It appears that Cristiano Ronaldo is still pumping out his underwear line, which is good news for fans of the sporty superstar, as it results in photo shoots like the one seen here. Mr. Ronaldo dons his own boxer briefs in and out of water, and there’s quite a bit to be said for underwear when it gets wet (see Bulge). He has had several prominent posts here before, as in his Hunk of the Day feature, this underwear collection, and this bulge contest.
Every year about this time I start getting antsy for spring. The paperwhites I forced earlier have long since spent and withered their blossoms away. The few scant hyacinths I have in water are just beginning to break bud, and a trio of amaryllis I got on clearance haven’t even been planted yet. The lull merited this emergency post of supermarket flowers to see us through the weekend with a bit of emotional joy.
I don’t know if we’ll make it to the New England Flower Show this year, or if it’s even still a thing. I also doubt this year will mark our pilgrimage to Longwood Gardens and their Himalayan blue poppy display, as we’re more intent on making it to Savannah before the spring comes. That means posts like this, and visits to local greenhouses, will have to suffice.
Fortunately, a flower, no matter where it blooms or how it’s procured, always manages to make an impression. It is a balm on the winter-weary soul, a comfort for cold-weather agitation. Even the mere notion of a bloom, such as in this otherwise empty blog post, supplies the senses with something like hope. Spring will come again, and the land will be lush and green and vibrant.
A happy bloom passes the day.
Given today’s nine-filled date, I was reminded that Twitter recently sent me notice that my 9thanniversary of having joined the social network came on New Year’s Day. (Guess I was bored at the family dinner and signed up to start tweeting about it.) So… nine whopping years of tweets… and nothing to show for it. I shudder to think how many years I’ve wasted on FaceBook… I came relatively late to the Instagram party, so I feel a bit better about that.
All of this makes me pause and take stock of how social media has become such a part of our lives. My formative years were spent without such stuff, and I’m better for it. Having worked in human resources for well over a decade, I’ve seen the changing shifts in job applicants, and it’s decidedly unimpressive. Gone are the days when one crafted an error-free cover letter or carefully-curated resume. Gone are the days of candidates who could attend an interview and actually engage in and follow a conversational thread. Some of it may be attributed to the way the current generation processes everything on their phones, not worrying about spelling full words or figuring out how to make sustained eye contact or simply focusing on a single topic for more than two minutes. But now I’m losing sight of the whole point of this nine-centric post (credit my burgeoning crotchety-old-man attitude – you knew it was coming – hell, it’s been coming for forty years).
What does one do for a Twitter anniversary? For starters, follow me: @alanilagan. Then never open the app again, because the only thing worse than Twitter is FaceBook.
Our local newspaper, the Times Union, recently posted the following headline on its FaceBook feed:
“Albany officer Christofer M. Kitto, 34, was charged with patronizing a prostitute, but police say the shooting was justified.â€
It would be genius if I could be entirely sure that they were in on the joke. Sadly, I’m not entirely sure, given some of their typographical errors of late.
Luxury is assembling a fruit salad in the middle of winter, and I’ve never not appreciated such charming circumstances. The idea of having a selection of various citrus – grapefruit, oranges, tangerines – and apples and berries and kiwi and pineapple – in the midst of frigid weather is a lovely thing. I complain a lot, but it’s all for show. My heart is filled with gratitude as much as my stomach is filled with the apples seen here. Most of us are luckier than we realize. A visit or glimpse into the rest of the world is proof of that.
Not that we need to dwell there, not in this corner of the internet anyway. There is enough ugliness to be found in other places. Here, we shall have beauty. Here, we shall have art. Here, we shall have only the prettiest, most enchanting and magical moments we can conjure.
For today, we shall have an orange and some apples. In the middle of a raging winter. Through the eyes of a website.
Try some… eat one.
