AUG 31 :: [transparent] IM message of the day... from Rick, who is suffering from back pains (uh-huh, told you to stop bending over):

Rick: mawee, I'm bored
I'm layedd up at my office
on the couch in the reception area
with a bunch of pillows proping me up
I look ridiculous
lol
and everyone is waiting on my hand and foot
i love it
now I know how you feel at home!

Bitch knows me too well... Yes, bitch can't spell either. @ 15:23

[9 1/2 hours] Eugene Robinson of the WP put down on paper what most of us have been thinking after Hurricane Katrina almost wiped New Orleans off the map. In "Natural Acts of Terror", he writes:

"...Everyone knew these defenses [levees, dikes, canals and massive pumps] could handle an average hurricane but not a really big one such as Katrina. Yet a million people living in the New Orleans area, not to mention the rest of us, managed to put that inconvenient fact out of their minds."

"It's paradoxical, when you think about it, that we have such a sense of urgency about preventing acts of terrorism that we will spend any amount of money to reduce the risk. But we are so laid-back about natural disasters -- which are absolutely inevitable, take more lives and can have devastating economic impact -- that we buy protection only grudgingly."

"Hurricanes.. are common, reliable and deadly -- and it's long been known that New Orleans, because of the minus sign in front of its elevation, was a soft and vulnerable target."

"There are plenty of plans on the books for new floodgates, levees and pumps in New Orleans, but funding comes in at a trickle... New Orleans doesn't have a choice -- it is where it is. Unless we plan to move the city to higher ground, we'd better find the money for bigger levees and bigger pumps."

How on earth can people live in a nature-defying area with full knowledge that a calamitous flood *will* occur every few decades? Better yet, why on earth would the House of Representatives - in a stick-it-up-to-the-residents-of-N'awlins act of stupidity - slash $71.2mn from the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for the New Orleans district in 2006?

Why? So that we can pay for, oh, 9 1/2 hours of the War in Iraq? @ 13:36

[a city in peril] The death toll is at 120. That number is sure to rise as N'Awlins hasn't even begun to count its dead. I watched CNN for like 2 hours yesterday when I got home and I was pretty much stunned to silence, fighting back tears. The heartbreak from the death and destruction, and the hardship from the unimaginable human suffering was utterly wrenching to watch. And I'm too depressed today to function.

New Orleans has been depopulated. The Governor ordered a complete evacuation of the city today - including displacing the Superdome refugees to Houston's Astrodome - abandoning the flood ravaged city of 484,000 (satellite image). They've tried and either didn't try hard enough or couldn't fix the breached levees. And with pumps failing across the city, water continues to rise and will continue to rise until the entire city is submerged in water deep enough to match the level of the Lake, which continues to swell from being fed by rivers that are swollen upstream due to the heavy rains. That would flood the French Quarter as well, which stands on one of the highest grounds in the city. In hardest hit areas, water has risen to the point you can just barely make out the roofs. Entire neighborhoods wiped out, miles and miles of homes are inundated, rendering them uninhabitable for weeks or months. Complete devastation of an entire metropolis is almost hard to comprehend, much less witness. It could be months before New Orleans dries out and regains some semblance of normal life again.

And even when it does, bridges have been smashed, highways have been turned into canals, there is no power, no gas, no potable water, no phones, no food, no hospitals, nothing. And almost no way of getting into and out of the city. The search-and-rescue mission combined with plugging the levees pre-empts all efforts to rebuild critical infrastructure. If water continues rising, the entire water system in New Orleans would be wiped out which would render the city uninhabitable even if the city dries out tomorrow. But getting electricity to the pumps and repairing the pumps themselves has yet to be done, much less the estimated one month-long timeframe it will take to pump the city dry. The timeline to repopulate a half-million strong city stretches as long as the mighty Mississippi.

I shudder to think how many are dead in New Orleans. Close to a hundred thousand people could not or chose (foolishly, if they were able to) not to evacuate. Estimates of 28,000 unaccounted for is staggeringly frightening. Crushing winds, collapsed buildings, gushing waters, and now rising water. Just the thought of it is heart-numbing. The only consolation is the storm surge did not slam New Orleans so hard that it topped the levees during the hurricane (a tsunami-like effect) which would've meant much faster rising water compared to the slow-moving event that it is right now.

Mother Nature and, to some extent, mankind has wrought catastrophe on the City of New Orleans, turning a nightmare into reality. New Orleans, as we know it, is in peril. @ 12:28

AUG 30 :: [merdeka] Means "Independence" in Malay. Four hours ago, Malaysia celebrated her 48th year of independence. It actually falls on August 31st but Malaysia is ahead of EDT by 12 hours so it occurred at noon EDT today. 300,000 Malaysians celebrated with the Prime Minister at Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) - where the Union Jack was lowered 48 years ago - with shouts of "Merdeka!" at the stroke of midnight. A huge fireworks display lit up the night sky above the Petronas Twin Towers, the second tallest buildings in the world.

Not so Third World after all, eh? :) @ 16:06

[starving in america] In the richest nation in the world, and perhaps in history, 37mn people (12.7% of the population) are living in poverty, up from 35.9mn (12.5%) the year before. But wait, what is the definition of poverty used in this calculation? A family of four with two children is considered living in poverty if income was $19,157 or less. For a couple, it's $12,649. It's *impossible* to live on $1k/mth, anywhere in the US, on your own much less with your spouse. How many more are "poor" or barely scraping by if the threshold was set at a more realistic level? Even with the current ludicrous threshold, how is it that 1 out of every 8 Americans is living in destitute?

Just other blah statistics: Asians registered a decline in poverty, Blacks/Hispanics held steady while poverty among the white folk increased. Median household income = $44,389 (unchanged from the year before) with Asians have the highest and Blacks, the lowest. Income declined in the Midwest, the South was the poorest, while the Northeast and the West were the richest.

And in the richest nation in the world, 45.8mn of her citizens do not have health insurance. Why do we even bother to measure progress if we don't provide for the ones who cannot provide for themselves?

The poverty rate has risen every year since 2000, when the Bush Administration came to power. That year, 31.1mn ppl (11.3%) lived under the threshold. Coincidence? I think not. The policies of the Republican White House and Congress have amounted to a war against the poor, a category which saw its numbers dwindle during the Clinton years. The poor and the wretched are starving, while the wealthy live in (multiple) million dollar homes and get richer every year from unending tax breaks. Is this the America we want? @ 15:34

[devastating aftermath] Well, I spoke too soon. Hurricane Katrina may have spared New Orleans from unimaginable devastation but the damage is slowly rising in the form of floodwaters. Last night, one of the major levees protecting New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain was breached along a 200ft-long section. Waters from the Katrina-swollen Lake gushed into New Orleans, turning the city into an extension of the lake. 80% of New Orleans is currently underwater, some under 20ft of water.. Water so deep it hits the roof line. The feared inundation of New Orleans is happening.

Helicopters are dropping 3,000-pound sandbags (!!) into the breach. Meanwhile, the water level is rising much higher than it had been during the height of Katrina's onslaught. The pumps used to pump water out of the city, 70% of which lies below sea level, cannot operate without electricity. Canal Street is literally a canal, the Superdome - where thousands of people have sought refuge for the past 48 hours - is waist-deep in water, and the waters are now lapping at the tourist-mecca French Quarter's edges. Little islands of red ants are floating in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. Rows and rows of shattered windows dot the high-rises in the Central Business District. Both the city's airports are underwater, an oil tanker had run aground and was leaking, there are gas leaks throughout the city and I-10's twin spans heading east over the lake have been completely destroyed. Interstates leading to the city dead-end into a murky sea of floodwater. There is still no fresh water or sanitation, and power could be out for a month or more. When the waters will recede is even less certain.

The situation is overwhelming, desperate and catastrophic. The streets are inundated with water, the devastation is vast, and there's nothing the city can do about it. The situation in Mississippi is even more chronic, where post-tsunami like conditions prevail from Gulfport to Biloxi with 75% or more of the structures damaged. The pictures are terrifying.

And let's not even talk about the death toll. @ 13:58

UPDATE: Martial law has been declared in all of N'Awlins. The CBD/downtown is now waist-deep in water. There are reports of a foot of floodwaters on Bourbon and Royal Streets in the French Quarter :-( @ 15:08

[metro peeves] People who eat/drink on the Metro. People who stand on the left while on the escalator. People who switch turnstiles at the last minute.. and then use a paper ticket! People who don't use deodorant when they should be. People who bend over to reach for stuff in their bag on the floor.. on a crowded train! (honey, one more time and I'll stick it in!) People who wear ugly white sneakers.. to match a dressy work outfit (bitch, do *not* ever leave home looking like that).

People who read over your shoulder. Imagine that you are reading, oh I dunno, Metro Weekly (I'll call you Metro Weekly Boy or MWB) on the Blue/Orange line this morning. Annoying Lady (AL) is standing over your shoulder.

AL:: What magazine is that you're reading? (that guy in that ad looks hot)
MWB:: [flips to the cover] It's Metro Weekly (I should've said "bitch, it's gay porn")
AL:: Oh, I saw that article you were reading and it looked pretty interesting (Lynda Carter is still alive?). What kind of a magazine is it?
MWB:: (bitch, stop reading over my shoulder) It's just a free magazine. You can find them everywhere (not in *your* white trash neighborhood, darrr-lin')
AL:: Great, I'll have to check it out (this boy reading it is pretty hot too.. I wonder if I can get his number?)

I overheard the conversation, but I generated the thought bubbles on my own. They were seated/standing across the aisle from me. After they finished their 15-second conversation, the lady continues to read over his shoulder. I could see that he was getting agitated. After she disembarked, I saw the guy rolling his eyes. I felt the urge to lean over and say to him "don'cha hate people who read over your shoulder".. but I didn't. He was cute and reading Metro Weekly. But he wasn't getting off with me. Not at Federal Center SW anyway. Sigh. Oh well, his shoes were hideous anyway. And hideous shoes are a *huge* Metro pet peeve of mine. Glad I didn't bother. LOL! @ 10:35

AUG 29 :: [the big lucky] The core of New Orleans and the French Quarter were spared the apocalyptic damage from catastrophic flooding that forecasters had feared from Katrina's wrath. All it took was a slight jog to the east and a slight weakening of Hurricane Katrina at the last moment just before it crashed onshore. Most of the levees held and New Orleans lived to let the good times roll another day. Still, it would be weeks or months before she gets back on her feet again. Right now, there's no power, no sewage, no drinking water, widespread contamination, impassable roads, downed power lines/trees/debris, no gas, no supplies, no phone service, etc. And the state government has blockaded New Orleans so that residents cannot return in the near future. Can you imagine being forcibly evacuated from your home and then told you cannot come back for the next few days?

Gulfport and Biloxi were not so lucky. The slight jog to the east meant that Mississippi's Gulf Coast got hit hard instead. Early reports have mentioned "complete devastation". It's shockingly tragic. @ 21:01

[new word] I need to start a "fetch vocab" section for all the words my friends and I invent. I would add "stank" in there (for stinky and skanky) but Rick would probably object. Whatever, bitch. But he did invent a new word that I think should be the first entry in the "gay man's survival guide to DC."

Entry: ha.lo.cop.ter
Function: noun
Meaning: an aircraft of last resort to transfer you to Halo when you're stuck in the suburbs (like Reston or Rockville) and all your friends are inebriated
Usage: In this context:-

Rick:: Ma-wee, come get me out of Reston
Me:: Can't, I'm drunk
Rick:: Send a helicopter
Me:: With the word Halo on the side
Rick:: A halocopter!

@ 16:41

[unlimited] I have only one thing to say about unlimited text messaging: It's the best thing since Buddha. T-Mobile finally got smart and introduced a $14.99 plan with unlimited SMSes and I jumped at it like it was a bag of rice on Survivor Palau. No more telling people to stop texting me coz I'm close to my limit.. mid-way through my billing cycle (yes, I hit 930 out of my 1000 alloted texts by Day 15). No more begging every day for the last 2 weeks of my billing cycle for freebie texts from T-Mobile. No more $20 overages after I surpass even my post-begging limit of text messages. And I can carry on multiple-hundred-texts AIM conversations with my bitches using my cellphone (since I can't AIM at work). T-Mobile is *so* gonna regret giving me unlimited text messages. But I don't care. Hot fetch!

Hmm, did I mention that my passport was just renewed recently and I can officially travel again? Yea, I was one month away from my passport's expiration. So, um it took two months to get my passport renewed. Apparently, the Malaysian Embassy here has to *walk* the fucking thing to Malaysia and back in order to renew it. Once a Third World country, always a Third World country. Sigh. @ 16:22

[lessons learnt] I shall attempt, in my somewhat hazy state this morning (as it always is on Monday mornings), to reconstruct (or deconstruct) my weekend by pointing out lessons learnt over the past 3 days. So here goes:

1. Always eat before you drink. That made a huge difference on both Friday and Saturday night. Tony came home Friday night from Boston so I stayed with him (sorry, Chuck!) till past dinner before heading out. Same story on Saturday except...

