[Goood speling, by lance webel]

Ironically, the words “Bilingual”, “Experimental”, and “School” are all spelled incorrectly on these uniforms at Rick’s school in Zhuzhou, Hunan.

And “Gofront” isn’t a word either. I love it!

I just found a hilarious new game called Five Minutes To Kill (Yourself). If you don’t like inane office violence, don’t play it. If you do, try to beat my score (2:03)!

Two buckets of freshly-made incense sticks dry in the warm evening sun outside of a temple’s incense factory in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta area.

Several students in one of my classes weren’t listening or participating today, so after a few warnings and a lot of patient waiting, I simply packed up my things and walked out. I wasn’t going to waste their time or let them waste any more of mine … and I hoped that after the initial shock, the kids who actually cared would use the last five minutes to lay some smack down on the ones who were being rude.

I think it might have worked. Just before going to bed tonight, I received this email:

Dear teacher Lance:

We are the students in Class18,we are using Holmes’ E-mail to say sorry,we talked too much in your class,we were too excited.We promise,we won’t talk too much in your class again,we will be quiet when you are teaching,and we know you are the only teacher in the class,we are not.We all miss you,please back,please come back next Thursday.

Sincerely
students in class 18

Here was my response:

Holmes (and friends),

Don’t worry, I am not angry at all. I even said that during class. I am just disappointed, because so many students in your class want to improve their English and have fun, but every week I spend half of your class time waiting for a few students to stop talking. So we never get to the fun games and funny videos (because I always do them last)!

I’ll tell you a secret … your class’s English is very good, so at the beginning of the school year I used the Junior 3 lesson instead of the Junior 2 lesson. But recently, I have had to treat the students in your class like Junior 1 kids instead … if the rudeness continues, I will start using the Junior 1 lesson instead too. And that will be terribly boring for most of you!

Let’s try again next week, ok? I will come ready to teach, and please help your classmates come ready to learn. It’s really simple!

:),
Lance

The score is tied, 88 to 88, with .6 seconds left in this NCAA game … and the yellow team hits the winning free throw!

Or does it …

A Hasidic Jewish rabbi in Spring Valley, NY has converted an old school bus into a huge oven. He attached it to his house’s gas lines, added a smokestack and exhaust fans, then proceeded to make thousands of pieces of Passover matzo bread for his congregation.

When the police came to check out a neighbor’s complaint, they found the bus illegally attached to the house. In the video, one of the officers joked, “It’s my first matzo bust!”

Even better, the rabbi said that he had bought the bus from someone who changed it into a home and into a race car carrier.

Now that’s sweet … it totally reminds me of Geri, my first car. Geri is a van that was used in a variety of “creative ways” before being converted into a paintball tank at PVM. Hmm … a pizza oven. Why didn’t I think of that?

A Chinese bus manufacturer just introduced this 25 meter long “Superliner” at a convention called “Busworld Asia 2007″. This 300 passenger beauty will be operating in Beijing and Hangzhou. And in true Chinese fashion, they’re claiming that it’s the world’s longest bus.

But comments further down the page show that these buses are probably manufactured in Germany and shipped to China in a kit. They’re also common in France, Holland, Colombia, England, Germany, Brazil, and even Kazahkstan … and Australia reportedly has buses (called “road trains”) that are up to 53 meters long!

So much for those bold claims of world supremacy …

[Pale pail, by lance webel]

When I was in Laos, I accidentally hit a button on my camera that changed the exposure, messing up the colors on about a dozen images. But I really like the effect that my mistake had on this shot … I think this girl is adorable in any light!

“How do I feel about syndication? A long time ago Jeffrey Zeldman said something to this effect:

Q: If you offered an RSS feed, I could read your stuff without visiting your site.
A: If you stored your groceries on the sidewalk, we could eat your food without sitting across the table from you.

I’m not going to force you to, but come sit at my table and we can have jolly good time.”

– Matthew Mullenweg

I agree wholeheartedly. Although I offer RSS feeds on my posts, comments, and photos, I really like it when my visitors actually come to see me. Welcome!

Special Note: Welcome to all of you who are visiting from the Land of Broken Hearts … enjoy your stay at webeldotnet!

It’s strange to say it … but one of the big unexpected blessings that I had this year in China was the discovery of podcasts. Essentially, podcasts are regular automatic downloads of audio and video content … I personally receive and organize mine in iTunes.

Because China is so cut off from the rest of the world, it’s been refreshing to have so much firsthand access to media from around the world on a regular basis. So, without further ado, here are my favorites, in alphabetical order.

