Oddly Enough Blog
News, but not the serious kind
Okay, the next round’s on me!

Quick quiz: The troops in this photograph, clearly nervous and struggling, are…
a) …playing a variation on Russian Roulette and wondering what theyhave to do to win.
b) …coping with budget cuts by looking for something pointed to set off their artillery shells.
c) …bartending students, practicing proper cocktail shaker technique.
d) …an elite “Hokey Pokey” unit. You should excuse yourself before they “shake it all about.”
I guess it could be any of the above, but the caption tells us that in fact they are carrying out “an arm strength competition.”
Is that right? Because I can see where this is going. After about 20 minutes of stumbling around using every ounce of strength to hold up these heavy rounds, the next command these guys are going to hear from some officer is, “HAND SALUTE!”
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Soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army carry out an arm strength competition during a training session at a military base in Suining, Sichuan province September 2, 2010. REUTERS/Stringer
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Is “hand salute” an innuendo?
It’s two-on-two gloves vs. skins!
It’s clearly a limbo contest, You can imagine what happens if they don’t make it under the bar …
You could be right, Slick. Meanwhile, I would have bet anything your comment would have been on the shoe item today… How can you pass up liege, siege and oblige?
Guess there is a shortage of sandbags or concrete blocks in China, but they have plenty of ammo to go around.
Ammo? Hmmmmm. I guess you could be right, Dave. I had them pegged as suppositories.
All i can think of is that they are very vulnerable…
The People’s Liberation Army ran out of funds to get Eugene a matching pair of camo pants.
I think they’re practising for Oktoberfest by sitting at imaginary barstools and holding a substitute beer stein in each hand to build up arm strength. In time they hope to take on the Australians at two-fisted beer drinking.
Yeah I know, good luck with that.
I like the nice squats they have going so their thighs will be screaming in pain about the time their arms give out. If they had one of those spiked heels, they wouldn’t have to look around for a detonator.
The guy in the mismatched camo is the poor dude that has to stand on the hill and look for anyone coming up. Top half to look like the sky and the bottom to look like the hill. Unless he has one of those electrician jobs in India where they hold him upside down…
The second guy looks smug… Is there a lady trainer around, he wants to impress? Or maybe a female colleague doing some equally “vulnerable-looking” exercise?
Shra, I think the second guy may have just launched a surprise gas attack on his colleagues.
Or put in some more lead in that last guy’s ammunition?
Nosmo, silent but deadly warfare!
So, these are Chinese make-shift dumbbells, what do they use in Gym?