Andrej Pejic, Macaulay Culkin and the Johnny Cash twins

 

So fashion week begins in New York City and the buzz online is not about the latest designer trends, but a beautiful blond model who is actually a man, Andrej Pejic.  

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

He's the only top-tier fashion model who can walk down the runway as either a man or a woman, making him a trendsetter in an industry always looking for the next big thing.  He rivals female models with perfect bone structure, slender physique and golden locks.  Pejic made the cover of 14 magazines last year and even appeared in a campaign for push-up bras.   He was born in Bosnia, spent years in a Serbian refugee camp, eventually fled to Australia, and wound up working at a McDonald's where a talent scout discovered him.   Now, he's in high demand for both men's and women's fashion shows.

"Macaulay Culkin is in perfectly good health" is the quote of a spokesman for the actor after a photograph (see it here) suggesting he might have been Home Alone too long went viral.   Culkin appears very thin and gaunt in the photograph, but his spokesman says the former child star is fine and any speculation to the contrary is "reckless, irresponsible and destructive."

A much different photo is generating a buzz this morning.   A photo of a veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen has been chosen as the World Press Photo of the Year.   Samuel Aranda, a freelance photographer on assignment for the New York Times, took the picture at a field hospital inside a mosque in Sanaa on October 15.

(AP Photo/Samuel Aranda/New York Times)

Another hot photo is the Tesla Model X.  

Tesla Motors rolled out the new electric sports utility vehicle last night.  The Model X seats 7, has all-wheel drive with dual motors, goes from 0-60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds and sells for… well, we don't yet, but the Model S (an electric sedan) runs around $57,000.   You can reserve yours starting at 3:00 p.m. ET today: http://www.teslamotors.com/.

I'm holding out for the Bugatti Veryon, which gets speeds up to 225 miles per hour and 80 miles to the gallon.   Heck, I could get to work in 30 minutes on a gallon of gas in this baby.  

 

CPAC is the top search on Google this morning as thousands of conservative activists converged Thursday on Washington for the annual event.  Florida Senator Mark Rubio, widely considered a top prospect for the Republican nominee for Vice President, kicked off the meeting.  Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are scheduled to speak today.

Lots of people are also searching for details on the massive mortgage settlement announced on Thursday and whether they will get help.   Many troubled homeowners will see a reduction in the mortgage rates on their underwater properties.  For many others, it's going to be too little, too late.

New Jersey is one of ten states granted an exit visa from No Child Left Behind by President Obama on Thursday.  The 2002 law sought to get all children up to par in math and reading by 2014, but created new problems and it was apparent that goal is not within reach.  The president's decision to free the 10 states allows them to proceed with their own, federally-approved plans for educating children and improving poor performing schools. 

From YouTube, we have this guy who decided to take out his frustration over a post on his daughter's Facebook wall by making a viral video of himself reading the post and then shooting up her laptop.   The video has generated a laundry list of commentary, from calling him the dad of the year to questioning his parenting tactics.   You can decide for yourself.

 

This one is hard to watch, but Stefani Bardin, a media maker exploring the intersection of art, technology, science, visual culture and community, created a video that was shown at TEDxManhattan about her latest "smartpill" project to record how the human body digests processed and unprocessed food.

 

Woolly mammoth became a trending topic and a viral video after The Sun posted what appears to be a Wooly mammoth wandering around Siberia.  Most are confident the video is a hoax since no one has seen a woolly mammoth in about 10,000 years.

 

A Loch Ness monster of sorts has also gone viral… this is one is called the Iceland Worm Monster.

 

The Ferris wheel is going green.  Seems like a lot of work.

 

Not sure what possessed a guy in New Hampshire to do it, but he used a Bobcat E50 excavator to stack one beer bottle on top of another, and then placed a golf ball on top.

 

Finally, the Johnny Cash twins.

 

That's the trend!

Have a great weekend!!!

Bob