My standard disclaimer: While I’m traveling, lots of random thoughts pop into my head. Each week (or month, or year) I like to share a few of them. Please don’t judge me, I know I’m a bit crazy.

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Reason #434 I love Asia: no time of the year is the wrong time of the year to play Christmas music.

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Walking through the night market in Chiang Mai, I feel some sympathy for the sellers of handmade bookmarks. They’ll soon be collateral damage in the growth of eBooks.

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Watching all of the people in Thailand and their custom of a wai (below), it reminds me of when I was young. I used to think that any time I clasped my hands together I was automatically praying, as though I was triggering a holy walkie-talkie to God. I’d absent-mindedly put my hands together and then get scared that I was bothering Jesus when I was just thinking about Batman or something.

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Does anyone ever buy a piggybank for a child in Vietnam? It’s just not the same when you don’t have coins plinking around inside.

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Some countries require 2 passport sized photos for visas and some require only one, so I have lots of strays. I’m now carrying around 5 different photos with various hairstyles and outfits. I feel like Jason Bourne.

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Reason # 437 I love Asia: You can believably say you have the body of a god when there are Buddhists everywhere. It’s so much easier than comparing to the Greek gods or even skinny Jesus.

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This week in dubious marketing claims:

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Camera phones should have time locks that prevent them from taking photos after 10pm.

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It shouldn’t count as forgetting a birthday if you remember the person’s birthday but just have no idea what day it is today.

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I find it difficult to look directly in the face of people who do things that don’t make sense to me. It makes my head hurt. It’s like trying to stare at the carpet in a Vegas casino that’s been purposely made with asymmetrical patterns to force you to look up at the slot machines.

I may be shooting my site traffic in the foot, but when did I ever care about site traffic?

My standard disclaimer: While I’m traveling, lots of random thoughts pop into my head. Each week I like to share a few of them. Please don’t judge me, I know I’m a bit crazy.

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The people in the Philippines are very friendly, but they make me nervous. Every time I talk with them, they constantly say “uh oh.” “O o” may mean “yes” in Tagalog, but in my head all I hear is “oops!” and wonder what I did wrong.

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If genius is 99% perspiration, then Manila should be world headquarters for Mensa.

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Marketing lesson #1: On your store sign, don’t tell people that they don’t need your product.

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Forget doing a time lapse video tracking a beard’s growth while I travel, I should have done a morphing video of what I consider an acceptable room. On this trajectory, I’ll soon be able to crawl into a spider-infested tree stump and get a good night’s sleep.

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Manila is the most heavily armed place I’ve ever been. Banks and nightclubs not only have signs notifying you that you can’t bring in a firearm, they have a procedure to check it for you while you’re inside. This is what I imagine Texas must be like, except that no one would ever hand over their guns.

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Scuba diving courses are naturally graded as pass/fail. There’s no such thing as a C-minus, where you only mostly die a grisly death.

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The “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs in Asia are awesome because many of them are animated. I found my favorite in Puerto Princesa. Rather than a standard animated walk, the sign looks like it’s doing the “Running Man.”

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The people of the Philippines have apparently discovered the secret to eternal life. For 80s power ballads.

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This is a town that loves its celebrations, with fireworks happening all day every day. Every time I plug in my laptop, there’s a little shower of excitement from the outlet.

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I went all batshit over the Underground River in Sabang. Correction, the batshit went all over me when I visited the Underground River.

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I finally visited a fish spa. You put your feet in a pool of water and dozens of small fish nibble the dead skin off your feet. It made me curious about where those fish are native residents. Because I don’t want to go for a swim and then suddenly be surrounded by thousands of them chowing down all over my body.

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Okay, listen up Alanis. THIS is irony: I just walked by a run-down electronics repair shop. Inside an old man was working on repairs by candlelight.

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It took months, but I’ve finally adjusted to the hot and humid climate of Southeast Asia. I no longer sweat 24/7. Unless I move or something.

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Special note: I’ve decided to add a separate RSS feed solely for Brain Drops. So, if you don’t care about the rest of my blather, but would like to receive emails or RSS feeds solely for Brain Drops, you can sign up here:

And, my standard disclaimer: While I’m traveling, lots of random thoughts pop into my head. Each week I like to share a few of them. Please don’t judge me, I know I’m a bit crazy.

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Three whole days in Manila and I still haven’t found any organized tours that take you to the factory where they make their envelopes.

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In Manila, restaurants don’t use heat lamps. Food is kept scorching hot through a process they call “room temperature.”

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The Singapore Merlion is an ancient mythological creature dating back to a time when the “Trinket Makers Guild” decided the city needed an ancient mythological creature.

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Singapore is the only place on the planet that gets hotter after a light rain. The water hits the sidewalk, turns to steam and treats you like a stalk of broccoli.

