New York City

It’s official.  The end of September hubby and I will be leaving on a jet plane bound for New York City.  I am more excited about this trip than a six year old child on Christmas morning.  I can almost loose bladder control – I am that thrilled!  The only part of the trip I am not looking forward too is spending 8 hours in economy class, then a 3 hour layover in Abu Dhabi and then another 13 hours again in Economy class until we finally touchdown at JFK in New York.  I have wanted to visit New York for a very long time and now it is finally going to happen.  The only thing that currently stands between me and New York is the Visa application.

As some of my regular readers know I have travelled for work and for pleasure to some interesting countries in the past.  Hubby and I have been to Egypt and Madagascar twice respectively, I have been to Kenya three times and a while back I travelled to Luxembourg for a meeting.  Some of these countries required visas with some visa applications being more labor intensive than others.  The procedure normally is simple.  You complete the plethora of forms; attach the supplementary documents, photos and your passport, all of which normally would take you less than an hour to complete.  You drop your application off, pay the fee and wait between 3 to 5 days and you are done.  So when I needed to apply for the US visa I assumed to process would be similar, but I was wrong.

You can apply for your US visa online and as such one would assume that the process is fast and simple, but it really isn’t.  You complete the DS-160 Nonimmigrant Visa Application online and it takes just over an hour (86 minutes to be exact).  The reason it takes so freaking long is because there are so many questions one need to answer.  Some questions are quite relevant but others are pretty odd.  While completing the forms, at one stage, I got so confused that I had to phone a friend.  I was searching a good twenty one minutes for a number in my passport that did not exist.  It was frustrating and nearly drove me nuts.  To add further pressure and frustration, if you take more than 20 minutes before answering a question (while for example you are searching for a fictitious number in your passport) and you did not write down your application ID number you have to start the whole process afresh.  I can guarantee you that you will only make this mistake once.

After completing your personal details, travel plans, education and work experience you get to the security related questions.  It is here were it gets a little bizarre.  “Are you planning on engaging in prostitution or have you in the last 10 years engaged in prostitution?  Are you the child of human traffickers?  Have you ever received any specialized training in weapons, chemical weapons or nuclear weapons?  Have you ever been involved in any Nazi activities?  Have you ever been involved in overthrowing a government or plotting to do so?  Are you a terrorist?  Are you associated with a terrorist group?  Do you fund terrorists?” These are just some of the questions that had me scratching my head.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand and have a full appreciation for why some of these questions are being asked.  The US is currently still involved in a war and after 9/11 the world has never been the same.  But with that said if a terrorist, a spy, human trafficker or former Nazi complete the visa application form what are the chances that they will answer yes to any of these questions?  It is not like human traffickers wear t-shirts that reads “I can sell your daughter, ask me how?” or drug traffickers will pitch up at the consulate with a t-shirt that reads “I can carry 22 condom wrapped heroin bullets in my intestines, can you?”

Sure some people at whom these questions are directed will lie when completing these forms and it is for this reason, I suppose, the US consulate schedule the personal interviews.  After you completed what feels like a thousand questions you submit your application and print out your application page with a barcode on it.  Then you are directed to another website and a good hour later you have paid for your visa (which is non-refundable of course) and have scheduled your personal interview.  Our interviews have been scheduled for July 13 at 8am.  I hope that this is not a bad omen.  It is Friday the 13^th and it is early and I am not a morning person.  I hope I will be more articulate and dazzling than what I expect I will be after having had to get up at 5:30am in order to drag my tired gay ass all the way to the US consulate in Johannesburg in peak hour traffic.

Look, I don’t see any good reason why our visa applications could be denied.  As far as I know we are not on any terror watch lists, don’t know how to assemble a nuclear weapon or are involved in drug smuggling or human trafficking.  And the only countries that I know off which definitely would deny me entry are Uganda and Zimbabwe only because I am gay and they despise my blog.  So in the mean time while we wait for our personal interviews hubby and I are busy researching and planning what we want to do while in New York.  There are so many places we want to visit, Broadway shows we want to watch and famous landmarks we want to see that for the short time we are going to be there I suspect we will not be getting a lot of sleep.

With me being a tad OCD and hubby being a typical Virgo and meticulous planner I know that we will have one hell of a detailed and tight itinerary.  Every second from the moment we land to the moment we leave will be accounted for with a comprehensive multimedia schedule uploaded to my iPad paired with a New York City app.  I am so looking forward to it.  I can barely contain myself.  Punch me in the gut and call me Betty.  We are going to New York!

Till next time.

When Beauty Equal Pain.

They say beauty is only skin deep and that beauty is pain.  This is especially true if you go for Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  You see for the last couple of years I have declared war on premature ageing.  I refuse to “age gracefully” and I have successfully managed to keep a seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age. My arsenal in this war includes my oils of delay, regular Botox treatments, the odd minor cosmetic surgery and most recently, laser skin resurfacing.  Consequently, I have no frown lines on my face, no wrinkles and no sun spots and I intend on keeping it that way.