The other night I had a dream about Ladurée macarons, which I’ve never actually had the pleasure or privilege of tasting. Definitely a sign for someone to send me some. They do ship. Let me know if you need an address…
There was no Monday recap last week because it was New Year’s Eve, and this blog was pre-occupied with all the hunks that had paraded for your viewing pleasure the year before. Then came the ‘Year in Review – Part One and Part Two’ which seemed like more than enough recaps for the week. So this post will do double duty and recall posts from the last two weeks, just so nothing, and no one, gets left out. People, and Hunks, can be so sensitive sometimes. On with the show…
It began with the official end of fall.
A secret Russian Christmas tea.
I was surrounded by nine children, and I lived to tell the tale.
The first set of Hunks of the Day included Sam Salter, Daniel Cifonelli, David Muir, Glenn McCuen, Matt Turner, Max Evans and Thom Evans.
Leather & blush: when Tom Ford intertwines.
Christmas dinner: a seven-dish Filipino feast.
Top Nine of 2018: the bare butt edition.
The New Year began with a bang by Britney.
A birthday, a pencil, a childhood memory.
Picture me in a leopard-print onesie, or just click here.
This blog is bringing sexy back, starting with this salacious post, and continuing with this one filled with gratuitous male nudity.
The second set of Hunks of the Day featured David Copperfield, Noah Centineo, Sam Asghari, Cauã Reymond, Mina Gerges, Prince Fielder, Jake Mace, Seth Rogen and Alessandro Florenzi.
Watching the red carpet for the Golden Globes tonight, I saw a vision that fortifies me to make such a bold proclamation: Billy Porter and his cape won the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and every award show that was or ever will be. This outfit wins it all. We can stop watching now.
The second part of our returning sexiness (see the skin-heavy glory of Part 1 here) is a continuation of a promise to bring back the men. This site was built on the broad and shirtless shoulders of the male form, preferably in various states of undress. Celebrating the beauty of the naked human body has long been a province of serious art, but somewhere along the line it became dirty and salacious. Pfft to all that – we celebrate our nakedness as God intended us to be. Fuck the prudes.
Heading up this sexy line-up is film star Idris Elba. Not sure what the latest is on his popular bid to be the next James Bond (last I heard the director was off the latest iteration of the franchise, and Mr. Elba was not officially attached to it). I hope he is the next martini sipper, and check out his Hunk of the Day crowning to see how well he could fill out those fancy shoes.
Next up is the delectable Ronnie Woo, the chef in California who cooked up some hot dishes in his Hunk of the Day post.
Looking toward the future of Hunks here, I offer this sneak-peek of a man who will likely join that vaunted collection of hunkdom: Jermaine Jones, coming or going from an airborne ball in this stunning ESPN Body Issue shot.
A favorite of this site (he has his own category), Ben Cohen continues to be a vocal ally of the LGBTQ community, and a fighter against bullying in all forms. When sexy meets noble, the results are glorious.
Another glimpse of future hotness is seen below. Introducing Andee Chua. More to come from this model-in-the-making.
It’s almost that time of the year: Super Bowl time. I haven’t been following very closely (ever since Madonna left the football field after her halftime show, I’ve lost interest). Here are two gents who have been naked here before: Julian Edelman and Tom Brady. They’ve been here in more clothing too, but rather than look that up for you, I invite you to type their names in the Search box at the bottom and see what comes up.
Leaving political commentary aside, one gentleman who is not on the football field these days is Colin Kaepernick, who has already been crowned a Hunk of the Day. Courage can be sexy; here’s the proof.
Charlie King earned his Hunk of the Day crown here, and seeing him in motion is all one needs to see why. See if you can pick him out among these nude dudes.
Two up-and-coming Hunks will be primed for their future appearances next: Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Matthew Hanham.
Bringing up the rear, quite literally, is Jamie Dornan. Mr. Fifty Shades closes out this collection of hotties with his buxom behind exiting the shower. He’s doffed his shirt here before, now he’s lost his pants. Welcome back to sexy, everybody. More to come in the next year, whether you like it or not.
Animal prints never much interested me on underwear.
Until Tom Ford told me it was ok.
Not directly, but I understood.
