I've Found my Billionaire

So I was going through Forbes' list of eligible billionaire bachelors and I've identified my favorite: PayPal co-founder and Facebook-early-believer Peter Thiel.  Sure, he's only worth $1.2 billion, but it's a self-made wealth, so you know he's down-to-earth, and he lives in San Francisco, so I wouldn't have to move far to become his live-in mistress.  Plus, he's hot.

Check out his profile here and tell me if you agree... but I'm pretty sure I'd respond positively if he flirted with me, even if I didn't know he was the world's 962nd richest person.

Some ACTUAL exogeology for you!

From the Discovery Channel's website, here's some news on Martian plate tectonics. Apparently Mars had only a single plate, making it more of a shell, which rotated around a liquid interior. Interesting, and it explains why the southern hemisphere is so much higher than the north, as well as why Mars' 3 largest volcanoes (and they're BIG... much much larger than anything on Earth) are all in a straight line. They were formed like Hawaii... a single magma plume beneath the crust that punched holes in the crust and formed mountains as the crust drifted past overhead.... awesome stuff!

Barney Frank is Awesome

Barney Frank is so hilariously real... I love him. Check out his quote today, as referenced at salon.com's War Room:

"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, [Obama] says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."

hahahah.... le sigh. So true.

Prop 8 - The Musical

This has to be the best short film ever made in the history of mankind. And yes, I'm counting "Dick in a Box" and "Lazy Sunday".

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

US Entered Recession in Dec 2007

Wow. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the US has been in a recession for a year now, starting in December of 2007. I was not expecting it to have started so early. I wonder why they waited so long to declare it? I thought you only needed a couple of quarters of consecutive contraction, but apparently it's not that simple.

"The current recession, which many economists expect to persist through the middle of next year, is already the third-longest since the Great Depression, behind only the 16-month slumps of the mid-1970s and early 1980s."

Wow. Anyways, Reuters writes about it here.

Yummie

LOL.

Somali Pirates - great article

If you've been hearing about that pirate problem in Somalia but have been unsure of the details, there's a great article up on salon.com that discusses it in pretty good detail.  Check it out here.

The Onion: Sources Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013

omg god bless the onion....

Obama Win Causes Obsessed Backers To See How Empty Lives Are

Hahahahahhaa.

Ding 80!

I forgot to share...! I dinged 80 on my main on Saturday. You can find her armory profile here. It was a fairly quick slog... I basically quested non-stop, and as a mage I can rip through mobs really quickly.

I've been loving the new expansion. The zones are gorgeous, the music is beautiful, and the new quests have been amazingly well scripted. I've barely gotten any upgrades... I think 4 so far. Well, 6 if you count trinkets, which got upgraded really quickly actually. I've also been really enjoying the new PvP content... especially Lake Wintergrasp, an entire zone dedicated to PvP, with siege engines and destructible buildings and the sweet delicious tenacity buff! Mmmmmm 300% HP and 250% damage. Horde tears are so tasty... they sustain me! I've been playing it as often as I can, and I've been raking in tons of honor... it's been awesome.

Anyways... woot for the WoW expansion... and now back to homework for grad school.

Humans in the Larval Stage Need Our Help the Most

Hahahahhaahhaa... god bless The Onion.


Cindy McCain Claims She’s ‘Just Like Any Other Female Human’

SQUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!!! My Wrath of the Lich King Collector's Edition FINALLY just got here. Everyone else got theirs last night at like 9pm!!! Yarrrgh!!!

Alls I can say is thank god I'm sick today so I have an excuse to stay home and play it. I'm about to go into video game hibernation mode... see y'all in 2009, bitches!!!

World of Warcraft vs My Girlfriend

Hehehehehe, this is pretty hilarious. I'm not sure who the original author is, so if you have attribution information let me know.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT
VS.
MY GIRLFRIEND.

BY TYLER CURRY
- - - -

I've had a lot of time to think about our last conversation, particularly since you ended it by ramming a keyboard through my monitor. I understand that we were both upset at the time and perhaps we said some things we didn't mean. Well, maybe you more than me, considering I mostly just listened to you shriek and cowered in the corner.

I do not think I am, as you so eloquently screamed, "addicted to World of Warcraft." I have, however, made a number of unfortunate mistakes, for which I would like to apologize.

I'm sorry I was so late picking you up from the library. I didn't know they locked the doors at 8, and I'm sorry you had to stand outside alone for two hours. If it makes you feel better, despite its reputation to the contrary, that portion of the city does not have a violent-crime rate significantly above the national average.

You have to consider the position I was in. I was healing for a party with five players in it, all of whom were counting on me to help them defeat Mekgineer Thermaplugg and liberate the Gnomish city of Gnomeregan. Those are the needs of five people, in contrast to just yours, alone. (Note that I'm not even counting the needs of the Gnomish people here, Ashley.) As Spock once famously said, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." You were that one.

Had I looked outside and noticed the freezing rain, I may have made a different decision. Probably not, though.

I'm also sorry I posted those pictures of you on my guild forums, the ones I took when you were passed out. I had no idea they could Photoshop your bra off. That was poor judgment on my part, and I freely admit it. I also should have told you before the chain letter went out. On the bright side, you hated working there anyway.

I also have some things to say that I think you should hear, and, since you forgot to pause long enough for me to speak before your charming little bout of property damage and subsequent stormy departure, I would like to say them now.

Ashley, you have never been willing to accommodate my World of Warcraft needs, or even to compromise the slightest bit.

Last month, when your mother was in a car accident, you called and not only demanded I drive you to the hospital but insisted I stay there to provide "emotional support"—despite knowing full well that I had booked that evening off to fight forest trolls in Zul'Aman. When I suggested you take a cab and that I join you in three to four hours, you unleashed a string of expletives that even my therapist found disturbing. You also refused to wait until we finished off the eagle boss, the one who drops the helm piece I have been trying to get for months.

For the record, she turned out fine anyway. Many paraplegics lead rich and rewarding lives.

Also, what you stumbled upon me doing with that Level 64 blood elf in the back room of the Silvermoon City Inn was neither "sick and perverted" nor "cheating on you." We were role-playing. That I called you by her character's name later that evening was just a weird coincidence. I do not wish your body looked like that. You and I both know that it's physically impossible for humans to have those proportions, at least while retaining all of their internal organs.

However, in the midst of your raging diatribe, sandwiched between the curses and the flailing limbs, you made some very good points. In fact, the words you spoke about commitment, loyalty, and "being there when someone needs you" have sort of inspired me.

Ashley, when I gave you that ring and pledged to spend my life with you, what I didn't mention was that, eight months prior, in the Level 10 quest "For the Horde," I had already pledged eternal fealty and service to Warchief Thrall.

Now, with the gates of Ahn'Qiraj opening and the threat of the Silithid invasion looming over Azeroth, the call has gone out for all able-bodied members of the horde to band together in the great war effort. An event like this only happens once in a server's life, and I cannot honorably abandon my online brethren in this hour of need. I understand that you need me to be there for you, but, Ashley, the truth is, right now, the horde just needs me more.

