American comedian/actor Aziz Ansari (Tom Haverford on NBC's Parks and Recreation) is visiting Shanghai this week with Parks and Recreation screenwriter Alan Yang (pictured). No gigs or anything, just a vacation. He's already done the obligatory meet and greet with Haibao and eaten an unhealthy amount of our city's famous soup dumplings. As his Twitter bio suggests, Aziz "likes food a lot." He also likes cocktails. He's got a little more time in Shanghai, so if you have any recommendations for either, leave them in a comment. more ›

State run news agency, Xinhua, and American media giant, NBC, have just agreed to start broadcasting TV services together. Xinhua's TV arm, named China Xinhua News Network Corporation (CNC) was launched last year and already has a presence in many parts of the globe, compiling approximately 800 minutes of bilingual English and Chinese news daily. Both sides have released some boring glowy PR rhetoric about how this joint cooperation will be so very wonderful for viewers across the world but what we want to know is whether it will mean more featherbrained directives? more ›

NBA Commissioner David Stern is interviewed in a video from NBC Sports entitled "China's passion for basketball." Stern appears to have adopted his own passion for another Chinese invention: the comb-over. more ›

Five Chinese swimmers received two year bans yesterday after testing positive for the anabolic steroid clenbuterol at a national competition last June. According to the AP the athletes' coaches also received one to two year bans. more ›

If you watched Super Bowl XLIII in China, you missed out on what is often the best part of the show--the commercials that advertisers pay obscene amounts of money to air during the game. You can see them all and vote for your favorites here. more ›

NBC's US$1 billion deal to become America's official Olympic media for the Beijing 2008 Games was part of a record breaking $2.3 billion deal that included the the 2004 Summer Olympics ($793m) and the 2006 Winter Games ($613m). In what they've called the single most ambitious media project in history, NBC has sent the largest media contingent of about 3,000 to produce a whopping 3,600 hours of coverage. While we were in Beijing last week, we were fortunate enough to catch sight of Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Al Roker of The Today Show which broadcasts live from their open air studio on the Olympic Green. This marks the sixth Olympics that the show has travelled to and every evening here at 7pm, the studio attracts an enthusiastic crowd of (mostly) Americans waving flags and banners hoping to say hi to friends and family just waking up back home. more ›

From NBC. We were looking for one to put in our sidebar, but this will do for now. Find any other good ones out there? more ›

Three weeks after Canada's CBC News announced that it had re-secured permission to broadcast live from Tiananmen Square during the Olympics, more announcements have come out indicating that BOCOG is moving toward giving games broadcasters more freedom to report in Beijing this August. more ›

Lots of very encouraging news today:

• John Bergen of Sichuan Tech and Business College in Dujiangyan, the first missing foreigner that we posted here, has been found alive and kicking by NBC. He gives his account of the earthquake in the video on the right. Some of his fellow-teachers and students were not so lucky and did not escape from the earthquake, but Bergen says he is determined to stay on and help them rebuild the school.
• The group of 26 Malaysian tourists feared missing after the quake are "safe, but stranded", much to the relief of several relatives that have been in touch with Shanghaiist, including twitterer Dedric Lam. The Star reports that the Malaysian embassy was getting the Sichuan provincial government's assistance to move the group to Maoxian which is about 150km from Chengdu.
• Chad, Jenny and Matthew Graber at Aba Teachers College have also been found and made contact with their family. However, there is no news from another teacher Jan-Mark NAAIJER yet and magali and neeser123 are trying to make contact with him. Arial photos of Aba Teachers College show that the school is standing still so Naaijer is probably somewhere around. more ›

We attended the Chicago Improv All-Stars show at Henry's last night ... and we enjoyed ourselves. It kind of had the feel of a theme party at a friend's house (assuming that friend was very popular, brewed their own beer, had a very large living room with poorly placed pillars, was bad at training their staff and charged guests RMB 280 at the door). If you have ever seen an episode of Whose Line... more ›

Forgive us, but we enjoy watching a game of American football every now and then (yes, even after that ugly display in London). Last year, we got in the habit of watching the NFL's Sunday and Monday night games on Monday and Tuesday morning here in Shanghai while we answered emails, fed the dogs and did other important things (we watched on ESPN Asia via our Filipino satellite system). Right now, for example, we'd be... more ›

Jakob Montrasio points us to a most unbelievable ranking of the world's top 25 cities with skyscrapers published by the German magazine Spiegel: more ›

Watch this video clip of the poor receptionist girl working at Google China getting harrassed by a guy, Zola Zhou, (once) billed as "China's first citizen reporter". Zola first gained widespread attention for his blog reports on the Chongqing nailhouse. Hungry for more success, he also went to Xiamen to report on demonstrations against Haicang PX. Hell, he even got interviewed by NBC. more ›

Beijing will play host to an NFL preseason game next year, the professional American football league announced today (it had been rumored for a while). The New England Patriots will take on the Seattle Seahawks at 8:30 pm on August 8, 2007 in Workers Stadium. The game will be televised live in both the United States (NBC) and China (CCTV). (The Associated Press story, linked to above, said the game "will be shown live on NBC at 8:30 a.m. ET on Aug. 9. The dateline was "FOXBORO, Mass." -- forgive them if they don't quite understand how the time difference works up in New England.) more ›

At approximately 4:22 pm Beijing time today, North Korea test launched yet another missile amidst a sea of international furor and condemnation after six fired earlier in the day. more ›

... so here are some AIDS-related links for you: more ›