1. They represent American ingenuity, and the possibility it manifests. Just when you thought you'd never get into a State Dinner: there's hope yet! All you need is to know a few people and fake it till you make it. And ambition! These people actually went through with the mischievous shit you only daydream and giggle about to yourself when you're bored. You want moxie? These creatures bleed it.

2. They've demonstrated and unleashed previously understated powers of Facebook. Remember when your parents first started smokin' the 'Book? It was embarrassing. Humiliating, even. Now, adults might feel slightly more free to put up crazy shit on their Facebook account, which, you know, evens the playing field a little bit. Also, why put out a press release when you can just use the viral autogenius of Facebook? We always kind of knew it to be a press outlet for our overshares, but this just steps the game up to an entirely new level.

3. Diplomats are assholes. Power-corrupt assholes. And this proves it! Diplomats are gonna have to check themselves before they wreck themselves a little more often now, as America's Favorite Party Crashers probably had help on the inside from an Indian ambassador. Did you know! Having diplomatic status basically allows you to get away with everything. Everything! These guys put the "dick" in "dignitary." [Ed. ?!] Forget a fire lane; these guys could park their motorcade on your face and they'd barely be ticketed. It's time we throw down on diplomatic immunity. Somehow, this is all evil John Bolton's fault. It's time to fix it.

4. Reality TV needed some highbrow classing-up. It's here. Seriously: the kind of people who want to get on reality TV, lately? Sociopathic, egomaniacal parents (Richard Heene) and emotionally unstable killers (Ryan Jenkins). The pool of reality television stars comes exclusively from the lowbrow-despicable quadrant. If we don't move up, at least we can move right: towards the brilliant. And aspirations of crashing the state dinner via diplomats is—out of context, Beavis and Butthead-level stupidity—in the context of reality televisions' current state, mindblowingly brilliant. A solid season of these pranksters and desperate social-climbers in The Real Housewives of DC (which the couple was aiming for stardom in at one point) could be a refreshing antidote to the philosophical nuances of NeNe and Danielle Staub.

5. They're keeping us honest. The Secret Service failed. Miserably. And those are your tax-dollars at work, America! It should go without saying—but often doesn't—that, to their credit, a more docile quality control check on the abilities of the Secret Service has never taken place with such tremendous results. Let's say one of these two charmers were psychotic, and went after Somebody Important with a presidential spork: I'm pretty sure, despite letting them in, the Secret Service still would've bent this guy's face up his own ass faster than you can say "colonoscopy." White House Party Crashers: Low Risk, High Yield. America needs more problems like this.

6. They're crazypants freaky! Just like the rest of us. Come on. Hello, huddled masses yearning to breathe free! We all have some kind of freaky weird shit inside, and these people let loose. This country is a melting pot of crazy. We need different spices in it, and occasionally, someone needs to spike the punch with something a little psychedelic (thankfully, they didn't actually do that). But really, first: just look at them. Second: Who crashes a White House State Dinner and puts the pictures on FACEBOOK? Crazy people! Freaky people! People without discretion! And these people aren't just freaky, but are functionally freaky.

7. The White House Party Crashers are American Greatness, incarnate. In the grand tradition of people getting places they don't necessarily belong, they've set the bar, there's not much else higher than this. Maybe karaoke with Kim Jong-Il. Maybe. But nobody got hurt, and these guys crashed a state dinner! Again, sure: they exposed a massive hole in our national security, will cause diplomatic stresses, are going to cost taxpayers a shitload of money, maybe put some Americans in an unnecessary state of fear, dominated a news cycle when there're surely more important issues to be discussed, and stripped even further bare the terrifying ethos of people who desperately want to be famous in America by clearly blacking out any and all rational thought, but come on. This was epic. As President Jimmy Carter once noted, "If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement." These Party Crashers deserve our highest regards. They are freaky, weird, awe-inspiring hot messes. In whatever era we live in, there are far worse things to aspire to than meeting our country's leaders....asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for their story, and then dissing them on Facebook.

