MAY 31 :: [quotas = bad] Whatever happened to free trade? The US and EU continuously chastises other countries for being protectionist and forces them to open up their markets through organizations like the WTO, but when push comes to shove and their own domestic interests take hold, the US/EU's hypocrisy on trade issues hits a high note.
The system of quotas on exports of textiles from developing countries - the textile industry is labor-intensive so cheap labor rules - was FORTY years old before it expired on Jan 1st, 2005. Yes, 40. And when it expired, the domestic textile manufacturers were "caught off guard", feared for their jobs, and lobbied their respective governments to limit the flood of cheap textiles from China. Well, boo-hoo. There is nothing the US/EU can do to stop the shift of low-tech, labor-intensive manufacturing jobs to the Third World. The reimposition of quotas will slow it but that's forestalling the inevitable which is just dumb economics. What pisses me off is that the textile industry workers had a FORTY year notice on this happening. And instead of moving up the skills ladder or preparing for competition, they sat and did nothing. And now they're screaming bloody murder coz the Chinese can get away with paying their workers $1/day.
Why the industrialized nations even bother about shirts, socks and trousers is beyond me. We have IT, we have the internet, we have biotech, and all these other super hi-tech manufacturing industries from making airplanes to industrial machinery. And yet, we want to protect the precious few manufacturing jobs left in the textile industry so much so we've resorted to quotas, tariffs, and all sorts of nonsensical anti-business, anti-trade measures. These jobs don't need to be protected. They need to be phased out, retrain the workers and move them on to higher-skilled jobs that pay more and keep this country's industrial and technological lead intact.
But of course, that didn't happen. And the US/EU reimposed quotas and limits. China, cleverly trying to keep the revenue at home, introduced self-imposed export duties to limit the outflow. But the US/EU, recalcitrant as they are and beholden to special interest groups, refused to reconsider quotas so China rescinds the duties and threatens to take this global textile row to the WTO.
You go gurl. Use their own rules against them. That'll teach 'em. Free trade means just that. You don't get to pick and choose.
[too good] They have it too good in California. The weather in LA is just relentlessly and enviously perfect. We woke up Sunday to a dreary marine-layered morning but by the time brunch rolled around, the sun had come out and LA was bathed in gorgeous sunshine - true to Gary's assertions after my constant moaning about how cold it was.
Brunch at the Peninsula was classy, decadent and plush. And so was the hotel. Although it never once approached the level of amazing. Our (base) room was perfectly adequate, with a view of the hotel's gardens. There was no "oooh" factor like the Pen in BKK; even the curtains were not motorized (ew). The rooftop pool was also not spectacular but after brunch, all we could do was lay out in the spectacular sunshine and tan ourselves silly (yes, I got a minor sunburn on my shoulders).
Life seems so perfect when you're sunbathing next to the rooftop pool of the Peninsula in Beverly Hills with panoramic views of LA but all good things must come to an end so we pack up and drive up the hills (in Gary's fetch new convertible acquired from equally fetch MichaelF!) to Mike/Gary's new pad. Have I mentioned how perfect the weather was with almost no humidity? The drive along Mulholland towards their new house was picture perfect. The new house itself was a contemporary mini-castle perched on the Hollywood Hills that's sure to become party central once they've settled in. It was perfect! And then we drove to their current rented digs and it was decidedly less impressive but still adequate.
We said our goodbyes and ventured into Beverly Hills again for a OTT dinner at Spago. Well, the prices were the only thing OTT about this place. What is wrong with service in LA? You would NEVER be able to get away with amateur service in NYC or SF, especially not when you're hawking $20 appetizers and $40 entrees - not to mention a wine list that never dipped below $50. The service wasn't bad, it was just so amateur. From bringing differing menus (which we had to ask for) to taking our orders FORTY minutes after we arrive, and not bothering to offer city water (bottled is $8!) to bringing out wrong wine glasses. It was just plain annoying even if the fellow was self-deprecating and humorous about the whole thing. I'm sorry, I'm not paying you $120/pp to make fun of yourself, I'm paying you that to make me feel like a queen. Instead, I left Spago feeling like a battered duchess.
In all fairness, the meal was spectacular. The food is "I'll-definitely-fly-here-for-this" good. I've had so many bad risottos in my life that the Wolfgang Puck version was transcending. I have no idea why the portions were all so ginormous but that would explain the stratospheric prices. And the atmosphere was just one trapeze short of a circus. Yes, this place is ALL about buzz (as with all of LA) and buzz doesn't happen at lower decibels.
And that capped off a perfectly short but sun-sational vacation in LA. We'll be bah-ck!
[first run] We completed our first mileage run (trust me, if you don't know what that is, you're better off) yesterday and it was a success! The outbound was super-comfy and ultra-luxe in p.s. Business. Yesterday was substantially different and we had expected it. But getting on and off four planes across the continent was still quite draining!
The weather was almost perfect and there were zero delays which paved the way for a successful mileage run. We came close in DEN but never to the point of missing the flight. We had oodles of time in STL (although we arrived early enough to catch an earlier flight but didn't know it!) and also in ORD where we caught an earlier flight to arrive home more than an hour early. Fetch!
Our journey (saga, epic, whatever) started at 7am in LA. OK, well Tony's saga started at 5am when he had to wake me up which is not an easy task when I am grumpy in the morning. After some minor mechanicals, we arrived 10 minutes late into DEN - wait, did I mention the lovely breakfast we had in First? - which resulted in our already tight connection becoming almost suffocating. We ran 20+ gates to get to our flight to STL and boy, it was close. We get into St Louis early enough to catch the earlier flight to ORD which departed next to our arriving gate but we didn't know about it so we missed it by a hair's breadth. Groan and double groan coz STL is a dump (although we did have lunch there at the CPK express). Another early arrival into ORD (surprise!) meant that we got onto the 5pm to DC instead of the 5:45 and we even snuck exit row seats! Fun. By this point, I was mentally and physically exhausted and wished I had never broken up my transcontinental journey into FOUR legs.
Yes, we're crazy. But we made it home in time for dinner (eating all three meals in airports/planes would've been cruel and unusual punishment!) and had a fetch mini-weekend-vacation in LA as well. Hope y'all had an awesome (wet in DC?) Memorial Day weekend!
[oh my...] Paris and Paris Latsis Hilton (kinda has a good ring to it, doesn't it?), is this for real?? I love it :) But really, what are the odds of finding TWO people named "Paris"?? And then they get engaged to each other! LOL!
Crisis averted at United? Villepin is the new Prime Minister of France, replacing Jean-Pierre Raffarin after the French voted resoundingly to reject the EU constitution (and Chirac?) by 55-45 which reverberated across the continent. Not shocking but still startling. The Dutch are set to reject it themselves tomorrow. With the two founding members of the European Union rejecting the constitution, is this the beginning of the end for the 50-year quest for European integration?
[poverty] The poverty threshold (where ppl who earn less are officially "poor") is just shy of $20k/yr (I know, tragic) for a family of four (!!!) and half that for a single person. Yes, both sets of numbers are ridiculously low but let's just use them for now. Now, the federal minimum wage is $5.15/hr but some states (mostly progressive aka blue ones) have decided that that level is ridiculous. Even in the state (Washington) with the HIGHEST minimum wage laws, the annual income of a single person - $7.35/hr which comes out to $15,300/yr doesn't come close to being able to support a family of four above the poverty line defined by the feds. But let's just ignore the government thresholds for a sec and imagine minimum wage workers in Washington state. Can you even begin to support yourself - much less a family of four - with $15,300 a year? And this is the highest!
And why am I writing about poverty? LOL! It's like the last thing I know... I don't believe in mandating how much companies should pay their employees but that assumes companies are responsible enough not to abuse their employees. And since they can't be trusted, yes, we should have a minimum wage law! But why bother when it's not even enough to lift people out of poverty, much less allow them to live in dignity? What is the point of calling people "poor" when the laws we pass do nothing about it? Isn't this all just a cruel joke to the poor people? When did we go from fighting poverty to fighting the poor?