Obama's Victory Speech

In case you didn't see it last night, here's Obama's victory speech in Chicago. Damn, I wish I could have been there. My friend Gretchen had a ticket to attend, but she was sick and couldn't use it... poor dear. Had I been in town I would have grabbed her ticket, stepped over her sick body, and sprinted straight for Grant Park. =)

McCain's Concession Speech

In case you missed it last night, I've embedded McCain's concession speech below. It was pretty decent, and a lot of people are saying it's his best of his candidacy (and that's not unusual for the losing candidate).

I'm hoping he'll work to heal the nastiness his own campaign put out there and/or didn't make an effort to suppress. Like the Obama=Muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that), Obama=communist, Obama wants to eat your babies, Obama is the anti-christ. All that nonsense. There are a lot of people (my dad included :'() who bought into that crap, and truly believe this will be the end times. We need McCain to help correct that idiotic viewpoint and get everyone back together as Americans.

Update on my election predictions

So this morning I was reviewing my predictions from last night, and I noticed I'd failed to count RI (4), HI (4), and Alaska (3). Oops. I would have but RI and HI in Obama's column and Alaska in McCain's (all no-brainers). So the electoral college count should have read 354-184.

But even I mis-underestimated Obama's performance. Instead, he pulled out a win with 364-174 votes... AMAZING. I had called Arizona for Obama and Virginia and New Mexico for McCain, and got those three wrong. Otherwise I was spot on. =D Go me!

However, one place I was incredibly wrong was on Prop 8. :( As of now it's winning. HOWEVER. According to the No On 8 website, there are something like 3 to 4 million outstanding absentee and provisional ballots yet to be tallied. The margin between yes and no right now is about 400,000 votes. So it's entirely possible that it could still fail. That said, I was tracking the results last night and it was pretty consistently 53/47 in favor. So unless the absentee votes are overwhelmingly liberal-leaning (very possible, but not guaranteed), Prop 8 could still pass. Blech.

G's Election Night Predictions

OK, I'm gonna make some calls, just for shits. It's ~5:45pm PST on Election Night.

Obama wins, 336-181, and Prop 8 fails miserably.

I think Obama will take Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, and Indiana. Missouri and Montana will go McCain.

That's my prediction... I'd be ok with Obama losing a couple of those, but the bigger the landslide the better, since it leaves less room for people to bitch that it wasn't a mandate (even though Bush claimed a mandate on a margin of like 5 votes).

Anyways... hope all y'all voted, and let's kick back and enjoy the pending insanity! =)

Asian Extravaganza, Night 10: Kuala Lumpur

OK, so I'm terribly behind on blogging about my trip (I mean for god's sake I've been back for 2 weeks already :P), but I'm determined to get it done. For my own sake, if not all of yours. =D Also, I've decided that I should be chronicling the trip using a night index, versus a day index. That's because we would often be in multiple places during the day, but of course only one place at night. So I'm going to kick off the renaissance of my Asia-trip-blog with our night in KL.

So. After hiking Kinabalu, we were headed for Kuala Lumpur, also known as KL by both locals and foreigners. KL is the largest city in Malaysia and is sort of a rival of Singapore. Where Singapore is straight-laced and clean, KL is chaotic and dirty. But really only in the sense of their personalities, because despite a few rats and some garbage, KL wasn't at all a hellhole. =D

We got in at night, probly around 8pm, and cabbed over to our hotel from the airport. We checked into Number 8, a chic little guesthouse within walking distance of a lot of the swankier hotels and hotspots. I jumped in the shower and sort of got ditched by the other 3 (we lost Luis and Jen on this leg, and it was down to me, Dan, and the Kellys). I was very irritated with the other 3 for various reasons, and initially refused to go to dinner with them in lieu of staying in and browsing the web on the downstairs PCs. But King harrassed me into coming out, so I did. We grabbed dinner at a thai street market stall.... street markets are really the way to eat in Malaysia. They're really just giant open air food courts, but with a pretty wide array of SE Asian choices, and overall the food is cheap and good.

I wasn't hungry, so I just had some Thai iced tea, and then decided to confront them with my annoyances. I usually don't like confronting people with that stuff... For a decade now I've labored under the assumption that confrontation with friends rarely solves anything and usually just pushes people apart (based on a series of experiences I'd had in HS/college), so I usually just keep my issues to myself and end up drifting apart from my friends. But I didn't want to do that for the rest of the trip, plus I love these 3 and I want to do many more such trips with them in the future. So I talked, and they talked, and we sorted everything out. The root of the problem was in some cases some uncommunicated expectations that were going unmet, and thus were cheesing everyone off. So we communicated them and promised to be vigilant about that stuff in the future... and you know what? Here we are 2 weeks after the trip and we didn't have a single additional problem, and we all loved the rest of it. So it looks like maybe my old philosophy isn't such a good one after all. Life lesson! zomg!!!

Anyways. At the end of the meal, Dan says "oh, shit, is that an urble running out of the kitchen?!" (if you'll recall, urble is our term for urban squirrel, or rat/mouse/whatever). So we all look over and not only is ONE running out, but so are 2 others!! Hahahahahaha. And the staff seemed nonplussed. So I suppose it was good I didn't eat there. hehehehe.

After that we headed over to the Night Market, which is this huge street market where you can buy everything under the sun, most of it designer. ;) But alas, it was closed. :( And we tried to get pics of Petronas Towers (the poser skyscrapers that ARE NOT taller than the Sears Tower; ask me and I'll rant to you why), but they weren't lit any more (they look awesome when lit... check out this pic of them!). So after wandering a bit more and seeing more urbles, we decided that since we'd been up since like 3am that morning and were exhausted from our hike, we should get to sleep. So we did!

We got up the next morning and had breakfast... but let me first share with you HOW FUCKING SORE WE WERE. OH. MY. GOD. It was so bad. SOOOOOOOOOOOO bad. We seriously couldn't go down a single stair without crying. We were very very slow carrying our shit down those stairs, I'll tell you that. It was so hard. Our poor legs.... And this was all four of us. And note that we're all triathletes to a degree (some more than others), and some of us have done marathons, and Dan of course biked 5000 miles from SF to DC. So we're not out of shape. But seriously. OUUUUUCCCCH. The great part is that every day we hoped it would get better. And every day.... it really didn't. :'(

After breakfast we headed out to see the sights before our afternoon flight to Vietnam (whirlwind tour of KL!). We ended up hitting the Night Market, which was strangely open during the day (because of the holiday Eid, which is the end of Ramadan!). So we shopped. Some watches were purchased, some t-shirts... I may have gotten a Manchester United jersey with AIG on the front purely for the hilarity of it all. And yes, I was keeping up diligently with the total meltdown happening back in the US. =D We also hit up a mall where we did some more shopping, AND GOT OUR FEET CARPED!!!

What the hell does that mean, you ask. Well. You may have heard of this foot-spa thing where you basically submerge your feet in a pool filled with little carp, who proceed to eat the fuck out of the dead skin. For just a couple bucks you could do that for 15 mins, so we did!! And it was HILARIOUS. I mean, it tickled like hell, and was almost unbearable. But over time you sort of adjust and then accept your fate. =D But overall it was a lot of fun and totally worth it. If you ever get the chance to try it, do it. It's too fun to miss out on.

