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!