Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 5:37PM Current bid on CharityBuzz for a one-hour tennis lesson with Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf is $10,000. You have 18 days left to make your bid, win the auction, and then book a ticket to Las Vegas. 
Hey, you never know!
Monday, February 27, 2012 at 6:49PM
Not sure about you, but we loved the back-to-camera flirtation that Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez showed while presenting at the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony. Loose Latin translation: Buttus Biggus Bellus. Anyway, Diaz: How about those guns? 
Here (above) she is at the Vanity Fair party, with nice definition. There is no doubt she's earned it. But you don't get arms like hers without without blood, sweat, tears, and reps.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 9:51AM DENVER — Quite a few of the frighteningly fit live around here. On a balmy Saturday, or for that matter a frigid winter weekday before dawn, an army of them emerges to run and bike. And in their intimidating long strides and whirring spokes, they underscore why Colorado is the least obese state in the nation.
But walking to get somewhere? Different story.
People like Gosia Kung and Dr. Andrew M. Freeman are trying to change that. In very different ways and for different reasons — she is an architect, he a cardiologist — they are trying to reincorporate physical activity into the sinews of a place that, despite its fantastic body mass index, lost touch like most American cities with the idea of walking as transportation.
Last year, Ms. Kung co-founded a nonprofit group called Walk Denver, which is trying to get the city certified as a “Walk Friendly Community.” It is also an advocate for a previously voiceless group, the ordinary walker — whispering into the ears of city planners, or nagging if need be, and preaching to the public.
It is the physical space of a city, Ms. Kung said on a recent walk through downtown, that creates a pedestrian’s view of the world. Ample sidewalks are crucial, she said, but they provide only the means of access to an environment that must then reward walkers through attractions like shopping and entertainment that cater specifically to foot traffic.
More walkers, whether strolling or striding, in turn reinforce an old idea that Ms. Kung said many cities have forgotten: better public health and improved economic life go together.
“I’ve always been interested in urban design — how we interact with built environments and how it affects us,” said Ms. Kung, who grew up in Krakow, Poland, and never got over the example of its dense and tangled medieval walking streets. Her experience in America, in turn, was immediately intertwined with the downside of the car culture.
“When I moved from Poland to the U.S. in 1997, I got my driver’s license and I gained 20 pounds,” she said.
Dr. Freeman leads a group called Walk With a Doc, which encourages patients to get out, once a month or so, to stroll the city with their physicians. The group’s most recent walk, in January — walkers can be hard-core, too, no matter the season — drew 135 people, including 10 doctors.
“Gosia is working on making it easier and getting people inspired to do walking,” Dr. Freeman said. “We’re out there because exercise is the best medicine. It’s free, and there are no side effects.”
Read the full story in The New York Times
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 8:54AM 
One of the more striking revelations in Daphne Merkin's New York Times Magazine profile of Mike Tyson comes near the top of the story. Not that he attends Gymboree classes with his two-year-old daughter Milan in suburban Las Vegas--and now, kids, we're going to play a game called Elephant in The Room!--but how diet helps to manage his impulses:
As part of his cleaning-up campaign, he has been adhering to a strict vegan diet for nearly two years, explaining that he doesn’t want anything in him “that’s going to enrage me — no processed food, no meat.” He says that he can no longer abide the smell of meat even on someone’s breath and has dropped 150 pounds since he weighed in at 330 in 2009. “I’ve learned to live a boring life and love it,” he declares, sounding more determined than certain. “I let too much in, and look what happened. . . . I used to have a bunch of girls and some drugs on the table. A bunch of people running around doing whatever.”
If the idea of reading another celebrity profile makes your eyes glaze over, think again. This is a fascinating story of a man struggling with life, himself, right, wrong, a "tripolar" disorder, fame and humility. Also, there are pigeons.
Mike Tyson, pigeons, vegan Monday, March 7, 2011 at 7:21PM 
Nash, not at restSteve Nash, still banging on the parquet for the Pheonix Suns at the age of 37, is even greater than we thought. He takes regular naps. According to The New York Times, he is just one of a huge number of bold face power nappers in the NBA. (LA Laker Kobe Bryant actually checks into a hotel for his pre-game sleep when due to play at home.) Nash, the All-Star point guard, knows that decline may come fast at his age. But his solution is not to increase his conditioning or to lift more weights. Instead, he plans to increase his naptime, seizing on an element of NBA life as common as a 3-point shot.
“If you nap every game day, all those hours add up and it allows you to get through the season better,” Nash told a reporter at the paper of record. “I want to improve at that, so by the end of the year, I feel better.”
Nash is among a great majority of NBA players who swear by their pregame nap. Most are interested in its restorative benefits, although a few may just be trying to counter boredom. Whatever the reason, balls stop bouncing and shoes stop screeching every afternoon.
“Everyone in the league office knows not to call players at 3 p.m.,” said Adam Silver, the league’s deputy commissioner. “It’s the player nap.”
Here's the whole story. Pleasant dreams.