That was really about it for KL... it was a short trip... I wish we'd had more time. But I enjoyed the Night Market and the street food, and loved the carping. From there, we flew to Hanoi in Vietnam...!

Weird Dreams: Rat-nibbling

Last night I had some weird-ass dreams. I dream a lot (almost nightly), and I'm thinking it might be interesting to share some of them, especially the more bizarre or profound ones. Let me know if you disagree and I'll stop. =D

So last night's dreams... there were a lot of them tied together, but since it's mid-afternoon when I'm writing this, I only remember the one at the end with any clarity. I do remember a random European in my dreams that I remember thinking reminded me of my friend JJ, except less attractive (both physically and interpersonally). =P But I don't remember the context of that random euro, sadly.

So the main dream I remember is that I was in some sort of huge mansion... and I mean HUGE. Like Versailles huge, or bigger. There was a rat that had personality, and sort of talked, but not in full sentences or conversationally. More just to communicate primary needs. And I decided he needed to get to the other end of the mansion, and I think I thought it was for his own good. So picked him up in my hands and started carrying him. Except that he hated that, and kept nibbling my hand the whole time to get me to drop him. But I couldn't drop him for his own good! I kept worrying he'd bite harder and I'd lose a finger or something, so I was hurrying... and by the end he did start biting pretty hard, and even drew a little blood. And so I ran on and when I got to the end, I just threw him in disgust in a bin in the center of some room (it was next to a pillar?) and stalked off to check my hand.

I was looking at my hand and it kept zooming in and zooming in and it looked a little saliva-y but there didn't seem to be a puncture wound, when I woke up. I'd slept through my alarm (dammit), but there was a moment where I was thinking, shit, that bin I dropped the rat in would be super-easy for him to climb out of, since it was like a milk crate sort of thing with that latticed plastic siding. And the bin was hanging like 2/5 off a little ledge so he could nibble through the bottom and drop to the floor. And that worried me mostly for his own safety, and for the fact that if he got away it would wipe out all the work I'd done to get him there.

So if I had to interpret this, I suspect that it's probably something about my dissatisfaction with my career or life path, and how i feel I'm forcing myself to stay on it even though viscerally I don't want to. So my core emotions/being are the rat, and my rational self is the me. But that seems a little to easy an interpretation... any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

G's First Cavity

One other quick update.... I had my first cavity ever filled today. :( There goes my lifetime shutout against tooth decay. Dammit. It was in tooth second from the back in the upper left... the inside side had a little hole in it that they had to drill-n-fill. Though it turns out the decay went much deeper than they'd expected, and had even come up from the cracks in my crown to meet somewhere in a gooey rotten center.

So anyways, they gave me some Mariah Carey to listen to on an iPod, then anesthetized me locally, propped open my mouth with some sort of car jack, and drilled away. Now my teef are partially fake, and the texture just doesn't quite feel right to my tongut. :'( Alas.

Oh, but one cool thing was that as I ate ice cream shortly after the procedure, because the left half of my mouth was numb the ice cream seemed to taste warm on that side of my mouth. It actually freaked me out for a second because I was expecting to feel cold, but didn't, so my brain interpreted it as warm, and then my conscious mind started wondering if I'd left it out all day or left it partially in the sun or what, since ice cream shouldn't ever be that warm. There was a brief moment when I thought it had gone bad or something and I almost spit it out... but then I figured out what had happened. =D

Good times!

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!!!

zomg!!!! Even as we speak the world of Azeroth is suffering from a looming Zombie Apocalypse!

OK, the zombie apocalypse is actually over (for now), but for the last week there was a really amazing world event in World of Warcraft that was unfolding over a course of hours, not days or weeks.

To make a long story short, the new WoW expansion "Wrath of the Lich King" comes out on Nov 14. But the Lich King's pissed now, and he's hitting the good guys hard several weeks in advance of the expansion. Over the course of several days, a zombie plague was unleashed on the planet through infected rats, cockroaches, and "suspicious crates" stacked in various capital cities. Players who were infected contracted a disease that after 10 mins would kill them and turn them into a zombie, at which point they could start attacking every one else to further spread the plague. Over the course of a few days, the plague's incubation timer dropped from 10 mins to 5 mins, to 2 mins, to 1 min... and by that point zombies were running amok EVERYWHERE. It was pretty awesome.

WoWInsider.com has a great general guide to the event posted here, and below is a fun screenshot of the general chaos.

FUCK!! I missed the lolarts show in SF!!

OH MY GOD. There was a lolcats art show here in SF and I MISSED IT. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

How fun would that have been! I love lolcats. Though I can't honestly say I'd have lolcat art in my apartment. But still, it would have been hilarious to hang out with a hundred other lolcats fans who very likely were pretending to only like them ironically, but in reality deep down love them with the very depths of their soul.

For me, I'm happy to profess my love for lolcats openly and proudly. Best/favorite site is of course, http://icanhazcheezburger.com. I highly recommend it. You can even sign up for a daily digest e-mail, which sends you the ~5 posts/day for you to peruse over your morning coffee.

My only warning: beware of spit takes!!! =D

Wassup 2008

Awesome.

Spaghetti Cat

leaving Asia...

OK, I'm sitting in the lounge at Singapore Changi Int'l, boarding my flight in about an hour. I clearly haven't kept up with my blogging for this trip. I really haven't been online much, which is probably a good thing since that means I was out enjoying the sights. =P

But the entries will come, I swear. It may be a few days, though, since I get home about 9pm Friday night and will have to stay up all night prepping for my weekend of MBA classes starting 9am Sat morning. And my mom and aunt get into SF on Sunday and are staying for ~8 days, so I'll be busy entertaining them (and adjusting to work and catching up with the month of missed classwork). But somehow I'll squeeze it all in.

Somehow.

Onion: Precocious Youngster Sells Cookies To Buy Attack Ad

Precocious Youngster Sells Cookies To Buy Attack Ad

Onion: Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Asian Extravaganza, Days 8-10: Hiking Kinabalu, part 2

Just as a reminder, this is the 2nd post about Kinabalu... you need to jump back 2 posts for the stealth addition of the 1st one.

So Tuesday morning we were up earrrrrly to start hiking. The plan was to hike 6km up the mountain on Tuesday, stay overnight up there in a lodge, then get up at 2am and hike the last 2.7km to the top to watch the sun rise over the mountain. Yeah. 2am. The good news is the whole thing to the top is only 8.7km, right? Easy, right? I mean, that's much less than what I did per day for 4 days on the Inka Trail last summer in Peru, and like a third of Half Dome. So it should be simple. ...... Simple. ................ hmm.

