Kat Von D and Jesse James: Engaged...

Can you imagine the art work that is going to be present at that wedding ceremony?

Kat Von D, the star of LA Ink, and Jesse James, the former husband of Sandra Bullock, have announced their engagement.

The announcement suggests that they have each found their soul mate and are both happy together.

I wonder if Sandra Bullock will be attending the nuptials?

In the meantime, here are the happy couple (and some additional shots of the beautifully tattooed Kat Von D...all photos available online if one cares to look :D).

Tattoos and Women...

I am a fan of tattoos. I always have been, and I cannot see any reason why I won't always be a fan.

Tattoos, like other great art, can be appreciated for not only their beauty but the stories they tell. When I started getting tattoos, tattoos were yet to be the mainstream that they are today. I am not suggesting for one minute I am a trend-setter or that I preceded the trend. Rather, I am merely pointing out how things change. I am pretty certain that trends come and go much more easily than some people appreciate. You really have to love what you get. This is particularly so when your family is not so keen on the skin art that you may get done.

I am also a pretty keen watcher of tattoo programs like Miami Ink, LA Ink and Tattoo Wars, particularly while I was in Indonesia (I always seemed to have more time for TV).

Here is a collection of artwork that I have discovered on the internet. I just did a simple search for tattoos and women. I came up with these.

Art-wise, I really like this one!

Kat Von D of LA Ink fame. One of my favourite portrait artists. I hope one day to get some work done by her, a portrait of course!

I saw this one and just had to post it! After all, who gives a magazine a title like "Prick"?

Lara Bingle vs. Nicole King...

I was going to write about this the other day. I was intending to put this in the "tattoo series" that I have been putting together. The hook was always going to be that Nicole King and Lara Bingle were cousins and the idea of healthy competition among family members.

To be honest, King's tattoo is pretty impressive. It is worth pointing out that along the rib cage is one of the more painful places to have ink work done. Unless you are a fat bastard like me, then it is not all that different to anywhere else on your personal canvas (aka skin).

Lara Bingle's fame sort of stemmed from being picked from relative obscurity to be the bikini in the Australian Tourism ad campaign "Where the Bloody Hell are ya?" More recently it has been about being engaged to Michael Clarke, Australian Test Cricket Captain in waiting, and then being separated from Clarke.

The fact that there is a mobile phone topless shot of her floating around the internet taken by a married former lover of hers, Brendan Fevola, ensures that she remains a searchable prospect on the internet. This is particularly so in the light of persistent rumours that there are also a few naked and full-frontal options available.

However, the icing on the cake for these two is that Bingle has come out on the Kyle Sandilands 2Day FM radio show and said that she is not related to King. They are not cousins. Bingle does not know of her, and has never met her.

Not to be deterred, King has countered that they are in fact cousins because King's mother and Bingle's father were cousins.

In the big scheme of things, I am sure it is important for them. For me, it is just a pretty good excuse to post some bikini pictures of two attractive young women, and one with a pretty nice tattoo.

Jodie Marsh in Zoo Magazine...

This post is in the "tattoo series". I really like tattoos.

I wonder if the Minister of [Mis]Communication and [Lack of] Information in the Republic of Indonesia would like to shake hands with Jodie Marsh? After all, they are not related.

Although, I am guessing that a few people will be thinking that they might want to be reincarnated as a stuffed bear!

Tattoo Regrets?

Britney Spears and Those Neck Tattoos...

The big questions of the world today include whether the neck tattoos seen on Britney Spears are real or fake. My guess is they are fake. The tattoos actually look like birds to me, but apparently they are two flowers and a fox.

Spears is enjoying a bit of a career resurgence after a guest spot on Glee.

Real or not, the tattoos ensure that she stays in the headlines for a little longer still. Her career has been a spectacular ride of ups and downs. Hopefully, the up swing that she seems to be on at the moment is one that lasts a while.

Real and Fake Tattoos...