MAY 29 :: [los fabulous] We're here!! Though it doesn't look so fabulous outside with the marine layer firmly above LA. I thought it was smog but it's just fog. Smog or fog, no matter... it's blocking my sun! I was promised that the sun will break through the layer by midday. We'll see :)
Last night was completely fetch! We arrived in LAX at 7:30, zipped to the ultra-fabulous Peninsula by 8 and were having champagne and truffles (on the house, of course, since EVERYbody knows it's my birthday month) by 8:30 with Mike/Gary. Then, we hightailed it to Cobras & Matadors to hook up with their friends Miguel and Ward (sp?) for a fun-filled tapas orgy. Now, the last time we were here, the LA dining scene was startlingly deserted after, oh, 9pm. Apparently everyone eats at the same time. Literally. West Coasters eat at 6pm when it's 9pm on the East Coast and 3am in Milan! But the tapas place was completely packed right up until we left. Fetch. Wines were bought from a store next door and brought in w/o any corkage fee. Talk about an alluring concept!
As with every gay outing (and boy) in LA, we all end up at The Abbey. This is actually my first time IN the Abbey and let's just say The Abbey is definitely my kind of church. I could pray to vodka there all night. And apparently all of LA thought the same. The crowds were wall-to-wall and packed with so many pecs you could hardly turn without bumping into one. The scene was ultra-preppy and super-fetch, somewhat plastic and hot without the burning sensation, fierce but not-too-crazy. It was a cool night, which helped things somewhat, but the hot boys were out in force. I definitely need plastic surgery if I ever move here ;)
What wasn't fetch was the bathroom line. Oh my skanky Kevin Federhump. It was epic! It must've been 50 (hot) boys long. And there are way too many skinny, emaciated Asian boys in LA. Ew. We retired at around 1am (4am!) and were completely knackered. Fetch!
Woke up at an ungodly 8 this morning (damn time difference). Ready for the laid-back but eventful day ahead. More later! Hope y'all are having a sunny, fab-filled Memorial Day weekend! Living la vida fabuloso in LA!
[p.s., yes!] Oh my Beyonce. For reasons incomprehensible to most of you, we did a mileage run yesterday to LA whereby we connected in JFK *and* SFO to get to LAX. Giggle. Anyways, we had a weirdly bumpy flight to JFK, connecting to the JFK-SFO leg which was on p.s., United's new Premium (transcontinental) Service. We were nail-bitingly close to not getting upgraded but prevailed (over all the other unstatused heathens) about 30mins before departure. It was my first time trying out p.s. and the verdict?
p.s. Business is FABULOUS. Wow. First Class was actually SQ's SpaceBed seats and Business Class was the usual UA Int'l Business seats (which are adequate) but clad in leather. We were in an exit row so we had, oh, 15 *feet* of legroom space? Who's counting after 6, right? The food was startlingly good, from Chandon champagne at boarding to fetch Bellini and Kir Royale cocktails for lunch, delicious appetizers to amazing beef short ribs + rice entrees, and lovely desserts to Godiva truffles before landing! It was decadent for a domestic flight. It definitely felt like an International flight (both in service AND in length! Good Lord, 6 hours in the air!).
Service was exceptional as well (yes, I got the FA to call me "Empress") and we each had our own personal DVD player. Cool, huh? We watched Ocean's 12 (yawn) and parts of Lost In Translation (which we didn't finish, ugh!). In short, p.s. is awesome.
All our flights were on-time yesterday which made for a pleasant mileage run. SFO has transformed into a foodie heaven since the last time I was there - there was dim sum, sushi, a taqueria, etc. in the United terminal! Takeout sushi is like my #1 wish for all airports. Replace all the airport McD's with sushi! Please!
The short SFO-LAX flight was uneventful and pretty soon we were hovering over LAX. The marine layer was pretty thick and we couldn't even see the Hollywood sign from above Century City. And the temps were colder than I expected. But no matter, we're here, we're queer and we're painting the town red! With the help of Mike/Gary of course ;)
[party weekend] I was *SO* in the party weekend mode by 1pm on Friday. So I left work. Giggle. I met up with Rick for a fetch sushi lunch at Sushi Taro to lay out our plans for our only weekend night together this Memorial Day. The fact that I'm even in DC on the Friday night before Memorial Day says something! I've been gone the last three Memorial Day weekends. Yes, I travel too much :)
Anyway, so as it turns out (and as with most nights), it was a drama with a capital "D" night for Rick. Let's just not even go there. I met up with him at Logan Tavern and sat at the bar waiting for his sorry white ass to finish his drama dinner with some St Louis skanks. I couldn't possibly imagine waiting alone so I recruited M3 and Tony to show up and help me party. Having soaked up enough skankiness from the St Louis boys, we headed next door to Halo whereby the second part of the drama evening unfolds. Halo was fetch. My pride float designer was there, and Tom/G showed up too! It was quite a crowd. Here I thought everyone had left town for Memorial Day weekend but they were just all at Halo swilling mojitos! Love it.
Should've gone home after Halo but went instead to JR's and don't remember anything after that. I went home. Somehow. And I packed the next morning. I think. The bumpy IAD-JFK flight was totally not fetch. I think I felt sick the entire way there. No matter... things definitely got better on the next leg...
MAY 27 :: [dumbest drivers] LOL! It's official. DC has the 5th dumbest drivers in the nation! Not surprisingly, NY/NJ drivers are even dumber. But #1 (RI) and #2 (MA) are baffling. So, that really does explain why DC traffic is like one of the worst in the nation - stupid drivers that turn into morons when the wind blows! Not to mention when it rains or snows...
[$491bn] Wow, a defense budget that puts to shame all others before it. That figure was $303bn when Bush first took office. It is fully half of the federal budget's FY06 discretionary spending. Yes, the United States spends more on her military than everything else combined; and eight times more than the Education budget. You wanna talk about screwed up priorities? We find arming ourselves to launch unnecessary wars EIGHT times more important than educating our children.
And $491bn is just below the GNP of South Korea, which is the 12th largest economy in the world. It's enough to make you wonder, "why?".
[why am i here?] OMBFS, there's like NO one here at work today besides me and the security guards. Yes, it's Friday before Memorial Day weekend. Chris/Dave, Rob/Mikko are both off to Montana, we're off to LA tomorrow, Mike/Ben are off to the Big Sur, I'm sure Rehoboth is gonna be packed, EVERYone is out of town. Only the blue collar gays are left in town, lol! Gosh, I'm evil before a holiday weekend ;)
Last night at JR's was like an old Western - ghost town. All the usual skanky ppl were there (incl. me and Rick, of course *grin*) but no one fetch or new. It was so empty they didn't start playing fetch music until 7 at which time I was already half-past drunk. I stayed till 9 and it got better but not by much. Ew, yuck, skank.
Observed on the relatively empty Metro (OMB, they *do* have A/C!) this morning - which, btw, is a good indicator that no one is working today: this elderly lady reading the Washington Times and some fat dude with a "Think Majority" button on his bag. Um, hello? Since when did Republicunts ride public transportation??
Ew, gros, yuck, skank. But all that was overwhelmed by the huge numbers of ppl wearing yellow Livestrong, blue Think Blue, and white pro-choice bands. Ahh, to live in a blue city :) Any color but red is fetch (why am I wearing red today?).
Speaking of huge numbers, EVERYone has an iPod these days. Everyone that rides the Metro, that is. Only the tourists from the red states are iPod-less (and they all get off at Smithsonian). They must not like music very much or country music cannot be uploaded to an iPod *GRIN*. iPods are fetch... and so blue state. We have cool bands and fun gadgets. They have... big hair. It's no wonder we don't get along. Why don't they just secede? ;)
Psssst.. There might be an fTunes ("fetch Tunes", of course) section in the works. Stay tuned :)
MAY 26 :: [not my idol] Gurrrrl, did you see "Oklahoma Country" Carrie Underbitch beat "Montana Rock" Bo Lice-in-my-hair last night on American Idol 4? I didn't. They were both neither talented nor idol material. And Carrie just embodies Red America. Ew, ew, ew. It was a nasty end to a nasty season where the talentless ruled and the Kellys and Fantasias were nowhere to be found. What a bore.