The 6km on Tuesday wasn't so bad. It was pretty doable. It was a steady up... probly like 30% grade or so for most of it. Legs were tiring, but the views weren't bad, and it was lots of fun seeing the vegetation change as we climbed. By km 5 we were above the lower cloud layer and it was like looking out a plane window. I'll post pics when I can, but I have to tell you it was BEAUTIFUL. And we had a lot of fun on the trail... the trail is marked at each half-km, so at each full km we had a full-team Tanzenparty (german for dance party). I have video of that I'll also post later. ;)

So we started up around 9:30am, and it took us about 3.5 hrs to get to the lodge, Laban Rata. We were tired, but feeling good. We hung out up there in the afternoon, enjoying the great view and hanging out with randoms that we met. Specifically with this nice kid (Jeff from Philly) who just graduated from college and has been teaching English in Penang, near where Dan's working. He ended up taking Jen's spot in our 6-bed dorm room in the lodge (Jen had to skip the hike because of knee problems incurred a few days before from a rafting accident). So we all hung out and played Uno... the loser had to run up and check if we had hot water for showers. Eventually there was hot water, but not until after most men at the lodge had given up and taken cold (and I mean glacial-cold) showers... including Jeff. hehehe. And the girls NEVER got hot water. hahahaha. But Dan and I did... it was almost scalding! =P

I stayed up "late" till about 8, talking with Jeff and then watching the thunderstorm outside from the balcony, basically at eye level. ;) Then we both joined the others and crashed hard.

So yeah. Next morning we were up at about 2:30. Our guide gave us some extra time because we were pretty fast getting up to the lodge, so he was comfortable that we'd get up to the top quickly, as well. Did I mention the lodge is at an altitude of 3000m (9800 ft), and that we were hiking to 4092m (13425 ft)? Not as high as Dead Woman's Pass on the Inka Trail, but high enough to be low on oxygen and warmth. Oh, and light, too, at 3am.

So we hiked that last 2.7km in total darkness, using only our headlamps. Much of it was up smooth curved rock, with ropes assisting. And all of us were bundled up in winter clothes and windbreakers so we didn't freeze to death. It was a tough, steady slog up, and the very last bit was basically scrambling up boulders. But we made it just minutes before sunrise... and it was a spectacular sight from up there. The peak itself is nothing like Half Dome, which is very flat on top and can hold hundreds... this peak on Kinabalu is very pointy and can hold barely 10 people. =P So we were jockeying for position to get pictures. Luckily no one fell to their deaths in the process. Phew!

From there we hiked back down... holy balls. All of us were bitching about our knees and quads and calves by the time we'd shimmied the 2.7km back to Laban Rata, where we ate breakfast (it wasn't even 8am at that point) and then rested a bit. We struck down the rest of the 6km a few hrs later, and holy CRAP was that 6km looooooooooooong. And soooo painful. We were all hobbling on our hiking sticks like we were 80 years old. It was just nonstop steps down... almost no flat parts, and barely any ramps. Just stepping down for 3 hrs straight down irregularly spaced and heighted boulders, carved stairs, etc.

I cannot convey to you how hard it is to go down such a steep mountain. Even with a walking stick it was far far harder than going up. Your body doesn't use those muscles as often as the going-up ones, so it's just not prepared for that kind of punishment. 3 of 5 of us are triathletes, and I'm fairly athletic myself, but jeebiz. I can only tell you that I'm writing this on Sunday, 4 days later, and only today was I able to walk down normal stairs or steps without extreme pain. Even stepping down a curb was incredibly difficult for the last 4 days. Now, I don't say this to discourage you from hiking or climbing a mountain... it's more to warn you what to expect, and to suggest that you take your time coming down, and ABSOLUTELY have a hiking stick to help transfer some of the work to your upper body. Oy vey.

So anyways, after lots of painful schlepping down the mountain, we met back up with Jen, had lunch, showered, and rented a van back to Kota Kinabalu. The drive back was uneventful... we mostly slept and chilled. In KK we got our bags from the Hyatt and said goodbye to Jen... she was back off to her year of wandering SE Asia (she's already been at it 6 months), while we were off to Kuala Lumpur. We taxi'd to the airport and said our goodbyes to Luis as well (he's headed back to Singapore where we'll see him again in a week).

Oh... we'd done a lot of shuffling of baggage because Air Asia doesn't allow you to take more than 15 kg PER PERSON as checked bags. That's 33 lbs. I had packed 2 bags under 50 lbs each for my month away, per Singapore Airlines policy. I hadn't prepared for the much more restrictive Air Asia policy, which costs $3/pound overage. That gets expensive FAST. So I had to transfer the densest stuff to my backpack as a carry-on... the shuffle is annoying to do. But because Luis was headed to Singapore we sent him with a bag of our winter/hiking stuff that we knew we wouldn't need anymore.

So instead of checking my backpack I carried it on. And lo and behold, Malaysian airport security found my missing Leathermaster (swiss army knife), that I hadn't been able to find for like 2 years, and that no other airport security around the world had found in the last 2 years either. Turns out it was in some crazy nook in my hiking daypack. So there was some drama with me trying to check a small bag of Dugan's so I could save my $100 knife... no one was at the Air Asia desk, the flight was boarding, and I still wasn't through immigration control... oy. But last minute I found an airline rep who snuck my bag on, and I made it to the tarmac to board. I actually passed a baggage guy as I walked to the plane to board who was carrying out our bag.... he handed it off to a guy who didn't want to open the plane back up to put it on there, but the guy who carried it out pointed at us and I waved and gave the plane guy the universal sign for "pleaaaaaaaase" and he loaded it up. Thank goodness. And then we were off to KL for a night of exploration, before heading up to Vietnam.

Yay!

blah, stupid blog

OK, I had started a post the other day about our Kinabalu hike, but didn't finish it. Then I posted the Palin flowchart. Then I finished that Kinabalu post, and posted it. And the stupid thing showed up BEFORE the Palin post, instead of after. So that's confusing.

So point is, go back and read that other post before you read the next one. =)

Sarah Palin Debate Flowchart

OK, this is just hilarious. It's pulled from http://adennak.dailykos.com, one of the many bloggers on Daily Kos. It's a flowchart showing the approach that Palin takes when debating. =D

I'm about to get in a van to go to Ha Long Bay, but I'll just quickly add that I thought Palin did a decent job at the debate, but that Biden still won.

Asian Extravaganza, Days 8-10: Hiking Kinabalu, part 1

OK. I'm terribly behind with the bloggage, but we've had some full-ass days and I've been too tired and lazy when I've gotten in at night to want to spend time writing. =P

Anyways! So Mon-Weds this week was spent hiking Mount Kinabalu, which we thought was the tallest mountain in SE Asia but instead turns out to be #4. Oops. Still, it's bout 2km rise over an 8.7km run, which is roughly a 23% grade. Which is enough to be a royal pain in the legs.

But first, the rest of Sunday was pretty laid back... after my last bloviation on here I went back to the hotel and went swimming at the Hyatt's pool, and watched the sun set on the ocean. Nice. Then we grabbed dinner at a restaurant called Banana Leaf, which was realllllly good Indian food served not on plates, but on giant placemat-like banana leaves. It was like, a motif or something. =D We walked back towards the hotel through a night market by the water where there was a huge amount of activity selling fish and every imaginable seafood. It was cool, though the ground there was NASTY. God save the soul that drunken faceplants in that shit. Then we grabbed drinks at a bar and played some Uno (woot!), and after a couple hrs of that hit the sack.

