多棱鏡MISHMASH

HāCKING HEāRTS

In a bizarre attempt to win over a girl’s heart, an enterprising student in Chongqing hacked into his school’s computer network in October to take over a PowerPoint presentation during class. “My lady likes excitement,” the message read. “She hopes I can show my love like this.”The anonymous love-struck teen spent the rest of the message apologizing for taking up class time. Then the whole ordeal finished with, “Sorry about that, just restart the computer to fix the problem,” and signed off, earning him the title “world’s most apologetic hacker”. Apparently, the stunt happened just after teacher evaluations, the Global Times reported. - DAVID DAWSON

IKEā DITCHES ELDERLY DāTES

Shanghai IKEA doesn’t want to go on any more dates with old people. For quite some time, the IKEA’s dining area has been a popular hangout for elderly people looking to hook up with each other. IKEA tolerated it for a number of reasons—not the least of which was that those old people are scary and hell hath no fury like the elderly man whose date was just sabotaged—but the store, in Shanghai’s Xujiahui area, decided enough was enough and that these elderly people who weren’t buying furniture or food had to go. Rules were put in place stipulating that food had to be bought before they were allowed in the area and store staff have begun regular patrols. Since then, sales of the cheapest item on the menu, at 10 RMB, have reportedly shot up. Evidently these are pretty cheap dates. - D.D.

LOUD āND PROUD

A guy at a hotel in Guangxi got very little sleep one night in October, after angry guests began pounding on his door. Apparently, his lovemaking session was loud enough to keep all the rooms around him awake, and they formed a good ole-fashioned mob. The man, surnamed Lei, responded to their banging on his door by hurling verbal abuse. This, apparently, was not the correct decision. The mob then broke down the door. Despite this, Lei remained utterly unrepentant and refused to be quieter. This, also, was not the correct decision. One particularly angry neighbor dragged Lei outside and the two got into a brawling match. Fortunately police arrived on the scene before anyone could get really hurt. Lei has reportedly been granted 15,000 RMB in compensation for being attacked. No word on whether he will be quieter in future. -D.D.

THE GREāT SNāKE ESCāPE

“Mass breakout” is a pretty alarming phrase. “Mass venomous snake breakout” is still pretty bad, but would you feel any better if you knew they were baby snakes? In August, around 200 monocled cobras busted out of a snake breeding facility in Nanjing. Over the following month, about 150 were rounded up, which leaves 50 still unaccounted for. The snakes are used in a variety of traditional medicine treatments (it is common to see entire snakes preserved in jars of alcohol), but they aren’t exactly Nanjing natives. While the venom of adult monocled cobras is potentially fatal if left untreated, the babies are far less dangerous. Though, presumably, if the snakes remain on the lam for long enough this will become a greater concern—if they haven’t already been pickled. - D.D.

DEFāCING THE GREāT WāLL

The Houston Rockets are arguably China’s favorite NBA team, thanks to the exploits of Chinese basketball star Yao Ming. But even being on that team wasn’t enough to shield Bobby Brown from an avalanche of outrage after he Instagrammed an image of his signature scratched onto the Great Wall. “Had a blast at the Great Wall today,” he captioned the picture. Chinese netizens, naturally, had less of a blast with this. Brown realized his error and made a prompt apology, and it would seem that this, together with the reputation of the beloved Houston Rockets, has been sufficient to blunt most of the reaction. - D.D.

TOILET SEāT T HIEVES

Let’s get real here: who hasn’t swiped something from a hotel room? Maybe one of those little shampoo thingies? A comb? Some napkins? Perhaps a toilet seat? Stealing a toilet seat may sound weird to you, but it didn’t seem strange to a couple from eastern China who were staying in a Japanese hotel. After discovering the toilet seat under their bed, they claim they figured it had been left by a previous guest and was, presumably by the laws of the sea and hotels, fair salvage. This was incorrect. The hotel contacted the tour group to ask what the hell their guests were doing taking toilet seats, prompting the seat’s return and a full apology. Best part of all, the couple had to stay in another hotel of the same chain on the last day of their tour. - D.D.