OK. Here comes my third post today, but I'm getting zero input from you chimps. Now get off your asses and give me some criticism! I want to know what you like and what you don't! This render I just posted to FMG2 is an experiment in developing a comics style. You've seen some of my earlier work in this regard in Bikini Bust-Out, but this is the next step for me.

Also, I'd really like to know how Wreck Shop makes such terrific speech bubbles. It might be Adobe Illustrator, or maybe they're pre-made, but I have a feeling that he somehow makes them by hand. That said, I don't really care for the way he breaks up text between the bubbles--it's a little clumsy. I'll have to ask him about it.

I AM NO FAN OF ENRON EXECS, but this plan is a bad idea. By any number of historical measures, i.e. price/book, most U.S. equities are still dramatically overpriced. Is your average MBA or finance grad aware of that? Absolutely. So if the Labor Department believes that a firm's management is personally responsible and liable if securities offered in ESPP and 401(K) plans decline in value, then it is entirely possible that we could see most high-ranking corporate officers at most publicly held firms named in class-action suits within the next few years. In addition to undermining the very concept of corporate entities, it could end defined contribution pension plans as we know them. And that, I suspect, wouldn't exactly break any hearts at the Department of Labor. They fiddle while Rome burns.

HEY GUYS--I think this is one of my best renders yet. I think I've managed a nice juxtaposition of femininity and muscular development/strength. Let me know what you think.

HMMM...IS WINONA INNOCENT? Truth be told, I had not even considered the possibility. But a writer at National Review not only makes a credible case for it, he makes a very convincing case for prosecutorial misconduct. Free Winona and Jail the D.A.!

HEY--I POSTED A NEW RENDER.

GONNA BE AWAY FOR A COUPL'A DAYS. Come back Sunday.

MORE NICOLE BASS SILLINESS in the Post, again.

FULLY NAKED BUSTY ASIAN GIRL, with a bit of a bicep pop!

DAMN! I MISSED THE HIDDEN HILLS FMG SCENE! But Morphinman has posted it on the Superwomen8 Yahoo Club!

A NEW STORY HAS BEEN POSTED AT DTV, CALLED "HIPPOLYTA'S GIRDLE". It's pretty good, and charming, but has some logical inconsistencies and a few other problems. One problem is that "Asia Minor" is a geographical placename, not a political placename, and thus would not serve as a very good return address. Also, the person who ships the titular artifact (heh heh...he said "titular") writes that she has been arrested and is sending it to keep it out of the hands of the local authorities. Except, um, if she's already been arrested, how can she send it? A better explanation is that she EXPECTS to be arrested. Otherwise it's a cute strength-transfer story.

No author is identified.

THE NEW YORK POST slams Nicole Bass again today, for her performance on the stand during her lawsuit against World Wrestling Entertainment. I wish somebody would make this go away. It's very unpleasant.

JASON MEWES TURNS UP ALIVE, from Page Six:

Lost actor pops up in L.A.

JASON Mewes is alive and well. Mewes, who played the long-haired, drug-loving "Jay" in Kevin Smith's "Clerks," "Mall Rats," "Chasing Amy" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," was reportedly on the lam or even feared dead after his friends told the Chicago Sun-Times they hadn't seen him in 10 months. An arrest warrant had been issued for him after he violated probation on a heroin conviction. But last month, Mewes made an appearance at a film festival in Malibu to promote his new indie movie "RSVP," and he'll host a talent show Oct. 17 at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. "The rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated," chuckled Mewes' agent, Nancy Oeswein. "I just got off the phone with him. He's certainly not in hiding. He just moved to L.A." For some folks, living on the Left Coast is as good as being dead.

So, uh, is that arrest warrant still standing?

STREET CORNER FLEX! I saw one! I was standing on the southeast corner of the street, looking across to the northeast corner, at a well-fed woman who appeared to be unusually muscular. Her arm was pressed against her side, and the flesh that spilled out seemed to have an unusually distinct trapezoid shape--as if she had a very firm and well-developed biceps. Two men came up on her right and began talking to her. She smiled and BANG! Her right arm came up and she flexed the biceps on that side. I had a good view, though from 40 feet away. It was quite substantial and had a real peak to it! New York doesn't suck! I kept my pace in tandem with hers as we crossed and began walking west, but she turned north at the next corner.

MUSCULAR SCARY NUDE GIRL RENDER by Darhorn. Leather chick.

WELL, IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG. In July, New York City and State imposed enormous, burdensome taxes on cigarette sales--$3 added to the price of each pack, raising the price of a pack of cigarettes to almost $6. Now, 10 weeks later, a vigorous and pervasive black market has sprung up. How long before kids in gangs are shooting each other on streetcorners over untaxed tobacco? How long before the mob is setting up counterfeit tax-stamping machines? You'd think these government morons would learn that prohibition just doesn't work.

AND LOOK AT WHAT COYOTE has been up to! He's naughty! Topless FMG victim.

I HAVE SEEN GOD! Yoko Matsugane popping out of a leopard skin bikini top. Whoa!

"I COULD CRUSH MELFI'S HEAD LIKE A FUCKING WALNUT!" The Sopranos was really good tonight. Maybe I should start a Soprano's blog in addition to this one? One thing I don't like about this season: lack of outdoor scenes. Sure, there was a bit of footage taken just below what looks like the new NJ Transit station next to Snake Hill, but none of the gritty urban terrain I know and love.

And I just got the joke about Tony's daughter being named "Meadow". LOL! Only took me three years.

A REMARKABLE POSER RENDER employing a topless, somewhat muscular Victoria model.

SWEET JESUS!! IT'S A TREMORS TRILOGY WEEKEND ON USA!! Delirium Tremors! Argh! Why do they play these movies without cease? I am bedeviled!

LINDA STASI OF PAGE SIX is pretty funny today, even without the Nicole Bass slam.

I MIGHT HAVE TO WATCH SURVIVOR THIS TIME. The boobs are fake, but the biceps are real.

OK, SO NO SUPER CHICKS on Firefly, but Rosario Dawson is pretty tough, huh?

A NEW FMG STORY is on DtV, called "If You Wish Enough". The author calls himself The Storyteller. It's not bad.

FIREFLY starts in 20 minutes, Eastern U.S. I think it's on FOX.

A GREAT ARTICLE ABOUT A TRUE HERO OF 9/11. I've read about this man before--he saved a whole lot of lives.

I LIKE THIS GUY'S POLITICS, but not his market forecasts. A few years ago, he was telling everyone the Dow would go to 36,000--now he's telling everyone to buy tech stocks. Color me skeptical.

OH. MY. GOD. While I would NEVER rub the National Socialist years in the faces of my German friends, I admit that I chuckle to myself whenever the German government lectures the U.S. on capital punishment. But this is over the top. Even if accurate, comparing a person's actions to Adolf Hitler's is so inflammatory and prima facie pejorative that any rational argument is suffocated by the connotation. For a high-ranking German government official to compare George W. Bush to Hitler is perhaps the most offensive thing she could say.

Smile while you can, Frau Doktor Daeubler-Gmelin. You just pissed off 300 million people.

ENTERPRISE WAS PRETTY GOOD. Granted, it was a little lame when Daniels made a cross-time communications device out of Archer's cell phone, scanner and a copper ladle, but if Trek was about hard science, you wouldn't be able to hear the warp engines in the vacuum of space, right?

EEGORE'S CONTRIBUTION TO WRECK SHOP'S PATRIOTISM CONTEST is worth taking a look at.

THAT SILLY KLEZ VIRUS is still out there. Someone in femuscle fandom is infected, and the virus continues to propagate using spoofed email from and reply-to addresses. For instance, I know that some email was recently sent from a KLEZ infected machine using my email address as a spoof. So everybody out there ought to get some virus protection and check for KLEZ.

I LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS!

A new type of breast enhancement which does not use implants and can be performed under local anaesthetic within an hour has been developed and could be available within two years.

From an article in today's This is London. Wouldn't that be cool? One of your co-workers goes out to lunch at noon, comes back an hour later, unable to button her blouse?

THE SEASON PREMIERE OF ENTERPRISE runs tonight on UPN, in the U.S. You might also want to watch Firefly, on Friday, which seems to have a super-strong female android or something. (All I know is something about a "girl in a box" and a clip of Gina Torres knocking some guy on his ass.)

ANOTHER WASTE-OF-MONEY STUDY: The masters of the obvious at the Federal Trade Commission went way out on a limb releasing this report: Weight Loss Advertising: An Analysis of Current Trends: A Federal Trade Commission Staff Report. Or you can save yourself an hour and read this Reuters story: Many Weight-Loss Ads Misleading. That's right, folks--those ads that say you can lose 30 pounds this coming weekend while eating whatever you want? They might not actually be truthful.

RE: PYRAMID CHARLATANS, reader Keith sent this cartoon link.

YEP. NOTHING BACK THERE.

SO I'M WATCHING THIS "PYRAMIDS LIVE" THING ON TV. There are tiny doors at the top of several shafts in the Great Pyramid. A robot has been built and positioned to "open" one of the doors. For two hours they've been teasing, and in the last five minutes they're gonna open the door. After an hour and fifty-five minutes of this waiting, I'm hoping there's a self-destruct mechanism back there, that brings the roof down on these charlatans.

CUTE RENDER.

WANNA BE MISERABLE? Read what I'm reading: Conquer the Crash: You Can Survive and Prosper in a Deflationary Depression. Ugh. I first became aware of Elliot Wave theory about ten years ago--as a framework for historical analysis, it works very well. As a forecasting tool, well--it often wreaks cruel, ironic misfortune upon the forecaster. But the author, Robert Prechter, has such depth to his argument, it's hard to see how he could be wrong. He thinks we're facing a depression--maybe bigger than the one in the 30s.

I JUST WATCHED THE SEASON PREMIERE OF THE SOPRANOS. I love that show. And more than that--I love the New Jersey that lives in that show. It's so true-to-life--mundane but at the same time somehow exotic--that it leaves me smiling every time. There's a hot new babe, an FBI undercover agent, who showed up late last season and in the premiere was able to meet Tony. He asks her where she's from. Her answer? Three syllables, so perfectly chosen and articulated that they made my hair stand on end: "Whippany." (Turn the sound down a little before clicking if you're at work.)

IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY. There's another femuscle blogger. His name is Yohashuan, and you can check it here.

IT'S A GOOD THING HE DOESN'T SPEND MUCH TIME IN THE OFFICE.

A NEW RENDER FROM YOURS TRULY at Wreck Shop's message board.

ANTERION POSTED A SHORT VIDEO CLIP to FMG2 yesterday, showing the transformation of Spider-Man's sometime girlfriend The Black Cat from a scrawny blonde pop-tart into a generously muscled superhuman.

DEAD AS DILLINGER: Osama bin Ladin is taking a dirt nap. Confirmed. Tora Bora Sheik 'n' Bake.

SLAP HER...SHE'S FRENCH, a new movie due out in theatres this November. It's set in "Splendona, Texas", and depicts the conflict between a self-absorbed Texas Princess and a conniving, self-promoting French exchange student who is living with her family. The tag line for the movie is "Warning: No French people were harmed in the making of this movie." I borrowed the link from AndrewSullivan.com. Looks a bit like Heathers, and at least in the trailer steals some of the musical score from True Romance. It stars New Jersey's own Piper Perabo. The Texas girl, played by Jane McGregor, looks like a bit of a jock.

NO GOOD MOVIES OUT THIS WEEKEND, blah. I'm hoping that Pluto Nash's dismal failure at the box office will mean a speedy VHS/DVD roll-out, so we can all get our hands on those juicy FMG scenes.

JESSE VENTURA MAKES AN ASS OF HIMSELF, PART MCXXVI: Apparently the former professional wrestler and current occupant of the Statehouse of the People's Republic of Minnesota is going to Cuba. No, no, he won't be storming the beaches, Teddy-Roosevelt-style; rather he'll be contravening Federal law and going there as a tourist. Otto Reich at the State Department had something to say about it, and apparently Ventura took offense at Reich's suggestion that Ventura avoid the prostitutes. Can't somebody just lock up Ventura in Minnesota for the next few months, 'til he's out of office? Castro benefits just by publicly showing off this clod--the most oafish governor in American history--who was elected solely on the merits of his professional wrestling career. He's an embarrassment.

TWO SPECIAL IMAGES FROM FOREST OF BREAST: One is Yoko Matsugane, who is an old standby at FOB--and she's spectacular. The other is a girl I've never seen before.

CUTE RENDER of a fit girl in body armor, here. Let's knock the roof off this one, so the artist makes more muscle-girl renders.

NOT FOR NOTHING, but my "Yoko is the anti-Christ" post was what we Yanks call a "joke". I thought it was a pretty amusing mental picture, too--Yoko Ono commanding the armies of darkness, taking phone calls from Saddam and Bert over in North Korea.

READER ARNOLD WRITES:

Dear Lingster,

I think your remark about the anti-christ is uncalled for. Just cause someone has an opinion which isn't the same as yours, doesn't make it any less valid. I personaly think trying to have peace is better than starting a war. I can understand why you might consider going to war to be a good thing, but I can't respect you for trying to convince other people it is so.

Never forget that Saddam Hussein was placed in power in Iraq through your very own CIA, just like most other dictators in Asia and South-America, as a prevention to communism. And he was funded by your own government until Gorbatchov was elected in the Russia.

I would also like to remind you that a strike at Iraq isn't supported by any country other than your own. Don't count on support of the British, because 70% of it's people is against a war in Iraq. Blair will have a vote of non-confidence and will be forced to resign before the weapons are fired.

