Athlete Of The Day: Stefan Read

I love watching most sports on tv, especially hockey and basketball. I am already counting down the days til the Olympics. I can watch almost any Olympic sport (except for maybe Ice Dancing and curling...). Since the games are in Canada this year, lets start my profile of Olympians with Calgary's Stefan Read.

22 year old ski jumper Stefan Read first took a crack at the Olympic Games in 2006. Since then, Read has moved int competition on the World Cup circuit, and has become a leader on the team. Skilled and adorable! Let the games begin!




Stefan Read:
Stats:
Date of Birth: May 07, 1987
Birthplace: Edmonton, AB
Hometown: Calgary, AB
Residence: Calgary, AB
Ht: / Wt: 5'9" / 132 lbs
Club: Altius Nordic Ski Club
Coach: Tadeusz Bafia
Language Spoken: English, French
Began Competing: 2001
Specialty: LH Individual, NH Individual, LH Team
Pronunciation: STEHF-in REED

New Model Of The Day: Antonio Garcia

Antonio Garcia is a relative newcomer to the fashion industry but he has already had photographs published in several magazines, catalogues and calendars and he has also taken part in some important runway shows in Spain. He is a keen sportsman and loves everything related to sport. He has worked with photographers Mark Leigthon, Andres Ramirez, Alberto Peregrino, Mark Montovio, Gonzalo Bernard, David Ruiz, Jose Cuenca and Manuel Barca to name but a few. He recently returned from taking part in an international contest where he took the award of Best Physique and 1st Runner Up and he is now in Bulgaria taking part in the final of Best Model of the World which will take place on 11th December.

23 year old Antonio describes himself as energetic with a passion for his work. You can see the passion in Antonio's face in each and every one of his photos. Antonio has it all, a great face, lips and an incredibly sexy nose. A great body, due in part to his love of everything related to sports. Hailing from Spain, Antonio is represented by Mount Productions in Gibraltar. You can check out Antonio's full profile at Mount Productions HERE:



Antonio Garcia:
Stats:
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 169 lbs
Shoe size: 9
Hair color: Brown
Hair length: Short
Eye color: Brown
Skin color: White
Experience: Experienced





Next two shots by David Ruiz.





Next three stunning shots of Antonio by Gonzalo Benard.





Next two shots by Mark Leighton. Mark is a favorite of mine whose work I have featured many times before on the blog.






Below: The last five images of Antonio are some of my favorites. They are by photographer Mark Montovio from Mount Photography.

Favorite Pic of the Day for December 2nd

Love Love this shot of Tommy by Nicolas Smith. More of the work of Nicolas below.

Kudos to TELEVISION!

Sigourney Weaver


Why the hell is Sigourney Weaver not in movie after movie any more??? John Travolta is, and most of his movies the past decade quite frankly suck! In the 70's, 80's and 90's, Weaver was in some of Hollywood's greatest movies, Alien and it's sequels, Gorilla's In The Mist, Working Girl, The Ice Storm (and the not so great, but I still love Copycat) just to name a few.

Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, The Natural, Reversal Of Fortune, The World According to Garp.

Even Demi Moore, until her mid thirties, had hit after hit with G.I Jane, Disclosure, Ghost, Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men. Then...pretty much nothing.


Kyra Sedgwick


Glenn Close, smartly joined Mary Louise Parker, Kyra Sedgwick and Holly Hunter on cable tv, starring in wonderful, character driven shows with writers who know how to write for strong women.

Demi and Sigourney sort of dropped off the face of the earth, with only small parts, small movies and tv guest shots the last decade or so. Sigourney looks to be launching a comeback with her role in Avatar, but really this woman should be working more!


