Roboseyo saves the world. . .

I offered a solution for how to save the world earlier on this blog. Here's another. It was tagged on at the end of the previous post. . . but I don't think anybody read it, because I added it a day later.

In the new, global world, here's another thing I would do if I were king of the world:

I'd make an irrevokable law that, for the countries with the 30 largest populations, economies, and militaries in the world, the rest of the world gets to participate in their leaders' elections, with the Restoftheworld vote having a 10% say in the final election results -- 90% nationals, so that the home country gets most of the vote, but in a world where a world leader's decisions touch so many other countries, isn't it fair for the rest of the world to have a say in their leadership, too?

(I'd also cancel all veto powers in the UN: I'd change it so that unanimous minus one were enough to mobilize on security council decisions, so that rather than China vetoing UN action in Burma, unanimous minus one would have been enough to get peace-keepers in there. Same for the US vetoes on oil and Israel/Palestine related-type things.)

Any reactions?

and if you don't care for my world-saving solutions, how about this one:

Turns out, peeing on tourists is a BAD thing. Who knew?

Korean Trot Music

Remember my post a long time ago about dancing with the crazy old ladies on the boat? I tried to describe the music then, eventually giving up and saying it's impossible.

Well, this is what it was like. . . except faster. This is what old people listen to here. You hear it in taxis, on the street, on outdoor stages for open-air shows, and (worst of all) on loudspeakers in otherwise nice parks. Really, the only thing to do when you hear music like this (not unlike disco and certain kinds of country music) is to get out your pointer fingers and dance. Listen in particularly to the slow vibrato and the quirks in vocalisation -- trot singers (that's what it's called) imitate this style right across the board.







The best thing about this musical style is that it's usually VERY easy to sing, which makes it a smash hit in the karaoke bars (noraebang here -- singing room). Sometimes you hear a song on the radio and you think the radio play is just a formality: this song was totally written to go straight to the karaoke bar and become a sing-along hit. Kind of like sometimes in N. America you hear a song and you go "wow. That song must have a GREAT video," or sports broadcasters justify a player with poor skills by saying, "He's GREAT in the clubhouse! A real glue guy!" Here we go. This is what we danced to on the boat that day, not the exact song, but this tempo, and EXACTLY this sound.



Here's a picture from that brilliant day.




This is Shiina Ringo, my favourite Japanese artist so far. She's fun as anything! She reminds me of Bjork with guitars.



and holy cow there's a lot going on in this video (spanish subtitles, fun as anything music, a japanese artist flaunting cultural stereotypes with MTV editing. . . interesting.)

heh heh heh

Two American institutions, together at last.




I'll put a proper post in here sometime, but I've been busy lately, and haven't had time to find the shiny spots in life. They're out there, and I'm still a happy cat. . . just bear with me until I can get some pictures downloaded or something.

-Roboseyo


Heh heh heh.

pointed satire. I've ranted about this before, here on my blog.




And in case you don't trust the Mass Media to help you choose how to vote (if you have a vote) in the 2008 election, here's an information-rich clip that will probably influence many voters more than a 4-page spread in a newspaper -- was it the 2004 election where I heard of a survey that said America's main source for information about the electio candidates was the opening monologues of the Letterman and Leno Late-Night Talk Shows?



Well, I've pretty much decided who I'd choose now (if I had a vote). (remember back when policies and ideas were the thing -- thank goodness that fad has finally passed. SO much THINKING!--isn't there something very intrinsically wrong with the very fact people are bandying about the word "electability", rather than looking at the actual quality of the candidates?)

It's been a while since we've had a survey on here. . .

So I drank the Heroes kool-aid after all.

I don't have a TV at my house, and don't really miss it, but after seeing a few episodes of the TV series Heroes (which EVERYONE is talking about here in Korea these days) at my friend's house, I bought season one on DVD for cheap.

And, like the X-Men movies, The Bourne Identity, and Jim Carrey's The Mask, the best part of watching a show where people suddenly discover they have superpowers is entertaining the wish-fulfillment fantasy of what would happen if you discovered YOU had superpowers --

A good third of the fun of watching The Bourne Identity series is the daydream that, one day, when somebody threatens YOU, YOU'LL suddenly bust out deadly martial arts and super-spy skills, too; in the movie "The Mask", where the green mask brings out the side of your character that you hide in public, and gives it cartoonish super-powers, and it gives me a ninety-minute-long daydream about what side of ME would come out if I put on that silly mask. Ditto for x-men -- you can fantasize all day about which x-men power would be most fun, most useful, most frightening, and so on.

So in tribute to the TV series Heroes, the survey question is: which superhero power do YOU wish you had?

(and don't say x-ray vision, because then everybody will know you're a perv)

Two rules/qualifiers (just because everybody always says these ones -- like in Korea, you have to say "AFTER your parents, who is your hero?", because otherwise that's all you'll hear):

Don't say Superman's powers, because that's like going to a restaurant and ordering one of everything on the menu. Ditto for saying "Peter Petrelli's [from Heroes] power: the ability to absorb other people's superpowers": that's like saying "If I found a magic lamp I'd wish for a hundred more wishes." -- and kind of defeats the purpose of choosing. EVERYBODY would prefer to have ALL the superpowers, but if you had to pick one, which would it be?

Man this guy's funny.

Jim Carrey back before he "made it"