Some for girls too

The author of this website, "1001 rules for my unborn son", is only up to the 300's but I'm looking forward to the rest- a few of the aforementioned rules, which mostly encourage the child to look snappy, be nice to ladies and in particular his mother, and embrace a certain amount of mischief-hit home for me too. Especially #249-Identify your most commonly used word or phrase, and eliminate it.

Let them drink Pepsi?

Ethiopia is running out of Coca-Cola! Actually they can't switch to Pepsi- it's not the drink they're low on, it's the imported bottle tops.

BBC: Ethiopia hit by Coca-Cola drought

One man dance-a-thon

Videos of people doing goofy dances are a dime a dozen but I thought this one-of a guy dancing to snippets of his 100 favorite songs- showed impressive planning. Sure, "Where the Hell is Matt?" was shot in slightly more exotic locales; but I think the sight of this kid shaking his moneymaker with amazing vigor in bathrooms, hallways, and what appears to be his parents' living room has its own charm. It's about 10 minutes and you might be tempted to conclude around song #45 that you've seen all there is to see; but I urge you stick with it.

Studio360 blog: Guaranteed to improve your Monday
Ely Kim: Boombox

Heist story

This Wired article about a robbery from a diamond vault in Antwerp has twists and turns that put Ocean's 11 to shame. I won't list each one, but as a big fan of preserved meats I got a kick out of the role played by a salami sandwich.

Wired: The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist
Kottke: Wired diamond heist piece optioned

Modern Seamster

With magazines closing left and right, is the market really ripe for another quirky DIY publication? I hope so. The premier issue of Modern Seamster is available for free, and the diagrams, guides and advice column look very handy for beginners.

Modern Seamster

Music to work by

Since I started working from home I've been listening to KCRW a lot. "Morning Becomes Eclectic" is a bit of a misnomer because on the east coast it airs from 12 to 3 p.m., but this show plays a lot of really fun interesting music that's perfect background when I want to drown out the garbage trucks but my task is too complicated for me to listen to people talking. When I'm working a little bit late I like Evening Music on WNYC, but that's even more narrowly suited to be in background -if I was listening to it in the car there's a chance I'd zone out and drive off the road.

The Last Days of Old Beijing

When I was in China, one day after a field trip (was it to the marriage bureau or the prison?) a classmate invited me to her host parents' nearby home in a hutong. I begged off, saying I had to study for a test. That was partly true. The other part was that I felt deep anxiety about the trip back to my dorm, which would require multiple buses and subways and probably a lot of asking for directions that I wouldn't be able to understand. I regretted it almost immediately and feel that even more acutely now that I've read this book by Michael Meyer about the Beijing government's systematic destruction of these neighborhoods. Meyer first came to China as a Peace Corps volunteer, as did the New Yorker's Beijing bureau chief Peter Hessler; and his account of his salt-of-the-earth neighbors and the whirlwind changes taking place around them reminded me a lot of Hessler's excellent books River Town and Oracle Bones. The salt-of-the-earth neighbors are interesting, but I thought the most fascinating part was the changing status of Beijing as a city with each wave of Chinese history culminating in the national fervor caused by the Olympics. This snippy article about Americans' lack of interest in reading books about other countries unless they were written by Americans made me feel a little sheepish about reading this book instead of one on the same topic by a Chinese author, but Meyer's book indicates that gathering research on this topic was not the simplest task logistically or politically so I'm glad I didn't wait until such a book appears in translation and available through the DC public library system.

Giant Hammock

Looks so fun! But I bet change is always falling out of pockets onto the people below.

Apartment Therapy: Try This At Home? Giant Net for Hanging Out