It is generally not my policy to hype off-topic businesses on Onemanbandwidth, but I made an exception in this case.

Ryan McLaughlin of Lost Laowai, Hao Hao Report, Dao by Design and dozens of other sites has reached back to his Canadian roots and come up with what could be a real gem of an online biz.

Following you will find excerpts from what you will soon find at Ryan McLaughlin.us. It is a refreshing change from most “Friend Finder” type sites:

BAG A CANUCK!

Have you dreamed of making love to a Canadian Guy, Aye?
Stop DREAMING and make that fantasy come true!

How to Bag a Canuck” is a 75 page e-book that tells you everything you need to find, attract and seduce a wild bacon bender from the 51st state:

• Where to find enchanting and eligible guys in wool caps in your neighborhood The names of the top ten cities in Canada and China where you are liable to meet dudes with snowshoes, eh?

• How to convince one, without illegal substances, in any country to become your personal Mountie!
• How to dress down to impress
• How to earn his admiration without looking like you are trying too hard and without having to sleep with his friends
• How to get to know him as well as the back of your snowmobile BEFORE you even think of asking him out
• How to write and compose the perfect online dating profile or letter so that he starts chasing you and not the moose in his garden
• What gifts to give him right down to the kinds of cheese and macaroni he would appreciate most
• What you need to know about her culture so that she not only accepts you as a lover but grows to share his sausages
• The Do’s and Don’ts of interracial dating and most…like not fighting over the last bag of pork rinds
• How to talk about the Canadian (ha) Military:

It doesn’t matter if the caribou lover you are longing for is a twenty year old “dog sledder” from Montreal or a 45-year-old six-time divorced business expat from mainland China. Our step-by-step guide for a first date works every time on every Canuck for every culture (and it is not the type of advice you will find in any other book!) Other books will simply give you a long list of suggestions for “creative” ideas for dates. We will tell you why the first date is no time to use your imagination! We will take you step-by-step through the entire First Date Ritual from shaving your nose hairs to how to bait a salmon rig.

In fact, this book asks you to forget everything you think you know about impressing a guy with ear flaps. We ask you to forget your creativity (which just looks like blundering around to a Canuck) and all of your preconceptions (which just looks like racism) by revealing:

• The one most important quality that Canadian guys revere in a partner: body heat
• The all-time worst thing you can do to turn him off in your initial email or communication: insult his dog
• The one physical gesture that will inspire him to have complete confidence in you: OK, now stand back up….
• Why your sense of humor may not seem so charming to him. How to avoid old jokes like What do urine samples and Canadian beer have in common? Answer: The taste

Nobody understands snow fever better than the author who knows exactly how unbearable unrequited desire can be! The symptoms include anxiety, restlessness, a preoccupation with Nanook, Sgt. Preston and a longing to tussle between the sheets with a guy wearing walrus boots.

HOW TO DATE A NORTHER (Bag a Canuck) shows you how to understand each and every type of ice grinder – from the mildest to wildest and how they have learned to manipulate those stereotypes to drive you crazy with lust!

Although these men seem mysterious and complex, we will tell you the simple secrets (some of them based on ancient wisdom from his culture like how to make wine in a garbage bag) that will tame these proud beasties and have them eating out of your hand—not that its so unusual, but…. Much of it will surprise you! This book gets right into the psychological blubber of how to seduce him including the most important-

• G (Goose) Spot!
• How to honor every single part of his body from beaver pelt to wool socks including his hair, his neck, his eyes, his hairy, bejeweled lips, his breasts, his muzzle loader, his arms, his legs etc. and capture his love, devotion and sexual lack of imagination forever.

Nowhere, not in a bookstore, on the Internet or anywhere in Ontario will you find a book on how to seduce and bag a backwoodsman as thoroughly, safely (like jumpin’nekked over a bear trap) and psychologically intriguing as this one!

Knowing everything about him, from parka to pup tent, is one of the secrets to unleashing the passionate potential that you just know is lurking inside the Canuck that you meet in every day life — that mild-mannered Canadian that you see working as a Oral (he he) English Teacher or that gorgeous guy sleeping on the park bench. Or perhaps you simply catch a glimpse of a photograph online that simply makes you hold your breath (and maybe something else!)

Stop jerking around and get real about taking the steps necessary to find the hoser of your dreams! We will feel confident about saying that because we know that is exactly what you are doing rather than grasping the fact that a future with a real flesh and blood socialist is completely possible. Keep in mind too that this book was written by someone who understands you and why you may be so much at the mercy of these gorgeous creatures that you can’t seem to find the nerve to take those all important first steps towards promoting yourself as the lunker of his dreams!