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Which is worse: having a vague sense of fear about all the creatures in Australia that can kill you or doing research and knowing in explicit detail about all the creatures that can kill you?

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um…yeah. If he’s not a fertility doctor, fate is quite cruel.

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Seeing the scrub U.S. basketball players on the Asian league teams made me wonder if there’s a job opportunity for second rate actors to play the “evil American general” in North Korean and Iranian films.

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Fashion tip for working girls: if you’ve taken the trouble to spend $2000 on fake boobs, you should really spend $10 to wax the unibrow.

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A stand in Kuala Lumpur sells belts studded with bullet casings. I tried to think of the top 3 airports I’d like to try to wear that through. Heathrow wins for providing sheer entertainment value without the whole “ending up dead” thing.

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The following things are not allowed on the ferry: cows, dogs, birds and cartoon kittens.

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It’s no wonder Malaysia has such a mixture of different religious beliefs. Zooming around blind curves in a mini-bus, you will pray to Buddha, Allah, Jesus, Vishnu – anyone who’ll listen.

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I was in a Thai restaurant listening to what I THOUGHT was traditional Thai music with traditional Thai instruments, but when I listened more closely it was actually a Thai version of Bryan Adams. At Asian airports, they scan your body temperature to make sure you’re not bringing in some new flu. Shouldn’t they have the same concern about the onslaught of Canadian music?

As a reminder, here’s my disclaimer: While I’m traveling, lots of random thoughts pop into my head. Each week I like to share a few of them. Please don’t judge me, I know I’m a bit crazy.

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Why do some people think God cryptically communicates his anger through natural disasters? You would think He knows that we all have Facebook now and could read his status updates.

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I walked by the Xavier Institute in Penang today. Surprisingly no one was shooting laser beams from their eyes or creating ice slides.

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And I find one more phrase to add to my list of “potential autobiography titles.”

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After seeing what just crawled on my foot, the phrase “as small as an ant” has lost all meaning.

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Penang is an odd study in contrasts. Much of the city is ancient and wasting away, pushing right up against massively overdeveloped malls and resorts. It’s like watching the Incredible Hulk and He-Man gangbang Gollum.

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People are missing the obvious answer about why so many birds are dropping out of the sky. After millions of downloads of Angry Birds, the pigs are finally taking their revenge.

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Shouldn’t James Bond Island really be called Scaramanga Island? Give the villain a little credit. He was the one who paid for it, after all.

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New saying I just came up with while indulging in a shave at a Thai spa: “Don’t wait until the barber has a straight razor at your throat to negotiate a price.”

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Krabi has the most unique street lights of any city I’ve been to. Can you imagine the City Council meeting?

Councilwoman Chalong: “Okay, we really need to dress up our street lights a little bit. They’re kind of dull. Thanarat? Any ideas?”

Thanarat: “How about we put them in luggage being carried by cavemen?”

Council: “Works for us!”

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I’ve gotten more relaxed since I’ve been traveling, but I still have OCD moments. The iPhone e-book  app “Stanza” visually represents a bookmark as a torn page corner. I stopped leaving bookmarks because it bugs the shit out of me that a virtual page is purposely torn.

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There are many things I’ve done on this trip that I never did at home. For example, in Los Angeles I would never have been caught dead going to Watts, but in Thailand I’m visiting a lot of them.

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I was turned off when I saw the word “dung” on a restaurant sign in Vietnam, but this place in Thailand beats the shit out of that. So to speak.

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I wonder if the currency in Thailand was named by someone trying to say “toy boat” 3 times fast.

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After walking through many of the streets of Bangkok, I still haven’t seen a trannie bar called “Island of Misfit Boys” but that’s a natural one for the holiday season.

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After spending a month in Vietnam and moving on to Thailand I had to get used to traffic driving on the opposite side of the street. Well, I actually had to get used to them driving on only one side of the street.

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The only way this dog exercise treadmill could be any cooler is if they built a giant Habitrail around him.

note to PETA: the treadmill was not motorized, the dog was running on his own and loving every second of it

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I thought dogs in Thailand were really well behaved, but then realized that it’s just too hot for them to do more than lay in the shade, lift their heads and “meh” at potential intruders.

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If you had grown up in the 70s, you’d remember that Mr. Moose would constantly drop ping pong balls on Captain Kangaroo’s head. When I heard about “Ping Pong Shows” in Bangkok, that’s what kept coming to mind. Now I can’t shake the mental image of Mr. Moose shooting ping pong balls out of his vagina.

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Showing a Justin Bieber video in a nightclub should be banned for breaking some kind of underage drinking law.

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If hookers aren’t your thing, it’s nice to know that there are ATMs where you can get a date rape drug quickly.

