Vajazzlin’!

You can bedazzle your sweater. You can bedazzle a pair of jeans. But have you ever considered bedazzling your privates?

Enter the latest fashion trend: Vajazzling! New York City’s Completely Bare Spa offers a special waxing service, “followed by a Swarovski crystal tattoo design in starburst, butterfly, heart and other shapes.” According to Jennifer Love Hewitt, getting her “precious lady” covered in crystals was just what she needed to get over a breakup. “It shined like a disco ball.”

It’s vaccination time!

Good news. From the New York State website:

Governor David A. Paterson today announced that, effective immediately, health care providers may make the H1N1 flu vaccine available to all New Yorkers who want the vaccine, including those who are not in priority groups established by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If you don’t have health insurance, get thee to a clinic this weekend. This is the last weekend you’ll be able to get an H1N1 shot for free. Clinics will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, 12/12, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, 12/13.

Personal Space Protector

“PERSONAL SPACE is an object classified as ‘functional art’, created by the Brazilian artist and inventor Vivian Puxian. It ensures your personal space is always kept safe, and protects you against infectious and contagious diseases, such as the swine flu.”

Get onto the subway during rush hour with one of these things, and swine flu will be the least of your worries.

Tracking the Swine Flu

Are we headed for another 1918 pandemic? Let’s hope to God not. Perhaps it’s too soon to be worried, but we definitely should be concerned.

To view a regularly updated (and somewhat disturbing) map of all the reported cases of H1N1 infections, check out Google Maps. New York City is shown above, but you can zoom out to see how the country and the rest of the world is being affected.

Update: According to Google, “Due to the increasing amount of data, we have moved to a more scalable mapping/data tracking system provided by Rhiza Labs at this URL: http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com.”

The fittest and the fattest

Men’s Health just completed its 11th annual survey of 50 of the most populated U.S. cities to rank them by how fit or fat they are.

The fittest? Salt Lake City. This is surprising until you check out its “report card” and see that it has a large amount of park space, a low obesity rate, and a high level of sport participation.

The fattest? Miami. Why? To quote the article, “The area also has 79% more gyms and health clubs than average, but residents are less likely than average to regularly use their memberships.”

How did New York City fare? Surprisingly badly. It’s the 5th fattest city. With a huge park, lots of dining options, and people walking everywhere, you’d think we’d score better than that. It turns out than per capita, we’re quite low on park space and health food stores, and our commutes are much more stressful than average. (Thank you, MTA!)