That amazing Star Wars Music

Subtitle: aw heck, why not make it a blog post.

Somewhere around 2011, thoughts that would have become blog posts suddenly became long-form Facebook updates. I have decided to make them blog posts again. It's easier to find them back.

I am currently re-watching the Star Wars trilogy. The original trilogy. I'm glad I was a kid when the original trilogy was still heavy in the pop culture consciousness -- I'm very glad my first experience with Star Wars wasn't the three prequels. I'm not quite old enough to have seen the movies in the theater, but when I was in Kindergarten, one of my classmates used to smash the structures other classmates would build out of cardboard bricks...

source

While shouting "Return of the Jedi!" AND he had a Return of the Jedi lunchbox. And we rented Star Wars not long after we got our first VHS machine.

As Disney is winding up their pop-culture machine to unleash the Star Wars hype dynamo, they are doing a pretty good job of feeding the beast and letting fan excitement drive it, rather than using too heavy a hand. They are experts at playing their cards well.

But even as those silly star wars viral videos come out (chipmunks) (roadside crash) (Jedi with a gopro) (death star over San Francisco) (Matthew McCognschwarzeneggerghey watches the trailer), the fact remains, and it's something I only realized on these latest re-watchings. If you watched Star Wars as a kid, all you need is this:

That opening hit, the noise and the trumpet: by the time those 6 and a half seconds of fanfare go by, I'm ready for fun and adventure, and the main theme hasn't even started! So... read as many whiny blogs as you want, hate George Lucas as much as you like, snicker away that Lego Count Dooku looks eerily like George Lucas...

no seriously, look at him! The version in the Lego Star Wars animated films is seriously eerie

but after all the griping and equivocating, all it takes is six seconds of trumpets and friends, I am in.

And, for fun, here are my Star Wars and other extended universes prediction:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be much much better than the prequels and will do really well, though

The sheer density of Star Wars properties lined up for release will lead to fatigue before the sequel trilogy is finished. A star wars film every 18 months will wear us out. ANYTHING every 18 months would wear us out. Even Captain Jack Sparrow, who ruined Johnny Depp's brand at least as much as Tim Burton did.

The Han Solo prequel will be either incredible or awful, with no middle ground (I think it will be awful, and they shouldn't try, for the same reason I think nobody should make a biopic of Freddie Mercury: how on earth are you going to duplicate what everybody knew the first time they saw it, was unequivocally a lightning-in-a-bottle perfect alignment of forces. Chris Pratt deserves his own character, and Harrison Ford's Han Solo should be like Al Pacino's Michael Corleone and Michael J Fox's Marty McFly: so definitive nobody should bother trying to touch it).

Disney's Marvel Universe will also continue doing well until superhero fatigue is in full swing (Thanos, because he looks ridiculous off the comic page, might be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as Marvel slowly pushes back the limit of exactly how ridiculous they can make their films before they lose the suspension of disbelief),

But DC's Batman/Superman film, or the Justice League film that's coming after it, will catch the full brunt of the superhero backlash - just please give us one good Wonder Woman movie and one good Black Widow (or Scarlet Witch, or Ms. Marvel, or even She-Hulk) movie before everybody starts canceling Phase Three of their extended universes and starts re-making Die-Hard, please!

As for other stuff... I like Prince's new album, Tame Impala's new album, Destroyer's new album, and Beach House's new album. Go listen to them. 

You'll Never Guess the Top Five Things That Happened After K-blogs Got Too Self-Referential

Ouroboros. Source

This might be the worst K-blog list infection since that CNNgo troll article prompted a spat of countdowns (links to others at beginning of post)

Lists are the thing again. And posts about bloggers who make lists. And lists about bloggers who make posts about bloggers who make lists. And this is a post about a list about a post about lists. If others write similar posts, we could make a list of posts about bloggers who write posts about bloggers who make lists. And then the K-blogosphere will crawl up its own butt, die of auto-rhetorical asphyxiation, and probably not be mourned.

Listception!

Image belongs to this guy. Buy one!

