"You're going to a HOOKER bar?!"

"No no no. A HOOKAH bar."

What kind of girl do you think I am?!

The type of girl that - instead of frequenting hooker bars - would go some place to smoke up with a bunch of college kids and watch a half-nekkid girl dance to funky music?

Why yes, I AM that type of girl!

Besides, aren't "hooker bars" actually called "hotel bars located around convention centers" in polite society?

Sheesh.

A couple weeks ago, I wrangled my bestest bud and fellow bellydancers, Trelina, and her co-worker, Kristina, into going to a hookah bar to see a tribal-style bellydancer perform.

I'm not sure what I was expecting for my first hookah bar, exactly. I assumed this picture was of the "cool" seating, and there would be a bar on the opposite wall and assorted tables and chairs. Makes sense, since the place is called a hookah bar, so I was expecting an actual BAR.

Not so much.

The place was a hole in the wall. Really. See the long bench and few tables? That is about all there is, minus 2 small tables with wooden folding chairs on the opposite side. The whole place was about 40 feet long by about 15 feet wide. Hmm.

They had a small menu with a few beer and wine selections, but it was great food. The atmosphere was totally laid back and the wait staff was attentive and helpful. That was good.

The bellydancer was not-so-good. Being the whole reason I wanted to go, I was kinda disappointed. She was rather unprofessional - she came in and plunked down by her friends and smoked and talked and didn't start her show until HALF AN HOUR after the posted start time... (and that was only after I politely asked the waitress WHEN THE FUCK she was going to start her show). But she was a young college-age girl. Whaddayagonnado? Her dancing was ok as well. Good technique, but it was a little boring. She had no props - no zils, no veil, no sword... nothing to make anyone say "wow" besides horny college kids, which the place was full of. I'm sure she was an erotic goth-ish fantasy to them.

All that being said... smoking a hookah is pretty fucking cool.

The shisha (tobacco flavored with fruit molasses) was sweet and smooth and I even got a little buzz.

Of course, I'm not a smoker, so that may be why.

I found out there is another hookah bar that is much closer to my house (the place above was an hour away), and they have bellydancers, too. Woot!

I think I may have to buy a hookah to have at home, just so I can look as cool as this.

Yeah, baby.

Anyone know where I can get 3 pairs of those lovely lavender tasseled elf slippers so that I may look glam whilst puffing my pipe?

Bad Habits

I'm in a list type of mood this week, so here's another one.

Bad habits I need to work on:

~Capitulating to avoid a fight.
~Procrastination (when I really should be doing something, like at work)
~Laziness (when I really should be doing something, like at work)
~Daydreaming (when I really should be doing something, like at work. hmm.. I see a theme developing here)
~Worrying

Bad habits I have no plans to change:

~Drinking alot of caffeine
~Cursing (fuck you! :)
~Being lazy on weekends
~Daydreaming (any other time)
~Drinking occasionally
~Smoking occasionally


What are your bad habits?

Fucking A

First seen on Trouble's blog and just carrying thru a theme from Nikki, here is an article from Ben Stein as posted in the American Spectator on Tuesday.

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Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guard, Reservists, in Iraq, in the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan, in the area near Afghanistan, in any base anywhere in the world, and your families:

Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the cojones in the whole world right now and should be damned happy with yourselves and damned proud of who you are. It was a dazzlingly hot day here in Rancho Mirage today. I did small errands like going to the bank to pay my mortgage, finding a new bed at a price I can afford, practicing driving with my new 5 wood, paying bills for about two hours.

I spoke for a long time to a woman who is going through a nasty child custody fight. I got e-mails from a woman who was fired today from her job for not paying attention. I read about multi-billion-dollar mergers in Europe, Asia, and the Mideast. I noticed how overweight I am, for the millionth time.

In other words, I did a lot of nothing. Like every other American who is not in the armed forces family, I basically just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in my trivial, self-important, meaningless way.

Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because all he did was count his money.

And, friends in the armed forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with what you do every day, every minute, every second.

Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about "meaning" in life. For her, "meaning" is dieting and then having her photo on the cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world record for egomania ).This is not "meaning."

Meaning is doing for others. Meaning is risking your life for others. Meaning is putting your bodies and families' peace of mind on the line to defeat some of the most evil, sick killers the world has ever known. Meaning is leaving the comfort of home to fight to make sure that there still will be a home for your family and for your nation and for free men and women everywhere.

Look, soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Coast Guardsmen, there are eight billion people in this world. The whole fate of this world turns on what you people, 1.4 million, more or less, do every day. The fate of mankind depends on what about 2/100 of one percent of the people in this world do every day -- and you are those people. And joining you is every policeman, fireman, and EMT in the country, also holding back the tide of chaos.

Do you know how important you are? Do you know how indispensable you are? Do you know how humbly grateful any of us who has a head on his shoulders is to you?

Do you know that if you never do another thing in your lives, you will always still be heroes? That we could live without Hollywood or Wall Street or the NFL, but we cannot live for a week without you?

We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you every moment.

And Oprah Winfrey, if she were a size two, would not have one millionth of your importance, and all of the Wall Street billionaires will never mean what the least of you do, and if Barry Bonds hit ninety home runs it would not mean as much as you going on one patrol or driving one truck to the Baghdad airport.

You are everything to us, as we go through our little days, and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent man and woman on the planet.

That's who you are and what you mean. I hope you know that.

Love, Ben Stein


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Rock on, Ben.

Horse's Ass

This is something I got in email a while ago and I found it interesting. It popped into my head today (I have no idea why) and I thought I'd share.

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When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are Solid Rocket Boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Morton-Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs, therefore, had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track. The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (including England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

So the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

So, a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system using Solid Rocket Boosters was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horse's behinds.


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Now a disclaimer: I have no idea if this is true. It may be an urban legend, but it sounds plausible to me.

Then again, I may just be a horse's ass.

Little Known Facts

Yes, folks, it's time for a meme! For those of you that know me personally, you know alot of these, so just sit there and look pretty.

~ I have ADHD.
~ I am a Chinese linguist.
~ I can say "I love you" in 15 different languages.
~ I can pop my shoulders, wrists and hips out of joint at will.
~ I was legally blind in my left eye when I was little.
~ My pinky finger was severed when I was 2 (but it was sewn back on).
~ I've never been hospitalized for anything but childbirth.
~ I've been all over the world, but never to Canada or Mexico.
~ I am afraid of heights to the point that I get vertigo (I didn't discover this until I went to the Grand Canyon - talk about bad timing!).
~ I pierced my nose by myself when I was 13 (this was 1985, folks. I was alternative before alternative was cool)
~ I didn't start driving until I was 21.
~ My sister and I spoke a made-up language when we were teenagers (no, we aren't twins).
~ I've met and hung out with Bono (he's short) and the rest of U2.
~ I can take apart anything you put in front of me and put it back together in working order - and I mean ANYTHING from a circuit board to a crocheted bag.
~ I won a disco contest when I was 7.
~ I spent half my childhood in Germany.
~ I waddled in front of Yasser Arafat's motorcade when I was 9 months pregnant.
~ I've marched on Washington and ended up working security (totally not on purpose) in an abortion rights rally in 2004.
~ My sister and I sound identical on the phone.
~ I can't ride a bicycle.

What are your little known facts?