SEP 30 :: ['former' majority leader] Eugene Robinson has The juiciest column today (well, since I only read the WP's columns now no thanks to the NYT's greediness in charging for Maureen Dowd's succulent rants). In "Immoral Majority" (love the title!):

"...pardon me for going way beyond schadenfreude to outright giddiness at the prospect that the Hammer will finally get nailed... makes me feel like it's morning again in America."

"DeLay, because he's such a ruthlessly effective bully, has been as responsible as anyone for pushing his party to the end of the political spectrum previously reserved for the anti-everything, loony-bin far right."

"The crowd now in control of Washington, thanks in part to DeLay's undeniable skills, could best be described as Reagan's illegitimate heirs."

"Theirs is a greedy, small-minded conservatism. In their policies, they seek not to improve government, and certainly not to shrink it, but to ruin it -- to starve the regulatory agencies with tax cuts, then spend so wildly on pork that there's nothing left to pay for actual government work such as, say, preparing for a hurricane."

"DeLay and Co. don't just want to bankrupt the government, they want to force the whole country to conform to their "moral" prescriptions. On private matters such as abortion, homosexuality, religion, even end-of-life decisions, they demand that all of us do as they say. When it comes to the millions who lack health insurance, though, or to persistent poverty in the inner cities -- well, those problems are for individuals and "faith-based" institutions to grapple with as best they can."

"I like the irony that DeLay may end up a victim of hubris -- that his downfall may result from his efforts to perpetuate his awful legacy... He doesn't even have to go to jail; he can just go back to killing bugs in Houston. Just as long as he goes. This will be a better country when that "former" in front of his title is permanent."

HOT! The Republicans under Bush-Frist-DeLay don't want small government. They just want small minds. Why bother with governing when you can appeal to a narrow, fearful electorate by scaring the be-jeesus out of them, and then showering them with cash like it's Christmas everyday? @ 11:16

[it's frrreezing!] So most of you who know me, *know* that I dislike driving.. or riding in cars for long distances. That's why I'm a frequent-flier, bitches! :) No, really. When I go on long drives, trust me you'll want to start handing me cheese with my whine. "Are we there yet?", "THIRTY more miles??", "How many more exits?", "Why is there so much corn out here?", "There's nothing to see!", "Who the fuck lives out here?", "Are we in Lower Pennsylvania (MD)/Eastern West Virginia (VA)?", "It's *OUT*side the Beltway?!", "Why can't they build an airport here for me?", "OMB, I forgot my visa and passport"... and Tony's favorite, "I *need* to eat/pee/shop/drink/stop-now-or-I'm-gonna-hurt-somebody..." :-D

So, it rained yesterday. Another miserable 0.01". We are short 3.6" (yes, a common complaint in DC *grin*) for the month of Sept. And WTF? It was Fr-REEZING last night. I had to wear a light jacket (a fetch one at that) to JR's last night. Oh yes, Thursday night JR's was fun as usual. Usual suspects: Rick, Leo/M2, Chuck/ChrisFT, Evan, etc. It was a fetch reunion of sorts. My first drink of the night was also my first drink since Sunday. I know, what the hell is wrong with me? Uh-huh, the second drink of the evening made up for the past four days though.. ChrisFT, ever the let's-get-drunk-faster bitch that he is, gets me a vodka-cran from Dave. Uh-huh. I went from zero to blitzed in one sip. This drink was so strong it singed my nose hairs (both of them), AND my eyebrows. I had to close my eyes to drink this one. Thanks, Chris *muah*

Anywho, yes.. c-c-c-cold. This delicate lil' lotus blossom was not built for cold weather. It was like mid-60s by the time I left JR's! And don't even get me started about this morning.. I left the house and it was in the 50s *GASP* Dolls, I am *not* built for this kind of weather.

So I drove to work. LOL! Actually, I drove to work for other reasons but I like to use [whine]"but I'm cold!"[/whine] as an excuse. No matter. I may dislike driving but come winter when it's colder than a witch's tit outside, I think I'm gonna be jumping in my car more often. I mean, it only costs me $2.70 r/t on Metro but $7 to park. In the miserable abyss of winter, the premium is WELL worth it, trust.

I *heart* my car; even though that bitch is worthless in snow and ice.. @ 10:21

[fucked up] Want another reason to disassociate yourself from stupid people i.e. Republicunts? How about this... What the fuck is wrong with you, Governor? Maria, divorce that sonofabitch, NOW. Giggle.

Of course, this only delays the inevitable. Right, California? @ 09:56

[you've gotta be kidding] Oh, this is priceless. Former Education Secretary (and other prominent posts) under the Reagan and Bush I White Houses, William Bennett (yes, also of "I lecture people on morals but I gambled away millions of dollars in Vegas and AC"):

"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down."

"That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

:-O Exactly. Uh-huh. So all y'all Republicunts out there. *This* is what you want to be associated with?

How about: If you wanted to reduce murderous wars, protect the citizens of this country, balance the budget, save the environment, AND eliminate racism, you could abort every Republican baby in this country? @ 09:47

SEP 29 :: [arctic and alaska] Global warming is threatening both the Arctic and Alaska. The floating Arctic ice shelf shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in a century, maybe more; usually 2.7mn sq mi, it has dropped to 2.05mn sq mi as of last week. If those numbers mean nothing to you, think TWICE the size of Texas. Yes, that's how much ice has been lost - most of it off Siberia and Alaska - perhaps due to global warming. Why is it so alarming now? Because this summer was the fourth in a row with ice extents sharply below the long-term average and reaching record or near record minimums. The question is: Have we approached a threshold beyond which large parts of the ice are unable to survive the summer?

If current melting trends continue, the Arctic may be ice-free before the end of the century :-o All those cute little (well, not so little) polar bears would be gone! :( But more ominously, the melting of the Arctic is being accompanied by the melting of the 700,000 sq mi (1.7mn sq km) Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic's twin in the northern polar ice sheet. The Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to raise the worldwide sea level by about 23ft (7m) if it melts completely. Doesn't sound like much? Even a 3ft (1m) rise in sea levels - forecasted by 2100 - will swamp homes from Bangladesh to Florida. Florida south of Miami would be uninhabitable. A 7m rise will flood the southern half of both FL and LA. The impact of rising sea levels on coastal plains - where 2/3rds of the world's population live - will be catastrophic.

In Alaska, average temperatures have increased about 4-7°F (3-4°C) in the past 50 years, nearly twice the global average. Villages, perched on thawing permafrost, are shrinking before Alaskans' eyes. Buildings are slumping and roads are buckling as the frozen soil thaws and turns into softer, spongy soil.

Global warming is very scary. And it's here. @ 15:00

[chief justice roberts] Judge John G. Roberts, 50, became the 17th chief justice of the United States today, after the Senate confirmed him by a 78-22 vote. He will replace the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist who passed away on Sept 3rd from thyroid cancer.

Justice Roberts' ascension to the chief justice post is far less fearful than what's going to happen next. Justice Roberts, who may turn out to be a staunch conservative à la Scalia/Thomas, essentially replaced another conservative Justice (Rehnquist) thereby maintaining the balance of ideology on the Supreme Court. Now, the President will have to nominate someone to replace Justice Sandra O'Connor who is a moderate. If the President nominates another staunch conservative (or seemingly so), hell will descend upon Washington.

And the scary thing is, even with the avalanche of scandals now pervading the leadership of the Republican Party, I am pretty damn sure Bush is gonna stick it to the majority of the country and nominate somebody who's revolting. He has never met a ferocious partisan fight that he doesn't like. Yes, President Bush is the Polarizer-in-Chief... when he's not a war criminal. Isn't it amazing Clinton got impeached over a harmless lie to the grand jury, but Bush barely gets investigated for lies that led to the death of almost 2,000 American soldiers, not to mention tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives? Why does 40% of this country still approve of him? Are you all just so fucking stupid and blinded by party loyalty that you don't see that he can't even protect our own citizens from natural disasters, much less future terrorist attacks?

Republicans are stupid.

Whew... where did all of That come from?? Maybe it's coz I've been sober since Sunday :-o @ 12:42

[in lust] I am still marvelling over my revelation over High Definition Television. It is not evolutionary, it's revolutionary. This shit ROCKS! I was watching Jay Leno (HD) and David Letterman (SD) last night and the difference was just unbearable. I don't think I can go back to SD. Granted, the plasma upconverts SD signals to a crisper picture but still, HD blows everything away. Yes, Jay blew Dave. Go figure.

Not everything is in HD though. Yet. And the commercials will probably never be. Who knows. It's quite annoying to switch from an HD feed to a normal feed coz the letterboxes start appearing and there are black bars everywhere; top and bottom, left and right, sometimes all four sides. Very disorienting.

There are quite a few obstacles to life in perpetual HD though. One, we don't have an HD receiver and refuse to get one coz Dish (and DirecTV) doesn't provide local channels on them yet. Comcast does but I hate Comcast with a passion. So we are relegated to receiving over-the-air HD signals which is less than ideal. Two, even if we had HD, we wouldn't be able to TiVo any of the shows coz our DVRs don't support HD. Argh. And Lord knows I don't watch real-time television anymore. I would sooner cut my right arm off than give up TiVo. TiVo's my best friend.

So my life in HD is in a holding pattern. I just know I must have it at some point. But that day has not come yet. In the meantime, I am consumed by it. I think about it everyday. I want it, no, I need it. The desire is palpable and it makes me giddy, my heart palpitate, and it kicks my senses into overdrive. The anticipation is excruciating. Lust is such a powerful emotion. @ 12:24

SEP 28 :: [life in hd] For a multitude of reasons, we haven't watched high definition television on our new plasma. Until today. And oh.. mi.. Beyonce. It's like you've never seen the sky before. The picture quality is magnificent. The difference is so startling it made me gasp. I felt like I've never seen television before. The picture is so clear and crisp, you can see details down to the last pore, wrinkle or crease.

Standard television (SDTV) - the kind that most of you have, including our two other TVs - is 480i i.e. 480 interlaced (i) lines of information per frame, at 30 frames per second. Enhanced television (EDTV) is 480p which is the equivalent of DVD quality i.e. the picture is progressively (p) scanned from top to bottom every frame instead of interlaced, therefore a vast improvement over SDTV. Then we have HDTV, which is either 720p (Fox/ABC) or 1080i (NBC/CBS). Both formats have either more lines (>1 1/2 times more), or a better method of display (p > i).

And the result is magical. Trust. @ 20:45

[it's working] A fun little article in the WP today basically proves what most of us earth-loving, fossil fuels-loathing, pollution-hating people have known all along: if gas prices rise, consumers will use less gas. Voilà, instant conservation.

Due to high(er) gas prices, small cars like Corollas (38mpg) and Civics (35mpg) have a tight 19 days' supply of inventory as of last week. Chevy Tahoe (20mpg), on the other hand, has a 98 days' supply. The Prius (51mpg) has an even tighter 6 days' supply. Of course, small car sales are helping the Japanese automakers, while Detroit's GM and Ford are sinking under the weight of large SUVs, once the industry's cash cows. Why is America, and by extension her automakers, so obsessed with big, huge, unnecessary trucks? Because gas was dirt cheap. And recently, higher gas prices have discouraged our obsession with these monstrous polluters. The link is obvious.

The United States produces almost a quarter of global CO2 emissions and, together with the next 9 countries about 2/3rds of global CO2 emissions. Every American emits twice the CO2 as a German or a Brit, and 20 times more than an Indian. Two-thirds of CO2 emissions come from transportation sources, with the largest contribution coming from highway motor vehicles. In urban areas, that figure can exceed 90%. The migration from huge, gas-guzzling, and terribly polluting vehicles to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars will make a huge positive impact on the environment.

The link is even more obvious when you consider Britain, Germany and the United States. The price of gas in Britain and Germany is 2 1/2 times that of the US. Is it any wonder that the Brits and Germans emit half the amount of CO2 per-capita as an American? Why is the price of gas so expensive in Britain? Coz 3/4 of the cost of gas is tax. In contrast, America's gas tax is only 18.4 cents/gallon. Raise the gas tax!

California residents emit on a per-capita basis only 12.2 tonnes of greenhouse gases per year compared to 20 tonnes as a whole for the United States. But California last year proposed regulations that will force automakers selling vehicles in that state - constituting 10% of the US car market - to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% in the next decade. And what did the auto industry do? They sued. The Japanese and the Germans are not standing by. They are building and designing for the future. GM and Ford? They'd much rather sue to retain the status quo. A status quo that threatens the earth's health.

It's no wonder I detest American cars. @ 20:23

[wanted - democracy] Since we're on the subject of redistricting... Yes, we are. For all you outside-the-Beltway folks, DeLay's indictment is related to him engineering the ouster of 5 House Democrats in Texas through an out-of-cycle redistricting aka gerrymandering. And he should go to jail for it.

I am wholly and uncompromisingly in favor of nonpartisan redistricting. Yes, let the flames begin but I am 100% behind Governor Schwarzenegger's efforts (yes, another despicable man who does not have the courage nor the conviction to allow gays to marry in California) in Proposition 77 to wrest redistricting powers away from the California Legislature into the hands of a panel of retired judges.

