Amazing Race In Vietnam

I’ve been watching The Amazing Race since about season 3. I love the exotic places they travel to and the occasional complete ineptness of the contestants. My wife has drifted away from the show, but this week I made her watch since they traveled to Hanoi.

My family visited Hanoi last year as part of our whirlwind vacation through Vietnam. I have an entire separate blog about that trip called Asia Trip 2005. The blog is pretty much on hiatus right now since I have covered most of the pictures of Vietnam from my Flickr account. I have a lot of video footage from the trip and I will post some short clips if I ever find the time.

The traffic in Hanoi was as bad as the show made it out to be. There are very few traffic signals and most vehicles don’t stop for anything. Like one team observed, crossing a street is an enormous game of Frogger. You just start crossing and dodge scooters until you get to the other side. If anything, the footage in the Old Quarter didn't quite capture the crowded chaos of the markets.

We did not go to the “Hanoi Hilton” prison like the Amazing Racers did. My father was an F-4 pilot during Vietnam and knows people that spent time as prisoners of war. We were wanting to see Vietnam as it is today, not relive the horrors of the war. Based on the footage from the show, I’m glad we made the decision we did. The prison looked very gruesome and inhumane and I feel horrible that anyone had to live in those conditions.

We did take a trip through the countryside past many villages that look just like the one where they had the detour challenge. The weather is incredibly hot just like a few of the contestants noticed.

We were traveling through the rice fields during the harvest season and saw a lot of activity in the paddies. Most of the work is still either human or animal power, although industrial farm equipment is starting to become more common. I will vouch for the authenticity of the location. Compare my picture for this post to the official picture from the Amazing Race website.

From the previews, it looks like next week they will move on to Halong Bay, which is a geological unique area of stunning beauty. Most of my blog posts for the Hanoi area date back to last August, but feel free to read the whole blog from the start.

BooksFirst - September 2006

Books Read

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley
The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald

Books Bought

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Books Donated

Anne of Greene Gables
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Some obscure Judy Blume book
Four books based on the Peter Rabbit tales
A Blues Clues books
Two other books I can’t remember

Comments

This is the month I finally broke the two book jinx that I have had. The key was that I was had read most of the Bill Bryson book in August. It nearly made the August list, but since I had a few chapters to go, I made myself defer it to this month's list. I refuse to give myself credit for a book I don’t completely finish because I am notoriously famous for getting distracted ¾ of the way through and then never finishing. Since I finished that early in the month, that gave me plenty of time to fit two more books in.

The Short History of Nearly Everything is a bit of a misnomer, since it is really not particularly short and hardly covers everything. Unless everything covers astrophysics, geology, and biology. Which it might. As someone who read close to the entire Asimov oeuvre in junior high, I have been exposed in one way or another to most of the topics discussed. I did enjoy the gossipy sections about the scientists, but even that got tired after awhile. There are much better books about each of the five topics covered that aren't much longer than the individual sections and more comprehensive.

Bill Bryson is a good writer but I felt he was slumming in the science writer category. I would like to know what else he has written that would be more representative of his typical style.

Christopher Buckley is a comic genius and I was really looking forward to Florence of Arabia which is about a disgruntled State Department that sets off a feminist revolution in a very thinly veiled (or burkha’ed as the case may be) Saudi Arabia called Wasabia in the book. Unfortunately, the events of the past three years in Iraq have totally overtaken the premise of the book and it reads dated even though it came out in 2004. There are a few name checks of Abu Graib and some other topical items, but the book is written as if we are not already morassed in the Middle East. The political and social satire is razor sharp, but ultimately seems misdirected.

I am a huge John D. MacDonald fan and read all the Travis McGee novels in order when I was in high school. Since then I have read much of MacDonald's other fiction as well. I collect his paperback originals complete with those noir-ish lurid covers. I have resolved to reread the Travis McGee novels again to refresh my memory and see how they have held up to time. I will try to write a much more detailed review later in the month giving more background about MacDonald and McGee and me.