Kat Von D vs. Rihanna...

I wonder who has the real tattoos?

My personal preference is always going to be Kat. She is an awesome artist and I love her work (and the work she has had done on herself).

LA Ink all the way!

Cut Tari and Ariel Peterporn...

The proof of the deed is in the "watches". Or, more specifically in the "watch" of Nazriel "Ariel" Irham, amateur pornographer and wannabe porn star.

The attached image is supposedly proof positive that the fellow wearing the watch and making a rear entry into the scene is none other than Ariel. The photo really is a little to grainy for my liking. It would be so much easier if there was a much more obvious distinguishing feature' like a tattoo or a mole on the end of his penis or something (not that I would be looking, of course), just something that the police could grab on to might help in resolving this case...

In any event, if the case is this easy, why is it taking the police so long to lay the charges, complete the case file, and hand this thing off to the prosecutors?

Ho hum...

Pink -- The Grammys...

Pink always puts on a good show. A ticket to the Grammys just to see Pink perform would have been worth its weight in gold, at least to me.

Enjoy the photos of the Grammys performance (nice tattoos).

Tattooing Children and Circumcision...

Novel legal arguments have always fascinated me, and this is a novel legal argument. Enrique Gonzalez had his seven-year-old son tattooed with a gang sign. The tattoo is on the young boy's hip, and was tattooed by Travis Gorman. Gonzalez was charged with mayhem. A mayhem charge in California attracts a life sentence.

The judge of Fresno County Superior Court, Hillary Chittick, has still to decide whether the mayhem charge is warranted. In any event, the lawyers for Gonzalez and Travis argued that the tattoo, which is about the size of a quarter, failed to satisfy the statutory requirement of permanent disfigurement. The lawyers went even further by suggesting that circumcision is a more painful and permanent disfigurement than a tattoo.

Personally, I do not think parents should be allowed to have their children tattooed. However, I am not certain that a mayhem charge is the most appropriate charge in this case. It would seem that the fact that the father and the artist are involved in a gang might have played into the seriousness of the charge laid. Nevertheless, there needs to be some penalty imposed. However, I wonder whether tattooing a child is sufficient to sustain a charge of child abuse.

Gratuitous Postings -- Hayden Panettiere -- Heroes

I must confess that this post, photo, and the associated tags are a means of testing whether or not a gratuitous posting of a young woman in a sexy sheer lace dress can cause a spike in my visitor statistics. I will let you know how that goes.

Sad but true :D

Hayden Panettiere is known for her role in "Heroes". However, she has crossed over into the big screen format as well. This picture is from a promotional trip she took to the Late Show with David Letterman for "I Love You Beth Cooper". She is not nude, but the dress does not leave a whole lot to the imagination.

The other thing that Panettiere is known for is her ink, particularly a misspelled tattoo. There is a photo of that here.

Tattoo Regrets?

Getting a tattoo is usually quite the experience, and for some it is one they might live to regret. However, in Belgium the case for regret might be not only extreme but somewhat expensive to reverse.

A Belgian teenager managed to get half of her face tattooed with 56 black stars. Kimberley Vlaeminck (photo courtesy of here), who is 18, claims that she went to a popular tattoo parlour and asked for three little stars. To avoid the pain, she claims she went to sleep. But, when she woke up she found that the tattoo artist was starting on her nose and had already inked onto the left side of her face some 56 stars.

The woman has decided to sue the tattoo parlour and the artist, Rouslan Tomaniantz, according to the Flemish Daily, Het Laaste Nieuws, because the tattoo is not what she wanted and she is now too embarrassed to head out of her house.

I have a few tattoos myself, and I have got to say that during the process of being tattooed, sleep was the furthest thing from my mind at the time. I am proud to say none of my tattoos were inked while I was drunk and I have no regrets on any of them. Each has significance to me and were inked for particular reasons and at particular times.