However, when even a scholar like Cedarbough, over at her blog Footnotes, has made a top 10 list of how to Korea correctly, I guess my memo must have just been lost in the mail. And so, in obligatory clickbait fashion, lest they take away my K-blogger card, here are the topics we've seen so far. In list form, of course.

1. Perhaps Paul Ajosshi got it started with his "6 Dangers That Await You at the Boryeong Mud Fest" - a cautionary listicle that totally neglects the looming threat of a zombie apocalypse. (By the way, don't you love the word listicle? It sounds just similar enough to the word "Testicle" that it not only conveys that something is an article that is a list, but makes people go "uh... kinda ew." As listicles do.

What I imagine when I hear the word "Listicle"

2. Following Paul, Charles Montgomery wrote "Top 10 Newbie Mistakes in Korea" the most useful of which is #2, that if you're an HBC expat hipster... you're not actually rebelling when you dress the way everybody else in HBC dresses, and hang out in the same dives. On the other hand... Charles is hardly breaking new ground in making fun of hipsters, which even Mike Myers did, way back when he was still really really funny.

(So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993): people have been making fun of hipsters since before the latest batch of hagwon teachers were born.)


I wish they would get off your lawn, too, Charles!


3. William George answered Charles with "Noobs, You're Doing Fine"

I don't think we'd realized listicular circlejerkititis was the thing infecting the K-blogs yet with Mr. George's "Don't listen to the grumpy guy" response. But then, the ball was just getting rolling.

4. Epidemic status was reached when Sweet Pickles and Corn published "10 Things In Korea that I'll Never Ever Do" including things like "I'll never go on a temple stay" (fair enough). Mostly, I think he must be doing well here, if the worst thing he can think of to do here is overpaying shitty foreign food (10th on the list). Somewhere out there, perhaps on one of those blogs that got cancelled, there's a person who could make a much more sordid list with a much better grasp of "How Expats Hit Bottom In Far-Off Lands".

5. Cedarbough weighed in with 10 things to do if you live in Korea -- one of the better lists I've read, and wish I'd written myself. I especially like 4, 5, and 6, and I can only hope she'll follow up #3 - "Read Real Books About Korea" with a second top ten (or 15, or 80) suggestions of places to start.

6. Burndog takes the piss out of everyone who writes a list, or grumbles about those writing lists, with "10 things I'll Never Write a List About in Korea Something Something Noob"

7. Finally, Dom and Hyo have, in cartoon form (squee) "9 Different Types of Expats You Will Come Across in Korea" -- a list I like, because it seems to be written neither to vent unhappy expat rage, nor to ingratiate themselves to an imagined Korean audience. However, they missed the "know-it-all" of whom I am one.

Now that I've done a list about lists, let's include it in a list of your favorite conglomerations of lists, like Cracked cannibalizing itself, until we have a list of the best lists about lists about collections of lists. And put each item of the list on a separate page, to squeeze out extra clicks. Ads in the sidebar, all hail google ads revenue!

Pertinent to all this listification is the fact that every week, I go on TBS radio and present a list myself, in a segment titled (by my predecessor in the spot) "The Lone Ranker" - I do little countdowns about whatever topic I like that week, ranging from heavy stuff like "6 ways Sports Mega Events Helped Create The World We Live In Today" to frippery such as "The Five Most Annoying Things About Spring" (both actual topics I've done). I may start turning more of my topics into posts for ze blog (especially given how sparse posting has been lately.

Stay cool my loyal readers.

And now, here is a video of Kim Jong-un dancing, that went viral in China.

Looking silly is the worst thing possible for North Korea (hence the report that a Seth Rogen movie will be considered an act of war) - no nation has ever screamed louder "Take me seriously" in all its policies and actions, than North Korea. I guess if you can't walk softly and carry a big stick, the next best thing is to wave your wet noodle as threateningly and loudly as you can in everyone's faces.


Put your list in the comments if I forgot yours!

Some Love for BoA...

And Maurice Sendak...

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind...

and another...

his mother called him "Wild thing!"

and Max said

so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

That's all I could think the first time I saw this video.


(my kid loves that book)

Why the North Korean rocket launch failed.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss's "Horton Hears a Who"

 Kim Jong-eun's intelligence agency is now hunting for the one citizen who was not cheering the missile on.

