(Via Kottke)

A snowboarder performs a jump during a halfpipe event at the Snowboard World Cup in Saas Fee, Switzerland.

That is: in France and Japan, the deep-down assumption is that the language is pure and difficult, that foreigners can’t really learn it, and that one’s attitude toward their attempts is either French hauteur or the elaborately over-polite and therefore inevitably patronizing Japanese response to even a word or two in their language. “Nihongo jouzu! Your Japanese is so good!” 

News broke yesterday that a movie version of the classic board game is in the works, with Will Smith as a producer and possible star. Blogger Colin Boyd is excited about the project, but I’m not so sure.

My favorite thing about the game was always the board itself—if you haven’t guessed that I’m a map geek by now, you haven’t been paying attention—but I can’t imagine how a movie would capture that global sweep, the bird’s-eye view of people moving across the continents. I can only hope the producers care enough about that element of the game to try.

A New York Yankees fan in Times Square reacts to video of a play during game six of the World Series.

A 32-meter (or 105-foot) statue of a youthful Chairman Mao is under construction in Hunan province, China.