Monday morning, we got up and tooled around... we got a slow start (mostly my fault), then walked to the docks and negotiated with some locals for a boat tour of the bay. It was beautiful out... totally sunny and the water was so so blue. We boated past some Filipino shanty houses out on stilts by an island in the bay... and just generally enjoyed the outdoors. Ahhhh, relaxing. After that we grabbed lunch at that same night market, which during the day is more of a giant open-air cafeteria. We got some good food, mostly the same brown fried street noodles, plus a lot of fried stuff. Oh, and me and the Kellys split some fresh coconuts we bought in this massive indoor market. mmmmm fresh! Oh-squared, we also hit up the local mall for some walking sticks. I own one, but didn't bring it to Asia because I was thinking I'd just live without it. The advice we got was to have one, though, so we all went and bought some for ~$15 each (they're $100 or so from REI in the states). Clearly, I had to get the one with a knife concealed in the handle. It's so awesome... I was ready to monkey-knife-fight any mountain primates that dared to attack us.

After all that we checked out of the hotel and left some bags there, then bused over to Kinabalu National Park. It was about a 2-hour ride in the bus, with some great views of the mountain we were about to climb. Holy bejezus that thing is TALL.

We're supposed to climb that bitch in TWO DAYS. Wow.

So that night we get to the park and check into our dorm/bunk-beds... luckily the 6 of us aren't sharing a room. Unluckily, 3 of us are snorers, and one with sleep apnea. You know the kind, where the person snores in a steady crescendo until they stop breathing altogether for 30 seconds, and then start over. It's amazing people like that can live through the night!!! Though we all still love them.

Anyways, that night we hung out at the dinner building and played Uno for a couple hours, making the loser of each round go and do bitch-errands for the rest of us. Like fetching food from the buffet, or getting us drinks, or bussing the table, etc. It was fun. =D We all went to sleep relatively early cause we had to get up at ass'o'clock to start up the mountain. Wheeee!

Rest of World is pissed at US Congress

Wow... I leave the country for a week, and the entire global financial system melts down! Ok ok, the meltdown's been in progress for over a year, and I did predict back in 2004 that shit would hit the fan from all those bad mortgages out there, but still, what's going on right now is nuts. I can't get to the intertubes often enough to keep up. It's driving me nuts!

But when I've been able to get on, I've been keeping up with salon. And Andrew Leonard (bless his heart) has posted a fantastic round-up of global criticism of the US Congress' inability to pass a bailout package (never mind the question of whether/if the bailout itself is the right idea).

So check this out for a great smattering of quotes from Brazil, India, Europe, China, and more... World to US: You Suck!

Asian Extravaganza, Days 6 and 7

Well, it's Sunday afternoon right now for me, and I'm in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. Friday night, after getting back to Dubai from Oman, I flew overnight back to Singapore, to meet up with the rest of my crew. The flight was a bit delayed, so I got in at 10am or so, just in time to catch literally the last 45 seconds of the 1st Prez Debates on a CNN screen in the airport. Yarrrrgh! Luckily, I've been able to catch up on all that a bit... Obama didn't totally kick ass, but he remained presidential and positive, while McCain was condescending and vague. So I'm going to call it for Obama. And it looks like CNN and others have done the same. Which is great news, cause McCain was supposed to be favored in that one.

Annnnyways. I took a cab from the hotel to Luis' place in Singapore (he's there for Motorola, just like Dan's in Penang for Motorola). I met up with Dan, Kelly, Kelly, and Luis, and we all headed out to explore Singapore. We didn't do anything too crazy... got some breakfast (some sort of toast with lots of butter, sugar, and kima or something like that), then walked around downtown. There's a huge F1 racing event going on on the actual streets of Singapore this wknd, so there are tons of people in town, and whole sections of the city are walled off for the race. We grabbed some drinks at the Raffles Hotel (apparently Sir Stamford Raffles is a big name in Singaporean history)... I had a Singapore Sling, which was apparently invented at that very hotel...!

We wandered around some more, including checking out Chinatown. We actually drank multiple "travelers" during the day... you can have open liquor out on the streets of Singapore (and Malaysia, as it turns out), so we availed ourselves. Quite a change from my experience in Dubai, where I wasn't allowed to even drink water outside during the day. =D We got beers at this restaurant owned by one Alvin Koh, who I met in SF yearrrrs ago. Totally random. He's a 4'9" bodybuilder/chef/poet/speaker/renaissance man, apparently. Interesting guy. I'd wondered what happened to him... I guess the answer is he moved to Singapore. =D

Eventually we packed up and metro/bus'd it over the border to Malaysia, to Johor Bahru. That was an experience... though not exciting enough to justify documenting. =D At JB, we checked into a Hyatt, cleaned ourselves up, then went to meet Luis' boss at this bar downtown. We ended up eating at a fast-food-esque place called Nando's, which apparently is a global chain that does Portuguese food. Mmmmm. We then met up with Luis' boss, his wife, and his 2 sisters. By that time I was freaking exhausted, because I'd slept 2 hrs on the plane from Dubai (my back was hurting for some reason, and I got sucked into watching Baby Mama (d'oh!)), and because I'd not had a full night's sleep in like a month. I powered through the small talk for a couple hours by variously squeezing random parts of my body to the point of causing myself pain.... it was the only way to keep from passing out and face-planting in the pitchers of beer sitting on the table between us and our Malaysian hosts. Good times.

Anyways, we got to sleep, then got up at ass-o-clock (5am) to catch a 7am flight to Kota Kinabalu, which is where SE Asia's tallest mountain is waiting for us to attempt to scale it on Tues/Weds. We got in, checked into another Hyatt, then wandered a local market and got some street food. The food was good, and I got an awesome belt in the market with a pirate buckle!!! So I'm basically now set for life. Annnd... that's it so far. The rest of the day will likely consist of swimming in the hotel pool followed by drinking tonight. Tomorrow we're going to snorkle at the islands of the coast of Borneo here (wooooo Borneo!!!), then climb the mountain Tues/Weds. God knows when/if I'll have PC access again in the near future. Or when I'll get a full night's sleep next. =P

Asian Extravaganza, Days 4 and 5: Graeme and Orion's Omani Adventure

So... Thursday, Day 4 I got up and tried to get to the Jumeirah Mosque, which is the only one in the UAE that lets in non-Muslims. They do daily tours at 10am, but sadly I got stuck in an hour's traffic in my cab and missed the tour. So instead I tooled around Bastkiyah, which is this resurrected old town that mimics the Dubai of a couple hundred years ago. It was neat! But also 110 degrees out and I had no water, so I was wilting fast. I walked down to the river (actually an estuary) and walked along that to the Textile Souk, then recovered in a random hotel's air-conditioned lobby. God bless air conditioning.

I caught a cab over to the Mall of the Emirates, which is the big-ass mall that has Ski Dubai in it, the indoor Ski mountain. I didn't want to pay the money to play in the snow, but yes, it's a full ski slope and snow-fun-area inside of a mall. Pretty nuts. I also wandered the mall (all the food and drink places were closed) and sat in a massage chair for 15 minutes and got my rocks off from that. Then back to Orion's...