A very small, very small shirker named Jo-Jo
Was standing, just standing, and bouncing a Yo-Yo!
Not making a sound! Not a yipp! Not a chirp!
North Korean Intelligence grabbed the small twerp


"This," cried the chief, "is the leader's dark hour!
The rocket named Eun-ha took off from the tower
If the children of Kim Il-sung don't raise a cheer,
That rocket will crash in the ocean we fear...

If the launch is a fail there will be consequences
All your uncles and brothers will live inside fences
To the prison camp with you and three generations
Of family, for causing our humiliation!"


(image source)

And so little Jo-jo joined in with the praise
In the hope with his voice, greater ruckus be raised
That the satellite (or so-called) Eun-ha take flight
And escape from earth's gravity to orbit that night

But the rocket splashed down somewhere out in the sea:
Rockets don't fly by cheering, but technology!

They didn't clap loudly enough.

SuperBowl: I'm Glad the USA doesn't Love Soccer

So the Superbowl happened yesterday, with all the fanfare, hype, and overpriced advertising space. And Madonna something something and OMIGOSH A MIDDLE FINGER and something something of ALL TIME EVER! SERIOUSLY! Thirty seconds after the game has ended is perspective enough to make all-time statements, don't you know. And I'm glad. Glad it's over... but glad mostly that the good old USA gives such a great deal of damn about The Superbowl, and thereby leaves the FIFA World Cup for the rest of the world to enjoy. And I hope it stays that way! To all my American readers, real or imagined: enjoy your American football. And back up off REAL football (what you call Soccer). Please leave it to the rest of the world, and if you ever feel like taking up pro soccer as a new sports thing, kindly re-watch Michael Jackson's 1993 Superbowl halftime show, and forget whatever you were just thinking.

American Football is a pretty good game, all-told. It's an interesting exercise in cooperation of different role-players, a fantastic combination of power, brute strength, and finesse, and only hockey, and perhaps rugby, excels it in its ability to combine a sustained exhibition of human athletic potential with the real danger of deadly violence. Its regimented player roles and its tradition of marching band music echoes American military culture, its glamor positions (quarterback, running back) allow for fantasies of glory and spectacle, while its hierarchical nature reminds America's underclass that somebody's gotta block for the quarterback, and somebody's gotta polish fingernails for minimum wage in order for America's billionaires to become as rich as they have. It's the quintessential American sport.

But here's what Football isn't: egalitarian. And I'm not just talking about the way the Quarterbacks and Running Backs get all the glory, I'm talking about the way you NEED to be middle-class or better to become good at it. You know why? 

'cause somebody's gotta pay for all those pads, before you even get started. And replace them every time you grow.

The only worse sport is ice hockey, where you need to buy all those pads, PLUS skates, PLUS rent ice time at a rink somewhere (unless you live in Minnesota or Saskatchewan, and lakes still actually freeze over where you are).

You can play flag football, two hand touch, or street hockey, yes, but if you want to go anywhere at all in an organized way, somebody's going to have to bite down and swallow that equipment outlay. Because of this American Football will always shut out people below a certain income threshold. Because of this (and climate), Ice Hockey also will never be popular outside of wealthy, northern hemisphere countries.

USA even already has a more egalitarian major sport: basketball, which only requires a ball, and maybe a hoop (which is pretty cheap, and can be found in every playground) and the NBA is the most Youtube-friendly, starry-eyed-dreams-of-big-paychecks sport in the USA, perhaps the world...

Youtube Friendly.

So stay away from soccer, would you, America?

American Kids: dream of this:

not this.

Thanks.

The rest of the world deserves soccer to be theirs. Deserves to have the USA and its hyper-saturated sports media stay out of it. To enjoy it without you. To shake their heads when you talk about "real football" as if the oval ball version is it. To nod patiently when you talk about how you're trying to "get" soccer.

source

Why does the world deserve soccer to be theirs, to enjoy it without inviting the USA to the party? 