Yeah, they're assholes. People are ridiculous. Shine on, you crazy diamonds. Shine on.

In the photo album Michaele Salahi posted on her Facebook page after the event, one photo stands out among all those of the crashers smiling next to famous media personalities, politicians and Joe Bidens: A picture with one "Ambassador Singh":

This is Arun K. Singh, Deputy Chief of Mission for the Indian Embassy, and he has chilled with the Salahis before. Here they are drinking wine at a September 9th event hosted by the Indian Embassy to announce America's Polo Cup, a 2010 India Vs. USA polo match organized by Tareq Salahi and co-sponsored by Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar:

A (terribly reproduced) picture of the three even made October edition of the Indian Embassy's newsletter. Ambassador Singh is quoted in the Indian Express as saying "the polo match between India and the US next year to be played at the National Mall reflects another dimension of the growing relationship between the two countries." In that same article, Michaele Salahi is quoted as saying the match "aspires to bring the love of the game to a wider audience and bring international cultures together..." So, Singh and the Salahis are polo buddies. They go way back.

Furthermore, Tareq Salahi's only statement to the Washington Post's Reliable Source blog after crashing the state dinner was "India is the challenger in the America's Polo Cup World Championships June 11/12 2010, and they are very excited in this first ever cultural connection being hosted on the DC National Mall since Polo is one of the primary sports in India." This suggests a polo-motivated party crashing.

Based on this knowledge, here are a couple theories of how Singh helped the Salahis crash the White House.

1) Singh invited the Salahis to the dinner as a reward for their work on the India Vs. USA polo match, but for some reason their names didn't make it on the official guest list. When they showed up and were turned away (Brian Williams told the Times the couple's car was turned away by the first ring of Secret Service, after which they "hopped out") they called up Arun K. Singh: "Dude, you said we were on the list!" Singh spoke to the Secret Service and got them in.

2) The Salahis showed up uninvited, confident that they could use their Singh connection to get in the party. After being turned away, they either name-dropped Singh or got him to vouch for them to the Secret Service.

Either way, the Salahis weren't just some randos who showed up at the White House and schmoozed their way past the Secret Service with their fancy clothes. The Salahis knew somebody; they likely leveraged their connection to Arun K. Singh—the Indian Embassy's polo liaison—to crash the state dinner and successfully roll their way to immortal fameball-dom.

The Salahis will be appearing on Larry King Live Monday, where they will maybe prove our theory correct. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has a statement from the Indian Embassy: "Neither the embassy nor anyone from the embassy was involved in any way in their getting into the White House. Nor did we request any invitation for them."

The Washington Post's Reliable Source blog reported earlier today that the two notorious DC socialites had not been on the official white house guest for last night's state dinner honoring the Indian Prime Minister—but were there anyway! This evening, Reliable Source received official word from the White House: The Salahi's had slipped through a Secret Service checkpoint "which did not follow proper procedure to ensure these two individuals were on the invited guest list." AKA: THEY CRASHED THE FUCK OUT OF THAT PARTY.

But the Secret Service told Reliable Source that the couple did not pose any risk aside from embarrassing everyone by dancing sexy to "Bad Romance":

"Everyone who enters the White House grounds goes through magnetometers and several other levels of screenings," said Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service. "That was the case with the state dinner last night. No one was under any risk or threat."

Like most good party crashers, the Salahis flitted around like they owned the place, mugging for the camera with celebs and politicians for pictures Michaele would later upload to her Facebook profile (status update: "Honored to have attended the state dinner at the White House in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady.")—basically stopping just short of pushing Obama aside to deliver the opening toast themselves, blisteringly drunk, complimenting the Indian prime minister on his "funny hat" before trying to goad the Obamas into a quad-kiss. Here they are with Joe Biden, who you will remember is the vice-president of our nation:

The Salahi's biography is predictable in a sad way: She is a rumored contender for the upcoming DC edition of Bravo's hope-squelching "Real Housewives" series, and defines her style as "classic and feminine with a slim rocker edge. I'm addicted to white clothes, and I love stilettos." He has been embroiled in a complex lawsuit over a family winery and is a polo enthusiast who founded "America's Polo Cup"—which is also being sued for not paying a caterer, according to Reliable Source. Of course these are the people who crash state dinners.

