A Funny Thing Happened at the Gym

I went to the Stamford (Springdale) NYSC today, as I often do, as the Greenwich NYSC is becoming more and more useless to me over time. There is a fellow whom I often see, probably in his early-mid 50s, American, but probably of Polish extraction. As I was walking to the cables (today was triceps), he actually started speaking to me. He wanted to let me know that he thought I looked like Czar Nicholas II, and if I had heard that from anyone before. I told him that I hadn't, although some people have mentioned I look like King George V. At the time, I couldn't mentally picture Czar Nicholas II, so when I got home from the gym via Tower Records to pick up a copy of The Boondocks on DVD, I popped onto Wikipedia to do some research.

One of my favourite pics of King George V:


A portrait of Czar Nicholas II:


Striking resemblance to each other, don't you think? (and both *rather* attractive ;-) )

What I failed to remember was they're first cousins! So now The Patty Duke Show doesn't seem so strange.

I knew that (then) Prince George was in the Royal Navy, but I didn't realise that through his time at sea, he would amass several tattoos, including irezumi (Japanese traditional tattoo) of a dragon (龍 ryu) while he was a midshipman on the HMS Baccante:




Interesting, as I have long had an idea that I would eventually get a single tattoo of a phoenix on my back, whose wings would stretch across to the tips of my shoulders, and whose tail would end at the small of my back. I've had dreams about getting it done, each dream building on the work done in the past. To this day, my dream-self has this tattoo.

A Funny Thing Happened at the Gym

I went to the Stamford (Springdale) NYSC today, as I often do, as the Greenwich NYSC is becoming more and more useless to me over time. There is a fellow whom I often see, probably in his early-mid 50s, American, but probably of Polish extraction. As I was walking to the cables (today was triceps), he actually started speaking to me. He wanted to let me know that he thought I looked like Czar Nicholas II, and if I had heard that from anyone before. I told him that I hadn't, although some people have mentioned I look like King George V. At the time, I couldn't mentally picture Czar Nicholas II, so when I got home from the gym via Tower Records to pick up a copy of The Boondocks on DVD, I popped onto Wikipedia to do some research.

One of my favourite pics of King George V:


A portrait of Czar Nicholas II:


Striking resemblance to each other, don't you think? (and both *rather* attractive ;-) )

What I failed to remember was they're first cousins! So now The Patty Duke Show doesn't seem so strange.

I knew that (then) Prince George was in the Royal Navy, but I didn't realise that through his time at sea, he would amass several tattoos, including irezumi (Japanese traditional tattoo) of a dragon (龍 ryu) while he was a midshipman on the HMS Baccante:




Interesting, as I have long had an idea that I would eventually get a single tattoo of a phoenix on my back, whose wings would stretch across to the tips of my shoulders, and whose tail would end at the small of my back. I've had dreams about getting it done, each dream building on the work done in the past. To this day, my dream-self has this tattoo.