1. Do Canadians seem mysterious to you? Unattainable or even too good for you?
2. Do you surf for wildlife anime as a substitute for a real sexual experience?
3. Do Canadians constantly blow you right off when you try to approach them?

There is just no reason to go on single when you can learn to tell jokes like this:

Cold enough, aye?:
0 Fahrenheit (10 C)
New Yorkers try to turn on the heat.
Canadians plant gardens.

40 Fahrenheit (4.4 C)
Californians shiver uncontrollably
Canadians Sunbathe.

35 Fahrenheit (1.6 C)
Italian Cars won’t start
Canadians drive with the windows down

32 Fahrenheit (0 C)
Distilled water freezes
Canadian water gets thicker.

0 Fahrenheit (-17.9 C)
New York City landlords finally turn on the heat.
Canadians have the last cookout of the season.

-40 Fahrenheit (-40 C)
Hollywood disintegrates.
Canadians rent some videos.

-60 Fahrenheit (-51 C)
Mt. St. Helen’s freezes.
Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door.

-100 Fahrenheit (-73 C)
Santa Claus abandons the North Pole
Canadians pull down their earflaps.

-173 Fahrenheit (-114 C)
Ethyl alcohol freezes.
Canadians get frustrated when they can’t thaw the keg.

-459.4 Fahrenheit (-273 C)
Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops.
Canadians start saying “Cold enough for ya? ”

-500 Fahrenheit (-295 C)
Hell freezes over.
The Leafs win the Cup

You will learn the most important Canadian Holidays:
12-> Lawyers Day
11-> Start of Christmas Season Day
10-> False Labour Day
9-> Make a Move on Your Secretary Day
8-> Hallmark Card Day
7-> Bring Your Handgun to Work Day
6-> Cretienmas or Gomery Inquiry Day
5-> Deadbeat Father’s Day
4-> Bad Hair Day
3-> Doris Day
2-> St. Hooter’s Day
1-> Hash Wednesday

You will learn the subtle differences in speech that will arouse your mate.

You will hear the intonations that make Black pepper, white pepper and toilette pepper unique.

As someone who loves guys from the territories, women you know that they sexually supreme beings who are just as fierce and erotic as the characters you see in Call of the Wild, Norbet Does saskatecewan Sasketchuan, sacatchyouone, Ontario, the silver screen, Northwest Outpost, and Classics illustrated comic books. ..

This book also teaches you the secrets of coming onto him without appearing like a player or a racist including advice on:

• Common Canuck customs : You won’t actually have to light your farts, but it helps to know the customs…
• How to get him to see you as a movie star like Jeanette McDonald…
• How to win the approval of her family: bring Lablatts and act as though you “get” the commercials when they air…

Stop dreaming and make it a reality.

Download coming soon!

I have been traveling a lot lately and despite 2,000,000+ miles in the air I am not a good frequent flyer. I don’t want to add to anyone else’s fears, but I think flight phobia is a misnomer: I think anxiety over being seat-belted onto a flammable pop can hurtling through the stratosphere at 500 miles an hour is a rational response to an unnatural situation. but I digress…

I recently discovered a temporary cure for in-flight panic: Anthropology by Dan Rhodes. I bought it in Beijing because it contained 101 extremely short works. You see, since I usually re-read (80-100 times) the first paragraph in traditional story collections–in between guesses about the glide ratio of a 757 (about the same as a rock)–during turbulence; I thought a group of one-paragraph tales would be a perfect buy. And so it was.

Anthropology is a collection of fantastic tales about girlfriends real and imagined; micro fiction (10-300 or so words long) that makes breakneck turns from comedy to tragedy and all the way back in a sigh or a chortle; all of them land somewhere in that delightful place between the sad last questions of Pablo Neruda and the joyful madess of Garcia-Marquez’s melancholoy whores.

For once I am delighted to read and re-read pieces like this:

I loved an anthropologist. She went to Mongolia to study the gays. At first she kept their culture at arm’s length, but eventually she decided that her fieldwork would benefit from some assimilation. she worked hard to become as much like them as possible and gradually was accepted. After a while she ended our romance by letter. It breaks my heart to think of her herding those yaks in the freezing hills, the peak of her leather cap shielding her eyes from the driving wind, her wrist dangling away, and nothing but a handlebar mustache to keep her top lip warm.

Hey, do read them: they are lots cheaper than anti-anxiety meds and refills are free.

I was at Web Wednesday in Hong Kong last week when a veteran expat in China shared with me a new version of a very familiar story.

