"It burned at me for five, six years when people said I was a bust," Smith said. "It hurt that there's so many articles on Google about you when you've been the best since Pop Warner. Then, after 17 NFL games, you're one of the worst football players who ever walked this earth..Only get them so many times in pads and hitting anyway. It puts a premium on the reps that they do get." But the coaches also recognize everyone plays by the same set of rules. "It's a level playing field, so there's no difference between our team and every other team," Jets coach Rex Ryan says.

From a man cycling a rickshaw with a colossal mountain of plastic bottles on his back; or a lover's squabble on the subway that results in the boyfriend breaking into romantic song an idea no doubt lifted out of a cheesy boy band music video. Most days I also pick up a new phrase or new word to expand on my growing Chinese mandarin vocabulary. What interests me most about China