2. Watch where you step [this one's for Tony]. Well, I have had numerous (countless?) stumbling walks home on the walk-of-shame between JR's and my house; some to the point of even crawling due to my inebriated state. And never have I been so smashed that I would fall and dislocate my shoulder. Well, that's what Tony did on a rainy Saturday morning as he was going to the Convention Center. Me thinks he's way klutzy. But I shall refrain from making more jokes about his predicament and just sympathize with his somewhat adorable lack of balance (he sprained his ankle badly last year after a run). I had to pick his sorry ass up from Howard University Hospital though. I'm like, of all the hospitals in the area... There's Sibley, GW, Gtown, even Washington Hospital Center. But nooooooo, you *had* to pick the stankiest one of 'em all. He did load up on percocet, lol. But that meant I had to go out by myself all weekend :(

3. Never drink drinks you don't like no matter how drunk you are. I absolutely abhor the taste of raspberry. It reminds me way too much of cough syrup. Rick used to LOVE drinking Stoli Ras and I have tried it many times, and winced each time. So why did I drink it on Friday night? I met up with M2 and his half-his-age boytoy Chris at JR's, running into Leo and Guillermo there as well. I met two new boys - Tyson (bitch thinks I'm from Guam, LOL) and oh-(mibeyonce)-so-adorable Harrison from NC with a erection-inducing Southern twang - and we all decide to go shake our booties at Apex. But since it was way early, we stopped at Harrison's for a drink. Bitch promised me he had vodka and cranberry juice but he neglected to tell me it was raspberry vodka. Well, I was kinda inebriated anyway so I drank a glass of it. In a hurricane-sized glass. It was barely 11 and we were blasting music from his iTunes (a surprising mix of pop music and hits from musicals) before the neighbors started complaining (I'm sorry, it's 11pm on a Friday night! Get a life, bitches) so we left. At Apex, we started dancing and karaoke-ing.. Tyson actually sang Since U Been Gone impressively :-o I ordered my first drink there and almost threw it up. The taste of raspberry was gag-inducingly lodged at the back of my throat and I couldn't get rid of it. I felt ill. But I still shook it like it was hot till 3:30. LOL. I seem to not recall taking my shirt off. But apparently we all did. And boys, let's just say I saw WAY too much of Guillermo - which apparently, I later find out, is quite a frequent occurrence.

4. "Do not operate heavy machinery after this". That *should* be the disclaimer under the sign outside at JR's, or at least taped onto every glass in there like they're cigarette boxes. And it should be expanded to say "...or the next day either..." Bitches, driving hungover to pick Tony up at the hospital could've gotten me a DUI. It was 3:30pm.

5. Never wait till the last minute... To plan your Saturday evening out! I sat at home till, get this, 11pm. Doing absolutely nothing.

6. ...Especially when your bitches are MIA. What a weird evening. Phillip's in Utah. Rick was out in Reston doing god-knows-what-and-we-don't-really-care-either. And I had no backup plans drawn up for when my first-tier party bitches are out of commission. It was not fetch. I called *every*body and texted my ass out. It wasn't until 11pm when I finally got the call I had been waiting for all night. I rushed out of the house, into Leo's car, faster than you can say "ladies, let's go". We (Leo, Dave and I) hit Halo (hot mess!), Cobalt (shake it like it's hot... again!) and JR's (at 2:30?! ran into Jason..). It was a late start but Hurricane Kiat still managed to hit 17th St with full force (hmm, maybe it's still too early to joke about that...) It was a Category 4 night. LOL! It would've been a Cat 3 had I not gotten my ass grabbed by bartender-Matt at JR's at the end of his shift. Bitches, that was *hot*.

7. Sunday, bloody (mary) Sunday. And to expand - If you start drinking at 1pm, chances are you won't last past 8. Tony was working the Digital Expo on Sunday so Chuck and I hatched a plan to do bottomless (alcohol, that is) Sunday brunch at Beacon with Annie and Rick. Four bloody marys later, I am laughing so hard at Rick/Chuck/Annie's antics, I had tears streaming down my cheeks. A little pee came out too (thanks guys). Desi, our favorite waitress, was fierce. She brought pitcher after pitcher of mimosas and gave me Venti-sized bloody marys without prompting. It was endless. Well, not true. They instituted a new rule that the alcohol stops at 3pm. Surely, that was as a result of our Fourth of July brunch there which lasted till dinnertime. LOL. Ran into Ben/Mike. Ben looked just as drunk (bitch's eyes get red) as all of us. Fetch.

It was muggy outside (the nice weather had to come to an end at some point) as we marched up the 2 blocks or so to JR's - how convenient. We get there at 4ish. The place was dead. Before long, our group grows to include Leo, Guillermo, M2/Chris, Harrison, and countless other JR's-Sunday-night whores. And I am completely blitzed. Massively so. Four more drinks at JR's and I forcibly ejected myself out of there at 7:30pm (I think) so that I won't throw up on my walk home. By then, JR's was at full capacity and I was making such a scene with my drunken shenanigans that I decided I had to leave before it got *really* ugly. Tony had yummy delivery from Penang ready for me when I got home. I don't remember walking home. At all. I don't remember what I ate at dinner, only that I ate it at lightning speed like I had just escaped from overweight camp. I went upstairs to pee only to wake up at 1am. Hungover. And still drunk. I was more coherent then and stayed up till 6am watching the Weather Channel and CNN. I fell back asleep at 6 and woke up at 9. I barely made it to work at 11.

I think I'm gonna swear not to go out this week so that I can party through Labor Day weekend. But as with all best laid plans... Lessons are meant to be learnt, and quickly forgotten. @ 14:13

[nature's fury] After barrelling through Miami last week as a Category 1 hurricane, Mother Nature unleashed Hurricane Katrina this morning as a Category 4 storm with punishing 145-mph winds and blinding rain, slamming into the Gulf Coast between Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama causing widespread devastation and power outages. It is an extremely sad and terrifying situation, with walls of water up to two-stories high crashing into the Gulf Coast as Katrina makes a triple landfall. Thankfully, unlike the tsunami, millions of residents along the Gulf Coast had ample warning and they evacuated to higher ground. 80% of New Orleans' 480,000 residents fled the city, and the rest are either hunkering down in their homes (not a good idea) or are parked in the 20-storey high Louisiana Superdome. The latter thought to be the safest and most solid place to be but even its roof could not withstand the lashings of Katrina's ferocious winds.

Katrina's wrath ripped through the cities of New Orleans, Gulfport and Biloxi, flattening buildings and causing massive flooding. One of the levees in New Orleans was overtopped and the east side of the city is under 6ft of water as Katrina pours a tremendous amount of water into a city that is surrounded on three sides by water and 8ft below sea-level to begin with. It is all too catastrophic and tragic to comprehend and we won't know the full devastation left by Katrina until much later.

Katrina also disrupted the supply of 8mn barrels of oil, or 40% of daily US oil consumption. Ports have been closed where 6.5mn barrels of oil are brought in daily, and more than 40% of the Gulf Coast's production of 1.5mn barrels of oil per day has been shutdown. So it comes as no surprise that oil prices soared past $70 today, though still well-below the inflation-adjusted price of $90+ back in 1979. @ 12:51

AUG 26 :: [$765k] For a ONE-bedroom luxury condo at 22 West, next to the Ritz Carlton West End. HOLY SHIT. That's more than what we paid for our entire house. The priciest unit will be $3.5mn for a 3 BR penthouse. This is hot on the heels of Dumbarton Place - just 2 blocks north - which, btw, only has 2 BR condos and above left for $1mn+. It's crazy! @ 15:58

[cockrophobia] No, I don't fear cocks (in fact, I love 'em all *GRIN*) but I really couldn't find a word for a fear of cockroaches. Entomophobia - fear of insects - comes close but I don't really mind most of them so that's not quite accurate. Aaanywho, before I dive into that story, last night was the usual Thursday night outing - JR's, "Tony's-in-Boston-so-no-dinner-at-home"-induced McD's (so not proud of myself), back to JR's, then stumbling home. Sketch.

Hi my name is Kiat and I have an intense fear of cockroaches. This morning as I was brushing my teeth, I spotted one - oh, not much bigger than my fingernail - crawling around my vanity area. Usually when that happens, I scream for Tony. But Tony was nowhere to be found this morning, so I panicked. It was too tiny to be scary but still I was recoiling at the thought of sharing my space with "it"... so I took my stuff and finished up on Tony's vanity area instead (yes, we have a double vanity that's unconnected). I jumped in the shower, wash all the JR's gunk from the night before off me, towel off... I didn't even think about "it" anymore. Until I sauntered back to my vanity and discovered to my pearl-clutching horror that "it" has now come *really* close to my toothbrush (the one time I leave it on the counter...). Oh "it" is now pissing me off. I am not putting that toothbrush in my teeth after you've climbed all over it, you dirty little insect. And I am *not* doing my hair here while you're watching. You *know* how long it takes me to do my hair and I will have none of your creepy crawliness while I'm at it. I've gone from fear to anger in 4.2 milliseconds.

I rolled up a sextuple layer of triple-ply toilet paper (which is two more than I use to wipe my ass with) coz heaven forbid my skin comes in contact with "it". And just as I was about to pick "it" up, I decide "hmm, why don't I just drown 'it'". I helped "it" along to my precious L'Occitane hand wash's bottle, took the bottle and put it in the sink... and fucking drowned the bitch. I was thinking to myself, "Kiat, you're such a genius". And then the bitch started swimming. Oh, noooow you're pissing me off. I turned on the hot water to scalding and played with the sink plug until "it" was safely down the drain. And I left the hot water running for awhile longer to make sure that little fucker has entered into the DC sewage system. Roasted and dead. And then I proceeded to plug up the sink and left it like that until I got dressed.

And that's how I got rid of "it". I win! I Lord over you, you miserable insect. Hoos'yo daddy?! I felt so much better.

I don't hate very many things but I *hate* cockroaches. Just the sight of one sends shivers up my spine and evokes such fear in me to the point I'm spontaneously jumping/running/fleeing from the scene, usually screaming, right into Tony's arms. Fear really does bring people closer. It's really not pretty. Giggle.

My cockrophobia hasn't really been that pervasive here in the States. Your cockroaches here are Davids compared to the Goliath gi-mongous, human-swallowing cockroaches in Malaysia. Oh no you *haven't* seen a fear-inducing cockroach until you've seen one that's 3in long and flies around like a really ugly moth. And these cockroaches are alllll over Malaysia. I haven't seen one quite as big since, which is a GOOD thing. Just writing about those not-so-little monsters is giving me the shivers.

When I was growing up, I had quite a few fly into me. Of course, now I'd just be like "what, are you fucking blind?" But I was maybe 5 back then? So, I cried. And trust me, you don't want to leave your mouth open when these things are flying around. I used to fear for my life when I would enter a dark room (cockroaches loooove dark, damp areas) especially the kitchen, looking for food or water at night. I would turn on the light, inspect the entire room from floor to ceiling (yes they cling to the ceilings, walls, everything) before entering it. And if I saw one of their infamous tentacles flailing around (and trust me, you can spot these big ones with elephant tusk-like tentacles from a mile away), I would instinctively grab the first can of bug spray I can get a hold of and start spraying the bejeesus out of the entire room, while screaming like a banshee the entire time. And then I'll go back to my room, sans food or water. Of course, now my parents have air-conditioning throughout the house and cockroaches dislike the cold so I make sure the entire house is chilled to Arctic temperatures everytime I go back to my parents'. It would be cruel and unusual punishment to subject me to another giant cockroach experience in my life again.

But wait, there's more. There was this one time when one of these ginormous creatures entered my bedroom. I was probably 7. It crawled into my bed. I almost passed out in fear and cold sweats. I screamed for my parents. And I spent many a nights wide awake during my early years, scanning the room for cockroaches. Until I came up with the brilliant idea one day (it was like Newton watching the apple drop) of building a cockroach fortress. Two pillows for my head and feet and two body pillows, one on either side. It was like building a Great Wall to defend myself against B-2 bombers. But hey, when you're 7, the concept of a cockroach flying into your fortress didn't really cross my mind. I was just happy that I was able to keep them from crawling into my space and from then on, I slept soundly. And I've built a cockroach fortress ever since. Everywhere I go. Yes, even till today. You should see the looks on the faces of room service ppl at hotels when I ask for four *more* pillows. I'm like, "bitch, I could either stay up all night calling your sorry ass for bug spray or you can just gimme my damn pillows to build my fortress!". Old habits die hard.

