texas couple - hardly old enough to not be considered children themselves - are in jail and awaiting trial for killing their 13-month-old daughter by bashing her head in with a hammer because they believed her to be possessed by demons. Investigators say the scene was the most gruesome they've ever seen and also reported upwards of 20 bite marks on the child's body.

In polls, USAmericans keep naming atheists as the most distrusted group in the country, but we don't do things like this.

“Happy shall he be, that taketh
and dasheth thy little ones against
the stones.” - Psalms 137:9

Hits as of now: 37,665

Tilting at Windmills in my Mind

The Impossible Dream
performed by Peter O'Toole's body
and Simon Gilbert's voice
2 mins. 10
(The clip continues, but the song is done by then.)

Until Sunday night, I had no idea that one of my favourite actors had appeared in a film version of a musical based on one of my favourite books, but it's true. In 1972 Peter O'Toole made Man of La Mancha, the musical story of Miguel Cervantes imprisoned by the Catholic Church and forced in prison to act out his story of Don Quixote.

(And it was cool to see him again with John Castle, the neglected middle son from The Lion in Winter, probably my all-time favourite movie.)

Sure, O'Toole doesn't do his own singing, but that's fine by me. I mostly ignore the songs anyway.
______________________________

As long as I'm mentioning movies, last night I saw Art School Confidential for the first time, starring Max Minghella. Why have I never heard of this guy before?

The film was cool, much smarter that most of the superficial welcome-to-college movies. It lampoons as the worst excesses of art school - the pretentiousness and pomposity of all those poseurs who are secretly terrified that they have no talent - but on top of the satire there is a murder mystery and a weird kind of first-love story.

All in all very cool, with a remarkable cast in sometimes small but meaningful parts: Steve Buscemi, Anjelica Huston, Jim Broadbent, and John Malkovich.

Sophia Myles and the ever-lovely Matt Keeslar form the other points on the lead character's love triangle, but I think it's Max himself who impressed me most. He's young, but his portrayal carried this movie from start to finish.

And he's certainly not hard to look at (though someone should be slapped for that hairstyle. Aw, man! I thought I was gonna get through this without saying something bitchy!).

Hits as of now: 37,350

Disagree Mint on Your Pillow

On my YouTube account, I've received compliments for the way I handle people who give me crap.

Basically, I just respond politely but firmly. I never delete their comments, and I've even been known to defend their right to have an opinion that's different than mine. To me, all of this is just the way civilized grownups behave, but I suppose it's in short supply in the various online "communities" where the majority of people weren't alive to see the shuttle blow up.

But now I've been on the receiving end of the opposite kind of treatment. Some guy refused to allow my comment to appear on his 'blog because I disagreed with him. I think I need to amend my mental dictionary and add this to my definition of cowardly.

(Of course, mentioning it here is a bit too whiny to be either civilized or grownup, but I'm annoyed and a little drunk.)

If the Shoe Fits of Rage

Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who tossed his shoes
at Bush the Lesser over the weekend. Yeah, I know,
it's an odd choice for me, but I'm impressed with the chutzpah it took.
(And yes, I realize the irony of complimenting a Muslim
with a Yiddish word.)

And his sense of proportion. Doing nothing would have been weak, frustrating, and possibly considered tacit approval. A bullet would have been too much, both in terms of punishment and retribution and also in the way it would have made a martyr of the C-plus President, putting him into the same class as Lincoln, Kennedy, and the almost-forgotten James Garfield.

But flinging shoes was perfect. To most USAmericans, it looks like a desperate, almost ridiculously ineffectual act.

But in Islamic cultures, the bottom of the foot is considered incredibly profane. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, when the corpo-news showed us people rubbing their shoes over photographs of the man, that was an incredibly insulting act for those people. An equivalent here in North America would have been if we'd used the photos for toilet paper. That's the level of insult and disgust the act of shoe tossing conveys to the Iraqi people.

Muntadhar al Zaidi may have made himself a joke for Jay Leno, but I'm sure he's become a cultural hero in his country.

As for making him the Man for Monday, I'll get back to the pretty, muscular boys next week.

Hits as of now: 37073
Hey, it's a pallindrome!

...if I leave out the comma

...which I have.

It's Good to have a Goalee

For four days now, there's been a soccer tournament
going on at the 12 soccer fields across the parking lot
from my apartment.

Sure, it's high school age guys, so it's really just
a bunch of ponyboys that it wouldn't be right
for me to lust over, but all that noise, activity,
sweat, and testosterone in one place has been...
uh... distracting.

