Dutchman flies to China to see online girlfriend, lives in airport for 10 days waiting for her to show

Well, that was dumb. The title pretty much says it: he flew to China to surprise his internet girlfriend, and she never showed up. The obvious conclusion to draw is that she doesn’t actually exist (“catfishing”) and was just someone’s joke or scam to string the guy along for some reason, but apparently she’s at least *kinda* for real. The story goes that they’d agreed to meet up after a year of online dating, but he couldn’t wait; he sent her a photo of his flight information, but she didn’t know what it meant. And even better:

She says that she was unable to meet Cirk when he arrived in Changsha because she was out of town, undergoing cosmetic surgery in Zhengzhou, Henan province

Good plan, dude. It seems like these Surprise Romantic Gestures only work in the movies.

Heck, he might have lucked out here. “Cosmetic surgery” covers a *lot* of ground. Maye she was getting a boob job. Maybe “she” was getting bits lopped off (you know what I mean). Who friggen’ knows.

And here’s the one bit of wisdom I can really impart. The guy in the story is not photographed at his best, but he looks *awful.* He looks like a cross between a modern-day meth head, a 1980’s AIDS sufferer and a 1940’s death camp survivor. I doubt he got there in just 10 days. Now, I’m certainly no expert on what women want, but in general it seems like “scrawny tweaker” is not high on the list. The photo of the Chinese woman in the article has her face blurred, but she otherwise appears to be Standard Hot Asian Chick. And here’s my wisdom: unless you’ve got buckets of cash on open display, if you are not a good looking guy, that chick on the other end of the internet Does Not Exist.

At this point I’m willing to entertain the idea that there are *no* women on the internet. Anyone who claims to be a women, especially if “she” seems to be interested in you, is actually a 40-year old fat guy living in his mom’s basement.

And also linked on that news page is a distressing story:

[GRAPHIC] Inhuman driver drags dog to its death on road in Shandong

And there is indeed a video showing a dog being dragged behind a SUV… at first running to keep up, but failing and ending up falling and being dragged. This is not a fun watch. But the thing that gets me… the surrounding cars block the driver and stop him and a riot damn near sparks up. The cops arrive in force to maintain order and haul off the driver.

This is, again, in China. While it’s a sad story, it’s a surprising and somewhat hopeful sign that this casual cruelty (no motive is given for the act, but I suspect the driver is just a dumbass who forget the dog) was met with a *vast* outpouring of outrage. A dislike of cruelty to animals is hardly the sole sign of a mature, civilized culture, but it’s a necessary and important step.