Close encounters of the creepy crawly kind was *not* how I wanted to start my morning. @ 10:48

[number 11] Hurricane Katrina slammed head on into the heart of Miami overnight, killing 4 so far and leaving 1.4mn people without power across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, proving that a Category 1 hurricane can be just as deadly. The unexpected last minute turn towards Miami brought 9" of rain to Key Biscayne and plunged 1/3rd of Miami-Dade County into the dark. Katrina is the 11th named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and the fourth to hit the US. And it ain't over yet. After weakening a little as it crossed the Florida peninsula, it is now over the bath-warm Gulf Coast waters and has quickly strengthened back to hurricane status. It has set its sights for a second landfall late Sunday on the Florida Panhandle, potentially dumping rain from Florida all the way up to Delaware.

The gorgeous and tranquil weather in DC this past week is set to end on Sunday. Sigh. At least it's not hot and sticky. @ 09:36

AUG 25 :: [supersize usa ii] America is fat. Check this out. I know, it's mean.. but I had to point out that she was 212lbs (!). That's a whole lotta heavy regardless of how tall she was. And the same report that said 22.7% of American adults are obese, also pointed out that a guesstimate of 64.5% of American adults are both overweight (BMI >25) and obese (BMI >30). That's 119mn adults. It's a startling figure.

Check this out - possible reasons why OR beat the expansion of the nation's waistlines. Maybe I should start biking to work. It's a 3mi bike ride whether I go down Mass Ave or go past the White House. Ugh, that's a lot of biking isn't it? OK, can that idea. I'm not built for manual labor.

My liver gets lots of exercise though, LOL. Last night, I met up with Rick, White Ben - not to be confused with Yellow NYC Ben - and Evan at Halo followed by shirtless-Wed-night-and-bartop-dancers Omega last night. Three mojitos and two vodka-crans later... I'm just a hot mess! (new phrase courtesy of White Ben)

Y'know what else is a hot mess... Katrina. Making a beeline for Miami/FLL. Yikes. @ 11:41

[equal opportunity] Dissing, that is. The weather has been exceedingly gorgeous since Monday - go figure, last weekend was sweltering but this whole workweek has been 60s and 80s.. Mother Nature is a bitch. Anyway, great weather. Metro is relatively empty due to this phenomenon (unique to DC) called Congressional recess whereby all the Senate/House members/staffers leave town en masse. The beach towns are packed though, especially this few weeks when parents are trying to squeeze in a few more tan lines before school starts.

Aaaanywho, I digress. This morning, I was approached by a beggar at Metro Center. And as usual, I brushed him off. Only this time, he was white. And he was asking for Metro money. I'm like "dude, you're already IN the Metro.. beg for money when you're trying to exit." Bitches. I mean, if he had a story like "I only have credit cards and no change" or "I lost my wallet" etc. But y'know, he could've told the same story to the station managers and they would've sympathized with his plight. But noooo, he was asking for money. That grates on me. So, yea.. regardless of race, color, creed, etc. I do *NOT* give money to beggars. Period. So stop asking me! I was quite proud of myself for not discriminating.

I'm not trying to be mean but really, why don't you expend the energy in finding a job instead of relying on the kindness of strangers. And people, stop giving money to beggars. If we all stopped, they would stop too.

Oh and one more thing, if you're gonna text me a Spanish word to convey something, make sure it's a common word that is universally understood. Like "hola" or "adios" or "amigo" or "tacos"... or "cerveza". But "beso"?? Bitches, please.. I have a hard enough time juggling four languages, I don't need to be looking up Spanish words on Google. Aye Carumba! Love you Forty (mean it too) but you and I only have one language in common and Spanish ain't it! And neither is Tagalog! Muah :) @ 10:40

AUG 24 :: [justifying murder] Yup, straight from the President of the United States of America's mouth. This, from Maureen Dowd of the NYT today in "My Private Idaho":

"For political reasons, the president has a history of silence on America's war dead. But he finally mentioned them on Monday because it became politically useful to use them as a rationale for war - now that all the other rationales have gone up in smoke."

"'We owe them something,' he told veterans... 'We will finish the task that they gave their lives for.'"

"What twisted logic: with no W.M.D., no link to 9/11 and no democracy, now we have to keep killing people and have our kids killed because so many of our kids have been killed already? Talk about a vicious circle: the killing keeps justifying itself."

You vote for a murderer as President, and you get one.. except that he's murdering your kids. Bush lied, Soliders died. Good job, America. Good job. Aren't you feeling stupid now? @ 16:35

[beach pics] Some camera phone pics from Rehoboth this past weekend... Enjoy!

Rainbow | Beach Boys I | Beach Boys II | Hot | Trashy Desi | White Trash

@ 16:21

[the shit] Ugh, I ate way too much at lunch today. My bitch at work, Carol, gave me some of her noodles and of course, I can NEVER say no to noodles (hello, I'm Asian, have we met?). That plus a big ol' ham and turkey sandwich. I'm so stuffed I need to take a shit.

OK, Google Talk is officially *the* SHIT! I have been on it all day and I love it. But of course, Murphy says the day I can actually get an IM thing working at work (AIM, Yahoo! and MSN are all blocked) is the day where I have the most work to do all week. Damn bitches working me to death. Anyways, GTalk is very uncluttered (unlike AOL), clean lines, great interface.. just omni-cool basically. And the coolest thing? All the windows cling together like magnets and you can drag them all simultaneously or one by one. It's totally fucking cool. And if you have iChat on Mac, you can sync up to GTalk too. Hot.

Only problem is... I don't have many buddies on GTalk :( Everyone I know uses AIM. Oh well. And who knows, Treasury might get smart and block GTalk too. And then I'll be back to square one. Bloody government networks, ugh.

You wanna know what else is the shit? Google Maps Pedometer. It basically allows you to map out the exact distance between two points - and yes, I centered the map on Dupont Circle coz as far as I'm concerned, that's the center of the universe and everything revolves around me :p You can do a straight-line distance by double-clicking on the source and then the destination. Or you can map your walking route from point A to point B by continuously double-clicking on points from street-to-street till you get there. What's even cooler is it tells you how many calories you've burnt at the end!

JR's is about 0.65mi from my house and I burn about 70 calories each way. LOL!

So that's basically been my day. @ 15:22

[five too many] The month of August isn't over yet but I wanna proclaim that there have been five air crashes this month around the world.. and no more happening within the next week. Yes, five. I find that astounding. Just as an FYI, there were six air crashes in all of 2004 and 2002, and four in 2003.

First there was that Air France jet in Toronto where all survived (8/2) - thank God. Then, there was a little jet from Italy to Tunisia that crashed into the Mediterranean killing 16 of 39 (8/6). Followed by that frozen Greek plane story on the 14th which killed everyone (121). Most didn't hear about this but there was a West Caribbean Airways jet that crashed in western Venezuela killing all 160 on the 16th. And finally, yesterday a TANS Airlines flight crashed in Peru killing about 40 of the 100 on board.

Doesn't it seem weird that only the Canada and the Greece story got huge international headlines? Maybe Anglo-Caucasian-North American-Western European lives do matter more than others :-p @ 09:59

[wardrobe malfunction] There's a *really* good video of Sebastian Kehl's (German footballer) wardrobe malfunction last month at a football (OK, soccer) game. Apparently, he free-balls during matches. There might be a video somewhere in the link above. It's fantastic! @ 09:38

Oooh, found it! (it's R-rated... you've been warned!) @ 09:41

[google talk] It's here. Get it, bitches! I can't use AIM from work :( @ 09:10

AUG 23 :: [screwed] I can't believe I missed this one (considering how anti-Bush I am) but I saw it on Chris' blog and, well, better late than never. As seen from the White House Briefing section of the Washington Post, here goes (my second, and last, partisan mud-slinging for the day):

"How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

"Ten.

"1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

"2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

"3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

"4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

"5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;

"6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished';

"7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time;

"8. One to viciously smear No. 7;

"9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;

"10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country."

I *love* it! @ 15:27

[new ringtone] For the longest time, my ringtone has been Destiny's Child "Lose My Breath". I also had some personal ringtones (like "Milkshake" for Rick, "Feel" for Tony, "Rich Girl" for Nicole, etc.) but for the most part, everytime my cellphone rang, it would start with "Can you keep up..." Fetch.

Well, not anymore. From yesterday onwards, whenever my phone rings, it goes "Uh-huh, this my shit..." I ain't no Hollaback Girl! Yes, my new ringtone is the first 30-second snippet of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl". Fierce! I've also got a personal ringtone for Rick and Phillip; they both have different versions of "Don't Cha" - a 30-second snippet of the chorus. Hot!

And how did I do all this? Well, first you need to have a phone that supports ringtones in MP3 format. Next, you need Audacity. This freeware is *the* shit. It lets you slice and dice an MP3 and basically allows you to make your own snippet from a song, any song. Totally fetch.

Now if only my new phone would come (watch out gurls, it's a 2 megapixel camera phone!)... eBay purchases always take forever *groan* @ 14:15

[nuevo california] I didn't want to post this initially (and I got this a loooooong time ago) but the President's continued defense of the debacle called the Iraq war pushed me to do this one bit of partisan fervor for the day. Plus, Rick found it funny (gurl, you need to get with the times) and bitch can't guest post in my exclusive blog, so why not do it on her behalf, right?

Dear Red States...

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes HI, OR, WA, MN, WI, MI, IL and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get TX, OK and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with: 88%of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,

Author Unknown in New California.

We should secede. We don't need you. Up yours, you ungrateful bitches. And PLEASE take the war criminal President with you. Along with that idiot, Pat Robertson (shouldn't he be thrown in jail for inciting violence and advocating murder?) @ 13:55

[supersize usa] More than one out of every four adults (27.7%) in Alabama is obese :-o. That's startling especially when you realize that obesity is defined by a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 30. BMI = weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. If you're metrically challenged, 1kg = 2.2lbs, and 1m = 39.4in. A BMI >30 means a 5'8" person weighing 200lbs. Yikes! Nationally, the obesity rate is 22.7%, a gain of 0.7% in just one year. That's nuts.

And no surprises but obesity is growing fastest in the South, and is highest in MS, AL, WV, LA and TN. All Red States. Obesity is lowest in CO, MA, RI, CT, VT and MT. Mostly Blue States. Republicans are fat!

And how did the DC area fair? DC is 21.2% obese ranked 35th, MD is 21.7% ranked 29th, and VA is 22.9% ranked 22nd.

For the record, my BMI is 21.8 :-D

I shan't gloat until I've gone for my yearly checkup due next week... For all I know, I could be an unhealthy skinny bitch, LOL! @ 13:41

[concentration camp] Last Thursday, the physical security peeps in our building turned up the metal detector's sensitivity to a piercing level. You can't even go through it now with a quarter in your pocket. It's ridiculous. And every morning, I find my blood pressure rising (it's already high to begin with) as I'm approaching the building coz invariably, something on (not in :p) my body will set the damn thing off. And no, I don't have any piercings or utilize metal objects in my groin area. This morning, it was my belt. The same belt that I've worn through airport security countless times. I knew it was gonna. But still, it did not make the experience any less infuriating. I was livid. To add insult to injury, the guard wanted me to go through the metal detector again to make sure I was actually setting it off... Oh no you diin't. I am *not* walking through that thing again. It's not my fault that you can't calibrate that piece of junk properly. Isn't the humiliation of making that bloody thing beep once enough? You want me to re-humiliate myself? I started waving my arms around, hair flying everywhere (trust me, this is a huge feat considering my well-gelled hair), and I let him have it. I had one hand on my hip, wagging my finger with the other and I let it rip. I was the uber-bitch from hell. Yes... the same hell that hath no fury like some low-level, blue-collar, barely-high-school-educated, pee-on in a mind-numbing job, pissing me off. I consoled myself by chanting: if they could do something better, they would.

I know, once in awhile I can work myself up to a new level of condescending bitchiness. Evil puts on a Kiat mask.

No, I didn't get fired. But I was very, very close to losing it. This whole thing just puts me in a really bad mood for the first part of my morning, every morning.

And just to rub even more salt into the already gashing wound, only contractors have to go through the metal detectors to get into this building. The government employees don't have to. Uh-huh, they're the Nazis and we're the second-class citizens. I work in a concentration camp. STANK.

And the whole thing repeats itself tomorrow. UGH!!!

The weather is (really) nice today :) @ 12:35

AUG 22 :: [anti-drug] I unashamedly stole this from Chuck's blog but this is funny as SHIT! @ 16:54

[spanish tan] I started writing about my weekend... and got bored. No, the weekend was super-fetch. I'm just super-tired and unmotivated today. So let's just do a bulleted list of fetch events at the beach and get it over with, shall we?

1. Traffic was stank. 3 hours there and back. The Bay Bridge is the bane of my existence. 10+ mile backup at 10:30pm?? Gimme a break. We drove Desi home with us and somewhere in DC, a car zooms through a puddle of water sending water splashing all over our car. With the top down. LOL! Surprisingly, we didn't get wet at all. Aerodynamics is so cool.

