I might have been around the first or second grade, and naughty songs sung to Christmas carols dominated playground time. There's the old chestnut "Jingle bells, batman smells, Robin laid an egg." I don't really remember the others, except for one that's kinda weird: It was sung to the tune of "Jingle Bells," but was about fighting Germans. I remember only the last three lines: "Look them Russkies win/We're heading into Red Christmas/Marching through Berlin."

Only many years later did it hit me that this was a 30-40 year-old song, if it was ever a song then. How did a bunch of kids around 1980 come to sing a Second World War song?

Ethel Merman has a song called "Marching Through Berlin."

Comments (1)

A co-worker calls the holiday "lame." I prefer to think of it as "old school."

It's one of the biggest holidays in Hong Kong. You make tang yuan (stuffed rice balls) have the family over and celebrate with lots of food and family.

We took a Korean friend out for Buffalo wings.

As I recall from last year, Hong Kong malls and stores play Christmas songs until Chinese New Year, which this year is in February. Shoot me now.

Comments (0)

Comments (2)

on saturday I came across my keffiyeh from the early 1990s. i decided to wear it for old times sake, but failed to consider where i was going: a hanukkah party.

Comments (0)

hey garmr, are you familiar with the steampunk movement? i just learned about it today when i came across this bit about's Pratt electrical plant.

My discovery of steampunk today directly led to my discovery of utilikilts.

Comments (2)

I was reading this article about the influence of birthorder on behavior when I noticed that the research was done at a place called the University of Montpellier 2. Those wacky French and their weird university names.

I do propose renaming Kansas State University to KU2, however.

Comments (0)

Dr. No and I landed yesterday afternoon at the Kuala Lumpur airport, which is about 45 minutes outside the city itself. Big industrial city. The Petronas towers are pretty cool:

We met up with our friend Jeff at the hotel -- Tune, it's called. "The Internet's favorite hotel" is their slogan. The Internet must like closet-sized rooms and gaps between the doors that the Malaysian soccer team can fit through.

Now we're in Penang Island, in a place called Georgetown. I just finished eating the world's best butter chicken. At night, we can hear the Filipino cover singers serenading the indifferent open-air food court audience next door.

Our hotel ranks in the top five of cool places we've stayed: Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, named after a wealthy Chinese industrialist around the turn of the last century as a perfectly feng shui-compliant mansion. The aircon kept triggering the circuit breaker in our old room -- named Fragrant Poem, how did they know I would someday stay there? -- so they upgraded us to the "Old Kitchen," which is indeed the mansion's old kitchen.

More later.

Comments (0)

Odysseus Erasmus Brown was born on Friday, December 4th at 9:49 p.m.
He weighed 6 lbs 14 oz, measured 20" long and had a 15" head! He's a
very long and skinny guy with a big head.

Elinor and Odysseus are both healthy and happy, doing great. Beatrix had hoped for (i.e., demanded) a baby sister, so she's still adjusting to having a little boy in the family.

Photos on flickr

Comments (6)

To make up for it, here an image of the world's best bar poster. From always seedy, always sticky Wan Chai in Hong Kong. Look for the word "attack."

Comments (0)

Deer