WEDNESDAY

Last night's Shanghaiist Scrabble was full of warmhearted, frenetic spelling: players scrambled to push their way to the board to capture coveted double letter and triple word scores as others sat with old friends and new Scrabblemates, drinking and trying to think of words that could possibly combine two F's and a Q. In the end, Liz managed to blow away the competition with "PSEUDONYM," catching the elusive and coveted Quadruple Word Score, a Shanghaiist Scrabble exclusive, for a whopping 76 points. Congrats to Liz on winning a 250 RMB gift certificate to Cotton's, which, of course, you can use at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble night!

The World Health Organization and the Joint United Nations HIV/AIDS campaign, or UNAIDS for short (good acronym, right?), was formally released yesterday for the first time in China. Though the report only shows cases reported by medical facilities and could thus be far higher, the dissemination is a major step in understanding and fighting AIDS in the country.

Asia Uncut is coming to Shanghai to film its second season. The English-language talk show has featured A-list talent from Asia and abroad. To promote its new season the show is offering free drinks, tickets, and transportation. Free stuff and a chance to see celebrities? Sounds good to us! [Urbanatomy]

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• Renowned Chinese translator Yang Xianyi has died at the age of 94. Yang, with his wife Gladys Taylor, translated such classics as the 18th century "A Dream of Red Mansions." [Associated Press]
• According to a poll on the Economist, 88% of people believe that China is showing more leadership than America in fighting climate change. [Economist]
• While David Brooks may have been impressed by China's strides into modernity, several New York Times readers were much less pleased. [New York Times]

Daniel Gross of Slate has been over here reporting on the controversial Three Gorges Dam project. And while we can't say anything too bad about his coverage of that - which, while it reads more like a disgruntled travel piece than actual hardhitting journalism, is generally close enough to what little facts we know about the dam that it makes it impossible for us to nitpick - we were surprised by one of his pronouncements:

Thanks in part to the immense popularity High School Musical enjoyed whilst it was on the stage in Shanghai, Disney is now working with Shanghai Media Group and Huayi Bro.s on a Chinese-version of the made-for-TV movie - and it's based in our city! But those looking for a direct translation of the show will be pretty disappointed - it's being vastly adjusted to fit Chinese culture and sensibilities:

Driving home late at night can be a scary experience: as drunk driving is on the rise, we find ourselves wondering: are those erratic cars weaving through traffic all drunk, or just reckless drivers? But fear not: Shanghai Daily informs us of a new invention in the works at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University that will help Shanghai's crackdown on drunk driving.