Changed up the running route about a week ago, just for variety. Uncertain as to whether there's much change in distance covered (my legs and feet tell me there may well be), but the scenery sure is nice!
I missed most of the Senate hearings on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, or, as I like to call them, the Hispanic Inquisition. I KNOW the Senate is obligated to hold hearings on a nominee, but now that we are under a monarchical One Party Rule, and in the midst of a financial crisis, is it really necessary to waste time and money on shows like these? Simona, Paula, and Randy would have done a more competent job than our elected officials.


Harper's Island ended! We know WhoDoneIt! It's who I thought it was, but I didn't call the motive. I managed to get all five episodes of Season Three of Torchwood! Going to watch this evening.

A fitness model who I totally respect designed his own T-shirt and is selling them on his site. http://antonfitness.blogspot.com/Check them out:
Check him out:

Also, model Benjamin Nelson Creekmore for AJAXX, just because:

It's been an interesting week or so. A virus overtook my Dell Dimension 24oo and I learned first-hand about the Blue Screen Of Death. My attempts to fix my system may actually have been working, but I wanted to use a restore point as well, and said virus deterred me from entering safe mode. So I got the 'bright' idea of changing my startup so that it would automatically default to safe mode. Unfortunately, that meant that I couldn't get past the Blue Screen, and that's when I discovered that I'd have to do a full reinstall! Had to get the Windows XP disk from Dell, then found out that 'repair' might allow me to save some files, but removed my 'F' drive anyway (which, thankfully, had most of my files on it!), and went without a computer for a few days. It is AMAZING how much I do relies heavily upon the computer! Even movies/TV shows I almost always watch on the computer, and most are archived as data disks (thankfully not ON the computer!), which cannot be played/viewed by any other means!
Since my system came fully installed, my walk-through with the heavily-accented guys from Dell Support was my first experience in loading the Windows XP operating system. Took awhile.Found out that the 'repair' option did not work, and that a full reinstall was in order. All data/files/etc. lost. Then, my Internet provider, for my protection, decided I needed a new password to get online, and THAT took awhile. THEN I reinstalled my 'F' drive, and most files appeared to be inaccessible. Not only did they hit me with 'access denied', but the contents of the folders were supposedly 0 bytes! However, my antivirus scanner read the 'lost' files for me. I just couldn't read them or access them. A bit frustrating, but better than thinking they were just 'gone'. Some research provided me with the answer, which was that I needed to go into safe mode and take control of the files through the security tab that appears under properties only in safe mode. And...it worked!
A fun week. Just for the heck darn of it, I give you Nous model Tommy Herd:

There's a coffeehouse called Sip (http://www.siptheexperience.com/) in Buckhead, located just outside of Lindbergh MARTA station. Pretty cool place to hang out, and a tad more comfortable than the ubiquitous Starbucks. It is a BEAUTIFUL day out, so I'm headed there.
Continuing a theme, more pics of Nick Riback, this time by Gregory Vaughan, courtesy of Major Models Blog http://majormodels.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-nick-riback-by-gregory.html:

This ia actually a cool retail store located in Buckhead which I pass on the way to the grocery store if I take a certain route. I always have the idea, though, that if Lucy Van Pelt of "Peanuts' had turned her psychiatrist stand into an adult venture, it might have been similar

The Supreme Court overturned a Wise Latina Woman today, which is good news for America, but potentially an awkward workplace environment for the Supremes once she joins them (which we know will happen). The aptly-named Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison as well. I can only imagine that the afore-mentioned retail Therapy might have stopped him before he let things get out of control as he did. I think at a certain point in 'white-collar crime' one disassociates from one's victims so much that there's not room for normal guilt or shame. But then I'm not even a 5 cent Psychiatrist. (I wonder if Lucy's pricing structure foresaw Government Healthcare?)
New pics of model Nick Riback (just because):