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One of my favorite looks on women in Bangkok is wearing glasses with her hair tied up. I’ve named that style “the Naughty Thaibrarian.”

And a quick caveat, all the war-related sights this week seriously slowed down my output since I spent a couple of days just numb.

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With the way some of the Saigon street vendors tote around their babies as sales props, they’ve got a good shot at becoming Governor of Alaska.

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Shouldn’t “resorts” be called something more positive? It sounds like you didn’t WANT to stay there but you had to resort to it.

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Now I’m totally envious that I’m still stuck with a Standard Definition bank. Of course, to get the full value out of the bank, you also have to spend several hundred dollars for Sony’s proprietary HD-ATM card and special cables.

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I don’t care how it translates from Vietnamese, no restaurant should include “dung” in its name. And they should really stay away from “dong” while they’re at it.

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Strangest sight of the week: Elderly Vietnamese women doing aerobics in the park to the Ke$ha song Tik Tok. With swords.

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Animal parts like eyes, testicles and feet do not belong in a person’s mouth. Which is why I don’t eat Chicken McNuggets.

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Instead of dreamily looking at clouds, do kids in war-torn areas look at piles of rubble and share what they see? I just saw a collapsed building that looks like a fluffy bunny wearing a top hat.

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If George Bush went on a deep sea excursion, do you think he’d return to the harbor with a banner that says “Fishin’ Accomplished” even if they didn’t catch a damned thing?

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There’s a lot of love for Uncle Ho Chi Minh here, so I’ll save my “dirty Ho” and “skanky Ho” jokes until I leave Vietnam.

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The Cu Chi tunnels are one step away from being a really disturbing theme park. People sitting on blown up tanks while their friends say “smile” is just a bit bizarre. All it needs is a churro cart and a cartoon mascot of a tunnel rat.

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I was hoping Charo would be performing daily at the Cu Chi tunnels. If you get that joke, you watched way too much Love Boat.

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There was a Vietnamese wedding going on in a nearby hotel last night. I really wanted to pull a Wedding Crashers, but I couldn’t have blended in without some dress shoes.

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So many people here still revere Ho Chi Minh that I wonder if calling someone a “ho” is considered a compliment.

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While the tour guide told us about the former concubine residences at the emperor’s tomb, I kept envisioning medieval naked silk pillow fights.

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Evidently, Nha Trang holds the title of “Third Most Puka Shell Necklaces,” behind Waikiki and West Hollywood.

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The street vendor wandering around with a rack of sunglasses during the rainy season in Vietnam should really diversify with umbrellas and ponchos.

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I’ve started to answer the question “Where you from?” by saying “China.” It’s a test to see if they’re actually paying attention or just running through a pre-recorded sales spiel.

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The situation between North Korea and South Korea is getting concerning. M*A*S*H* is one show that never needs a reboot, please.

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Sorry, Bert Lahr, you’ve been de-throned. The title of the most flamboyantly gay lion goes to… this guy.

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When you can wash your hair with a Wet One, it was cut too short.

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The Vietnamese phrase “same-same but different” is also the motto for 95% of film pitches greenlit by Hollywood studios.

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The Citadel in Hue is a huge walled off complex that once held the Vietnamese palace, expensive housing, pools, social areas, music and games. Basically, the emperor was managing a 19th century Oakwood Apartment complex.

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Forget dancing like no one is watching, I have to dance like no one is pointing and laughing.

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I was planning on getting Christmas gifts for my family in Hoi An but I’m pretty sure none of my nieces or nephews need a suit.

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I found SPF90 Sunscreen in Hoi An. I am now ready for my visit to Mercury.

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Warning signs are some of my favorite bits of comedic writing on the road. From the tour boat:

It should probably concern me more that radioactive material transportation was so prevalent they have to explicitly restrict it.

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I have to admit that when I see the street sweepers in some towns I’m not sure how they know where to draw the line on what’s trash.

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The boat tour in Hue was really inexpensive but everything you want to do along the way costs extra. Can it still be considered “nickel and diming you to death” if the Vietnamese don’t use coins?

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I’m even more convinced that my theory on why there are so many KFCs in Asia is correct after seeing a photo of Ho Chi Minh. They may as well have just named it Uncle Ho’s Commie Fried Chicken.

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Meeting other travelers on the road is easy, but romantic encounters are tough because there aren’t many single female tourists in my age range. They’re all either youngty-one or oldie-seven.

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They actually opened a Hanoi Hilton in 1999. Did they think the name recognition was a GOOD marketing tactic?

I would stay there if the rooms were fully themed experiences like the Madonna Inn, only with historical accuracy. Although I guess inedible food, horrendous treatment and confined spaces are already well covered by the airlines.

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The “no photo” signs outside the Hanoi palace are pictorial signs using an 1890s style antique camera with the accordion sides. I found it amusing so I tried to take a photo of the “no photo” sign. The palace guard didn’t see the humor.