The first reason: The brilliance of soccer/REAL football [soccer from now on; we Canadians call it that, too], and the reason it will always be the world's most popular sport: all you need to play soccer is four objects to be your goalposts, and one thing that's generally round, and small and light enough to move it around with your feet. And that's it. A ball of duct tape or tied together rags will do if you can't afford a FIFA regulation football. And with those things, the poorest kid in the slum of the poorest country can dream of being a world football star. Because ANYBODY can get started in soccer with a minimal outlay, countries that are nowhere near the OECD and the "first world" can be legitimate threats to do some damage in international soccer competitions in a way that they NEVER will in American football or hockey. In turn, these poor kids who made good set their home countries aflame with passion for the sport, and their team, and inspire more kids to bat around a ball in a nearby playground. 

source

Why horn in on that, you big rich meanies?

The second reason: I just don't think a country that has passionate followings for every college sport, NFL, NBA, MLB, Nascar, and NHL, deserves to take a run at soccer as well. Every few years, the sports websites write a few "Here comes soccer" articles, and US Women's soccer is a serious contender in every international tournament, but if the US wins the FIFA World Cup, with so much else on the sports calendar, the reaction of many Americans' will be "Sweet! Is Nascar on?" If South Korea won the FIFA world cup, you'd hear about it from anyone who witnessed it, for twenty, maybe forty years after. Ask a Brit the last year that England won the World Cup of Soccer. Most of them will know. Ask any over 45 what they think about the England/Argentina game in '86, and learn some new curse words. Ask a Korean where they were for the Korea-Italy game in 2002. Ask people from France where they were in 1998, or a Dutchman old enough to remember the 70s what it's like to have lost the final three times now.

Sorry to remind you of this, my English readers.

Because yeah, there are countries where other sports mean more to the people than soccer means to them -- India and Pakistan have cricket, New Zealand and Australia, and probably South Africa, have  rugby (I haven't asked any Indians, Pakistani, Kiwis, Aussies or South Africans, but it seems that way from here - please correct me if I'm wrong, and there's another sport you care about more - or if soccer's it there, too), Japan and Cuba and a bunch of other Central American countries probably care more about baseball, sure... but if you look at the number of soccer-mad nations, I think it's fair to say that in the aggregate, soccer means more, to more nations, than any other sport in the world.

And that's why I'm glad it's not also the top sport in the USA.

We've seen that if you throw enough money into sports programs, it's possible to become dominant: 

If we compare China's medal totals in the olympics: once China decided to go for a little national prestige by investing in its Olympic team, it went from "Did not participate" to first overall in the 2008 summer games. 

Meanwhile, once the Russian government had other things to care about than engaging in pissing contests with the USA, they went from first overall in Lillehammer (last time in a long string of first or second overall finishes, summer AND winter games) to 11th in Vancouver.

If USA became soccer mad, and invested as much in promoting and developing soccer talent as it does in developing talent in other areas, between its huge population base (talent pool) and the amount it invests in sports, the USA would get itself somewhere in the top ten, maybe top five, year after year.

But I'm glad it doesn't. I'm glad top US athletes try to become wide receivers, quarterbacks, running backs, shooting guards and power forwards, and to a lesser degree, pitchers outfielders and shortstops, rather than having all America's world-class athletes wreaking havoc in the world's midfields, backfields and goal lines. 

What would it take for Soccer to take over the North American sports horizon? 

Well, this is why I think we can rest safe: for the USA sports media to be electrified by soccer, they'd have to see the world's best players, playing awesome games, live on prime-time US TV, but thanks to the mostly European time zones of games involving the world's most competitive teams, and most thrilling players, that's just not going to happen for now. As it is, US soccer fans have to stay up late, or wake up early, or miss work, to catch the world's best soccer: these are things a dedicated fan happily does, but a marginal fan won't. This means there's a pretty low chance that world-class soccer will start catching channel-flippers at times when they're ready and primed to have a cool sports experience. This is why soccer is popular in North America right up to the college level, and then drops off, as North American soccer stars funnel towards the north american sports that have more lucrative professional leagues... or get recruited overseas, where they have a harder time inspiring other kids from their hometown to get into soccer: momentum fails to build.

source - this is what happens to North American soccer stars:

If the world's best soccer players started coming to the USA, and playing for US teams, it might catch on: superstar power works in the North American sports market. Look how Wayne Gretzky's move to LA changed things for the popularity of the NHL in the '90s. But right now, the calibre of the US teams, and the kind of economics they deal with, make signing a Messi or Ronaldo, in his prime, to a US Soccer club, an fiscal impossibility. It didn't work with Pele in the 70s, a washed-up David Beckham hasn't, and won't, do it, and if a player like Messi DID take a huge paycheck to sign with a US team, he'd be excoriated even more than Alex Rodruigez was when he took the money and signed for the non-contending Texas Rangers.