Please consider what I wrote here. In case you were wondering. I'm not from a country in Asia and I am not a Muslim. I'm a European living in the Netherlands.

Yours sincerely,
Arnold

My main argument against Yoko Ono is the Beatles break-up. Her opinion on Iraq is inconsequential, though amusing to me. A majority of Canadians support the US in a war on Iraq, though their politicians refuse to go along, and it seems likely that Australia may help out in some way. And Britain will come along, also--they have too much to lose. Don't forget that there was a terrorist hijacking plot aimed at Parliament last 9/11, too, but the British Government shut down commercial aviation so quickly that the plane never got in the air. And yes, an incorrect opinion is less valid than a correct opinion.

As for "starting a war", we have not. War was declared on us, and 3000 civilians were killed in a sneak attack. Afghanistan was a nice aperitif, but the real problem--and the real agents against us--are Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria. (And when I say "us", I mean the West.) All of those governments must fall and be replaced by more humane and liberal successors. This we will do. (And when I say "we", I mean the United States of America, since you Euros can't seem to comprehend the threat.)

Also, you are confusing your conspiracy theories--Saddam Hussein was not put in power by our nigh-omnipotent CIA. The Baath Party was already in power and Saddam was among a handful of leaders when he seized power by assassinating his rivals, and 1/3 of the leadership in one day. We supported him against Iran, that is true, but that worked out very well for us--two enemy states exhausting each other for eight years. Look it up.

I'm guessing you didn't vote for Pim Fortuyn's List, which is too bad. Pim was right.

FIRST SHE BROKE UP THE BEATLES, and now she's trying to save Saddam's ass. Well, boys, I think I figured out the identity of the anti-Christ.

I WENT DOWN THERE THIS MORNING, stood at Vesey and West Streets, with the thousands. I'm listening to WABC radio right now--the station is playing the reading of the names of the dead.

I DESPAIR OF EVER SEEING JAN, my Elimidate honey, ever again. She has not reappeared on the "This Week" section of the Web site since I missed her last appearance, and Elimidate is set to launch it's new season next week. Still, tonight's episode delivers at least one very busty girl, and I will make a habit of taping the extra episode that plays at 2am here in New York, and hope I strike gold. What I really need is TIVO.

BASED ON THE MESSAGE BOARD TRAFFIC AT RENDEROSITY, I may not owe Curious Labs an apology, after all. There are definite advantages to Poser 5, it seems, but many bugs. It's early, though, and many users haven't figured out how to "drive the truck", so to speak, just yet. Here's one of the more positive threads.

In case you're wondering what the difference is between shadow-mapping and ray-traced shadows, well, I'm not the best person to explain it. A raytraced render is one in which the entire render is assumed to be dark, and only areas that are illuminated show up as lit. A shadow-mapping approach identifies which surfaces are lit, but then adds the shadows later in the rendering process. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it's like the difference between allowing a shadow to happen naturally, and painting one on the ground afterward.

OH, THIS IS TERRIFIC. Fishy stuff going on in Manhattan this morning. I'm going to be at Ground Zero tomorrow morning.

MARKNEW RESPONDS TO BRYAN:

Hmmm. I enjoyed reading Bryan's letter. The fact is, I've been very happy lately. It's been a good year for me, even with job uncertainty and 9-11, so I wondered if I was really writing a lot of "downer" stories.

I thought Jilly Milly did have a happy ending. True Superboy didn't get his powers back, but I think he'll be very happy with Carol. He discovered he likes muscular women, and Carol seems like a delightful girl, much more so than Jill, Gudrun or Jessica, who got the comeuppance she deserved. So did Jill, who kept her super-powers and perhaps will be a better person for not being the most powerful being on the planet. By the ending, Superboy isn't as self-righteous as he was when he started, and he won't be as lonely either.

I agree with Bryan's point that my stories do not have a conventional happy ending, where all of the "good" characters are restored to what they had at the beginning, or more, and the bad characters suffer. Perhaps I'm not as sure as you are who is good and who is bad, who deserves to prosper and who to suffer. Was Superlad good? Should he have kept his powers? Certainly Aunt Betty wasn't bad, although she did pay a nasty trick on her nephew. In Give and Take, I wouldn't classify any of the characters as good. Thomas is an asshole. Marie starts out innocent, but quickly takes advantage of the situation. And Brandi -- well, let's not talk about Brandi. Of course from her perspective, and from Aunt Betty's and Luscious Lass's and probably the whole female sex in Jilly Milly, those stories ended happily. (Most of the characters in my next story, by the way, are "good," but they won't have an easy path to follow. I haven't decided on the ending yet; it's 50-50 that it will be "happy.")