My local library has a bin near the front door for clearance books which range in price from 25 cents for kids books to two dollars for videotapes and DVDs. I scarfed up about nine of these for a total of $2.50 and mailed them to Cassandra S as my first contribution to the Achenboodle Book Drive. At the post office, an 8”x8”x8” mailer box cost $1.65 and the postage at the media rate was another $2.50. So for under seven buck, I got nine books sent to a good cause. The mailer box could have easily held nearly twice as many books, so next time I think I will save up books until I have a full box.

I nearly made it a whole month with adding to the nightstand inventory, but I had a BigBoxOfBooks coupon for 25% off one item and a Personal Shopping Day that was about to expire, so I picked up the Pressl book which has gotten good notices everywhere and looks like the type of erudite concept-dropping middlebrow capital-L Literature that I tend to like. We’ll see if I can finish it by next month's BooksFirst.

Watch Your Comics

Updated 10/30/06

Boondocks, the comic strip featuring two young African American kids transplanted to the ‘burbs, went on hiatus several months ago when creator and erstwhile illustrator Aaron McGruder decided he’d rather spend his time rolling in his Adult Swim Benjamins than keeping his dead trees version fresh. Hopefully to nobody’s surprise, the return of Huey and Company to the funny papers is looking less and less likely.

There are several comic strips written by African-Americans including Curtis, Jump Start, Herb and Jamal, Housebroken, and even the stereotype-reinforcing Wee Pals, but the debut of Boondocks brought anger and attitude to the comics. McGruder took his experiences growing up in the racially diverse Peoples Republic of Columbia, Maryland and spun comedy gold. In a meteoric rise, the strip became one of the fastest spreading comic strips I’ve ever seen. As he got more successful, he started paying less attention to the strip to chase the Hollywood Dream before taking a six month and counting sabbatical.

The serendipitously prescient Washington Post has been using the empty comics slot to preview several other comic strips, some in the same general vein as Boondocks, others not so much. By far and away the best of these has been Watch Your Head by Cory Thomas. Cory, and I presume to take first name liberties since he posts at the Comics Curmudgeon forums, is a mechanical engineering grad (a notoriously funny profession) from Howard University that has started a strip about the college experience. He chatted about the process back in May.

The other strips that have gotten a exhibition are Pajama Diaries, a preachy SAHM tribute, Agnes, yet another smart-assed kid strip, and La Cucaracha, an edgy but only occasionally funny Latino strip full of inside jokes. Out of fear that Pajama Diaries might assault my eyes everyday, I finally got up the energy to write the comics editor at the Washington Post. Here is what I politely said:

I am a Washington Post subscriber and a frequent poster to Joel Achenbach's blog. I also devoutly read Gene Weingarten's chat which frequently discusses comics. Of the four comics you have previewed while Boondocks has been on hiatus, Watch Your Head is easily the best of the bunch. WYH really nails the college life experience in a way that is funny and relevant. It evokes the long-running sitcom Different Worlds without being patronizing or overly obscure.

Agnes is cute but a little too reminiscent of One Big Happy and other family oriented strips. La Cucacaracha has a very unique visual style, but tries too hard to be edgy and frequently fails.

Off the four try-out strips, Pajama Diaries was clearly the worst. I found the humor overly broad and occasionally offensive to families with two working parents. Punch lines tended to be platitudes and the strip treaded overly familiar territory.

Cory Thomas has created a fresh, hip comic with a lot of engaging and funny characters. I hope you will make it a permanent part of the comics page.

If you are a WaPo reader, either online or dead-tree edition, give Cory a hand and either call the Comics Hotline at 202-334-4775 or email them at comics@washpost.com.

In other related comics news, after several half-hearted attempts, I finally got a comment selected by the Czar of Funny, Gene Weingarten, for his weekly lunchtime Chatological Humor chat.

