THE ANSWER IS 12
#230 Boiling Over...Welcome to the Show...
6/13/10This semester has dwindled down to its final week. I couldn't be happier. This semester has been a long pain in my bottom. I have never before had students who displayed such a lack of respect and manners. Many of them are in for unpleasant surprises when they get around to finally checking their grades. This has been the single most difficult semester of my eight-year career. It doesn't help that I'm pretty certain that the school made a mistake when placing most of our students this semester.
Mom gets in on Wednesday to kick off a seven-week vacation. We've got Seoul, Manila, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, and at least one more, as-of-yet-unnamed city on our itinerary. Dad is going to hang out with the Brights and Cutitz while she's gone.
The trip starts with six days in Manila with Cheeri, Chelo and the Voice of Reason. Mom, Cheeri, Chelo, Voice, and I will meet Cooter in Kuching for the 2010 InterHash. I'm also expecting to see quite a few Korean Hashers (past and current) in Malaysia. Mom and I are going to take a few days to relax in KL after the madness of InterHash's alcoholism, nudity and dirty ditties. Cooter is going to climb a mountain. We'll see him again in Bali. He leaves for the U.S. a week later. Mom and I have another two weeks to kill after he departs, but we haven't exactly figured out what we're doing yet.
I'm ready for the insanity to get underway.
By the Numbers...
8 : Number of Koreans found dead after successfully completing a suicide pact today (5/13) in two groups. They were all in their 20s. One note left said they felt bad for their parents and blamed it on their inability to find a job.26 : Number of suicides per 100,000 people in Korea.
1 : Korea's rank in number of suicides among the 33 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
200,000 : Fine, in KRW, to be imposed on drivers caught not pulling over or getting out of the way of firetrucks by cameras to be installed on firetrucks here in August.
16 : Number of screens at the Megabox theater which opened as the largest multiplex in Asia at Seoul's COEX Mall in 2000.
4,218 : Seating capacity of the COEX Megabox.
50,000,000 : Number of total moviegoers who have visited the COEX Megabox. They hit this milestone in January.
32,617 : World record for most moviegoers in a single day, hit on July 31, 2004.
4.5 : Number, in trillions, of cigarette butts that "find their way into the environment" annually, not that we needed yet another reason to hate smokers.
300 : Number, in millions, of smokers in China alone.
60 : Percentage of Chinese men who smoke.
15 : Average number of cigarettes smoked by those Chinese men.
1,500 : Price, in U.S. dollars, of female North Korean refugees being sold in China.
75 : Price, in U.S. dollars, paid by marriage brokers in the 1980s for North Korean women.
150 : Price, in U.S. dollars, North Korean women sold for in the 1980s.
50-100,000 : Estimated number of North Korean refugees in China.
80 : Percentage of North Korean refugees in China who are women.
90 : Percentage of female North Korean refugees in China who end up falling victim to human trafficking.
500 : Estimated number of kidneys stolen from day laborers and homeless people at a hospital in Gurgaon, just outside of New Delhi over the past decade.
50,000 : Profit, in U.S. dollars, made by doctors for each kidney stolen and sold.
1,000 : Profit, in U.S. dollars, made by unlicensed doctors for each kidney stolen and sold.
98 : Percentage of Koreans aged 15 to 24 who believe their parents should pay for their college tuition.
86.7 : Percentage of Koreans aged 15 to 24 who believe their parents should cover the costs for their wedding.
75 : Percentage of elementary, middle and high school students in Korea receiving some form of private education.
242,000 : Average amount, in KRW, spent monthly by Korean families on private education in 2009.
10.8 : Average number of hours Korean teens spend online weekly.
85 : Percentage of Korean college students who have blogs.
39 : Percentage of Korean elementary school students who shop online.
20,000 : Average, in KRW, spent monthly online by Korean elementary school students.
11,680 : Number of foreigners with permanent residency status in Korea who are eligible to vote in the June 2 elections. In 2006, Korea introduce a new law giving voting rights to foreigners with permanent residency status for three years.
255,501 : Seoul's foreign resident population in the first quarter of this year.
266,268 : Seoul's foreign resident population in the first quarter of 2009.
164,960 : Number of ethnic Koreans making up Seoul's foreign resident population.
26,277 : Number of Chinese making up Seoul's foreign resident population.
13,277 : Number of Americans making up Seoul's foreign resident population.
10.46 : Total population, in millions, of Seoul in the first quarter of this year.
10.49 : Total population, in millions, of Seoul in the first quarter of 2009.
23,230 : Number of lost items found on Seoul's subway lines 1 through 8 during the first four months of this year.
6,220 : Number of lost bags found on Seoul's subway lines 1 through 8 during the first four months of this year.
4,181 : Number of lost cell phones found on Seoul's subway lines 1 through 8 during the first four months of this year.
1,276 : Number of people who lost cash on Seoul's subway lines 1 through 8 during the first four months of this year, totaling 84 million won ($76,000).
47.7 : Percentage of Korean adults who smoke.
21 : Percentage of Korean second-year male high school students who smoke.
3.03 : Percentage of Korean women who admit to smoking while pregnant according to a recent survey. I hate smokers.
1.16 : Number, in millions, of foreigners living in Korea.
910,000 : Number of foreigners in Korea with a cell phone subscription. There should be more, because if you're a teacher who's been here for more than a year, you shouldn't have a pay-as-you-go phone.
14,579 : Number of Koreans who committed suicide in 2009.
