It is almost impossible to imagine that Brooke Burke was originally a tomboy who played football as a teenager. Brooke Burke has guided tours from the Australian outback to the Mayan Riviera, and from the endangered Bamboo forests of Bali to the hyperthyroid nightlife of the world’s most exotic party capitals.

“Forget all the bars and schmoozing and everybody checking out everybody else. My ideal date would be to park in a dark place, check out the stars, and have a great conversation. When all else fails, you can just make out. If I really wanted to get down and dirty with someone, it wouldn’t be at some chic five-star hotel it would be in the rough with a roaring fire burning outside a tent.”

After several TV spots and being a proud mother to her children, Brooke Burke is now the co-host of the hot ABC TC show “Dancing With The Stars. Brooke Burkes is taking the place of popular Samantha Harris.

T-Mobile unveiled the first Google Android platform-based phone, the first carrier to offer a device run on Google’s Android open source

“As an only child, you either become a loner or you learn to put yourself out there, which my parents encouraged.”

Kate Bosworth could no longer be denied true success after she landed the coveted part of Lois Lane in Superman Returns and had a well-publicized, relationship with Hollywood hearthrob Orlando Bloom.

Kate performed many of her own stunts in the movie Superman Returns, including a scene of a sinking boat, and another one on board a plane plummeting to earth.

“Everybody makes mistakes, including role models, so you should just learn and grow from it. Even the best role models do screw up and learn from their mistakes, and I think it is just completely unrealistic to say that role models are perfect. Personally, I think perfection is boring, and secondly, I just think that it’s okay to make mistakes.”

Kate Bosworth really has one blue eye and one hazel eye. They’re not contacts! This condition is known as heterochromia iridium.

“I cook very, very badly. So I normally order take-out unless someone whop does cook well comes by and utilizes my fantastic kitchen.”

Ripa grew up dazzled by the lights of New York City. Kelly and her sister began taking ballet and piano lessons at an early age. They visited Manhattan frequently to see live shows and explore the culture of the big city. The young girl dreamed of the day when she would live in — and make her mark on — the Big Apple.

While Ripa successfully navigated her career, marriage and motherhood, she couldn’t have been prepared for the changes that would occur in the new millennium.

“There’s no such thing as an uber-mom. I think children are like pancakes. You sort of ruin the first one, and you get better at it the second time around.”

Kelly gets paid $36,000 an episode for “Live with Regis and Kelly“, which she co-hosts with legend Regis Philbin.  Ripa is under a five year contract, ending in 2009.

When asked about her ankle tattoo, Kelly replied, “It signals to them that I may be freaky deaky.”

Kelly Ripa loves to watch reality television, including The Bachelor, The Apprentice, Wife Swap, and Survivor.

General Electric Co. is getting back into the television-set business by forming a partnership with a Taiwan company to launch GE-branded high-definition TV sets.

GE has a long history in the TV industry. GE made cathode-ray-tube TV sets from 1939 until 1987, and then licensed the GE brand to TV sets made by Thomson SA of France from 1987 to 2007.

GE and Tatung Co. of Taiwan said they had formed a joint venture, General Displays & Technologies LLC, that plans to make two million HDTV sets annually, or 1% of the 200 million units sold world-wide, when it begins production in 2009.

The companies hope eventually to capture 5% to 10% of the roughly $200 billion global TV-set market.

Peter Weedfald, president of North America and global chief marketing officer for the joint venture, said it intends to be a “premium brand” that will be “very competitive with current leadership brands.” The company will be based in Chino, Calif., and will produce some sets in Mexico.  Full article

The Fancy Deep Pink and White Diamond Necklace by Leviev is an incredible piece of custom jewelry.

The diamond necklace includes a staggering 97.9 carats in pear-shaped and round, brilliant cuts.

It was quite the undertaking and took over a year to locate and fit together the rare stones in platinum.  The end result is stunnng.  Price tag: close to $2 million !

The Las Vegas Art Museum will receive 50 works from famed Dorothy and Herbert Vogel collection from the national gift program “Fifty Works for Fifty States.”

The program, launched by the couple and with National Gallery of Art, titled gives 50 works from the contemporary collection to an institution in each state.

Libby Lumpkin, executive director of the Las Vegas Art Museum, says the museum received a tentative list of works Thursday. The list includes pieces by such artists as Richard Tuttle and Larry Zox.

“We are very honored to have the confidence of the National Gallery of Art,” Lumpkin says. “I have been an admirer of the Vogels and their collection for many, many years. They are the quintessential example of how you can be a collector without having an enormous amount of money. They got to know the artists and the gallerists. They followed their instincts. And they had great instincts.”

The couple started collecting art in the 1960s. Herb Vogel was a postal clerk. Dorothy Vogel was a librarian. Their collection of 4,000 works includes mostly minimal and conceptual art by such artists as Sol Lewitt, Sylvia Plimack Mangold and Christo and Jeanne-Claude

The National Gallery of Art is working with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services on the national gift program.

Lumpkin will attend a celebration for the program in November at the National Gallery of Art. The works are scheduled to arrive in December and the museum will hold an exhibit shortly after.  Article by: Kristen Peterson – Las Vegas Sun

Venice Italy, is an amazing city. When most people think of Venice, they think of gondola rides.

The city of Venice is actually a series of six islands at the edge of the Adriatic Sea. The “streets” of Venice are actually waterways for boat traffic.