At Orion's I packed up all my crap, and we loaded up and drove to OMAN, baby!!! Oman is right next door to UAE, and was about a 2.5 hr drive (plus traffic). The Musandam peninsula (our destination) is considered "the Norway of the Middle East" because of its stunning fjords, so we wanted to take a day-long boat cruise on Friday to check it out. We drove up and checked into the area's nicest hotel (The Golden Tulip; don't get to excited this is Oman) and had a delish dinner in their restaurant. We hung out for a bit (closed this place out too), then crashed. Before falling asleep I heard smuggler speedboats coming in down the road from us from Iran, and also some insane cats that freaked me the fuck out and gave me weird nightmares.

Friday, Day 5 (today!) we got up early (I was up at 6:30am), and got ready, packed, had this ridiculous spread of a breakfast, and then met up with the tour operators. We got on the boat by 9:30 and were off on the Dhow with a bunch of random French (from Perpignan!!), Italians, Swedish gay boys, and 2 mixed American families. Oh, did I mention homosexuality is completely prohibited in the UAE (and likely Oman)? Poor little gay boys. :(

Anyways... like 5 mins into the cruise our boat was flanked by dolphins for like 15 mins, swimming aside us and leaping out of the water. How awesome is that! We basically spent the day cruising the fjords, swimming, snorkling, playing with dolphins, peeing in the water (maybe that was just me), and doing various other fun things. The tour guid Mohammed was hilarious... he played reggae for me and Orion on his phone, and showed us some funny youtube-like vids and some hardcore porn. Ah... the wonders of satellite internet. Random people who would otherwise face government-censored content get to explore all kinds of fun shit. Good for them!

But in summary, the day was awesome. I love Oman. The water was perfect, the people were super friendly, the Iranian smugglers were just trying to get some cigs, man, and hopefully won't get killed by pirates before they get home (sadly, it's likely they will)... we had a great time. The Dhow cruise was so fun... I highly recommend that anyone visiting Dubai take the time to do the day-long cruise from Khasab in Oman.

After the cruise, Orion and I cleaned up and drove back. Orion picked up a hitchhiker, but we only drove him like 15 mins down the road. =D He took me pretty much straight to the airport (where I am now), then headed home. So... I've got some pending posts on Dubai that I'll probly write when I get home (cause they're more general about Dubai)... other than that I think I've regaled you enough.

I sort of feel like I'm not doing Oman justice. I got an entire page in my passport stamped to hell by my ins and outs from Oman... oh, the sunset was beautiful tonight on the Persian Gulf. And, we were going to go off-roading in Oman (the Musandam peninsula is great for it) in Orion's Range Rover, but we ran out of time. :( Sadness. Probably for the best, though, as I was sure we'd break an axle and plummet off the side of a mountain to our deaths. Good times.

Annnnnnnyways. Signing off. I'm theoretically boarding my flight soon and will promptly get trashed on the free high-grade alcohol. I'm so tired from all the swimming today in the intense sun. And all the great food and snorkling and wildlife and dolphins. Oh, what a life... whoa is me!! =D

Asian Extravaganza, Days 2 and 3

OK... so I'm in the airport in Dubai, ready to head to Singapore to start the next leg of my trip. But before I go, I want to share my Dubai experiences, since they were pretty sweet.

My friend Orion (classmate at Presidio) moved to Dubai about 2-3 months ago for a new job in real estate development (because really, what else is there to do in Dubai?). So I figured since I was more than 8 hrs from home anyways, I may as well fly another 9 hrs to get from SE Asia to Dubai and hang out with him. Which is what I did. For like, 3 days.

I got in late Tuesday night after ~34 hrs of consecutive travel (no, that doesn't include time zone changes; that's pure travel time). Orion picked me up from the airport and gave me a driving tour of the city. I'll just summarize Dubai by saying IT IS INSANE. I'm going to have to write a separate post much, much later to give detail to the insanity. So you'll have to wait for that. Sorry! Anyways... he just moved into an apartment in the Burj Dubai area (the Burj Dubai will be the world's tallest building when it's completed in a few months... it will be nearly a half mile tall). We grabbed some dinner at the hotel attached to his complex, followed by a couple hrs of conversation and shisha (that's the hookah/smoking thing). It turns out it's Ramadan, which means no one in Dubai is allowed to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. Yes, that includes water. Yes, it's over 100 degrees out during the day in what's very clearly a desert. So yes, no water means whities from the north like me are likely to die and die fast once it hits noon. But too bad, doesn't matter... no water for me.

Anyways... we had some meze (appetizers) and dinner, and shisha. We talked about all kinds of shit... then we headed over to the Emirates Towers for drinks at Vu's. Emirates Towers were among the first major new buildings in Dubai in the last 10 years' building spree, and Vu's is this bar at the top with great views. Oh, by the way, no public drinking in Dubai except in hotel bars. Of which there are plenty, thank god. Anyways, we took a cab over (there's a zero tolerance policy for drinking and driving with stiff penalties), and had $30 Caipirhinias. Yes, $30 EACH. O.M.G. Then we headed back and I slept on the couch and kept Orion awake all night with my snoring.

On Weds I got up and took a cab over to the Dubai Museum, which is in an ancient fort (circa 1800; hey, that's America ancient!). The Museum seemed kinda sad... a couple exhibits in the courtyard and side corridors. I was exploring the last side corridor when I found stairs down to a freaking wondrously modern and never-ending and AIR CONDITIONED museum complex. To summarize, I learned a lot about Dubai and I heartily recommend the museum. =D

I grabbed a cab back to Orion's, where he picked me up to take me out to see the current project he's working on. Orion's the sustainability guy for this project called The Lagoons. They're building this like 30-building project next to a protected wetlands area, and they're incorporating green development into the wetlands-adjacent bit. So I got to meet these consultant ecologists and this British guy Kevin who works for the Sheikh on ecology, and we toured the wetlands. It was pretty awesome. Lots of birds, lots of nature, lots of great views across Dubai Creek of the Burj Dubai and the downtown area.

After that we went back and Orion made Pho (I'm sure I won't have that again in a while... oh wait I'll be in Vietnam for 5 days in like a week), which was delish. We then took a cab to some random-ass part of the city to get our passes for our Dhow tour in Oman (more on that later), then took a cab back across the planet to the Burj al Arab.

The Burj al Arab is the world's most luxurious hotel. It's the one that's shaped like a ship's sail. 7 stars. No other hotel has 7 stars. So we decided to check it out. It was an absolute KLUGE to get reservations for the bar, but we got them anyways... except for the bar in the basement instead of the one on the top floor. :( So we hung out down there (250/person Dirham minimum... which is ~$80).... we each got a drink, and I talked the barman into letting us pay 125 Dirham to have an all-you-can-eat desert bar from the adjacent restaurant. We gorged ourselves on delicious deserts, hung out till the lights came on (we've shut down every place we've been to so far), then headed upstairs to the top-floor bar to see if we could get in anyways, despite their hoity-toitiness and our lack of reservations.

