It's July 2025 All Over Again

So last week I was at My Favorite Coffeeshop doing, among a couple other things, going through my receipts.  Serves me right to get them all in order but not bring my day planner so I could write the amounts down.  Anyway, I have this leather pouch from culture and lifestyle magazine Monocle, which I bought when I went to Hong Kong, that I purchased just so I can shove all my receipts in it.  I haven't done a good job of cleaning it out, though, because as I was doing some digging, I saw a few receipts that were in there should have been accounted for.  They were from July 12 of last year.

In my day planner, I write down all the things I paid cash for, then see whether I spent more money than I got from the bank or not, and by how much.  To be honest, and this may not make sense, in all but, oh, three months since I started this way back in my twenties, I have finished a month taking out more money from my account than spending it.  Anyway, at the end of every month, I make a table and write all my cash transactions (what I spent and what I took out of an ATM) down.  For the month of July, I now had to re-do that table.  Moreover, I am rewriting it for a third time; it turns out there were some receipts from July 12 of last year I found, presumably in that pouch, after I did this month-end table the first time.

It's all done.  Wait -- I can't say that with any conviction.  There could be other receipts.

Analyzing The 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Compared to the porn I watch on a regular basis, The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue completely pales in comparison.  Maybe that's been obvious ever since I turned 18, and maybe my last time to ever acknowledge that without losing any cis male/heterosexual credibility was around the time this issue went "woke," but if I haven't said it before, well, I'm saying it now.  I am buying these yearly issues based on tradition, the same way I keep accepting and paying for binded books of the yearly addendum of my World Book Encyclopedia (that gives me an idea for a future blog post, but I digress).

With all that said, I have to say that the 2023 issue is a ... good one, and it is a great one compared to previous years.  I think the main reason is that the, well, "progressive" angle has either been tamped down or successfully integrated into the issue in a way that doesn't distract from the women being photographed in the edition.  It doesn't look as though they're making that big of a deal that these "differently-sized" models are posing, and that all of these models have lives outside of modeling meant to advance a good cause or show that she's more than a model.  That's all in the background.  That, or I have gotten so used to the proselytizing that I don't notice it now, one or the other.

At any rate, it's easier in the '23 SI Swimsuit Issue to look at gorgeous women than in recent years.  For example, I am grateful for the veterans of this issue, such as Hailey Clauson, Camille Kostek, and Jasmine Sanders.  I am piqued at some of the returnees who have got some good pictures this time around.  For one, I will point out Brooks Nader, whose cover for this issue I chose to buy from Amazon.  She's got a powerful, bangin' shot on the cover (chunky-ass bracelets notwithstanding), and her shot on page 23 is hot as hell.  I'm also looking at Lorena Duran, who, I admit, I like most of all for her ass shot on p. 126.  (Yes, the ass shots are the best ones in SI's issue.  See also Kostek's butt on p. 30 and Kamie Crawford's on p. 73.  I will be jerking off to them soon.)  Again, there are models of all body types here, and that's never going to change.  But if you want them skinny and "traditional," they're here.  Oh, they're here.  (And before I forget ... a model in the ascendency: Olivia Ponton.  See her on pages 99, 104, and 108.)

And you know, maybe the reason this feels like a throwback is that the celebrities they convinced to pose are, for the most part, conventional beauties.  LSU gymnast and social media/NIL superstar Olivia Dunne has a spread here.  Is she a starter for LSU?  I don't think so; when I saw LSU win its first-ever NCAA championship in the sport at the bar this spring, it looked as though she was asking to be photographed with the trophy for her social media, and it didn't look like she broke a sweat helping out the team.  But I guess it doesn't matter, because she's fucking hot in Sports Illustrated too, and yes, she flashes her toned ass a couple times.  Another hot woman from LSU, rebounding maven (and big who can't shoot straight) Angel Reese has a couple photographs here.  Another spread is given to Padma Lakshmi, and there may not be a more underrated celebrity when it comes to physical beauty and the courage to show it off than Lakshmi.  Look at her pics -- she's a babe, hands down.  Too bad she doesn't flaunt her ass; it's probably nice.  German transsexual pop star Kim Petras also shows off her butt, and hey, it (as well as the rest of her) ain't bad.  And while Martha Stewart keeps her bikinis in one piece, the way she flirts with the camera suggests that if she gets enough wine in her, she might be prone to cattin' around.  Just sayin'.

This is the best Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in many a year, and it might be as good as it'll ever get.  If you haven't bought it, do so.

Lazy Saturday? Yeah, Time To Take A Walk

I rarely use my day planner to write down a daily tasks list, but I did (for the third time this month, granted) wrote one for yesterday/Saturday.  A lot of stuff I had to do outside -- the bank to look at some stuff for my parents, then the library (two of them; the first one didn't have an old Consumer Reports I wanted to look at).  But then I noticed that it was quite warm for late January -- above freezing, no ice to slip on.  Add that while it was damp, it was comfortable to go outside, and hey, it was an overcast sky, something I totally love.

So, while I still haven't gone through my stuff and I guess I could have done my laundry, I decided, after eating Dairy Queen and before I headed out again to take advantage of a $3 Little Caesars pizza deal (dang, this place is basically handing out pizzas!), that I was going to take a walk in the park.  Moreover, I wasn't going to drive to the local park; I was going to park at home, then walk to the park.  I decided mid-walk that I was going to walk down all the way to the gas station to pick up cranberry juice in case the urge to drink a cosmopolitan hit me.

All told, I walked for about 50 minutes, even though I didn't hit 10,000 steps, unfortunately.  I tried to "breathe better while walking," and that will take some getting used to because I still don't quite understand it.  And I still have trouble living in the moment, hearing my footsteps and seeing how quite and peaceful and beautiful my surroundings are, because I'm thinking about, well, breathing and what I should do once I get home, etc.

But do I regret walking outside when it's above freezing in late January when I could be doing something else?  No.  Absolutely not.

New Motherboard, And It'll Take One Week

So, I called the guy late yesterday/Saturday afternoon, about an hour before he closed.  He said it was the motherboard.  Need to get a new one.  It'll set me back $300, and it'll take a week.

