Heck, at least I'm getting paid to be up.

Happy birthdayafter, Fay! And welcome to Bangkok! I'm glad things with the Cat Daniel went so well, and the fish meal is lovely.

I spent most of yesterday showing the new couple around. For all the preconceptions I had about their age differences, I do have to give him credit for something: They did the whole temple wedding in Thailand, and while he didn't become a monk for 3 months before marrying (the hardcore tradition is apparently for the groom to shave his head, don the saffron robes, and go about with a begging bowl), he did dispatch his Buddhist duties by volunteering for 2 weeks at the hospital run by the monastery, feeding the terminal patients.

That does sound like a whole lot of respect and love. Best wishes to both of 'em then.

Fair play to him, then! Sounds like he may be a good egg!

(It's still my birthday! Even though there was sleep since last time it was my birthday! Yay!)

I must report that Thailand is MUCH shinier than Egypt. Exponentially so. I'm in a very swanky mall, which boasts, among other things, a fabulously stylish internet cafe type place (which is where I am at present, natch) and a Starbucks and loads of designer places (I'm not into that myself, but there's gallons of it) and a cool funky shop that sells things like Rosie The Riveter dolls and Edgar Allan Poe dolls and those kitsch goodies you can get from that website whatchamacallit I forget the name...anyway, that kind of stuff. And it's got a wee Starbucks in it too! And in the department store you can buy Body Shop things and Mac things (including the Eyeliner Of Splendidness that Jilli introduced me to, which is A Good Thing as I need more colours) as well as lots of other swanky things that I don't actually want. And there's an IMAX cinema upstairs that's showing Superman Returns ...do I need to see it again? I'm thinking maybe I do. (Of course, if it were showing Big Gay Pirates Strike Back, I'd be up there watching it for the third time right now...)

So far, I have to say, Bangkok is pretty fucking splendid.

What an excellent birthday Fay, in a shiny happy new place. Yay Bangkok!

Yay, Fay! Big cities always seem to be very Americanized to me. When I was in Singapore they had all the usual. In fact, they have taken on so much importance it's funny. I asked at the concierge's desk how to find a particular place and the lady behind the desk, with a totally straight face, told me to go out the doors, turn left and look for a Very Important Landmark--McDonald's! My BF and I nearly ran out of the lobby in tears, we were laughing so hard and we didn't want to offend the nice lady.

ETA: capital letters, her emphasis.

Yay extremely long birthdays! Yay Bangkok!

In conclusion, gronk.

Wow. Thanks to WikiHow, I now know How to Taste Dark Chocolate

Handy tips like:

Mute all kinds of background noise, such as television, music, a crying baby, etc. Being able to concentrate as intently as possible will facilitate flavor detection.

It's nice to know crying babies have mute buttons.

Feel better ND. Doesn't your body understand you don't have time to be sick?

Happy Fay Day again. Your birthday morning in my time zone. Bangkok sounds promising. Yay!

I'm still in bed. Laptops rock.

From Daniel's link:

Make sure that the piece of chocolate is large enough to accommodate full evolution of the flavor profile. A piece too small may not allow you to detect every subtle nuance as the chocolate slowly melts.

Only LARGE pieces of dark chocolate. I thought so.