Looks like the French are gonna vote "non" to the EU Constitution this Sunday followed by the Dutch also likely rejecting it 3 days later. Those two rejections will likely kill the constitution. Well, d'oh.. it's friggin' massive at 474-pages long! Who on earth is going to read all that? By sharp contrast, the US Constitution is only 12 pages long. I mean, how many rights do we want to enshrine??
It's a beautiful day today, with temps climbing to the mid-70s. Last night was a busy night whereby I got drag-fitted (don't ask), went to JR's for a little bit to catch up with Rick/Peter/M3 and then headed home for dinner with a friend from KL. Busy, busy, busy. My other friend who was supposed to come stay with me this week totally bailed on me, that bitch. Worse yet, she never even bothered to inform me - I had to call her to find out! I'll never invite her to town again. Giggle!
MAY 25 :: [to infinity...] ...and beyond. Voyager I moves into the edge of the solar system, entering the heliosheath (sounds kinky) which is the boundary where the solar winds dissipate and give way to the interstellar space, about 8.7bn miles from the sun. Next up is the heliopause where the solar winds and the interstellar winds are balanced, and finally, space - the final frontier :) Voyager II is 6.5bn miles away from the sun headed in the opposite direction. They were both launched in 1977, the year I was born! I know, it took V-I 28 years to get to the outer edge. It's gonna be awhile before it gets anywhere else, giggle. And V-I is hurtling into space at 38,000mph! (that's 334.8mn miles/yr!!) Amazing, huh? Even at that rate, it'll be the year 75,000 AD (yes, you read that right) before V-I will reach the NEAREST star (Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away). That's too bad coz the V-I is supposed to run out of juice to communicate back to Earth in 2020, 73,000 years short of reaching the next solar system...
Yes, we are pretty insignificant.
[omakase] OMB, Chris, Tony and I went to Sushi Taro last night and omakase-d our meal (that's like the chef's best selection or something like that). Good God, it was awesome! We had two floats of sashimi and one of sushi and I think it was one of the better Japanese meals I've ever had. The fish were ultra-fresh and super-delicious. The quality wasn't as good as Makoto but the flavors were explosive. I wouldn't call it super-imaginative (I've seen better at Nobu) but it was still very, very good. Also, at about $5 less than the "kaiseki" meal at Makoto, it wasn't that great of a value. Makoto is still wayyyy better with fetcher fish and bigger sakes! Need sushi and sake... now!! :)
Why are there no sushi places in SW???
[think blue] So Rick gave me a fetch "Think Blue" band and I'm wearing it everyday. Good timing too since I broke my child-sized (giggle) yellow Livestrong band which I loooove (since it matches my skin color). Anyways, on the band it says 11/07/06 and 11/04/08 - the next two major election dates. Fetch.
This whole color band thing is getting out of hand. I already have three (the other one is a Red Cross tsunami relief leather band - really cool - that I bought from Roots in Canada) and it's a chore just to decide which one I'm gonna wear every morning. Groan. I like the blue one though. I'll keep this one :)
Did anybody see American Ido... last nigh.... Zzzzzzzzz. Who the fuck cares...
MAY 24 :: [$1mn] It ain't what it used to be. DC trails only California and Connecticut as states with the largest percentages of seven-figure homes. Massachusetts and New York round up the Top 5. Somewhat not surprisingly but still shocking, 1 out of 25 homes sold in California are above $1 million. Yikes! Median home values across California are the highest in the nation at $316,600, followed by HI, MA and DC. Housing values are lowest in WV where the median is $78,201. Giggle.
My neighbor's house sold at $965k recently. If you assume a 5% increase (which is less than average), our house would've just crossed the million-dollar mark too. There, we're now yet another statistic :)
[umbrella commute] Yes, there have been many rainy days in the past month but somehow, I have managed to evade having to use my umbrella on my commute to work. Well, I had to use it today - my first umbrella commute ever. And it wasn't too bad. Of course, it helped that I got on the train at 9 (yes, very late!) and it wasn't packed at all. In fact, there was enough room to leave my umbrella open to dry (which I didn't do, of course). I still dislike umbrella commutes. I mean it's nice and cool outside and everything but the umbrella adds one more element to the litany of things I have to do before entering a government building. (1) turn off iPod and set the device to 'Hold', (2) remove iPod earphones and put in bag, (3) remove badge from bag and dangle it off my belt loop, (4) close the umbrella, shake it and tie it up, (5) put umbrella in a plastic bag provided, (6) put everything in the X-ray machine, (6) scan badge, and so on and so forth. See how the umbrella adds a few steps to my routine? Not fetch.
MAY 23 :: [9,531 miles] That's the (Great Circle - as the crow flies) distance my parents are flying tonight; back to Malaysia after 3 weeks in the US, 5 of those days in DC. It's a looooong way, belieeeeve me. Even at a constant 600mph which is pretty much the max for most modern airliners, that translates to a 16 hour flying time non-stop which is not the case. You have to transit in Moonbase Alpha and Pluto to get to Malaysia from here.
And so they conclude another stay in the US - their second one this year! Their departure is both good and bad. Bad coz I miss them already. And good coz my mom is a REALLY good cook and I would've gained a ton of weight had she stayed and cooked more! Giggle. My younger bro also left for Iowa yesterday. I'm sure he'll be bah-ck (Ah-nuld) shortly. He's determined to find a job in the US and Iowa isn't exactly overflowing with IT jobs. My parents left out of IAD and my bro out of DCA which translated to a 2+ hour drive around from DC -> IAD -> DCA -> DC. In the rain! It was crazy.
This rain is crazy. It's the end of May and we are not slated to have a 60+ degree day until Thursday! That's nuts. And then there's all the rain. Ugh. But guess what? We'll be in sunny and dry LA on Saturday, woo! I can't wait. The dreary and wet weather in DC is making me look pasty yellow. Mike/Gary better have their champagne chilled and some suntan lotion for me when I get there ;)
["force"-ful] Did you guys see 24 tonight? Ohmibeyonce, it was riveting! And a fun little twist at the end. Always a nail-biter, never a dull moment. Love it.
Yes, the "force" is still strong in the Universe. Revenge of the Sith smashed multiple box-office records en route to a $158.5mn 4-day opening weekend. It also opened in 105 countries simultaneously and racked up $303.9mn worldwide in just one weekend! Absolutely amazing. I haven't seen it yet and I'm dying to. But I need my beauty rest this week.
Did I mention the frozen margarita machine was a hit on Friday? Apparently people like drinking frozen drinks even when it's 50 degrees outside. Tony made it with a little bit too much tequila so everyone got really smashed by midnight. No matter, the outdoor heater provided plenty of staying power for the rest of us that stayed up on the deck till 3.
A filibuster deal has been brokered. It's all weird and shit and at this point, who the fuck cares, right? I neither agree with the filibuster nor the extreme right-wing judges views. I say, let them pack the courts. And let the country go to hell in a hand basket if that's what everybody wants. Let's see how long this country will tolerate intolerance, bigotry, hate, and the religious right-wing ideology.
And I swear to God, one more ID theft headline and I'm gonna make like Dierdre and bury myself in the ground... away from these thieves!! Why is the Senate preoccupied with whose penis is bigger and which one we're gonna stuff in the courts when they can pass meaningful legislation like the death penalty for ID thieves? Sheesh...
There, I feel better :)
[desperate cliffhanger?] I finally got to watch the season finale of Desperate Housewives... and let's just say it's not much of a cliffhanger. It's more like "d'oh, I already knew that". I mean, THAT was the finale? Hmm... But the one-hour finale was still riveting and power-packed with juicy stuff.