That said, I just cannot see how one could sleep during the process of getting a facial tattoo and more specifically, getting 56 stars inked on your face.

This seems to be more like a girl thinking a facial tattoo would be cool and getting one done. Then, she goes home and the parents, or the husband, or the friends, blow a gasket and there are some immediate regrets.

The thing with tattoos is that they are so much more expensive to get removed than they ever are to get inked on in the first place.

Tattoo Taboos

The humble tattoo is no longer the world of just bikers, criminals, or other so-called undesirable elements of the community. I would not describe bikers as being undesirable elements of the community, if you were wondering. Tattoos have been going mainstream for some time and it seems that they have hit the mainstream vein as employers of all kinds are becoming more accepting of the idea of employees permanently inking their skin.

Just tracking the Sydney and New South Wales tattoo scene sees that from a mere three licensed artists in 1984, there has been a bit of an explosion with more than 50 licensed artists throughout the State. Tattoos were once identified as a moment of drunken stupidity in one's youth, this is clearly no longer the case! The quality of the artwork and the designs are testament to tattooing taking itself seriously as an art form.

I do not hesitate to add here that none of the tattoos that adorn my skin are the product of a drunken night on the town. Instead each has a meaning and each is significant to me as it tells my story and experiences.

Interestingly, in June 2006, Australia's biggest and most conservative employer, the Defence Force, lifted the rule that barred anyone with a tattoo from joining up. About bloody time if you ask me. It was a stupid rule because the armed forces did not kick you out once you joined up and then went and had some art done. If the defence force was serious then the ban should have been uniform and across the board. Perhaps better late than never.

Funnily enough the new defence rules would allow facial tattoos if there was a religious or cultural reason for such artwork. The idea that tattoos still carry social stigmas seems to be fading fast as tattoos become increasingly mainstream. Tattoos are also no longer immediately associated with youthful risk taking. If you do not believe this then watch shows like Miami Ink, LA Ink, and Tattoo Wars. Not everyone with a tattoo is a Charles Manson!

I have no regrets about the tattoos that I have and already have artwork ready for the next series of ink installments to be made on my skin.

Geotagging and Tattoos

The idea of tattooing yourself with a geotag is probably not something new but it has certainly become a lot more noticeable now that some one has caught a glimpse of the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates tattooed on the arm of Angelina Jolie (whose significant other is none other than Brad Pitt).

It is also a different twist than just getting the names of your kids tattooed on you. The Jolie-Pitt brood is set to expand to six with a set of twins to become the siblings of Maddox, Pax, Zahara, and Shiloh. If it keeps getting bigger then she might have to start using her other arm as well!

I had been figuring that I would do something similar when my first is born! It is a good way of remembering a factoid that is going to be of little importance to anyone but me and mine! I really do not care whether people say that "you're only copying Angelina Jolie". Those of us that have tattoos get them for our own personal reasons and there are only so many ways you can write coordinates in terms of latitude and longitude. So, if I am copying, then so be it! I can live with that :D

The photo highlights the tattoo and if you look carefully enough you can read the coordinates. So, log on to Google earth or something similar and you can track down the coordinates for yourself. You can find a story about the tattoos and the coordinates here.

Tattoos Too

Some of my Better Half's skin art!

Tattoos

My TV viewing habits often reflect the things that are important to me! As it so happens, in my wife, I have found a kindred tattoo spirit...so, we are therefore regular watchers of Miami Ink, LA Ink, and the most recent addition to the Discovery Travel & Living channel, Tattoo Wars.

With the theme being tattoos, I though I might add a couple of pictures of future tattoo projects, which I am going to have to get in before the kid arrives as disposable income is sure to take a dive in terms of the amount available to dedicate to inking my canvas!

Don't worry dear readers, I am not about to rip of the shirt and shorts to photograph my current artwork and photograph them for your undoubted viewing pleasure. Rather as noted earlier variations of the designs above are projects in motion.