Konglish of the Day

This air freshener made me smile.


And I'm not putting this on its own post... but T-Ara did their pop song "Bo-Peep" with a Korean orchestra backing them up, moving awkwardly in an attempt at sexy hanbok, for their new year's day performance. I really don't know what to say.



This song is 2010's first number one song in Korea.

Happy New Year! Retrospective on the Way

This video: On the Water, by the Walkmen, is seriously awesome. Great song, stunning video.

Found it on Pitchforkmedia's top 50 music videos of 2009. Go look around there... some amazing stuff to see. Pitchfokmedia's year end lists are always worth looking for.

I'm working on a few looks back at 2009: hang on, and I'll soon come up with
1. Top ten K-blog moments of 2009
2. (in the Korea Herald) Top ten expat stories of 2009
3. Top ten blogoseyo posts of the year
4. Ten things I learned this year. I didn't do an advent post this year... frankly, it's been a tough year for me personally in a lot of ways. There was one super-duper high point, and then a whole bunch of rough stuff. So that's all coming up. Now go back up and watch that video.

Rob

The Commercials That Make Me Glad I Don't Have A TV

Even though I don't have a TV, and I only ever see TV peripherally or incidentally, passing a screen in a shop, sitting under one in a restaurant, or having it on in the background at girlfriendoseyo's house, I'm still sick of these commercials.

Catchy as hell, though.






Korea has a knack for odd commercials: not as that Japanese ads are plain and dull (check out this one), but TV ads are a serious theater of the absurd out here.

One Christmas Party Pic

Correction: Two Christmas party pics.

My monthly flickr allowance just topped out, so I can't put up too many pictures, but here's one I like:



It's been a pretty good Christmas, all told: I'll describe some of it in more detail later, but for now, suffice it to say Christmas dinner rocked, and the trip to Jeollanamdo was an adventure punctuated with moments of fantasticousity in the middle of mud, and a lunch encounter with Jeollanamdo's most famous K-blogger was one of the nicest couple hours of my winter so far.

Plus, Joy got this sweet hat! And it came with a free ice cream cake!


But, uh, more later. When it's not 4AM.

-seyo

Will this Happen? Of Course Not...but Japan Really Needs to Do Something About Its Past

The Korean has written a very interesting article about Japan's historical disputes with Korea, prompted by the Japanese government's decision to pay a slap-in-the-face insult of a 99yen payoff to Korea's comfort woman. Interesting reading: go read it!