I first saw this t-shirt years ago. I was like, "I don't get it. I don't think it's funny." Then, the other day, somebody mentioned owls and I thought, "owls are assholes." All of a sudden I saw the humor.

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The Bacon Explosion was born shortly before Christmas in Roeland Park, Kan., in Jason Day’s kitchen. He and Aaron Chronister, who anchor a barbecue team called Burnt Finger BBQ, were discussing a challenge from a bacon lover they received on their Twitter text-messaging service: What could the barbecuers do with bacon?

At the same time, Mr. Chronister wanted to get attention for their Web site, BBQAddicts.com. More traffic would bring in more advertising income, which they needed to fund a hobby that can cost thousands of dollars.

Mr. Day, a systems administrator who has been barbecuing since college, suggested doing something with a pile of sausage. “It’s a variation of what’s called a fattie in the barbecue community,” Mr. Day said. “But we took it to the extreme.”

He bought about $20 worth of bacon and Italian sausage from a local meat market. As it lay on the counter, he thought of weaving strips of raw bacon into a mat. The two spackled the bacon mat with a layer of sausage, covered that with a crunchy layer of cooked bacon, and rolled it up tight.

They then stuck the roll — containing at least 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat — in the Good-One Open Range backyard smoker that they use for practice. (In competitions, they use a custom-built smoker designed by the third member of the team, Bryant Gish, who was not present at the creation of the Bacon Explosion.)

Mr. Day said his wife laughed the whole time. “She’s very supportive of my hobby,” he said.

The New York Times.

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The KU basketball and volleyball teams were on the SI.com Hot Clicks as the High School Musical Video of the Day. The Sports Video of the Day right above it is pretty sweet.

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It is now the Year of the Ox. We know this because the city is covered with goofy oxen. Like this:

Quick Chinese lesson:

The word for "ox" and "cow" is the same: 牛, or niu(2). Remember our lesson on tones? That means it's pronounced like "nee-you?" So it sorta sounds like "new." Hence the pun of the title, which is popular in the mainland.

You can do cool stuff with niu(2). "Niu(2) rou(4)" is "cow meat," or beef. A buffalo is shui(3) niu(2)," or "water ox." And then there's "niu(2)zai(3)ku(4)," or literally "cowboy pants," for "jeans."

"Rou(4)," or meat, is a cool word too. You use it in the name the Chinese give to the online lynch mobs you find there: ren(2) rou(4) sou(2) suo(3) yin(3) qin (2), or literally "person meat search search homophone-for-'engine.'" ("Yin(3) qin(2)" sounds like "engine.") Put it all together and you get "human flesh search engine." Take some time to read that link, if you can. China has Internet weirdos that make ours seem well-adjusted.

Back to the niu:

People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed. They are most compatible with Snake, Rooster, and Rat people.

I've known a few people like that.

By the way, everything I just told you about Chinese might be wrong. I've had three lessons, homes.

We conclude with a photo of actress Zhang Ziyi and her ox:

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HT: Gowanus Lounge

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I caught Martha Clarke's Garden of Earthly Delights yesterday. The dance piece is inspired by the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch and, while I take rave reviews of dance works with a grain of salt, it's simply amazing. The video above begins to give a sense of the piece, but the intense music in the promo makes the dance seem more like Cirque du Soleil than it actually was. The orchestration for the performance is generally much more minimal and, well, creepy.

Dinner was at Black Mountain Wine House, a place that I think will be added to my regular rotation of restaurants.

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Annual Groundhog Day party upcoming on Saturday, Feb. 7.
Limited space available in our guest bedroom, reserve now so you can drink blue groundhogs and win pin the shadow on the groundhog at your leisure.

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It's part of the Obama/Unicorn meme. Here's BK's Justice of the Unicorns who can help you if you born a unicorn.

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I don't often take the F train since I stopped working at 42nd St., but the other day I noticed some new grafitti on the Bat Cave...

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In Mandarin, the word for electricity is "dian(4)," or 电. You combine it with another symbol to get the word for common appliances. Example: "Telephone" is "dian(4) hua(4)" which is literally "electric voice." "Computer" is "dian(4) nao(3)," which is "electric brain."