1. Alive in Baghdad - A grassroots video publication with the inside scoop on daily life in Iraq.
2. Around the Net - Collects the best of the web’s videos with some hilarious (though not always clean) commentary.
3. Ask A Ninja - It’s funny and satirical, but this video podcast does start to get a little repetitive after a while.
4. ESPN: PTI - The best sports roundup out there mixed with some awesome bickering and fantastic opinions.
5. Four Corners Church - Relevant and inspirational messages from my home church in Cincinnati.
6. NBC Nightly News - This daily video news broadcast is the cream of the crop … it includes the top stories of the day and some interesting features as well.
7. NPR: 7PM ET News Summary - A quick download, his five minute audio podcast always starts the day off by keeping me informed about life outside the Great Firewall.
8. NPR: Car Talk’s Call of the Week - You can’t beat Click and Clack, the Tappit brothers … they’re the funniest and smartest car mechanics out there!
9. Strong Bad Emails & More! - The best cartoon podcast, it packages Homestarrunner’s glass-is-half-empty cohort in a geekily satisfying package.
10. SWITCHFOOT Video Podcast - These guys are funny and relevant and their “touring with the band” style works better than any of the others out there.
11. Taking the Walk - Hanson - In this video podcast, these boys are now grown up and trying to take on the music industry by recording and publishing their music independently. Yes, that’s right … Hanson.
12. Talkin’ Funny Videocast - Sasha and the Noob, two fellow Miami grads, host this hilarious weekly public access show in Chicago.
13. The Official LOST Podcast - The creators of this popular ABC show reveal secrets, take fanmail, and generally make fun of each other and the show itself.
14. The Onion Radio News - The funniest of all, this quick download is bound to make you LOL with its hilarious fake headlines and stories.
15. the show with zefrank - This guy’s biting humor, unique style, and amazing ability to generate community on the Internet has made it one of my favorites … even though the show’s one-year expiration date has come, it’s still worth browsing the archives.
16. This Holiday Life - Video Journal - I love seeing how these college friends, who recently signed with 7 Spin Records, develop as people and as a band.

In the runup to next year’s Olympic Games, Beijing has made a number of calls for transparency, claiming that the media will be as free and unrestricted as it has been in past Olympic festivals. But their “transparency” comes in a strange format … they are demanding that all mainland media outlets “toe the party line” by following a strict non-coverage list of unpublishable topics and words.

In early February, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda department also established a points system to penalize and/or shut down print operations who don’t comply with their regulations. Editors at the Beijing News, the Southern Metropolis News and the Public Interest Times have been fired, and a publication called the Bingdian was also recently shut down.

In late February, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television’s Propaganda Administration Department released a directive banning the media coverage of twenty sensitive issues. These issues included the anti-rightist campaign, the Cultural Revolution, the ongoing anti-corruption campaign, the media freedom debate, legal and rights protection campaigns, the Nanking massacre, Russia’s October Revolution, judicial corruption, activists’ campaigns to protect individual rights, sexual crimes, the aristocratic lifestyle of high-income groups, and affairs with mistresses.

Even the TV has been hit … mainland authorities recently gave an order to 48 national channels to throw out their original programming and instead reserve their primetime evening slots exclusively for dramas that “show China in a positive light”. Each station is now required to submit its proposed lineup one month before broadcast so it could face a gauntlet of assessment stages, culminating in a review by the central government’s propaganda department.

In Shandong province, the city government of Pingdu just released a document that commands departments, organizations and officials to censor their publications and interviews. The document demanded that they decrease “negative reporting” and promised to tie end-of-year appraisals to how sucessfully each entity blocked negative news.

[South China Morning Post] Investigative reporter Wang Keqin said the Pingdu document showed local officials were scared of the increased transparency brought by a more open media environment because “only bad things need covering up, and only guilty officials fear publicity”.

Yep, that about sums it up.

On March 7th, A pickup truck in Billings, Montana drove through a red light, narrowly missed another truck, took a U-turn through a gas station, crossed the street, and crashed into a light pole.

“Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.”

Uh … ok.

—–
Update (3/27 at 8am):
Kelli has found the answer to this weird story.

I’ve been running now for a couple of weeks … and things are actually going pretty well. Yesterday I did my first “long run” … six miles total … and I finished in under an hour! Now if I can only stop eating so much …

I’ve also sent in my registration and payment for the Great Wall Marathon and bought my plane ticket for that fateful weekend less than two months from now. It was a step of faith … shelling out so much money without even having the details of the fundraiser established … but I’m really hoping that something will fall into place. I had originally hoped to put together a partnership with the track team that I coached in Cincinnati, but it doesn’t seem that it will be working out. I haven’t heard back from anyone there in two weeks.

So instead, I’ve put together a website where people can securely donate to the cause online. All of the proceeds go directly to Love Without Boundaries, an organization that helps orphans in my city, Loudi. My hope is to raise about $650, but at this point that seems next to impossible. I guess that all I can do is hope … and continue to train.

Check it out … and think about sponsoring me in the race. I’ll be your best friend forever!