Secondly: too many 0-0 or 1-1 draws. The two most popular sports in the USA right now are sports where scores like 21-32, or 93-101 are considered completely normal games. Even the NHL has changed its rules to try and increase scoring, and give fans an outcome for every game, and more 4-3 games instead of 2-1 games, even if it's a shootout win or loss. The rest of the world would cry foul to the high heavens if FIFA suggested changing soccer's rules in order to win over American philistines who don't see the beauty in a 0-0 draw, who don't appreciate a 1-0 win with no shots on goal allowed as a thrilling and utter rout.

Thirdly: the flopping. And honestly, this is why soccer will probably never beat ice hockey on my list of "Sports I enjoy watching."

 Look at NFL football and NHL Hockey. North American sports fans, for the most part, respect players who take a solid hip check and keep moving, who shake off a tackle, who play hurt, and who don't pull dramatic waterworks in order to try and get a referee's whistle.

As long as the above funny commercial hits anywhere close to the mark, I'd say the brutal, glorious chaos of rugby has a better chance of becoming a major US sport than soccer. (And for that matter... if there were a battle royale between ten players of each team sport, I'd put my money on Team Rugby to come out on top, after a challenge from a group of hockey players who looked great at first, but got winded after they realized there were no line changes.)

However... the television broadcast rights for World Cup finals keeps spiraling, as the potential audiences reach heady highs -- the next World Cup Finals might reach 40 billion viewers or more (that's by some people watching more than one game), and advertising revenues for the FIFA world cup will likely surpass the ten billion dollars mark in the not-too-far-future. With all that money on the table, and many of the world's richest advertisers and the world's most lucrative sports market still being American based, my guard remains up, despite all the reasons I've listed not to worry... and it always will.

Links here and there... and gross.

The discussion on sexism in the blogs was really interesting... I'll have more to say about it in another post -- I actually learned (or at least realized) some stuff from it.

Here are a few other links I've come by this week, and liked.

Once again, Stupid Ugly Foreigner has written a great post, this time about turning from a fresh-faced expat to a grizzled long-termer. How did I go so long before I found this blog?

The Diplomat on North Korea's Clumsy Assassins: They sure don't make Nork assassins like they used to.

Which is a great excuse to post this old propaganda video of North Korean army training. I've got to say, I love the clipped accents and cadences of North Koreans speaking English.


After Ms. Lee to Be's post about Konglish, and how English buzzwords get mangled into Korean business speak, because it sounds awesome sand, Yujin Is Huge has this post about the overdone bombast that is often the other way Korean self-important people (who might understand English, but don't understand how English is used) express themselves... in a way that uses our language, but into which we don't actually figure at all. Title: A world-class provider of world-leading pioneer technology that will remain competitive through fundamental adaptation to the paradigm shift.

And...  (warning: the following paragraphs contain opinion. If you are constitutionally opposed to the occasional gut reaction, do not read on. Look at this instead. Whoa.)

I went to Costco twice this week, once to get stuff, and once to return some of it... and I came across something that, honestly, grossed me out... as much as anything I've seen in my time in Korea.

As much as pigeons pecking at street pizza, as much as old men hocking loogies in the street... as much as middle-school girls hocking loogies in the street... I hadn't paid enough attention to notice it the last times I went to Costco, because I usually don't use the Costco restaurant, but on Monday I learned of the Costco Salad Bar.

What is the Costco Salad Bar?