It is pretty ridiculous (and scary) that on this night—Obama's special night!—these two fameballs showed up and successfully used an important geopolitical event as a launching pad for their now inevitable reality show/string of late-night television interviews. But also kind of awesome. Go (to Hell) Salahis!

UPDATE: Commenter Claire Buoyant points us to the Salahis wedding video, which adds about 10,000 pounds to the "sad" side of the Sad/Awesome Scale of Justice.

As you can see, the power couple made up a professional My First Contract™, in which Jon agrees to "employ Kate Major as a personal assistant handling some but not all future contracts," and pay her "a percentage," of something. In return, Kate says she will "run any media inquiries past Jon Gosselin," and "not make any negative or disparaging remarks." Just your average run-of-the-mill pre-fucking mutual consent agreement.

Since Jon immediately started/ never stopped fucking other people, and Kate immediately ran off to give teary interviews on national television, I guess they came out even. Are contracts written in crayon legally enforceable?
[Radaronline. Pic via]

Our tipster says she met Janka—who introduced himself as "Connor slash Paul but all my friends call me Connor"—a few months ago. Although they were barely acquainted, he proceeded to buy her a plane ticket to Rome, and invited her to come and stay with him at a friend's villa there, where they would frolic in a paradise of earthly delights. Or, as he put it in an email to her,

I bought your ticket. You should get an email shortly.
Make sure to get a waxing; I'm going to make all your holes very sore.

The young lady had second thoughts about the wisdom of joining this man she barely knew for a week in a secluded villa far away from any human help, so she declined his offer. She says, "to his defense he was upfront about wanting to have sex with me so at least he's honest in that sense, he is just NOT tactful about his approach." For example, he wanted to meet her at the airport and drive straight to the villa, to fuck. When she was wavering, he sent her the sexxxy photos you see here to help persuade her to come. After she decided not to take the trip, she says, he told her, "it's a shame you decided to get clever and fuck it all up for yourself."

But the story has a happy ending! Despite turning down Janka's hospitality, our tipster says "he still periodically contacts me with texts like 'want some coffee and want it up the ass?'" True love overcomes all.

A tipster forwarded us the above video, produced by and starring people who are supposed to be superhuman smarties: Google employees. And yet here they are pulling a Julia Allison. Maybe it's a simple case of geographic envy. Though they're singing about Los Angeles and filming the palm trees outside their office windows, these Googlers are in San Francisco, where the weather is getting damper, foggier and colder as the fall wears on. And the BART's been all full of morotists displaced by the broken Bay Bridge.

Or maybe this bunch just wanted a chance to show off their hip-twirling (especially the guy with the square design on his shirt, who clearly has been practicing in his moves in his bedroom mirror for like days). In any case, we couldn't help but notice a few things about their playground-y office environment:

UPDATE: The Googlers got shy and yanked the video; we've captured it and appended it to the end of the gallery, so you can enjoy the full experience of how workers play behind the Google curtain.

Notice the office fan. Who at the hugely profitable online company has been depriving these poor souls of proper air conditioning? At least they'll have those nifty Google zippered hoodies when the climate control fails them again this winter.

The free drinks fridge is fully stocked; apparently CEO Eric Schmidt was telling the truth about the company's return to growth mode after all!

We can't decide if that huge picture in the background is a cast promo for a late 1990s sitcom, or a picture of everyone in this office impersonating a Friends poster. (It's like we're always stuck in second hear...)

A massage chair, fun! We're not going to ask what the masseuse does behind that privacy screen back there. (Shameful, shameful lipdubs, probably.)

Work it! And when you're done could you mix us a very dry martini from the "lava lamps" sitting on the bar back there? Thanks!