Redistricting has become too political, and in the hands of power-mongers from both parties in State Legislatures all across the nation, it has resulted in a polarized electorate with no middle ground and the same old hacks getting re-elected to Congress year after year after year. Republicans, under DeLay and another despicable man Karl Rove, had brought the blood sport of legislative redistricting to new lows by spurring Texas to gerrymander congressional districts mid-decade, thereby solidifying their party's control over Congress. When politics is out of citizens' control, it is no wonder that so few people vote. Nothing sounds less like democracy to me.

To date, only Iowa conducts redistricting in the least partisan fashion - no commissions, no influence from the legislature. Just plain ol' nonpartisan staff developing maps for the State House and Senate as well as the US House districts without any political or election data including the addresses of incumbents. Sweet, eh?

Of course, there is a caveat. I only support nonpartisan redistricting IF it was mandated nationwide. It would not be fair to force heavily-Democratic California to blaze the trail on nonpartisan redistricting (and risk losing Democratic House members) and not have heavily-Republican Texas do it as well.

Nonpartisan redistricting should be the law of the land; the norm not the exception that it currently is. Restore Democracy to the House! @ 16:47

[one down...] Ohmibeyonce, I never thought this day would come... Like rain in the Sahara, sunshine in Britain, and chocolate to incapacitated Jason (yes, bitch has been to the hospital the past two days AND bed-ridden today), the news of Senate Majority Leader, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) relinquishing his post (temporarily) after being indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges of conspiracy, is worth a Grand Old celebration.

There is only one itty-bitty little word to describe this calamitous episode in the never-ending scandal called the Grand Old Party: FETCH!

I am, however, saving my happy dance for when that despicable and unethical man is put behind bars and has to resign from Congress. I'm saving my Hail Marys and Hallelujahs for that day which, I hope, would surely come.

Now, when will the country wake up to the Frist insider-trading scandal? @ 16:21

SEP 26 :: [rise of the trifecta] The much forecasted rain did not come this weekend. Well, it might have on Saturday but it barely registered. We are still in a drought. They are forecasting Rita's rains in DC today. That remains to be seen. After a scorching start to September, temps finally dropped below 80° - on both Sat and Sun! - for the first time this month (incl. seven 90°+ days). We are still WAY (try 5° worth) above average temp-wise for this month. Hot.

Yes, my shoes match now, spank-you-very-much.

So the question every Monday is: how was my weekend. And the verdict is... Fetch. Is there any other? The Fetch Trifecta was in ascendance this weekend. Rick, Jason and I tore up DC every single night, beginning with a mosquito-infested, margie/mojie-loaded, salsa-induced dinner at Lauriol Plaza (surrounded by some vicious cunts but that's a story for Jason to tell). And by dinner, I meant just in liquid form as far as "I *heart* dexatrim"-Rick is concerned.

Rick and I loaded up on some swirl margies while Jason was so infatuated with mojie she drank a whole pitcher of her. Fierce. No really, bitch gets *really* fierce when she's drunk and she was a'bitin', a'chewin' and a'pinchin' everyone allovah town that night. Somehow we made it to Halo where shenananananigans descends upon the Trifecta, almost breaking up the Un-holy Trinity. Let's just say it involves ex-es (Rick's, of course). Not that I'm dropping names but we did run into Adam/Patrick, David/Forty, Chuck/Joey, Bethany... hmm, who else. He-who-shall-not-be-named causes drama-queen-Rick to storm out of the bar and Jason and I go chase after him like the leash-less lost puppies that we are. Actually, we didn't. We were just so drunk we decided to hit JR's instead.

Rick rejoins the Trifecta and the fetch cloud moves north to Cobalt... where it was tragically stank, except for Rick's pole-dancing a là Demi Moore Kuthcer in Striptease. Yes, it was past midnight but there was nobody there. So Jason and I took the party over to Apex and that's where it became crazy. Jason brought her golden ticket so off she went to munch on some chocolate. I ended up dancing with Chuck/Joey, Bethany and HWSNBN all night. I was home at 3:30. Smashed. Hot.

Saturday was a blur. Noodles, yoga, jumped in the shower and by 4pm, we were on our way to Reston for a wedding. It was Tony's boss' wedding with Tony's former boss (the business circle in Virginia is very, very incestuous). It was at the Hyatt in Reston and lemme tell ya, there is no word to describe suburbia but stank. The ceremony was short and sweet. Jane looked fabulous in her virginal white dress. And giggly. She does that when she's nervous. Tom looked like he ate the wedding rings and was gonna throw up multiple times. Mind you, they've both done this a few times. Isn't it great... how they (the str8 people) can so easily get hitched and do the whole "official" thing and voila, instant marriage benefits/rights. And all we get is a fucked up president who wants to write us out of the Constitution. So not fair. Oh well, a wedding's a wedding and I wasn't gonna let anything kill my party mood. It was actually quite a fun wedding. If I had a drunk sidekick (where was Rick or Jason when you needed them), I would've ensured that Tony could never be seen at the office again, giggle. But I was quite tame. I think. I don't know..

The bride sat us on the gAy-ARP Table. Why, I have no idea. But these other gays were clearly not fetch so I hung out with the cool kids i.e. rich straight men's drunk wives who have so many kids they should run a daycare. Not to mention enough bling on them to form their own constellation. But since their kids were at home - and the jewels were hanging out - and these hot bitches looked like they haven't been to a good party in 4 childbirths (can you say desperate housewives?), I get them all from zero to blitzed-shit-face in 4 drinks. Then the fun starts.. we, of course, start bitching about everybody's hairdo and dresses, and dissing all the relatives who were obviously uncouth. And who doesn't love a drunk gay-sian with fresh highlights and a T-shirt that says "Filthy" in Gothic lettering with a foul mouth and a totally un-PC mindset. Fetch. Yes, I wore a fetch striped linen suit over my "Filthy" T-shirt. Lord have Mercy, don't EVER let me wear that in public in the suburbs again, EVER... I thought Jesus himself was gonna burn a hole in my chest staring so hard.

The post-wedding party was at, of course, JR's where Jason and Rick had already been lubing up all night waiting for my re-entry into DC's atmosphere. And it got HOT! Well, Jason looked like he had crabs the way he was walking. Doll, note to you: don't use a straight-edge razor on your nether regions, I don't care how French or how bushy you are down there. One cut, all gone.. remember that. So we're at JR's. Speaking of crabs... I barely ate the nasty crab cakes at the wedding so we decided to go stuff ourselves at the escape-from-fat-camp sanctuary... McDonald's! TWENTY McNuggets later (and that's just what Rick and I ate), we pile into a cab for Secrets. Drama ensues when I dropped my phone in the cab. I won't even go into the details but let's just say the cab came back to give me my phone and I gave him $5 for it at which point he starts cussing at me. LOL. What can I say, I'm a cheap skate and he made the mistake of giving me the phone first before negotiating the price. Sucker!

Secrets.. I don't really have a word for it. If there was one, it would be "WOW". They have definitely, um, upgraded the, um, performances. Yea, that's it. Fantastic performers. Bigger, better, cuter, fiercer, fetcher, completely mind-(and some other parts too)-blowing and twitchingly/quiveringly/wettingly H-O-T. I think we were there for 2 hours and didn't say a word to each other coz our mouths were just hanging open the entire time. Well, that and we kept chanting "ohmibeyonce, ohmibeyonce.." over and over again. Jason at one point looked at us and said, "I think I'm considering switching to white chocolate!" Perhaps the coming of the ballpark has caused Secrets to start living like they've only got a few months left - fuck all and let's just give it our best! Save the best for the last, so to speak.

Metro home. Terrify the str8s on the train into fits of laughter with our completely-unfit-for-public-consumption (or print) loud banter. Slumber party. Bed. The Fetch Trifecta had peaked.

Sunday.. quick brunch, went shopping, lusted after some hot gadgets in the Apple/Sony stores - side-by-side!! - at Pentagon. Hit Chris/Dave's cocktail party, ate my entire week's worth of calories in the form of pate, and hit Sunday night JR's. Home. West Wing. Desperate Housewives. Rome. Bed.

Oh so exhausted. Can't you tell? @ 16:19

[desperately mortifying] Only Desperate Housewives can make a funeral into a comedy. Did you *see* Bree van der Kamp's "I got robbed of an Emmy last week"-winning performance on DH last night? It was pearl-clutchingly mortifying. I put both hands on my mouth, gasped and squealed when she propped Rex's torso - in a casket! - upward to change his necktie in front of all the mourners... in church! Prr-rice-less! I almost passed out in horror when, before that, she hungrily scanned the crowd for the perfect tie for her dead husband. She looked absolutely fierce and psychopathically perfect! What a stunning transformation from grieving widow... Dolls, you *HAVE* to watch it. Make sure you check out Edie's hat!

And what about that scene with Lynette throwing diapers that stuck to a glass wall? LOL! And ohmibeyonce, Mike told Susan about the *whole* Zach-Dierdre-Mary Alice/Paul story. Jaw-dropping. We all know now that Zach is Mike's son. And one of the best lines of the evening came from Gabrielle after Carlos said that he and Gabrielle were "not very nice people".

Gabrielle:: At least we're still rich

Fetch! There's also a scene where Bree threatened their clergyman with going nondenominational. Funny as shit. And the last scene was quite bone-chilling... Yes, someone is locked in the basement of the new neighbors. But who? DH last night was absolutely delicious till the very last dripping second. I think my mouth stayed agape for practically the entire hour last night (or as Jason would say: "I tinkled all night!"). The long (4 month) wait is over. Desperate Housewives is BACK! @ 11:29

[if the shoe fits] So do you guys have two (or more) pairs of shoes that fit so well that if you wore one of each pair on a different foot, you wouldn't know the difference?

. . . Yes, cue laughter.

I think this is the first time I've ever done this in my entire adult life. It wouldn't be so bad if they were the same color. But they're not. One's brown and one's black. No, I can't believe it either. Can you believe I walked out of the house, all the way down O Street, into the Metro, rode the Metro all the way to SW, and walked to the front of my building before I looked down and realized what I had done? All those people along the way. They all saw! And didn't say a word to me! Quelle horreur!!

I'm so embarassed right now I wanna make like an ostrich and bury my head in the ground.

I was so horrified I sat outside my building for a good 10 minutes, deciding whether this was chronic enough to justify hailing a $10+ cab ride back home to change my shoes (and take time off work for that). Oh hell no was I gonna trek back into the Metro where there are lots of people that might spot my fashion faux pas of epic proportions. Plus, the Blue/Orange is fucked up today so it would've taken me 2 hours to accomplish this whole ordeal. I so very briefly contemplated the cab alternative. . . when I came up with a far better idea.

I called Tony :-D My honey is coming to my rescue! @ 09:48

UPDATE: From Evan...

E:: I'm surprised you didn't just go to a shoe store

LOL! I love my biatches. FYI: Where I work (in stank SW), you can't even buy gum, much less shoes. Yes, it's tragic down here. @ 10:17

UPDATE: From Phillip...

P:: I hope you are wearing matching socks

*Giggle* And you know, the only reason why my socks will never be unmatched is coz Tony sorts 'em and bundles 'em in pairs while he's folding. Aww... @ 10:56

SEP 23 :: [fetch speak] I am this close to starting the "fetch speak" (a meaner version of "fetch vocab") section after AUG 29's entry of "halocopter" inspired by Rick. It'll be called "Fetch Speak - the gay man's survival guide to DC."

And here now is today's entry:

Entry: rice-.dar
Function: noun
Meaning: 1. a derivative of gay-dar; 2. the innate ability to tell the ethnicity of another gay asian male, usually in an attempt to differentiate between skanky Filipinos/Vietnamese/Koreans and fetch Chinese
Usage: In this context:-

Rick:: He's cute. Is he Filipino?
Me:: Bitch, are you blind? He's Vietnamese.
Rick:: Oh, sorry. My rice-dar is broken today.

Can you tell I'm bored today? @ 13:40

[life as a car] Rick and flaming Michael has very generously donated my name to a car company. Yes, apparently "Kiat" is the new hatchback from Hyundai. With a HUGE ass and a wide load capacity. And it only comes in yellow.

And "Kiat" is fun to drive. Zoom, zoom!

With friends like these... @ 13:23

[d-list] OK, by now we've ALL heard about the nail-biting, knuckle-whitening, physics-defying, and - at that time - death-defying emergency landing of a JetBlue flight 292 at LAX this past Wednesday. 140 passengers, plane circled for hours over LAX dumping fuel to make a light landing, landing gear did not retract, wheels were *sideways*.. yes, perpendicular to the runway. Worse yet, this whole ordeal was being broadcasted by news channels on live TV (wall-to-wall, blanket coverage) and guess what JetBlue has onboard? Yup, live TV channels courtesy of satellite.

So these passengers were basically watching their fates unfold in their seats. In retrospect, I would've shat my pants. Can you imagine watching your own life-and-death situation unfold? I mean, they didn't know at that time whether the plane was gonna crash-land or not. Talk about reality TV!

But what caught my eye today (and compelled me to write) was this precious little article on CNN. An actress onboard JetBlue 292 recounted her "ordeal" as being a "surreal, out of body experiece".

More like out of your fucking mind. What kind of D-list bullshit actress do you have to be to fly all-coach-class JetBlue?! @ 11:01

[c-ram it in] Yes, it's another instalment of routine September weekends. And it's here! It's gonna be a busy one too. Everyone will be watching Rita, of course. She's not due for another 24 hours or so on the TX/LA border but her slight jog to the north and east has already caused problems in New Orleans. Yup, here we go again. Breached levees and all. Rita is still a Cat-4 and she's gonna wreak havoc along the Gulf Coast this weekend. Not fetch. Double-blow Louisiana must be feeling like the poor, red-headed, unfortunate stepchild of the US right about now.

They are also calling for a somewhat wet weekend which puts things in a damper a little bit but I'm not complaining. We've had a string of beautiful September weekends so far, so I'll let Mother Nature have this one. Do you even remember the last time it rained? We've had 0.01" of rain this month. The last time it rained perceptibly was Aug 27/28. Yup, we're in a drought situation.

I have had a pretty docile Wed and Thurs night this week. We dragged Chris to Sushi Taro on Wed for excellent sushi/sashimi/sake before going to the not-so-new-anymore Halo for a couple of Cosmos. I was quite trashed, LOL. Last night, Rick and I recounted our past 2 weeks - that's how long we haven't seen each other - by regurgitating it all in gory details at JR's for all to hear. Fetch. Then we went shopping at Universal Queer (underwear sale!) after. Hot. I was home by 11pm both nights. So really, I haven't been juvenile, I swear!

This weekend is gonna be a melange of events - bar-hopping/clubbing, a wedding, drunk brunch, yoga, maybe even a dinner party, who knows. And that's not even counting the huge anti-war and anti-globalization simul-protests in DC this weekend. I know, there doesn't seem to be enough hours in my weekend to do all that. But somehow, I manage to cram it all in. It's tight but if you work at it, it'll fit! ;)

And let's not forget the BIGGEST event this weekend - the second season's premier of Desperate Housewives!!! @ 10:51

[back in business] So I'm not really a big pizza fan. Sure, I'll eat a slice or two (or five) if offered but I don't seek it out nor get it delivered to my house for any occasion. I do like Pizzeria Paradiso though and I will seek that out for dinner. But Papa John's, Pizza Hut, etc.? Not so much. And I'm morally opposed to Domino's. Boycott them for life.

But when Alberto's closed down due to a kitchen fire in March, I was mortified. Their pizzas are good, though not great. But ohmibeyonce, pizza has never tasted so good like when you're hungover at 2am and Alberto's is still open! Pizza, like noodle soup, is one of those perfect hangover foods that brings lots of rub-my-belly happiness to one's buddha tummy.

Well, Alberto's is back in business! They reopened this week, bigger and better. Hours that is. They are now open till FOUR a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Hot. I can understand Fri and Sat... but Thurs? I mean, sure that's a big happy hour night (as evident by my weekly Thursday sojourns to JR's, last night being no exception) but 4 a.m. though? Well, someone alerted me to the little fact called Twink Night at Apex, which is around the corner from Alberto's. All those drunk, hungry, teenage-to-early-20s boys will be buying lots of pizza slices to soak up all the alcohol.

Really? Yes they are drunk and hungry... but they're also emaciated. Thursday night Apex bitches only eat once a week. And isn't that on Wednesdays? @ 10:32

[it's a racket] I am incensed this morning. I recently transferred all my financial assets from Citibank to PNC, coz PNC is awesome and they reimburse all the ATM fees charged by OTHER banks ($12.50 last month alone! Bitches, that's like 6 drinks at JR's!). Plus, they're 2 blocks closer to my house *giggle* and the less walking I have to do, the better.

My Roth IRA got transferred as well. Oh BTW, y'all need a Roth IRA. It's the coolest shit. Put after-tax money in it, watch it grow, and at the end of it, it's all tax-free! All the money you make is tax-free! Hot. Anywho, the Roth IRA transfer was relatively painless. All my funds were intact. Oh but wait, there is a $75 deficit in the account that wasn't there before. A few quick phonecalls and guess what? Citibank charged me a $75 fee to transfer my Roth IRA to PNC. And they took it out of my tax-free Roth IRA account!!!

WTF?!

And get this, there is no other way to "transfer" a Roth IRA account without incurring that fee. Can you say "racket"? If there was a roundabout way to perform the transfer and not incur a fee (kinda like taking Route 7 instead of taking the Toll Road), I would've explored that option and probably chosen the fee-transfer. But there isn't. You have no choice. Citibank is basically saying: "If you ever leave our bank, we are going to ram this fee so far up your ass you'll need a 3ft dildo to reach it".

I don't hate many things in life but I *hate* fees. And I hate banks. Stanks, all of 'em. Hell hath no fury like Kiat feeling ripped off. Someday, consumers are gonna have the upperhand i.e. bigger dildos. The first bank I'll bendover will be Citibank. Next on the list will be Merrill. Oh, wait till you hear about the upcoming epic battle with Merrill don't-you-dare-Lynch-me-with-more-brokerage-fees. You ain't heard the last of this... @ 10:22

SEP 22 :: [tale of two cities] Hurricane Rita is closing in on America's fourth largest city with menacing 150mph winds. Houston, a metropolitan area of 4+ million people (more than 3 times the population of New Orleans), is under a mandatory evacuation order for a large swath of the metro area (east and south, closest to the storm surge). Interstates are clogged for 100 miles inland, going north of Houston. That's an uninterrupted line of cars from DC to Richmond! 16 hours to San Antonio (usually 4), 16 hours to Dallas (usually 5), 11 hours to Austin (usually 4). The North-South I-45 and East-West I-10 were reversed for the first time ever to speed up evacuation. All 8-lanes of I-45 now go North, away from Houston, for 125 miles. Gas stations are running out of gas and police officers are carrying gas to motorists who run out of gas on the Interstates.

Houston airport is paralyzed by many TSA employees not showing up to work. And passengers cannot get to the airport due to clogged roads. It's a frightening scenario to have to flee for your lives and yet be unable to coz the roads are jammed and all flights are either sold out or the airport is unreachable. At times like these, you just have to wonder why the US is not criss-crossed by high-speed rail lines.

Tropical storm-force winds are expected at noon tomorrow in Galveston and 3pm in Houston. Rita peaked at a monstrous Cat-5, packed with 175mph winds and a pressure of 897 mb, making it the third most intense hurricane in the Atlantic basin on record. It has since weakened to a still ferocious Cat-4 with 150mph winds and will continue to do so, thankfully, although not by much as the waters of the Gulf are still warm enough to keep the intensity, just not strengthen it.

The US mainland has not been hit by two Cat-4 storms (or stronger) in the same year since 1915. Katrina decimated the LA/MS coast and emptied out the New Orleans metro area. Rita has already forced 2mn ppl out of the Houston metro area, and making the TX/LA coast her bullseye. A quarter of total US oil refining capacity of 17.1mn bpd have been shut down by the twin sister hurricanes. Two major American cities will be paralyzed over the next few days.

Mother Nature is a bitch! @ 16:15

[it's all about sex] As the title suggests, this topic is NOT for the faint-of-heart. I suggest you stop reading now if you're not, well, sexually liberal ;)

Evan sent me this priceless little article ("Ass Backwards") that I just must share. Here goes (you've been warned):

1. Oral More than half of 15- to 19-year-olds have had oral sex. D'oh. I'm surprised the numbers aren't higher.

2. Anal Males: who've had anal sex with a female - 4.6% at age 15, 34% at ages 22-24, and 40% at ages 25-44. Holy shit! Females: who've had anal sex with a male - 2.4% at age 15, 32% at ages 22-24, and 35% at ages 25-44. One-third of America has had anal sex by the time they hit 25 :-o I find this utterly startling.

3. Same-sex: Males This is rather less shocking then, in light of #2: 3.7% of 15-44 men have had anal sex with other men, and 6% have had either oral or anal sex with other men. That number drops to 2.9% (1.77mn men) when asked if they've had gay sex in the past year, and only 1.6% when asked if they've ONLY had gay sex in the past year. That's it?? Liars! Well, it ain't so bad. If you raise the age group to 25-44 (twinks are overrated anyway), the number of men who've had gay sex in the past year rises to 7%. Now that's more like it. In the 18-44 age group, 90% of males identified as heterosexual. The 10% argument still holds true, I guess.

4. Same-sex: Females 11% of women at ages 15-19 have had same-sex experiences. Same percentage for women at ages 15-44. Over the past year, 4.4% (2.71mn women) have had lesbian sex and 1.3% have ONLY had lesbian sex. Similarly, 90% of females identified as heterosexual.

5. Bi- 1% of men and 3% of women 15-44 years of age have had both male and female sexual partners in the past year.

6. Virgins 10% of males and 8% of females 15-44 years of age are virgins.

7. Monogamy 63% of males and 68% of females 15-44 years of age have been monogamous over the past year. This only includes different-sex partners. [Monogamy in same-sex relationships? What's that?? If you find one, make sure it's not a unicorn...]

8. Sluts 18% of males and 14% of females 15-44 years of age have had more than one sexual partner in the past year. Again, this only includes different-sex partners. The percentages would surely skyrocket for gay men.

9. HIV The risk of contracting HIV through unprotected sex with an HIV carrier is 1 in 10,000 for oral sex, 10 in 10,000 for vaginal sex, and 50 in 10,000 for anal sex. Yes, people.. unprotected anal sex is 50 times more dangerous than oral sex. Don't be a statistic! There's some good news though: 91% of males ages 15-44 who've had sex with another male in the past year used a condom.

Oral sex is not the new frontier, boys and girls. Anal sex is. @ 11:19

SEP 21 :: [why am i here?] "When am I going to get my housewarming invitation?!" Gary in LA sent me this a while back (like a week ago.. yea, yea, I've been in training blah blah) concerning Asian/Pacific Islander (API) same-sex couples in California - the bastion of progressivism. It's very interesting, although everytime I read the acronym "API", I feel like I should tattoo it on my ass or something. And what's more...[yell]I didn't come from an Island!![/yell]. Grr.. Instead of adjoining the obviously superior-in-numbers Asian race with the puny number of Pacific Islanders in Hawaii like a DC Metro stop (Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan anyone?), they should just call all of us Yellows, like they do Whites and Blacks. I think that's far more PC and user-friendly than "API" *gag*

Anyway, I digress. Some interesting findings from Gary's work at UCLA regarding the presence of API (there we go again) same-sex couples in California:

1. In the US, 38,200 APIs have a same-sex parnter, one-third of them live in California, more than any other state. Only 109 are in DC.. why am I in DC?

2. Almost one in ten same-sex couples in California include an API. More than half are inter-ethnic i.e. 5% of the total. There are maybe, what, 5 inter-ethnic couples with an API in DC? Why am I here?

3. Same-sex inter-ethnic couples have an avg household income of $108k, $35k more than pure-API same-sex couples and $13k more than traditional (different-sex) inter-ethnic couples. Yay, we rule! [if I so much as hear one of you mention Tony's lopsided contribution in our household... *giggle*]

4. The non-API partner in an inter-ethnic same-sex couple (OK, the terminology is getting *really* confusing) is White in 78% of instances (d'oh). The difference in age between the non-API and the API partner is 3 years [again, no comments from you bitches :p] and the difference in avg income is $20k ($62k vs $42k) [ok, now you're just pissing me off].

5. LA has 1,929 API same-sex couples, SF has 728. API same-sex couples are more likely to live in counties with high percentages of APIs in the population than in counties with high percentages of same-sex couples in the population. Ew, why? I don't want to live in Annandale...

I need to move. Find my own people! @ 17:14

[evil twins] N'Awlins has been pumped dry, as Army Corps of Engineers have pumped 750bn gallons of water from the city into Lake Pontchartrain in the past 2 1/2 weeks. 801 dead in Louisiana, 1035 total. But the coast is not clear yet. Hurricane Rita is now a monster Category 4 storm heading for the Texas Gulf Coast. Even 3" of rain will swamp unprotected New Orleans with 2 to 4 feet of flooding.

Katrina and (Marga-)Rita... Which one is really the evil(-er) twin? @ 09:48

UPDATE: According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Rita reached maximum sustained winds of 165mph at 3:55pm EDT which makes it a Category 5 storm, the second of the season... *shudder* ...after, you guessed it, Katrina. In the same vicinity too. Pressure is already down to 914 mb. Katrina, at 902 mb, recorded the fourth lowest pressure on record. @ 17:27

SEP 20 :: [fatigue] No. More. Hurricanes! 3 weeks after Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast and depopulated the City of New Orleans, Hurricane Rita raked the Florida Keys today (Florida has been hit by six destructive hurricanes in the last 13 months) as a Category 2 storm. Worse yet, Rita is now forecasted to rapidly intensify into a blockbuster Category 4 storm over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall somewhere around Texas/Louisiana this Friday/Saturday. Another month, another monster hurricane.

What is up with the Gulf of Mexico? It's like a gigantic blender filled with hot water, waiting to churn any storm that crosses its path and spinning them into vicious, more powerful storms. Global warming at work?

Rita is the 17th named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. And the season isn't even over for another 71 days (!!!). There are only four names left on the list for Atlantic storms this year - Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma (ooh, that one's a fun name) - after which the storms will be named after the Greek alphabet - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, etc.