To our surprise, they let us right in. So we sat down by the window overlooking the Persian Gulf and had ourselves some drinks. Now, the drink menu is insane. The first page is about the 27,351, which is the name of a drink that costs 27,351 Dirhams. That's roughly $8000. Yes, eight thousand. For a single drink. The menu tones down from there, with most drinks costing about 100 dirhams, or $30 bucks. Ahhh good times. Orion tried one made from Camel's milk, while I had a martini made with bbq sauce. Yes, bbq sauce. Dude, I had to. If you know me, you shouldn't be surprised. And it turns out it was very good... quite like a Bloody Mary. I'll make one for you sometime. =D

OK... damn, I'm writing a lot. I'm going to close out this post and come back to do Days 4 and 5 in a 2nd post. Be back shortly!

MMR vaccine does NOT cause Autism

In case you were wondering, studies now show that MMR vaccine does NOT cause autism. This is something I've personally been worrying about... not as much because of the possibility that one day my kids might become autistic via vaccination, but more because of the implication on public health of thousands of parents foregoing the vaccine (there's already been a resurgence of measles in the UK as a result of this scare).

"Eleven studies now show that the MMR vaccine doesn't cause autism (the most recent just came out). Six have shown that thimerosal doesn't cause autism; three have shown thimerosal doesn't cause neurological problems. Studies showing the opposite, like Wakefield's, use flawed methods, have serious conflicts of interest or have been conducted in animals whose results can't be extrapolated to humans."

That's from a salon.com review of a book by one Dr. Paul A. Offit. You can read the whole review here: http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/09/22/autism/. But if this is something that worries you, you should check it out. As it turns out, the original "whistleblower" on MMR has "crossed the line from ill-conceived, poorly performed science to fraud."

Good news, though. So if you've been hesitating on getting your kids MMR... go do it!!

Asian Extravaganza, Day 1.... or is it 2...?

So... now I'm in Singapore, sitting in the biz class lounge, biding my time for a couple of hours before the final leg of my journey to Dubai. I just showered.... oh what a glorious feeling...! I left home at 11pm on Sunday night, and it's now something like... what... 2am Tuesday back home? I have no idea. When I get to Dubai I'm going to have Orion help me figure out how much total time I traveled. (fyi, Orion's a person, not just a constellation... tho theoretically with my astronomy degree I should be able to figure this out either way).

In case you're wondering what my rough itinerary is (I'm sure that's been your primary concern for days now), here goes....

• 5 days in Dubai
• 5 days in Malaysia (climbing the mountain Kota Kinabalu)
  
• 5 days in Vietnam (Hanoi and Ha Long Bay)
  
• 5 days in Cambodia (Siem Reap / Angkor Wat)
• 5 days in Penang

That's rough... there are a couple days lost to travel in there, and some random nights in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and Ho Chi Minh City. But otherwise that's the gist. I get back home on Friday, October 17, just in time to "recover" and spend the weekend in class for my MBA. That'll be fun!

But overall I'm really excited about this trip. I've never been to Asia before, or the Middle East. And so far I'm really enjoying it. Yeah, I've just been in the airports, but still it's been awesome. For example, the Singapore airport (Changi) has a butterfly sanctuary in Terminal 3!!! It's literally this small rainforesty biodome swarming with butterflies. I almost stepped on some! I took lots of pics and video, so at some point I'll share one or 2 on here.

Anyways, I should stop writing so I don't burn myself out on blogging when I'm only like a day into this thing. =D Hope life's good back in reality!!!

Asian Extravaganza, Day 1

Fun... I'm in a Singapore Airlines lounge in Hong Kong! I've taken 1 of 3 flights so far... SF to HK. Next I go to Singapore, then from there to Dubai. I think my total travel time is like 700 yrs, approximately.

I was in Economy for that first leg (I booked with miles, but no Biz was available), and it was actually really comfortable. Though I suspect it helps that there was no one sitting next to me. =D Lots of food, lots of sleep... my legs seized up after standing up for the first time in 8 hrs, but you know, whatever, I'm sure that's healthy.

I really don't have much else to say... I'm gonna have some breakfast booze, watch some CNN, stretch my legs, then head to get on the next plane. But I realized that since there's a computer here in the lounge, I should take advantage of it and share that I've successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean for the first time in my life. YAY!!!

Wrath pre-ordered

Boo-yah, baby!!! I just pre-ordered the collector's edition of the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King, due to be released November 13. If you were hoping to hear from me between then and, say, November 23, give up. I ain't gonna be available. =D

2011 Chevy Volt Unvieled in Detroit!

For those of you who have been living under an auto-industry rock, the Chevy Volt is GM's attempt to save itself from its horrible, gas-guzzling, short-sighted strategic decisions of the 1990's and 2000's. It's an all-electric vehicle slated to be released to the general public in the 2011 model year.

You can see the pic of it above, and read more about the release at GM's centennial celebration here.

And if you want to read more about the volt itself, check out GM's official Volt website here.

In general, I'm pretty excited about the Volt. It's exactly what GM should have been doing 10 years ago. All-electric cars are much more efficient uses of energy than gas. Now, it can be argued that the source of their electricity isn't 100% clean, and that's true. But it's not 100% dirty, which can't be said for gasoline. And the problem of changing over our electrical generation system to all-renewables is being solved, and will eventually happen.

Electricity is a much smarter solution for cars than gasoline or hydrogen, because it's clean and there's already an existing distribution network (vs hydrogen, which would need a whole new, costly network created). The main problem is how quickly the batteries can be charged, which can make cross-country road trips prohibitive. But since like 99% of all daily trips made by a car are less than 300 miles, that's really not an issue for the majority of humanity.

So... w00t electric cars!

Hockey Moms Against Sarah Palin

Ohhhh man.... Palin is just a comedy GOLD MINE!!! A gift that keeps on giving!

possible posts? you decide!

I forgot to mention... I've been debating posting regularly about my therapy and my personal trainer... kind of like a log of how that's going... almost like some sort of a web-based log. A Web Log? A weblog. Hmmm.

Anyways... if you're interested (or not), lemme know. If none of you care, then fuck you I'll do whatever I feel like. =D

My Life

So... I haven't been giving any updates on my own life lately. I'm sure that as interesting as all my news regurgitation is, you probably would all like the occasional update on what the hell I'm doing with myself all day.

School's started up again... 2 more years left in my part-time MBA program. I'm still working full-time for The Man... though I'm debating if I need to start looking elsewhere for a change of pace. I've been here for 7.5 years. That's a long time. My salary could use a boost, which I would get if I jumped elsewhere. But with the insanity in the economy... that might not be so wise.

Next week I go to SE Asia for a month. Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and... wait for it... DUBAI. Yes, I know, Dubai's not in SE Asia. But when you're flying that far, what the hell's another quarter-circumference-of-the-planet. My friend Orion got a job there over the summer doing sustainability for a big-ass real estate developer... so I'm totally psyched to check out the city and get some inside tours of some of their crazy-ass construction! =D I'm going with Dan and the 2 Kellys... Dan is the guy I did my Crazy European Bike Trip of Death with, and the 3 of them are the ones I went to southern Africa with in Dec 2004.