"We're going to keep dancing until we've raised enough money to fix our office's crippling flat-panel-TV shortage! Our storage closets and several feet of our hallway are completely without gigantic flat panel monitors over every square inch and it's very sad. Operators are standing by for your donations."

"And I will keep rapping until there is a third flat panel monitor on this structural support beam, yo."

More evidence of the Googlers' sincere love for singer Miley Cryus and their selfless willingness to be the next internet company to host her ramblings now that she's gone and left Twitter.

It would seem Google lacks those fancy and super-comfortable Aeron chairs that became an icon for the c. 2000 dot-com boom. And it's already undermining the quality of its lipdubs; this account manager couldn't slide smoothly onto the screen, thanks to Google's cheap Office Depot chair.

When you learn to lip-sync more accurately you can be sent to the real LA. Until then, here's the Embarcadero's remarkable simulation!

We're not sure why Googlers got shy and yanked this video off of YouTube; one would think they'd be proud that the company retains a playful spirit despite the three rounds of layoffs early this year. And we've seen far worse lip-syncing! (Well, slightly worse, at least.)

Zahm, who by the way appears to wear prescription sunglasses indoors, will be occupying the Half Gallery on Forsyth Street from the 1st into next year. There are no details on the gallery's website except this picture, which promises more of the same moody posturing/shots of genitals to be found on his website [NSFW, although arty NSFW like Francois Truffaut might whack off to].

Larry King, the reigning champion of softball interviews, was apparently not soft enough for Ms. Prejean. King broaches the subject of the lawsuit Carrie settled with Miss California USA. (You know, the mediation where they screened her sex tape in front of her mom?) Then, Carrie complains that King is "being inappropriate," and after a full minute of wrangling, she removes her microphone and announces she is leaving—only to end up sitting there for another minute, grinning and playing the "I ca-a-an't he-e-ear y-o-o-ou" game until Larry cuts to commercial.

The ensuing commercial break was deeply suspenseful. Would Carrie be on set when we returned? I can only imagine what sort of harsh, frantically whispered words were spoken during these moments, because when the show returned, Carrie's microphone had miraculously been rewired and King apologized. (Apparently Prejean didn't want to take phone calls, and it was the caller, not Larry's questions, that so perturbed her?) A temporary rift in the time-space continuum healed and Larry King Live returned to being as heavy-hitting as a feather-stuffed cashmere pillow.

A girl who I had almost fucked in a bathroom one night at another club (I gave her massive finger penetration) a couple months ago came up to me in the Mogul Room and said, "Someone told me you're getting a TV show.", and I responded, "I am also authoring an award winning book", but I remember she didn't smell so fresh downstairs when we hooked up and looked like she put on a solid 15, so I turned right back around. A girl must always be fresh downstairs because that is one of my biggest pet peeves and if I do an "oil check" and it's not super fresh, I'll ask her to leave.

Lose yourself in art, rich tech people; the proceeds go to charity. Kataoka, an entrepreneur and Julia Allison-grade protocelebrity, has announced her participation in a charity auction. The prize? "Sit back, relax & ... Leave your mark on a conceptual work of art by prominent artist Drue Kataoka... on a private jet across the Bay." That certainly sounds immersive. And if there's any time left over after the art session, you can ask Kataoka about fashion, and her recent conversation with designer Yigal Azrouel for her site Culture Lick (see video below, which opens with Kataoka's trademark ice cream lick.)

Hopefully Kataoka will bring her camera onto the plane, as well. Can't wait for the footage!

The Parisian magazine magnate has long been a fixture on the Manhattan scene; he even sometimes gets his own area at high-end parties in which to take pictures. But, apart from his own musings on nightlife in the city, has mostly avoided doing press. Now Blackbook has picked up on this Japanese magazine interview with the indoor sunglasses-wearer.

"People recognise him," says the unnamed journalist, "by his signature tousled hair and stubble, a pair of tear-drop sunglasses, a tight-fitting leather jacket, pointy boots, a gold wristwatch… an intriguing mix of sexiness and discretion."