New Orleans has so far counted 736 dead (970 total caused by Katrina). Only 20% of the city is flooded now as authorities have made tremendous progress in pumping the city dry. Dry enough for Mayor Nagin to ask for residents to return, but that was premature as a slight jog to the north could cause Rita to unleash another round of destruction - with heavy rains causing massive flooding in this unprotected city - on New Orleans. I'm so sick of these hurricanes!

Meanwhile, DC is in a drought situation. We need rain badly. It's also been quite hot this month, matching equally scorching July and August. I'm not complaining though. I want this warm weather to last forever. I am *so* dreading winter.

In other news, the Fed bumps up interest rates to 3.75%. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada announced that he was gonna oppose John Roberts' nomination as Chief Justice to the Supreme Court. He's finally trying to grow a backbone. Too little, too late, perhaps?

And what on earth is going on in Germany?? @ 21:52

SEP 19 :: [routine weekend] The expectations were daunting. The bar was set stratospherically high. How do you top an amazingly fetch weekend in NYC, the week after? So with that in mind, this will just be an obligatory recounting of my crazy weekend that just past. It's almost a ritual at this point. Kiat writes on Friday about the upcoming weekend, Kiat disappears offline for 3 consecutive days, Kiat reappears, as if on cue, on Monday to recount how inebriated he got, where he got inebriated in, and who he was getting inebriated with. Same old story, different week. Just like the hurricanes.. another month, another one. It gets numbingly mundane after awhile.

But fun is fun. And I had fun this past weekend. I was cruising along home on Friday after class when I got a text message from Jason: "I need a drink. NOW!". I look at my car's clock and it said 5pm. Gee-sus. Really, my friends are all enablers. Anywho, not wanting to disappoint, we march off in the ridiculous humidity (it's fucking September!) to Hank's for some delish oysters. Yum. The Kumamoto's were to-die-for. I also had a really good fish dish which totally erased my previous bad experience at that restaurant. Plus, service is always a joy there. One bottle of wine later...

Next stop, Halo. We had to scope it out before the fetch opening party the next night. Evan joins us and we start grading the boys that are piling into the downstairs bar for a few hours (fyi: nobody got more than a 6). We got bored and went to Apex. Same hoppingly good music, same long waits for drinks at the video bar, same fun karaoke performances upstairs, same thumpa-thumpa music on the dance floor, same time to bed, same ear-ringing syndrome the next day. I know, it's all routine. It wasn't routine for Jason though, LOL. Bitch turned Apex into Jason and the Chocolate Factory. And he had one of the golden tickets.

Saturday. Yoga was a good workout. Thinking, wrongly of course, that we could do both King's Dominion AND Halo on the same night, we drive ourselves down to Southern VA for gay night at King's Dominion. OK, so do you guys know how far King's Dominion is from DC? EIGHTY SIX miles (!!!). This thing is 72 miles south of the Beltway. Aarrggghhhhh. Everytime we go there, I regret the distance I have to drive to get there. Super not fetch. Traffic wasn't too bad so we made good time (1h 20m or so) and it was pleasant with the top down but still... I think about all the people who live in Fredericksburg and work in DC and I would rather give birth (withOUT drugs) than do that commute even once, much less everyday.. We were 20 miles from Richmond! Stank, stank, stank.

Of course we don't make it home in time for Halo. The park opened for us DC queens at 8 and closed at 11. Within that time, M2/John, Desi, Tony and I hit Tomb Raider, Volcano, Flight of Fear, Anaconda and XLC. There were some lines but they weren't as bad as standing in the thousand degree heat at midday with the trash of Southern VA (and its environs). There were smatterings of hot boys sprinkled amongst decidedly skank (think wife beater, shorts down to their ankles, tattoos everywhere) gay trash. It would've been far more fun had I been able to drink but I couldn't coz I was driving. Everyone else had big gulp-sized frozen margaritas/daiquiris. Bitches. Consequently, we also have some interesting pictures to show y'all, if M2 can get his butt in gear and send them to me, grrr. We also have some *really* good ones of Desi who looked like he was giving birth on the rides (think Home Alone) [Anaconda | Flight of Fear]. Bitch was so scared shitless, it was all caught on camera during the rides. They'll be posted on Friendster soon, LOL!

Aaaanywho, we left the park at 11 and made seriously good time (ahem, 85mph) back to Cobalt by 12:30. Can you believe I walked into a gay bar, *sober* after midnight?? I met Jason there, who was with his trick-du-jour. Danced a little. He left. I ended up with Rob/Bill (yoga boys) and we were dancing with some other Asian skanks to Luke (of former JR's bartending fame) spinning. One of the skanks had the audacity to pull me up on the platform and started gyrating his crotch up against my ass, rubbing his hands all up and down my body. The nerve. I, of course, immediately threw up and left. LOL! Skanks. I was home at 3, same as the night before.

Sunday, like Fri/Sat, was perfect weather-wise. This whole weekend was brilliant, actually. We went from bloody-mary-brunch (remember, the drinks make the brunch, not the food) at Dupont Grille with Jim/Liz, to shopping at Pink (bought 2 new fetch shirts for upcoming formals), to Khalid's 40th birthday at my hag's place, to JR's. So, after a 170+ mile drive the day before, I was SO not looking forward to hiking up to Damascus, MD i.e. Lower PA for Khalid's big bash. But I had to, of course, and I'm glad we did. Frozen margarita machines, enormous quantity of delicious home-made food, and best of all, a live band! They played the blues and I'm not a big fan of the blues but this band was serious shit. The songs were moving and this dude's voice was spectacular. I had chills. It was totally phat. We had a terrific time. And of course, as with all weekends, we close it out at JR's where the usual suspects were there. I was there with Leo and ran into AndyP, half of the mean girls, and some other dark characters (of Jason's persuasion). A fun, if somewhat routine night.

There was, in fact, nothing routine at all about my weekend. I think I'm just getting bored of writing about them. There are only so many adjectives in the English dictionary that I can muster off the top of my head. Maybe I'll have to start writing in chinese. Nah, too hard. All those damn pictures. I know.. I'll start writing in Malay. Giggle. @ 16:38

[random mutterings] Regina Cuntina is in SF. He sent me this text message over the weekend:

Mawee! SO many of ur cousins live here! when i got off the plane, I thought I slept through and landed in china!

And Chris sums up my (and everyone's) frothing and lusting for a nano:

To hold one is to love/want one.

And flaming-LA-Michael says he needs a new publicist after I called him an uber-bottom. Giggle. Bitch, even Karl Rove could not give you an image makeover.

Happy Monday! @ 10:30

SEP 16 :: [not there yet] With Regina Cuntina (yes, that's Rick's drag name; a far more vicious incarnation of the uber-bitch in Mean Girls) out of commission (bitch is in SF), I thought I was gonna have a quiet Thursday night at home. But Oh. My. Beyonce. Somehow, I made last night into another fierce Category 4 night. We tore up JR's unlike any other Thursday night. And then we went to Duplex to tear that up. And then I came home. Wasted. Yup, tearing things up takes a lot outta ya. Giggle. Where do I even begin...

It's my final day at Class! So fucking awesome. Even better, when this class ends, my weekend officially begins. Hot! While the class has been very informative, it has also been dreadfully boring. Active Directory is a beast that should be exterminated. Flood it, I say.

Last night, as I was walking to JR's, I saw a cute bumper sticker on a Prius. It said "Osama hates this car". Hot. I would like to see "Osama and Bush hates this car" someday. And what did we do before the age of cellphones and iPod? EVERYone walking down P St had either a phone to their ear, or 'mug-me white' earbuds. I had neither and I felt kinda weird. So I started texting the world. Giggle. Yes, that's why I need unlimited text messaging. That and uber-bottom-LA-Michael (I need a better term to differentiate Irish Mike and Flaming Michael) doesn't understand that when she IMs me, she is actually IM-ing my phone. And sending me a massive IM to my phone will result in 10 text messages showing up on my phone. Now, my phone vibrates and chirps each time I get a message and while I like the vibration in my pocket, 10 in a row while I'm drunk in a crowded bar is just gonna make ppl look at (and feel :-o) my crotch.

I walk into JR's by myself (shudder) and ran into Bill/Soochon/Mark. That quickly expanded to Peter/Gary/Kirk. And finally, the mean girls themselves. One drink later, the tripartite of fetchness - Patrick, Bethany and Mandy - arrives to kick the evening into supernova mode. Bitches, we pounded enough drinks to strip the bar of vodka. Bethany, being the camera-toting Japanese-wannabe that she is, took all sorts of hot pictures which I will try and share at a later date (bitch shares her pictures on Kodak Gallery which makes it impossible to copy them to my hard drive) - including a series of navel-baring ones. Hot. Ooh, and one of me doing a Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels with Bethany and Mandy - who I still haven't forgiven for skipping my party. Searingly hot bitches! Adam shows up and it's now officially a full-fledged drink-ourselves-to-oblivion-fest. To the point where I almost missed Tom/G's happy hour (yes they're back! but only temporarily...)

Actually, I kinda did. I drag all the hot messes up to L'Enfant where Tom/G's happy hour is. That was winding down and the bitches I was with were screaming bloody murder if they didn't eat within the next 2 seconds so off we went to Duplex. Ohmibeyonce, I had no idea Duplex was *that* crazy on a Thursday night! Gee-sus. They had cleared all the tables and both the bar area and the seating area were PACKED. With hot boys! I wasn't complaining. We squeezed into Jessie's section who proceeded to get us all to the point of throwing up by mixing lethal concoctions of death-by-vodka. Two orders of tater tots and one of chicken fingers later (all of which were eaten in Olympic time), we all roll out of Duplex like the phat drunk bitches that we are. I don't know how I would've walked home from there if Tony hadn't been with me. I was drrrrrunk!

I was asked at class today how my hangover was (yea, I kinda told them that I would stumble in Friday morning hungover). My reply was "I'm not there yet. I'm still drunk." That pretty much describes my evening. And now I have lunch with my boss. I hope she doesn't think I've been drinking all morning. LOL! @ 11:59

SEP 15 :: [fatal incuriousity] Maureen Down in a sobering NYT column today:

"Newsweek reported that the reality of Katrina did not sink in for the president until days after the levees broke, turning New Orleans into a watery grave. It took a virtual intervention of his top aides to make W. watch the news about the worst natural disaster in a century. Dan Bartlett made a DVD of newscasts on the hurricane to show the president on Friday morning as he flew down to the Gulf Coast."

A President who doesn't like bad news and doesn't want to hear it even if it is the death of citizens of the country he has sworn to protect. Shocking, isn't it?

"He can keep going back down there, as he will again on Thursday when he gives a televised speech to the nation, but he can never compensate for his tragic inattention during days when so many lives could have been saved."

"He made the ultimate sacrifice and admitted his administration had messed up, something he'd refused to do through all of the other screw-ups, from phantom W.M.D. and the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guant namo to the miscalculations on the Iraq occupation and the insurgency, which will soon claim 2,000 young Americans."

"How many places will be in shambles by the time the Bush crew leaves office?"

One wonders... @ 15:28

[hope springs eternal] No, not all the news is bad :) I'm not a fatalist. I still have faith in America; which is broken but not dead. Yesterday, the Massachusetts state Legislature voted down a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by 157-39. Last year, the amendment passed by 105-92. In the span of one year, gay marriage has begun in Massachusetts, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry. 6,100 same-sex couples have wed, and 52 state lawmakers have changed their minds. With the rejection of the amendment, hate-mongers in Massachusetts will have to submit a new proposal to the Legislature, wait for the Legislature to approve it two years in a row, before it gets on the statewide ballot, earliest by 2008. If attitudes have changed this much in only one year, there is absolutely no way the citizens of Massachusetts will vote for an anti-gay marriage amendment in 3 years.

Also yesterday, the House of Representatives, in a historic and stunning move, voted to expand the hate crimes law to cover sexual orientation, gender and disability - in addition to race, religion and ethnicity - by a vote of 223-199. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., offered the measure as an amendment to legislation strengthening the monitoring of and increasing penalties for child sex offenders. It now goes to the Senate which has passed legislation to expand hate crimes protections several times in the past. It's a HUGE victory for GLBT rights, and I bet the peeps at HRC are going "I told you we could do it" right now :)

Equality resumes its slow but steady march in the land of the (somewhat-)free.

In other startling news, Ophelia is hot on the heels of Katrina, moving batteringly slowly up the Carolina coast with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains. High gas prices have forced Delta and Northwest to join US Airways and United in the "bankruptcy skies". Birth and death today: Britney gives birth to a baby boy.. and Robert Wise - director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music - has passed. I used to watch The Sound of Music 5 times a day when I was growing up (yea, I preferred musicals over cartoons - go figure). @ 11:27

[crushing indictment] Day Three.. and my misery endures. Class has dwindled from 9 participants to 4, LOL. I have no idea why I'm still here other than the fact that it'll look good on my resume. Whatev. But I finally have wi-fi in the class so I can read blogs while the teacher drones on and on about AD security. Fetch!

