Are you ready for 2008?

ARE YOU??

Yes, you are, because you're voting Imperato/Brooks! The West Palm Beach candidate. Go, locals! Go, uh, Vatican!

Actually, Knights of Columbus clipart aside, he's not nearly nutty enough to be a genuine Florida candidate. I mean, Katherine Harris, the goofnut terrorist paintball army... more

I'm not sure how I feel about this new musical phenomenon profiled in Salon. Or how it is that I've sort of missed the boat on it.

from the article: After the birth of his daughter, Anna, in 1995, [Dan] Zanes [former lead singer of the Del Fuegos] was casting around to find some really good music that the whole family could enjoy. A trip to the local Tower Records left the Brooklyn, N.Y., musician empty-handed: "Everything was tied into TV shows... more

Make the tea properly (it's good kung fu!) and you will enjoy it more (I really like the idea of a tea ceremony based on personal emptiness, actually).

Gong fu tea ceremony:

The brewing pot is filled with boiling water. The water is then transferred in turn to the tea pitcher, the aroma cups (if used), and finally to the serving cups...... more

OK, so I'm late to the party. I've just found this Sarah McLachlan video, which utterly delights me for existing.

It's a pretty brutal piece of perspective on one level, and I like to imagine there's some record company exec who's steaming mad at McLachlan but unable to do anything about it (I know, I know, but let me live with the fantasy).

As far as I can tell, the thing's more than a year old, but I'm not really a McLachlan fan.

It's still... current. There's more on how it got made over here:

Muller captured... more

Chinese Coke makes video geeks very happy.

If you're unfamiliar with World of Warcraft, that won't make a lick of sense.

Saving Face, directed by Alice Wu, starring Michelle Krusiec, Lynn Chen and Joan Chen.

I can't understand how this movie got made. I mean, I thought it was brilliant -- funny, insightful, sharp -- but still. It's a lesbian comedy of manners filmed half in Mandarin. Apparently, Will "Fresh Prince of I, Robot" Smith anted up the money after reading the script because it was just that good.

This is not one for those of you with little kids to be watching before bedtime, unless you really like answering awkward questions about... more

Faithful readers (all five of you, hi, mom, I'll bring the grandkids by later this week) will recall my ambiguous feelings regarding Mulan what with the Disneyfication and all.

Well, Hollywood is kicking it up a notch. The gorgeous Zhang Ziyi (last seen being pretend-Japanese in Memoirs of a Geisha) has ... more

So, browsing the adoption.com newswire brings this humble subtropical typist grim tidings of the latest humiliation for Florida's Department of Children and Families.

Sometimes people ask me why we didn't adopt domestically, and I just give a rough overview of the Rilya Wilson story. Various family members have been intimately familiar with the inner workings of the Department... more

Or not, as the case may be.

The Collective Unconscious offers me these morsels:

Ken, Ellen & Bei say they're already grieving because they're preparing to leave China next month. They're not grieving alone. Those photographs are memorable, and their situation is inspirational. One of my favorite English teachers. Prowling for leads for the day job nets me two... more

I like old pictures.

I like China.

I really like this blog, which is all old pictures of China.

It hasn't been updated recently, but still. Gorgeous stuff. Taken by the blogger's grandparents between 1910 and 1937.

More of his pictures are here, part of this archive of old images of China.

For those of you simply sick and tired of China (or who enjoy nightmare scenarios of what-to-expect-while-traveling), check... more