"This is a disguise," explains Zahm. "Five or six years ago, I decided to wear this kind of outfit and behave as if I were a celebrity. It's not out of narcissism. It's for the magazine. For an independent magazine to exist, I had to incarnate it personally,"

Take a look at these pictures, from Zahm's blog, and judge for yourself. There are plenty more if Thursday morning is a pensive, French, black-and-white kind of time for you.

A naked lady in Paris:

Terry Richardson leaping:

A naked lady in Paris again:

Paul Sevigny with a surfboard:

It was an odd pairing, the shameless blog-and-video fameball, with a contributor to the famed Eggers line of elaborately precious and self-consciously-old-fashioned written products. But then, judging from the Twitter account Allison, 28, set up for young Eggers, 26ish, there were mutual benefits to the relationship. Toph, reportedly developing a feature film, was determined to make Allison school him in the tricky art of internet self promotion:

Allison, meanwhile, got the high drama of a tantalizingly secret relationship with the mysterious "TK" to write up for her various revenue-generating "lifecasting" endeavors.

More surprising than the pairing was how it ended: At Allison's behest. We hear that Toph had an ex-girlfriend who wasn't ex- enough. With the breakup and its slow leak into public view, Allison is feeling "teary" and old and "the world would be a much better place if we were all more honest."

Hard to imagine this fairy tale romance went awry, given how sweetly it started:

Awwwwww.

(Top pics: NonSociety, Facebook)

Rowland apparently started something called Project Migration this past summer. The organization sells products "made by single mothers in Africa;" proceeds ostensibly help improve their water supply and health care. And, what do you know, this effort just happens to require a professional photo shoot starring one Hilary Rowland (see attached video), which the sometime model just happened promote to her public Facebook wall:

(We're not sure what the reference to Rowland being "haunted by" porn purveyor Vivid Entertinament is about, though that comment makes us especially curious about her past.)

This isn't Rowland's first brush with chairty; though she is best known for posting pictures of herself with various celebrities on Facebook, and for being the rumored girlfriend of celebrity actors like Adrian Gernier and James Woods, she's long participated in various charity events, emphasis on "events" (one "Mexico Summit" observer: "they handed shoes out to little brown kids...in between cocktails"). Her day job consists of repurposing Glamour and MSN articles for her fake fashion magazine, "Hilary." Perhaps an article about Project Migration is in order. Don't forget the photos!

Heidi and Spencer did not attend Holly Montag's 26th Birthday at Empire Hollywood in Los Angeles on Saturday night after cash demands were not met.

To make matters worse, Stephanie Pratt was arrested for a DUI after the party. It's not the first time she's been arrested either, in May 2006 she was picked up in Hawaii for second-degree theft and drug violations.

Stephanie and Holly better start saving up to pay for Heidi's eventual bridesmaid services.

with The Drought having hit 8 months, and having gone 8 for 8 the last 3 weeks in hooking up with girls and not having penal insertion, it is really testing my patience that I may have to bend over and maybe compromise my values to do this "Dinner thing".

And then he does this freestyle as "The Kween." That bad.

According to Broadcasting and Cable, it looks like the Heenes called a local television station at the same time they were calling 911 and the FAA to report that their 6-year-old son was airborne in an uncontrollable helium craft over the skies of Denver. Maybe Heene realized that a local TV news chopper could be invaluable in keeping tabs on the balloon, and acted quickly. Or maybe he is a crazy manipulative media hound who plotted the whole thing to—what? Get attention for his electrically controlled helium-balloon invention?

The thing wasn't launched accidentally. A Denver ABC affiliate obtained home video of the Heene family deliberately setting it aloft yesterday morning—they apparently had hoped to leave it hovering, tethered, above their backyard only to see it float away free. In the video, presumably released or sold by the Heenes themselves, Richard Heene is seen yelling at his wife and kids after the balloon heads skyward. Here's a clip that MSNBC played:

In the Denver station's analysis, the video compounds the doubts raised by Falcon Heene's statement on CNN last night that he didn't answer his parents' calls for him because "you guys said we did it for the show":

However, the video raises questions as to when the family knew when Falcon was on the aircraft. In the video, Richard Heene is shown clearly looking at the bottom of the balloon — "the basket" where the boy was supposedly hiding.