So my month-long trip is sandwiched exactly between 2 school residencies. Before I leave, I have to get all of September and October's assignments done. And I've been trying, but I'm behind on that goal. It's bad news. I'm already taking off Friday to try to catch up, but I'm in school all wknd so it's likely I'm going to have an aneurism before Friday even gets here.

Oh, did I mention I talked to a real estate agent last night about buying? And that I need to fill out a mortgage app before I go? And that I'm talking to recruiters this week about a new job? And that I'm trying to buy a new digicam and HDTV this week? And that I'm planning a massive Election Day party before I go? And that I'm still working with a personal trainer and therapist despite all the other shit I've got on my plate? Yeah... I'm busy. I think I may not sleep at all this week. Like, at all.

Anyways... that's a snapshot of me right now.... no chance of dating till I'm back, of course. But that's fine. I've got my porn and my World of Warcraft... what more could a guy need!!

Tina Fey does Palin... flawlessly

Dear god, this is comedic genius. God bless you, Tina Fey. And this video just makes my heart go out to Hillary Clinton... and really the entire nation. A Palin administration would truly usher in the Apocalypse.

Baked Salmon, the World of Warcraft way

OK, this is just too awesome.  It's a recipe for Baked Salmon published by WoWInsider, a webzine dedicated to World of Warcraft.  It's a real recipe, it just uses WoW jargon in a way that I found ridiculously hilarious.  "DPS in the oven at 400F"... hahahaha.

Baked Salmon
Reagents: Raw Whitescale Salmon, Soothing Spices
Requires Cooking (275)

Pick up the recipe in Feralas from Sheendra Tallgrass (Horde) or Vivianna (Alliance). You can fish Raw Whitescale Salmon in Eastern Plaguelands, Winterspring, Alterac Valley, Burning Steppes, Feralas and Zul'Gurub.

The mats
1 lb. salmon fillets (fresh or frozen)
½ cup wheat germ
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese (fresh or canister)
¼ teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
Oregano or dill weed to taste (1/4 teaspoon or more)
¼ cup melted butter

The strat
1. Set up the raid groups. Combine the wheat germ, Parmesan cheese and seasonings in a small bowl.
2. Debuff the butter. Dispel the butter in a second bowl; about 30 seconds in the microwave, just until melted, should do the trick.
3. Send in melee one at a time. With a fork, dip each piece of salmon first into the melted butter and then into the seasoning mixture, coating thoroughly.
4. Position the melee players. Place the battered salmon on an ungreased baking sheet.
5. DPS. DPS in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 30 minutes.

Alternate specs

• Lemon wedges, of course, are always a plus in this encounter. It's best to let each player apply his own lemon wedge.
• This encounter is entirely possible without any players from the Parmesan class. No need for a substitute; simply leave the slot free.
• Sprinkle on a small amount of finely grated cheese (white cheeses are best) when the boss is down to about 10% health (about 2-3 minutes before cooking is complete).
• You may not want to post this fact openly on your forums (to avoid QQing and even despair from your seasoning classes), but any seasoning spec in this raid is interchangeable with other seasoning spec. Feel free to substitute chili powder and paprika for a spicier encounter; basil and oregano for an Italian-style encounter; or feel free to invite whatever PuGs you find in the pantry.
• Seasonings still equipped with green gear – i.e. fresh seasonings – need to be minced finely before they will mix well with the rest of the raid party.
  

Perspective...

From another of those chain e-mails going around... again, I'm a fan of this one. Some of the double-talk is so fucking true, it just drives me nuts.

================================

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America.
White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic."
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic."
Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."
A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity".
If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base".

If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous".
If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a "shoot from the hip" maverick.

If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America.
if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Anapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.

If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an "empty suit".
If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an "experienced executive".

If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are "extremist".
If you believe in creationism and don't believe global warming is man made, you are "strongly principled".

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky".

If you're a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
But if you're a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you're spunky.

If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you "First dog."
If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."

If you kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.
If you have an abortion your not a christian, you're a murderer ( forget about if it happen while being date raped.)

If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
If you're a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has terminal cancer is to blame.

And finally:

Quiz question for the RNC, specifically those on the Religious Right.

Who is one of the most revered, and famous community organizers in history?

JESUS CHRIST
--
"The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance."
--Benjamin Franklin

Conan Vs Camel

This is clearly my favorite scene from Conan the Barbarian. Ahhhhhhh.... good times.

Poor camel.

Deepak Chopra on Palin

This was sent to me by my aunt, but I really like the essay and I totally agree with the analysis. Palin is like some sort of physical embodiment of the shadow in all of us. Compelling!

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Obama and The Palin Effect
From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the
complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)

I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.

--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.

--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.

--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

And now for something completely different.

I had a physical yesterday with a new doctor (Dr. William Owen)... the first physical I'd had in almost 2 years. It actually went really well... the PA (Carl Stein) was great; he took time to answer my questions and explain things to me, and made sure to review every minor complaint I brought up. Both PA and doc are gay, and specialize in treating gay patients. I wanted to give that route a try so that I didn't feel awkward asking gay-themed questions about my body or sex. =D And overall, given my experience, I left feeling very comfortable with the choice I've made.

But.

About midway through the exam, the PA tells me to take off all my clothes and hang them on the door. I strip to my underwear, and then verify that he meant ALL of my clothes. He did. So I take off my underwear and I'm standing there completely nude. He has me lie down, and does the checks of my lungs and lymph nodes, and then has me stand to do the whole "turn your head and cough" routine. So I do. No hernias. Good. Then he turns to the table, and starts making these crazy adjustments to fold it up. I'm thinking, that's a weird configuration... I wonder what he plans to do with it like that? The bed is sloping down away from the footrest... though that footrest is curiously a half leg's distance from the bed, not a full leg's...

And then he turns to me and say, "OK, let's do a rectal exam."

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. "Don't you start doing those at age 35? I'm only 32."

"Ah, well, it's better to catch these things early."

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. "Well.... ok........"

"Alright, bend over the table, and place your knees here. You'll have to reach back and pull your butt cheeks apart. ... OK, I'm using lube, so this shouldn't hurt, it should just be uncomfortable."

Yeah. In case you're wondering... it was. Uncomfortable that is. Good news is my prostate feels normal. And though I did leave there feeling slightly violated, I'm actually really glad he sprung that on me. Cause if I'd known ahead of time that he was going to do that, I think I would have been pretty worked up about it for the days leading up to it.

And in case you were thinking, "but you're gay, you have things up your ass all day long. how could this be hard for you?" Well, to that I say, fuck you, I don't have things up my ass all day long. =D I actually rarely have things up my ass, and when I do, it's contextually VERY different from a doctor's brusque ass probe. I suspect my experience is similar to what women encounter at a gynie. I'll have to ask around about that. =D

Annnd.... a little more on Palin

This is from a note sent out by moveon.org.

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Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background:
• She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.
• Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.
• She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000.
• Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.
• She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.
• She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.
• How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.

More Palin thoughts

This is from the Defenders of Wildlife. More bad reviews of Palin, basically...

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 29, 2008

Shocking Choice by John McCain

WASHINGTON-- Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. To follow is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

"Senator McCain's choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

"This is Senator McCain's first significant choice in building his executive team and it's a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain's commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil."