Month: May 2004

…in one image: “Police on motorscooters attempt to pull over an ostrich who escaped from a children’s petting zoo, Sunday, May 9, 2004, in Taipei, Taiwan. The ostrich eluded capture. (AP Photo/Lin Sheng-fa)”

In the spirit of the exceptional “Kill Bill Vol. 1,” which I can’t believe I waited until last night to see, I give you Donald Rumsfeld’s Fighting Techniques. Hilarious.

Here’re some Weblogs I’ve come across recently; they’re all new to me and they’re all excellent. Check ’em out:

—Thomas Locke Hobbs’s photoblog;
—written road blog: “the inside scoop to jen leo’s travel publishing world”;
—Matthew J. Stinson: “Sober essays, caustic rants, and random jottings on politics, economics, current events, and life in general from an American expat living and teaching in Tianjin, China”;
—35togo: “an ongoing project to record and share the daily sights and sounds of the life I witness in Asia”;
—Scott Sommers’ Taiwan Weblog: “A forum for the discussion of scholarly opinions on issues related to language and language education with a particular emphasis on Taiwan and East Asia”;
—Taiwan Tiger, by a fellow Kaohsiung resident (don’t miss the Taiwan food gallery and the images of nighttime scooter riding);
—Belmont Club: views on the war in Iraq;
—LondonBlog (where I found this unbelievable photo of French goalkeeper Fabien Barthez);
—IdleThreats: by my pal Russell W.;
—PeterMaass.com; an acclaimed journalist’s thoughts on covering the Iraq war;

Also, here’re some Web sites and Weblogs I’ve been reading for a while; they’ve been especially great of late:

—The Black Table: entertaining writing all the time;
—CommonCraft: practical tips on Internet strategies for individuals and organizations;
—Winterspeak.com: thoughts on economics and technology;
–And, finally, a few well-known blogs that’ve been on fire recently: BoingBoing; Defective Yeti; Jason Kottke; and Anil Dash.

Last summer, when I returned to the US from Ecuador for a visit, several of my friends gave me an incredible homecoming gift: an apron signed by some of the best competitive eaters in the world, guys like Ed “Cookie” Jarvis, Eric “Badlands” Booker, and John “Crazy Legs” Conti.

Now Miles B. (via Susie) sends along this exciting news regarding one of the formidable men whose signatures I now hold close to my heart:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – To mark the premiere on Tuesday of a film about his life as a competitive eater, Crazy Legs Conti is trying to eat his way out of a telephone booth-size structure filled with popcorn.

Conti, 33, donned a diving mask and snorkel on Tuesday inside the lobby of the Manhattan movie theater that will show the film and lowered himself into a “popcorn sarcophagus,” a wooden, windowed structure, to begin munching.

A “popcorn sarcophagus.” I love it.

…I wanna be like this guy.

Them’s the drinkin’ rules at Honkey Tonk, a bar here in Kaohsiung where we spent a week Saturday night. You read that right: for about 15 smackers–or just 300 New Taiwan dollars (around 9 bones) if you’re a member of the fairer sex–you can drink all you can handle between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m. The only catch: you’re fined about 6 bucks if you puke. A bar operating in the US with those rules would go belly up inside of a week. A pub in Boston, approximately 33 minutes.

I’ve finally gotten around to posting a bunch of images from our September travels in Peru and Bolivia, as well as some photos of our surroundings here in Taiwan.

One of my favorites is this shot of Lake Titicaca seen through a crumbling wall.