Fo, MA: Since Aldo from "Mary Worth" died in a car crash and Grandpa Jim in "For Better or For Worse" is about to kick the bucket, what comics page character will or should fill out the death pool trifecta?

Gene Weingarten: CATHY! PLEASE! Or Zoogie, in Gene Pool, who should die from auto-asphyxiation while self-pleasuring.

Until later, I will see you in the funny papers. And I hope to see Watch Your Head there soon.

Update 10/30/06: The Washington Post has added Watch Your Head as a permanant feature in the old Boondocks slot. I woul like to think my mini-campaign helped, but the WaPo works in mysterious ways. Good luck, Cory.

What's In Your Wallet?

About two weeks ago, I got tagged by Mooselet by a meme that seemed particularly female-centric since it was called What’s In There? and had a picture of the contents of her purse. Mooselet had been tagged by Janine at My Ovaries Made Me Do It. Janine had tagged Harmonica Man as well. It turns out that the original meme was What Is In Your Pockets? Since H'man and Mooselet are two of my most loyal readers, I had to play along.

I don't keep much in my pockets. In my left pocket I usually just have two key chains. One chain had the keys to my car and my wife’s car and their respective fobs. Those are pretty bulky. The other key chain has a leather thingie that my kid made back in Cub Scouts. On that chain I have keys to my house, the office, the mailbox, our safety deposit box and a spare key to my car for when I lock the other key chain in the car. It’s my way of protecting me from myself.

I will also have spare change in my right pocket, but I empty that every night onto my dresser, so that is pretty hit and miss.

My back right pocket has my wallet. At work one day we were comparing wallets, and mine was called a George Constanza wallet and a danger to my spinal health. Like George I keep receipts in the wallet, but I throw them away when I enter them into Quicken every week or so.

My wallet has six different sections, and I have tried to organize them in a way that is coherent to me. Here they are by section:

Section 1 – Credit Cards
Three Visas – One is for books only. One is for online purchases only.
One Mastercard – The ubiquitous Capitol One card. I got it just to get them to quit bothering me.
ATM debit card
American Express Gold Card – I pay for the gold level because it gets me advance shots at Broadway shows and stuff.

Section 2 – More Credit Cards
Sears Card
Another Visa on an account I’ve closed

Section 3 – Discount privilege cards
Borders Rewards - used and abused. See any of my BooksFirst posts.
Hollywood Video
Blockbuster Video
Regal Cinemas – good for free popcorn every now and then
Holiday Priority Club
Choice Hotels – I belong to about three frequent stay clubs. I don’t know why these two are in my wallet instead of my the filing cabinet.

Section 4 - Membership Cards
Howard County Library Card
Library of Congress Reader Card - You need one to get into the main reading room. I got it just to say I have one.
Gym membership – Hasn’t been used in four months.

Section 5 – Identification – The one place to go in an emergency
Drivers License
AAA card
Auto insurance cards – including two that are expired
Health Insurance Card

Section 6 Part A – More discount cards
Metro SmarTrip – I need this to ride the DC Metro and pay for their park and ride lots.
Jos A Banks
The Jockey Club – for buying my tighty-whiteys
BJ’s – a local competitor to Sams Club and Costco
REI – Bicycle and outdoorsy gear. REI is technically a co-op and gives card members refunds each year.

Section 6 Part B – Punch Cards – Things you need to collect punches or stamps on.
Atomic Books - 7 of 10 punches
Noodles and Company – 9 of 9 punches – I need to redeem it.
Great Harvest Bread Co. – 1 of 12 – My wife buys most of the bread.
Brusters Ice Cream – 3 of 9 punches
Festival Eatery – 9 of 11 punches
California Tortilla – 1 of 7 punches
Café Bagel – 2 of 10 punches
Moes Southwest Grill – 4 of 9 punches
Build A Bear – 5 of 10 punches - Don't ask.

Main Pocket
$42 in cash
17 receipts

I should have entered the receipts into the computer rather than do this post, but then it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining.

