China businessman wants to “Supple” me

I’m tired of harder, stronger, longer-lasting, spine-tingling SPAM. So, it made my day when this email landed in my SPAM box:

(Dear friends,
Sorry to bother you.We are a large-scale merchandise wholesaler in China,
Our merchandise such as,Tv,notebooks,phones,psp,projectors,motorcycles,musical instruments ect.Our products are in good quality,but low price,it will interest you.At the same time,we can supple you the direct and quick service.we are legal sellers.
Our website is : www.nyqbw.com
MSN: nyqbw@hotmail.com
Email: nyqbw@hotmail.com
skype: nyqbw1
TEL:…

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Winners of the The First Annual Where Are YOU Wearing Christmas Inventory Contest of Destiny

The You are a Spoiled Brat, You Should Feel Guilty Award goes to…

Jenn for her impressive list consisting of 23 items made in only 6 countries:

Green Abercrombie shirt – Made in Vietnam
Gray & White Gap shirt – Made in Sri Lanka
Gray AE hat – Made in China
Santa Claus socks – Made in Taiwan
UTMB sweatshirt – Made in Honduras
Blue snowman pajama pants from Gap – Made in Indonesia
Blue cashmere gloves – Made in China
Blue cashmere scarf – Made in China
Snowman slippers – Made in Taiwan
Purple pajama pants – Made in Indonesia
Pink corduroy jacket – Made in China
Life Is Good sweatshirt – Made in China
Green and white sleep socks – Made in ? (no tag)
3 pairs trouser socks (white, black, and tan) – Made in China
3 pairs “casual” socks (black patterns)…

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Liberal Arts Graduates teaching Cameroonian farmers how to farm?

An Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s NY Times by the former country director of Cameroon brings into question the usefulness of sending recent college graduates overseas to help people that probably don’t need any of their help.

Robert Strauss writes:

In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt…

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Crap becoming less crappy

Books on writing piss me off. I’ve said it before that “…there are many people that take advantage of aspiring writers. Aspiring writers are vulnerable and, unlike actual writers, they have money to spend on books, online courses, and websites.” I would like to add this little nugget…

Reading books on writing takes away from time that you could actually be writing, which is how a writer becomes better – writing begets writing. A brick layer doesn’t get better reading books.

The difficult thing is finding the motivation to continually write. And by motivation I mean an audience or a deadline. I was lucky to have both early on when I contributed my “Travelin’ Light” column to the Key West City paper. Without this…

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To suck or not to suck? : The quaint place of travel writing nestled in the under appreciated world of literature

Rolf Potts wrote a book review of “Smile when you’re lying: Confessions of a rogue travel writer” on WorldHum. The review has led to one of the longer comment threads I’ve seen on WorldHum and largely explores if travel writing sucks. Most agree that there is good travel writing out there, but what runs in many mags and papers is pretty soulless stuff written on comped trips to sell ads.

I don’t necessarily agree with this view. I think that it all has its purpose and if you’re criticizing the Sunday Paper’s Travel section, you’re either an uppity traveler or reader. If you scan the comments, you’ll see a little nugget of mine I would like to share here…

Some people write instruction manuals to crock…

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