Leave your dignity in your shopping cart.
Take a paper plate.
Go to the condiment table.
Grind the free onions into a small mountain in the middle of the plate.
Squirt a whole bunch of mustard on top of the onions.
Squirt between a little and a whole bunch of ketchup on there, too.
If you really feel fancy, squirt some of the sugar syrup meant for the coffee drinks on there, too.
If you ordered a hot dog, squeeze the pickle relish package in there, too.
Mix until it looks like chunky baby poop.
With fork, eat alongside whatever else you ordered.
Discard the uneaten 2/3, creating a disgusting mountain of wasted onions and mustard in the bottom of the compost can.
Ignore Costco employees watching you and performing facepalm after facepalm.
Leave dining area.
Collect dignity from shopping cart.
Resume ordinary life.

Image stolen from Zenkimchi.

Zenkimchi writes about it here: turns out this is not an isolated thing here in Korea. At the Costco I went to, about 30-55% of the tables had a Costco salad on one of the plates.

Normally, I just avoid the stuff I don't like or think is gross. I won't tell people not to eat this or that animal, or salad swimming in dressing, or the shredded cabbage/ketchup/mayonnaise gunk that was a side dish to the fantastic spit-roasted chicken at this place I used to go to. Avert the eyes, don't eat it, no sweat. but at least it was clear that's how you're supposed to eat the mayonnaise ketchup stuff, where Costco Salad reeks of "Hey! Free stuff!" (see also the equally classy Salad Bar Tower) -- both expressions of the same impulse that leads old ladies to bring ziplock bags to buffets, and stuff free plastic forks in their purse, and bend and twist the intended uses of things, just to maximize their exploitation of somebody's generosity in providing it for free.

Zenkimchi even posits an explanation, and manages to applaud the creativity -- fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Koreans gotta have banchan, and will find a way, you know. Intellectually, I acknowledge this, but it was still just too much for me. Next time I need a Costco hotdog, I'm bringing a blindfold.

Maybe because it looked like the baby poo that's become a major part of my life rhythm? Anyway, I'm willing to look for the reason and sense behind most things, to seek out a perspective and a context. But this one just grossed me out, still does, and I'll be setting up a mental block instead. Yech.

My Halloween Costume

It was a laid back Halloween this year for me.

Having a new baby will do that. Other than seeing a kid dressed up as a cow, and, during a trip around town, seeing about 4000 young people dressed as K-pop stars (though that might have just been their ordinary daily dress), I celebrated Halloween at home with my family.

Babyseyo and I dressed up as each other.



My babyseyo mask didn't fit all that well, and babyseyo had trouble drinking from a bottle through the Roboseyo mask, so he didn't wear it for very long. But still...

It was awesome.

Random Weird Pictures

Been meaning to publish these for a long time... I took these pictures of a big poster in a subway station a long time ago, and still can't get over how suggestive they are. heh heh heh. problem is, with a photo like this, the jokes are way too easy, so I've got nothing to say. So... do you think APM did it on purpose? Rather... do you think they'd admit to doing it on purpose? and a couple of random "sand" konglish pictures for good measure.

Ain't No Party Like a Pyongyang Party' Cause a Pyongyang Party is Absolutely Mandatory!

This remix of North Korean promotional footage, set to a party track, is pure genius.

Wish I'd thought of it.

Chuseok Weekend, Gae-eun Park, Meetups and A Scare

Music soundtrack: EMA - Anteroom. If Elliot Smith were reincarnated as an emo girl, here's what it would sound like:  Hit play, and then start reading.


Did a few things over the weekend.



Among them:

Ate at Table 34 in the Grand Intercontinental Hotel at Coex with wifeoseyo... and that food was obscenely good.

Met some lovely lovely people on Tuesday, and had a few drinks and a nice walk and talk, near my home. Included in that crew were some of my favorite former coworkers, a few bloggers who shall go unnamed, and one irascible scoundrel who shall not be named, but whose face shall be shown here for the internet to see his shame.



Now that the baby's coming soon, I have a feeling a lot of my hangout events will likely be somewhere near home, like this one was. Fortunately, I live somewhere AWESOME.

Met some OTHER lovely lovely people on Sunday night and had a picnic on an overpass. And some OTHER other lovely people on Friday night.

