Last night I went to Commonwealth to watch the Obama speech. They'd set up a television above the bathrooms and it was packed to the gills. The speech was received with much laughter and cheering and, all in all, it was one of those things that I'm glad that watched with a group of my fellow Americans.

The one weird note: after the speech a guy from the Obama campaign got up and made a little speech about how people could get involved. He acknowledged that NY state was just about guaranteed to go for Obama, but that there would be bustrips every weekend to Pennsylvania and other nearby swing states. Then, as he ended his little speech (and this ws a white guy) he tossed in the phrase inshallah. I was like, "whoa...what the fuck?" When you support a candidate who's suspected of being a crypto-Muslim, you don't go peppering your public speeches with arabic phrases.

Then, this morning, McCain announced his selection for the vice-presidential slot: Alaskan GILF Sarah Palin. McCain says that people should vote for him because of his judement and experience. This judgement and experience led him to select someone to be a heartbeat from the presidency who, two years ago, was the mayor of a 9,000 person community in Alaska. I think I can hear the champaign corks popping in the Obama campaign headquarters right now because McCain has just taken the "experience" issue off the table.

Looking at this, logically, there is no way the Democrats can lose the election. This is, however, the Democratic party and one should never underestimate their ability to lose elections they should win. Interestingly enough, there was a football game last night that perfectly illustrates the Democratic party of the last few elections: Oregon State-Stanford. Oregon State outgained the Cardinal 490 yards to 301, had 29 first downs to Stanford's 18, and lost 36 to 28.

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To get you in the mood for FIU, here's a great video with highlights from each of KU's games last season. There's Aqib somesaulting leap into the endzone from five yards out (with a great block by Derek Fine), there's Kendrick Harper nailing an Aggie running back on the option for a loss, and naturally there's highlights from the Orange Bowl.

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So this election feels totally weird. We don't get the campaign ads. We don't see the signs. We read about it in the paper or online, but it still feels like something that's happening... somewhere else. Which I guess is the case.

Here in Hong Kong we have our own election action going on. I passed a candidate for office the other day. He was bald and smiled a lot and kept shaking people's hands. I wanted to shake his hand, but I can't vote here. So he should have his shake for someone who matters. A shaker!

There's no president. The island has something called the "chief executive," which makes sense given how this place is dominated by business. Nobody votes for him. He's selected by a committee that's made up of members appointed by different professional and other groups, ranging from accountants to lawyers to religious groups to government officials to minority groups, as well as by geographical district. This means some people get to vote, say, three or four times. Example: You're a lawyer and member of the Hoklo boat people, and you live in Sham Shui Po and you're a Baptist? Four votes, baby. It's like Chicago, except the cops are trim.

I asked my co-workers to describe the election process to me and they laughed and laughed and laughed. Because basically, it boils down to the fact that Beijing calls the shots. And the communists are pretty shameless about it, too. So I'm not sure why people bother. I asked a local once why people don't get more offended, and he said Hong Kong has never been a democracy, considering the Brits weren't into the self-rule thing. Why start now?

It would be nice to be self-righteous here about the lack of democracy. Then I remember the electoral college, and keep my mouth shut.

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A couple of weeks ago, I went to a birthday party in Williamsburg that I was unaware was BYOB. Since, I showed up beerless, I ran down to the corner market and came across half liter cans of Carlsberg Elephant beer. Since I drank my fair share of Elephant beer in Germany as a teenager, I got a couple cans for old times sake and thoroughly enjoyed my night. Sure, it's malt liquor, but it's imported malt liquor.

Since then I've been going to the deli on 4th avenue at 17th street more frequently since it's the only place in the neighborhood that stocks Elephant beer. Behind the counter is Allam, a skinny Indian guy who always wears sleeveless t-shirts because it's hot as hell in there. Sitting in a chair nearby by is his portly comrade Roy (also South Asian), watching TV.

Friday

(Roy is watching the Nigeria-Argentina Olympic soccer match)

Roy:

Bah, black people have no discipline. They'll always lose. Look at that disorganized play. Let me tell you this: blacks have no discipline.

Me:

What about when they won the gold in 1996? Besides, this is a young team and young teams are always a little bit undisciplined. They're exciting though and I like their style of play. (The night before I'd run into an acquaintance of mine from the Sudan who's a soccer fan and he gave me a rundown on the Nigerian team)

Roy:

Bah, what do you know about soccer?