You can tell a lot about a person by what they have in their wallet. I hope I haven't said too much. Now it's your turn.

Cheap Irony

Today's lesson, kids, is in ironic foreshadowing. This is when a character says something that the reader knows is not true. Today's FoobStrip would just be sappy filler if we didn't know this relationship with a stable, single, hardworking guy was doomed.

For homework give three other examples from movies, literature, or bad comic strips.

Wrapped Up Like A Dooce

I’m going to catch hell for this, but I have no idea what the big deal is with Heather Armstrong, aka Dooce. Sure, she is the patron saint of fired bloggers. She lost her job because she was making snarky comments about her bosses and coworkers. Boo-fuckin’-hoo. It’s great to become a verb, but what a way to go. She sure made a silk purse out of those lemons, because she is now about the most popular non-political blogger on the planet and has been annointed Queen Of The Mommyblogs.

To many, she is the face of the blogging world. When a MainStreamMedia type needs a quote, Heather’s phone rings. The latest example is this article by Washington Post writer Robert Samuelson that inexplicably tries to tie LonelyGirl15 and Facebook and all the personal bloggers together in some big trend. Why does Dooce merit mention? Because she is so popular that her ads can support her husband. Her site was probably recommended to Samuelson, whose blog-cluelessness is almost endearing, since he seems to have just discovered the internet.

I just don’t find her that funny or clever or enlightening. She talks about all the things other bloggers do, but everyone hangs on her every word when she talks about dirty diapers. In one post, she recalls a few bad dates and asks in BlatantCommentWhoring™ fashion “What are your dealbreakers?” The result: 390 comments in two days. I’d be lucky to get six on the same topic. Her toddler is adorable, but so is everybody’s. That doting "every gurgle from my baby is sooo pwecious" bit makes my eyes roll and causes the gag reflex to kick in. And do thousands of people bookmark her for lame Viagra jokes? It's only the name recognition that makes her a WebStar. If she were to restart her blog with an anonymous Blogger account, there would be nothing but cobwebs and chirping crickets.

Jealous much? Maybe. But I am resigned to my place as a Slimy Mollusc. I will always be a lot closer to the pointy end of the long tail and will never have 10,000 inbound links. This is my hobby and blogging is her career. And of course her website looks great. After all, she was a webdesigner in her former life. She has time and skilz to come up with a new witty banner every month.

In the blogiverse, like elsewhere, claim-staking and being first to market is a big advantage. There are doctoral dissertations on the phenomenon. It means the latecomers never have a chance even if they are better and sharper and funnier.

For my money, Lindsay Ferrier (nee Lucinda) at Suburban Turmoil, who is herself a tongue-in-cheek member of the Cult of Dooce, is way funnier. Lindsay has parlayed her step-mom schtick into a paying column with an alternative weekly and teamblogs all over the place. But no matter how good a hand Lindsay gets dealt, she will always get trumped by a Dooce.

Blatant Comment Whoring™: Am I offbase here, or does the empress really have no clothes?

Studio 60 Drinking Game

It’s well established that any show I decide to take an interest in is doomed to cancellation. This does not bode well for the new Aaron Sorkin show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip since I have programmed my VCR for Monday nights at 10. Things already look a little grim rating-wise as Tom Shales mentions in the Washington Post today. It seems the numbers for the premiere were good, not great. And worse, after about a half hour, people started turning off in droves. Tom Shales's theory is that the most brain dead show on television is not the best lead-in for the smartest.

Sorkin shows require thinking and he adds a degree of difficulty by throwing in as much visual and aural clutter as possible. For example, during one "walk-and-talk" the rap group with more Oscars than Scorsese is strangling cats in the background just to make sure you miss at least one witty line. Since so little on the show is ever summarized by Dr. Exposition, I had to piece together what actually happened. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it streaming here or catch it on Bravo tonight.

