Apparently the cat was up there for three days…

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Use Google Chrome and go to http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com.

Our childhood homes were a bit too remote, but here’s what the video looks like with a Hong Kong setting. (Needs Chrome, yo.)

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Miss Oklahoma’s Outstanding Teen (MOOT) was just crowned MAOT (Miss America’s Outstanding Teen). Not only does she live near where we are, she represents the university at which slug and I teach— before she was MOOT she was MSWOSUOT. At our last school, we had Miss West Virginia USA, a runner-up (2nd, I believe) for Miss USA in our classes. That’s slug and I, rubbing elbows with royalty wherever we go.
This is also a reminder that we’ve moved to Oklahoma and a question about where the other norlosers are now. There was lots of talk in the last year or so about moving to new places, but not a lot of resolution that I recall being shared (and I can’t get the address book to work).

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Well, Sniper fifteen years ago if he were 6-6 and 300 pounds…

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Wacky blog action. It’s all about permissions.

To make up for it, here’s The Clientele covering M.I.A.

The Clientele covers M.I.A.

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“Alternating current will always cause massive deaths… Edison was an asshole.”

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When I heard I was getting one, I thought, “whoa, there doc, I think I can handle my own business just fine, if you know what I mean.”

But then it turned out to be one of these instead. I guess how exciting it is depends on what you stick it to…

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In 1990, SST came out with a compilation of great bands doing great covers on one album.

I loved this album not only for the songs, but for the cover art of LPs raining from the sky hurting people. It is only now, 20 years later, that I’ve discovered the video for Dinosaur Jr.’s “Just Like Heaven”:

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This story sums up Hong Kong pretty darn well.

Some background: The Hong Kong book far ended a few days ago. The comics convention just begna. They both fill up the convention center next to my office and make the skyways over the streets completely inaccessible.

The draw? For many, it’s bikini calendars getting signed by the models, or what they call “fake celebrities” (Cantonese: lang mo). This year, due to family values and shit, calendar girls… well, here’s the story:

Chrissie Chau too big a star for comics show
Amy Nip
Updated on Jul 28, 2010
Pseudo-model Chrissie Chau Sau-na and other “famous celebrities” have been banned from appearing at stalls of this year’s comics fair to avoid chaos.

Capsule toys will also be a focus - 30 types will be priced at HK$1, Bandai distributor Daniel & Co said.

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I said I wouldn’t be one of those news parents that Writes About the Diapers. And so far, I haven’t today.

I feel obliged, however, to mention what happened today. Think Dunkirk, if the local fishing and commercial fleets had decided to summer in Marseille.

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Earlier this month, The New York Times asked whether jousting will be the next extreme sport. Based on the article, and the fact that most of the guys doing it are middle-aged dudes, I’d say the answer to that question is “no.”

This week, the Times highlights the Ozark Medieval Castle.

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How do you let a reporter get away with using a line like this?

He was able to avoid detection not because he kept a poker face, they said, but apparently because he hummed and lip-synched to Lady Gaga songs to make it appear that he was using the classified computer’s CD player to listen to music.

Here’s a brief history of popular culture and military humor from Slate.

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Last week we bundled up the Beast and took him to the U.S. consulate. Somewhere in the process of form-filling and fee-paying the little guy became an American. Before, he was a stateless little fella, unable to claim Hong Kong or Chinese citizenship yet not formally recognized as a meiguoren.

Check out that passport. Government documents don’t get any cuter. This passport, by the way, is good for the next five years, which should make airport security checks — “This doesn’t look like you” — a lot more fun.

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Hong Kong likes cute. I’ve been in two taxis in two days that have have little toy helicopters adhered to the dashboards, little rotors ambitiously humming away.

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I’m at this weird point in my work life — I still feel like too much of a kid to use the word “career” — where I could take a job that involves me managing as few as four and as many as 12 people. This is something that I understand that You’re Supposed To Do. At some point you get a job (check), a spouse (check), a kid (check) and finally you get the yoke of management.

I really, really, really don’t want to do it. Being boss fills me with dread akin to public nudity and Bette Midler. What’s bugging me is that I don’t know whether I don’t want to do it because it’s a challenge, or I don’t want to do it because it sucks. And what bugs me more is this idea that it’s something I should do, like there’s only one road to adulthood.

I have another option. The job is powerless, and in fact somewhat politically complicated, in a corporate sort of way. But it could be pretty cool work.

Are you guys managers, anyone? Am I just chickenshit, or is this the kind of job you should really want to do to do well?

And yes, I’m aware this sounds whiny when unemployment is so high. These are good problems.

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The Kansan newsroom moved out of Stauffer-Flint and into Dole, where it will share a newsroom with KUJH TV. At first I was bummed about this because S-F wasn’t just a home away from home, it WAS home. Then I thought what better way to prepare the journalists of tomorrow for the harsh realities of media consolidation and cutbacks than to merge with KUJH (now known as Kansan TV) and gather news with 40% fewer students. Finally, I became pissed that they didn’t do this earlier. Had the newsroom been in Dole (which has nearby parking) when I was on the staff, maybe I could have avoided the $50 parking ticket I got while unloading studio lights after an ad shoot at Juicers. Freaking parking department. Fortunately the 2 male judges for my ticket appeal were amused by the circumstances surrounding my parking infraction, and let me off the hook.

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