Problems

Some are uniquely ours. Some aren’t. I share many of mine with Annie.

While I’m chasing down my clothes, she’s holding down the fort in Muncie, Indiana (voted America’s most American city). We bought it in March and shortly thereafter I left for Bangladesh because my underwear was made there.

On one hand buying a home is a very mature, sensible thing to do. On the other, the underwear thing is a bit weird.

Annie has painted the walls, planted flowers, and done many other things that I probably won’t know about until I return. As fort holder-downers go, I reckon she’s a keeper. But there’s one thing she couldn’t do: keep our air conditioner from dying. Now, I’ve only owned a house for…

Dam Happy

Public works should not have mascots. They shouldn’t need them. The benefits of the works should speak for themselves and not need to be praised by happy cartoon characters.

The Three Gorges Dam, the largest public work in history, has two loveable mascots. Here they are…

Creepy, huh? But effective. I talked with a handful of people today who live near the dam. When I ask where they lived before the dam, they all pointed down the bank into the water. Some of the families had lived in the homes for generations and were forced to move. The government compensated them up to $10,000/person, built them good roads, and provided them with reliable utilities. But the…

“Spit Propaganda”

Reasons China shouldn’t change: The fact that we are discussing “spit propaganda” in a comment thread. And have a real life scientist (at least she claims to be) weighing her spit on her university’s dime.

Without China and all of its spitters none of this would have been possible. Different is good, China! Ignore all of the anti-spit propaganda. You live in a free country (kinda). You should be able to hack up some phlegm and spit it out whenever you darn well feel like it.

I hope I never see the day when China stops spitting. I’ve never been to Singapore, but a country that will punish you for spitting on the street is not a country I care to visit. I like…

Wanna see my menu?

There’s a rumor that this place has Mexican food. And I’m Jonesan for a juicy burrito – hold the rice please.

I enter and approach the hostess. I motion by opening my hands like a book and presenting it to her. “Menu please?”

She looks a little puzzled. I once again present her with my imaginary menu. She smiles uncomfortably and motions me to follow her.

She doesn’t give me a menu, but she does show me to the toilet.

What about my hand gesture signified my needing to use the restroom, I will never know.

I don’t speak Chinese. They don’t speak English. Either I suck at hand gestures or they suck at reading them. Probably a little of both.

By the way they didn’t have…

Study shows Chinese spitting leading to sea-level rise

Who conducted the study?

Me

What authority do I have?

My brother has his PhD and my cousin is working at NASA

The very technical results that you probably won’t be able to understand, you dimwit:

Geeze, they sure do spit a lot.

I like to think of myself as an open-minded, culturally sensitive fella who doesn’t lump 1.3 Billion people under the pronoun “they.” But today, this happened:

My hotel room in Yichang is on the 15th floor and I heard a voice that sounded like it was standing just outside my window. This puzzled me. I went to the window – nobody. I looked below me – nobody. I finally pin-pointed the voice to be directly above me. My curiosity satisfied, I pulled…

Shoe Quote of the Day

From a Deckers Outdoor executive that was kind enough to meet with me today:

“Nike produces 20 million pairs of shoes/month, Reebok 10 million. I wanna know who’s wearing all of those shoes?”

We had a nice talk about my sandals. I’ll share more later.

And today’s proof that I’m no journalist: I did not ask him if it was possible to step on a pop-top and blow out a flip-flop….

I have a voice for radio?

I took this quiz. It said I didn’t have an accent. Why is it then that everybody thinks I’m from Kentucky? (via WorldHum)