Why didn't the parent lunge at the balloon and at the tether when it took off?

This morning on the Today Show, Falcon barfed while his dad was trying to deflect accusations that he staged the whole thing for publicity—a possible sign that the boy may not holding up well under the strain of being forced by his father to lie to the media, and an incontrovertible sign that, hoax or no, his parents are self-obsessed monsters for forcing him to sit in front of cameras and hot lights and barely batting an eye as he threw up into the tupperware container his mother was patiently holding in front of him while on live television.

The family's 911 call, obtained by TMZ, could go either way. Mayumi's frantic wails and random lapses into what sounds like her native language sound genuine enough to us. The rapid succession of losing the balloon, then looking around and not seeing Falcon, then maybe your other kid tells you as a joke or because he was raised by crazy parents that Falcon was in the balloon, and you panic and cover all your bases and call 911 before even looking around the house. But Richard Heene, who is heard in the background talking to either the FAA or the local television station, eventually comes on the phone and is just weird, talking about the balloon's electrical system and taking a cell phone call with the exasperation—"Ugh, who's calling me?"—of a busy man rather than a father who may have just sent his son flying through the Colorado skies.

If it was a deliberate, planned hoax, then the video of the launch could be part of it, intended to serve as the origin scenario for how the kid could have accidentally been on the balloon: Family tries to hove crazy balloon, balloon flies off, family realizes kid was inside. Or they could have come up with the story on the fly after they lost the balloon—hey, let's capitalize on this and detract attention away from the fact that we negligently released a 20-foot-wide balloon near an airport! Or the whole thing could have been a genuine snafu that got out of control—two parents so terrorized at the prospect of Falcon being on the balloon, and wrapped up in media coverage and law enforcement efforts to get the thing down and overall panic, that they neglected to adequately search their own home for him. Sometimes actual emergencies do befall self-obsessed fameballs. We suspect we'll find out soon enough, as this all seems to be unraveling at internet speed.

McCain last night tweeted about how she was spending her evening eating takeout and reading an Andy Warhol biography. To accompany this radical take on an evening in, McCain uploaded a picture of her in her usual home alone outfit of sweat pants and a tank top. And apparently this set of shitstorm of conservative condemnation — apparently young women should not be encouraged by their role model Meghan McCain to expose any part of their breasts, ever — and fat jokes.

So then McCain says she's quitting this awful Twitter place forever, except maybe not really, because she wanted to "sleep on it" and probably woke up this morning realizing she now has the moral high ground again and fodder for a whole slew of new outraged Daily Beast columns:

There's another thing Meghan McCain has that she didn't have "about 16 hours ago," which will keep her on Twitter forever: lots and lots of fresh new attention. For her perky and hugely well articulated political positions, of course. Both of them.

Not merely Julia Allison come the Valley, but a Jullia Allison only the Valley could breed; a fameball selling California's tech-money nexus on the notion it can turn its business ethos into a spiritual conscience. For attention-hungry Zuckerberg, the mildly political video above is just another in a series of high-profile lip dubs; for venture capitalist Tim Draper, another chance to clown. Kataoka, though, describes herself as a "Silicon Valley artist," and seems determined in certain scenes to elevate the clip into something of a performance piece.

Art and spirituality are, in fact, key to how Kataoka sells herself in the Valley. She is, on the most basic level, a blogger and Web entrepreneur, like virtually everyone else in the California tech enclave. Kataoka even attempted to hit her wedding guests up for free venture capital. But her ValleyZen blog offers big shots something special: the rare chance to blather on about their inner philosophy and intricate belief systems.

They leap at the chance. In one of four videos, Draper hugs and dances with Kataoka; book publisher Tim O'Reilly gives her a tour of his treehouse at home in Sebastopol; TV host Charlie Rose and Tesla CEO Elon Musk consent to backstage interviews.