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I’m not sure how long the city’s had its name, but it’s appropriate because all the motorbikes and constant honking really Hanoi me.

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After 4 days in Hanoi I’ve become quite adept at crossing the street. It’s like Frogger without scoring. Or extra lives.

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The Hanoi night market is either shaped like a moebius strip, or else it really DOES go on for infinity.

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The shops in Hanoi were once taxed based on the width of the storefront, so they’re all extremely narrow but go on forever once you’re inside. It’s like a TARDIS with endless aisles of “I Hanoi” shirts inside.

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There’s a perverse sense of humor behind naming a popular Vietnamese night club Apocalypse Now. It’s also reputedly a big hooker hangout. A lot of ways to go with this one:

• a) Upload a video of hookers descending on the club to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries.”
• b) Go topical with a multi-generational Sheen joke.
• c) Marlon Brando saying “the whores… the whores…”

This week – even more random as I clear out the drips and drabs left over from China.

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The Chinese government could cut millions of dollars from their budget each year if they stopped painting lane stripes on their roads. No one pays attention to them, so why bother?

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Well, there go two avenues of trying to jump start my sex life.

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I saw a car on the street that Chevrolet named the Spark. Is it allowed to get close enough to a pump to fill its tank?

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I’m astounded that people here wear face masks to avoid spreading germs, but they are constantly horking up a big piece of phlegm to spit on the sidewalk. Or inside the train station. Or on my shoe.

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Motorbikes in the colder parts of China have hand muffs attached. How in the Hell do you flip someone off with these things on?

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Someday I want to do a pictorial essay about bikinis and call it Paradise Flossed.

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If this sign had been in place on the Great Wall 3000 years ago, maybe they wouldn’t have had so many fights about it.

Mongolian soldier: “General, should we attack the wall?”

Mongolian general: “Idiot!! Don’t you see that sign?”

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Bad business ideas:

• Titling your Broadway Musical “Closed for Renovation”
• Titling your magazine “Complimentary”
• Opening a mall kiosk in China to sell hair straighteners

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As in many countries, the China Postal Service also operates as a bank. Can you imagine how horrible it would be if the US Postal Service also operated a bank? Long lines, poor service, you have no idea where your money goes and you’re afraid they might lose it. Holy shit, they DO operate the banks!

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Something I’d never seen before – a fashion show to sell bedding. They came out to model pillows, women were dressed in comforters and sheets.Would it qualify if you bought some bedding and claimed you slept with a runway model?

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I was in the Kunming airport and a group of Chinese security officers walked toward me. I was wondering – “fuck, what did I do wrong?”

They wanted to take my picture with a security guard helping me with a non-existent question. I guess I fit the role of “clueless tourist” perfectly. I’m gonna be famous in China, but the caption will probably be something like “our highly trained staff is very happy to help even the most idiotic traveler.”

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It’s rather ironic that the national symbol for a country of 1.3 billion people is an animal that is nearly extinct due to an inability to breed properly.

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We were watching the baby pandas being cared for in the nursery and a woman behind me referred to the panda’s nurse, saying “oh, that’s the best job in the whole world!” Yes, her hard-earned veterinary degree is serving her well as she sits there wiping sticky poo off of panda fur.

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Panda cubs are all born with timing considered premature birth. At delivery, they weigh 1/1000th what their mother weighs. That’s like a human baby being born and weighing 2.4 OUNCES. If this were 1999, I’d insert a Calista Flockhart joke here.

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Sidewalk hawkers practically dragged me into a Chengdu bar. I walked in and the lounge singer broke into a bad rendition of “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Yes, I got “lick lolled” in China – which wasn’t as fun as it sounds like it should be.

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Okay, I get that people eat rabbit in China, but the Playboy bunny on a restaurant marquee? Does the entree come with a staple in the middle?

I went in, sat at a table then told them I wasn’t hungry, I was only there for the articles.

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Evidently, Viagra is sold over the counter in China. Fortunately, I don’t have any need for Viagra. Sadly, I also don’t have any need for Viagra.

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Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you, never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you. See how that feels??

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I’ve started email correspondence with a couple people I’ve met in China. Their knowledge of English vocabulary is strong but since punctuation isn’t really a part of the Chinese language, they have no clue how to use it. They tend to just randomly throw commas into their sentences every few words. It’s like reading a tweet from Sarah Palin, except for the whole “strong vocabulary” part. And the “not being an insane, self-serving imbecile” part.

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For Western travelers looking to make traveling money in China, you don’t need any special talents to busk for donations. Just bleach your hair blonde and set yourself up as a photo op in a plaza in any Chinese city. Before long, you’ll be raking in far more cash than the guy dressed as the Asian Michael Jackson does.