When Imagethief read the words "model truss" in the headline of an article on China.org.cn, he had an immediate flashback to the hernia repair operation he had nine or ten years ago. In fact, I never needed a truss (it wasn't that bad a hernia), but I do have a Dacron patch in my abdomen to this day. Or so they tell me.

It turned out to have nothing to do with hernias and everything to do with the Bird's Nest, AKA the National Stadium, the majestic centerpiece venue for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games. While I am contemptuous of most of the new vanity buildings going up in Beijing, I must admit to having something of a fetish for the Bird's Nest. Possibly this is because I grew up going to baseball and football games at Candlestick Park 3Com Park Monster Park Candlestick Park, possibly the nastiest pro-sports facility in North America.

The "article" was in fact a merchandising press release from BOCOG on how you can now own your very own piece of Bird's Nest scrap steel fashioned into a 1/100th replica of the first truss section of the stadium. This sounds kind of cool, but the actual result is what might be the most hostile looking paperweight imaginable:

Truss me up

I was all set to start rubbishing this product in the usual Imagethief fashion when I discovered that Chinese blogger Wang Xiaofeng has beaten me to it (zh) in style. Wang notes that while this seems like a fine idea for disposing of the leftover scrap steel, Olympic-related products are likely to have a short shelf life once the Games are over. He suggests recycling the leftover steel into much more practical ashtrays and toilets because, he says, China is still may not be much of a sporting power, but it's a smoking and crapping titan.

And people think foreign bloggers are rough on China.

The article above also led me to another gem on the same site, a "Bird's Nest Hat". Brace yourself:

I do love the text that accompanies this photo:

A hat shaped like the "Bird's Nest", China's National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, amazed visitors at a recent exhibition in Beijing. The hat is predicted to become a new fashion trend in 2008.

I don't doubt that it amazed visitors. No word on who made that fashion prediction. From the look of the hat, though, I'd have to guess it was either Prince or Jean Paul Gaultier. Imagethief has ten bucks for the first person spotted wearing this in public. Twenty if they're actually at the Bird's Nest during the Games.

Update:

According to Danwei's Joel Martinsen the model truss is a bargain at RMB29,800.  That's more than US$4,000 (and rising by the minute).