The archetype for a ValleyZen sit-down is the one Kataoka did with her partner in the venture, uber attorney Bill Fenwick, who counts Apple Inc. among his clients.

Fenwick pitches Zen Buddhism as excellent preparation for corporate battle. With militaristic East Asian music in the background, he says:

There is an awful lot of similarity between the principles of Zen and what happens in a battle... If you can get enough people... to find commonality, you've got a force that's going to have to be reckoned with.

Kataoka also touts the practical benefits of Zen for venture capitalists:

It's a composure, a poised kind of calm that would allow to innovate and create and think of new ideas.

Innovation is not exactly a traditional religious selling point. But the dubious repurposing of Eastern religions into corporate strategy is hardly new, either; like Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has taken to using Sun Tzu's Art of War as a tactical business manual.

Kataoka is the perfect icon for this sort of awkward fusion. In a region overloaded with computer scientists and MBAs — men obsessed with numbers and code — there's something deliciously off-kilter about a "classical and jazz flutist" who claims "Japanese Samurai heritage" and specializes in a "2000 year-old art form of Japanese brush painting." She's drawn cover artwork for Wynton Marsalis, completed a commissioned portrait of 49ers Coach Bill Walsh and done extensive work for Stanford University. In fact, according to a student who attended the college in the late 1990s, her work became comically ubiquitous:

She... somehow managed to wrangle some deal doing art for the vast majority of official Stanford posters. So... every time you'd get a flyer for like homecoming or something, it'd look as though you were being invited to formal tea in Kyoto. It was weird.

Kataoka has drawn approving notices for her fashion choices. A pre-election encounter between the artist and Michelle Obama led the Fashion-y Blog to assemble the collage at left, adding,

"Drue does a really good job balancing funky and classic pieces. Her signature sleek '20s-style bob, bright red lipstick, and matching nail polish always make a statement, and she clearly isn't afraid to stand out."

Brush strokes, music, fashion, Zen: Everyone in Silicon Valley wishes they were this eclectic. The Bay Area man is supposed to be a renaissance man; it is not enough to be merely a venture capitalist or a programmer or a journalist, one should also be a rock-climbing, spiritually involved yoga instructor with a quirky electronic pop band on the side. Hence the local obsession with the annual hippie drug and art fest that is Burning Man.

If you feel like something of a let down in this regard, well, why not look to Kataoka and ValleyZen? In New York, where attention is worshipped via the media industry, those feeling insufficiently self promotional can look to the high priestess of fameballing, Julia Allison. In the Valley, where long hours coding or selling so often conflict with the eclectic ideal, Kataoka sells instead a facade of well-roundedness, with Pacific Century Asian flare to boot. And, soothing music and talk of Zen aside, she does so just as aggressively as her East Coast counterpart.

[top video via VentureBeat]

First, Arthur Kade's harrowing experience.

today while in the gym for the second time with one of my good friends (I had just taken his NO2 supplement at his house), I started feeling lightheaded and my heart was racing, and I actually pulled him into the locker room because I thought I was having a heart attack. It's amazing what you think about when you may be dying, and what went through my mind was in this order: 1) I can't let millions around the world down, 2) I wonder what the media will say about this if I land in the hospital in front of the Gen Pop, so I need to do this in private, and 3) I can't let this happen when I am about to make millions, I can have any girl I want being Arthur Kade, and I am clearly on my way to Little Oscar.

I think we echo all of humanity's sentiments when we say: Don't go with the cheap stuff, dude—make sure you take genuine NO-Xplode. Hardcore pumps and smooth, even energy that still gets you crucially ripped.

The other exciting news: Emily Brill, the Ultimate Narrator of the internet's pre-Kade era, may be making a comeback. She tells us via email (in response to our question): "I've gone back to writing. I'm working on a book, but there's nothing official to report. It's a recent decision."

Fameballs: Don't act like you do not care for them.