Every year, the city’s water levels rise. The muggy summer air cooks the canals and scrapes the paint and enamel from the city’s finest pieces of art. Faithful to its origins, everything in Venice seems to be in peril.

The gondola is the primary mode of transportation throughout the canals, not to mention the enduring symbol of tourism in Venice.

Though speedboats have become increasingly more commonplace nowadays, they have not been able to drown out the traditional songs of the traditional gondoliers, with most of these ballads reciting tales of true love or the magnificent history of Venice Italy itself.

And a storied history it is. Like Genoa, Venice used its expansive waterways to develop into a powerful city, a hub for trade and commercial exploits, until it dominated a large portion of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic and hundreds of vital trade routes.

Venice thrived for centuries, becoming a center of the arts that made all others pale in comparison. Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto and Longhi all called Venice home at some point. Many of their fine works live on in the numerous art galleries and museums dispersed throughout the city’s maze of canals.

Take a gondola ride down the famous Grand Canal and it will lead you to Ca’ Rezzonico and Ca’ d’Oro, the former famous for its ornate ballrooms and aristocratic balconies, the latter for providing shelter for the great works of Titian, Mantegna and Carpaccio.

The exact origination of the gondola is unclear, but some history is available. Back in the year 1094, a boat called a gondola was mentioned in a letter from a Venetian Rupublic official. In the 1490’s, Gondolas appear in Italian paintings by Carpaccio and Bellini. Interestingly, the method of rowing that is depicted, is the same used by gondoliers today.

What most people don’t factor into their dream of a gondola ride in Venice are the crowds of people peering down at you from the city’s many bridges – which tends to ruin the whole intimate and romantic experience. But heck, this is romantic Venice. Go for it!

The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Maui is arguably one of the top vacation islands in the world, and the best stretch of beach is, in turn, the Wailea resort area on East Maui. Open-air design on Maui’s sunny south shore with an extensive spa and grounds that roll down to one of Hawaii’s best beaches.

The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea hotel boasts 380 spacious rooms and suites with marble baths. In addition, there are private lanais that offer views of lush gardens, the Pacific ocean, or Mt. Haleakala.

The Four Seasons is sedate and calm no matter the time of year. Without the crowds, this allows a lot of space for quiet pool side relaxation.

Four Seasons luxury and class is evident everywhere here, from the tailor-fitted lounge chair covers, to the Spa at Four Seasons – which Travel & Leisure and Conde Nast have both named as one of the top spas in the world.

Of the top Wailea luxury hotels on Maui, based on the seclusion factor, this one should be considered the best for honeymoons, anniversaries, and other romantic vacations.

Four Seasons Resort Maui
3900 Wailea Alanui
Wailea, Hawaii 96753
Direct Phone: 808.874.8000
Reservations: 800.334.6284

In comparison to women’s fashion, the look of menswear barely changes from year to year, and even generation to generation. That’s a point of pride for some stylish men, like Fiat scion Lapo Elkann, who wears the expertly tailored suits he inherited from his immaculately dressed grandfather, Gianni Agnelli, with flair.

But well-dressed men who notice such details as the height of a lapel, the texture of a cashmere sweater or the polish strokes on a pair of shoes are aware that the best makers of menswear update their collections constantly.

Technical innovation leads to fabrics that regulate body head, repel water or power an Ipod. Eco-consciousness triggers the use of wood pulp, bamboo and organically grown fibers in clothing fabrics. A global demand for luxury fuels the addition of such decadent touches as fur, exotic skins and limited edition items in collections. And the ever-changing style tide brings new colors, patterns, silhouettes and ensembles to the forefront of every season.

The Italians remain the undisputed leaders in the luxury menswear arena, and our twice-a-year visit to their showrooms and trade show displays reveal what stylish men will want to wear in the months ahead.

In this guide, we preview the collections that men will be wearing next fall/winter. We saw the sample suits, outerwear, shoes and accessories this past January in Florence and Milan, alongside the menswear buyers from the world’s top department stores and specialty retailers as they selected what to carry in their own stores next fall.

On many occasions, prices were not yet established and designers could not yet say whether select items would indeed be carried in certain corners of the world. But well-defined style trends and key pieces worthy of pre-orders emerged, and this guide will make sure you are among the first to know about them.

Hot trends for men when the temperature drops will include the return of the three-piece suit, elbow patches on sport coats, knitwear as light as a cloud, Prince of Wales plaid, detachable fur collars and linings on outerwear, eco-friendly fabrics, high-tech performance fabrics, and exotic skins given a suede finish.

And as seen for several seasons now, small details that only come from old-fashioned hand-tailoring (working button holes, hand-stitched lapels, custom linings, brush strokes on shoes) are codes for quality.  Article by: Elite Traveler

Worrying about their bodies is no longer exclusive to women.  It seems that men are becoming just as concerned and increasingly aware of their weight and overall looks as women.

Eating disorder expert Dr. John Morgan, the head of the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders, says that many young men suffer “extreme distress” over the appearance of their body.

The preliminary results of his research, which was carried out on male students aged 18 to 25 at Surrey University and is due for publication next year, found that one in five worry about their physiques.

For every man with an eating disorder, another ten desperately want to change the way they look. “One in five men have some degree of quite extreme distress,” he says.

A study conducted by ICM for Norwich Union in 2006, found that 36 per cent of men exaggerated how much weight they could lift in a gym. Also, one of every five men lied about his own body weight.  This behavior was once considered solely a female preserve.  Read more