I like stories where anything can happen, and it would defeat the purpose if we all knew where things would end up. What I try for is for the utmost in realism. Ha-ha, you think. Realism in stories about magic and superboy? But my kind of realism is to show how real people might react to these unreal situations. To me at least, it's more of a turn on to follow real characters through their unreal trials, never knowing how things will turn out.

But I am curious to know how many readers thought Jilly Milly had an downer ending. Write and let me know or better yet, post it on Lingster's Blog.

One more thought. Bryan wrote "I just wish he'd do some stories with a happy ending for most all involved." Not being a vengeance demon, I can't just say "Wish granted" and step back to enjoy the mess. But here is an interesting idea for a story. What if we all got what we wished for? Of course we all wish for different things and some of those wishes could be truly awful. So maybe let's say instead that only "good people" would get the wishing power. Even the do gooders among us might see happy endings in different lights. Think of how Jessica's wish might turn out. It might make for an interesting story -- maybe call it "Wishing War."

I JUST BECAME A PROTESTANT.

OH, WHAT A XENOPHOBIC, BIGOTED JACKASS I AM. So much less enlightened than these ambassadors of Islam in London. Muslims in Britain will actually be celebrating the anniversary of the 9/11 massacres this Wednesday. It's probably for the best there's no parallel rally scheduled here in the U.S., seeing as how Americans are still permitted to own firearms.

(But all those enemy combatants in one place? That's what monster-truck Sport Utility Vehicles were invented for.)

FROM THE NEW YORK POST, MIT stole comic-book art to win a government contract.

AND SINCE SOMEBODY SAID "GRIBBLE", he's got something new over at Wreck Shop's place. Take a look. I saw a preview copy, and it's pretty good. He doesn't even wreck the world at the end.

READER BRYAN WRITES:

I guess you're not really the guy to send this to, but I always wondered, why do almost all of Marknew's stories end on such a downer of some sort? I love growth stories more than anything, and it sucks that there aren't more of them out there (most stories on Diana and other sites are all about ball-busting and stuff, and I never thought that having my private parts smashed was particularly all that great the few times its happened to me), but I can't remember a single Marknew story that didn't end on a sad note of some sort. The last one, "Give and Take," was a perfect example. It really brought me down that some random chick at the end took all of Marie's newfound power. Marknew is a great writer, I just wish he'd do some stories with a happy ending for most all involved (unless, of course, they deserve what they get).

I have often corresponded with Mark about this very topic. I have noticed that, not only throughout all types of female growth fiction (giantess, breast enhancement, weight gain, muscularization, etc), but throughout all transformation fiction, there tends to be two camps: those who like stories in which events right themselves at the end, and those who like to preserve an imbalance of some sort. This is especially true in transference transformation fiction, where qualities are moved between actors in the story. Many of us who are fans of transference fiction enjoy the sense of justice when desriable qualities are moved from the undeserving to the more virtuous. Other readers prefer a more random or amoral approach.

In old Marknew stories like "Namow" and "What I Want", Mark seemed to be nodding at those of us who like a just resolution, allowing the possibility at the end that things might somehow be able to right themselves later. But his more recent stories have been increasingly negative--and unjust--in denouement. The mean-ness that he writes into stories these days does add suspense, though--I find myself reading his stories like I watch horror films, sort of with my hands over my eyes, my fingers spread just widely enough that I can peek through.

Maybe Mark has something to add? Also, Nomdreserv knows more about all sorts of transformation genres than I do--got anything to add, Nom? And while I hesitate to invite Gribble to add something--his verbosity knows no bounds--he also tends to write stories which have "bad" endings: the destruction of cities, planets, etc. So let me know what you think Gribble, just try to keep it under 800 words.

A SWEET LITTLE STORY at DtV about love and the muscularization of a girl, called "This is What I Want", parts 1 and 2.

I JUST WATCHED AN EPISODE OF DEXTER'S LABORATORY on Cartoon Network that is an unabashed satire of Marvel Two-in-One Annual #7, a twenty-year-old comic book. Here's a synopsis of that comic. The premise is simple--huge muscular cosmic pugilist comes to Earth and arranges a boxing exposition. If he is not properly challenged, he claims he will destroy the Earth. Stupid, right? But a great comic nonetheless. A whole host of superheroes rises to challenge him, but all lose quickly or are disqualified for unsportsmanlike behavior. Finally, the Thing is the only one still standing, and he is brought to the ring. They fight. On and on they fight. The Thing outlasts them all, but he's getting his nuts handed to him. The cosmic pugilist is beating the crap out of him. It ends thusly (from the synopsis linked above):

Thing collapses in the ring. Champion holds his belt high above his head and says that he searches worlds for competition. He says that those he finds worthy are allowed to continue their existence, but that the others must be purified. Champion is about to pass judgement on Earth, but Thing interrupts him. Thing says, “Hold it! This fight ain’t over yet… not by a long shot! Ya only won on a technicality! Ya didn’t really beat me! Ya’ll never beat me! I’m just too stupid… and ugly… ta know when to quit!” After a full ten seconds of silence, Champion helps Thing to his feet. He says that he knows now that he could never beat him. Champion says that he could crush his bones and break his body, but he could never break his spirit. Champion says that any world that could spawn one like him is the worthiest of all.