2. No hungover Grotto's. We arrived with Chris/Dave at the beach and proceeded to have dinner at La La Land which was out-of-control good. Our dinner on Sunday night at Fusion was also fab. In between, was the Saturday night party which was the most boring, mid-Western, white-trash food I've ever had - burgers, hot dogs, baked beans, potato/pasta/whatever salad, corn-on-the-cob, etc. I was like "where the fuck is the rice??" And I'm so proud to say that for the first time in memory, I did not have to make a run for Grotto's hangover pizza. At 3am.

3. JR's by the beach. After dinner on Fri night, we stumble into Blue Moon to meet up with our hosts, Rob/Carlos. One drink later, we are air-kissing half the bar. It was like we never left DC at all. Too many to mention but I shall try - Barry, Jimmy, Michael, Johnny, Bill, Soochon, Desi, Michael, David, Forty, Adam, Patrick... phew! We got massively blitzed, stumbled home with boys in tow, drank some more, and crashed at 3am. Fetch.

4. Tony's cooking. We all wake up like the living dead on Saturday morning only to be revived by Tony's miraculously good frittatas and a Kiat-made pitcher of Bloody Marys. Sunday morning was a repeat with yummy eggs benedict and mimosas. Definitely got us starting both days on the right foot.

5. Be careful what you wish for. I got a tan alright. I am red waist-up and thighs-down, and yellow in between. I was hoping to look Mexican but instead, I look like a walking Spanish flag. It hurts like an m-f-er. Note to self: Never dispense with sunscreen again, no matter how cloudy or breezy the day looks. And that was Saturday. I looked like a beached, splotchy lobster the next day at Poodle. Definitely not pretty.

6. gAy-ARP parties galore. As a spillover effect from feeling like a geriatric at twink night last Thurs (oops, I forgot to write about my JR's-Omega-Apex night last Thurs... oh well), we went to a house party on Saturday night which made me stare my (distant) future in the eye. Ugh. And Sunday at Cafe Zeus was the same.. Lots of old gays and lesbians, and having a marvelously good time. Still, I'm not looking forward to turning 50.

7. Hot lesbians. Bitches, Aqua was FIERCE! After the *yawn* house party on Saturday night, I rounded up all my bitches and dragged their somewhat-less-pasty white asses to Aqua where pandemonium ensues. EVERYone from the night before showed up and Aqua was hopping. Some fetch lesbian rubbed up against me and I was like "gurl, once you've had Asian, you'll never go Caucasian". She was hot. And I've never seen so many hot dykes at a bar before. One of them was 50 but looked oh-so-Sophia Lauren good. She had on a Gucci belt which I pronounced faked-in-Bangkok. Sewn by my cousin's sweatshop, of course. The hot lessies could really shake it like it's tight.

8. Penis on the Half Shell. Where do we go post-Aqua? Venus, of course! On the way there, Patrick - in his ultra-butch gimongous pickup with the mean bitches (David/Forty, Adam, Michael) in tow - pulls up beside the Dolly Trolley (it's the Rehoboth-Dewey "bus") and blasts Don't Cha (Ralphi's remix, of course) with David standing up through the sunroof dancing which caused the bus load of queens to start dancing as well. The bus was swaying from side-to-side as if it was a boat. Hot. Venus was stank. The music sucked. And the $5 cover and $7 drinks only added insult to injury. Stank. Even then, Forty and I were shaking it like it's yellow on the dance floor (which got David and Tony all weak, LOL). And we did run into M2's trick-du-jour Double-Dipper Chris there. Fetch.

9. David's smackdown. She says to me as I proclaim my fetchness: "Bitch, if your rice was that nice, you wouldn't make me go to a different pot!" LOL!!! Bitch is fierce.

10. Drunk-texting. Even though it wasn't nice, it was super-funny. MichaelG (Rick's ex) answering my phone when Rick called, and using my phone to drunk-text Rick was pee-inducingly funny. It created quite a stir and apologizing via SMS is *much* harder than I thought. But still, it was funny as shit. Hmm, why is it that even when Rick is not around, he's around? Story of my life, LOL.

11. Poodle Beach. Sunburn notwithstanding, the beach this weekend was awesome. And scaldingly hot. The sun was relentless and the heat was almost unbearable, even with the sea breeze. But gurls, it was PACKED. There were boys everywhere. Desi and I took a stroll down to Dewey and back up to the Boardwalk and we drooled enough to leave a trail for miles. Just past Poodle, there were some stunning surfer boys that were totally oblivious to how hot they were. These boys were good enough to eat. And they would've been eaten alive if they had been surfing around Poodle.

12. Don't Cha. For the second beach trip in a row, Don't Cha is still the song to shake it to. We were blasting it on our iPods, through the stereo (via Chris' ultra-cool iTrip thingie), in my convertible, at the clubs, everywhere. Hot! Like me.

So, *that* was my weekend. Now y'all bitches quit bugging me about not writing for 5 days!! Demanding whores... @ 16:44

AUG 18 :: [priscilla] Last night was the final installment (why? we have good weather in September too) of Screen on Stead and what better movie to watch outdoors under a beautiful, clear 80° night than The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert. The movie was so funny it made your lashes curl (OK, I stole that line from the movie). Now that I've seen Mommie Dearest, Rocky Horror and Priscilla - all thanks to Screen on Stead - I can safely say my gay card will not be revoked anytime soon by some old queen who thinks it's a tragedy that I haven't seen movies from the days before I was born. Bitch, the first movie I ever saw in the theaters was Jurassic Park so don't get all shocked when I tell you I haven't seen Wizard of Oz! :p

Felicia/Guy Pearce (yes, the LA Confidential guy) was HOT in this movie! And Mitzi is the guy from Matrix!! (Agent Smith) and also the Elven King dude in LOTR. Who woulda thunk it. Anyway, the movie is howlingly funny and the humor transcends continents (the Ozzies sound funny, don't they?) so go watch it. Post-movie, I met Rick, Nathaniel and Jason (*gasp*) at JR's where it was packed with people from the movie. All-in-all, a non-drama, fun, and undrunken night :) Home by midnight even! (Wow, that's a first)

Although, I did have two people in the past week (and one last night) ask me if I'm from California. One even said I sounded "Valley". I'm like, whatever. That's like totally saying I'm a bimbo, d'oh. How fucking rude. No, bitches, I'm not from California. I may sound like one.. but that's coz I watch a lot of Friends. Mmm-kay?

The Internet at work today is all fucked up. Apparently they tried to do a "test" Disaster Recovery last night at Treasury and it turned out to be a disaster so everything's down today. No e-mails, no web, nothing. This is gonna be a looooooooong day.

Ohmibeyonce... shout out to ChrisFT who, post-surgery, has a fire-hydrant sized cast on his right hand. All this for a broken pinky, LOL. I saw him and was like "bitch, it's gotten bigger!". Just what every gay man *loves* to hear but in his case, not so fetch. He has officially graduated into Double-Fisty-dom. Fetch.

My brit-ch is in Utah (ew, skank) and we're headed to the beach this weekend. I need a better tan than the one I got a fortnight ago. I'm praying for sun. I wanna look like a Mexican when I get back. Hot. @ 11:15

AUG 17 :: [dancing queen] Three nights dancing/clubbing out of the past five. What can I say, I'm a dance whore! To wean myself off my new addiction (see crack-pod below), I met Phillip/Fernando at their workplace after work and sauntered over to the new Storehouse on 14th for HRC's Table Captain Party. The new store is beautiful and they seem to have updated their collection with quasi-chic stuff; I still remember how dowdy-contemporary their stuff used to be. Anyways, the "party" was more like a "function" and it was just OK. People were kinda snotty but whaddya expect from wealthy queers. They gotta inflict their homo-insecurities by projecting their wealth on other people. LOL! Wow, that was vicious.

Aaaaanywho. The catered shrimp thingie was delish. Phillip took one and I immediately glared at him and said "dah-ling, it's Tuesday.. you're not allowed to eat till tomorrow". The bartender poured wickedly strong vodka drinks and mixed them with clear cranberry juice. Genetic engineering is so hot. We did run into some familiar faces.. mostly boys that Phillip had slept with (whore). And Randy who marched in the same float we did back at Pride. He remarked, "hey, last time I saw you guys, you were wearing kimonos" to which Phillip retorted with "last time I saw you, you were wearing, well, nothing". LOL! My brit-ch is fetch (even if you're leaving me for two weeks).

Being the ADD bitches that we are, we leave the party faster than they can say "would you like to sign up" (bitches, we already have three prime tables, stop bothering us) and head straight to Halo. Asian-Andy was bartending and he made blinding mojitos for all of us after he mentioned that it was his birthday last week and I proceeded to compliment him on how he didn't look a day over 24 ("dah-ling, Asians never age!"). He giggled like a school girl and practically emptied an entire bottle of rum into our three glasses. Fetch! I also like that he always remembers that I like my mojito diet i.e. sans sugar. Hmm, am I warming up to other Asians? :-o

Happy Hour ends and we hatched a plan to do 80s night at Cobalt. I rush home to eat (just enough to still look thin enough to go out and dance, natch), Phillip/Fernando goes home to change and shit and we reconvene at JR's with Rick for some pre-dancing libations. Boys were stank last night (except for Bernie/Nick who showed up as if on cue) at JR's and bartender Matt was being snotty with me (although he looks ridiculously cute doing it) after I poked fun at him and his blog repeatedly, giggle. By 11, we are marching up to Cobalt.

Ladies, the music was FABULOUS (can't use fierce to describe pre-fierce era music). This is only my third time doing 80s night and I think I'm hooked. I remember the music being so good we never left the dance floor. Except to go pee and only twice, giggle. When they played Vogue, I about passed out. I looked around the room at one point and wondered, "Does anybody in DC work anymore?". I mean, here we are at midnight on a school night and this place is crowded (but not uncomfortably so). Lots of crazy dancing (and ridiculously hot bartenders) later, we are unceremoniously kicked out of Cobalt at 2am. Yes, on a Tuesday night. LOL!!! I'm so juvenile. I couldn't possibly do this every week but like a mild drug, it's good in infrequent doses.

Missy is right.. "Music makes you Lose Control" @ 15:38

[crack-pod] Tony was out of town yesterday and I had had enough of my brother's and his girlfriend's annoying - well, more like rude - little antics, so I made plans to be out all evening (yea, piss me off and you have to fend for yourself, bitch). I mean, com'on.. Tony and I picked their sorry asses up on Sunday afternoon, bought dinner at the casual fabulous Mark & Orlando's on Sunday night, and Tony made a really nice dinner for all of us on Monday night.. and guess what? Nary a word of thanks escapes their mouths. Ungrateful bitches. To add insult to injury, his gf doesn't even bother to acknowledge us when she walks through the front door or when I come home after a long, hard day at work (haha, right). How fucking rude is that. It's my house, bitch, and you're never seeing these four walls ever again. Hah, I feel better.

So I was super looking forward to leaving work yesterday. Phillip/Fernando and I (plus Rick and a host of other non-descript boys) were gonna hit an HRC function, Halo, JR's then Cobalt (well, we didn't plan it that way but that's what happened). I plugged in my earphones, bounced down 3rd St, almost hopped ass first onto the escalator railing and slid down to the Metro station. Just all around excited about the evening. Orange line train waiting for me when I got there, awesome. I jumped on the train, I'm excited that there're no delays and the air-conditioning felt great. Barely one stop later, the music from my iPod ceases. Fuck. Instantly, I hear the cacophony of voices in the train. "Bloody tourists", I'm mumbling under my breath. I look down, press a few buttons, iPod re-fires up. I had this look of "I'm saved!"... until it dies again but not before it says - "No battery power" in ominous black computer-generated lettering against a grayish-green background. And in another instant, the screen goes blank again. This time, I couldn't revive it.

You would've paid money to see the look of pearl-clutching horror on my face, mouth agape, staring blankly at my out-of-juice iPod and thinking to myself... "I'm fucked!!". I thought of giving it CPR. After all, it *is* a Mini so it *would* have fit in my mouth, LOL. In a pure act of desperation, I left my earphones on. Yup, I was too embarassed to show that I had to stop listening to my iPod because, and there can only be one reason, it ran out of power. I pretended that there was still music coming out of my earphones by bobbing my head from side to side, and I briefly contemplated mouthing out words to a song, any song, but realized quickly that I may lose my rhythm without the accompanying music and someone might notice that I have sung the verses to "One Word" or "Don't Cha" in the incorrect order. And this whole time, the loud conversations in the Metro became deafeningly so and without music, it was impossible to recapture my center (and I wasn't about to do yogic breathing exercises in the train).

I'm panicking at this point. My breathing got faster. My heart was thumping. My hands and feet were shaking; and not from following the beat. My mouth started to get dry. Beads of sweat started appearing (OK, I'm exaggerating). I feel like I'm asphyxiating. "Get me out of this bloody train!". I'm only at Federal Triangle. One more bloody stop to go. I find myself thinking of ways to plug my iPod into my charger and into an outlet... except that there are none on this train. I'm screaming in my head "Why the bloody hell not? Even ghetto Amtrak has power plugs in their cars!". I'm grasping for imaginary backup battery packs (why doesn't Apple fucking make them??), inventing portable power packs in my head.. ones that will recharge an iPod with stored power in its cells. My mind is racing at breakneck speeds. And at this point, I realized... I wanted, no needed an iPod fix. BAD. I needed it in any form - pill, powder, rolled, IV, injected (rectally even :-o).. I even briefly contemplated stealing one. Until I realized that we're all in a tunnel and there was no escape. I was going into withdrawals. It was not pretty.

