For those of you on the West Coast who have yet to make Valentine's plans, might I recommend a mini-marathon of Cribs and Pimp My Ride? Nothing says romance like a melange of MTV reality programming.

So the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue arrived in the mail yesterday. Frightening news for New Jersey shore-goers - apparently, 2008 is going to be the year of the half suit.

Not counting the body-painted suits, models taking photos of themselves or the wives/athletes (Danica Patrick? Seriously?), there are roughly 120 swimsuits in the issue. Of those...

Number of models not wearing a top: 21
Number of models wearing a mesh or see-through top: 11
Number of models carrying their bikini top rather than wearing it: 2
Number of models who felt no need to sport the bottom of their suit: 1
Number of suits that made me visibly blanche, due to either ugliness or lack of comfort (or, in at least one case, both): 4
Number of Jets, Packers and/or Browns representatives featured in the NFL cheerleaders section: 0
Number of suits I'd actually wear: 0
Number of ads featuring Djimon Hounsou in his Calvin Kleins: 1

And consider this list:
-two Eddie Bauer bathing suits, featuring both a top and bottom ($170)
-my annual gym membership ($504)
-160-gig iPod ($349)
-Bose portable sound dock ($399)
-oil changes for a year ($240)
-two tickets for all three Springsteen shows at the Meadowlands in July ($660)
-dinner for two at the diner once a week for a year ($1,250)

I could get all of these things for a grand total of $3,581. Or, for roughly that same amount, I could purchase this top, which I wouldn't really call a bathing suit top. But it is $3,500 (and unfortunately is a crappy picture. Not that anything could explain why this costs $3,500.)

















Now, if I could have the body in that frock, I'd consider $3,500. Otherwise, I'm going with the list above.