Went to the library yesterday/Saturday to research laptops in Consumer Reports.  For what is reliable, I would be spending around a grand, which might be a tack less than what I spent to buy the one I have.  But seeing that the operating system on my laptop is still being supported, I don't think I want to move on just yet, so spending about 30% of the original price of the lap on repairs seems worth it if it gives me, oh, at least a couple years of extra life and use.

So I approved.  But a week?  Now, I'll be so busy with work -- I'll be in The Fourth Department all week -- that I probably won't be able to pick it up until Saturday anyway.  Plus, I've accepted my Plan B, which is to come down to the computer room, fire up both the old and the new desktop, and blog post on the former while surfing the Internet on the latter.  I have come to rely on using my phone if I want to be on the Internet, but I feel kind of abandoned knowing I won't have my laptop to type up my blog post once a day.  Then again, there is a huge adjustment to which I grouse about, and then I adapt to it, and pretty soon I find that the setup I have to resort to now is workable.  But then I'll get my laptop back (hopefully), I'll find it weird I won't have to go downstairs anymore, and I'll eventually learn to use and love my laptop again.  I think I can endure for a week.

Analyzing The 2022 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

First of all, I was not aware that I have been analyzing a year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue the following year.  Seems kind of late, but I have been doing that since I analyzed the '16 edition in 2017.  Then again, I have managed to do the review, at the latest, some time in the summer of the following year, and for 2022's, well, I have about two weeks left.  But, to be frank, even though I obviously bought this issue in 2022, and I think I opened up the box it came in at some point, I don't think I even leafed through the pages until, I think, Saturday.  Hey, I've been busy!

Maybe my procrastination in cracking open the magazine, let alone reviewing it her on WAF, stems from its progressiveness towards inclusion in its photo shoots.  I consider myself to be a progressive guy, but seeing more big-boned women in the issue over the years has been a massive turn-off (which probably means that I'm not that progressive of a guy).  The, uh, change in the SI Swimsuit Issue mirrors the downfall of the actual magazine itself, from being a treasure trove of soon-to-be-classic pieces of deep and insightful longform journalism into employing Artificial Intelligence to write up articles and to come up with images of "writers" who authored those articles.  In different ways both the weekly and the annual issues have become desiccated husks of what they proudly once were.  Honestly, I think I am buying the issue every year out of habit.

But then comes something as daring as fuck as Kelly Crump exposing her left breast with no nipple and a mastectomy scar on page 137, and like I said, I beat off to it just fine.  There are scant ways these days for Sports Illustrated to push the envelope, and while Crump's survivor story fits into the inclusion bent of the magazine, it happily serves a double purpose of being exceedingly kinky.

I should be grateful, but (and I have to admit I haven't done a real deep dive into the mag), I think this is another year where there aren't a whole lot of banger pics in it.  The more pages devoted to celebrities, the less I like it.  I mean, Ciara looks great, but that doesn't mean I want to see Mrs. Russell Wilson in beachwear (although I will recognize the getup she's wearing on p. 57, where she's wearing a denim two-piece ... and that's top as well as bottom).  And I don't need to see Elon Musk's mom in this issue because she birthed a bigot.  Finally, I bought the edition with Kim Kardashian on the cover; why there isn't a shot of her with her ass hanging out, I don't know.

I'm glad there are still veterans looking good and getting it done -- Kate Bock (who I think has been "forced to retire" because the edition gave her a retrospective celebrating ten years modeling for the Swimsuit Issue), Camille Kostek, and Hailey Clauson (welcome back, Hailey!).  And there are thin, model-looking models that are being introduced into the pages -- Katie Austin (fellow alum), Olivia Ponton (she's bisexual!), Christen Harper, Georgina Burke, Cindy Kimberly.  If they continue feeding us red-blooded heterosexual males hot-looking women, maybe this isn't a lost cause after all.

When it comes to particular photographs, I am reduced to seeing which models do show off their asses -- Tanaye White does it with a Cheshire Cat grin on page 122, Kimberly displays her sensual one on p. 130, and WNBA player DiDi Richards flashes ass (with kiss tattoo) on page 98.  There are some other beautiful photos, to be fair -- Natalia Mariduena looks borderline regal sitting in water on page 48; Josephine Skriver is lounging on bales of hay and twirling her hair while sporting a yellow two-piece bikini on p. 74; Lorena Duran is wearing a shirt collar thing that looks as though she's flashing her green bikini top on p. 78; and Brooks Nader looks spectacular with the sun making her hair glow on page 84.  You know, the more I look through this, the more I am warming to this (well, last) year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

Unfortunately, I have bought and have had the good sense to at least speed-read (or -see) the 2023 issue.  Kelly Crump appeared in the 2022 SI swimsuit edition's "Swim Search" because she was trying to appear as a "Rookie" in the 2023 edition.  She doesn't show up.  No more nipple-less boob shots to jerk off to, I'm afraid.

When Is Showing A Tit Not Nudity, And When Does It Stop Turning You On?

I was struggling with what to blog post, but thank goodness I signed off on my e-mail and scrolled through the front page of Yahoo!  There is a story about Kelly Crump, who posed in this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  She is not a model, or at least she didn't model at all before she answered one of SI's auditions.  But she was compelled to try out after getting a mastectomy in her left breast to combat her breast cancer.  And like it often is with the now-woke Swimsuit Issue, Crump's unique backstory got her on its pages.  (It helps that the 44-year-old is in very good shape and hot as fuck.)

What I didn't expect is that the magazine would show the scar.  Thing is, it's right across the middle of her left tit ... and yes, you see that, her whole left tit, in the magazine.  There is no nipple or areola, just the breast.  But Crump flashes it for all to see.

Bold choice by Sports Illustrated.  But I have to ask: Isn't that nudity?  If it isn't, are you saying that it's only a nipple and/or areola that turns a breast into an obscenity that needs to be regulated?  I would think that a breast would be enough to have a magazine that picture is in be covered in plastic ... but then I see the photo in question and it is ... just ... skin.  Maybe this picture lives in a liminal state where it isn't pornography, but it isn't something we should freely allow children to see either.  Or maybe the mag and society are just trying to figure out what should be acceptable.

Moreover, how, uh, titillating is a tit without a nipple?  Is it no longer arousing without one, or can you get up for it?  Maybe context is important; like I said, Kelly Crump is fucking gorgeous, and she is wearing a swimsuit whereby (I think) the part of the suit that would cover the left boob is pulled down to show it off, and like I have said before, I love flasher photos.  But maybe you disagree?