So OK, great 1980s comic, but why satirize it--with Randy Savage doing the voice of a cosmic WWF wrestler, and Dexter's monkey playing the role of the Thing? Here's the description of the episode from a Web guide: "'Rasslor'--Intergalatic Wrestling Champion Rasslor (voiced by "Macho Man" Randy Savage) challenges all of Earth's heroes to a wrestling match before he destroys the planet." Sure, I caught the reference, but I would expect that just about nobody else did. So what's the point? The writers amusing themselves? Not that it wasn't funny--Randy Savage doing his "Macho Man" voice, clutching the beaten monkey to his chest, and saying, "I could break your bones and your body, monkey, but I could never break your noble spirit. Any world that could spawn such as you is the worthiest one of all!"

It's just--odd.

SADDAM'S EX-MISTRESS SPEAKS in today's New York Post. Now, some of you people might be a little snobby about the Post: "It's just a tabloid!" But to my mind, there is no more entertaining and accurate source of news extant. Anyway, here's one thing the lady has to say:

Saddam's favorite movie is "The Godfather," Lampsos says, but he equally enjoys videos of the torture of his enemies - while smoking a cigar, having a drink and wearing a cowboy hat.

I must admit that actually sounds kinda fun, but most of us can't really get away with torturing our enemies. Perhaps when this is all over, a bootleg video of Saddam being tortured will be released on the Internet and traded via KaZaA. We can all kick up our boots, put on cowboy hats, smoke cigars and sip Jack Daniels as we watch the Butcher of Baghdad scream for his mommy.

SO SERENA BEAT VENUS. It's really interesting--discussions of Serena's unusual muscularity and tremendous strength have been conducted openly in the press throughout this U.S. Open season. And if anything, Serena's approach has been accepted as the rational one, and the burden of justification has shifted to waifs--such as Anna Kournikova--to explain why they don't train hard with weights. Martina Hingis has already begun to build her body, and women like Kournikova have to decide whether they will go that route, or lose all claim to competitiveness. As for me, I look forward to seeing lovely Anna sporting bulging biceps next year, once she decides it's more important to be an athlete than to look like a pop star (can you believe those puny arms?!).

RULE BRITTANIA! I am so happy with Great Britain, I made a muscle girl render just for our greatest ally!

ALBRECHT STROMEYER DISCUSSES his fixation with Serena Williams, in today's New York Post. The Post sent a woman to interview him, and he completely spilled his guts during the interview. Funny thing: the reporter doesn't ask him if he likes muscle girls, but here's what he has to say about his attraction to Serena:

Declaring that he fell for Serena's "grace, beauty and dignity," Stromeyer tapped his heart with his hand and said, "I love her deeply. My love is pure."

"It is not a sexual love but an aesthetic one. I also admire her discipline. It's something I've never had."

From the look of him in the inset photo, he never had her biceps, either. I'd worry more about what Serena could do to him than what he could do to her. (The one thing that really made me smile is that his mother is a psychotherapist. THAT speaks volumes.)

SO I OWE CURIOUS LABS AN APOLOGY. Apparently Poser 5 started shipping yesterday, while just a few weeks ago I predicted that it would not ship this summer. I haven't ordered my copy yet--there have been surprisingly few sample renders released, and I want to see what they look like before I slap down $200 for the new version. But I remain optimistic.

A PIC TAKEN EARLIER TODAY of the unspeakably yummy Francine Dee. This is her Website, and here's a page about her from Askmen.com.

READER ERIK Z. RIDES TO THE DEFENSE OF MIGHTY LINGSTER:

Oh PLEASE. Some liberal starts tossing around big words that they don't even know the meaning to. If you were xenophobic you'd hate/fear ALL foreign stuff. Including those hot busty Asian babes. So either you fight a heroic daily battle checking out those hot chics from other countries, or this guy has no idea what he's talking about.

And the only way he could prove you were a bigot would be to come up with a point that's in favor of the Arabs that's irrefutable. And if you cannot concede that point, then you'd be bigoted.