I was definitely shocked by Rex's death and Bree was fantastic in the aftermath - continuing to polish the silver and then breaking down as the camera pans away showing Rex's empty seat across from her on the dining table. Fantastic. I was also startled that it was Mary Alice that killed Dierdre (and convinced Paul to chop her up!) instead of the creepy Paul. Yes, there is nothing stronger than a mother's love and a mother will do anything, ANYthing, to protect her own. Hmm, Paul doesn't seem so evil anymore, at least not when you compare him against his wife or, worse, his "I just kidnapped Susan and I'm gonna shoot Mike" son. They should've given Zach back a loooong time ago! What a freak. And thank God Susan was kidnapped. If she left one more annoying voicemail on Mike's cellphone, I was gonna shoot her myself!
I'm still totally surprised that Rex died. And how crushing for Bree when she finds his note implying that she killed him. Shock and horror. Giggle on the gardener confessing his affair with Gabrielle to Carlos but really, what is up with Carlos and never, ever going to jail? Wasn't he supposed to leave like, oh, two weeks ago after the going away party? Double d'oh. More giggles on Lynette going back to work and Tom being the stay-at-home husband (how 21st century!). Role-swapping, love it! And who on earth is Betty?? She's got a secret... And we'll all find out in the next season... :) And finally, where's Andrew?? Do the writers now have too many cakes to bake and not enough minutes to tell the story?
The implied cliffhanger was that Mike - who may be Zach's dad... again, d'oh - may be moments away from getting shot. Yawn. It's not a Ross misspeaking his wife-to-be's name ("I, Ross, take thee, Rachel...") but it's adequate, I guess. I was just expecting more. There is like zero suspense and zero anticipation for the next season.
Oh who am I kidding, I still love the show. It still makes me cry, shriek, squeal (which Phillip does *really* well), giggle, and scream in hysterics all at once. But really, I don't watch it for the suspense or the storyline, I watch it for Bree's one-liners!! Love it!
[gimme my texts!] I'm gonna fire T-Mobile. Soon. If they don't give me what I want which is more text messages! Grr... Yes, my name is Kiat and I'm a text-a-holic. I've sent and received 867 text messages by mid-billing cycle and I only have 133 left for the next FIFTEEN days. How am I supposed to live on that??! T-Mobile refuses to give me 1,000 more and I can't leave T-Mobile until mid-Oct. Ugh!!! If I keep texting for the next 15 days like the last, I could potentially end up with a $40 text messaging overage which would royally piss me off. What to do, what to do...
[the monday after] I am super exhausted today. My parents and my younger brother commanded much of my time over the weekend and Vancouver Ed also needed to be entertained. Plus, I have three friends coming from Malaysia over the next week which means more entertaining on my part. Ugh. When will this end? My weekend was so short, in fact, that I missed the season finale of Desperate Housewives last night *GASP*. NOBODY tell me what happened. I even skipped the CNN story about the finale today. I can't believe I didn't get my DH fix. Ahh!
I have no idea why I had my birthday party on yucky 50-degrees Friday coz Saturday and Sunday were both exceedingly gorgeous with 70-degree weather and low 60s at night. The weather was perfect for sitting out with Rob/Mikko/Ed/Peck at the new (and finally opened) Hank's on 17th/Q followed by Fox & Hound's where we hooked up with Tom/G. The weather was also perfect for Sunday night JR's with Rob/Mikko/Ed/Evan/Andy-PR/Tom, etc. to cap off the weekend :) The weather was not-so-perfect to be stuck indoors shopping but we did lots of that and then some on both days - Pentagon City and Arundel Mills. No matter, I bought LOTS of stuff at both so I'm happy.
My mom also made awesome meals during the weekend so that was fetch. We spent much of Saturday cleaning up the mess left by the bunch of crazy queens at my party the night before ;) I am completely worn out from the weekend and here I am at work today, crunching away and staring mindlessly at my computer screen. Why are my weekends so short?
MAY 21 :: [am i dead?] Yes, some of my friends would like to think so but I'm officially 28 years old and 1 day! Still alive and kickin', giggle :)
Last night's party was fetch. About 50 or so of my close and not-so-close (and some downright tawdry, skanky, and nasty) friends showed up for my 28th birthday celebration together with my parents and my younger brother. I'll keep it short and sweet but let's just say we had a frozen margarita machine (dispensing two flavors - peach bellini and plain ol' margarita), fetch food cooked by Tony and my mother, cakes from CakeLove (yea!), and a fabulous haiku from Tony to cap the evening:
Birthday Haiku
Friends & Family
That's What Counts, Don't You Know It?
And Health Too, What's Left?
Oh Yes, Fun For All
And Happiness, Too, Hear Ye
Life's So Short, Party,
Happy Twenty-Eighth
Birthday Kiat XXX
I Love You, Tony.
Aww :)
MAY 20 :: [rainy birthday] Well, it's finally here. I'm 28. *sob* I hate getting older. And as if mourning my old age, the heavens opened up last night and it has been "crying" ever since. Tragic.
Star Wars III grossed $16.5mn in midnight screenings alone yesterday, wow. That's twice what Lord of the Rings III did two years ago. This is pretty big news - US Air (#7) + America West (#8) = viable airline (#5)? This will be US Air's lifeboat, I think, and great combo too; none of their hubs overlap and they're even on opposite coasts. Only downside is the HQ moves from the DC metro to Tempe, AZ (eww). The Liberal Canadian government survives a no-confidence vote by a razor-thin margin, Hurricane Adrian slammed into El Salvador this morning and a filibuster deal has been drafted? *eyes rolling* And what's this... Topher Grace is the next Spidey villain?? That's about as believable as me turning 28... Oh wait.
Celebrate me! ;)
MAY 19 :: [debauchery] Yes, it has begun. Phillip (my Brit-of-the-moment) has just informed me she's wearing her crotchless pink PVC knickers to my party. *squeal*
Oh my Beyonce!
[1,354] Yes, last month I sent and received a staggering 1,354 text messages on my cellphone. Since I only had the 1,000 plan, I had to pay bigtime. As I was getting close to the 1,000 ceiling, I called T-Mobile and begged them to give me 300 more messages (even that would not have been enough in hindsight) but they refused coz they said 1,000 is the max and NOBODY they know ever goes over that. LOL! Urm, hello? Have we met? So, you'd think I'd stop texting at that point, right? I mean, it is $.05/msg (adds up pretty quickly). But noooooo... I just kept texting and texting. Sigh.
And that doesn't even count the int'l messages I sent (yes, those are extra) and the picture messages (yes, I love to take photos... I am Asian :p). My phone bill was so big I almost had to take a home equity loan to pay it off ;)
Nasty. Cell companies are nasty.
[adrian] Gee-sus, already?? Hurricane season is annoying...
Speaking of bad weather, remember last year's birthday party? Yea.. it was 90+ degrees. This year? It's gonna be below 60. And possibly even a few sprinkles. I can never catch a break... Thank God for the gazebo and the outdoor heater. Giggle! Yes, I plan for everything ;)
I absolutely cannot believe I turn 28 tomorrow. It's far too depressing to contemplate. Why me?
MAY 18 :: [chaotic part deux] Oh my. It seems like all of the tabloids and the press have been sharpening their claws for this very moment. From Entertainment Weekly (yea, I know..):
"...career suicide by videocam... Which came first, the chicken or the moron?"
"The truth is not only that she's vapid, but that she's self-obsessed to a dangerous degree. Considering the sheer number of celebrity-based reality shows that have popped up since The Osbournes, I had assumed that no new heights of narcissistic exhibitionism could be reached. But oh how wrong I was. This show makes Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's home video look coy."
"...her love for Kevin is the classic fairy tale: Man meets woman in VIP area of club, woman summons unemployed, undershirt-wearing man to her European tour, woman bangs man three times in one day and gets a TV show to tell the world. Gosh, it's just like Snow White, only instead of the prince waking Snow White up with a kiss, he gives her beard burn."