Anyway, here is the story.  If you have any opinion, let me know in the comments below.  But for right now, I will say that showing a tit with a mastectomy scar is still nudity, and a tit with no nipple nor areola is still erection-inducing.  I bought this issue a couple months ago through Amazon and I still haven't opened up the box, but if she and her exposed boob is in there, I'm ripping open that box as soon as I have time.  And I will probably jerk off to that picture, too.

The Power Went Out

I was eventually going to either write a pretty long blog post about ... something or do my EWR, which I haven't done in months.  But then, a bit past 1, the damn power went out.  Tried to sleep, couldn't, then finally got my headlamp in order to read this surprisingly fun magazine of ... well, I don't know what you call it, but the editor-in-chief wrote every single article touting something around the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota, and he did so with a lot of style and even sarcasm.  I probably will keep it.

Finished that at 3.  Tried to sleep again and couldn't.  Finally, at a bit past 4, I heard the beep from our alarm.  I put in a ticket to the local utility saying the power was out, and it said it'll be up by 6:30.  Welp, even though we had no electricity for a little more than three hours and so I missed listening to the kickoff Game of the Women's World Cup (because my modem and thus Internet were out), they are 2 1/2 hours ahead of schedule.  And now I can blog something small, like this.  And now, hopefully, I can finally go to bed.

Don't have anything to do tonight.  I have planned to go to a coffeeshop to work on my expenses and maybe some alumni stuff.  However, Margo Price is playing at First Ave.  I have heard many of Margo Price's songs.  Tickets are available, and for a total (including fees) of $41.56.  I am surprised that there are tickets still available to her show, and that the cost isn't unreasonable.  (I am still reading City Pages I have kept from 2011.  First Avenue always had an advertisement in it showing off their upcoming concerts.  I am blown away that many of the concerts were selling, without fees, for under $20.)

That makes me think that I should go, as if these are signs that I should see Margo Price.  Quite frankly, however, while I respect her and her music ... shoot, I can't say that I was ever curious about going to her show until recently.  I feel bad, partly because there were other acts who have thinner discographies whose shows I did look forward to for weeks.  And there are other acts who have songs that I like a lot.  For example, Stephen Sanchez has that song, "Until I Found You," that is a perfect throwback to the 50's.  He's playing next Sunday at the Fine Line.  And that show is sold out.  And I am bummed; even though I only like one song of his -- I'll confess; even though I only know one song of his -- if the price is reasonable, I would go see Stephen Sanchez.  But I probably can't.

I just don't feel that ... enthused about Margo Price.  Guess I'll take the time tonight to do paperwork that needs to get done.  My God, this isn't supposed to be a slam post about Margo Price.  I now feel guilty.

Just Booked A Reservation At The Hottest Restaurant In Town, Baby!

I am late to reserving tables at restaurants online.  It seems to cheap and easy to do it.  I'm Generation X, and when you wanted to reserve a table at a restaurant, you call them up and ask for one.  But convenience and my aversion to talking to people have accelerated my preference for doing these things online.  Yes, I'm giving in.

On the other hand, if you have a very popular restaurant to which you want to go, the advent of online reservations reshapes your chances of getting a reservation.  It's a free-for-all, and only the quickest, nimblest and most aggressive get tables.  If you eschew online reserving, doing it this way will suck.  But if you know how to play the game, and if you like playing the game, getting a table on the Internet turns into a beaucoup advantage for you.

Owamni is the hottest restaurant in the Twin Cities right now.  Tables are extremely hard to come by, and I imagine they've gotten harder since The New Yorker named it The Best New Restaurant Of 2022.  Their website points you to the website Resy to do their reservations.  This sort of feels like the time when people stopped camping out to buy concert tickets and started bombing websites to the point where tickets sold out in minutes.  But like I said, if you know how to work the system, the system will work for you, and beautifully.

The key thing to know, I have come to find out, is that reservations for a certain day open up at midnight local time.  That might not be a state secret, but nonetheless I was armed with that information so I knew that at midnight, BAM!, I needed to get to the page where they had reservations for that day and find a table.  It was as if the Red Sea parted for Moses, in a way: Every single popular dinner time was there, in virgin white (with border and text in ... orange?  I wasn't paying attention), waiting for me to pluck it.  And I selected 7 p.m.  And I selected six seats, even though I only know for certain that me and my friend, with whom we have made a holiday tradition of going to the Arrows and then eating at a fancy restaurant, would be dining at Owamni.  Two people (one a mutual friend of ours from high school, one his friend who is now also my friend!) joined us for dinner last year, however, and who knows, maybe two more of our friends would want to join us to see what the hubbub over this place is about.  Frankly, I was ready to reserve more spots, but I would have had to, well, call if I wanted a table for more than six.

So that's what I got: A table for six at 7 p.m. on Saturday, December 10 at Owamni.  Right now, I feel that snagging this reservation is a bigger accomplishment than getting my degree.

What Apparently Is The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year Is ...

... well, first of all, from what I have read, it appears to be a banner year for new foods at the Minnesota State Fair.  Since the Fair decided to be progressive and forward with introducing new foods, I believe that 2022 may be The Best Year Ever For New Food (And Drink too, even though there are way fewer websites that are reviewing the new drinks at the Fair -- and by the by, gosh, I miss The Growler).

Several foods received what is basically a perfect rating in at least two of the websites I went to, so that makes finding a best hard to figure out.  One tie-breaker I have decided to use is number of reviews.  That takes out what appears to be a big hit, the Tot Dog.  For some reason, one of the websites (I think it's the Pioneer Press) didn't have its reporters review it.  Unfortunately, there are two new foods that garnered unanimous commendations from all the websites, so I am leaving out the Tot Dog (although I sure want to try it!).

Between the two, I decided to use as a final tie-breaker the rankings from Beard Award-winning food critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl of Mpls.-St. Paul Magazine.  She has as runner-up the Pork Schnitzel Sandwich from the Farmer's Union.  These guys are usually very good, and I think their new food every year charts on Grumdahl's annual State Fair Top 5 list.