It was so soft, and the leopard pattern was in gray, making it more subtle and refined, and I hadn’t been in a onesie in ages (well, almost ages), so this all happened on New Year’s Eve and it was a grand little party filled with cozy comfort and run-on sentences and all the glory and the like. If this is what my blog has come to, I’m not going to complain. The world wide web is in dire need of whimsy and wonder, and maybe a little light-hearted madness. That’s something I can supply.
As for this onesie, it’s reminiscent of the “sleepers†we used to wear as kids – the kind with feet. Those were the best way to survive a winter’s night. They had plastic soles that, when new, would enable you to slide across the carpet if you got enough of a running start. None of those ever came with hoods, but that didn’t matter. More problematic was the danger of zipping up your dick if you weren’t careful. (This happened to me once, and while it was not enough to draw any blood or do any damage, it emotionally scarred me for life. I have NEVER come close to zipping it up since.)
Zipper-risk aside, I loved the coziness of those sleepers. All winter long they kept us warm – our entire bodies encased in fabric – and we got accustomed to sleeping in them. That made for a happy change come summer, when those sleeper feet were gone and I could feel the cool soft sheets directly against my feet again. It was always such a relief, but I knew then that it was made more enjoyable from the months of confinement that had to come first.
This onesie doesn’t have feet, but it has a hood and two pom-poms. One can’t have it all in the winter.
Math-teacher-turned-model Pietro Boselli has already bared his booty in these pages. He’s also given some serious VPL (Visible Penis Line) and modeled an assortment of Speedos and underwear, such as here and here and here. Today, he gives us more of the same, as no one seems to mind when he doffs clothing and offers a glimpse of nakedness and nudity.
When I was a kid, I was very grateful that my birthday fell during summer vacation (August 24, in case anyone wants to start saving up, and you should). I couldn’t imagine having to spend your birthday in school, bringing in cupcakes for the other kids and having to share your special day with the masses. (I’ve also never been a fan of the big birthday party where all the kids are invited – I kept my gatherings to Suzie and one or two other people, quite happily.) What brings this to mind is the date: January 4. I suddenly and out of the blue recalled that this was the birthday of one of my childhood friends, Jill. I don’t remember how she celebrated or what sort of cupcakes she brought in to school, but I know she must have had a few birthdays at McNulty, as did most of the class. Summer babies were not as common as those populating the rest of the year given our two-month window.
Jill was one of the top students in the class, and she had a special pencil to which I attributed all her success. It was a simple #2 yellow pencil, the kind we all had, but it had been worn and whittled down to a manageable two-thirds of its original length – perfect for a kid’s smaller hands. It also had a worn and perfectly rounded eraser on its end – the whole thing achieving a darker patina and lived-in vibe that appealed to my search for comfort. A new pencil had to be broken in and used before it became comfortable, its sharper edges dulled to a softer feel. I coveted Jill’s because it glided with ease across the page, and she could make the neatest hand-writing with it. At least, that was the questionable reasoning I worked out in my head.
For months, I begged her for that pencil. Every time there was something I had that she wanted, I offered to trade it for the pencil. Snacks, markers, fancy erasers, a place in front of me in line – I tried all the tactics a school kid once used to get ahead in the classroom – all to no avail. Through my desperation she had seen the value of that magical pencil, and she held onto it all the tighter. I didn’t blame her. But I didn’t give up.
Eventually, I had something she wanted just as badly as I wanted the pencil. I don’t remember what it was – obviously it wasn’t anything that meant much to me – but she gave in and traded me for it. As with all similar stories, the magic left the pencil as soon as it was in my hands. My writing didn’t suddenly turn neater. My test scores didn’t suddenly change. Though I liked the way it felt in my hand, and the way it wrote across the page, it didn’t magically transform my life the way I thought, and expected, it would.
Still, it was a good trade, and Jill was a good friend. It’s a happy memory because it reminds me of how our school-day drama was once about a magical pencil and not a gun. It was about birthday cupcakes and bags filled with Valentine cards. It was, I fear to say it, a better time.
Here’s wishing a Happy Birthday to Jill, wherever she may be. (And thanks for the pencil.)
