The Chinese characters mean either “odds and ends” or “remnant fragment East West,” not sure which.
“Mental mistakes” in Chinese: Watching Game 6 of the NBA Finals on CCTV, as usual, I couldn’t decipher much of the Chinese commentators’ rapid-fire analysis. But at one point, I could have sworn I heard the words “mental mistake” after a Miami turnover. Nah, couldn’t be. A few minutes later, there, I heard it again.
“Mental mistake” is evidently Chinese for “mental mistake.”
It was great seeing Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks win their first title, but enough with the Nowitzki-Bird comparisons, please. As the Mavs were clinching the title, they juxtaposed Dirk shots with footage of Larry Bird in Game 6 of the Celtics’ victory over Houston in the 1986 Finals, when Bird put up 29 points, 11 rebounds, 12 assists and three steals. Dirk finished with 12 assists for the entire series. He couldn’t touch Bird’s passing genius.
For that matter, let’s call a moratorium on Kobe-Jordan comparisons, Lebron-MJ, Lebron-anyone at this point. Stop it. Just stop it.
Upstaged on the bus, for once: One sweltering afternoon, I’m sitting in the bus, waiting for it to leave the Jianghai College lot, when on steps a man with a basket of large, gray, squawking birds. They looked sort of like a cross between gray geese and pelicans, or gray geese and egrets, or … I don’t know, they were gray.*
From that point on, no one noticed the Westerner aboard. Which was fine. Did I mention it was hot? About halfway along the 20-minute trip, it was impossible not to notice that the odor was getting stronger. (Having given up my seat, I was standing nearer the birds by that time.)
Then, I looked down and noticed a puddle of yellow fluid, like a thin, watery yolk, slowly emanating from the basket. I mean, like, what? Do these things lay fried eggs? Do birds take a piss? I’m sorry, I’m not exactly an ornithologist here.
I began to feel weak-kneed and got off at the next stop, where I immediately became the subject of stares again. Almost wish the birds had gotten off with me. Almost.
Trouble redefining a label, let alone a life: Heard from an long-lost friend awhile back. After a warm exchange of niceties, as proof you can pick up a conversation wherever you left off 30 or so years ago, he acidly noted in one missive: “Hey, brainiac, you are not an ‘out-of-work’ journalist, as your blog subhead reads. If you get paid at the university, which I assume you do, then you’re working.”
Good point. I changed it to “laid-off” journalist. Thanks, Mark. (I had already changed “sportswriter” to “journalist” because I didn’t want to be defined only by sports. As long as I’m consumed by what to call myself, I may never actually have to decide what to do next.)
The origin of The Rog-ect: Meant to explain this eons ago. It goes way back to an inside joke among sportswriters at The News & Observer that I liked to assign impossible projects, i.e., “Hey, can you give me something on the history of sports by 5? And I really think you can keep it under 20 inches.”
I’m not sure I was ever that bad. OK, maybe.
*Upon further reflection, I’m guessing those birds were cormorants, which have been used to fish in Chinese rivers for hundreds of years. Trained and tethered by the throat, which prevents them from swallowing larger fish, the birds are capable of diving deep for their catches. When I saw this done on CCTV, a light went on. It’s being done now more for tourists.