The word for "movie" is "dian(4) ying(3)," which is literally "electric shadow." I'm in love with the phrase.

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While I was in Africa, it was either on Christmas Day or the day after, an electrical fire started in the basement of Reyes Deli. The buildings on either side are structurally OK, but there was some damage to 534. Nadine and Sarah were forced to evacuate with their cat in the middle of the night, but their apartment is undamaged except where for the lock broken by the firefighters. Charlie and Nellie's apartment apparently suffered more damage and they're staying with relatives right now.

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Dr. No and I had our first of 40 Chinese lessons today. We're in for a brain buster.

Here's how Mandarin works:

1) It has four tones.

The first (1) is just high and flat. Talk like David Byrne sings.

The second (2) starts low and rises, like the word has a question mark at the end.

The third (3) starts up, goes down and comes up again. It sounds a lot like the second, but longer. Think of somebody coming across a prime example of charismatic macrofauna and saying, "AWWwwwWWW!"

The fourth (4) starts high and comes down. Think of words! That! End! In! Exclaims! Or of William Shatner.

2) Chinese has no gender. Ta(1) means "him." It also means "her."

3) Wanna count to ten?

yi(1) = one
er(4) = two, or liang(3), depending on if it's a digit or a quantity
san(1) = three
si(4) = four (believe it or not, this sounds like "sooey")
wu(3) = five
liu(4) = six
qi(1) = seven (you pronounce this "chee")
ba(1) = eight
jiu(3) = 9
shi(2) = 10 (sounds like "sher?")

After that, you combine numbers, so shi(2) liu (4), which is 10 and 6, becomes 16.

Going higher? Wu(3) (5) Shi(2) (10) and san(1) (3) gets you "53."

Being British is "ying(1) guo(2) ren(2)" which when you say it fast sounds like "YING-go-Ren?" or "England." American is "mei(3) guo(2) ren(2)."

OK, tired now.

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Because it's never too early for pre-season rankings.

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It's time to acknowledge the blog roll on the right side of the blog is out of date. Clearly ThinMan has thrown away his bicycle chain and now drives an eight-cylinder GMC Denali. Mrs. Soul has returned from Down Under. (Plantnerd and E awesomely keeps their blogs current, thankyouverymuch.)

Mrs. Soul, what's the URL for your usual blog?

Anybody else got one to add?

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At the end of 2008 this single was higher on the UK charts than my girl Katy Perry:

Wham! is also made a seasonal comeback in the UK:

i keep it real and my ladies do the same
high class chicks that be crazy in the brain
style so mean, swag is vicious
smile O.D., ass delicious
stay gettin money no need for ebay
my heart is all world but im lovin BK

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Vote for Baby Mangino as Deadspin's Sports Human of the Year. Whenever I'm feeling down, I just look at Baby Mangino and he takes the pain away.

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In fixing the blog last night, came across this post. DoubleOh's comment = prescient.

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I happily was given an eMusic membership for Christmas. Kind of like the K-Tel of the internet age, pickings can be a little slim for popular releases. But at 150 downloads for $25, it's hard to beat. So I've been having fun looking for the good stuff. A little Akon, a little Chuck Berry, Miriam Makeba, Old 97s, and the first album released by Billy Preston. If anyone can pull off naming a debut "The Most Exciting Organ Ever" it's him. And I'd say he more or less pulls it off.

The best part? His record label for TMEOE? VJ Records.

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• A Kansas Relays baseball shirt from kusports.com
• A 2006 adidas Kansas baseball-style football shirt, with scheduled home games against Texas A&M, Colorado, Oklahoma State and Kansas State. KU beat Colorado and K-State in a season that many fans believe actually began the run of Mangino-led footbally goodness that resulted in back-to-back bowl wins, one in the motherfrakkin' Orange Bowl.

Passed up:

• A 2003 Final Four T-shirt. It was black, and I prefer not to remember.
• A UMKC 'Roos intramural champion T-shirt.

The proprietor of the thrift store told us that all the shirts came via Thailand, where they began life as T-shirts and had long sleeves attached to make them baseball shirts. It's a small world.

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Where did you watch the game?

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