"For her whole career, she has been playing a weird game where she gets onstage and humps a python while wearing outfits that come one nipple ring short of full-frontal nudity, but then gets offstage and plays the wholesome naïf as her rubber corset dries. Does she now think that because she's 23 and married now, she no longer needs to pretend to be anything but a cigarette-puffing good-time girl who can't wait for her next Federhump?"
Federhump... LOL!!! I absolutely love it!
[chaotic] Oh my Britney Federline Spears. Hot off the press from Tom Shales of the WP, dripping with poison:
"One sure thing about Britney Spears's new reality TV show: There's no danger of anyone ever dumbing it down. A dumber downer would potentially be lethal. It would have to be buried in lead for 10,000 years, like nuclear waste."
"'Britney & Kevin: Chaotic,' which premiered on the dispensable UPN network at 9 last night, was not made available in advance for critical review. After seeing the show on Channel 20, this critic can say that what seemed like a snub now appears to have been an act of charity. UPN was trying to spare us poor scribes a bad case of mal de mer."
"...the program was an execrable mess by absolutely any standard..."
"The least that the smutty-mouthed, pudgy-faced brat could have done was to give her fans a musical number or two, but no... Federline, who has bad posture, no personality and wears diamond studs in his ear..."
"Like the WB, UPN is a small network that keeps searching for a winning formula and ways of wasting time. 'Britney & Kevin' plumbed new depths of shallowness. It was TV's non-event of the week. It was America's crummiest home video."
Wow! Scathing! I love it! So much so I actually watched it. Yes, all 60 minutes of it. Including commercials. LOL! Britney? Well, she didn't do herself any favors with this little expose of hers. In fact, it made her look like a white trash whore ("look like"?? d'oh). But as for Kevin? Oh puh-leez. Gurl is so skanky that not only would I not do him, I wouldn't lend him my chopsticks. Ew. Nasty.
"Chaotic" was a complete train wreck that you couldn't stop watching once you started. It was like a really bad drug with horrendous side effects. Of course, then I find out, Oh my BFS!, it's a weekly event. I think I overdosed on just one dosage, spankuverymuch. Of course I'll be back for more. Addiction is fetch!
[villaraigosa] Round 2 and Antonio Villaraigosa (that's a tongue-twister) defeated incumbent Mayor James Hahn this time around (he lost narrowly 4 years ago) by 59-41 to become LA's first Latino mayor since 1872 when there were only 5,000 Angelenos. LA, which is nearly half-Latino, becomes the largest city in America to be led by a Hispanic mayor confirming the rising political power of Latinos in the nation's second largest city.
MAY 17 :: [1954, 2004] Fifty-one years ago today, the United States Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, in Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka. By a unanimous 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court in 1954 demolished the "separate but equal" doctrine that had been the law of the land for 58 years before that.
"Separate but equal" is NEVER equal.
A year ago today, Massachusetts became the only state in the Union to permit same-sex marriage. In the past year, more than 6,100 same-sex couples have gotten married - one out of six marriage licenses issued in the state. Among the same-sex weddings, about two-thirds are female couples.
At the time of the Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka ruling, 21 states and the District of Columbia (imposed by Congress) practiced permissive or mandatory segregation. Similarly today, 18 states have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages with three more deciding by next year; 13 other states are thinking about it.
These are the facts, 50 years apart. What has changed? Back then, South Carolina and Georgia announced that they would abolish public schools if segregation were banned. The entire South preached segregation and clung on to it as if the world would end if blacks started drinking their water or sitting at the front of the bus. Today, the Southern states still carry a whiff of racism, but because race is no longer the tinderbox that it used to be, they have now found a new class of Americans to demonize - gays and lesbians.
50 years later, everything and nothing has changed. For African-Americans, life has gotten substantially better since the days when the South went to war with America and held America to decades of violence because of their hatred for black people. And today, they are waging that same war - in our courts, in our legislatures, in the Supreme Court, in Congress, and all the way up to the White House. And their new target seems so familiar it's almost old. They're at war with America again. They will stop at nothing until they have completely and irreversibly transformed this nation into their hateful and bigoted ways.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is only so when they define it.
Why can't I choose to live my own life the way I want it just as you live yours? Why can't I be free to fight for my constitutional rights just as you are free to fight yours? Why do you confuse your constitutional right to demonize me with your constitutional right to deny me equal protection under the law? Is it so hard to believe that I just want to visit my dying partner in a hospital emergency room? Is it that disgusting for me to wish that my loved one is cared for through survivor benefits when I die? Why is my love so scary that you hate it? That you hate it so much you want to squash it with all the might of the Constitution? Why is my happiness the bane of your existence?
One year later, Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut permit same-sex marriages or unions. I look forward to May 17th, 2006. And 2007... And 2008... And until the day when the tidal wave of equality overcomes the bitterness of a divided past.
[we love kylie] Oh no... We love you Kylie! Stay strong. Livestrong :) I'm gonna cry... *sob*
MAY 16 :: [desperate husbands] Unemployed, dying, lost-his-son, and "gay-bashing" out of jealous rage? Oh my. The husbands of Wisteria Lane are having a really bad week. Anywho, why dwell on the negative. Some of the funniest stuff from last night:
Susan: "You've wasted your time. And your doughnuts.
Edie: "Not if you choke on them.Edie: "You are so far out of your league you're playing a different sport."
Edie: "Welcome to the majors!"Carlos: "Why did you slap the lawn boy?"
Gabrielle: "If you saw what he did to the begonias, you'd slap him too!"Bree: "George, do you have an erection?"
Gabrielle: "Oh Carlos, whoever said YOU were the father?"
LOL!!! This episode was where the creepy get creepier. I mean, who can be creepier than George? Zach? And what about Mrs Tillman? She's creepy in a good way but still... I do know who's not creepy though - Justin the lawn boy! So glad he's back. When I saw him, I almost came. Keep his clothes off! *giggle* Definitely not creepy! ;)
[gay dc] Once in awhile, you just spend the entire weekend exploring the myriad of DC's gay nightlife and all that it has to offer. That weekend for me was just this past one. Gurl, I was everywhere.
Friday night was Margaret Cho night. Chris, Rick, Soochon/Bill, Tony and myself had dinner at Finemondo before settling in comfortably (with champagne in hand, of course) at the Warner for the Divine Ms. Cho to show up. Bruce Daniels opened with a riotous routine (natch) and when my asian diva showed up, I almost passed out. She looked fabulous...-ly thin for once. Giggle. She started the evening off with how boring the UK is and how their news revolves around inconsequential stuff like land disputes. The US? Well, you turn on the TV in DC and "there's a Cessnaaaaaaaaaaah!". ROTFL!!!! I almost passed out. There were other routines (like the Bjork impersonation which made me laugh so hard I peed a little, the multiple usages of "gurrrrrrrl" in the gay world, and let's not forget Laura Bush's pus... oh wait, I can't write that on here *GRIN*) but until I see it on HBO, I can't possibly remember half of them. Although her "new" routine was a semi-ripoff of the State of Emergency tour which we went to last fall, I still laughed hysterically at all the new and old stuff. She was just too funny. I haven't laughed so hard in forever!
Not content with an evening with Cho, we adjourned to JR's where we spot (who else) Bruce Daniels! We're such star-fuckers. I ended the evening at Apex where PR-Andy and I danced till 3 *gasp*. Saturday started off innocently enough with hungover yoga; the humidity was stifling and we were all lethargic. Then Tony went out and bought $750 worth of booze :-o. And then the sky fucking exploded and it poured like an m-f-er. Of course, once the rain stopped, I hightailed it to Halo to meet Rick, Scotty and Phillip (he's got a new pug!) before marching on to Secrets for a finale of drag queens and dick dancers. The walk of shame was more like the train ride of shame at 3am! Public transportation is so not fetch when you're drunk, lol!