Ever meet a person who's just a cool-person magnet? Some people, somehow, always have lots of very smart, or interesting, or funny people around them. My best friend Matt, who left Korea, was like that, too -- you could count on people recommended by him, to be worth the time to get to know them. I'm happy to say I know another person like that.

But I won't tell you who, or you'll all want to hang out with him/her too, and then s/he won't have time to hang out with ME.

Another weekend highlight, though, was visiting 개운산공원 - Gae-eun Mountain Park - on the smallish mountain behind Korea University. It's a park that's not that easy to reach, shows evidence of being fairly recently built, or at least improved, and has a lot of open spaces where you can see some great views of the city, or let your kid run, without losing sight of them.


Spacious. Nice view. Not crowded. Noice.

Because it's not that easy to reach, it isn't crowded, either, the way Han River park, or the Cheonggyecheon always are when the weather's nice, and because there are trees on the mountainsides all around the park (as well as some trails through woods), despite being in the middle of the city, the air's fresher than you find in most places.



There's not quite enough there for an entire date, but it'd be a decent place to take the kids, or bring your camera, or just to chill with your buds. Maybe bring some bottles of wine and get talky. It's big and sprawling enough that a decent game of capture the flag could probably be played. Or, bring picnic materials, a frisbee, a soccer ball/football and badminton rackets and a very, very nice time could be had.

By foot: Go to Korea University subway station, exit 2. Go straight until you pass the GS 칼텍스 gas station, and take your first right. Head down that road until you see a a fork in the road, with one fork going up the hill. Follow road up hill around a bunch of curves until you reach a three way intersection. Go right, and you can't miss the park area. It'll about 35-30 minutes by foot, unless you're slow.

Or (if Daum Maps isn't lying), once you pass the gas station, across the street from the corner where you should turn right, take the small green bus "성북 20" and get off at "개운중학교" stop, and backtrack a little to find the three-way intersection that leads to the park.



The park has most of the trappings of other parks where seniors are fond of hanging out - and the demographic there definitely skewed older - so there are exercise machines (including some fairly new, and quite nice equipment in one corner - I tried it), but because it's up a hill, again, it's not as crowded with the seniors as Jongmyo Park is.

Instead, it looked like this: even on the Saturday of a Chuseok holiday.


There was also a health center, but I didn't really explore that.

Wifeoseyo was very impressed with big rocks that had beautiful Korean poetry carved into them: they're some of her favorite poems, she says.


One little corner of the park even had a little book booth.


The books are multipurpose.


Either this sign indicates there are speed bumps ahead, or there's a suntanning area nearby, too.



This was not the view from Gaeeun Park. It's the view from Bukak Skyway's little lookout point.

But I went there, too, and it was nice.

I also climbed a mountain with a group of people, and had a bit of a scare. I had a crappy breakfast, didn't do warmup stretches, and went too fast at the beginning, leading to a lightheaded spell the likes of which I haven't had before. The other hikers were kind enough to wait for me, and once I took it a little easier, I was OK for the rest of the hike... but that's never happened to me before, and it put a mini-scare into me. After all, when the zombies come, I want to be sure I have the endurance to protect my family, and keep going until they've all been beheaded, you know? A sharp machete is important, but so is a good cardio regimen.



As I pushed, and then passed 30 years old, I discovered that I can maintain the level of health/body type that I had in the 20s (which was pretty low-effort when I was in my 20s)... but it just takes me a little more work each year than it did the year before, and a hardcore dizzy spell on the entry slopes of Bukhan Mountain was a pretty clear sign it's time for me to put a little cardio into my regular routine. And that I'm not 22 anymore.

Dammit!

But other than that little scare, I had a great weekend. How about you?

Self-Deprecatoseyo!

Nothing like a joke at my own expense to end my week.

Mutual facebook friends will recognize the source by the photo next to it, the rest of you will just have to ask, "Who was that masked man?"

and I can only answer this:

Random: Two Bots in Conversation

Somebody put two chatbots (computers that are programmed to chat online and attempt to simulate a human's chat responses) into a conversation with each other.

It's awesome -- it almost hangs together, but not quite. Kind of like listening to a four-year-old tell jokes.

