Kenneth in the 212 has an interesting take on celebrity genetics. All humour aside, you'll get to look at Matt Lattanzi one more time, and that's certainly worth a click of the index finger.

In Pride and the Holyland, Joshua Cactus has a tale of integrity about the treatment of a Pride March in Israel. It's refreshing to see that some people can actually learn from their own history. One group sent to the Kamps by the Nazis should not be irrationally hating another.

Beauty and the Bum has pics of men in costume at Comic Con 2007. Somewhere online I've seen a photo of Superboy's spandexed butt too. And it was super.

Justin Timberlake confuses me.

He certainly isn't beautiful. I don't find his face handsome or cute or pretty. His body is tall and has lean, tight muscle on it, but that's not a body type I like. I don't like his music or the style of his performances. I don't like the way he talks with an odd mix of ghetto slang and whitetrash accent.

I find nothing about him attractive.

So why do I think he's sexy?

And what does "sexy" mean, if it has nothing to do with attractiveness?

Well, for that matter, what do I mean by beautiful, handsome, cute, or pretty?

Of all of them, sexy is probably the easiest for me to define. To me, sexy means "I want to have sex with him or her." Simple. It's about wanting to satisfy a lustful desire.

Beautiful requires features that approach some ideal, some conception of what a perfect face or body would look like. That varies somewhat from culture to culture and person to person, of course, but in general these "perfect" faces have the right features (whatever they are conceived to be) in the right places.

Pretty, to me, is a face that's close to beautiful, but not quite close enough to that perfect ideal to be beautiful. If beauty were a 1 to 10 scale, beautiful would be 8 and 9 and pretty would be 6 and 7. 10, of course, would be perfect.

When I think about both handsome and cute, I find that I add some concept of power to the definitions. I associate handsome with someone powerful that could take care of and protect me. My conception of cute carries with it a sort of innocence or defenselessness. Cute makes me want to take care and protect them. (Realizing that I think of these words this way surprised me, because I've always hated the whole idea of Daddies and Boys, Tops and Bottoms rather disturbing for reasons I won't discuss not. Maybe that's for next Thursday...)

Handsome is additionally tricky because it's applied to men (sometimes instead of beautiful or pretty but meaning largely the same things) or to women, those who have a striking arrangement of features but aren't actually pretty or beautiful.

Oh, damn, now there's striking. And lovely. And, no doubt, other words I've not thought of yet. 

Anyone reading this who's studies philosophy is probably laughing at me, because I'm sure I've stumbled ignorantly into a subject that philosophers have been considering for centuries. I'm just writing about this after thinking about it during a long drive during which I saw Timberlake's odd but somehow sexy face on a billboard.

I really want some kind of working definitions for these terms -- well, working at least for me -- but I don't think I'm up to creating them yet.

For now, I'll just settle for "I know it when I see it."

But I still don't understand how a person can be -- to me, anyway -- sexy without being attractive.

"George is gay. Everybody knows that.
But honestly, I never realised he was gay - even when he was b***ing me off!"
-- Matt Damon on George Clooney

I saw OCEAN'S 13 a couple of nights ago, using up a free pass I'd been given because I am a cheap bastard.

It was about what I expected it to be. Meaningless but enjoyable. More than anything else, I give them a lot of credit for creating a good sequel, which seems surprisingly difficult to do.

It featured the usual big cast with an intricate plot (two things I enjoy), though there were some changes, of course. Julia Roberts was out, and Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino were brought in as the opponents. Well, if this is indeed supposed to be the modern "Rat Pack," Ellen Barkin seems a better replacement for Angie Dickinson anyway.

It was, as it always is to me, to see Al Pacino and Andy Garcia together. I think that's because for years I confused them. Like Patrick Stewart and Sinean O'Connor. Pacino's Willy Banks seemed to be more calm toward the end of the movie, but at the beginning he seemed to be just Big Boy Caprice with marginally better hair.

More than anything, I'm glad to learn that the Banks Hotel that they used in the movie was just a CG fiction. Three vertical towers twisted around a common center, connected at top and bottom and covered in bronze-coloured glass. Easily the most tasteless building I've ever seen, and I've toured Graceland.

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Coverboy / Calendar / Wallpaper for August 2007. Enjoy.

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It's the start of a new month, so again it's time to do all those annoying personal measurements.

I haven't done them yet, but I predict that I won't have made much change up or down. My weight and bodyfat have both been pretty consistent since February. I'm glad that I'm not in worse shape than I was then, and I know I haven't worked hard enough to expect to see much improvement either.

Lacking in discipline, perhaps, but the easy way has a lot to recommend it. After all, no pain: no pain.

I'll add the measurements tonight, after I've taken them.

Okay, it's later now. Here they are.

Weight stayed the same at 167, but body fat percentage went up from 11 to 12. I’m not sure yet whether to blame Ben or Jerry. Or both. Proportion measurements were much the same. My waist was almost an inch smaller, and my chest had gained half an inch, but, as my neck — the basis for all the other measurements — had gotten larger as well, my overall proportions were still off from “perfect.”

But perfect be damned. I look and feel better, and that’ll do, pig.

Honestly, I don't make these things as often as my recent posts might lead you to believe.

But I'd been toying with this idea about the secret lives of the Legion of Superheroes for a while, and when I found a suitable photograph I went to work. Click on this image to see the larger one, without the words.

True, these skinny little pretty boys don't make convincing superheroes, but do you know how hard it is to find a photo of a group of naked or nearly naked young men. It was either this or the group photo of the Stanford swim team, which I may still use for something.

Don't give me a hard time about any rough edges you may see. I'm still making last minute repairs, which will include removing the hair from the one in white tights. That's not a good look for anyone, no matter what kind of superpower you have.

And don't ask how much time I spent on it. I'm ashamed.