I have to admit, I had not considered the "hot busty Asian babes" defense.

READER WUSSY FORWARDS THIS BIT from Moviecomics.com

JENNIFER CAPRIATI GOES WILD at celebrity shithole Serafina in the East Village, according to the New York Post's Page Six. Matthew Perry from Friends is apparently quite taken with her--I wonder if he's one of us?

I GOT AN EMAIL TODAY from a reader who says I'm bigoted and xenophobic in regard to Muslims. At some level I'm tempted to simply say, "Yes. And your point is...?" But let's examine that. Number one, I have no problem with Turks or Indonesians. My problem is primarily with Arabs. And is it really xenophobic, or racist, to dislike such an awful, backward society? We're talking about a society that treats 50% of the population as chattel; a society that inflicts maximum punishment for minimal offenses; a society that lacks a single humane government among more than a dozen states.

Whenever an earthquake or a flood strikes that part of the world, the U.S. sends rescue teams and aid to help out. On September 11, 2001, 3000 of my countrymen were killed by Arabs. And in response, tens of thousands of Arabs danced in the streets. If a Catholic had flown a plane into the Holy Kaaba in Mecca, the Pope would have been apoplectic, and repudiated the deed in every forum he could find, for months following. Strangely, there was a less than energetic repudiation effort among Muslim clergy, following the actual events of 9/11. So I look at the Arab world and I see a failed civilization. I see a broad swath of backward bedouins, laboring in fantastic ignorance under the boots of ludicrous, anachronistic dictators.

What's to like? What's to respect? Nothing. We should smash the status quo and help them start over--just like we did in Japan and Germany after World War II. And that seems to be what W. has in mind.

A HILARIOUS STORY. I mean, OK, Muslims are supposed to pray toward Mecca, but are they flat-earthers? A Muslim in the United States would have to strap himself into some kind of rig in order to truly orient himself toward Mecca while praying--the shortest direct path is THROUGH the Earth. Maybe they could all get some of these.

READER CHANEY WRITES IN with this link from the Philadelphia Inquirer. It's about female tennis players adding muscle--really good piece.

NEWSFLASH--this just in. Don't you just love it when some egghead pisses away Federal grant money to do a study that tells everyone exactly what they already knew? i.e. Potato chips make you fat, driving really fast increases the risk of collisions, and parents of sexually active teens are generally oblivious to their kids' promiscuity. Duh.

Dr. Blum said the study did not examine why so many mothers were unaware of their children's sexual activity.

"Perhaps it's because they don't want to know," he said. "Perhaps they're not so involved in the lives of their teens. We just don't know."

Perhaps, shithead, it's because the kids conceal their sexual activity from their parents? Am I the only one who suspects this researcher didn't lose his virginity until he was 37? There ought to be a tag at the end of the story identifying how much of our money this guy blew.

A FUN SITE TO PLAY AROUND WITH, called "ReasonablyClever.com"

HELLO, NURSE! An outrageously cute and busty girl, also from FOB.

DUE TO THE LABOR DAY WEEKEND, new comics day is gonna be tomorrow, not today. The comic book distributors have always done this, and I've always thought it's bad business. If people come to expect to get new comics on Wednesday, and they go to the shops on Wednesday after a three-day weekend only to find the comics aren't there, what guarantee is there that they'll come back on Thursday? I'd be willing to bet that sales of issues releasde following a three day weekend are lower than the other issues of the same comics.

MEOW! A nice picture from Forest of Breast.

NEW COMICS DAY tomorrow, but the only decent one I see is Ultimate Spider-Man #26. For those of you not following, this is a re-imagining of the whole Spider-Man mythos, with Peter Parker a 15-year-old living in Queens, New York, today! It's really good. No femuscle, but really good.

THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA: The Chinese Communist Party is now blocking Google. The really hilarious thing about this is that Google allows search boxes to be installed on third party sites, via a free, downloadable API and developer's kit. What that means for the layman is that you don't have to go to Google to get Google search results.

READER DOCA WRITES:

Lingster:

Love the site.

Although your heart is in the right place about building megatowers on the former site of the WTC, a lot of this comes down to a financial and well-thought out decision.

A big reason why more people didn't die when the towers collapsed is that a lot of the offices in the WTC were vacant. Not vacant meaning evacuated - vacant meaning there was just empty space, no one was leasing the property. To build a property where the space will go unused - especially in this economy - is not feasible.

Another thing - which is why the original six plans didn't have any towers NEARLY as tall as the original WTC - is because NO BODY WANTS TO WORK IN A TARGET. I know a lot of people who work at the Empire State or similar tall buildings who don't want to work there because when the other shoe falls, (and trust me, it's gonna fall) they think they'll be next.