____________________________

By the way, Kenneth at Definition of a Man made use of his remarkable resources to come up with an identification for my store circular guy from last week. He's Polish model Jarek Pietka.

If you visit Kenneth's 'blog, be sure to notice the great photo of Max Zagorski on the banner. Max may be replacing Jensen Ackles as my latest obsession.

Lip Stick It to Him

Intentionally, I don't spend much money. This is both to save money and because I hate shopping. But I think I may need to spend more time looking at the sales circulars that show up in my junk mail.

Normally I throw those store flyers out immediately,
but this morning I looked at one and found this guy.
My brain immediately started coming up with inventive ways
to abuse that mouth of his.

So I scanned him to share with you guys, then I threw it out.
Both my libido and my bank account are temporarily happy with me.

And here he is with his equally large-lipped companion.
It's a bit comforting to know that, however bad the economy gets,
those employed in the manufacture and distribution
of collagen will still have jobs.

Now that I think of it, checking out ads is how I first learned of the existence of then JCPenney model Austin Peck and the ubiquitous (I really need to find another word to over-use!) Chace Crawford. In fact, I still have some ads from years ago, when the Gossip Guy was still a golf-playing high school student and part-time model, back before he had whatever done to his face to change his looks to what is now on every other Weblog.

I wonder if I can find those pictures.

Hits as of now: 35,919

Keep Her Away from the Christmas Candles!

Somehow, this pretty much sums up how I feel about the holiday season right now:

Maybe I'm just bitter toward Christmas.
Every year, I ask for Jake Campione
and every year I'm disappointed.

Hits as of now: 35,722

Greased Lightning Lad

This kinda makes me wish I had a television...
(Uh, sorry about turning it on its side. That seemed a better compromise than reducing its size and legibility.)

Tight End of the Line

Yeah, yeah, yeah... I'm being a bit of a copycat follower again, but I don't really care. This photo of Luke Guldan is the hottest thing I've seen in a long time.

Hot enough that for once I didn't erase the photographer's name.

I'm pretty sure it's the combination of Luke's physique
and what he's wearing that makes this so hot to me,
but I'm unapologetic about that, too. I think jocks are sexy.
Nothing wrong with that.

I first heard of this guy from WeLoveGuys.net.
I mentioned him to Kenneth at Definition of a Man
(though he'd probably heard of Luke before I did:
Kenneth is amazingly well-informed) , and he did
his usual thorough treatment of the guy last week.

Negatives: The eyebrows. Luke is another brunet turned bottle blond (oh, all you wanna-bes out there... ) who forgot to do something about his eyebrows. It's that whole Legolas thing all over again.

Positives: Everything else. The guy is frickin' gorgeous. And you should see him when he smiles.

Hits as of now: 35,370

Dr. No, Really... You Shouldn't....

I spend so little time online lately that I don't find many funny clips, and my Fun for Friday is really not much fun lately because of it. My apologies.

Still, nothing with Rick Reynolds in it can be all bad.

THE PRISON GIG
7 mins. 30 but worth the time

And now
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

A GENTLEMAN'S CLUB
30 secs.

Hits as of now: 34,627

Wunsch ich mir so sehr...

Another MAN OF THE MONTH for you...

I can't believe I forgot to do this on Monday.

(That title, by the way, is hilarious if you learned Christmas songs in German as a kid. Trust me on this.)

Count as of now: 34,411

Shortcomings and Goings

"If brevity is the soul of wit, your penis must be a riot!"

- Dorina Gephart

Hits as of now: 34,203

Berger and Fries

This morning, I have a choice for you.

If you're so far having a great day and
don't want anything to bring you down,
or you need a cheerful song to perk you up, CLICK HERE.

If, instead, you're feeling down, resigned to feeling blue and
want a song to match your mood, CLICK HERE.
Unfortunately, the song doesn't start until 2 mins. in,
but it's worth the wait.

If you just want something funny with a catchy melody
and a bit of eye candy, CLICK HERE.
And extra points on the semester exam
to whomever identifies Sheldon Woodrow first.

Hits as of now:

Warm Weather or Not

Josh Saunders, who used to be one of the All-American Guys.
Maybe he still is - I don't know. I just know I've always liked
his face. On the spectrum of look, he occupies the space
between pretty and handsome. Nice neighbourhood.

I think I must be missing the warm weather already
to have chosen this picture. The same feeling inspired this clip:

Hits as of now: 33,798