As we approached Metro Center, I'm so close to the train doors I left an imprint on the glass. When the door finally slid open, I rushed out, skipped up the escalators, ran into the Red line train, and prayed to God it would all be over soon. Yes, I took the earphones off coz by then, it was a whole new set of strangers and I figured "well, they don't know I have an iPod, much less know that I'm not listening to it coz it's out of juice". Uh-huh. The final stretch up Farragut North into Dupont Circle was anxiety-attack-inducing. I *must* get off this train now or I'm going to pass out from sheer mind-numbing boredom. It's only been 10 minutes total in the Metro and I feel like I've been trapped in a deafeningly-silent, devoid-of-music sound chamber for the past 3 hours.

When I finally exit the train, I feel like I've just been rescued from an insane asylum. I'm never going back to that place in my life again. Ever. *That* was the longest Metro ride home. Ever. I am never going on any commute without my crack-Pod again. Ever.

And so that's the story of how I came to realize that iPod is crack. Sleek, sweet, wonderful, music-emitting, cute little electronic crack. It's my crack. I want it, I need it, and I have to have it. The addiction is absolute. I *heart* my crack-Pod. "Hi, my name is Kiat and I'm a crack-Pod-pot" @ 15:01

AUG 16 :: [one bedroom] Is DC turning into a "one bedroom apartment/condo" kinda place? Kinda like Manhattan. Almost everyone I know is either renting a one bedroom (or less) apartment or have bought a one bedroom condo. And this is all as a result of the crazy real-estate price inflation in DC right now.

And if you want two bedrooms? Well, check out Dumbarton Place. This place is half a block from our house (spitting distance, really) and directly across from gAy-pex (hot!). Two bedroom condos start at $1mn here and if you want a penthouse (also with 2 bedrooms), they're $1.75mn! Ohmibeyonce. Even at the upper-end though (which Dumbarton Place definitely is), DC is still a lot less expensive than Manhattan. Median price for two bedroom condo there range from $1.13mn on the Upper East Side to $1.41mn in The Village and $1.98mn in SoHo-TriBeCa!

Our new neighbors, who are from Manhattan, didn't even blink when they paid $1mn+ for their townhouse (similar to ours). Why should they when that amount of money won't even get them a 2 bedroom condo anywhere in Manhattan.

$1mn sounds trivial in DC and NYC but think about it, an 80% mortgage on $1mn at a risky 4.5% 5/1 interest-only ARM means your monthly payments are a whopping $3,000/mth (with potential upside if interest rates go up after the fixed period of the loan lapses). And if we go with the comfortable assumption that mortgage payments should not exceed 35% of your gross income, you'd have to make in excess of $100k/yr to scrape by with an $800k mortgage (not to mention the $200k downpayment). Those are definitely not blue-collar friendly wages or prices.

Reality is pretty harsh. @ 11:04

And as if to confirm my own musings, DC and her inner suburbs (both MD and VA) are listed as 3rd and 4th on the list of most overpriced housing markets in the country (by Economy.com). Eep! @ 11:36

AUG 15 :: [and then...] There were three. My younger brother moved in with me yesterday. I know, not fetch. But what can I do. If I had said no, my mom would've freaked out. He doesn't want to go home coz his girlfriend is here (in IA). Add to that, he doesn't have a job; and he's exhibiting no signs that he's even remotely interested in looking for one. He's had this "I-don't-give-a-fuck" attitude since he was born and nobody assumes he's gonna change now. Sigh. Isn't life grand when your older brother is rich enough to take you in and if all else fails, your parents will take care of you till you die? No worries about job, apartment, food, etc. He's never had to endure anything remotely close to poverty or hardship (well, neither did I, lol!) and will probably never ever. With that mindset, why bother?

OK, I'm done musing about that. It'll fix itself eventually. He *needs* to start looking for a job. And if he doesn't, he'll be kicked out of the country by June 2006 anyway. Still, 10 months seems like a loooooong time for him to leach off me. Grr.

Wow, that Friday/Saturday post was a really long one, wasn't it? So I'm gonna keep Sunday short. Woke up, tired. Body was sore from hard-dancing two nights in a row and my ears were ringing all bloody day. Bummed around all day preparing for my brother's arrival - plus it was way too hot to go anywhere or do anything. Picked him (and his gf) up from the airport, drove home, walked to dinner, drove around DC showing them the sights (it was 90° at 8pm!), and then crashed. Tame. And needed it to be so. @ 14:07

[dance-o-rama] Oh my Madonna Esther Louise Ciccone Richie. The uber-diva and pop-empress ("queen" is so yesterday) turns 47 tomorrow (can you believe it??). And to celebrate her phenomenal musical career that has spanned 22 years (do you remember "Holiday" back in 1983?), my bitches and I tore up Nation for Madonnarama on Saturday night. Gurls, the boys were hot, the music was hotter and the dancefloor was scorching. And we seared 'em all with our fierce outfits (complete with rosary blings) and moves.

Getting home after Madonnarama was not so fetch. After an endless wait, I finally called Larry (our gay cab driver) and he took us home. Note to self: Leave before Metro closes, or have a guaranteed ride home. Hailing a cab at 4am in SE is like so ghetto. Sketch.

Before I continue, all this is set on the backdrop of DC's worst summer since 2002 (yes, two above average months followed by 10 >90° days in the first half of August). The air was so humid this weekend it was acrid. It was so humid it smelt of ass. And the temps were in the high 90s which made the whole weekend just disgustingly unbearable.

And let's not even talk about Friday night. It was a night to forget. Remember how Phillip got so fucked up on Thursday night he (we) shovelled mounds of french fries into his face and then hit Green Lantern with me? Well, the next night... let's just say payback's a bitch. We started out innocently enough at JR's (Tony drove me and Phillip there coz it was just way too hot to walk) and had a great time with Rick and his trick-du-jour... Gosh, I think I've just stopped remembering their names. I can tell you that this one definitely hit a low point in almost every single defineable category (LOL! I'm such a bitch). Anyways, ChrisFT and Chuck were there as well and before long, we were all piled up on top of each other (literally) in front of the (warm-)air-conditioning at Chuck's apartment (crack-shack) drinking blindingly evil watermelon drinks with who-knows-wtf in it. Fetch.

I don't remember the rest of the evening. Rumor has it we stumbled back to JR's - where I stumbled upon my disgustingly acidic, love-you-like-a-cold-sore, uber-conservative bitch Jason *muah* - before splitting up with the rest and headed towards Apex. I don't remember going to Apex. And Phillip doesn't remember leaving Apex. So between the two of us, we woke up Saturday morning (afternoon) as foggy bottoms. Sketch. I couldn't even begin to tell you who I saw at Apex or what I danced to. It's a good thing I live like 50ft from Apex coz I would not have been able to find my way home otherwise.

Yes, I prayed to the porcelain Buddha some on Friday night. No, it wasn't pretty. I'm never drinking again.

And so we drank and partied again the next night, LOL!

Before that, I recovered just enough to do lunch with Phillip at Rice... let's call it dunch since it was at 4pm. No I didn't go to yoga. I felt miserable. Even after eating. It kinda made me feel worse. Ugh. But the princesses (I'm only kow-towing just this once since it's Madonna's birthday) had to prep for Madonnarama and it was far too disgustingly hot outside... so we went shopping where we kicked our preparations for our diva into high gear (even though I was so hungover I hadn't peed since the night before). Urban Outfitters was destination uno but they had nothing there we would wear. Then, we ransacked a few churches before we found rosaries at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Concepcion near Catholic U. Bitches, this place was stank. The whole religion-as-a-cult thing was taken to a whole new level at this place. I vowed to repent with hail marys/bloody marys for the rest of my life for spending money there. Skank. Next, we hit Saks for our final stab at getting fetch outfits and left empty-handed although Tony did find a hideously expensive but quasi-fetch T-shirt.

Being the cheap bitches that Phillip and I are, we of course get to Nation before 11.. where shockingly enough there was already a line out the door. We pay our $8, make our way inside and the lines for free drinks were so long we just gave up and went to the cash bar instead. Evan/Henric showed up with their buddies and it's officially a party now. The music was pretty damn good (as always) in the "mini" dance room (trust me, it's bigger than Apex and Cobalt combined) and we got sufficiently lubed before they threw open the doors to the main room. The first Madonna song was a melange of her hits - notably Vogue and Music. We got more wickedly-strong drinks (Phillip flirted with the bartender) and then, the dancing just never stopped. For five whole hours. To match the night before at Apex (well, that was only 3... I think!). I creamed my pants when Vogue came on, started jumping to Express Yourself, and went crazy to Like A Virgin. I think I would've jumped right out of my clothes had Music come on so it was a good thing we didn't hear it, lol. The number of Madonna songs that we know and will go stir-crazy for is limitless. Which explains why one can dance from midnight till 6am at Madonnarama and not hear the same song twice. She has a pelvis-dislocatingly large number of hits.

And the coooooolest thing that night were the timely injections of frozen air - literally, the air was so cold it was opaque - onto the dance floor which served to reinvigorate the crowd. I think I was almost at starving-dehydrated-sweaty-passing out point a few times that night but each time I felt like I was gonna fade away, the blast of balls-shrinkingly cold air jolted me with new life and even more crazy dancing. Awesome. I need one of those machines on my deck. But gurls, lemme tell ya... nothing could put out the fire that were the searingly hot boys (and bodies) on display that night. I left a puddle of drool on the dance floor. In a hole which I burnt into, dancing so hard. Hot. I think I sweated out a few pounds. Everytime I felt the urge to pee, I would just dance harder and sweat it out and the feeling kinda goes away by itself. It's a neat trick considering it's quite difficult to meander through the crowds if you go each time you need to go. And speaking of sweating, I like sweaty bodies as much as the next hot-blooded male but bitches if you sweat a lot (like I do), keep your shirts on. No one wants to slide up against your dripping bodies (it's not a water ride, mmm-kay?). And if you sweat through your shirt and soak, no, drench it - defined by if you wring it, water gushes out - you should just stay home. Thanks for sharing your bodily fluids, but seriously, no thanks ;) That's my Dance Etiquette 101.

So there ya have it, another insane weekend which flew by making me wish I had a weekend from the past weekend.

Get ready. Madonna releases her new album - Confessions on a Dancefloor - exactly three months from today. It's supposedly "club friendly". The first single, "Hung Up", has been described as a "synth-disco jam". Sounds like... more dance hits? Are we going back to the halcyon years of the 80s with Like A Virgin/True Blue/Like A Prayer/Immaculate Collection, but updated with new millennial beats?? FETCH! @ 13:50

[sad but true] Gentrification is coming to Southeast and, along with it, massive development will take place around the Navy Yard station. If you look at this graphic today, you will see that Parcel 16 is slated for the new baseball stadium and it sits right on top of Secrets/Ziegfield's.

And if you navigate to Parcel 7, that's Nation - the scene of many a Saturday night hijinks for me and my friends (including this past one... review to follow). And they are now proposing to put a $20mn, 400,000 sq ft, 10-story office building there.

What's gonna happen to the gay nightlife in DC? Progress is bittersweet. @ 10:49

[i *heart* wp] OK, the Washington Post has seriously redeemed itself with this *awesome* lead editorial today titled "Big Government Conservatives". I almost wet my pants reading this. And you should too :)

"...Asked to explain the president's capitulation, a White House spokesman pleaded that at least this law would be less costly than the 2003 Medicare reform. This is a classic case of defining deviancy down."

"The nation is at war. It faces large expenses for homeland security. It is about to go through a demographic transition that will strain important entitlement programs. How can this president -- an allegedly conservative president -- believe that the federal government should spend money on the Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana? Or on the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan? The bill Mr. Bush has signed devotes more than $24 billion to such earmarked projects, continuing a trend in which the use of earmarks has spread steadily each year. Remember, Republicans control the Senate and the House as well as the White House. So somebody remind us: Which is the party of big government?"

"..defining deviancy down.." You *GO*, gurl!! @ 10:32

[my baby] I was so grossed out by this I had to put it down on print ASAP.

[rant] It is beyond gauche to do your makeup (nobody needs to see you smudge your teeth with lipstick), mascara (ew, there is no lady-like way of doing this in public without your mouth gaping open and staring into a tiny mirror), foundation (powder explosion!! like fucking anthrax), or anything that requires touching your face... on the subway. I don't care if you are dressed to the nines and carrying a fabulous Coach leather bag. Actually, that just makes it even more uncouth. What sorta lady would be caught dead doing makeup in public while carrying a fetch bag? Looking good is a pre-req *before* stepping out in public. You don't need to show us the process, spankyouverymuch. Bitches.