What she has first, and therefore what I will crown as The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year, is from new vendor Union Hmong Kitchen and ... well, it's real name is in Hmong, and I don't know how to pronounce it and I feel really bad about that.  It's called the Mov + Nqaij, which translates to rice and meat.  The rice is the Hmong purple sticky kind.  And you can have three kinds of meat -- well, actually it's sausage or chicken thigh or tofu.  You can also have three different sauces to go with it.  There's a scallion sauce that appears to be mild and a tiger oil that from its description alone looks like it'll burn off the roof of my mouth.  I went on Saturday night and waited half an hour for the sausage with the chili oil, which is hot, and not Minnesota hot but, like, objectively hot.  I tried to power through and dip the really good sausage in it, then the rice and greens (it's described as "microherbs") in it, and I got halfway through the cup before I couldn't take it anymore.  I felt the heat in my mouth for about an hour afterward, or about halfway through the aborted concert I went to at the grandstand.  The whole dish is really good, although I want to try the other two proteins and, so help me Buddha, the other two sauces.

No matter that I'm not giving the Mov + Nqaij a perfect 10.  People who have reviewed the foods have universally praised it, and so I will honor it as The 2022 Minnesota State Fair New Food Of The Year.

(Oh, and I should add that UHK has a drink called the Dej Qab Zib, which is coconut milk and lychee syrup and garnished with, I believe, the same microherbs as in the food [which, by the way, I guess you can order in English; I said when I ordered, "I'll take the sausage with the chili oil"].  It looks beautiful, and it tastes heavenly.  It was overcast and in the seventies Saturday night, and I wish it were sunny and in the nineties with humidity, because the quenching spell upon drinking that would have permanently sated my thirst.  Honestly, I like the food, but I love the drink way more than the food.  And I'm getting it when I'm ordering the other two proteins and the other two sauces, too!)

Analyzing The 2021 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

I will probably go to hell for saying this, and maybe I should.  But Sports Illustrated continues to make its once-famous Swimsuit Issue "woke" and it is destroying the edition.  I consider myself a progressive person in most other aspects of my life, but yes, I think there are some things that should solely be the bastion of archetypal masculinity, and admiring the female form (spanning from pornography to, well, women in swimsuits) is one of them.  The 2021 issue continues to push of "diversity" and "inclusion" to the detriment of its once-sterling reputation.  I and other loyalists of this once-proud tradition now have to think twice about continuing to extend our loyalty.

One way the magazine seems to try to have it both ways is to have more athletes pose for the edition.  That way, SI can showcase women who are physically attractive in exchange for allowing them a platform on which to promote causes important enough to them that would be willing to parade in swimsuits of various skimpiness in order to do so.  Such is the case with one of the cover "models" adorning the 2021 issue, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka.  She looks good, no doubt, but I cannot get over her, uh, increasingly vocal misgivings over her "anxiety," including how often she feels harassed by the media just doing their job.  I want to be sympathetic toward Osaka, but I don't think she's over it, and so I think she needs to step back from tennis and work on her mental health.  Meanwhile, there are few athletes I can gawk over in this issue without feeling icky -- Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova -- and Osaka is not one of them.  She looks good, but they are too famous for their talent, and so I want them removed from this mag so I don't feel guilty.  There, I said it.

(Aside: I bought this issue on Amazon.  There are three cover models for 2021.  There were no good choices.  One of the options was Megan Thee Stallion, the "curvy" raunchy rapper.  The other was Leyna Bloom, who I believe is the first transgender model to ever grace the cover.  Bloom looks good, but in retrospect, I think I should have selected Megan Thee Stallion.)

There are other musical artists in the SI SI, namely Tinashe and Anitta.  And they look good.  But they still feel out of place to me.  It feels weird, in fact, to gawk at R&B singers in swimsuits.  It's weird to me.  Maybe it's because I know they're not professional models and so I don't take them, uh, as seriously as models ... maybe?  By the way, the headline that goes with these two artists' spread alludes to their activism "on issues like racism, sexuality and feminism," but I don't see a piece published alongside the photos.  It feels like the magazine is trying to promote high-mindedness without actually promoting it.

There are four locations for this issue, but all of them are in the United States.  In fact, they're all located on the grounds of a Hard Rock Cafe property ... and two of them are in Hollywood, Fla.  (The other two are Tampa and that sexy city, Sacramento.)  I am pro-USA and I love the Hard Rock Cafe (the one at the Mall Of America closed, so I won't be able to patronize them unless I start travelling the world again), but the domestic-only locales and the partnering with one entertainment entity seems like a cost-cutting move -- however the mag spins it, and even if the pandemic has, understandably, put budgetary demands on the issue's powers-that-be.

Within each of these four shoots, there is a ... "diversity."  I'll be a tad more blunt and say that there is at least one "non-traditional" model in each shoot.  The shoot that, um, most resembles "classic" Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues of the past probably is the second Hollywood one; the, um, token (my God, I'm going to hell for saying this) is rookie Natalie Mariduena, and she's only, shall we say, slightly bigger than the typical models in this edition.  If you refuse to be charitable, you can believe that all four shoots feature turds in the punchbowl.  (Yeah, I am going to hell.)

Mariduena is one of eight rookies for the Swimsuit Issue.  It feels as though Sports Illustrated is bringing at least half a dozen new models in every new issue in an effort to provide more female forms of every type.  That also gives the impression that they're bailing out on models that have appeared in previous issues.  So you go back to the veterans of the SI, because of both familiarity and, for shallow people like me, a sense of what this edition used to mean.  Thank Buddha, then, for stunning pros like Kate Bock, Emily DiDonato, Camille Kostek, Valentina Sampaio, and Lais Ribeiro, the latter of whom I don't think has been in the issue that long.  (I checked the website; I think Ribeiro started in 2016?)