Sunday was supposed to be all innocent until M3 (yes, that's M2 and his new bf Michael - seriously, how many Michaels do we need in this world??) dropped by and dragged our sorry asses to Lauriol for brunch and bloody marys. A 4-hour shopping trip later (roaming all over Georgetown), we ended up back at The Circle where M3 and New Mexico Greg were. Needless to say, when a friend from out of town visits, all hell breaks loose at JR's on a Sunday night.
I can't even begin to tell you how much vodka and rum I drank this weekend. It's safe to say that if you squeeze me right now, I'd drip alcohol. Put an IV in me and you can start mixing cocktails. My body is suffering today from multiple-dehydration and lack of proper sleep.
A small price to pay for a fetch weekend, perhaps? Gurrrrrrrl.
[pass the wine] The Supreme Court ruled that the ban on out-of-state wine shipments is unconstitutional. Hooray! Of course, we all need more alcohol in our lives and wine is supposedly (and proven?) to be good for you. So, drink up!
But more intriguingly, this ruling caught my eye because the Justices that struck down the ban were a coalition of the weird - Kennedy (moderate), Souter/Ginsburg/Breyer (liberal), and *gulp* Scalia!! When have they ever agreed on anything, much less the oh-so-evil-and-morally-decaying alcohol??
[who's your jedi?] Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith, the sixth and final "Star Wars" movie, premiered at Cannes yesterday to sweepingly rousing reviews. And some reviewers see a little jab in this final instalment to Bush's "empire".
From the A. O. Scott of the NYT:
"'Revenge of the Sith' is about how a republic dismantles its own democratic principles, about how politics becomes militarized, about how a Manichaean ideology undermines the rational exercise of power. Mr. Lucas is clearly jabbing his light saber in the direction of some real-world political leaders."
"Democracies swell into empires, empires are toppled by revolutions, fathers abandon their sons and sons find their fathers. Movies end. Life goes on."
It's sad. It's sad because once I see this one, there'll be none left. Whatever. I can't wait to go see it!
[so paris] So I woke up this morning... hungover, of course. And I wear my new hot pants from Zara (thanks Tony!) and sling my new fab messenger bag from Kenneth Cole (happy birthday to me!!), turn on my iPod and was horrified to know it had run out of battery. Zilch, nada, dead. So, I got my car keys and drove to work today.
LOL! Rick says it was "so Paris Hilton". Giggle. And I was promptly rewarded with a commute from hell - is everybody driving into DC today?? All the roads were clogged beyond belief. Sheesh.
OK, back to work.. And yea, if I didn't write the entire weekend, it wasn't because I didn't have time, it was because I was too drunk to do so. Natch ;)
MAY 13 :: [celebrate me] I need attention. Uh-huh, what's new, right? It's Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage Month (yea, it gets longer and longer) dammit. So, celebrate me! Where's my parade? Y'know, isn't it easier to just say "Yellow Month"? That way, the monthly racial-PC-bullshit celebrations can color coordinate with our terror alert colors. Love it.
Not to mention my birthday week starts today. Celebrate me!! Oh and celebrate Margaret tonight too :)
Bored at work. There's like nobody here today. Half the government workforce is on Flex time (every other Friday off) and my supervisor is not here today. Why am I still at work??
[friday the 13th] It's Friday the 13th! And we are off to go see our favorite fag-hag tonight - Margaret Cho at the Warner for the Assassin Tour! Woo! It'll be me, Tony, Chris, Rick, Bill and Soochon. Can't wait. I need a good laugh.
Oh my Peter, Paul and Ma-wee... as if last night wasn't enough? Oy... note to self: keep it under 4 drinks at all-u-can-drink night. Giggle. I was so toasted last night I could barely walk home. And the best part was it was still light out when we walked home! Talk about a daytime walk of shame. Chris and I really went at it but gurl has like 70lbs on me, right? I shouldn't try to keep up. Beyonce says "can you keep up?" and I say "no!".
My younger brother got into a car accident two days ago. In Des Moines. With my parents in the car. No airbags. Yea... I'm SUPER-pleased. He barely has any insurance on that death-trap of a car and they're driving to Chicago today! Ugh. Totally annoyed. He needs to get his act together, pronto. Anywho, the damage was minimal but the door is kinda caved in so a new door costs like $2k or something ridiculous like that (it's an Acura). Sigh.
Oh well, no use to worry. Nothing I can do about it now. I need to go shopping this weekend. For booze, for a new bed (?), for some new clothes maybe... I haven't been paid for 3 weeks now (due to the transition to a new job) so maybe I'll have to tone it down a little. But not for the party! Can you say "Margarita Machine"? ;)
[bankrupt] United is my bankrupt airline of choice :) Mechanics, machinists and flight attendants are all threatening to strike. Oh dear. We have travel plans lined up for Memorial Day and this latest article forebodes havoc to one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. Not to mention my parents are on a UA flight coming to DC in a week's time. Ugh. What to do? I'm Premier Exec and Tony is 1K... we're slaves to the now-not-so-friendly skies.
MAY 12 :: [hot, hot, hot] DC Metro's real estate market shot up 22.7% between Q1 '04 and Q1 '05. The median price is now at $369k. That's nothing compared to SF's $689k (!!) and OC's $657k.
[china 2008] I'm sick of staring at my computer screen and looking at this damn firewall. Taking a break and musing over an article I read on the plane ride home from KC.
In three years and a few months, China will do what Japan did back in '64 and South Korea did in '88 - a huge coming out party to signify an Asian nation's coming of age, or kinda like an ascendance, in the global economic and political structure. The world marvelled at the bullet train 40+ years ago, and South Korea's amazing economic revival from ashes to Samsung in 35 years.
All this will be dwarfed by China's ascendance in 2008 when Beijing grips the world's attention and imagination during the summer Olympics. Way back when, the mention of "China" evoked thoughts like communism, overpopulation, poverty, hunger, Mao and repression. Today, even communism and repression seem on the retreat; but everything else is definitely history.
Today, China is a litany of dazzling statistics meant to stun the listener into silence. 1.3 billion people - 4 times America's population. World's largest producer of coal, steel and cement. World's largest consumer of grain, meat, coal and steel. Second largest consumer of energy and third largest importer of oil. World's fastest growing large economy; with 9% growth a year for more than 25 years. Second largest holder of foreign-exchange reserves. World's largest army. Fourth largest defense budget. In 25 years, China's bullet-train-economy has lifted 300mn ppl out of poverty and quadrupled the average Chinese person's income. In the 10 years since 1994, China's total trade has grown from $240bn to $1.2bn; fivefold. China last year overtook Japan as the world's third largest trading nation behind the US and Germany.
And America is in awe. China is America's low-cost workshop. China makes 70% of the world's toys, 60% of its bicycles, half its shoes, and one-third of its luggage. Wal-Mart, America's (and the world's) largest corporation, makes up 2% of America's GDP with revenues 8 times those of Microsoft. Wal-Mart employs 1.4mn ppl, more than GM, Ford, GE and IBM put together. Last year? 80% of Wal-Mart's suppliers come from one country. China.
China's official GDP is only $1.5tn - in itself, is enough to be the world's fourth largest economy behind the US, Japan and Germany - with per capita income inching above $1,000 for the first time. America's economy is about 8 times larger and per capita income is 30+ times higher. In terms of Purchasing Power Parity (based on relative prices and cost-of-living between countries i.e. US$1 buys more in China than it does in America), China's economy is three-fifths the size of America's and the second largest in the world, but with a per capita income that's only about one-sixth of America's. Imagine what will happen when China's per-capita income rises to half of America's which is where South Korea is at today.
The paradox with China is that it is no longer just a developing country, like Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong once were. With production and consumption rates that have outstripped even the United States at this stage of the game, China is emerging as a global economic superpower, mimicking the rise of the United States a century earlier. We are witnessing a sustained and dramatic growth of a future world power, with an unmatched breadth of resources, lofty aspirations, strong bargaining positions, and the financial and technological wherewithal of an established and business-savvy overseas community. Already, China is much of Asia's biggest trading partner, and Japan's second biggest. Her tentacles spread far and wide.