It's funny how I guard Metro like my first born these days. There are signs saying "No Eating and Drinking" *every*where. Hello, can you not read? Oh bitch, I *know* you understand English coz you're wearing that trademark, I'm-more-redneck-than-thou wife-beaters and hideous white sneakers that can only scream "I'm from the Mid-West! (or the South)". If I catch you so much as take a bite out of that Big Mac (have you *seen* Super Size Me?) or take a sip out of that Starbucks (you can afford a $4 cuppa coffee but you can't afford to buy deodorant?!), so help me God I will call the bomb squad on your pasty white ass. Don't do it.

[/rant] :) @ 09:53

AUG 12 :: [classy enough] So I guess I spoke too soon. There is a huge spread on Happy Hours (or Power Hours) in the WP today and only one gay bar was featured. No, it wasn't Thursday night at JR's, 30 degrees, or Hush. It was Thursday nights at Green Lantern. I know, right? Who woulda thunk... Here's the snippet:

"The Green Lantern, a gay bar near Thomas Circle, has an interesting idea that turns its customers into the attraction: Thursdays from 10 to 11, shirtless men drink free. (Trust me, you don't have to be a gym bunny to take advantage of the deal. You just have to be brave.)"

I guess the Green Lantern *is* classy enough. As for being brave, trust me.. after your first blindingly strong drink there (which you have to pay for if you keep your shirt on... all of $2), the rest will be free. Natch. @ 16:04

[classy bitches] DC has way too many one-way streets. And when you're stumbling home drunk from a night out at JR's/GL, walking up Mass Ave towards Dupont Circle, they are *all* pointing in the wrong direction. I don't have enough brain cells to process which way I should look at which intersections after my 3rd cocktail, much less my 7th (8th?). It gets better - I was drunk-dialling and -texting the whole time, oblivious to all moving 4,000lb objects. And I was wearing black. At night. Walking alone. If it weren't for my yellowness reflecting off the yellow headlights of oncoming traffic, I would've been road pizza. Not classy at all.

*Giggle* Yes, another Thursday night out for us classy bitches and it got ugly way too early in the evening. Phillip and Fernando, always the impatient ones, started JR's happy hour at 5:30 (!!!). So of course I had to go join them by 6 and was fully loaded by 7, when Rick showed up with our favorite bottom, MichaelF (again, no last names coz it's a *really* small world). Our blitzed out antics at JR's reached a high note when the mean girls showed up and ChrisFT (aka Fisty) looked like he was gonna fist someone right there and then. Hot. And hurling another volley (in the classiest way, of course) at our inter-blog catfight over the term "Third World", bitch brings up Angola, Zaire and Ghana. Ooh, that made me wet. I love it when you talk dirty :) Gurrrl, hope your surgery goes well (and you get a really hot surgeon).

In between JR's and GL, there was dinner, thank God. But we've already tested the food theory out that it doesn't help much when you're in between drunken states. But we ate like the fat drunk bitches that we were anyway. At McDonald's :-o Definitely not classy. I haven't had McD's in like 3 years. And my first act as returning guest of honor? I wolfed down 10 McNuggets in 4.2 seconds. It was soooooooo good. And so fucking salty, bleeeeaagggh. Then I proceeded to stuff Phillip's face with enough fries for him to shit out a potato this morning. Bitch doesn't eat voluntarily (and definitely not on Thursdays) so somebody's gotta shove it in her ;) (And gurrrrl, we have proof in pictures)

GL was not pretty and there ain't nothing classy about that place either, lemme tell ya. And even less classy when one has to endure the Cambodian rainforest-like conditions on the "walk of shame" from JR's to GL. It was miserable. Summer in DC is just gross. We even stopped halfway at Rouge (for A/C) where Phillip, in his constantly inebriated state and even looks it at this point, picked up this gay guy and his hag who were visiting from Hawaii (??) and they're now tagging along to a bar that I don't believe lets women in. I told her to tell the doorman that she's a drag queen (hmm, she did look like one what with her fake gimongous tits and all) wearing $700 CFMPs. Hot. Anywho, shirts off-drink-pee-repeat... Chuck was in fierce form looking for a daddy. He might've mistaken me for one when at one point he bent me over ass up, face down to "Don't Cha". LOL! Fetch.

Before too long, I'm off on my short multiple-accident-averting walk home. I get home, stuff my face with even more food (noodles!) before collapsing onto the bed. Drunk... Woke up this morning... Drunk. LOL! And I had a class at 8:30 (yea, like what could they possibly teach me that I don't already know *eyes rolling*). I showed up at 9. Giggle. It's a good thing they think I walk on water.

I'm never going to Green Lantern again. Yes, I said it. I'm too classy for that joint, lol!

So hmm, blanket apologies to all that I annoyed drunk-texting/-calling last night. If I didn't get to you - and I hadn't seen you earlier - let's face it, you're not fetch and you ain't worth my time *evil giggle*. And if I woke you up, bitch get a life. Who goes to bed before midnight on Thursdays. LOL! I'm only kidding.. (no I'm not)

Have you seen the heat index? It's apparently supposed to be 100+ all weekend and into Monday. Not fetch. It's 104 right now and we haven't even hit the high temperature for the day yet. Yuck. The dog days of summer are definitely here...

Haze stuff: Before and after pictures of Kuala Lumpur's skyline shrouded in the haze. API levels in the federal capital region yesterday. The deep red areas - including Port Klang, the country's biggest port - are the ones facing the Indonesian island of Sumatra where the noxious haze is originating from. Farther inland, Kuala Lumpur is the country's biggest city and Putrajaya is the capital city. @ 14:11

AUG 11 :: [6,371] Remember that number. Coz the next time you (of the quasi- or full-blown red state crowd) bring up fiscal conservatism as the reason you're a Republican, I'm gonna shove 6,371 up your ass. Hard. All in one go.

Why? Coz that's the number of pet "pork barrel" projects inserted into the transportation bill that Bush signed into law yesterday. These 6,371 projects are worth more than $24bn or 9% of the total spending. Reagan vetoed a bill in 1987 that had 152 such projects. But Bush (and his cronies Frist and Delay) couldn't contain himself in the name of spending restraint. Noooo, the Trinity of Evil has decided that who cares if we have squandered $200bn on a war of choice? And who cares if we are running massive twin deficits? What matters most is that we bring it home. Yes, show me the money. Let's just use taxpayers' money the way a Republican knows best - frivolously and unashamedly. Let's spend, spend, spend and cut taxes so that the country goes bankrupt. Who cares? Short-term gain is all that matters. Long-term pain? Fuck that shit. Fiscal restraint doesn't really go so well with trying to get re-elected, huh?

So without fiscal conservatism to its name, what does being a Republican mean? Hmm, let's see. If you are gay and you voted for Bush last year, that means you support his extreme, radical, right-wing, socially-conservative views which includes writing you OUT of the Constitution. Yes, all those cherished rights that you have by virtue of living in America? It comes from the Constitution. What... you wanna wait till you're hauled into a concentration camp before you repent and exercise your right to vote against these religious right-wing fanatics? Good luck. I don't take collect calls from Auschwitz.

It's unforgivable for a gay person to have voted for Bush last year to begin with, but add to that the fact that what you thought you voted for (prioritizing, hmm, pocketbook issues over your constitutional rights) has now been effectively and ceremoniously debunked? It just makes you look like an idiot. Oh wait, you are.

Six thousand, three hundred and seventy one. Take it, bitch! :)

Ooh, check this out - $66! It may seem like I'm perennially fascinated (morbidly so) by the relentless ascent in oil prices, but well, I really just am. Mostly because I can't wait for it to go so high that the world realizes that carbon-based fuels is so last millennium and starts looking for (cleaner) alternatives.

And what's this? Texas is no longer a majority-white state?! Noooo, say it ain't so. TX joins CA, NM and HI as the only minority-majority states in the Union. Hot on their heels are MD, MS, GA, NY and AZ (at 40% minorities). Not so startling but just as intriguing now that it's down on paper is the fact that the white population is growing in DC and the close-in VA suburbs at the expense of minorities. D'oh. What minority can afford to live in severely over-priced but uber-cool DC? The metropolitan area as a whole is fast becoming minority-majority as well with 56% white, 25% black, 10% hispanic and 8% asian. Fetch. @ 14:09

[code 'get-the-fuck-out'] The Air Quality Index is intriguing. Pollution levels are measurable and hence a numeric value (parts per billion) is assigned to the AQI. But because we are either too ADD or too dumb to comprehend raw numbers, we have a set of colors (now similarly used at the much-ridiculed DHS) to match the AQI - Code Green being "Good" or <50, Yellow 50-100, Orange 101-150, and Red 150-200. There's also Purple for 201-300 and Maroon for >300 but we've never actually seen those in DC. To boil everything down to an even simpler analogy: exposure to levels of 201-300 for a day is like smoking 20 cigarettes. Capisce?

So what color do we assign readings of 531?! Yup, that's the reading in the coastal areas near my hometown, Kuala Lumpur, today; almost triple Code Red levels. A thick blanket of noxious haze is choking Malaysia's capital due to drought-induced forest fires in Sumatra, similar to the El Nino-causing drought-induced haze in Sept of 1997 when readings hit 839 :-o Prevailing South-West Monsoon winds (why do they call it that when the winds are actually blowing in the North-Easterly direction?) are blowing the smoke across the 46-mi wide Straits of Malacca to KL (yes, kinda like "LA") blanketing the federal capital region - where almost 1 out of every 4 Malaysians reside (are you loving the Geography lesson?) - with hazardous air quality.

Visibility has been reduced to 400m (1300ft!), schools have been closed, and even the country's biggest seaport (Port Klang) has been closed due to the hazardous visibility limits. The AQI in KL is somewhat less, but equally toxic at 321. It's 364 in the new capital, Putrajaya (pay attention, you *will* be tested during one of our drunken stupors at JR's).

My poor parents... :(

Uh-huh, right. Knowing my mom, she'll probably turn all the A/C units to full blast and cocoon herself indoors until all this blows away, pun intended :)

Anywho, to make things worse, the SW Monsoon doesn't usually end till September. A state of haze emergency has been declared in the coastal areas where the AQI breached 500, which means EVERYthing has to shut down except for essential services and places selling food. There is no curfew but cars are being shoo-ed off the roads and people are told to stay indoors. It's an environmental crisis.

They call it a haze emergency, I call it Code "get-the-fuck-out".

Yes, the next time we get up in arms over Code Red pollution levels in DC, well... just know that it could get much worse. I can almost hear ChrisFT saying: "See?! This is why I don't do third world!" LOL! @ 10:43

AUG 10 :: [hong kong?] HK would have somewhat qualified as a "country that now goes by a different name" (yes, it's Day 2 of jetrosexuality). Maybe? It's now known as Hong Kong, China; that's a different name, right? Oh com'on... you gotta give it to me.

Well, as it turns out, my first visit to Hong Kong was post-handover so I don't have a stamp from colonial HK anyway. And I went to Russia post-Soviet Union. I would've *SO* gone to Estonia had it not been for their stupid visa requirements that barred me from crossing over from Helsinki. The entire American contingent that we were with went visa-free leaving poor ol' Third World me in Finland :-( Yugoslavia would've counted but I didn't wanna get killed (although I hear Dubrovnik is mighty pretty). My guess is East or West Germany would've counted too but I've only been there post-reunification. Similarly, Czech or Slovak, but I've never been pre- or post-split. East Timor qualifies but it's nasty there. Myanmar too for the same reason. Where else?? This one's mind-boggling.

How 'bout Canada? I have (many) stamps from there. Can't we just change its name to Farther-North Dakota? (ohmy, let the hate mail begin...)

OK, I give up. And even if I can pack a week's worth of clothes into one carry-on (maybe in summer and with only one-pair of flip-flops *GASP*), I'll still fail #3.

And shout-out to ChrisFT (since it's way gauche to put this comment on his blog) who thinks he's way too good for the Third World. Bitch, *I* happen to be from a Third World country (with a cute accent to boot, lol), you T-fare flying snob. And you might even learn to order beer in Cantonese and Mandarin from this Third World bitch. And this Third World skank even has SWUs that might help your Rosa Parks predicament.

Uh-huh, yea.. Mr. I-don't-do-third-world's nose is so high, when it rains he drowns.