My friend spoke of traveling to America with a Chinese love interest. It was the first visit abroad for the Chinese half of the couple. Ans after a few days in the land that invented super-sizing the first time tourist said to my friend, “You don’t seem fat at all compared to other Americans.”

One of the things you will get over VERY quickly in China is the need for validation by students, colleagues or friends. The Chinese don’t give one another a break, so don’t expect one for yourself. Sure, they will hand you a compliment, but….

Even with all of the fawning that goes on with a new foreign male or young female teacher there is always an addendum…. Here are but a couple real ones.

–”Your classes are less boring than the last teacher’s…”

–”I will tell you the secret: many students think you are very handsome, including me. But, you have no muscle. Just do some more exercise. Do you love Tennis?”

–”Here is the name of the girl who is in the hospital. It would be nice for you to call her, but don’t say anything. It might upset her.”

–”Maggie, you are very pretty, even with a big bum.”

And even the the most recognizable foreigner in China, DaShan (pictured above), has his moments. Here is a man who was recognized by the government as one of the most influential foreigners of the 90’s in China. On his personal website he has had to settle for a testimonial from the Chinese media in Shenzhen: “…not the least bit inferior to top Chinese performers.”

My students who, when actually speaking, will often do so using the Papal “We”. They recently told me about an earlier teacher (a favorite topic) who was frustrated that he could not elicit responses from the group: “We think he talked too much and didn’t let us speak.” I asked the group if they thought he may have just not understood that the Chinese idiom, “The nail that sticks up gets beaten down,” was still a social mandate (suspended for criticism of teachers, of course) of which he was not aware. I went on to ask whether or not they thought that he might have been confused or even a bit intimidated and subsequently talked more to alleviate his anxiety. They responded that “all of us think” he should have been more knowledgeable about how to teach Chinese students. And then they went on to criticize foreign teachers for not staying around more than a year at a time–the government mandated length of a normal, albeit renewable, teaching contract.

So, now when they ask me how I like teaching here I say, “We like it. It is good preparation for a career as a correctional officer in an American penitentiary.”

Stephen Foley in New York, writing for the Guardian, makes the recipe for journalism look easy: Take two hot topics, stir them into a conservative consumme (xenophobia works well here), add a smidgen of stale statistics, saute in some speculation, strain it through an anti-corporate colander and you have: instant story.

He talks about Google trying to conjure up a potion to put some lead in its seach engine pencil in China. He fails to mention that they also need a dose of virtual Viagara in Korea, Russia and Japan to name three more….

But he does go on to say he is relatively, almost certain that Google might possibly join up with a Chinese music site to probably offer songs from Universal Music (home of the Soon-To-Be-Elevator-Music Artist’s Alliance) and conceivably (rumor has it) SonyBMG and EMI. Oh yes, and Stephen says “Warner Music, is also believed to have expressed an interest.”

He goes on to assert that Baidu is an “upstart search engine” (founded in 1999–one year after Google) operating in a “culture of piracy” and that it built its business on piracy and is getting “a large portion of its traffic from users searching for illegal music.” In Stephen’s world 7% is large– and no, I won’t make the obvious joke.  The 7% represents music searches he assumes to be illegal.

He finshes up his article by expressing his belief that a Google led “experiment with advertising-funded free music in China would be a significant break with the past.” He fails to note that EMI and Baidu already have a deal to live stream Chinese songs and they are working on more aliances with companies and artists.

No I don’t have a rose-colored display on my computer and I know how prevalent IP theft is in China both on and off of the net. But, I also know China is not alone, but they do make good headlines.

Search for Utorrent software–the program that allows you to crib virtually anything–and you will find that it is not de-indexed by Google nor are most of the sites that post anything stealable from movies to games. Isohunt.com a favorite site for world-wide free-downloaders, was hosted in the US until very recently. And I don’t think YouTube is going to be winning any award’s from the folks at Creative Commons. How many steps removed must you be before we eliminate you from the accomplice’s list?

Baidu is in China the country the west loves to hate: they will happily exploit China to make a buck as they demonize them in the press.

On a lighter note: I look at Google and Baidu this way: Who would I want to take to the prom? Baidu is the nerdy kid with the cheaper clothes (Google’s R&D budget exceeds a quarter’s worth of gross revenue for Baidu) while Google is always in the running for Court King or Queen. Baidu saves , Google spends. Google wears contacts and a night retainer, Baidu has hardware and emo glasses. Baidu returns my phone calls, Google’s dance card must be full….

I love the underdog, the laughing dance partner with two left feet and the kids that are never picked for dodgeball: bloggers with humility instead of journalists without borders.

Cast your vote for hot or not: