Pictures from Downtown Seoul Last Weekend.

Another picture of my university campus: I don't know what the green lights are for, but they sure do some nice things when you set them next to the orange lights.


My best friend is taking a Masters' in Applied Linguistics. I'm watching in slow motion as the language he speaks slowly morphs from English to. . . English-ish. Academian. Scholarish. I'm reading Korean folk tales again. I might be hooked. I may even blog some of them.


So anyway, last weekend I went to city hall to hang out. Met girlfriendoseyo and we stomped around the downtown for a while and saw some cool stuff.

I had to bear this on the way downtown. . . the things I do to entertain you with pictures, dear readers. The things I do!



People were scattered across the City Hall lawn like paper cups.



Some ladies in Hanbok. Just because.



And, of course, kids were playing in the water fountain.



More kids playing.




This little one was having an especially good time.



He was my favourite.



I like this picture, maybe third best.


As a picture, I think this is the best one.  From a photographer's point of view, that is.


Maybe the cutest picture of the lot. . . wait a minute. . . maybe not.


there it is.
gonna grow up to be a plumber.


Hope all your weekends were as happy as this little boy's. Hope you were a bit better covered up, though (unless that was the reason you had so much fun. . .)

Take care, eh?

Why I bought a Mac.

(Girlfriendoseyo hates her computer.)

I don't want to become one of those Mac Missionaries, but suffice it to say, I like things so far. I'm even trying my hand at video editing, ya know?

(by the way. . . chusok is coming!)

Seen in Costco:

From the Hire a Proofreader, Nimrod! Files.

Brian had a doozy on his site, so here's one I spotted just last night.

In Konglish, Y-shirt means a button-down, collared shirt.

Gotta quote sometimes.

Korea's political scene just keeps tearing the country apart -- if not on partisan lines, how about religious lines!

The left keeps tossing rhetorical firebombs into the dialogue, rather than trying to be a responsible press, and in response, the right is arresting people for having ideas they don't like.

So, I'm not thinking about Korea.

What IS on my mind. . .

I'm reading one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, the watershed "Watchmen" right now, for the second time, in anticipation of the Watchmen Movie coming soon. This is a ridiculously layered, complex and intriguing story, developing characters in ways that stretched the comic medium (back in the '80s when it was written) into unrecognizable dimensions. It's awesome. . . a bit wooly, and it takes a while to get going, but awesome.

and I have quotes from Conor Oberst, also known as Bright Eyes. You're entitled to your opinion on him, and I'm not going to get an emo haircut or start wearing ironic t-shirts or anything,




but here are some great lines from a few of the songs on "Lifted"


Waste Of Paint (Sorry. Can't embed two Bright Eyes songs in one blog. The whole thing'd implode.)

Bright Eyes

two verses of this song are just so lovely. . . but then there are. . . a lot . . . of words. . . between the lovely parts.

everybody: YyyyaaaaaaAAAAYYYY EXCESS!

. . . lots of words. . .

The last few months I have been living with this couple.
Yeah, you know, the kind who buy everything in doubles.
They fit together, like a puzzle.
And I love their love and I am thankful
that someone actually receives the prize that was promised
by all those fairy tales that drugged us.

. . . too many words. . .


. . . but these lines are lovely . . .

So now I park my car down by the cathedral,
where the floodlights point up at the steeples.
Choir practice was filling up with people.
I hear the sound escaping as an echo.
Sloping off the ceiling at an angle.
When the voices blend they sound like angels.
I hope there’s some room still in the middle.
But when I lift my voice up now to reach them.
The range is too high,

. . . more words. . .


Finally, the best line on the whole album:

-from "Laura Laurent"
But you should never be embarrassed
by your trouble with living
because it's the ones with the sorest throats, Laura,
who have done the most singing.

If you're in Korea. . . (Updated)

watch Arirang TV at 8pm today. If you can, you know.

More later.

-roboseyo

So now that they've edited the whole thing. . . I'm in there all right!

http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/Tv_Video_On.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0290&code=Po5

You can click on this link, and watch the first segment -- it's more about two other Korea bloggers. . . but they show my face! And my voice is in there at one point. I show up about seven minutes in, and you can distinctly hear me say, "a lot of hits on my blog are. . . "

Too bad they edited out just about everything I said, you know, because now that it's on the cutting room floor, I'll swear to high heaven I have NEVER, repeat, NEVER been more clever, insightful, and entertaining than in all that stuff they edited out. Just boil down all the not-sucky parts of my blog into nine minutes of talking, and that's what it was like, I SWEAR.


snicker.


If you follow the link, you either have to sign up for the site, to get a login name and see the video on demand stuff, or if I know you personally, you can e-mail me at the address on the sidebar, and ask really nicely, and I'll e-mail you the username password I used to see it.


Zenkimchi kindly put the pertinent segment on Youtube. (Thanks, Joe.) So now you can see it here.

If you ONLY care about old Roboseyo, skip to the eight minute mark. . . but if you want to get a look at bloggers in Korea in GENERAL, watch the whole thing. Mike and Joe are worth knowing about, too.