For a couple of years now I have had Botox treatments and absolutely love how it works.  Emotional expressiveness on your face is highly over rated and who could not benefit from a brow lift and looking mildly surprised.  Botox is like having had a little vacation in your lunch break that lasts four to six months.  It is relatively painless, takes only a couple of days to start working and if your doctor knows what she is doing you will still be able to move some muscles in your face and look natural.  Besides the anti-ageing benefits of Botox and it also hides one of my tells.  You see whenever I am in a meeting and someone is boring me or talking bullshit I tend to frown.  It’s involuntary and now with Botox I no long can do it either involuntarily or voluntarily.

Recently I noticed sun spots developing on my face.  They were like freckles, but freckles on steroids.  They were scattered all over my forehead, cheeks and multiplying like sex starved bunnies.  So in my last consultation for my Botox maintenance the doctor recommended Erbium laser skin resurfacing.  It’s a procedure that takes roughly 30 minutes and only requires three days down time.  She promised that this will remove the sun spots, smooth out my complexion and fill in any frown lines and/or wrinkles that I may have.  It doesn’t take a lot of convincing to fix a problem on my face or body if it falls within my budget or price range, so I booked the appointment.

Three days prior to my appointment I started with my pre-procedure medications, purchased the skin numbing cream that I had to apply an hour before the procedure and pain medication for just in case.  Whenever any person in the medical profession uses the term or phrase “It may cause mild discomfort” it means it is going to fucking hurt.  Besides if your whole face is going to be penetrated with a laser for a half an hour you'd be silly if you do not expect some pain or "discomfort" as the professionals phrase it.

On the day of the appointment I was rather excited.  But as the time drew closer my excitement turned into a nervous tension.  “What if it doesn’t work and I am horribly disfigured?” I remember thinking when I washed my face at the office.  Just as I was about to leave the office and applied the numbing cream I thought “What if this is the last time I’ll ever be pretty because of some really bad reaction from the treatment or from some nasty infection?”  When I arrived at the consulting rooms I checked in at reception and made a dash to their restroom to apply another thick coat of numbing cream “Better safe than sorry” I tried to reassure myself.

I waited ten minutes and then I was ushered into the laser room by my doctor and her assistant.  I took off my coat, got onto the examination bed and shot up a little prayer “Please don’t let this hurt too much!” Then the treatment started.  Three short burst per area, a slight stinging sensation and the smell of burnt hair filled the room.  The doctor explained that it wasn’t my skin that was burning but rather the hair follicles in my beard that were being scorched.  Half way through I was asked if I wanted a ten minute break.  But being brave and believing that I had a high pain threshold I asked her to finish.  This was a mistake.

When the second part of my face was being treated it hurt like a motherfucker. But just as I thought I could no longer handle the pain it was over.  Like any self-respecting homosexual I asked if I can smoke a cigarette, for a ten minute break and a cappuccino before the second and last laser treatment was done and the repair lotion was applied.  At that stage my face was burning and I looked like a pale Brit who fell asleep on a South African beach and woke up just moments before his sunburn turned into blisters.  I looked and felt like a burn victim.  The burning sensation lasted about an hour and then completely went away.

The next morning I woke up to find my face red and some mild swelling around my eyes, mouth and cheeks.  I managed to wash my face which was rather sensitive and noticed that already pieces of skin were starting to peel off.  To my amazement my sun spots was being wiped away every time I used my cleansing lotion and it seemed like a miracle.  The treatment was working!  The worst part of the laser was not the actual procedure, the burning sensation directly after or the swelling.  The worst part was the not being able to shave for 7 days.  I hate facial hair on myself and I was starting to look like I had an emotional breakdown and was turning into a recluse whose greatest enemy was sunshine and people.

Needless to say, I didn’t venture into public for four days.  Unfortunately for me Sunday was father’s day and hubby and I were hosting it at our house.  Still red and peeling I thought "What the hell it is family after all".  Also, it’s not like I was keeping this a secret from anyone.  When the in-laws arrived they noticed something was amiss with my face but it took some time before the reason my face looked the way it did was discussed.  My sister-in-law (who can be a bitch sometimes) in her not so diplomatic way, said “I do have my opinion on your cosmetic procedures, but it is your money.  If you want to do it and can afford it who am I to judge you.”

On Monday, I didn’t go back to work.  Not because of my face but because I hurt my back.  I ventured into public for the first time for an injection and flurbiproven plasters and nobody noticed anything funny with my face.  My skin already started to clear up on Sunday night and returned to a semi normal color.  I still have three more days to go before I am allowed to shave my beard and it seems like an eternity.  As for the results?  Four days after the treatment and I can already see a 75% improvement and I believe the full effect will be visible in the next fourteen to sixty days.  Maybe now I can extend that seven year distance between my perceived age and my real age to ten years.

