How Do I Avoid Making a Fart Joke?

Don't you just hate it when you're playing a video game and you get through a particularly challenging section only to die shortly after. And then you reload the game to discover that you now have to do it all over again, even though you did it so beautifully the first time. Now I'm super frustrated that I have to do it again and hope that I can get as many headshots. So I figured I'd take a break to bring you this story of ridiculousness out of, where else, China.
Last week reporters in Shandong got wind of an unusual occurrence so they hiked out to an oil field to discover locals filling up huge plastic bags with natural gas directly from the field valves. They watched as an old lady inflated a 6 meter long plastic bag with natural gas and walk away with it tied to her back. I know what you're saying: no way is that true, Dave. How could that be true? Are people really filling up giant bags of gas like a clown at a spoiled kids birthday party? Did you already forget that there were reporters on the scene?

Reporters carry cameras like this lady carries bags of gas - frequently

Yep, that's real. It looks like a giant blue hotdog, or the worlds biggest condom. It looks like a giant clown is going to make it into a puppy or a giraffe or something. I sure hope nobody smokes around that thing. Part of me wants to pop it but I'm afraid of the potential explosion. I assume it would explode cause thats what awesome things do.
I think it's related to another story coming out of China, this time in the southern part. It would seem Shanghai is sinking under its own weight. It should be noted that China didn't even place in the top ten of the most obese countries so its not sinking cause of the fatties. You see, Shanghai is an awesome city, one that I've been lucky to spend a bit of time in. It has some seriously huge skyscrapers that are popping up like weeds. Actually, growing like bamboo is a more fitting analogy, and not just because of the abundance of it in China. Bamboo grows ludicrously fast; so fast that it was used as a torture method in WW2 and proved by the two men with the best jobs ever, the Mythbusters.
I'm getting off track here. Currently in Shanghai, fault cracks are radiating outward from what will soon be China's tallest building, the Shanghai Tower. The entire city is sinking at a rate of 1.5 centimeters a year, which might not sound like much until you consider that that is a rather large block of land. In fact, Shanghai has sunk over 2 meters in the last hundred years. Finally we have empirical proof that China is overpopulated. Proof besides looking at all the people and census data.
So how are these stories related? I believe that the gas is being siphoned into bags to attach to the ground in Shanghai to help lift it back up. Imagine a city held afloat by flammable bags of gas. You know what, thats even too ridiculous for me. I can barely comprehend the sinking of an entire city, unless its during a hurricane under the Bush administration.
I invite any engineers out there to speculate wildly in the comments section on why this great city is sinking. Before I go, I'm going to drop some knowledge bombs on you. Shandong province, located in the northeast of China, is one of the most oilrich areas of China, second only to Xinjiang, located in the northwest. Most petroleum engineering graduates in China go to either Shandong or Xinjiang, working primarily for Sinopec, China's largest petroleum and natural gas company. See, theres more to me that just being a hilarious wordsmith with the body of an adonis.