SPOILERS BELOW

The hard-ass network censor demanded a skit be pulled because it made fun of Christians. This made Judd Hirsch channel Peter Finch. The suit demanded that he be cut-off, but Elliott from thirtysomething (doing a Willie Tanner impersonation) kept the camera rolling.

The eversexy Amanda Peet decided the best people to save the show would be Chandler (since that would reunite two-thirds of the Whole Nine Yards dream team), who was flying on 'shrooms his chiropractor gave him, and Josh Lyman, who does all the stuff Hamilton Jordan always denied doing in office.

Chandler used to bang Galinda The Goody-Goody Comedian until she sang gospel songs on a show her target market actually watches. Ironic twist: She was supposed to be in the Christian-mocking skit that Chandler and Josh had written years ago but which had been plagiarized by the current head writers. The religion mocking skit itself was never seen and probably never will be. It's one of those rules about shows-in-shows.

And least that is what I saw. According to this recap, I got at least a few details screwed up. Like Matthew Perry's character, I may have taken too many Motrin for my sprained wrist to make anything coherent out of it.
/END SPOILER

In the interest of Internet traditions, even though the show has only aired one episode, I propose a drinking game guaranteed to get you more sloshed that Mel Gibson at a bar mitzvah.

Studio 60 Drinking Game Rules

Take a sip when:

• Someone makes a thinly veiled reference to an actual NBC show.
• A cast member of either West Wing or SportsNight guest stars or cameos. (Bradley Whitford does NOT count.)
• The camera completely circles any characters talking to each other.
• Amanda Peet calls someone by the wrong name.
• Anyone carrying a clipboard gives exposition.
• The “director” yells some technical jargon to a flunkie.
• Any character starts to drink an alcoholic beverage but puts it back down.
• There is a TV on in the background showing something else happening.
• Anyone makes snide cracks about bloggers or the internet.

Drink the whole bottle if:

• A real cast member, past or present, of Saturday Night Live is name-checked.
• Anyone says “bing” in any context.
• A major religion or a political figure is ridiculed.

And check into rehab whenever:

• A character struggling with a substance abuse problem falls off the wagon.

Have fun, because I guarantee you won't stay sober through the first commercial break.

Blatant Comment Whoring™: Feel free to add your own rules if you don't think these will get your blood alcohol level high enough.

Update (10/8/06): For a meta-update on this post see my reaction to going viral.

Update (11/13/06): Check out my head to head comparison of Studio 60 and 30 Rock. The results may surprise you.

The AchenBoodle Book Drive

When my son was little, I read the bedtime stories. I was angling to pass the George Will Custody Test which says that whichever parent can recite the first page of Cat In The Hat from memory gets the kid. My son wasn’t all that big a Dr Suess fan, but we had Chicka Boom and Ready Teddy down cold. I finally got the boot as bedtime reader when he kept reading ahead of me out of one of the Narnia books.

I figured my job was done, but my son remained an indifferent reader through elementary school. In another bout of parental bonding guilt, I decided we would join a book club. The local library runs book clubs for all ages and had one for middle school aged parent/child pairs. Both people had to read the book for the month and then meet at the library for a group discussion with refreshments afterwards.

The book club facilitator would start each year with a big cart full of candidate books and then take votes on the selections. He would subtly steer the kids to some more issue oriented books rather than just pure adventure or fantasy. Since the demographics skewed slightly male, the choice of books appealed to my son. It also exposed him to some genres and writers he would not normally read. When we joined, there would be about half dozen kids each month. A few years later it had grown to nearly twenty pairs each month.

After three years, my son’s reading level had outpaced the book club selections and we dropped out moved on. As the receipts from the local BigBoxOfBooks will attest, his reading pace hasn’t slowed down any.