Muah!! Love ya, Casty :-D JR's+GL tomorrow! @ 15:01

[what to wear] This is the *gay*est conversation ever, over e-mail... In preparation for Madonnarama this Saturday night at Nation, may I present - Kiat and Phillip:

P:: I am preparing for Madonna-rama! What are you wearing? I want people to say "Oh look, it's the Madonna twins" as we walk in
Me:: Where are those damn kimonos à la Frozen...
P:: *dyes hair black in anticipation*
Me:: I have chopsticks that I only lend to fetch boys. We'll match.
P:: *squeal* Either that or I might go as Madonna in her 'Like a Prayer' days. *digs out oversized La Croix crucifix*
Me:: How about a white wig and a super-Vogue Marie Antoinette outfit? You will single-handedly reinvent Louis XVI and canonize Mme. Antoinette.
P:: Oh and I can have men carry me in on a chaise lounge!!! All the while you can be riding an oversized mirror ball *squeal*
Me:: Dah-ling, we need to switch outfits! We can't wear Marie when Frozen calls for Miyake and Justify My Love calls for Gaultier *gasp*
P:: I love it when you talk labels! I'll bring my troop of stylists and mobile closet with me... I'll arrange for it to be set up just off stage.
Me:: I call dips on the cone bra and the black-and-gold bustier!
P:: OK but then I get anything pink and get the high heels from 'Beautiful Stranger'. The floral dress from Love Profusion is all yours...
Me:: Bitch, you'll wear what I tell you to wear. And since I'm wearing the black tux with gravity-defying stilettos à la VMAs-licking-Britney's-face, you are wearing a bridal gown! We'll skip the kissing till you are less germ-y.
P:: LOL Rick can be Missy. He has the hips for it.
Me:: LOLOLOLOL!!!"

I love it when my bitches squeal! And this whole time, I'm actually running a multi-server patch deployment in the background and monitoring the firewall. Who says I don't do work?? @ 14:35

AUG 9 :: [pregnant skank] And now for something less serious: Oh my Britney Federline Spears who's pregnant and looks totally skank!

And, ominous advice from perennial and intense rival, Christina Aguilera: "She's let herself go. I can't see a comeback on the cards."

Catfight! Love it.

Speaking of catfights, my brit-ch had this to say about Rehoboth Beach Philip:

P:: I cannot believe you met another Phillip. I demand he change his name.
Me:: His name is Philip with one "L". And it's not my fault you weren't at the beach with me :p
P:: Eww 1 L?? Skank

LOL! I *love* catfights!! @ 14:36

Moving on up to 3.5%... How high will it go? @ 14:49

[hiroshima & nagasaki] Today marks the 60th anniversary of the second - and so far, last - city ever attacked by an atomic bomb.

Three days after the US B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the 13kT "Little Boy" bomb on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 (40% of the city) in the world's first atomic bomb attack, Bock's Car took off to deliver the second A-bomb - a 22kT bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" - to the city of Kokura, before finally dropping the bomb on Nagasaki instead due to cloud cover over Kokura. 74,000 lives were incinerated in a flash. Japan surrendered 6 days later and WWII ended.

To this day, survivors of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima still speak at the now-thriving city's Peace Memorial Park that surrounds the A-Bomb dome (Gembaku). One student who attended the class said this:

"It was probably revenge for Pearl Harbor. But even knowing this, it's hard to forgive the killing of so many civilians. This chain of hatred and revenge is what creates wars. It may be impossible to erase such feelings. But we should at least try."

Yes, we celebrate the nuclear attacks as means to an end. And they were. But *NO*body should celebrate the destruction that stems from hate and revenge.

The era of nuclear war began at 8:15am on August 6, 1945. 60 years later, we still live on the precipice of nuclear destruction, if not the brink. We are one dirty bomb away in a crowded metropolis in the West from levelling cities and, as powerful as they are now, whole countries with each other's nuclear arsenal. When will it end?

We must never ever forget. @ 10:46

[jetrosexual] This is awesome! Virgin Atlantic is so much fun. Are you a jetrosexual?

Let's go down the list shall we? I have my passport, check. I have a favorite airport (Changi... if you don't know where that is, you are *SO* not a jetrosexual) and I love it coz it's open 24-hours and the SQ lounge is fucking phenomenal. I only talk to seatmates that are cute. I never hold up the security line (ew, that's so gauche). Hmm, I can order beer in 6 languages (English, Spanish, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese and... French!).

I *never* do more than a number 1 in the airplane lavatory (ew, gross). Ugh, #5 is a challenge. I might fail that one (might?! who are you kidding...) I'll never be caught dead with an inflatable neck pillow; bitch, please.. why would I need one in business class? #3... hmm. I think I fail this one too :( Ugh, I'm pissed... how can I not have a passport stamp from a country that goes by a different name now??

I love #2!! Just to keep myself humble, LOL! And #1 is the reason why red America remains red - ignorance and intolerance of other cultures and diversity. I'm definitely not red.

I score 9 out of 11. I guess I'm a quasi-jetrosexual @ 10:24

AUG 8 :: [just beach-y] Yup, that pretty much describes my weekend. It was fun, to be sure, but it wasn't extraordinarily wild or hopelessly sedate. It was my isotopic weekend.

Traffic was not fetch. It took us 2.5 hrs to get there - have I told you the story of my first trip there? It took us 2 1/4 hours and one speeding ticket b4 the Bay Bridge *grin* - and all of THREE hours to get back, ugh. The journey there was wrought with storms accompanied by immense thunderstorms and lightning. The rain was blinding as well, not fetch. The top stayed up pretty much the entire way after Annapolis. That doesn't compare to the saga of trying to get home. The traffic on route 1 was foreboding of worse things to come on 404 and 50. The back up on the Bay Bridge seemed minor compared to the 10+ mile backup on 404 and 50. Double ugh. I was so wiped by the time we got home. I hate traffic.

Other than that, we had pleasant weather on Saturday which made for a nice beach day. Sunday was a washout so we headed home early. We stayed at Rob/Carlos' (who are oh-so-generous, btw) and our other roomies were Todd/Warner and Phil (yes, single... in Rehoboth? That's like finding a unicorn). If you haven't been to Rehoboth, it's basically JR's with sand. We ran into EVERYbody, planned or unplanned. Friday night, we rolled into Rehoboth at 9:30 and proceeded to hang out at Bill/Soochon's place where we met Desi who is totally crazy and fetch. After that, we hijacked Desi and dragged Rob/Carlos and the rest of the house-crowd to LL. If you haven't been there, trust, you don't want to know. Let's just say that LL stands for Leather and Levi's and I'll leave it at that. The *only* consolation was that this bar was within walking distance of the house. 'Nuff said.

Oh let's not forget Grotto's delivery (pizza) at 2am, LOL! Something about greasy pepperoni pizza (oh-so-good) and vodka just goes so well together. Feeling like drunk fat girls, we're all in bed by 3, only to wake up with a hangover that was quickly cured by mimosas and off we went to the beach. The allure of Rehoboth lies with the beach. Not physically the beach itself, I might add, as it is just another one of many beaches on the mid-Atlantic seabord - nothing special, sand is OK, water is frigid to the point if you walk in you're clinically a woman. The real allure is the hundreds (thousands?) of gay boys in nothing but the skimpiest of bathing suits converging on one prime piece of beach real estate called Poodle Beach. And God was soooo generous when it came to sculpting these male beauties. It's almost impossible to fall asleep, listen to music, or read a book on Poodle if you even have an ounce of red-blooded maleness in you.

The crowd skews towards the upper-30s/early-40s but there were some twinks on the beach although they only serve to make me look fat, ugh. Bitches, I'd look good too if I only ate on Wednesdays and holidays. Anyways, I got a good tan and before I can say "Ladies, let's go", we're piling into Aqua for happy hour. Another one of those Rehoboth allures. Drinking outdoors with crotch-wettingly hot (str8) lifeguards working their tips and serving you blindingly strong booze to loosen your inhibitions (and your wallets). Hot.

One (beach premium priced) sushi dinner later, we're (Rob/Carlos, Desi, Jack - who?, Phil) piling into my convertible and cruising down to Dewey (Do-Me?) for Venus. Yup, we decided to nouveau it and do Aqua-Venus instead of the Moon-Cloud9 combo. Venus was nice. The club was half indoors and half on the beach which was very cool. Drinks were strong but crazy expensive ($7 for a cape cod?!) and there was also a cover (ew). But what made the evening was the music! Wow, fierce, fierce, fierce. Phil "I'm really quite innocent but Kiat thinks I doth protest too much" and I ripped the dance floor with some serious Dolls-slash-Mariah-slash-Gwen moves. Hot. I think Phil has found his calling - secretly plotting to dispose of one of the members of Pussycat Dolls so that he can then join the group, LOL! Yes, you're fine, honey but really, just 3 years out of the closet? As Britney said, you're not a girl, not yet a woman ;) Giggle. We wobbled home, ate leftover pizza and crashed at 2ish. Really, it's been quite sedate so far.

Sunday was a bum around day. It rained so we brunched and shot the shit at home. Didn't do much. Even so, we were all quite tired after a non-stop weekend. I crashed at 10 last night and woke up at 8:30 this morning. Fetch! But why would I want to feel refreshed for Monday? Wish I was still at the beach, sunning myself silly amongst the hot boys instead. Sigh. Work gets in the way of everything. @ 15:23

[also a crime] Justice Stevens condemned the death penalty this weekend in a speech to the ABA. Justice Stevens says that DNA evidence has shown "that a substantial number of death sentences have been imposed erroneously" and "It indicates that there must be serious flaws in our administration of criminal justice." In his defense, the anti-capital punishment Death Penalty Information Center noted that more than three dozen death row inmates have been exonerated since 2000. Innocent lives, let's not forget, that might've been wrongfully put to death.

And this is what made me explosively decide to write about this issue. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-death penalty group, says in response to that little tidbit of inconvenient statistic: "I wouldn't say that 20 or 30 cases out of 8,000 constitutes a broken system."

:-o

AUG 5 :: [get over it] No, not my drama :) Not yet anyways. Last night while at Twink night, I saw the video of Jessica Simpson's These Boots Were Made For Walkin' for the very first time. I don't really care for the song (is it a remake?) but she looked TIGHT and FIERCE! I was really digging the video and guilty-pleasure-dancing to the song - oh my Jessica Lachey Simpson - until I saw the clip where she's washing a car (cue Nicolette Sheridan squeezing a sponge full of water down her hot, tight body in Desperate Housewives). The car's hood had a HUGE Confederate flag on it. And I mean, alllll ovah.

I gasped. You don't even wanna know what I was thinking. But I'll tell you anyway: "Jessica, that cunt whore... selling out to the red states and using the battle flag of the slave-thirsty Southern states to advance her ridiculous career. Bitch will never live this down. EVER! I'm deleting all her songs from my PC. I'm gonna boycott her sorry, racist, bigoted, white ass". LOL! I'm such a drama queen.

So I got home and googled "jessica simpson confederate flag". Phew. Let's just say I'm relieved. I had no idea there was a movie (apparently lifted from a TV series in the 70s?) called Dukes of Hazzard where she plays some character and one of the guys in the movie (which mimicks the TV character) drives a car with the Confederate flag emblazoned on the hood.

It's entertainment. There was precedence. It's part of the movie. Nothing wrong with that. I would argue that it would be an injustice to the TV series if they had shown a car without the flag on it. Being PC is sooooooo boring. So I got over it pretty quickly.

She's hot. @ 10:57

[shake it...] Like it's HOT! Literally. The folks at gAy-pex must just relish the thought of sweat-soaked twinks on Thursday nights coz there was (deliberately?) no A/C in the house! But no matter, I have never done twink night at gAy-pex and lemme tell ya, it was b-a-n-a-n-a-s!

The boys were hot, the moves were hotter and the music was crazy fierce. And talk about shaking it like it's tight - 18-21 year olds are mighty tight. I guess it comes from starving yourself through college but boy, it's good for us old bitches ;) The music is so different from Friday nights when the adult crowd packs it in and there are a LOT more females in the crowd; mostly hags or young chicks who drag their "str8" boyfriends to a club that actually plays good music. And the music in the main room was my favorite - lots of diva vocals. I mean, I can do trance once in awhile but I want a song I can sing to too. Mix vocals with tranc-y, hip hop, hands-in-the-air, hip-shaking music and the combo is just right for a HOT time! And Phillip/Fernando and I ripped the dance floor for hours until we sashayed home at 2 in the morning (not drunk, for once, LOL! but VERY, very sweaty).

Oh did I mention our two encounters with the cops? Giggle. I won't mention the first one coz it was quite stank (let's just say we practiced our own kind of vigilante justice before the cops got there). The second was Brett Parsons who is oh-so-butch in his patrol vehicle pulling up to our side and making small talk. We flagged him down like only three gay boys could (in a seductive shirt-raising, lip-pouting, crotch-thrusting way, of course) and begged him to take us home, and he laughed and pointed to the side of the vehicle saying "this says P-O-L-I-C-E, not T-A-X-I". LOL!

Anyway, I digress. Rolling back to the beginning of the evening, well it was a Thursday night after all so no prizes for guessing where we all were. All my bitches were there so it was quite fun. It was drama-free (this matters, you'll see why later) except for getting my first drink from Dave which was NOT a good idea (holy blinding amount of vodka, batman!) and me ripping Chris (non-FT) a new ass for smoking. Gurrrl, I have given you almost two years. It's time to quit. It's not healthy, it makes you feel crappy, and Lord knows it's not fetch. There comes a point where it's not even remotely cool anymore, or necessary to hang with the "in" crowd. And I only say all this coz I love you.

