Category: Uncategorized

Chinese city bans spitting to combat SARS. I’ve got no idea if this’ll help with the disease, but could Chinese officials please consider making this ban permanent and nationwide? I’ve spent about five weeks in China, and I don’t think there was a single day I wasn’t a few inches away from an errant sputum missile. It made those eight-hour bus rides particularly fun; by the end, the bus floors would be coated with loogies.
Speaking of Chinese hygiene, one of the few times I’ve been truly disgusted was at a wet market like the one Laurie Garrett writes about. I mean seriously — ewwww. I hope to never see animals gutted, their entrails spread out on dirty pavement, and then prepared for human consumption again. The flies, the blood, the filth — quite a spectacle. (Other than that, Songpan was quite nice.)

The definition of bad luck.

Why I make better mix CDs than Mick Jagger. Um, maybe.

Monkeyphonecall.com. When I learned of this site, I was amused and strangely excited — there is actually a person, somewhere in this world, who for the low cost of $10 will call up anyone you’d like and make monkey noises.
Then I noticed this on the FAQ page:
Question: What name and number will show up on my caller ID when Monkeyphonecall.com calls? Answer: It will either say anonymous number, blocked number, unknown, or possibly “Elvis Ulrich” from the 214 area code.
214! 214 is Dallas! I had to investigate further.
A quick Googling found that there is indeed an Elvis Ulrich in Dallas, at 5200 Martel Avenue. Then checking the whois entry for monkeyphonecall.com gave me this:
Registrant:
Lars Hundley
5200 Martel Ave #6Q
Dallas, Texas 75206
United States
Whether Elvis and Lars are roommates or it’s a Jekyll/Hyde thing is still to be determined. But another quick Googling lets us know that monkeyphonecall.com is not Lars’ only online business:
Lars Hundley received his entrepreneurial epiphany while mowing the lawn. It wasn’t his lawn; it was his landlord’s. But Hundley was responsible for mowing it, and gosh darn it if he was going to spend $1,000 or more on some gas-belching mower to cut grass he didn’t even own. Hundley bought the cheapest push reel mower he could find, an $89 Home Depot special. Then he started mowing. He couldn’t believe how easy it was.
It’s not as though Hundley, 31, had always dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur. “If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be in retail selling lawn mowers, I would have laughed you off the planet,” he says…
Three years later Hundley’s site, CleanAirGardening.com, is the number one online U.S. dealer of Brill push reel mowers, a top-of-the-line German brand.
To sum up: On the streets of Dallas walks a man who is both a giant of the online lawn mower sales industry — and a man who shrieks like a monkey to strangers for cash.
I love this town.
Addendum: We learn from that last link that Lars has a “10-inch cardboard Elvis” in his home office. Of course, the most famous Lars in this country is Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica. So my guess is Elvis Ulrich is just a facade — perhaps the name of the “sleeping border collie” mentioned in the story, the one he takes to White Rock Lake? Lars, if you’re out there, clear this all up!

Here’s my story from today’s front page, on parents scrambling to prepare for college tuition hikes. If you’re in Texas and you’ve got young kids, May 23 is an important deadline for you.
Here’s why you shouldn’t drop out of high school, kids. (I love that the web page files video of people suffering crippling injury under the “Entertainment” category.)

Watch tomorrow’s front page for a story of mine and — much more importantly — one of the cutest kid photos you’ve seen.

Here’s my story from today’s front page, on proposed changes to the federal Head Start program.
By the way, eBay wrote me back to say my account had been improperly accessed by someone else to do bad things. All I had to do was change my password. Not good, since I (like a bad boy!) use the same two passwords for everything.
How male or female is your brain?
This is the best story I’ve seen yet on Jayson Blair’s downfall.

Hilarious: Unused audio commentary by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, recorded summer 2002, for The Fellowship of the Ring (Platinum Series Extended Edition) DVD. An excerpt:
Zinn: Well, power needs to have its proxies. That way the damage is always deniable. As long as the Hobbits have the ring, no one will ever question the plot Gandalf has hatched. So here is the big scary ring, and all that happens when Gandalf moves to touch it is that he sees a big flaming eye. And notice it is a

“jbenton-at-toast.net is Suspended from eBay: You have been suspended from eBay because our records indicate your account was involved in activities that violate our policies.”
Um…okay. I’m very curious what someone has been doing with my account. (I haven’t bought anything on eBay in many months, and I’ve never sold anything there.)

Here’s my column from yesterday’s paper, on whether or not standardized tests should be timed. Look closely and you’ll find (gasp!) an actual opinion!
Also, I should be on TXCN tomorrow afternoon for a story in Thursday’s paper.
Finally, perhaps if I link to Kelly’s site enough in advance of her Sunday birthday, perhaps she’ll update her blog.