Holly Hunter


This past year, the top 10 grossing movies were:

1 Transformers 2
2 Harry Potter: Half-Blood Prince
3 Up
4 The Hangover
5 Star Trek
6 Twilight: New Moon
7 Monsters vs. Aliens
8 Ice Age 3
9 Wolverine
10 Night at the Museum 2

Although The Ryan Reynolds, Sandra Bullock flick 'The Proposal' was 11, not one (except maybe...Twilight) of the top 10 movies features a woman in a lead. Kevin James, Paul Blart: Mall Cop even made more money than Meryl Streep's Julie and Julia.

What exactly does all this mean? Not really sure, it certainly is not about peoples entertainment preferences, women still dominate many of the best roles on television. There are many reasons, from international distribution to the fact that with the exception of The Hangover, 9 of the top 10 flicks listed above are 'special effects' driven flicks that appeal as much to teenagers as to adults.

Meryl Streep, Bullock and Jodie Foster seem to be a few of the female US stars able to continue to be cast in leading roles. I keep coming back to the wonderful Sigourney Weaver. No real point to this post except to once again say, Weaver, and all of the actress's mentioned in this post can act the pants off Travolta, Tom Cruise and Will Smith. It is just shameful they are not gracing our movie screens more often.

So glad Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis were born when they were or they would be playing Shia LeBeof's mother in some summer blockbuster...

So kudos to televison. From; That Girl, Julia, Sue Ellen Ewing, Cagney and Lacy, Dr. Kerry Weaver, Carrie Bradshaw,Olivia Bensen, Wilhelmina Slater,Nora Walker and many others, tv continues to give us wonderful female characters who viewers love and invest in. Sad that the motion picture business cannot seem to do the same.


Glenn Close.

TV Hunks of the Week: The Bolen's from Desperate Housewives

I have not written much about 'Desperate Housewives' lately. I stopped watching last season when they killed off the wonderful Nicolette Sheridan. She made the show special to me with some of the best line delivery on prime time. Keeping Dana Delany, (usually amazing, on DH boring as sin), was a mistake. That along with Marc Cherry's inability to maintain any sort of consistency with his writing and storytelling and the fact that even though gay, he could not write a decent storyline for a gay character with a gun to his head!

I have DVR's the last couple of episodes for two reasons. Firstly because of the promos for the plane crash storyline. Secondly, I was interested to see if Drea de Matteo could bring any life to a show I once liked. Well I watched a couple of episodes last night, and I was write to stop watching. The storylines for the main characters remain repeats of seasons past. Well acted, but poorly written and repeats. Drea heads the new family on the block, The Bolens and they were the only thing that remotely interested me. Jeffrey Nordling plays Nick Bolen, and Beau Mirchoff plays his son Danny. These two actors, both appealing, talented and HOT were, along with Drea the most interesting thing about the hour. Of course I will continue to watch for a bit, but... as you know Cherry cannot write for male characters, nor non housewives, so both will be written out before I have time to get my interest back.

I usually am not so negative about a show, but it is difficult when a show began with such talent, such promise, such ratings and BLOWS IT! 'Housewives' still brings in the ratings, but it is not because it deserves it. The ratings are for the past seasons, not the current one. I think viewers keep hoping it will back to where it once was. Not sure it is possible. As talented as the four leads are, even they are not able to continue enthusiasm over scenes that are repeated over and over and over again. That being said, Beau and Jeffrey are worth a look!


Beau Mirchoff

I began a crush on Beau Mirchoff when he was on 'Heartland'. Adorable, and mega talented. Hopefully when Cherry writes Beau out he will move on to bigger roles more deserving of his talent.






Below: Beau in 'The Grudge 3'. Thanks to Superherofan for the caps!.







Jeffrey Nordling

Jeffrey Nordling began acting professionally in the late 80's and turned up on many of my favorite shows. I really crushed over Jeffrey when he played Sela Ward's ex on Once and Again. The producers wisely put Jeffrey in tight jeans in many of his scenes and although I, like Sela would have chosen Billy Campbell, I would certainly have kept Jeffrey around.






Jeffery in 'And The Band Played On' (1993). Thanks to Charles for the download!