Napoleon once said "Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." China's time is coming.
OK, yes, it is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month at our workplace (the Federal Government is crazy PC when it comes to racial stuff) but no, that's not the reason why I'm so gung-ho about China :p Ahem, since when did I become "Asian-Pacific American"?? Eww.
[darth bush] Purportedly from the new Star Wars III - Revenge of the Sith:
Anakin: "If you're not with me, you're my enemy."
Obi-Wan: "Only a Sith thinks in absolutes."
LOL! Actually, a better nickname would be "dearth bush".
[nice guys] Yea, OK I know, this is old news but I've been away and I'm just now catching up on my TV (TiVo rules). Anyway, my faith has been restored in humankind (and the Amazing Race) when Uchenna and Joyce won the 7th Amazing Race, beating despicable and poor-excuses-for-human-beings Rob and Amber to the finish line. More proof that nice guys do finish first! So happy they won. I was definitely rooting for them.
MAY 11 :: [america's heartland] Ah, yes.. the Midwest. Whatever possessed me to spend not one or two, but FIVE days in Iowa and Missouri this past weekend. Why, it must be my family, of course! And Tony's too. I pray everyday (and I'm not religious at all) that they will someday move to Florida, where all things old and retired end up. This much I know - some prayers do go unanswered.
So as it turns out, my parents flew 10k miles to America's heartland to attend my brother's graduation. I have no idea what my younger bro was smoking the day he decided to attend Iowa State in Ames but I had one word for him when I met him at the very posh and new Jordan Creek mall outside of Des Moines - "Why?"
Why on God's name would anyone choose to be here... Iowa, Iowa, Iowa. Apparently, "where exciting things happen!". LOL!!!
Anywho, we flew into Kansas City and met up with Tony's parents before driving the unbelievably long distance to Des Moines (with a stop at a chinese restaurant en route - yes, even in God's country, takeout chinese is a necessity). Des Moines is pleasant enough. Small, not quite that charming, and very, very flat. The whole state is flat. So flat you can see Canada and Mexico from here. The interstates are so straight you could drive to the next state without making a turn. The interstates themselves are bumpy and narrow (2 lanes!). Almost like driving on country roads. But the speed limit is 65-70! And why the hurry? Well, driving 30mi here feels like 300; there is nothing but acre after acre of corn fields. You think I'm joking? Go see for yourself. The terrain, the straight roads, the corn fields... When it stormed one day, I just pictured myself on the set of Twister.
We stayed at the Sheraton in West Des Moines which was quite pleasant; every hotel, excuse me, "inn" we found in Ames looked beyond scary. Of course, nothing was as scary as my brother's accommodation. I almost wanted to airlift my parents outta there.
The graduation ceremony itself was amazingly uncivilized. Totally stripped of the pomp and circumstance I was used to, graduating from a university in England. The robe was made of plastic, the handing out of the degree was mass produced like a Model T of graduates - students, some clad in jeans!, 2-by-2 marching up on both sides of the stage for maybe 5 seconds of stage presence. And it was all held in a stadium. Nice.
And as if we weren't content with the 30+mi drives between Des Moines and Ames, we broke off one evening to have supper (dinner?) with Tony's aunt/uncle who live in Prairie City. Yes, the prairies. I don't think this town has had as many Asians ever as when my parents, my younger bro and I dropped by. You could WALK from one end to the other in 10 minutes. And beyond the edge, there's nothing but buffalos and corn fields. As far as the eye can see. I wish I was joking. I have no idea how I survived. The sunsets were beautiful though :)
I won't bore you with further details. We had Mother's Day brunch at the hotel, Mother's Day dinner at Lidia's in KC with both sets of parents (very cool). We found Rick's side business and a VERY fetch T-shirt for me. We found Buca (!!) in KC as well as an Apple store (how civilized). We also found Target (yay! we're saved!). We toggled back and forth between Missouri and Kansas, visited Union Station (interior), saw some cool buildings, lots of fun fountains (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) at the Plaza, etc. We even had great KC BBQ and some quite-good Malaysian food!
All in all, a fun family trip but definitely was extremely happy when we finally landed at DCA, to be greeted by a gorgeous sunset. Good to be home, glad I don't live there :)
[civilization] Oh thank God I'm home. I tell ya, nothing says "DC is great!" like Iowa... Or Missouri. Bleagh. Then again, nothing screams DC like another evacuation at the White House/Congress (yes, it happened today). Regardless, I'm so glad to be home... to mingle with civilization again. I hope to write about my (mis-)adventures in the Mid-West - complete with pics! - soon. Yes, wait for it with bated breath.
Miss me? :)
So many things happened while I was gone, as they always do. I guess the world hasn't yet learned that it should come to a stop while I'm on vacation. Sigh. So, Blair got re-elected. Amazingly enough, even The Economist (center-right) endorsed Blair. That just tells you how bad the Tories and the Lib-Dems are. But the alarm bells are already sounding: Labor's majority is a tenuous 66-seats, they only beat the Tories by 4% in the popular vote, and their share of the popular vote was the lowest for any winning party since WWII. Out with Blair, in with Brown?
Speaking of politics, what is up with Canada?! Monsieur Martin loses a no-confidence vote and refuses to step down? Hmm... Now why would the Bloc vote against their Liberal allies? The French are sooooo quirky. As for the Conservatives? Oh puh-leez... Canadians need to reject those right-wing rednecks as I'm sure they will when an election is likely called next year.
Now this is a pleasant surprise. A shrinking deficit! Who woulda thought? This is good news for United Airlines (and for all of us frequent fliers) but bad for the employees (some of whom are our friends). Lose-lose all around, I guess, since this will definitely affect employee morale. And $82bn more for the Iraq war. Total cost? $300+bn and counting. Was it really worth 1500+ American lives, tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives, and $1,000 taken away from every man, woman and child in America? Do you know how many diseases we could've cured or schools we could've built with $300bn? How many lives could've been saved through foreign aid and humanitarian handouts instead of lives taken away by this unnecessary, lie-induced war?
It almost makes me want to secede. That way, I'll never, ever have to go back to red states like Missouri or Iowa. EVER ;-)
Actually, it wasn't so bad. But back to DC... Margaret Cho invades DC this weekend, party next week, parents coming, busy busy busy all around. And work is getting in the way of everything. Groan. Having to work is so cruel it is almost uncivilized. Civilization is not so civilized after all...
MAY 5 :: [blair-blair-blair] I can barely speak this much less type this but.... SURPRISE!! Blair won. D'oh... Tony Blair's Labour Party has just won an historic third term in government, albeit with a greatly reduced majority. Just before midnight here on the East Coast, Blair's Labour Party has enough seats (324) in Parliament to form a majority. With only 100 or so seats left to declare, Labour has lost its majority by 35, and the Conservatives picked up 23, and the Lib-Dems picked up 10. But all that is preliminary. It seems that at this point, we already know who is Britain's next Prime Minister and for the third-time in a row, it will be Tony Blair, but what we do not know is how large (or small) his majority is going to be. The 413-166-52 Labour-Tory-Lib/Dem party breakdown at the 2001 elections is definitely gonna be in for some major changes. I guess we'll just have to sleep off the alcohol-induced hangover and find out the next day!! Snoooooooore...
[coincidence?] On the day of the British general election, this happens. Weird, huh? There is a history of attacks on UK diplomatic posts.
So, 646 seats in the UK Parliament are up for grabs today. Who's gonna win? All bets are on Blair, of course.
Tuesday night was a fun farewell dinner to John/Thyra with Rob/Mikko @ Heritage India. The food there is always so good but there's never anybody there. I wonder how they make money. Anywho, Thyra had this vindaloo thing that was so spicy it burnt three times - going in, staying in and coming out! Not so fetch.
