Norlos

Metro Vocal Group is four gweilos who sing a capella versions of Cantopop songs.

The company and I have been dithering over this idea for a year — the first time my boss mentioned the idea to me was the day before the Beast was born. “Can I go have my baby first, and think about it later?” I said.

But yeah, after I sort of nodded to the idea if the money worked out, and accountants did their thing, and the money worked out, I signed the papers. (It’s a tax thing — Hong Kong has a flat 16% tax rate, the mainland about 40% for hyperwealthy expats such as myself, meaning virtual pay cut.) We leave sometime in August.

My feelings are solidly mixed. On the positive, Beijing is a major source of the planet’s supply of kickass. It’s a place where you can explode the stomach. It has a serious art scene when the government’s not suppressing it. It has a thriving music scene. As much as I love Hong Kong, it’s a bit too much like Asia’s Dallas — all glass and money, no edge or soul.

It’s also a major opportunity to raise the Beast in a place where he can gain some serious life skills. In a couple of years he’ll be at the perfect age for learning languages, and Chinese could be his friend for life. Again, I love you dearly, sweaty Hong Kong, but none of my non-Chinese friends who grew up in your house speak a word of the local Canto. You’re too kind to English-only speakers.

Finally, we can have a pretty comfortable life there. You might think that with all the talk of a major Chinese property bubble that nice apartments are unaffordable. Fact is, we can snag a lot more apartment at a much smaller price than we can here in the Fragrant Harbor.

There are negatives. Per my post a year ago, this job I’m taking is the nonmanagement job. I’d be leaving a supervisory role and basically going rogue. This is a relief in the quality-of-life department but might not be the smartest move careerwise. We shall see, but putting China on the resume probably makes up for any damage from me basically demoting myself.

There’s Hong Kong. Sweaty and unsophisticated it may be, but we have a cool place and cool friends and a lot of emotional attachments. In many ways it will be tough to leave.

There’s also the political situation in Beijing. Since the Jasmine Revolution showed the world that people like to have a say in their government, the Chinese Communist Party has been a bit on the unfriendly side. The government doesn’t give a shit about what we do so long as we tread lightly on the Three Ts, but it’s still odd to live in a place where we’re not allowed to express ourselves politically.

And then there’s the pollution. It’s… well, better to show:

Beijing is the big ol' red splotch on the right.

Finally, there’s the lack of English. Beijing has made a concerted effort to be English-friendly, but the fact is that if our Internet goes down, or I need to find a bicycle pump, or just want to tell a taxi driver I want to go home, we will need some Chinese. Hong Kong is foreign-lite. Beijing is the real deal.

But hey, that’s the excitement of it. And we’re seriously excited. And of course if y’all want to see the Middle Kingdom you’re welcome to crash.

Last Thursday, the temperature in Wichita shot up by 20 degrees in 20 minutes.

A little over a month ago, the New York Times took us inside the hidden workshops of the Libyan rebels. The Atlantic has a photogallery dedicated to the output of those workshops. With their crazy sense of style and DIY-ethos, I’ve now come to the conclusion that Misrata and Benghazi are like the Williamsburg of Libya.

The Foo Fighters’ 2011 Tour Contract Rider.

That‘s Neil D., and you know what that means. America — land of margarita shrimp fajita platters, bumper stickers and angry people with guns — we‘re coming to see you!

Dr. No lands in New York, spends a day recovering from a 16-hour flight with a baby, then heads to the great homeland of Kansas. I follow a week later, also spend a day in the city, then head to Kansas too.

We will be in Wichita area until July 6, when we head to Tucson and hang with more fam until the 10th, when we head back to new york.

I will be working in New York that week while Dr. No and Marco gallivant around town.

On the 16th we go to New Hampshire for a week, returning to New York on the 23rd and spending a few more days before heading back to Hong Kong.

If anybody’s around any those places in any of those times we would love to see you.

The Onion’s AV Club, with the help of its readers, has developed a list of songs that they’d like to see covered. Then they invite bads in and record the results.

NASA’s crawler-transporter is the largest self-propelled vehicle in the world, but the Krupp Bagger 288 is the largest land vehicle.

Its purpose is to expose coal at strip mines by removing the soil and rock covering the coal veins. In 2001, after fully exposing the coal at one strip mine, the Bagger 288 set out on an epic roadtrip to move to another mine 14 miles away and inspired a song.