For all your Olym-peccadilloes

You can't embed, but you can link:

http://www.youtube.com/beijing2008

As much as I stand by what I've said before about the Olympic organizers, the IOC, and the way China is using this olympics for their own nationalist propaganda. . . ya still gotta cheer for the athletes.

To know what TV is like in Korea right now, watch this clip. . . forty times in a row.

(P.S. Korea's going gold-medal bonkers right now. . . but it won't last, according to girlfriendoseyo, who tells me all Korea's strongest events are in the first few days of the Olympics -- Judo, archery, shooting)

From an Owlish Angel

From my dear friend Tamie's blog:

Last night I was talking to one of my best friends, someone I've come to trust deeply over years of being in the kind of conversation that is woven into our whole lives. . . .We were talking about self-perceptions, and how they compare to how others perceive us. I often perceive myself to be....all these negative things, but according to my friend, this is not how my friends perceive me. . . . I'm writing about how almost all of us do this very thing all the time, and how just sad it is, maybe more than anything.

If we knew that we were loved, it would change everything, wouldn't it? What if for one day you were granted some kind of supernatural power so that you could feel just how much people loved you? (I feel like I know what so many of us would fear--we wouldn't want to be granted that supernatural power because we'd be so afraid that people are secretly annoyed and disgusted by us. And this is precisely the point.) But people do love temporally and imperfectly. But if we knew that we were loved, absolutely and eternally, that we are always always inside endless love....well, yep, that would change everything.

Why, tell me why, is this so damn hard to really get a hold on? Why are we bumbling around in these illusions, so convinced that we're on the cusp of being cut off, when in fact we're fairly swimming in love? Jesus. In those brief moments when I know that I am loved, through and through and through, then I am completely free. And in those moments it becomes suddenly clear to me just how not-free I am most of the time. How I am missing the joys of my life, missing the glorious cosmic dance. Not because I'm not a part of it, but because I'm deaf to just how much of a part of it I am. I can't hear that the music is everywhere.

And even in this, in my deafness and illusions, I am loved. Oh, but how I wish that I could know it, live it, all the time. Know what I mean, dear readers? Know what I mean?

Okay, enough said for now. Time for yoga.

Thanks, Tamie.

A Few Must-Reads

First: ROK Drop has a piece on the ridicidonkonculous ass-backwardity of Korea's flip-floppy "Listen to what I mean, not what I say!" relationship with the USA that is, all at once, the best explanation I've read so far of why being President of Korea might be the hardest job in the galaxy, an excellent retrospective of the recent US Beef protests, and a great summary of Korea's tortured and conflicted "Why CAN'T we have it both ways?" relationship with the USA.

Second: SeoulLife got in on the complaining expat topic, and brought up the point that almost all the popular K-bloggers are male, and therefore created a site specifically for Korean and English speaking, expat and Korean national, women in the K-blogosphere.  Naked In The Sauna is the name.

Third: James Turnbull of The Grand Narrative (one of my favourite Korea blogs) dropped a few pearls on the expat topic. . . not a full, Grand Narrative Special (those get pretty involved), but worth a look.  Meanwhile, if you have connections with awesome non-teaching jobs in Seoul, or any kind of awesome jobs in Busan, keep your ear to the ground for our blog-buddy James: he's on the market.

Tongue twister I composed on Friday at Work:

re: the Asian delivery-boy who loves his job: I envy the Korean curry courier's career.

For all you indie music snobs, and all you who KNOW indie music snobs:http://xkcd.com/460/

I watch this video two or three times a day. (It's my niece and nephew.)

This pic: when you hand out a student needs survey, and a student just NEEDS to let you know "Hey.  Teacher.  I'm cute as heck, and you better know it."

Rising food prices are hitting the little guy now.  I bet every item on this menu is 500won more than before.

At coldstone creamery in Piano Street, they have mastered "Suggestive Selling" . . . I don't know what that is, but I'd like to see some.  I'm not quite clear on how one CAN sell ice cream suggestively.  Lollipops, sure.  Skin cream, heck yeah.  Ice cream . . . need to see it to believe it.

Two weekends ago, the candlegirl made an appearance at Jogyesa.  I wonder how many bows she made to keep mad cow disease out of Korea.

My favourite anti-government graffiti: (just down from piano street)

that's all for today, folks.

-roboseyo

Super-slo mo is super cool.

this shot of lightning striking is un beee leeee vable

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

ultraslomo.com will eat an hour of your life without even burping.

red drop of water


lighting a match


strawberry dropped into a bowl of milk (hey, whatever floats your boat)


another gorgeous water drop



squeezing an orange slice


and my favourite super-slow-motion: water balloons. From a Schweppes ad.


just weird: karate chopping a brick in super-slow motion.


and. . . the sexy one.