Freshwater rays? Ha! They’re nothing! Might as well be goldfish for all I care. No, as far as rays go I want something bigger, something meatier. Something like this behemoth.
Caught near Hainan Sanya, China, this massive stingray weighs in at 3300 pounds and measures 16′ 6″ across. The ray, which was caught with a net, took three hours to land. The struggle, unfortunately, killed it. The gargantuan ray was sold for the princely sum of around $1500.00. Stingray meat is a delicacy in many restaurants and the bones and organs are used in Chinese medicine.
The Chinese, for all their questionable practices, have at the very least seen fit to make it easier for English speaking tourists visiting their country, a prime example of which is pictured above. How else is a female visitor supposed to know in which direction she should turn in order to have lady-bits looked at? The Chinese know that not all Westerners are of a level of intelligence or education to know what the acronym OB/GYN stands for, let alone what medical arts a gynecologist practices. With this in mind the hospital did the only thing it could in such a situation, using the diction that even the most moronic Occidental outlander would understand: obscenities. In turn it becomes crystal clear where the speculum wielders can be found.
Conversely the department of “Fetal Heart Custody” brings to mind a wing of the hospital full of labyrinthine corridors and rows of bank-teller windows manned by the dour faced, low-level minions of some Kafka-esque bureaucracy dealing in prenatal cardiovascular systems in which parents desperately run from window to window in a futile effort to fill out all the proper paperwork necessary for completing the construction of their infant; an image that may possibly be closer to the truth than I realize.
It’s comforting in a way to know that one’s paranoid theories of powerful men bartering with the lives of millions of people as if they were human Pokemon are, in some ways, not so paranoid after all. Documents recently released by the State Department’s historical office detail a particularly enlightening conversation between Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong and US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger:
“You know, China is a very poor country,” Mao said. “We don’t have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands.”
Mao circled back to the offer a few minutes later. “Do you want our Chinese women?” he asked. “We can give you 10 million.”
Kissinger noted Mao was “improving his offer,” and the chairman is on record then saying, “We have too many women … They give birth to children and our children are too many.”
“It is such a novel proposition,” Kissinger replied. “We will have to study it.”
Novel indeed, Henry. Certainly it can be argued that Kissinger’s stance on Cambodia during the Vietnam War puts the man in a light that may be less than flattering but I think everyone can agree that this shows full well the depths of the man’s depravity. I mean what kind of animal turns down an offer to supply the citizens of his country with Chinese women.
A Chinese website is claiming to have found photographic proof of aliens on Mars. The picture, found after thoroughly analyzing photos taken by NASA’S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, seems to show a figure walking across the Martian landscape.
According to The Daily Mail, the internet has been “abuzz” with speculation as to what this may or may not be. Cries of “Proof!”, “Shopped!”, “Optical illusion!”, and “Bigfoot!” have been heard, echoing across the tubes. A larger, 43MB panoramic version can be found here.
Lovely model, International Superstar, and longtime Pegritzian crush-object Elysse Sewell has some pics of mysterious food products. Ms. Sewell has just returned from China and Other Points East, so I assume these products are from China, yet their thoroughly All-American names seem to indicate a domestic origin. Where’d you get ‘em, Elyse? Let a brotha know so he can get some, too!*
Admittedly, Butter It’s Not! has a more demonstrative, almost Shakespearian pomp to it, making I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter sound wishywashy and positively pedestrian. But what the hell is up with this product?! Continue Reading…
Or, perhaps, asphyxiate considering the amount of smoke puffing on this would produce. Said to be China’s largest pipe, this bronze behemoth has a diameter of 3.8 feet, a length of 9.2 feet, and weighs in at just shy of 256 pounds. For when you want to smoke that bale of latakia you have laying around.
When I was little I used to read a book of Chinese folktales that belonged to my mother. Between each tale was interspersed the day to day lives of two children, brother and sister, of a fairly wealthy feudal Chinese household. One of these little interludes dealt with the sister hiding in order to avoid her daily foot binding. I never could quite imagine just what the ancient Chinese were going for when the lotus foot was described but this image leaves no doubt. In case you choose not to view the rest of the set realize that the shoes she wears are only about an inch longer than a pack of cigarettes.
I don’t know about where you live, but in my corner of northeastern Pennsylvania there isn’t much in the way of interesting food. The closest that I come to danger, upon the rare occasions that I eat out, is the threat of contracting bovine spongiform encephalopathy from my steak. I certainly do not partake in the life-on-the-edge culinary experience of fugu, or pufferfish.
Considered a delicacy in Asia, the fugu contains a deadly neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin (TTX), found in the liver, ovaries, and flesh. The fish are so deadly that sushi chefs in Japan must endure a vigorous test; a test that only about thirty percent actually pass. The small amount of poison found in the flesh produces a “funny tingly sensation on the tongue and lips”, which is good because, if you’re anything like me, garnishing your hamburgers with Demerol is both expensive and stressful (not so much post-meal, admittedly).
However in large doses, like those found in the liver and ovaries, the effects are quite different:
“Those poisoned gradually lose muscle control, although not consciousness, and eventually suffocate to death when the diaphragm becomes paralyzed.”
Fun! A firsthand account of a non-lethal case of fugu poisoning is quite harrowing:
I’m struck by just how nonplussed these two seem; their pile of severed doll limbs laid out before them. I suppose once one has had to assemble them day in and day out for months on end, for meager wages, the novelty is bound to wear off.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
Freshwater rays? Ha! They’re nothing! Might as well be goldfish for all I care. No, as far as rays go I want something bigger, something meatier. Something like this behemoth. 