Going through old Photos...

And finding gems like this.


and this


and this (spotted first by a buddy)


Gwangyang may have reached a threshold in buzzword density here.


I don't know how I feel about the new uses being given to the word "Virus" in Korea. Any word that's used in a Kpop song or TV show title (Beethoven Virus) is at risk of spinning off with a wild, new, farfetched meaning.





Ordinary poster... or is it?

Gaah! Look at her freaky photoshoppy wrist!



BWAHAHAHA BWAHAHAHA BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

tee hee... this makes me think of fight club

Got some real posts in the works... to tide you over...

Epic Battle: Sleep vs. Play

From time to time Wifeoseyo shows me a video I can't resist posting.

Random bit: Do You Know Shakira

So in my class, we read about Shakira, who (according to what I learned in the article) richly deserves to be a world star. (and frankly, who deserves to replace Britney Spears as the shorthand name-check to reference a top sexy female popstar - from now on, she's Korea's Shakira, not Korea's Britney Spears.) Among other things, she sang the theme song for the 2010 World Cup, the video of which probably set a record for star power that won't be topped until world cup 2014 (sorry, We Are The World. you're number 2 now). It's a pretty good video all around, too...



However... I couldn't help but laugh in my sleeve, because Shakira, doing a few African dances, made me think of "Aldous Snow" (the fictional rockstar character played by Russell Brand), and the video which ruined his fictional career somewhere between his show-stealing performance in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and the movie "Get Him To The Greek," in which he was the central character.

Well-meant, but completely racist and wrong-minded... how NOT to approach the Other, the best satire of dumb rockstars getting it wrong since "Christmas Is All Around," and maybe longer.


If I have time, I'll write up my thoughts on Sohn Hak Kyu's idea of including North Korea in hosting the Olympics this weekend. But as a good starting point, I agree almost completely with this great write-up from One Free Korea. Any group or organization that sidesteps or ignores North Korea's human rights situation has thrown any and all of its moral authority right out the window.

Later!

One Week Vacation

Got back from my anniversary trip to Canada.

It was great... I don't particularly like telling the entire internet when I'm going to be away from home for a week, but now that my locked doors are once again attended, I'll tell you I had a great time.

And something about the Olympics? Did any of you pick up on that?

I'll have something to say about that, too.

Later.

Everland Tumbling: Viral Video; can't win for losing

This video of trampoline acrobats has been going viral in Korea - wifeoseyo just showed it to me after being sent a link by a friend.

It's awesome: watch what happens when the second guy gets called up.

Had to take a picture of this

clearing off a camera memory card (tons of stuff I have yet to post here... sorry folks. You don't get to be part of EVERYTHING I do)...

but I had to show you this one.

A little more than once a month, on average, Wifeoseyo's mom, Mominlawoseyo (see I don't like that: it's too much of a mouthful), comes over, and fills our fridge up with wonderful Korean foods.

Awesome.

It happens frequently enough, that a while ago, when I actually uncovered the back wall of our fridge, I had to commemorate it with a photo, which I'd like to share with you.

Sweet.  Do you see it there? In the middle shelf, beside the huge tub of (really good) kimchi and behind the small jar of salad dressing?

also:

there's something wrong with the color scheme of this New York Yankees cap.

Wrote my last final yesterday. Drank beer at lunchtime, and had a hangover by evening. So that sucked. But beer was nice. I've been a bit of a teetotaler for the semester.

And maybe I'll put something of what I wrote for my papers up on the blog. Maybe.

The problem with studying academic-y stuff?

Reading your blog friends posts and expecting the rigor you've been reading in research for your papers. And if you're not reading one or two particular K-blogs, you're probably not getting that.

anyway... more later readers. bye for now.

I have this running through my head. So you will, too.

I mean... if you press play.

The Olympics are fascinating
"Hand in Hand" - the Official Olympic Theme Song of the 1988 Games.



one of my dogs has an ear infection she keeps scratching. So we put her in one of those cone things that would totally get her teased by the other dogs at the playground. Poor thing.

Also funny:

after the Olympic video finished, this video ("Hand" was in the title) was queued up as next.