The site is also sacred ground now. 3000 people died there, including 350+ firefighters. Do you think those people and their families want a garish megacomplex on top of where their loved ones died?

Welcome to Starbucks, never mind the spectre of Father Mike.

The entire site shouldn't be a memorial. This much is true.

However, some of the site does need to be used as office space, etc. The downtown economy has to be rebuilt.

That's why a compromise is needed.

As for your other thing - Opie and Anthony....

What happened was over the top. But it's a prime example of what the news can do when it's a slow news week.

Because of the media witchhunt, WNEW is on the brink of implosion, which will put 30+ people out of a job. In this day and age of radio, 30 people who are working in the business that they love will be hard pressed to find another job in Market One.

A lot of the reporting was biased Anti-O&A, and a lot of the facts were wrong.

Listen to the tapes - I have the show in question. What happened was absurd - but it's nowhere NEARLY as bad as the media made it sound.

Just my two cents. Please don't use my email addy, just credit me as DocA.

Thanks for site kudos.
The World Trade Center was actually pretty full up with tenants at the time it was destroyed, though it had never been a trememdous success in those terms. For years after it was built, Wall St. treated it as a red-headed step-child, and it had to be filled with City and State workers to bring in rent revenue. Whatever goes up there will have the same problem, but that is academic. We have to build something equally or more grand than what that stood there before, or be exposed as weaklings for the whole world--and I can assure you that will cost us more in the long run than a couple of empty skyscrapers. And as for the spectre of Father Mike--there are a lot of ghosts in lower Manhattan, and the vast majority of them were there before 9/11. My great-great-grandfather died a few blocks north of there, of unfortunate circumstances, but that doesn't keep me from eating at Luncheonette.

Really, I don't want to seem insensitive. I won't ever forget what happened that day--I don't think more than two or three hours go by without it running through my head, and my stomach tightening with the horror of it. And I seethe when people say "get over it"--I'll be over it when the score has been evened. But making a shrine of the site is the wrong way to go. Do you know what Pearl Harbor is today? It's a U.S. Navy Base--and may it remain so for all time. There's a difference between showing respect for the dead, and remaining in mourning forever. Widows wear black for a year. It's been a year.

As for Opie & Anthony, and WNEW, consider them an object lesson. I guarantee it will be a long time before a shock jock desecrates another church. And again, I think that object lesson is worth more than the economic costs of WNEW having its license revoked.

EATING DOMINO'S AND WATCHING MY THIRD STRAIGHT LAW & ORDER EPISODE. Ah, the life of the bachelor.

(Law & Order is on TV so much, shouldn't there be a Law & Order Network?)

US OPEN BRINGS MUSCULAR WOMEN TO TOWN: Aside from jaw-dropping shots of Serena Williams (1, 2, 3, 4) or of Corina Morariu, there are also stories of other players, struggling to get on the bicep bandwagon. This from the London Times:

Hingis clearly has the more difficult task. She was never a particularly violent striker of the ball and never won many free points from her serve, but she thought her way through matches better than anyone, worked the court, employed subtle changes of flight and variations of pace. Now, the 21-year-old is down to No 9 in the world -she asked for a late wild-card into the championship, having first felt that she could not compete here -and the fear factor has all but dissipated among the top 20. During the recuperation period, Hingis worked assiduously on her upper body strength, to the extent that she has developed a mean pair of biceps.

And from this picture, that looks to be true, though in others, she looks the same as ever. The real question in my mind, though, is will Anna Kournikova bow to the pressure and build some guns for herself? Thus far, she's refused, preferring to "preserve her femininity". Silly girl.

RUDOLPH GIUILIANI GETS IT EXACTLY WRONG when he calls for the entirety of Ground Zero to be set aside as a memorial. September 11, 2001 was not the first time New York has been devastated by war in September. It was not even the first time that the ground on which the World Trade Center sat (at least that portion of it that was above water) was burned and destroyed in war. On September 21, 1776, following the British invasion of Manhattan, some party of individuals put the torch to New York, destroying hundreds of buildings and all told about one quarter of the city. The survivors did not wall off southern Manhattan as a memorial. Instead they rebuilt. There have been other fires since, and much destruction, but we have always rebuilt.

We should build three grand, glorious, 120 story towers on the site. We should tell those who attacked us---who knocked down those towers--you cannot defeat us. Do your worst; we will rebuild and come for you. And after we come for you, there will be no rebuilding of what we destroy, because you will all be dead.

HOO-YAH! This is what I'm talking about! Vengeance!