I remember a few years back when Princess Diana died in an automobile crash. It was a media event as people mourned publicly and also speculated on conspiracy theories as to the 'actual' cause of death. Quite possibly because at least one contributing factor was the hounding of Diana's car by paparazzi looking for pics, and the same people theorizing were also voraciously consuming any and all pictures and stories about the celebrity. This week we lost Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on the same day. Though Michael's death eclipsed Farrah's (timing is everything, bujt relative fame counts as well), it also seems that the media is looking for a 'bigger' story with his, hoping to find some unscrupulous doctor giving Michael too many pills and thus causing his untimely demise. Looking at Mr. Jackson, one gets the impression that he's had questionable medical advice, but it looks like he was making his own decisions. Other than maybe "Man in the Mirror" I never found any Jackson songs all that memorable, sad to say. I'm not a huge fan of falsetto and Jackson always sounded like Mickey Mouse to me. He DID change MTV at the time, but where people for the past few days have been pointing out that he broke the
'color barrier', I seem to recall it differently, in that he broke the 'dance barrier'. After Michael's debut on the station , music videos (MTV played them then) managed to include a big dance number in just about every production, even when it was painfully obvious they didn't fit.
Farrah Fawcett probably had more impact on me, as she was popular when I was younger and more impressionable. While women were fascinated with her hair and men with her poster, I, who had grown up with 'traditional' heroic fiction, in comics and books, and on TV and in film, and was wowed by TV that had a show that focused on three female detectives! Sure it was cheesy and cheescake, and the women worked for a male boss whose identity they, with their great detecting skills, couldn't suss out, but it was still groundbreaking in its own way. Nowadays, any number of female TV characters make Sabrina, Kelly, and Jill (Farrah's character) look incompetent, as they handle crime
scene investigations with modern technology, routinely wield firearms with nary a hairflip, and throw people twice their size up against walls. But someone had to do it all first, and, though England's "Avengers" series may have predated "Charlie's Angels", it didn't have the same impact at the time.

From sometime prior to that era, I managed to locate one of the cheesiest comics ever produced in the sixties, sort of the superheroine version of 'Charlie's Angels', a Brave & Bold featuring the team-up of Wonder Woman and Supergirl! Seems Supergirl (Kara to her friends) has had it up to here with being treated like a guy, and has quit superheroing and gone to Paris to be a model (none of that Tyra Banks judging stuff for her, though it would be fun to see Tyra attempt to tell her 'no'), causing an exasperated Superman (Kara's cousin) to enlist Wonder Woman to talk some sense into her!

Wonder Woman, all adult sense and sensibilty, finds Kara and begins to lecture when she is distracted by....a gorgeous dress! Yes, it WAS a different era! Wonder Woman (Diana to her friends) tries on said dress and is immediately distracted by.... a French guy! Complete with French facial hair to distinguish him from more American types.

Diana and Kara both embark on whirlwind romances, but their presence on a remote island has come to the attention of super-villain Multi-Face, who assumes, erroneously, that they are there to hinder his plans of world domination!
Before Multi-Face makes his move, each heroine finds herself in a position of having to use her power surreptitiously so as not to threaten the masculinity of their respective dates. (Note that most of the gender distinctions are coming from the women themselves, but, given the time, they weren't probably all that wrong as to the males' potential reactions to their not-so-feminine abilities.)

In the end, the women must deal with Multi-Face as a team and realize that their vacation and attempts at a 'normal' life are not meant to be, and they return to super-life, keeping secret from Superman how things actually went down.

Apparently, 'hiking the Appalachian Trail' is a new euphemism for an affair, at least when one is the Governor of South Carolina. Mark Sanford seems to agree with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor about the uniqueness of a Latina woman, though he didn't specifically mention whether wisdom was one of the qualities he sought.

My own interest in hiking dates back to when I was a kid. As seen in the opening pic on today's entry, I enjoy woods where I can find them, and was fortunate enough to grow up in Minnesota, and spent many summers at places like Isle O Dreams , as well as having wooded areas nearby our home. Camping was something I managed to continue living in New York, and I was reminded of it when I saw the pictures from the DsquaredSS2010 show in Milan.

Doesn't exactly look like the camping I used to do, but it sure looks like fun!

There was a female reporter over the weekend who waxed eloquently about the women protesting in Iran who actually were handing rocks to male protesters to throw, and my first thought was wouldn't progress for women be actually throwing those rocks themselves?

Looks like President Obama's going to wait and see who wins before backing any parties in Iran. Amusingly, Barry's stance is more 'Pat Buchanan" than "Jimmy Carter". He seems to be taking the tack that ANY involvement in countries not our own has been a poor choice throughout history. This explains the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, I suppose.
Much better to focus on health care and socializing things here at home! The Nanny State continues. I wonder what my gay brethren and sistern are thinking when they endorse socialized medicine and the potential Big Government oversight of risky behaviors that might result in health concerns. Wouldn't certain laws make their way back onto the books? Unintended consequences.
Sometimes a model comes along who impresses the pants off me, and in this case it's Major's Nick Riback. He's 6'2", brown hair qand eyes, and looks like this, as photographed by Gregory Vaughan :

and this, as photographed by Samuel Sakuto:

and has these in his portfolio:

I think the guy's got potential.