Till next time.

Gay Marriage: What's the Big Fckin' Deal?

Dwarf “Mr T” look alike with a short temper has a BIG F-bomb tantrum against gay marriage haters!  If you wish to support the FCKH8 campaign just click HERE.

Why I Love Hate Mail

As my regular readers know, I do get my fair share of hate mail.  In the 3 and a half years since I started this blog I have received hate mail from fanatical Christians, the Phelps family from the “God Hates Fags” fertility, charlatan therapists who claim to be able to cure homosexuality, pastors and most recently fellow homosexuals. In principle I do not mind hate mail.  After all if people are so offended by what you write that they will take the time to formulate their abhorrence for you in an email, you must be doing something right.  Right?  It wasn’t until recently that I realized that receiving hate mail isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I came to realize that I actually love hate mail and this is why.

Admittedly when I started this blog I was rather naïve.  I believed that I would put my mind meanderings down on paper once a week and maybe a couple of friends would read it.  And that is exactly what happened, at first that is.  Soon, almost like it happened over night, it wasn’t only friends and a few family members who read my blog and, to my surprise, I realized that I actually had build up an international audience and that my audience was growing.  This is something that is quite flattering for most bloggers.  But building and growing an audience also comes with a dark side.

You see, when your blog starts to get discovered and your Google search rating goes up, chances are that your blog will also get the wrong kind of attention; the kind of attention that will see you getting hate mail.  I distinctively remember the first hate mail I received.  I was sitting in front of my computer minding my own business.  I had a fabulous hair day that day and it had great volume.  I was in a good mood and looked only slightly surprised at the time because my Botox was starting to wear off.  I downloaded my email and there it was.  The subject line both confused and intrigued me.

“Faggots burn and so shall you” the subject line read.  “Curious title for an email” I remember thinking.  So I opened the email and right from the first line I could tell this was not fan mail.  The gist of the mail was that I will burn in hell and it had a superfluity of Bible verses to substantiate this claim.  As time passed and my subsequent hate mail piled up I became very well acquainted with the Bible’s Leviticus chapters 18, 20 & 22, Romans 1, Genesis 2, Mathew 8 & 19 and Luke 7 (to mention but just a few).  Every hate mail I received from alleged “Christians” folk was like a little Bible study lesson in hatred and intolerance.  And I never did enjoy Sunday School to start with.  But one day one particular hate mail flattered me with my suggested infamy.

The hate mail was titled “The Abomination of Humanity”.  I have blogged about this before; I was that impressed with the new title I was bestowed.  I even considered putting it on my resume and it would have read: Pierre le Roux, Veracity Expert, Profiler, Forensic Investigator, Blogger and The Abomination of Humanity.  I could just see how I was going to be head hunted by Fortune 500 companies.  After all I was not just An Abomination and was THE Abomination, a feat and designation that I think only the dark lord has been honored to have.  I mean who wouldn’t want to hire me when it is eluded that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just imagine what fury The Abomination of Humanity could release if scorned.  I was considering walking up the people in meetings and going “BOO!!” before handing them my business card.  But it is not just misguided fanatical Christian who has sent me their diatribe, the gays has done so too.

You see, queer folk even though we are suppose to be the LBGT community; we tend to be a bitchy, jealous and spiteful bunch at the best of times.  Some call this our flare for the dramatic, others call it spirited flamboyance, but in it is what it is.  I guess some of the articles I have written perhaps hit a nerve or a few tiaras too many and it encouraged a few limp wristed pseudo intellectual queens to take to their laptops and write me a few hate mails.  Now, one thing you should know is that no one writes better hate mails than gay folks.  Gays are articulate, sarcastic and mean spirited in a way that would make the Nazis’ Hitler envious.

Recently, one of my articles was published on a certain website.  It dealt with all the fucked up people who uses Facebook as their personal sex hookup site or platform to air all their dirty laundry.  It was quite an innocent and only mildly offensive article.  Or at least I thought it was but clearly some queens took great umbrage at the article and decided to comment on it.  When some noticed that I was ignoring their negativity like I ignore a freshly passed bowl movement that I flush away without giving it a second glance, they took to their Gmail accounts and in total I received 14 hate mails.

The first couple of hate mails attacked my writing style because apparently they expect everything they read on the internet to be of Pulitzer Prize quality.  Curious, seeing as their own writing style is on the same standard of twelve year olds.  Just because you know how to use a thesaurus and use big words doesn’t demonstrate that you are intelligent or have the ability to write literature (Just saying).  Then there were the others who attacked me like they have known me for years.  Well, those hate mails were interesting to read but mostly as fiction.  I could only wish that I was as immoral and that even ten percent of the debauchery they suggested I am involved with were true.  However, they did give me some very interesting ideas.