But stunning photos are few and far between.  Maybe the introduction of celebrities and non-traditional models have dampened my mood.  Or maybe this "wokeness" has led in fact to a change in tone and taste for photos, namely one that less tempts the male gaze and more empowers the female one.  (For example, there doesn't seem to be as many ass shots as before, and a couple of the ones in this year's issue are by the Megan Thee Stalion and Anitta.)  That sucks, to be real honest; this used to be the most acceptable mainstream publication to masturbate to.  I still can pick out standout photos, however:

• Kate Bock, page 54, leaning back and showing off her flat tummy;
• Danielle Harrington, p. 58, her long black braids the only thing hiding her tits;
• Bock again on p. 64, her tummy now looking toned as she walks on the beach;
• You know, I'll give a shout-out to rookie Katrina Scott.  She is an online influencer, but her body can get it, as evidenced on page 80;
• Jasmine Sanders, p. 81, ass shot;
• Josephine Skriver and a gorgeous shot of her supple and smooth ass on p. 93 (the more I see this, the more I'm getting hard, no cap);
• Lais Ribeiro, showing off her stomach and some side- and underboob while holding the reins of a pair of horses shin-deep in water on pages 98 & 99;
• And a striking photo on the back cover of the issue: Haley Kalil (she's One Of Us!) gliding face-up on the surface of the water, her boobs barely breaking above the waterline.  This photo is used in conjunction with something called the TRX Training Club, what appears to be an online-only fitness, er, company that's partnering with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in another effort to break away from the magazine's image of being only eye candy and transforming into one that cares about a woman's health and lifestyle choices -- with Sports Illustrated getting a cut of any subscription, of course.

I am hanging on to the arousing photos this edition will still show, but frankly, this push toward "diversity" continues to hurt the perfect brand as I once knew it.  And yet I ordered this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, and I think it's ready to be picked up after work today.  I probably will still get every year's edition, but if they start having men, I'll change my mind very quickly.

Gotta Get Around To, You Know, My Stuff

When my parents left for the winter, I once again had the space and the time to take all my stuff from my storage unit, sift through them, read the magazines and newspapers I have kept all these years so that I would one day read them, put copies of Entertainment Weekly and programs for sporting events in their separate bags, and finally throw as much of the crap I have away.

Well, we're coming up on seven weeks and I haven't done jack.  Well, let me take that back -- I read the first thing I put in my bags of stuff, a copy of the late, lamented Star Tribune-created alternative weekly Vita.MN (which was put down when the Strib but the standard-bearing alternative weekly City Pages ... which was also put down by the Strib last year, presumably because of the pandemic), uh, just last night.  The cover story was that year's South By Southwest.  It was from March of 2011.  Yep, almost eleven years I kept it.  It's now in the recycling bag, but a part of me wonders if it's worth something.  Nah.

I have dozens of bags of that.  Dozens.  I am so overwhelmed that I should just chuck it in the recycling bin.  But, goddammit, I made a promise to myself that each one of these pieces of ... stuff has something worth reading at least once, even if the information on it is more than a decade old.  So I soldier on.  No, that's not true; I continue to possess them in the increasingly vain hopes that I will pay proper attention to each piece and in good faith read and consider them before either keeping it for posterity's sake or finally disposing of them.  There's just so many that it's intimidating and that's why I've barely started, that's all.

Called Mother last night.  Wanted to slightly and calmly act as if things are back to normal after The Mechanic Around The Corner ratted me out to them about their minivan.  See, the garbage wasn't picked up yesterday morning, and although they came around in the evening (possibly while I took a nap after work, and picking up more liquor, and eating at Jersey Mike's), I took the opportunity to reach out to my folks by asking if our trash is still picked up on Thursdays.  Anyway, after Mother said that it was, we moved on quickly to other things.  I thought that they told me they were coming home.  I almost had a heart attack.  But I misunderstood what they were saying.  They actually are in Utah for the time being, but will be back in Las Vegas in several days.  Good thing, because I still have a bunch of my stuff that I, well, intend to get around to, and that's not even counting all of my crap that is piling up in my storage unit.

I have other thoughts as to what I'm doing instead of going through my stuff, and what those opportunity costs show what I value.  Maybe I'll put that in another blog post.  Let's just say that it's high time I get around to going through my stuff.

Analyzing The 2020 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

I will not say the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is in a death spiral.  Well, at least not due to the reason everybody else is saying the magazine's in a death spiral.  I mean ... I understand the drive toward inclusivity and acceptance.  But ... ah, shit, I'll just say it: I want my swimsuit models thin, and I don't want to see models who aren't.  It is part of a larger drive from SI to get away from the fetishization of the female body and to include female perspectives in an effort to get more female eyeballs interested in the issue.  If you go on the SISI homepage, for example, you won't see all photos and videos of models in bikinis.  Instead, you'll see tips on how to exercise, how to eat a healthy diet, how models deal with trolls on social media -- and many of them have the models as subjects for these articles.  Again, I get it.  I know it's a good thing.  I just want my Swimsuit Issue to be smutty.

However, the first thing I noticed about the 2020 edition is how, well, skinny it is.  And then I noticed that this is a double issue.  Are you kidding me?  And then I remember that Sports Illustrated is being published by Maven Media, a publishing house that is a Trojan horse for a hedge fund.  They are bleeding the famed magazine's legacy assets dry, then will dump the carcass for pennies on the dollar.  That is what hedge funds do.  The literal thinning of the SI SI is more evidence of that.  And that is what worries me about the fate of this legendary annual rite of passage moreso than having bigger women in its pages.

With that out of the way, let's analyze the photos.  And, well, to be honest, I am not blown away by a single shot.  Sure, there's a lot of ass, and I am always grateful for seeing that in Sports Illustrated because that is as close to porn as it'll get.  But most of the photos are humdrum.  So, I will take a boring approach to analyzing this issue, only going by section, i.e. where each particular spread was shot:

