Yao, Panda. Panda, Yao.

Yo, panda, real talk for a second: I cannot get enough of you posing with basketball players wearing the Official China Panda Blue Smock. It's like, they're so big and goofy and you're so little and fuzzy and greyscale, and they've always got that wonderful little smock to avoid rubbing their sweaty human oils on you, since maybe your panda momma won't take you back if you smell like human.

Today Yao Ming went to that same panda sanctuary that everyone goes to, to pose for the same panda-on-lap photo that everyone poses for, wearing a buttoned-up leather jacket and turtleneck combo that I don't think anyone has worn before. The occasion was the beginning of a new phase in panda breeding, which will select those with "the strength to defend themselves from wild pandas," which, holy shit, sounds like the Chinese are planning some kind of genetically altered panda paratrooper program for WWIII, or maybe just good old fashioned panda eugenics. This project is doomed to fail, as pandas have demonstrated that they will refuse to bone when you want them to bone and are a Darwinist dead end and we should probably just give up and use them for meat and sofa slipcovers.

Also, this photo looks like the guilty little panda pooped a bit.