Yes, hate mail can sometimes make for some riveting reading.  Sure if you get them they can be quite disconcerting the first couple of times.  In the beginning they did cause me to behave like an emotional disturbed monkey in a Hello Kitty slasher movie and I did finance a significant portion of Häagen-Dazs’ South African operations.  But as time goes by and you receive more hate mail, you learn to see it for what it is and you can find the humor in them.  If you are a blogger you need to accept that these things will happen and you need to put your big girl panties on and deal with it.  And if you can’t, then there is a lovely river in Egypt called de-nile, it’s best to get yourself a nice felucca and to sail down it blissfully.

Till next time.

The Psycho Who Friended Me

We live in a sick world.  Sure this is not breaking news, but sometimes I have a tendency to want to forget that this is true.  Last week I read an article about a certain washed up gay porn star called Luca Rocco Magnotta.  This sick puppy allegedly killed his boyfriend, videotaped the murder, then proceeded to cut the corpse into pieces and then mailed a hand and a foot to certain politicians in Canada.  You may think this is the worst of it but you’d be wrong.  The worst part of it is that, unbeknown to me, I actually was Facebook friends with this psycho, at least until I unfriended and block him.

Luca Rocco Magnotta also goes under the aliases of Vladimir Romanov or Mattia Del Santo, but his real name is Eric Clinton.  It is believed that he killed his boyfriend, Jun Lin, while videotaping it and then uploaded the video to a certain snuff and gore website.  The video shows a man with an ice pick stabbing another naked, bound man.  He dismembers the corpse and then performs sexual acts with it which can only be described as horrifying.

If you have never been exposed to dead bodies or images thereof I strongly recommend that you do not search for this video or its images online.  It is horrendous and you cannot unsee what you have seen.  There were earlier signs that Luca was not mentally well.  For nearly two years animal activists have been looking for a man who tortured and killed cats and then posted videos of this cruelty on YouTube.  It wasn’t until Lin’s murder that Montreal police released a photo from one such video that clearly shows that it is Luca in these appalling videos.

Luca would take kittens and place them in a clear plastic bag and have them suffocate while he filmed them.  He has drowned cats and kittens in videos and even fed a live kitten to a snake.  Clearly, he is one demented individual who is cruel and have no respect for life.  Lucas was a ticking time bomb whose natural progression would be from animals to humans and Lin tragically became his first human victim.  So how did I learn that I was Facebook friends with such a sick and dangerous person?

Well, after reading the news reports of this ghastly murder I decided to search for Luca on Facebook.  And lo and behold I found his profile and saw that we were friends.  I was flabbergasted!  I don’t ever recall accepting a friend request from him nor seeing any of his status updates.  Was this really him?  I wondered.  So I started reading his timeline and to my further horror discovered it was indeed him.  Even more interesting I saw that, even though he was the subject of a massive man hunt by Interpol, he updated his current location to Paris on Sunday at 18:39.

Not only is he a murderer he is stupid too.  You know the world is looking for you but you go into an internet Café and then tell the world where you are.  Maybe he wanted to get caught.  I was tempted not to unfriend him as my professional curiosity urged me to wait and see what he was going to do next.  But in the end I was overwhelmed with my utter disgust for this man and mortified that I was in any way connected to him.  So I decided to unfriend and block him just in case he felt like fleeing to South Africa and decided to look me and hubby up.  I will not look good dead and dismembered and I really never want to be featured on that disgusting snuff video website.

So in the absence of having sight of his status updates I followed the news closely.  On Monday afternoon Luca was finally apprehended in Berlin.  Naturally he was arrested at an internet Café reading news articles about himself.  An employee of the Café recognized Luca and luckily the police were close by and Luca was arrested without any resistance.  He will in all probability be extradited back to Canada where he will be charged with several offenses one of which will be first degree murder.

It is a pity Canada don’t carry out death penalties anymore.  Luca seem to be a good candidate for execution when he is found guilty.  Unless he can prove that he has a psychiatric disorder I don’t believe that he would be likely to be rehabilitated.  After all he did write on his wall “Once you have tasted human blood there is no going back”.  And I believe him.  He will kill again if he is allowed to remain as a member of society.

Whether I have any other homicidal friends on Facebook, I do not know.  It is just shocking when you read about a horrific crime and then later learn that you have the wanted murderer in your friendlist.  It just once again goes to show how small the world has become due to social media.  Now, not only can you reconnect with old school friends, you can be friends with Interpol's most wanted too.

Till next time.

Top reasons why homophobes are full of sh#!t

So Obama is getting some shit for supporting gay marriage. Homophobes really are full of it.  The good people of FCKH8 have made another over the top video declaring what we all know - homophobes are literally full of shit!