• Wyoming: Vita Sidorkina blew me up past years by showing off her nice ass.  But she doesn't do that in this spread.  But I am a sucker for assless chaps, and Myla Dalbesio is sporting one on Page 25.  It may be my favorite photo in the issue.  Also, Emily DiDonato is looking great in a black two-piece swimsuit, just standing there, on p. 23.
• Dominican Republic: Another Victoria's Secret model crosses over to Sports Illustrated; this time it's Josephine Skriver, and she's got a bomb-ass dumper which she flashes on Pages 37 (she's on as a two-pager with p. 36) and 45.  I also like Anne de Paul's shot on p. 47 because I can see her right nipple rising through her top, and Camille Kostek but probably because she's blonde.
• Riding The Wave: The "celebrity" swimsuit models for 2020 are three surfing professionals.  Talk about your downsizing.  Anyway, shout-out to Courtney Conlogue.  She doesn't have much on top, but she's got killer abs, the kind semen would bounce off of.
• Bali: Probably the best is stalwart Kate Bock on Page 68, where her right arm is pretty much covering her right breast, buuuuuuuuuuut maybe not?  Rookie Brooks Nader stretches out her body real good on p. 77.  But I have to bring this up: Olivia Culpo (hot babe, but she doesn't stand out here) is sporting this one-piece with full arm coverings on Page 73.  Now, if you've noticed Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues in the past, you'll see that the designer and seller of the bikini and accessories the model is wearing will be listed in the caption.  I have never seen this before: For Culpo's swimsuit, the caption reads: "Editor's own swimsuit."  Is the magazine editor moonlighting as a swimsuit designer?  Or are the samples from vendors so meager nowadays that people on the photography side have to come up with their own offerings just to clothe the models?  Again, talk about downsizing.
• Turks & Caicos: The "model search" pictorial.  None of the six hopefuls get me hard.  But two of them catch my eye, only because of their, uh, offbeat beauty: Christie Valdiserri, who's bald but has a great and powerful ass; and Kathy Jacobs, who's over 50 but has a great body and inspires me to wait around to see if I can fuck any of the strippers from My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version) once they cross 50.
• Scrub Island: The most underwhelming set.  Probably the best shot is on p. 101, with Samantha Hoopes, another vet, givin' us some ass.

And ... that's it.  I think I'll buy this year's edition, whenever the heck it's coming out.  But it's getting, uh, harder to, uh, get up for it.

Getting The Porn In

I am starting my night test scoring job tomorrow, and I don't think I'll have the energy to look through porn after my shift is over -- I think.  Also, I am scared that if I start looking at porn once my project begins, I'll conflate the two.  I am working from home through this laptop, the same device through which I look through porn.  I don't know how, but if I am somehow caught looking at it by my bosses with the project ... well, I'm screwed.

Which means that all this week I am trying to get through as much porn as possible.  By that I mean I blog posted Hottest Babe In the Hooters Calendar, and I think I will purchase some more porn through OnlyFans for, possibly, one final wank tonight.  (I still want to review last year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue -- and I should because this year's is coming soon -- but I don't think I'll have time for that.  Maybe next week.)  Starting tomorrow and for about the next month, I'll have to be a good boy.  And if I rock out with my cock out tonight, I think I can last for that month.  Possibly.  Maybe.

Fucking Father Threw My Fucking Stuff Away

Oh, I'm so pissed off at him right now.

First time in a long time he pulled this shit.  I thought we were doing good.  But he had to fuckin' throw that away, literally.

OK, so I wanted to put some topical on the acne in the back of my head; maybe I'll talk about it some other time.  I had a bag of cotton balls that I took from the closet in my bathroom and threw on the floor.  I left the bag there because I know where it is.  But it wasn't there.  I suspected My Father, who went through and cleaned my bedroom, took it and put it back because he deemed such a task his birthright.

So I go to the bathroom and open the closet.  I see the cotton balls.  I also see everything organized.  That would be great ... except for one thing.  I frequently throw my reading material -- Entertainment Weekly, City Pages, etc. -- in the shelf where the towels are.  The towels are there, neatly folded.  Those magazines are not.  And that fucking pisses me off because My Fucking Father has gone back to his stealing, entitled fucking ways and threw away my shit that he had no goddamn right to throw away.

Problem is, I don't know where it is right now.  I don't know when he cleaned it.  If it was before Thursday, and he wanted to be cruel enough to throw all those things in the trash instead of the recycling bin (which is picked up biweekly, not weekly), they're all gone.  If not, I need to check both the trash bin and the recycling bin and, I swear to fucking God, I am going to take all those magazines out and put them in my storage unit, where it'll be safe from the evil clutches of My Fucking Father.  I don't know how I'm going to do it surreptitiously, but I figure I'll just fucking lie to my parents about "doing something back at work," and, either before I leave or after I come back, fucking open those bins in the middle of the night and the cold and search for my shit.  If that motherfucker doesn't think I will do it, he has no goddamn idea that I care more about those things than even him right now.  I'll open trash to find them, and he can fuckin' try me on that if he thinks I'm bullshittin'.

And in the meantime I'm going to go through the recycling bag out in the kitchen to see if my stuff is still there.  Save me a trip if I get lucky.  And I need to wash my hands anyway; why can't I get a little dirtier?  Have to learn how to roll in the mud with My Fucking Father.

Lost My Fucking Keys Again

I was spending yesterday, which I had off from work (but don't tell my parents; I told them I was working a half-day), out eating at Lowry Hill Meats, walking at the cemetery and saying hi to my departed grandmother and uncle, then getting a free cookie for National Cookie Day at Insomnia Cookies, then getting a hot chocolate (and free donut -- it's Free Donut Fridays), then consuming all of that at the storage place before I go in to my stuff to ... I don't know, either look for my taxes or read some City Pages or just move my crap around.

But I couldn't get in to my storage unit because I don't know where my keys are.  They should have been in my pocket.  I transfer them every week after I change my work pants/jeans, and I make a point of remembering.  I remember doing it last week and putting those damn keys in my new pants.  They are ... somewhere.  They have to be!

I took a quick look around my car.  I lounge in the passenger seat for lunch, so presumably they keys could have slipped out.  But I didn't find it around the floor bedding anywhere.  And I checked last week's jeans, but there was nothing in the small hip pocket, which confirmed to me I had taken it out of there.  For all I know, somehow, My Father is going to find those keys and put them on my dresser or something.  That's happened before, because I have lost them before, only to either find them or have them found.  And so I'm relying on that now, because right now, I am really, really afraid I have lost them for good.

My 2019 Playboy Playmate Of The Year

Before I proceed, I think I need to make an announcement.  This, in all probability, will be the final time I crown a Playboy Playmate Of The Year.  This follows a long slide into irrelevance for what was once the vanguard pornographic magazine in the world.  But the advent of cheap and free porn on the Internet led to slumping advertiser dollars which forced The Bunny to make editorial cuts.  To try and change the image in order to save it, they then switched over to non-nudity, which was a total mistake.  They brought back breasts (though not necessarily pubic hair), but the issues each year were cut from 12 to 11 to six and, for 2019, four.  It's now not even in print anymore; they discontinued hardcopy issues earlier this spring, although before the pandemic.