If you read only one thing today, read the NYT's column "Singapore and Katrina" by Thomas Friedman (I'm getting quite annoyed that NYC is gonna charge for Op-Ed columns soon). It's a crushing indictment of what's wrong with America today from the eyes of a gleaming city-state in South-East Asia. Mr Friedman writes:

"Last year, we cut the National Science Foundation budget, while indulging absurd creationist theories in our schools and passing pork-laden energy and transportation bills in the middle of an energy crisis. We let the families of the victims of 9/11 redesign our intelligence organizations, and our president and Congress held a midnight session about the health care of one woman, Terri Schiavo, while ignoring the health crisis of 40 million uninsured. Our economy seems to be fueled lately by either suing each other or selling each other houses. Our government launched a war in Iraq without any real plan for the morning after, and it cut taxes in the middle of that war, ensuring that future generations would get the bill."

The Straits Times in Singapore writes:

"We were shocked at what we saw. Death and destruction from natural disaster is par for the course. But the pictures of dead people left uncollected on the streets, armed looters ransacking shops, survivors desperate to be rescued, racial divisions - these were truly out of sync with what we'd imagined the land of the free to be, even if we had encountered homelessness and violence on visits there. ... If America becomes so unglued when bad things happen in its own backyard, how can it fulfill its role as leader of the world?"

"Today's conservatives differ in one crucial aspect from yesterday's conservatives: the latter believed in small government, but believed, too, that a country ought to pay for all the government that it needed. The former believe in no government, and therefore conclude that there is no need for a country to pay for even the government that it does have. ... [But] it is not only government that doesn't show up when government is starved of resources and leached of all its meaning. Community doesn't show up either, sacrifice doesn't show up, pulling together doesn't show up, 'we're all in this together' doesn't show up."

It's one thing to be smug and say "we don't need to be lectured by an island nation of 4mn". But it's another when America looks at herself in the mirror and sees the horrors exposed by Hurricane Katrina. You can take the blame all you want for that catastrophe, Mr. President. But I place the blame for the decline of America as a morally superior country, squarely on you, and your Republican Congress, and your despicable policies, and your divide-and-conquer strategy in governing our United States. What is so united about our union when, under your watch, our nation has been divided into two colors?

If your legacy is to run the United States into the ground. Well, you've succeeded.

"'We're all in this together' doesn't show up"... It's enough to make you cry for the country we once knew. @ 10:53

SEP 14 :: [flat is phat] In my vicious cycle of being bored to tears in class and bitchin' about it after, I totally forgot to mention my new PHAT toy. Well, it's actually Tony's coz I bought it for him for his birthday but what's his is mine, right? ;) Anywho, we bought, on Monday night at Best Buy, *drumroll* a Plasma TV! Hot. Our first ever. It's a Panasonic (we've had really, really good luck with Panasonic TVs) and it's totally fierce. It's due to be delivered today so I'm all warm inside (and dripping down my pant leg) just thinking about seeing it at home later. Best yet, we somehow got a $400 discount on the TV through their multiple mistakes in putting the wrong (and lower!) price tag on display in the store, AND keying in the wrong amount in the cash register. Double yay! Plus we got 3 years no interest on it. Totally fetch. Me love my flat TV long, long time!

Now all we have to figure out is where to put it... bedroom or living room? I'm lusting after a bigger (size does matter) screen (50"?) for the living room. So maybe this will go into the bedroom. On the ceiling. HOT! @ 11:11

[unending torture] I am at Day Two of this misery called training. This class is about as fun as underwater basket-weaving. And it's far less fun today coz I'm hungover, LOL! Brit-ch/Bruce (ooh, the two Br's), Fernando plus some other characters, and me hit the new Halo last night. The downstairs space is quite nice. They didn't have enough ppl to fill upstairs so they roped it off (kinda defeats the purpose of the expansion, huh?). I did have the right mind to pre-emptively tell everybody that I would need to be home early to make it to class the next day. Well, as we've learnt the very hard way, pre-emption does not work.

Of course we stay till the end, even though I was pretty tired by 1. The amazing 80s hits just kept coming and coming ("Ladies with an attitude...") till we danced ourselves into a frenzy. I was home at 2:30 *shame*. I know. I'm so juvenile. I did get to work somewhat on time though which is testament to my ability to get by on 6 or less hours of sleep :-o Also, I found a 30-minute way to get to Landover instead of the 45-minutes it took me yesterday, BOTH ways, ugh. The 30-min way is circuitous and I assure you you don't want to try it at home. Oh what am I saying.. does ANYone have ANY reason at all to go to Landover?? Redskins fan anybody? @ 11:08

SEP 13 :: [crimes against humanity] I am in class. Yes.. class. I don't know why coz I don't feel like learning but I'm in class. Class would be so much better if there was some semblance of 21st-century technology in here. But guess what? There is no internet access in this class. None. Zip. Nada. Zero. My phone also has no signal in here (we're in a nuclear bunker somewhere in Stank-George's County). I feel like I've been transported to the Stone Ages.

No cellphone, no internet. I am officially in hell. Ahhh!!!

To add insult to injury, it took me FORTY-FIVE minutes to get here this morning. If not for the top-down, my drive would've been tragic. I'm in some place called Landover. It should be called Landover-Hell. I need to find a better way to get here if I'm gonna be stuck here for the next four days. I am *so* miserable, it's not even funny. And it's only 9:45am on our first day of class. Class goes on till 5pm. EVERYday. For the next FOUR days!!! I don't think I'm going to live through this.

I still can't believe I will be without phone or internet connectivity for the next four business days. The next four days are gonna be the longest days of my life. This class is crimes against humanity. PG County is crimes against humanity. Somebody get me outta here!!! @ 10:48

SEP 12 :: [get down on it] LOL!!! Jason cracks me up.. and yes, we're still on the nano:

Me:: i wanna see you finger denzel
J:: it's hot!! i just slowly glide my finger around the black matte rim. oh so softly....then when I know what I want, i crazily spin my finger in a taught circle
Me:: hot fierce. denzel will coo. and whirr. and purr. and shoot right out of the earbuds
J:: stop...I am starting to feel warm inside
J:: what's really fetch...is if your earplugs popout of the jack, it will pause your song automatically
Me:: GET. OUT."
J:: and when you plug it back, it will resume. yeah.. very fetch
Me:: cool feature of the year
J:: i know! now, it just needs to vibrate or pulsate with the beat of the music...lol
Me:: i won't need the earplugs at that point *sits on it*
J:: hahahh. To the tune of 'Get down on it'

Now you know how I pass my time at work? @ 16:37

[denzel] So Jason got herself a new iPod nano - bitch, how'd you get it so fast?? And a *black* nano at that. She has named hers "Denzel". Why?

J:: My Nano is the perfect companion. It's black, hard, reliable, you can tell it what to do, and gives you back sheer enjoyment for 18 continuous hours.

Bitch likes chocolate so much I'm surprised she doesn't have diabetes. Doll, Apple will contacting you shortly about trademarking that slogan for the nano commercials. Complete with you fingering Denzel. HOT! @ 15:21

[nyc on no budget] Last Thursday night was bizarre. Nowhere to go and nothing to do, by choice. Feeling a little despondent the next day, I immediately pounced on Phillip's invitation to rock NYC for the weekend. Within 2 hours, I had free airplane tickets and a free hotel room lined up, and the weekend was a go. Woo! Also, I was in the mood to celebrate and Tony's birthday was right around the corner so why not, right? In addition, I had also scored the second of 2 First Class Star Alliance award seats (yes, free!) on Singapore Airlines (SQ). It doesn't sound like much to celebrate but belieeeeve me, getting 1 free First Class on SQ is tough enough, but finding two is like winning the lottery (might as well be, these seats are a staggering $7k/pp!). So I was all giddy and ready to party.

I rushed home from work after lunch, packed, and was on the shuttle flight to LGA before you can say "start spreading the news..." We get to NYC at 4, got in the worst cab ride in history through Harlem and Central Park to get to our hotel on 42nd/8th. Stank. We got overcharged and I tipped him $1. Yay me. Bitch deserved less. Aaaanywho, dinner was not till 9 so we snacked at Esca, Mario Batali's fabulous seafood restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, as we await Phillip and Bruce's arrival at 8pm. Esca's opening salvo of raw appetizers prepared Italian style rules the world - oysters, langoustines, sea urchin, hamachi, etc. Absolutely delish.

Of course, they had to trump us by staying at the Mandarin Oriental overlooking Central Park. Bitches. So we march up there at 8:30 to have amazing cocktails overlooking the light-filled city. It was the perfect night. We also got a seat by the window by virtue of being hotel guests. Fetch. It's all about location and money in Manhattan. Dinner that night was at Alain Ducasse aka ADNY. Fellas, this *IS* the most expensive restaurant in Manhattan. $345/pp for the tasting menu with wine pairing. I almost fainted at the $1,000 bill per couple. And for all that money? Dinner was nice. Which was rather disappointing. Coz I expected a helluva lot of nice for $1k. Oh well. I mean the fish and meat courses were to-die-for. The other courses were nice if not unmemorable. The service was forced-pleasantries. You *know* they are dying to be snooty at you. It was warm on the outside but frigid on the inside. I mean, com'on.. a champagne cart at the start of a meal? As if not hoity enough, the waiter says "we have Dom, Cristal and house-brand.. which would you like?" How impossibly gauche for anyone to say "house-brand". And then there was the "water tray" with 6 brands of water, none of them NYC's-finest aka tap. Yes, noses so high they would never ever drown, not even post-Katrina. 4 hours later, we're at Therapy sipping blindingly strong cosmos made my color-blind bartenders (oh, cranberry juice is red? my bad). Fun.

The next day, we met at Balthazar for brunch. I would rate it below Pastis (same managment). Pastis wins by virtue of their super-fetch bloody marys, and a good bloody mary completely makes a good brunch. Who cares about the food? Well, unless they're Fannie Bay *GIGGLE* oysters that are succulent, sweet, tasty and oh-so-silky. It went down like cum (and tasted a LOT better). OK, I liked Balthazar. Plus our waiter looked like a cross between Keanu Reeves and Tobey Maguire. Next, we tagged along with Phillip and Bruce and went condo-shopping. We started out at stank 100-and-whatever street and Central Park West. Can you believe I went above 100th Street TWICE in one weekend?? Sketch stank. OK, yes, the condos were new. And yes, they were gorgeous, light-filled and had gravity-defying views. But ohmibritneyfederlinespearswhenthefuckareyougonnagivebirth, the prices were stratospheric for residences that were less than 10 blocks from Harlem. The realtor rolled out numbers in twos.. "five two", "three eight", "four seven". I'm thinking to myself, "hmm, she can't possibly mean 'hundred thousand'". It's widely known that nothing in Manhattan costs less than a million so why bother with saying "five point two million" like you would anywhere else on the planet when you can just safely assume people will know to insert a decimal between the two numbers you're spouting out and *know* it's in millions? Shocking.

Next, we head down to Noho (or Soho.. whichever, it's all too much to pay for any "ho"). We walk out of the elevator, into a 3rd floor loft (yes, the elevator opens up into the loft) and Phillip and I looked at each other, grabbed each other's hands, gasped so loud we sucked in all the air in the room, and fainted. Upon recovery, we see vaulted 20+-ft ceilings, exposed brick, a stunning party space complete with bar and wine cellar, gorgeous bedrooms with bathrooms that are bigger than most Manhattan apartments. And better yet, it was 6,000 sq ft for $6mn - $1k/sq ft! Startlingly cheap for Manhattan standards. This place was IT. It had the X-factor, the wow-factor, and the "make-my-ass-leak-like-a-breached-levee"-factor. It was pearl-clutchingly, jaw-droppingly, knees-weakeningly HOT.

Giddy from our post-Manhattan-real-estate high, we trudge up to Versace and Gucci and Bruce/Phillip proceed to drop $10k buying suits, tuxs, shirts, shoes, ties, etc. Whatever that had a medusa head or a G symbol on it, they bought. Crazy. But the craziest was yet to come.

Tony's birthday present from them consisted of a NYT four-star dinner at Le Bernardin. We start off with Krug from an era before I was born. It exploded with indescribable but most definitely heavenly flavors in my mouth. Two more bottles of Montrachet, a red burgundy and a Chateau d'Yquem - all of them from decades ago - later and we have the makings of a $5,000 birthday dinner; with the food costing "only" $155/pp. But lemme tell ya, don't sneer at the relatively "low" price of the tasting menu... the food was out-of-control, transcending, and fork-droppingly good. Every course inspired oohs and ahhs. In addition, the restaurant was contemporary chic and the staff could not be nicer to us, unfailingly so. It was, in fact, the complete opposite of ADNY. Where do I begin...

Triple layer of tuna, foie gras and toasted baguette. The combination texture could only be made lovingly by Venus herself. Tagliolini with Osetra. I literally begged for more. This was far more decadent than my legendary encounter with pasta with white truffles in Venice (and Heath Ledger, giggle). Poached escolar sent us into fits of mini-food-orgasms. The lobster was rich and tasty but seemed normal after three cascading hits. Salmon was next - my least favorite but everybody else coo-ed. The codfish was the pièce de résistance. Pan-roasted to sublime perfection, I almost wet myself eating this perfect little thing. I think if the pasta-caviar thingie had come after the cod, I would've not only wet myself, but slid off my chair and landed thud on the ground in foamy delight. All too soon, the desserts came but not before some orgasmic cheeses, a fabulous milk chocolate mousse/foam thingie in an egg shell, and the Yquem sent me to the moon and back. It was an out-of-body experience which will be difficult to replicate. Dessert was pineapple, coconut sorbet with yummy flakey bits in it, and... oh who the fuck cares at this point. We've been in gastronomic bliss for so long we barely remembered our names.

And then we went to Roxy, LOL. Can you imagine? Dancing to Hex on a full belly? Well it was not to be. We get there at 1 and the line was a block long and barely moving. So we walked to XL where Phillip and I came up with remixes that are so hot they will sear your musical brain. Then off to G before retiring for the night.

We caught an early noon shuttle back to DC, rested a bit, and then headed to JR's for a little bit where I was in one of those "I'm-gonna-tear-everyone-a-new-ass" moods; and not in a good way. Yes, my name is Kiat and I'm an uber-bitch. Wait, did you just call me a cunt? Honey, it takes one to know one. And apparently Jason does, LOL. The funniest phrase to describe Rick and me yet (besides bottom-LA-Michael's "Booze + Kiat + Rick = Fetch!" back in May): "Mary and Mulan" courtesy of Jason. Love it!!

All in all, this past weekend in NYC was by far the most sensational weekend I've ever experienced. I guess the only way to do New York is to do it right... with beaucoup buckets of cash. And fetch friends like Phillip and Bruce (well, newfound fetch). Thanks, dolls, for making it fabulously memorable! It would've been nothing without you. Literally. Muah! @ 15:14

[super fetch] My weekend in NYC was super fetch. Though I have absolutely no time right now to write about it except for this one juicy little detail: A $5,000 birthday dinner for Tony on Saturday night at Le Bernardin :-o Yes, shock and awe.

Lots of news.. 9/11 - four years later and the grief for the 2,749 killed has abated somewhat but overwhelming still for the relatives reading out their names on Ground Zero, HK Disneyland opens today, gas prices at the pump hit an all-time high (even after adjusting for inflation) of $3.018, Israel ended 38 years of brutal and illegal occupation of Gaza this morning (the synagogue burning thing was absolutely despicable though), Ophelia - um, we're running out of storm names - taunts Florida up to the Carolinas, Koizumi and his pro-reform plans won a landslide election in Japan yesterday, and confirmation hearings (why bother) for John Roberts as chief justice of the Supreme Court begins today.

Whew! Why do so many things happen when I'm out of town...

But d'oh, the most important event happening today is Tony's 42nd birthday. Happy Birthday, my honey! I love you. @ 11:22

SEP 8 :: [aunty kiat] OHMIBEYONCE, guess what I just found out today??! Naomi is pregnant! Hot fetch!! She texted me and said "mwah, you're gonna be an aunty". I was so excited I let out a little pee. I told her that she needs to eat twice the amount of noodles and rice. And no alcohol at her wedding (Oct 22nd). Her due date is March 23rd. *happy jig* @ 15:13

[family leach] As you all know, my younger brother is living with me now. He *still* doesn't have a job, and shows absolutely no indication (at least to me anyway) that he is even actively looking for one. And hell will freeze over before I help him fend for himself. As it is, I'm already providing a roof over his head (an entire basement apartment in Dupont Circle!!), satellite TV with a bazillion channels, wireless broadband internet, cellphone, food, water, electricity, gas, etc. *FOR FREE*! I'm not about to scour the internet job sites on his behalf, no sirree. Even *I* have my limits. How my parents guilted me into this selfless work of charity (which is very unbecoming) is beyond me.

That said, I know I haven't written about my bestie hag in awhile but Nicole is alive and well; well, actually doing very well at SAIC which is about to go public (yea, bitches.. wait till I leave and liquidate all my stock before you go public). Her office is moving back to Tysons (from Dulles *gag*) in a month's time and I canNOT wait to see more of her.

She cracked me up with this today and thought I'd share:

"I have 10 reasons why you should throw your brother out and let me move in:

1. I'm much more fabulous!
2. I'm more fun!
3. I clean up after myself.
4. I will clean up after you!
5. I am game-fully employed.
6. My passport is current!
7. I clean up after myself. (this is important)
8. I can cook
9. I won't just sit on my ass all day
10. ...at least not everyday!!"

LOL! Still love you. @ 11:25

SEP 7 :: [apple roks] As anticipated, Apple unveiled ROKR - the iPod phone - and iPod nano today. ROKR, a Motorola-Apple-Cingular brainchild, can only store 100 songs though which is quite disappointing. Even more disappointing is its VGA (0.3 megapixels) camera. Boo. I am now seriously considering the SonyEricsson W800 Walkman-Phone with expandable memory and a 2MP camera. Hot!

iPod nano looks seriously hot though. It's teeny-tiny and it has a 2GB/4GB flash-drive (so why does ROKR only have 512MB??). Apparently it's half as thick as the Mini (*gasp*) and only weighs 1.5oz (!!!). It's impossibly small and it definitely made my heart flutter (size *does* matter). I have no idea why I would need a nano if I get the W800. Hmm, dilemma. But what made me pee my panties was the announcement that iTunes 5 will feature Madonna's entire music collection, something that's been missing like a crucial organ in the iTunes music body. I can't wait to try it when I get home! "Don't just stand there, let's get to it, Strike a pose, there's nothing to it, Vogue." @ 15:19

[simply the worst] When will the country's collective grief turn to anger? Mine has been boiling under the surface for the past week and I'm ready to explode like Krakatoa. Soooooooo ready. And I am in a feisty and fierce mood today as well; no thanks to the broken internet connection at work (!!). UGH, bitches, how do you expect me to work if I can't blog, surf the internet, or IM my whores ALL fucking day??

Oh wait, here comes the explosion...

If I didn't think it before, I do now: President Bush, and his fucked up team of incompetent morons, are all idiots, led by the chief idiot himself. There, I said it. I'm not done yet.

He is without doubt the worst President this country has ever had. What pushed me to this tipping point? Frank Rich of the NYT in "Falluja Floods the Superdome" on 9/4:

"From the president's administration's inattention to threats before 9/11 to his disappearing act on the day itself to the reckless blundering in the ill-planned war of choice that was 9/11's bastard offspring, Katrina is déjà vu with a vengeance."

"The president's declaration that 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees' has instantly achieved the notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's 'I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center.' The administration's complete obliviousness to the possibilities for energy failures, food and water deprivation, and civil disorder in a major city under siege needs only the Donald Rumsfeld punch line of 'Stuff happens' for a coup de grâce."

"Surely it's only a matter of time before Mr. Chertoff and the equally at sea FEMA director, Michael Brown (who also was among the last to hear about the convention center), are each awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in line with past architects of lethal administration calamity like George Tenet and Paul Bremer."

Waitaminute, did you just say "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees"?

Are you fucking kidding me? There were warnings, memos, emails, phone calls, newspaper reports, meetings, threats, and cries for help, you stupid, ignorant, arrogant, little prick. But you and your team of bumbling twats ignored them all. It's the same story with 9/11, the same story with the Iraq War, and now the same story with Hurricane Katrina. Are you that fucking stupid?

The Miami Herald's editorial today:

"Government policies have consequences. Send too few regular military personnel to fight a war, and you're forced to call up the National Guard, leaving not enough to perform their primary duties at home. Cut funding for flood control and hurricane planning, as President Bush did in June when he eliminated $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, and dikes and levees fail. Shift FEMA from an independent, well-funded and well-run agency with a good track record on natural disasters and fold it as an underfunded, understaffed shadow of its former self into the Department of Homeland Security, and it's ill-prepared for a catastrophic storm such as Katrina."

And I have *NEVER* quoted the WSJ before but this Editorial today ("Bush and Katrina") stuck in my mind...

"Mr. Bush is going to have to recognize the obvious initial failure of the Department of Homeland Security in its first big post-9/11 test. The President created this latest huge federal bureaucracy, against the advice of many of us, and we're still waiting for evidence that it has done anything but reshuffle the Beltway furniture. If FEMA can't now handle the diaspora out of New Orleans to Houston, Baton Rouge and other cities, the political retribution will be fierce."

...only coz it used the word "fierce", LOL! But *please* don't read the complete article. It's absolutely stank.

What's that you say? Don't politicize this tragedy? Bitch, what do *you* think you've been doing for the past FOUR years with the other great American tragedy, September 11th? Don't politicize this, you say? Let's see.. you cut short your Crawford vacation last March to fly back to DC several days early to lobby for the Terri Schiavo bill. And you got up at 1:29am to sign it into law. Bitch, please, I *know* you go to bed at 10 every night. So why'd you do it? Coz you wanted to shore up your base of religious, right-wing, social-order-destroying, I-hate-poor-people, conservative fucks.

And yet.. Yet! (Here it comes) it took you THREE days to get on TV to say anything at all about the Gult Coast tragedy, and five days after it hit to get to New Orleans. Harry Connick Jr was there on Day One. And he actually waded through the waters of New Orleans. Et tu, Mr President? You didn't even bother to set foot in the Convention Center or the Superdome, where it's dry!

How could so many Americans in such desperate need not have been helped for so long in the greatest country in the world? It took you FIVE days to send help. FIVE days! While Americans lay dying or dead, and a city laid in waste and drowning from the worst natural disaster in the nation's history (certainly its costliest). While anarchy reigned and the streets of New Orleans turned into Baghdad. While 100,000+ Americans starved, dehydrated, and suffered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Why?

The harsh lesson of Katrina is this: Life truly is nasty, brutish and short if you're poor and especially if you're black. Washington will help in crisis, but only when it gets around to it. Get used to it.

Rot in hell, Mr. President. And stay there. @ 13:46

[the wrong guys] Sometimes, someone writes something so juicy it almost makes me bubble with glee (and foam with anger, invariably at the Bush Administration). Thomas Friedman of the NYT in "Osama and Katrina":

"If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home."

"These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy."

"And then there are the president's standard lines: 'It's not the government's money; it's your money,' and, 'One of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government.' Maybe Mr. Bush will now also tell us: 'It's not the government's hurricane - it's your hurricane.'

"The Bush team has engaged in a tax giveaway since 9/11 that has had one underlying assumption: There will never be another rainy day. Just spend money. You knew that sooner or later there would be a rainy day, but Karl Rove has assumed it wouldn't happen on Mr. Bush's watch - that someone else would have to clean it up. Well, it did happen on his watch."

"Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing."

"So many of the things the Bush team has ignored or distorted under the guise of fighting Osama were exposed by Katrina: its refusal to impose a gasoline tax after 9/11, which would have begun to shift our economy much sooner to more fuel-efficient cars, helped raise money for a rainy day and eased our dependence on the world's worst regimes for energy; its refusal to develop some form of national health care to cover the 40 million uninsured; and its insistence on cutting more taxes, even when that has contributed to incomplete levees and too small an Army to deal with Katrina, Osama and Saddam at the same time."

An unnecessary war in Iraq. A punitive and lethal war on the poor. Add to that a caustic attack on America's weakest citizens and our beloved Constitution.. And you have a terrible legacy of hate perpetrated by the Bush Administration's magnificent incompetence and selfishness that is not only painful to watch, but is also eviscerating this nation's fabric. @ 11:08

[superior to whom?] Maureen Down in a scathing (deservedly so) column today in the NYT title "Haunted by Hesitation":

"The Bush administration bungled the Iraq occupation, arrogantly throwing away State Department occupation plans and C.I.A. insurgency warnings. But the human toll of those mistakes has not been as viscerally evident because the White House pulled a curtain over the bodies: the president has avoided the funerals of soldiers, and the Pentagon has censored the coffins of the dead coming home and never acknowledges the number of Iraqi civilians killed."

"But this time, the bodies of those who might have been saved between Monday and Friday, when the president failed to rush the necessary resources to a disaster that his own general describes as "biblical," or even send in the 82nd Airborne, are floating up in front of our eyes."

"The administration's foreign policy is entirely constructed around American self-love - the idea that the U.S. is superior, that we are the model everyone looks up to, that everyone in the world wants what we have."

"But when people around the world look at Iraq, they don't see freedom. They see chaos and sectarian hatred. And when they look at New Orleans, they see glaring incompetence and racial injustice, where the rich white people were saved and the poor black people were left to die hideous deaths. They see some conservatives blaming the poor for not saving themselves."

What is so superior about the federal government's response to the Katrina tragedy? That it 'only' took them 5 days to rescue a drowning city? Or that it took them many, many years of starving the budgets of federal agencies designed to protect the city and its poorer inhabitants? What kind of a model is the United States when she can't even protect her weakest citizens?

Look yourself in the eye and ask yourself if the America you want is the America we witnessed over the past week: where the rich survives and have ever more, and the poor is pushed so far to the sidelines of our society that they die miserable deaths. If being a conservative means eradicating poverty by extreminating the poor, then you can go shove your bible up your ass and I hope you burn in hell for your hate. @ 10:49

[california is hot!] In a stunning victory for the gay rights movement, California became the first state in the United States to approve same-sex marriage without a court order. The Legislature (by a vote of 21-15 in the Senate and 41-35 in the House) passed the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act (AB849) yesterday, becoming the first legislative body to do so. Earlier this year, Connecticut became the first state to approve civil unions without being forced by the courts, joining Vermont which has had civil unions since 2000. If not vetoed by embattled Governor Schwarzenegger, California will join Massachusetts as the only two states in the country to allow same-sex marriages. Mass. approved same-sex marriage in May 2004 after being forced by the courts in Nov 2003.

California has always been the trailblazer amongst states when it comes to civil liberties and rights. In 1948, California's Supreme Court became the first state court to strike down a law prohibiting interracial marriage. And California in 1976 was among the first states to repeal sodomy statues.

California is HOT! @ 10:08

SEP 6 :: [labor day special] "Triple Delight: 2 Weddings and an Anniversary". It's Labor Day Monday. I'm tired, partied out, dehydrated, exhausted, sleepy and in a fucking panic coz the party is in a few hours and NOTHING is ready! Well, not true but there is a shit ton to do and if you don't know how much that is, I don't have a measuring scale big enough to show you.

Our last party (my 28th birthday) was an orgy of excesses. Of food, of people, of drinks (remember the frozen margarita machine?)... But it sucked - well, to me anyway - coz it was 55 degrees outside. Yes, at the end of May. It was not pretty. People came dressed like eskimos and the outdoor heater was the only consolation. This time, I was gonna have good weather come hell or high water. And I got it! Labor Day started off beautifully (60s) and stayed gorgeous (80s) throughout the day. In fact, the whole weekend was an amazing blessing when contrasted with the crazy hurricane-induced weather of the weekend before. All in all, *THE* perfect end to summer (which doesn't really end till Sept 22nd (autumnal equinox).

The first thing we did on Labor Day was drive up to Calvert-Woodley for more booze. It was closed. I was mortified. We go to a liquor store down the street and, of course, they don't have mojito mix. Not to mention their prices for everything else were outrageous. We drive to a few more liquor stores, and then to Safeway and CVS and whatever that was open that day. We finally find mojito mix at Whole Foods. We're saved! We get home, eat a quick lunch, Jason comes by, and we march out again to get serving containers (for the obscene amount of liquor), ice (also for the obscene amount of liquor) and the cakes (to soak up the obscene amount of liquor). We ended up at a dollar store in Shaw, buying $2 plastic pitchers (um, shouldn't they be $1?) coz all the stores from Chinatown to Georgetown were sold out of coolers. This place was so stank they didn't even give us a plastic bag to carry the pitchers in. Stank.

In the meantime, Tony is furiously cooking at home with Rick's help (well, he was mostly prepping the liquor like he had a Bachelor's degree in it). We had better-than-licking-a-boner ribs, chicken wings, sausages and kielbasa, coleslaw, spring rolls (or spwing wolls, as Rick would call it).. we had enough food to feed the Superdome. And with Rick's help, we had expertly made margaritas and mojitos by the bucket. Which, we soon find out, is not even close to being enough.

Jason and I get the cakes from CakeLove. Ohmibeyonce, have you guys had cakes from CakeLove? I swear they lace their shit with crack. We got a German Chocolate cake for Chris' 24th, a Hazelnut Crunch for Tony's 42nd, and a Chocolate Buttercream for our 100 month-niversary. I almost passed out at how good the cakes were.

Back to party prep.. it's now 2pm, the house is still in a disarray. The deck was so not ready. The gazebo wasn't up, the outdoor music had not been installed, the food and drinks were haphazardly laid out, all in all, quite a disaster in the making. By the time our first guests arrived (at 3pm), I had still not showered. I know, stank! The party hit a high note at around 5pm when more and more friends (and strangers) arrive. By the time the cakes came out at 6:30, the deck was full. Chris looked so cute next to his cake with the big "2" and "4" on his cake. Tony turned his cake around so that it said "2-4" as well, giggle. And Rick says, as he brings out our 'Happy 100 Month-niversary' cake: "Tony deserves a medal for putting up with Kiat for ONE HUNDRED months!" LOL! Bitches. The liquor kept flowing. And flowing. And flowing. And then we almost ran out. So Rick and I made two more pitchers of vodka-crans to complement the four pitchers each of margaritas and mojitos.

Towards the end of the party, of course we have lots of food leftover but we had been drained dry of alcohol, LOL! That's how all gay parties are. Who needs food when you can have crystal meth? ;) Me, on the other hand.. I ate enough ribs/wings/sausages to feed Niger. I ate like a fat drunk bitch but I wasn't too drunk thanks to the quantity of food I had, which was only matched by the amount of margaritas I drank.

Then, the infamous and notorious "incident" occurred. The first sign of its occurrence was the "Desperate SOS" that I got from Jason pleading for lube and condoms. Let's just call it Jason-gate. Instead of a blue dress, we have a blue duvet cover. Which Rick had to sleep under, LOL. Lots of scandalous things happened; lotsa kissing (some of them stankier than others), some groping, a little exposure (especially boobies), some hooking up, lotsa phone numbers flying everywhere, etc. Hot. Oh and guess who showed up at my party? You guessed it. Run-in with Kevin #426 of the weekend. So over him, giggle.

We damn near had to kick ppl out by the time 11pm rolled around, 8 hours after the party started. We were spraying the deck with water to wash the skanks away. The aftermath looked like Hurricane Marga-jitos had plowed through our deck and our house. It was viciously fierce. And fetch. I love parties! Thanks to everybody who made the party super-fetch. And special thanks to Rick and Jason who helped out tremendously for the party. I would've gone crazy otherwise. I'm sure Tony thanks you more!

I'm sure I left out a lot of important details. But it's fast approaching bedtime and I need to catch up on some zzz's.

Oh right, I almost forgot. Pictures! @ 22:50

[colossal failure] From Dan Franklin's "Dealing With Political Disaster" in the WP today:

"He cracked jokes on Friday, including one about his drinking days in New Orleans, but has yet to confront the true horror of the situation so widely seen on TV. He has yet to acknowledge the disgrace of a major American city being rendered uninhabitable on his watch. He has yet to come face to face with people left to suffer for days in hellish conditions and explain to them why their government failed them. And he has yet to demonstrate the strength that Americans require from their president in a time of crisis."

"This crisis finds the president looking impotent at best, incompetent at worst. And there is an element of whining to Bush's refusal to shoulder his responsibility -- especially should the press continue to make it clear how intensely he and his top aides are trying to pass the buck."

"The men behind Bush's bubble are clearly hoping that their tried and true methods will serve them well yet again and that over time, Bush's reputation will recover."

"But with every body removed from the attics of New Orleans over the coming weeks, America will remember the colossal failure of government to protect its people."

In a stroke of Mother Nature's fury, the largest city in Lousiana lost an estimated 474,000 people, propelling the state capital - Baton Rouge - to the state's largest. And in one more edict tonight, the population of New Orleans will be reduced to zero. The second round of forcible evacuations will completely wipe out the population of this much beloved city. New Orleans will cease to exist as a city, drowned for the foreseeable future (36-80 days).

There are no words to describe the despair afflicting millions of people affected by the worst natural disaster in the history of this nation. There's just nothing left to say. There are not enough tears left in this world to express the sorrow we feel for the city of New Orleans, where 10,000 may lay dead. We are all silent in mourning. Like the streets of New Orleans. @ 21:51

[sunday] "The Calm Before the Storm". This was my day of rest. I didn't get near enough sleep again and I started Sunday off worse than Saturday morning. I was majorly dragging. I realize by now that I've given out tens of cards as invites to the marga-jitos party, plus I have sent out about 20 text-vites. All day Sunday, I am inundated with text messages from peeps trying to find out more about the party. Thank God for my unlimited text messaging plan.

We spent the afternoon shopping at Costco (trip #2!) and Giant (the new one in Columbia Frights) with Rick. We get home, I napped (totally needed it). At some point, Jason comes over and we have a dinner party. We drink 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne between the four of us. We spent the evening creating our fetch playlist (to be posted soon, I'm sure) and making the margaritas and mojitos. Much to our horror, we realize that we have only bought enough alcohol for 1/3rd of a bucket. The world stops spinning for a moment as we ponder the possibility that liquor stores might be closed on Labor Day.

Feeling happy (on wine and champagne) and somewhat more prepared for the party tomorrow, we all crash at 1am. Nope, we didn't do JR's or Lizard or Taint (shocking!). We just stayed home all evening for a good ol' fashion slumber party. Chuck/Joey went to Five. I don't know how you lil' young things do it. I guess I'm getting too old. Yes, Sunday was the eye of the hurricane. @ 16:29

[saturday] "Act 1, Scene 2: Premature Climax". I peaked too soon (uh-huh, it's a personal problem). I'm not good at sleeping when I'm drunk or high on adrenaline. I didn't drink that much the night before but going to bed at 4am meant I only got 5 hours of sleep. Saturday was not pretty. Yoga was tough but I needed it. And what's the most appropriate thing to do after yoga? Go shopping for alcohol, of course LOL! Rick and I made it up to Calvert-Woodley for some margarita and mojito mixes, tequila, rum, vodka, and all the other happy drinks. Yes, we were gonna throw a fetch marga-jito party and we were gonna do it right.

On the way to CakeLove, I call Chuck:

Me:: Honey, what flavor cake should I get for Chris(FT)?
Chuck:: Um, I dunno. I've never seen that bitch eat dessert.

Or eat, period. Bitch is rail thin. Although, Phillip takes the cake (pun intended) in that department. Done my exercise. Done my shopping. I get home, I'm exhausted. When Rick called at 8pm, I'm halfway to la-la land, in a post-dinner coma. At 9pm, we're at JR's (where we learn of Rehnquist's death). Giggle. We, of course, run into half the world there; including Kevin (run-in #3). I couldn't even begin to tell you who but I remember a whole bunch of us marching our little boo-tays up to Cobalt for some ass-shakin' fun. Kevin is stalking me at this point (run-in #4). We were Rick, Phil/Andrew/Radhika, Guillermo, Harrison/Jason, Jason/Dave + ChrisFT/Chuck/Joey joined in later. It was madness. Rick was, of course, whoring himself out to half the club.

I was running low on gas and decided to leave at some point. I went downstairs to 30 degrees to say goodbye to some people, ran into Kevin.. a-GAIN. And then, I saw *HIM*. OH. MI. BEYONCE. Standing in front of me was Wes Culwell! (the guy who won Boy Meets Boy... oh ne'ermind, nobody saw it) He was looking FINE. I thought I was gonna hyper-ventilate and pass out right in front of his feet. Hot. He looked super-hot in that striped blazer and that trademark hairstyle. I got my second wind and went back upstairs to dance the remainder of the night away with my bitches.. the whole time I'm staring at Wes on the dance floor, of course.

Rick and I stumble out of there at close to 3am. We walked Radhika home, who was found lying on the floor somewhere after pole-dancing on 8 drinks for 3 hours straight. The bitch even tried to bite a chunk of my chest off, ew. Then, I hear stories of ChrisFT/Chuck/Joey having "breakfast" at 4am (this goes hand-in-hand with Jason/Nick having "breakfast" the next day at 2pm) with Rick's tricks-to-be.. and then a threesome? Ohmy. Hey now, we've just spilt into Sunday.

Have I mentioned that Wes is H-O-T, Holy Mother of Everything Precious.

By now you're probably wondering, "hmm, he's being far less descriptive than usual". Um, it's hard to remember what happened 4 days ago if you've been drunk since!! Lea'me alone. @ 16:15

[friday] "Prelude to Pandemonium". Friday was an omen of crazier things to come. It set the stage for what, I must say, is one of the craziest Labor Day weekends ever. So many things have happened since last Thursday, I barely remember 'em all. I'm gonna try and break it down day-by-day.

Friday started out reallllly slow (as it always does after a Thursday night out at JR's), compounded by the fact that NO one was in the office, it being Friday b4 Labor Day and all. My day was saved by a panic-stricken Phillip who, at the last possible minute, needed a tuxedo for a bat mitzvah by 3pm (long story but his pre-ordered tux got mis-delivered). It was 10:30am :-o And not just ANY tuxedo, bitch had to have a designer tux in an unheard-of size 36 (!!). We hop in my convertible, and jet to Mazza Galerie only to be told that Saks did not have anything in his size - well, they did but Canali? Stank. And the smallest Neiman's had was an Armani 38 which looked like really expensive pajamas on him. Not to mention we were carrying an Amex black card and got pathetic service from both stores. Hrmph, never again.

It's 12:30pm, we make frantic calls to Versace, Saks/Neiman's in Tysons... and finally Gucci swooped in to save the day. We rush over to Gucci, and got waited on by hot Kevin (who becomes a fixture in my weekend lol). $2,000+ later, we walk out of Gucci with an untraditional, 3-button Gucci tux. In RAYON. Well, it was better than nothing and I'll probably get it as sloppy seconds, LOL! Although I have no idea how I'm going to squeeze into a 29" waist pants.