I finally saw Rick for the first time since... ohmibeyonce, it's been two weeks! Of course, skank disappears midway through the night coz he's sketchy like that. So, Phillip/Fernando, Guillermo, Jason and some stranger decided to go fill our bellies (with food :p) at Annie's. I don't remember what I ate. I was quite blitzed at this point. I do remember quite a bit of drama from dinner; which I still haven't decided to talk about yet and please don't make me. But the food helped and before long, we were slamming down Mass Ave in Phillip's new Volvo SUV ("borrowed", she claims), joining Chuck-egina and ChrisFT at Green Lantern! Shirts came off faster than you could say "free vodka!". I do remember getting there so late we only had one free drink before the hour was over. We didn't stay too long after that for we had another mission in mind - Twink night!

And so the night came full circle. Another crazy Thursday night under our belts. Not so brutal today coz we sweated off all our vodka dancing in gAy-pex (bitches, it was soooooo hot in there... but my hair withstood the tropical conditions). Work is verrrrry slow. Everyone's on FLEX.

We're off to Rehoboth this weekend. Tony gets home in the late afternoon and we're cruising, top down, to the beach this evening. I am expecting, no.. demanding, a drama-free weekend to sort out all the drama (personal, that is) in my life. It feels strange to have drama after going so long without any. Y'know, the type that makes you clutch your pearls in bewilderment, bow your head in disappointment, tears streaming down your makeup, and go "why?" There's a fine line between crushing disappointment and just being sad or depressed and it's quite blurry right now (probably from all the vodka, LOL). I shouldn't be upset but I am. Yes, I'm human. I might put on a brave, happy face on the outside but inside, I'm not infallible to human emotions. Maybe it's because I care? Oh heavens... I thought I had that surgically removed a few years ago. Ugh. I should just throw them out the window. Please don't catch 'em.

Yea, I'll get sorted. This will be a mind-emptying weekend :) (aka braincell-depleting) @ 10:27

AUG 4 :: [feisty!] I'm in a feisty mood! Gurls, you don't want to mess with Kiat today.

This jackass at work today *really* pissed me off. Got me all fired up. For brevity and the safety of this jackass (lest I incite a riot against him), let's label him HK. HK is Indian. No, not the feathers, the dot. HK asked me for a favor last night and I did it for him in 20 minutes. I ask him for a favor this morning (well, it was more like a demand coz he was flooding the firewall with denied requests every 3 seconds, ugh, and he *needed* to do what I told him to do) and he gets all nasti-tude with me. After a combative back-and-off argument about whether he should do what I want him to do:

HK:: We don't work for the same company so don't talk to me. I don't really care.
Me:: Let's just forget about this [I turn around and walk off]
HK:: No we won't. Come back here. I'll make the changes you want me to make. And then I'll submit a request for the firewall and once the request goes through, you bet that I'll revert the settings back to the original. And that's the end of this conversation.

Excuuuuuuuse me? Oh, bitch. You are screwing with the wrong guy. I *own* the firewall. I can shut your access off like *snap* that. I can make life miserable for you by requiring you to scale mountains and beg the Dalai Lama in Nepal before I'll even think of editing the firewall for you. And everytime I have a firewall review with my boss? I will fight to remove all "unnecessary" access from you and your pathetic little PC. Bitch, don't mess with the firewall admin.

As with all things ugly, this one got really pretty (for me) really fast. HK and I *do* work for the same contracting company. But I'm a full-time employee and he's just a consultant. So, my boss learns about the incident and calls up his boss. Let's just say, you REALLY don't want to mess with Kiat who has the backing of the government agency I'm working for and my contracting company who all think I'm the best thing since Buddha.

I was this close to planting crack in his car, calling INS (or CIS or whatever they call themselves these days), and getting his sorry ass deported back to India.

Bitch, don't fuck with me. @ 12:17

[absolutely not] Wow, that was a rather quick decision. I've gotten a few comments re: (a) Should I add a Comments section. And the answer is a resounding "NO".

This priceless e-mail that showed up in my inbox an hour ago helped seal my decision:

"Dude, just went through your website and looked at a bunch of stuff."

"One comment, man, you've gotta be about the most self absorbed, narcist person I've ever seen........."

"Nothing personal, no insult intended, just an observation from a stranger ...."

No offense taken. But really... "Dude"? What are you, 10? In that case, you shouldn't be reading my website anyway. This site is barely PG-13, and we're talking mental age here which means you don't qualify. Second, "narcist"? English is my second language and I can tell you that it's spelled "narcissistic". Do I have to hold you down and shove a dictionary down your throat?

Me:: Take that, you rude, obnoxious piece of trash. Go back to elementary school, learn to spell and don't get in my face until you do, BITCH!
Skank Bitch:: mmmmmgngngaarrrrrrgggghgrrrr
Me:: What's that? I can't heeeeeeaaaaarrrr yooooooouuuuuu
SB:: mmmmmgngngaarrrrrrgggghgrrrgrghh
Me:: Don't talk with your mouth full, BITCH!

But I'm a lady so instead of physical violence, I'll just see your observation and raise you my judgement: You're a bonehead. If you have nothing nice to say about other people in their face, don't say it. Don't get in my face, call me a chink, and then go "nothing personal". That's just mean. And you don't even know me.

Yea, I called you a bonehead. You think that's mean? What's that? How can I say that when I don't even know you? Too fucking bad. First impressions are a bitch, aren't they? You're lucky I didn't publish your e-mail address. Hell hath no fury like me unleashing my legions of fans on you. Call them al-Gayda.

And yea, I like being self-absorbed and narcissistic. I think it's endearing. I happen to like myself very much and I spread my Kiat-ness around. Don't agree? Go fuck yourself.

With a dictionary.

As Ms Cox (Deborah, that is) so eloquently said:

"Do I measure me by what you think"
"Absolutely Not (Absolutely Not)..."

Trust. @ 11:53

AUG 3 :: [regroup and rebuild] All this web server drama has made me contemplate a few things about my website. (a) Should I add a Comments section for people - mostly friends and family but some strangers or stalkers too - to rant about my thoughts? (b) Should I add links on my site to blogs that I read fairly often?

Problem with (a) is that I don't want to end up with a situation whereby I have to start filing TROs (temporary restraining orders) on a regular basis - there are so many quacks on the internet these days; myself included. Problem with (b) is that I only want to link to blogs that are somewhat interesting and relevant to my insane, vodka-induced life. That means discriminating amongst my friends and I don't want to have to pick and choose.

Of course, (a) is a *FAR* bigger endeavor than (b). What do you think? See? Without (a), I can't even solicit your opinions... sigh. Do I really want to know what you think? Hmm?

But really, none of that matters; especially when compared to the thrill one gets from happy endings like the Air France jet that burst into flames at Toronto's airport yesterday. Shock and horror turned into joy and jubilation within hours when all 297 passengers and 12 crew members survived the crash. Small miracles do happen :) @ 16:24

[fuck up] Yes, I'm such a retard. I fucked up my web server (#1) this morning (note to self: do not drive a motor vehicle or handle machinery - including power tools - while intoxicated from the night before), rebooted it and left the house without making sure it came back up correctly. Well, it didn't. My webserver was down for about 12 hours today. And that's why you're reading this now. So why did I reboot it in the first place? It's supposed to be Apache-on-Linux, robust and indestructible. Hmm...

Fuck up #2 - I accidentally deleted the post I wrote on July 31st about "they are all terrorists" and I ran this program on the web server to try to recover the missing paragraphs but to no avail. The program fucked up the web server so I felt compelled to reboot it. So, you must be thinking, why doesn't Mr. Asian Prodigy have backups? Can't I just go back a day and get the lost paragraphs from there?

Fuck up #3 - I *do* have backups. And they've been working great for ages. I have 24-hr old copies of everything which guarantees that I have at least a day to catch any fuck ups that I inevitably commit. Wellll... You haven't heard about this coz I've been too busy trying to fix it to write about it but the secondary hard drive on my home PC exploded a few days ago (well, actually it's been dead for awhile but I haven't noticed it till 3 days ago). And because most of my data resides on that secondary drive, my backup software mirrored that data onto a portable hard drive (are you keeping up?) which is tiny and cute and I love it. I carry it everywhere which makes it kinda like my Tinkerbell. And with cloning, I too could have one! Anywho, I digress... long story short, that drive died so I saw no reason to continue the backups and I disabled them. Well, one of the backups is actually for my web server which by disabling the program, I had also disabled the backup for my web server &*#$%. And without the backup, I couldn't roll my web server back a day to extract the "missing" paragraphs.

So, y'see. Even the better IT brains amongst us can fuck up occasionally. I'm so over this whole thing. I've lost mountains of data on that secondary hard drive, I've lost a paragraph on my website that I don't think I can recover, and I've lost many hours of my past week to this pointless endeavor. Not to mention, I've lost a lot of sleep - I am *SO* exhausted at work today - and quite a bit of sanity. Can you tell I'm going crazy? :-D

NOT FETCH. And Tony being away for the next 3 days is not helping any. Waa. @ 14:59

[warming - hot!] I saw the best bumper sticker in a long time in Maryland on Saturday outside of Sabang. Check this out. And on Sunday, we ran across this little critter who seemed to have mistaken paper for nuts? So cute but so dumb. Doesn't that pretty much describe all the pretty boys in DC? ;) @ 14:56

AUG 2 :: [size matters] From nasty Jason who sends me these kinds of e-mails from his work account (!?!):

"Our email system and I have one thing in common. "Size matters!" We have a ceiling for attachment size, and that's where we differ. I can take 10, it can't. LOL!!! I am not aware of my limit."

I read the e-mail. And my face went like this :-o LOL! @ 15:37

[family matters] My elder bro is in Seattle for one of his Microsoft stints. My dad turns 58 today (Happy Birthday, Dad!). And my younger brother wants to move in with me. In two weeks. (semi-)Permanently. And he wants to bring his girlfriend (for a short stay). Yes, I'm expected to take her in even as she's not part of the family yet. And my mom? She's still living her happy-go-ladies-who-lunch life. With my credit card. Why am I so generous? ;) @ 15:31

[it's a boy!] This is about the cutest thing I've seen this side of China. A giant panda cub at the National Zoo, how fabulous! The first since 1989, *HE* was born on July 9th, currently weighs 1.82 pounds and is about a foot long. His celebrity parents, possibly the highest-paid pandas in the world at $1mn/yr, are Mei Xiang (美香) and Tian Tian (添添), here in DC on a 10-yr, $10mn loan from China. The cub adds $600k to that payment. Mei Xiang (may see-ahng; NOT may-shong) means "beautiful fragrance" - the "Mei" also means America and "Xiang" is the Hong in Hong Kong - and Tian Tian means "more and more".

The exciting part is that this cub has lived longer than the five cubs that the previous pair of pandas (Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing) had during the 80s. And there are only 2,000 or so left of these gorgeous creatures, most of whom live in the wild in remote mountain forests of Central China. It's like a birth in an extended family, worthy of pomp and celebration.

Isn't it exciting? I love birth. What shall we name it? How about Xiao Ming? (mini-me! Xiao means little, and Ming is my middle name which also means "brilliance") @ 15:04

More >>

31 :: transparent
31 :: 9 1/2 hours
31 :: a city in peril
30 :: merdeka
30 :: starving in america
30 :: devastating aftermath
30 :: metro peeves
29 :: the big lucky
29 :: new word
29 :: unlimited
29 :: lessons learnt
29 :: nature's fury
26 :: $765k
26 :: cockrophobia
26 :: number 11
25 :: supersize usa ii
25 :: equal opportunity
24 :: justifying murder
24 :: beach pics
24 :: the shit
24 :: five too many
24 :: wardrobe malfunction
24 :: google talk
23 :: screwed
23 :: new ringtone
23 :: nuevo california
23 :: supersize usa
23 :: concentration camp
22 :: anti-drug
22 :: spanish tan
18 :: priscilla
17 :: dancing queen
17 :: crack-pod
16 :: one bedroom
15 :: and then...
15 :: dance-o-rama
15 :: sad but true
15 :: i *heart* wp
15 :: my baby
12 :: classy enough
12 :: classy bitches
11 :: 6,371
11 :: code 'get-the-fuck-out'
10 :: hong kong?
10 :: what to wear
09 :: pregnant skank
09 :: hiroshima & nagasaki
09 :: jetrosexual
08 :: just beach-y
08 :: also a crime
08 :: more light!
05 :: get over it
05 :: shake it...
04 :: feisty!
04 :: absolutely not
03 :: regroup and rebuild
03 :: fuck up
03 :: warming - hot!
02 :: size matters
02 :: family matters
02 :: it's a boy!
01 :: hate leads to...