I would be sad, but I have disagreed with the changes for several years now.  The cutting down on issues was the first truly disappointing sign, but the pivot to non-nudity damaged my image of Playboy beyond repair.  I tried following along with pictorials on the website Vintage Erotica Forum, but I got the feeling so many former aficionados were so dismayed by its new direction that even they stopped caring enough to pilfer the images and put them on the website.  So that made me care even less.

But it's time to put 2019 to bed, so I looked at what images I do see from VEF, and I'm finally making some decisions.  Overall it is nowhere near the heyday of Playboy, which in my opinion was the late eighties, when I looked over my parents' Hong Kong editions of PB when I looked through them at The Store, to around 1998, when I graduated from college.  (I know a lot of Playboy diehards think those halcyon days were much earlier.)  Showing pubes makes a big difference, but near the tail end of the magazine they were going for much, well, artier photos when all I really wanted to see were tits, ass and pussy.  Playboy always said they sought a higher-end depiction of female nudity, and they tried to distance themselves from Penthouse, its smuttier competitor, throughout its life.  But I always thought that The Bunny always had the central intention of arousing carnal desires in the person looking at these spreads.  I didn't feel that way about the mag in the last, oh, two or three years.  Guess that's another reason why I'm not so heartbroken on the death of the print magazine.

With that being said, there are a few bomb-diggity photos that I like.  What I was hoping for were so pussy shots, such as the single, solitary one from a Playmate in 2018, which is the only reason why I voted for Olga de Mar for 2018 PMOY.  For example, Miss January, Vendela (her last name is Lindblom, but she doesn't go by that name in this pictorial) and Miss Septembe, Sophie O'Neil, are posed in such a way where you think you see their vajajays, but they've lifted up their left legs just enough whereby their thighs are sort-of-covering their triangles.  Drat!

With that being said, Vendela has a couple peek-a-boo shots where her slim tits are poking out on the outsides of a singlet.  Her whole boxing motif is a good one, and it harkens back to the days where Playboy had themes for their centerfolds.  Miss March, Miki Hamano, has this one shot where she's wearing a black slingshot swimsuit, but either she's wearing it backwards or she's pulled out the straps that would cover her nipples so that the suit is not covering anything.  Shots like that drive me wild.  And I love that she was considered to be a model for Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue that came out over the summer.  Going from nude to non-nude in a more "reputable" magazine is so subversive it gets me erect, to be honest.

Yoli Lara, Miss June, has got a banger of a body.  The Puerto Rican is slim and tight and would fit with the vintage Playboy Playmates.  She's got two fantastic shots.  One of them is just a fabric wrapped around her breasts except that her left nipple is peeking out.  The other is her wearing just a bikini bottom that sort-of evokes the American flag, holding a glass bottle that seems to be holding Coke (branded with The Bunny logo) and her throwing her head back so we can only see her chin.  Man, her small tits in that shot, fuck. ...

So I gave you roughly my fourth through second picks.  My pick for top model, however, has to go to Miss April, Fo Porter.  I'll be honest, y'all: Her pictorial doesn't do much for me.  But if you were a fan of America's Next Top Model, you'll remember Fo as a contestant on Cycle 12 of ANTM, which aired the spring of 2009.  She finished fifth, and although I remember dutifully watching most episodes of that season, I don't remember much of her.  Still, like Eugena from Cycle 7, she took off her clothes (well, at least showed her breasts), and got recognition from me.  And in Fo's case, that recognition is best Playboy Playmate of 2019 from yours truly.

OK, so my reasons for crowning her may be cheap and inauthentic.  But, honestly, so was the magazine around this time.  Maybe it's fitting.

By the way, Playboy is still publishing Playmates online, I think.  I have not gone to their website.  Neither has anybody on Vintage Erotica Forum, nor has anyone on Wikipedia updated their list of Playmates.  We all stopped caring.

Dodging Bullets

As I thought, my brother and niece were not there "for a bit," like Mother said they would be.  (Aside: As I did not think, my sister-in-law didn't come over.  Hmmm. ...)  They got there almost precisely at noon (I don't know because they came through the door while I was in the backyard cleaning up the lawnmower after I just got done cutting grass) and my niece was playing with blocks (after playing with the ice shaver before that and enjoying Mother blowing bubbles in her face in the back deck before that) when I left at 2.

I left at 2 for the thing I indicated to my parents I had to do, even though I never told her what that thing was: A taste test ten Minutes away.  I got there in plenty of time.  In fact, the main proctor cycled us through the test(s) and I was out of there at 3:15, 45 Minutes after we started, when we were told that the session would take 75.  Could have gotten Pizza Hut and been home around 3:30, but instead I went to my storage unit five Minutes north of the session to read an old issue of ESPN The Magazine until it was time to get the pizzas at 4:30, the time I said I would get the pizzas when I placed my order online.  (Actually I got there at 4:15, after I stepped into a gas station to grab a Pepsi.)

But back to the taste test.  It was held at a meeting room in a church.  I've never been to this place before, so I postulate that the company administering the taste test needed to find a space big enough for the sample size they need (I say there were 20-30 people) to be able to spread out when sitting down to take their samples.  From the description of the test, the company was going to comply as stringently as possible to standards to protect against COVID-19 while trying to get this done.  For the first time in my life I got my temperature taken with a forehead scan.  (I think I got a 97.9.)  I got a spot in the back of the room, six feet away from the closest desk (sat on by an anti-masker -- I should talk about these people, for they piss me off).  Tablets are used to compile our answers registering our thoughts on these samples, but this time they were put in plastic pouches.  Usually workers give us samples, but this time we were supposed to get up, walk on pathways marked by tape on the floor to table, pick up the samples from there, then walk back to our desks.

Well, there's one exception to that.  Most people had a walkway where they had to follow to get back to their desk, but since I was in the very back, I was allowed to just walk directly back to my desk.  I followed the pathway four of the times I was up, but for the first and last samples I picked up, I decided I wanted to be a non-compliant rebel and scooted back to my desk against the flow of participants and the airflow they generated.