I was a good boy last night, I was! Weather has been nice these past few days, pleasant 50s and 60s. It's been a very hectic week due to work (yes, I'm still not used to getting up at 8), upcoming travel and all sorts of events and parties. The next few weeks aren't any better. Next weekend we have Margaret Cho and prep work for the big party on the weekend of the 20th. The weekend after that (Memorial Day) is LA. And then it's June! Can't wait for summer.
[unequal and unjust]This was a very interesting article on the WP today (kudos to them for printing it). The taxation of health benefits offered to partners of employees in a domestic partner relationship is seriously unjust since spouses of married couples are not subject to this tax. Don't get me wrong, I'm elated that Tony's company offers domestic partner benefits to begin with (mine does not, ugh... SAIC did). We have definitely come a long way. But there's still a ways to go. When will full equality be achieved? It's the fight of our generation.
MAY 3 :: [the nerve] Yes, my "thoughts" have been brutally but lovingly boiled down to a simple equation that Einstein would be proud of:
Booze + Kiat + Rick = Fetch!
...by none other than the outrageously slutty but fabulously funny Michael in LA (no, not of Mike/Gary fame). Sigh. Typecasted yet again! We Asians can never catch a break...
BTW, party on the 20th!! Will u be there? ;)
[ingenius] Hear, hear. The politics of ingenuity lives on. Notwithstanding the fact that Davis is a power-wielding NIMBY who sticks his nose in places it doesn't belong, this is a very clever suggestion and should be supported wholeheartedly by both parties. Win-win for all! Shame on the Democrats for their myopic selfishness that's detrimental to everyone's long term interests, Democrats and DC residents alike.
[nobody reads] Nobody reads anymore. USA Today is still tops with 2.28mn, followed by WSJ (ew) with 2.07mn. NYT is at 1.14mn while the WP is at 0.75mn. Who reads the newspaper anymore? By the time I get to it in the evening, I've already read the bulk of news from the day before and, better yet, the stuff that's not even in print yet that just happened. In this age of instant media, newspapers are relics from the bygone era. I still subscribe to the Post though. Mainly to skim through the pages for interesting stuff that I missed coz not everything makes it to the Post's homepage. I hope the newspapers don't catch on to this whole online thing and start charging for access to their websites.
[vindication?] I think? The 1-month LIBOR hit 3% today (which is where the Fed is headed later today) which means my previous mortgage's effective rate has now equalled my new mortgage rate (4.5%). I guess we made the right choice!
But really, the savings have not even begun to materialize. First, we locked in at a higher rate than otherwise would've been for the first four months of the year (that's easily $1000+ there). Then, there's the closing costs. It may be a few years of higher rates before the refi made sense. Not that I'm praying for higher rates, of course :)
UPDATE: Yup, the Feds raised the rate by a quarter-point for the eighth time in the past year, bringing the federal funds rate from 1% in Jun 2004 to 3% today. Will the dollar strengthen? Will inflation be tamed? Will mortgage rates finally rise in tandem? Will the housing market slow down or, gasp, collapse? Will the anemic stockmarket stay in the doldrums? Is Alan Greenspan the most powerful economist in the world??
MAY 2 :: [too short] I always thought the weekends were too short. But this past one - the first one after I started my new job - felt WAAAAAY too short.
I was already in my weekend mode by lunchtime on Friday. I met Thyra at Aria's for a fetch 2-hr lunch. That was followed by Halo with Chris (with AndyP, Rick, M2, Peter, etc. showing up later) and then Gaypex with Rick and his newfound friend. Sprinkled in between is a sordid story about piling into a drunk driver's car to get from Halo to Apex but we won't even go there. Yes, that was how drunk I was. That and the $150 tab (of mostly mojitos) at Halo!! Oh my Karen Walker at Betty Ford. Oh, how could I forget - met Warren at Halo too. Like, I haven't seen him in 2 years or something and voila, he shows up at Halo on a Friday night.
The hangover on Saturday would not go away. So much so I had to skip yoga which was not a fetch thing to do (my yoga teacher promised to punish me next week by making me do my least fav poses... twice!). But by, oh, 5pm, I was ready to party again and off we went to the Vappu party at Rob/Mikko's (with to-die-for gumbo and ribs!). We had to leave for the gang-of-8 dinner party by 7 and did not return to the Vappu till 1 at which time it had already died down. Oh well. Sucks that I missed the bulk of it but still, a fun evening! The dinner party was fetch - amazing osso bucco and some chocolate cake which was super-delicious. Ate WAY too much. That and no yoga means I felt bloated all weekend, ugh. There's also a tragic nipple story to be told but I'm sure you've all heard about it by now :) Yes, good news travels fast but tragedy spreads like wildfire.
Sunday was a beautiful day (as opposed to the wet, rainy and cold Saturday) and so we hauled ourselves out of bed and rolled into Lauriol for a raucous brunch with John/Thyra, Rob, Rick, Chris, and M2. Two bloody marys later, we took a long stroll home under the glorious spring sun. In for the evening. Watched Desperate Housewives. And so ends another weekend that was far too short but long in fun! I howled hysterically, by the way, when Rex pushed George (and Bree!) in to the pool, and moments later Gabrielle storms out of the house and slaps Carlos in the face for tampering with her birth control - LOL!! Priceless. Very Melrose Place and Dynasty rolled into one. Oh and then there was the puking-in-the-roadster scene which was giggle-inducing. The whole Susan's-house-exploding and Zach-the-firestarter thing is way creepy. The show needs to lighten up. It's getting awfully dark on Wisteria Lane!
Oh well, guess what's happening THIS weekend?? No, not Cherry 10 (although, a circuit party doesn't look so bad compared to the alternative)... Kansas City and Des Moines! *groan* Woe is me. Family obligations... sigh. Yes, my parents are already en route, arriving in Newark some time tonight. The family month has begun... again.
MAY 1 :: [charmingly funny] Did you hear about the First Lady at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner last night?? Of course you did. She was so charmingly funny, she made the frontpages of every newspaper from Washington, DC to Hollywood.
Some of her best lines of the evening:
"I've been attending these dinners for years, just quietly sitting there. Now I've got a few things to say."
"George says he's always delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney! He's usually in bed by now."
"The other day I say to George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you've got to stay up later."
"At 9 p.m. Mr. Excitement here is asleep and I'm watching 'Desperate Housewives.'" Pause. "With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a desperate housewife!"
[On the in-laws] "First prize is a three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize is 10 days."
"I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year he tried to milk a horse." Pause. "It was a male horse."
"I can pronounce 'nuclear.'"
You go, gurl!
[may day] Happy May Day/Vappu/Labor Day, etc.!!
31 :: quotas = bad
31 :: too good
31 :: first run
31 :: oh my...
31 :: poverty
29 :: los fabulous
29 :: p.s., yes!
29 :: party weekend
27 :: dumbest drivers
27 :: $491bn
27 :: why am i here?
26 :: not my idol
25 :: to infinity...
25 :: omakase
25 :: think blue
24 :: $1mn
24 :: umbrella commute
23 :: 9,531 miles
23 :: "force"-ful
23 :: desperate cliffhanger?
23 :: gimme my texts!
23 :: the monday after
21 :: am i dead?
20 :: rainy birthday
19 :: debauchery
19 :: 1,354
19 :: adrian
18 :: chaotic part deux
18 :: chaotic
18 :: villaraigosa
17 :: 1954, 2004
17 :: we love kylie
16 :: desperate husbands
16 :: gay dc
16 :: pass the wine
16 :: who's your jedi?
16 :: so paris
13 :: celebrate me
13 :: friday the 13th
13 :: bankrupt
12 :: hot, hot, hot
12 :: china 2008
12 :: darth bush
12 :: nice guys
11 :: america's heartland
11 :: civilization
05 :: blair-blair-blair
05 :: coincidence?
05 :: unequal and unjust
03 :: the nerve
03 :: ingenius
03 :: nobody reads
03 :: vindication?
02 :: too short
01 :: charmingly funny
01 :: may day