So we hop in my convertible to drive across the street to Tysons to get the tux altered. With Kevin in the backseat, giggle. On the way there:

Phillip:: So what're you doing this weekend?
Kevin:: Oh, I'm gonna stay with a friend in DC
P:: Where in DC?
K:: Somewhere near Logan
P:: [eyebrows raised] Oh? What are you going to do there?
K:: Probably just hit the bars and clubs
P:: Where do you usually go?
K:: 17th Street usually
Phillip and Me:: [slamming on brakes, heads turned to the backseat] So you're gay?
K:: Um, yea-ah.. d'oh

LOL! Of course we invite him to lunch at Rainforest Cafe. I don't even know why I bother coz nobody eats. I had a big ol' pizza. New CK sheets, some Apple gear, and TWO hours later, we have the tux, rush back to DC so that Phillip can catch his train to NJ and I'm back at work just in time to pack up and go home. Yes, it was a very productive Friday. Giggle.

On the way home, I'm thinking, "hmm, I should stop and get gas". Having never gotten gas since, um, the Ice Age, I was stunned to see huge lines at the BP across from Lauriol. People were screaming and honking at each other. It was not pretty. They apparently disabled the credit card auto-pay at the pumps coz ppl were stealing gas (@ $3.69/gallon!). Bitches, I have never had to wait this long, suffer through the humiliation of walking up to the gas attendant to pay for gas, or paid THIS much for gas. EVER. Gee-sus. To add insult to injury, my Visa was declined when the gas attendant tried to pre-authorize it for $100 (not too absurd, considering my total was close to $50). Apparently, Visa (Chase?) freezes your credit card if you go above $100 at a gas station. WTF?! I called up Chase and ripped them a new ass for "dishonoring the victims of Hurricane Katrina and not recognizing the national crisis we're in". LOL! I love me.

By this point, I'm exhausted. We were sposed to head to Rehoboth but decided to cancel and prepare for the Labor Day party by shopping at Costco (one of many trips this weekend). Rick and I hit Halo with Jason by 9pm and the weekend kicks into high gear. Shenanigans ensue at Halo where the drinks are strong and the boys are hot. And guess who I run into at Halo? Kevin, of course (run-in #2). Jason and I head to JR's and before long, I'm marching up to Chuck's with Nick. Tina pays everyone (the mean girls + Joey + me) a visit and we shame-walked our drunken (and some tweaked out) asses to Apex. Bitches, we closed the place DOWN. I have never stayed at Apex that late before. Going to bed at 4am was quite a high (for some, literally *giggle*). Oops, we've already spilt into Saturday. More to follow...

If you must ask, no I didn't touch Tina. Ew, girls are smelly. @ 15:42

[choc-a-holics] If you get a coronary reading this, just turn the page (or click your mouse or whatever). Nobody said my life stories are virginal, pristine or angelic :) This, between me and Rick today...

K:: you tried to make out with EVERY(thing)
R:: I DID NOT!
K:: lol. thou dost protest too much
R:: I didn't make out with ANY(thing), except Parris
K:: fetch
R:: and I sucked on it...oops
K:: lol, was it big? or should i say... how big (it is dark after all)
R:: Let's just say, in Japan, it's even bigger than I am! LOL
K:: ROTFLMAO
R:: I think it was pretty darn considerate of me to get up off my knees, go downstairs, and invite Jason to join in....you know how that bitch likes chocolate
K:: yes, it was VERY sweet of you
R:: and besides, my jaw was starting to hurt, I need a relief sucker. LOL!
R:: But then the bitch had to go and get all greedy.....so I decided to go get my own and let her have my sloppy seconds

I cleaned it up as best as I could. Yes, it was a baking party and chocolate was on the menu! @ 14:25

[tina's in town] Since Rick doesn't have a blog (he should, his Manhunt chats alone would rival Wonkette) and Chuck is taking his own sweet time with his compendium of sad, but poignant childhood stories, I shall blog on their behalf (aw, aren't I generous?). Overheard on IM today between Chuck and Rick about Tina:

C:: she's evil and I recommend never becoming acquainted with her
C:: she tricks you every time
R:: but people said the same about you....and I got to know you
C:: "Oh I won't stay long...C'mon let me come and dance with you for a little while"
C:: bitch
C:: next thing you know you have been dancing with her for 6 hours and you get home and the bitch ain't packed her bags yet
R:: LOL!
R:: she sounds like a bad trick
C:: hate her
C:: hate her for life
R:: she was all crazy at the bbq

If you are soooo (not that) innocent and you have no idea who or what Tina is, I recommend you not ever do ;) Muah to Chuck-egina. @ 14:02

[patience!] OK, bitches. If one more of you asks me, "why haven't you blogged about the weekend yet?", I will shove chopsticks so far up your ass, you'll see fortune cookies, so help me God.

Halo/JR's/Apex on Friday. JR's/Cobalt on Saturday. Slumber party on Sunday. Big house party on Labor Day. 4 a.m., 3 a.m., 1 a.m. and 8-hour drunk fest from 3 - 11 p.m... Details to follow, of course. But the joooooo-ciest thing that happened this past weekend occurred towards the tail end of the party last night. Let's just say someone got a lil' sum'n sum'n in our guest bedroom. And bitch even had the audacity to "borrow" lube and condom from me (bitch, you can keep it). Who, what, where, how, when, and why? Well, you'll just have to wait.

My Labor Day weekend? Was better than yours. @ 13:32

SEP 2 :: [fab-texts] *Drumroll* please for the "text of the month".

ChrisFT:: OMG! There's something missing at JR's!
Me:: What?!
ChrisFT:: You! Bitch!

LOL! Um, honey.. something else was missing at JR's last night and you should send out a search-and-rescue team for your tonsils coz somebody sucked it out of you! Whore :) *muah*

Yes, it was Thursday night at JR's (d'oh). I got there late due to drama with Rick (when is it ever not?). I did get there eventually (7:30ish).. had to show up to greet my fans, and there were lots of them last night. I mean, wouldn't you after that text message above? ChrisFT and Bernie (with their bosom buddies Amy and Sara) were in fine form. Chuck was conspicuously missing.. on a Thursday night! Ew, honey.. having to work Labor Day weekend is NOT fetch. Yes, the world is going to END as we know it. Jason showed up as well to entertain the black half of the bar LOL. Andy was there (there's only one Andy left in my life after PR-Andy fled to Delhi.. yes you read that right), so was Bill/Soochon although I didn't see much of them. Who else... Gary, Kirk, M2, Mark... I can't keep up.

Oh and I sent out my first ever text-vite for a party at our place on Labor Day itself. Just a little sum'n sum'n for ChrisFT's birthday (bitch, you're getting old.. good think u don't look it). The text was really short and sweet.. like "Party at my place on Monday at 3pm" or something to that effect. Here are some of the responses I got:

AndyP:: Fetch i will be there
Soochon:: Hot! We are there.

Fetch? Hot?? I'm like, wow.. my friends are using my words. I had no idea I could spread 'em (the words, that is :-p). Fetch has *SO* happened, Regina! Hot fetch! @ 10:12

SEP 1 :: [more to follow] In David Sarasohn's "The day one of our cities disappeared" from The Oregonian today:

"It's hard to look at the TV footage out of New Orleans, at the great city turned into what is now called an urban swamp, at the certainty that what's beneath those waters can be worse than anything on the surface, without thinking that such times are why we are one country."

"The San Francisco earthquake, a sudden erasure of an American city possibly unmatched until Tuesday, caught the imagination and drew the vibrant involvement of the entire nation -- at a time when the nation had much less ability to understand just what had happened. From all over the country, boxcars streamed into the Bay Area carrying signs, 'More to Follow.'"

"The support flowing into the swamp that was New Orleans comes with an uncertain future, and a strategy that can emerge only as the days pass. But it needs to carry a clear message:"

"More to Follow."

@ 13:53

[$150bn] I can't stop thinking about what's going to happen to N'Awlins after this. A major city in America has just been through one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history. It's much too soon to contemplate rebuilding, especially when people are still trying to flee for their lives and evacuate the flooded city. Man cannot live without clean water or food and neither will be available until the flood waters recede (which will take 30 days, according to the Army Corps), the power is restored, the water pipes are fixed and the roads are made passable.

A major city has been made uninhabitable, with large parts of it being destroyed. If you think about Berlin and Tokyo after WWII, it took many, many years to recover and it required a lot of foreign aid. Ten years ago (Jan 17th, 1995), a massive earthquake (7.2 Richter) levelled Kobe, Japan and burnt it to the ground. The city was basically destroyed, burnt to the ground by massive fires. 6,433 people died. Freeways tipped over. Desperate survivors went without power, water or sanitation. 100,000 buildings were destroyed and 300,000 people were made homeless. Ten years later, the last of the temporary housing sites was finally closed down. Yes, the reconstruction took TEN years and cost $150bn. Submerged neighborhoods in New Orleans will have to be rebuilt from the ground up, or not at all depending on the level of pollution and toxicity in that area. There are close to 220,000 homes in New Orleans, housing 484,000 people. And that's just the city. In all, pre- and post-Katrina caused a mass exodus of 1.3mn people in the metropolitan area.

It's extremely hard to think about rebuilding when the living are fighting for their survival. When intense flooding has caused an entire metropolis to descend into chaos. When anarchy reigns, and search-and-rescue missions and evacuations are halted due to random gunfire and widespread looting. When people are sleeping on streets, interstates, ramps, any dry spot, waiting for help that may be too little, too late. It's even harder to think about rebuilding considering hundreds, maybe thousands, of people are dead, bodies floating in the water, and perhaps hundreds more will die due to contaminated water/food, food poisoning, dehydration and diseases (cholera, typhoid, hep A, etc.). Confirmed deaths have already soared past Hurricane Camille's deadliness in 1969. And the counting hasn't even begun. The worst is yet to come.

It hurts to think about the future when there is so little of your past left and the present is so unimaginably grim and heartbreaking. But cities will rebuild. People will recover. It can be done, it will be done. @ 13:53

['perfect' health] That's what my doctor (who, btw, is a vers. top lol) said! Wow, I was quite happy about that this morning when he said I was in "perfect" health. My blood pressure is 114/76 (thanks to meds, but at a dosage my doctor said is sub-minimum), and my cholesterol is 166 (no meds), down from 200+. He kept shaking his head wondering how I did it without working out (I detest working out). I guess my seafood-heavy diet is working out great so far. I did have lamb last night for the first time in eons but I've restricted my consumption of red meat to about once a week now. I've lost close to 30 pounds, although I think I've hit a plateau at 140ish.

All that and I'm still drinking as heavily (or more so) as I did before *giggle*. Tuesday night, I dragged everyone (Chuck, Evan, Leo, M2, etc.) to Retro at Cobalt. It was great fun as we danced till 2 in the morning. Then last night, Phillip (he's home! amen, praise beyonce) - complete with his new fetch Versace blazer and Chanel white diamond-encrusted J12 - and Tony and I lived it up at Indebleu in Chinatown before heading out with Rick to Halo for some fab-jitos. Hot.

Last night's dinner was out-of-control. Indebleu serves awesome French-Indian fusion food. But the highlight of last night was my first ever tasting of beluga caviar (I can't believe I've never had it either). And *OH*. *MY*. *BEYONCE*. It was orgasmic. Heaven on Earth. Little dollops of fish-egg-induced orgasms. You *must* try it. I've had osetra and sevruga before (osetra with Chris at Nobu NYC and sevruga at home), and maybe it's all just psychological that since beluga costs more and therefore it should taste better. Well, lemme tell ya.. this shit was divine! And at $60/oz (twice that at restaurants), it better be. It was like putting gold in your mouth. Yea, it was hot. We coo-ed and wet ourselves, slid off our chairs and landed smack on the ground in the middle of the restaurant. It was sensational.

And then I had champagne (spiked with 100yr old Grand Marnier) to go with the caviar. And Kumamoto oysters that were so sweet, silky and succulent, I wanted to hump somebody right there and then. Between the caviar, the champagne and the oysters, it was like the second cumming. @ 10:29

More >>

30 :: 'former' majority leader
30 :: it's frrreezing!
30 :: fucked up
30 :: you've gotta be kidding
29 :: arctic and alaska
29 :: chief justice roberts
29 :: in lust
28 :: life in hd
28 :: it's working
28 :: wanted - democracy
28 :: one down...
26 :: rise of the trifecta
26 :: desperately mortifying
26 :: if the shoe fits
23 :: fetch speak
23 :: life as a car
23 :: d-list
23 :: c-ram it in
23 :: back in business
23 :: it's a racket
22 :: tale of two cities
22 :: it's all about sex
21 :: why am i here?
21 :: evil twins
20 :: fatigue
19 :: routine weekend
19 :: random mutterings
16 :: not there yet
15 :: fatal incuriousity
15 :: hope springs eternal
15 :: crushing indictment
14 :: flat is phat
14 :: unending torture
13 :: crimes against humanity
12 :: get down on it
12 :: denzel
12 :: nyc on no budget
12 :: super fetch
08 :: aunty kiat
08 :: family leach
07 :: apple roks
07 :: simply the worst
07 :: the wrong guys
07 :: superior to whom?
07 :: california is hot!
06 :: labor day special
06 :: colossal failure
06 :: sunday
06 :: saturday
06 :: friday
06 :: choc-a-holics
06 :: tina's in town
06 :: patience!
02 :: fab-texts
01 :: more to follow
01 :: $150bn
01 :: 'perfect' health