Jan/100
shanzai youtube
if you’re in china, sometime some of the sites you might want to get to are blocked – some of these might be twitter, facebook, or most vexing – youtube.
some ingenious chinese programmers have now come up with youtubecn – which is a shanzai version of youtube. we’ve talked around shanzai around here before – here’s a shanzai website.
the address is youtubecn -dot – com
have fun for the few days its up. it has most of the contest of youtube as far as i can see.
for example here’s a link to “pants on the ground”
(h/t to my co-worker craig for the tip)
Nov/094
my office loves taobao
if you don’t know about taobao, you really ought to. much more than “china’s ebay” – the range of goods available is much wider. my colleagues often buy from taobao – the amount of food items, clothing, toys and other sundries which are sent to our office on a daily basis is astounding.
one of my cubemates recently just bought a bunch of medieval and roman era figurines and arranged a battle on his desk.
so, you say, “i wanna get in on this taobao stuff, but i don’t read chinese.” no worries, check out taobaofieldguide.com. or do what i do – search yourself and get your chinese colleagues to buy on your behalf.
Sep/090
people being made fun of
possibly one of my favorite web phenomenons is the mocking of other people. here’s a sampling of my favorite websites which solely exist to make fun of other people. yes, i realize that mocking other people, especially when often a condition of education (or lack thereof), economics or just plain bad luck isn’t especially good juju, or even nice, but sometimes, laughing at other people makes you feel better about your own life. at least a little bit.
people of walmart – photos of people taken at walmart. amusement level: 4 – but sometimes i feel bad
you suck at craigslist – deconstruction of horribly written advertisements on craigslist. amusement level: 5
lamebook – mocking of horrible horrible facebook conversations and wall posts. amusement level: 3, but a lot more of bemusment and i can’t believe there are people this dumb.
why the fuck do you have a kid? – scary photos of parents and kids. amusement level:3 it’s more of a horrified level
awkward family photos – bad bad bad family photos. amusement level: 3 – its a lot more of a cring level
i realize the amusement level scale has no basis in reality, or even a legit scale (let’s say 1-5, 5 being very amused), but i’m typing between writing work emails so give me a break.