Category: Uncategorized

When I wrote many months back that I wasn’t sold on the Chinese’s dedication to building their stadiums according to code, I had an incident like this in mind. It was the second fire at the stadium in the last four months. Luckily, no casualties were recorded (assuming you believe everyone’s favorite Chinese news service, Xinhua.)

That’s what the Obama campaign headquarters in Columbia, Mo., looked like the day after the election. Boone County, where Columbia is located, went strongly for Obama, but the Illinois senator didn’t win the state. But you’d never have known it from the post-election window signage.

Chris Kelly spent nearly each night in the months leading up to the election knocking on doors in Missouri’s 24th congressional district. At his campaign offices, they kept track of each door, more than 10,000 in all.

Tonight, Kelly won election to the state House of Representatives by 411 votes.

Just did a quick search of both candidates on Amazon.com to see how their books rank. Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope” is ranked 32nd overall in book sales. His first book, “Dreams from My Father” is ranked 74th overall. Even “Change We Can Believe In,” a collection of speeches and proposals from the candidate, is selling well. That book ranks 487th overall in books sold.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s autobiography, “Faith of My Fathers,” is ranked only 1,655th overall on Amazon.com. His newest work, “Why Courage Matters,” which was released in July, is ranked 21,529th.

Also worth noting: the third, fourth and sixth entries that come up when searching for Senator McCain’s name are for a Halloween masks of the candidate.

The New York Times is asking readers to submit the word that best describes their mood today, and they’re pairing those words with readers’ political affiliations. They’ve combined it all into a cool Flash graphic featuring the most popular one word submissions.

Here’s to hoping that the Times keeps this graphic going as the networks call Virginia and Indiana tonight.

Facebook has a special election day page up, with a counter at the top showing how many Facebook users have voted, a Google Map that automatically shows you where your polling place is, a reminder to those who live in states that allow registration on election day that it’s not too late to do so and the hotline for the Election Protection Coalition. Impressively done, Facebook.

And FYI: in the three minutes that it’s taken since I grabbed that screenshot, the counter has gone up over 235,000.

If you followed the Rocky‘s Olympics blog this summer, then you know that the real story of the 2008 Beijing Games was who was signing on the dotted line and who was taking over the airwaves.

You probably remember Li Ning. The athletic maker, whose sales in China placed the company third behind Nike and Adidas before the Games, received the greatest free ad ever when their founder and chairman, Li Ning, flew above the Bird’s Nest to light the Olympic torch during the Opening Ceremonies. More than 800 million Chinese saw the torch lighting live.

Meanwhile, Yili used the Games to increase their predicted sales of milk — yes, milk — to over $2.92 billion for the calendar year.

Now, the post-Olympic numbers are in. In 1,500 face-to-face surveys across the country, when asked what brands they had been paying attention to recently, 19.1 percent of Chinese said — without being prompted — Li Ning. Before the Games, 16.3 percent mentioned the brand.

But here’s the bigger news: Li Ning actually leapfrogged Adidas in terms of recognition, even though Adidas was the official athletic sponsor of the Olympics. 24.1 percent of Chinese said they knew Adidas before the Games. Afterward, only 18.6 percent said they knew the brand.

As for the aforementioned Yili, they’re now the second most recognizable brand in China, according to this survey. 29.3 percent of those polled mentioned the brand, up more than 15 percent from the pre-Olympics polling.

The survey also asked about athletes who competed in the Olympics. Michael Phelps was recognized by exactly 0.0 percent of Chinese before the Games. Afterward, 10.8 percent were able to name him. But diver Guo Jingjing made the biggest leap, recognized by only 11.4 percent before the Games but by 40.2% afterward.

It should be no surprise that she wore Li Ning in the pool and was featured in several Yili ads during the Games.

[Random post-script: I am wearing my Shaquille O’Neal Li Ning sneakers as I type this post. I am not entirely sure how how affects my biases toward the company, though I should say that they make very comfortable shoes.]

Just one image from tonight’s Obama rally at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Yes, that “Missouri for Change” banner looked even more impressive with the Senator in front of it.

More photos from tonight available here.

Seen on the south quad at the University of Missouri today, where Barack Obama will speak tonight.

The city that brought you The Time That Fans Threw Snowballs at Santa and The Time That Fans Applauded Michael Irvin Getting Taken Off the Field in an Ambulance brings you rioting, looting and chaos. You won’t believe the photos from last night in Philadelphia.