Sunday

(I walk in during a conversation between Allam, Roy and some random white guy customer)

Allam:

Obama's a Muslim. How can you vote for a Muslim to be president after the attacks on 9/11?

Dude:

...

Me:

What are you talking about? Obama's not Muslim. If anything he's too christian for me.

Allam:

His father was Muslim and he went to a Muslim school. He's Muslim.

Roy:

...and it's horrible that he won the nomination over Hillary Clinton. He doesn't have the experience. Let me tell you this: if Obama wins it will be the worst thing to happen to the United States.

Me:

He has plenty of experience. Bill Clinton didn't have an experience at the federal level when he won the White House. Obama at least has four years working in the Senate. That's something.

Roy:

Bill Clinton was governor in Arkansas for a long time, though. He had experience.

(This conversation continued in this vein for some time. It felt 15 minutes, but was probably more like 5. After these two conversations in quick succession, I found myself wondering how to deal with prejudice among immigrants and between other minority groups.)

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Of all the ways I might have expected my institution to make the national news, going trayless would not have been high on the list,

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I will be glad when the Olympics are over.

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So that's why there was a film crew outside the Cobble Hill Cinemas earlier this summer...

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The adorable two-headed turtle of Brooklyn has been stolen! The most interesting fact in the story: two-headed turtles are worth about $50.

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When Mr. Guapo and Dr. No come back from Hong Kong, will it be on a slow boat from China?

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"Rapid Growth Found in Oxygen-Starved Ocean 'Dead Zones'"

"Oh, that's good news," I thought, "things in dead zones are growing rapidly." It turns out, though, that scientists aren't finding rapid growth among things in the dead zones, but it's the dead zones that are rapidly growing.

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People in Dallas are wondering what should be done with a traumatized elephant. Here at norlos, we know (see first comment).

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The NYT has an article about how cities are turning to streetcars to ease congestion and spur economic development. As a cyclist, I am wholeheartedly against this trend. Anything that puts long narrow grooves in the street that run parallel to a bicycle's tires is bad news for us.

Madison has a lot of railroad tracks crossing the isthmus and I've seen a lot of cyclists crash and burn because they don't take enough care to approach the tracks perpendicularly. With street car tracks I could just some idiot in a car not paying attention to me and forcing me into them.

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I meant to post this last week, when we had an actual typhoon. Well, I'm busy. Sorry.

So Hong Kong was basically a couple of fishing villages until the Brits claimed it as theirs 150 years ago as a base for selling opium. Brits are now a very small minority of the city's population -- Filipinos, Americans and probably now Indonesians outnumber them -- but their influence is strong. It can be found in the extra "u"s you keep finding where they don't belong, like in "harbour." The Brit's version of Scrabble must have 17 "u"s.

That brings us to "Typhoon Signal No. 8 Has Been Hoisted," a sign you'll find in office buildings, apartment complexes, hotels and just about anyplace else there's people when a severe cyclone approaches.

A detour -- a cyclone is a tropical storm. When it gets to hurricane strength it becomes a typhoon. The international dateline is roughly the dividing line for what makes a hurricane and hurricane and a typhoon a typhoon.

So far I've seen one typhoon and one strongish cyclone, and they're kinda cool. Basically, horizontal rain. Hong Kong is usually spared direct hits because of the mountains on the south island and its position in the lee of the north. Still, they get wicked strong.

When they reach No. 8 level... well, ok, still gotta explain. Because No. 8 doesn't mean "holy shit! Cyclone Clay got upgraded to a No. 8 from a No. 7!" The numbers don't necessarily signify power. They used to signify direction. No. 8 meant they were coming from the southeast. It was changed a while back so that all typhoons are No. 8. Guess that cuts down on the confusion. Here are the various other symbols. Basically, most public transportation stops, the stock exchange closes, and people stay home. (Except me.)

So anyway, the "hoisted" -- I love it. Random weird Britishism. Why not just have a sign that says, "No. 8 Typhoon?" Nope. Gotta have a sign with an indirect subject -- who's doing the hoisting? Where? And why?

I hope it's someone's job to run up the nearby mountain and hosting a flight with a big number 8 on it.

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I'm going back to Lawrence for a football game this year and it's down to K-State or Texas. They're both in November, so the weather could either be nice or horrible for both of them. KSU is pretty much a guaranteed win against a hated rival so that game has that going for it. It's much less certain, however, that KU could win the UT game, but if they did it would be really cool to be there for it.

Opinions? Here's a great video by Micah Brown, who caught the pass on the fake punt. He's from Kearney, NE, which is where my sister was born and is the setting for Richard Powers' The Echo Maker:

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I'd never thought about FPs much before (full disclosure: I was a fan of New Coke and the clear cola fad of the early 1990s), but the continuing persistence of our zombie post has led me to pay an inordinate amount of attention to FPs. A similar situation occurred years ago when my friend Scott and I both attended a legislative hearing where there were a lot of disabled people. Afterwards I made an inoccuous comment like, "hey did you see that last woman to testify? She may have cerebral palsy, but she's still pretty hot."

Reni, Scott's wife, thought this was hilarious. Pretty soon, every time we saw a woman in a wheelchair or on crutches or whatever, Reni would turn to me and ask, "does she turn you on?" After about a year of this, everytime I saw a disabled woman I immediately evaluated her attractiveness and even developed a slight unconsummated fetish for disabled women.

Anyway, the constant return of the zombie post has led me to be extremely aware of FPs. On Friday, Marketplace had a story about a a museum of FPs in Ann Arbor. It's the property of Arbor Strategy Group, and it costs $5,000 to just walk through the door. Which, I just decided is the going rate for a list of FPs. Apparently in 2001, Arbor Strategy purchased the collection of our dear friend Robert McMath, who was the inspiration for the zombie thread, and moved the collection from Ithaca to Ann Arbor.

If you'd like to read more about

this is where you should go.

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I just can't bring myself to care about the John Edwards affair story. It seems like the media cares most about whether they should cover the story or not.

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The most impressive part -- the surviving members of Queen playing with 50 Chinese-born Freddie Mercury lookalikes. Class.

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TNR has a graphic feature called "They Refused To Go", a profile of the athletes who refused to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The piece implies that more athletes should have refused to participate in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

While I agree China is less than perfect on human rights issues, comparing the 2008 Olympics to the Olympics hosted by Hitler is way over the top in my opinion. Despite being a democracy, the United States has had its own human rights abuses then and today.

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Short, but sweet, short.

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Our stuff arrived today, fresh across the Pacific Ocean. About 70 boxes. They got their own cargo container. What in the industry they call a TEU. The 70 boxes probably filled about a tenth of the container.

Our cargo, carefully wrapped by a staff of international moving specialists, included a glove with no mate, several $3 Brooklyn bodega umbrellas, a broken bicycle helmet and a can of foot powder.

There was also a box labeled: "Head. VHS tapes. Books."

Inside there was, indeed, a head. The one made by the Texas Kid. The one made of an old piece of driftwood that looks like a head, if the head had been exposed to too much radiation, and which bears the original dentures of the artist. The one given to us by an old co-worker of Dr. No. The story began, "Don't ever go to an auction drunk."

I love the total lack of judgment. It's literal. It's descriptive. It's a friggin' head.

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There's no way around it -- this city has amazing food. Down the street there's a place called Dumpling Yuan, which sells donkey. I haven't tried the donkey. But eaten the pork dumplings and watched them made in the open air on a hot night. Sanitary? We all lived in Stephenson, right?

There's a soup place near my office that, for the equivalent of about $3.50, gives you a steaming bowl of beef slices, spicy broth, noodles and pickled vegetables. It's always crowded, the woman who hands it out is missing an eye and you end up slurping at the same small table with three total strangers, but the final product really can't be described with mere words. My belly is currently filled with Indian food (that's awesome here too) but just thinking about this place makes my mouth water. I'd link to a location or a review, but the name is all Chinesey and the best I can do is call it the "soup place."

Then there's Dr. No. Dr. No likes the Chinese chow, sure she does. But the girl can't live on that. Not at all. See, the girl's from Kansas.

Thursday night, we had burgers and Martinis. Friday night, we went to pretty much the only bar in our area (more on that at a later date), where she had bangers and mash. (I had the goa fish curry. It was nice.)

So today, for lunch, I thought somethng local might be in order. Maybe some char shui. Maybe some dim sum. Heck, the one-eyed soup lady's not a bad option, either.

The girl wants bar food. Bar food.

All this is to say that hamburgers and bar food are the closest thing Americans have to a true cultural food. Perhaps Dan Ryans, the Hong Kong ethnic restaurant whose ethnicity is American, puts its best when they serve you their burger, which might be the best in town:

Oh yes. Americans: We conquered the burger. Mission accomplished.

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