Yeah, about that.  I kind of regret that.  I was told that what I did was OK, but I did see that I was going against the flow of "traffic," and as such I was crossing paths with strangers who had to, at least theoretically, breathe in the air I expelled.  (Oh, we all had to wear masks when we were getting these samples, but could take them off once we sat down.)  Also, I noticed that although we were sitting down more than six feet apart, this was indoors, and I didn't hear any loud fans circulating the air around.  So, when it comes to assessing risk for getting the coronavirus, the setting this afternoon is a lot better than being crowded next to each other, as we usually would be in non-pandemic times.  Could we be farther apart?  I guess.  Would this be better if it were done outside?  Never seen it before (besides this one time where I got paid to try out lawnmowers), but yes, it would.  Should I have not done this?  Well, let's see how I feel between now and two weeks from now.

But shoot, I have been in several situations where I suddenly realize I might, maybe should be scared that I might contract the virus.  A few months ago I was stacked up at the Wells Fargo drive-thru and this car full of dirty people were the only people around me not wearing masks.  I went to a bar a couple weeks ago to watch an NWSL match and stayed there for more than two Hours.  And then there's work five days a week.  Now, I haven't gotten the virus, at least I don't think, and yes, I use my prior experience to re-assess my risk in thinking about doing anything.  I'd like to think I'm not being complacent.  But time moves on, and at some point I will find myself walking into a situation not even thinking about catching the 'Rona when I would adamantly stay away before.  And the conditions of that situation will be far from 0%, and therefore, if I don't get the virus, I should, beyond anything else, thank my lucky stars that I keep dodging bullets.

And yes, tomorrow I will dodge a bullet in a situation where I am happily walking into: Going to ****e's house and fucking her.  Close contact?  Yes.  Close contact for 15 Minutes, the standard of time in defining "close contact?"  Well, I wish, but that has never happened.  And we don't cuddle.

My 2018 Playboy Playmate Of The Year

Feel bad that Playboy has fallen so far out of my pornographic pursuits.  But the Internet has made smut so readily accessible, and allowed all of us to follow our kinks, that the professional, "Girl Next Door" ethos of the original porn mag has lost circulation -- so much so that this year was, like the couple (?) years before, six bi-monthly issues instead of 12 monthly.  Also, it made me forget that, for a few years (at least I think), I would do an annual assessment of who I think should be Playmate Of The Year.

This is 2020, obviously.  I forgot I didn't do one for 2018.  That's how far Playboy is now out of my life.  But I want to be a completist, plus I want to think of something else besides COVID-19, so this is as good a time as any to finally give you my pick for '18 PMOY.

Oh, another reason I've turned away from Playboy: They don't show pussy.  I think it was 2017 where they finally reversed their strange decision to not show boobie, but they still have not gone back to showing full frontal.  It's a shame, because I think pretty much all of the Playmates in 2018 are hot.  (Maybe the big exception: Miss December, Emanuel Jordan -- who was picked as Playmate Of The Year.  Agree to disagree.)  If I had to extend my picks to five, I would toggle the last two spots between Miss February, Megan Samperi (dressed up in a college girl motif) and Miss March, Jenny Watwood (long raven hair, hourglass figure).

In third place is Miss September, Kirby Griffin.  I must admit that the main reason I put her in third is something I find lurid: She was a model in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue!  It's true!!  Just one year, in 2012!!!  I've gotten every year's issue, and I don't remember Griffin.  But I see her slim body in a swimsuit, and I get off then seeing her out of a swimsuit!

In second place is Shauna Sexton, Miss May.  I like the theme of her pictorial, that of her working out.  Sweat and fitness turns me on.  But in her spread, her most captivating photo was one where she was totally clothed.  She was in scrubs, holding a dog.  You see, not only is she a model (and a hot one; just check out her Instagram), she's a veterinary technician.  An emergency and critical care one at that, too.  I'd like to think that she wants to go into vet medicine after her modeling career is over, and she's studying to be one right now while her modeling is her main hustle.  I respect that.  A lot!

In first place?  Miss October, Olga de Mar.  She is a bottle blonde with a knockout figure.  Hef would've loved her.  But the main reason I put her first is something I now need to take back -- turns out Playboy does show pussy, just not very often.  And imagine my surprise when, after a couple years of a no-bush edict, de Mar's centerfold is her, on a clay tennis court, wearing no clothes, and posing in just enough of a profile that we get to see her razor-thin strip of pubic hair.  Hey, vagina!!!

So yes, for that reason more than anything, Olga de Mar is my 2018 Playboy Playmate Of The Year.

Maintaining, Not Gaining

Fell asleep at 12:30 or thereabouts, but woke up a bit past 6, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Don't have to go to work until 10, so that left me with a chance to do some chores before taking another crack at unconsciousness.

What did I do?  Well, I cleaned the rest of the dishes and then, despite not knowing whether it's too much or too late, I watered the plants for the first time in 72 hours.  I then polished off last year's "Comics" issue from City Pages.  Oh, and I'm blogging for the day.

And that is going to be the problem as I prepare for the return of my parents in, eek, less than three weeks.  Yes, the dishes need to be cleaned and the plants need to be watered (well, maybe, but work with me here).  But what I really wanted to do, and what I have always wanted to do while my parents are away, is to start focusing on the "long-term" stuff.  And that stuff usually relates to, well, my stuff.  I had hoped I could haul some of my shit out of storage.  If there are old copies of City Pages, I would read them and, hopefully, recycle them.  There are old Entertainment Weeklys, and I want to seal them up for storage.  I have sports programs I want to organize, etc.

In the meantime, I have a lot of things at home.  There are papers on my dresser and desk I really want to go through.  There are, get this, old brochures from past car shows that I tucked into my closet; I have so many of them, in reusable bags, that I should take care of them, too.  Finally, I see some old clothes that I could donate to Goodwill.  If I have the chance to them, I should.

But notice that when it comes to those "long-term" chores, I only went through one six-month-old CP.  The other stuff I did is normal, day-to-day or week-to-week stuff.  That's maintenance.  That's not getting ahead of things.  And I don't know if I'll have the time to do some large structural moves and shovel papers into the recycling bin or store them neatly in my storage unit before my folks come back.  And if I can't do it by now, when will I ever have the time?

I'm getting depressed.  I should take a nap now.