I’m not trying to just brag about what a good reader my son is or what a great dad I am. My point is that getting kids to read is more than just teaching them to read. I have an “imaginary” friend on the internet that goes by the name Cassandra S. She volunteers with a reading program in rural North Carolina. Her group does not have the resources of an affluent suburban library system. She has asked our little on-line community for help with her program and we think a great aid would be to donate books for her group. Let me let her say it in her own words:

We're targeting early readers or beginners, and trying to help those that are struggling with reading. Of course, we want to encourage children to go beyond what they think they can do, but we certainly want them to feel successful in whatever they strive for. I work with primary, middle school, and some junior high students.

She also added a list of books recommended by some teachers and librarians including:

Fourth Grade

• Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume
• Super Fudge by Judy Blume
• Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia Maclachan
• Justin and the Best Biscuits in the World by Margaret Pitts Walters
• The Whipping Boy by Sid Flieschman
• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
• Ramona Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
• Because of Winn Dixe by Kate DeCamillo

Sixth Grade

• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Cay by Theordore Taylor
• The Adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• The Adventures of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin
• Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
• Famous Story for Performance Holt, Reinhart, Winston
• Local News by Gary Soto
• Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jang
• Journey Home by Yoshiko Uchida
• Myths, and Folktales Holt, Reinhart, Winston

The Library List

• The Farm Book by Jan Peloog
• Little Black Pony by Walter Farley
• The Horse in Harry's Room by Sud Hoff
• Cowboy Slim by Julie Danneberg
• All the Pretty Horses by Susan Jeffers
• No Howling in the House by Erica Farber
• Dinosaur Hunters by Kate McMullan
• Fox Be Nimble by James Marshall
• Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel
• A Garden for Miss Mouse by Micheala Muntean
• No Carrots for Harry by Jean Largerman
• Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel
• Pigs Pigs by Gail Gibbons
• Buck-Buck the Chicken by Amy Ehrlich
• True Blue by Joan Elste
• My Little Red Car >by Chris Demarest
• Franklin's School Play by Pauletter Bourgeois
• Clifford's Family by Norman Bridwell
• Moongame by Frank Ash
• The Reason For a Flower by Ruth Heller
• Lady and the Tramp >by Disney
• Miss Piggy's Night Out by Sara Hoagland Hunter
• The Great Pet Sale by Mick Inkpen
• Bunnies and Their Grandma by Amy Ehrlich
• Fievel's Big Showdown by David Kirscher
• Leaf Jumpers >by Carole Gerber
• Find Nat by Kelli Foster and Gina Erickson
• Daisy Rabbit's Tree House by Penny Dale
• Humpty Dumpty as told by Kin Eagle

Cassandra added:

Now if any of you know of good African-American stories, I would love those very much. The lists given to me contain just a few of those stories, but not many. The public library here has just a few, but I know there are so many out there even if I cannot get them here. I would love those stories as well as the above lists. And this isn't all, folks. I have another list to get from the school this morning. And please feel free to throw in your favorites. I want the children to have access to a lot of what goes on in this world, and it can all begin with books. Thanks again.

She also mentioned the need for some professionally published series aimed at teaching reading skills.

Seedling Publications and access their leveled reading site. Choose from emergent and fluid readers categories.

Lerner Classroom, at this site we have different categories of books for K-3, 4-6 grades. I would love to have the science, health, and earth series. If possible the classroom sets would be wonderful.

Scholastic, at this site one has picture builders, skill builders, character counts, early readers, and the list is endless. Any choice from here would be great.

My family had a big purge of the kiddie books a few years back, but I wondered how many of my readers had extra books that could use a second home in place that needs them. Books even get a big discount at the post office, so really all you would be donating are books your kids have outgrown and a little postage. I'm sure new books would be appreciated as well. To protect Cassandra’s privacy, I don’t want to give out a mailing address except to people that e-mail me at yellojkt [AT] yahoo [DOT] com.

Since my audience consists of mostly LostGooglers® searching for unsavory topics, I would sincerely like to have some links to this post from more reputable sites to help spread the word. Because getting kids to read is hard, but the rewards are amazing.