12,270 : Number of Koreans who committed suicide in 2008.
186 : Average amount, in millions of KRW, needed by Korean couples to get married and begin their post-wedding life together. The majority of that usually goes towards the gigantic "key money" deposit required to rent apartments here.
444 : Estimated sales for 2010, in millions of US dollars, of condoms in America.
38.5 : Percentage of sexually active American high school students stupid enough to have sex without condoms.
Mental Midgets in the Middle East...
or
Should Have Let Saddam Stay...
or
Should Have Let Saddam Stay...
4/15/10
CNN.com posted a story that proves we have lost Iraq. We didn't lose to Saddam, poor planning or WMDs. We lost to the ignorance and vanity of the masses. Plastic surgery is becoming the voice of freedom for many Iraqis. The story mentions a 15-year-old who was unhappy with her first nose job and is ready to under the knife again. Iraqi doctors have honed their skills for decades helping people mutilated during the violence and wars that have ravaged the ancient lands for so long. Now they are wasting their talents on uppity people with mental health issues projected onto their bodies. Yeah freedom! Welcome to the douchepacalypse. People Getting What They Deserve...
2/25/10
Korea has arrested five Koreans teaching at hagwons for a variety of offenses. The five routinely met up in Gangnam, Sinchon and Hongdae to do meth and hit some reefer. They sold the drugs to each other according to police for 850,000KRW ($756) a gram. Worse than that, these geniuses all had fake graduate certificates in English literature or education they'd bought from www.phonydiploma.com for $240-300 each.Korea is going to extradite a 24-year-old kyopo to the U.S. to face murder charges. The former L.A. gang member was arrested here on drug charges while using a fake diploma to work at a Suwon hagwon. The U.S. says he is accused of stabbing a man to death in July 2006. He was arrested with a second fomer kyopo gang member. Korean police booked them both on drug charges and for using fake degrees.
How Stupid Are You?...
5/11/10
Police in Seoul arrested a 16-year-old girl with the family name, Choi, in March for selling sex to adult men online. The girl was held for 23 days in a cell with five women in Uiwang City. The police moved her to a cell for men when they realized that she was actually a boy after fingerprinting her/him. He was soliciting men online, meeting them at love motels and then running away with their wallets as they showered. He wasn't fingerprinted until late April because he had told police that he was a she. Korea doesn't issue resident identification cards until people turn 18, so fingerprinting is the only way to identify minors. I still don't understand why they didn't fingerprint the little cross-dressing thief when they first caught him.
Police in Seoul arrested a 16-year-old girl with the family name, Choi, in March for selling sex to adult men online. The girl was held for 23 days in a cell with five women in Uiwang City. The police moved her to a cell for men when they realized that she was actually a boy after fingerprinting her/him. He was soliciting men online, meeting them at love motels and then running away with their wallets as they showered. He wasn't fingerprinted until late April because he had told police that he was a she. Korea doesn't issue resident identification cards until people turn 18, so fingerprinting is the only way to identify minors. I still don't understand why they didn't fingerprint the little cross-dressing thief when they first caught him.
One of America's Greatest
Embarrassments...
Embarrassments...
5/13/10
Richard M. Nixon was president during portions of two wars the United States of America should never have gotten involved and have lost. The first was the Vietnam War. The second, America's War on Drugs. He didn't start 'Nam, but he did start America's budget busting propaganda war against marijuana in 1970. During Nixon's first year, he wasted $100 million attacking the pot-smoking hippies protesting the Southeast Asian nonsense that can be traced back to the Woodrow Wilson's warlord rule. The current budget is $15.1 billion. This is still 31 times more than Nixon's first budget even after adjusting it for inflation. Interdiction and law enforcement consume $10 billion of the current budget. America's War on Drugs has made a difference. It has imprisoned millions of ganja smokers. It has destroyed families. It has done almost as much damage as the drugs themselves and probably more. It hasn't affected decades of doctor-enabled prescription pill addiction. It hasn't helped the children of lazy parents who are more than happy to have doctors drug them after giving them a half-assed diagnosis of being a kid. It hasn't helped glaucoma, AIDS, HIV, migraine, or cancer patients who could use marijuana to improve their quality of life.
Here's some other facts about the past 40 years that should drive you street angry enough to hoist pitchforks and torches while demanding every member of our government resign:
- We have given $20 billion to other countries to fight the war on drugs on their own turf.
- Columbia received $6 billion to fight cocoa production, which rose during that time. Although it did move the trafficking and violence to Mexico.
- American children have suffered from the effects of $33 billion dollars of "Just Say No"-style b*llsh*t propaganda marketing. I can't help but wonder how many millions of young Americans began distrusting and disliking their government the moment they discovered that smoking marijuana and doing heroin are nothing alike whatsoever.
- $49 billion has gone to our borders to unsuccessfully prevent the influx of drugs.
- 25 million Americans will use illegal drugs this year.
- 15 million Americans used illegal drugs in 1970.
- We have spent $121 billion to arrest 37 million nonviolent drug offenders.
- Of those nonviolent drug offenders, 10 million of them were arrested for pot.
- We have used more than $450 billion to imprison just those nonviolent offenders in federal prisons.
- Half of America's federal prisoners last year were nonviolent drug offenders.
- 330 tons of cocaine are sold in the U.S. annually.
- 20 tons of heroin are sold in the U.S. annually.
- 110 tons of methamphetamine is sold in the U.S. annually.
- Nobody knows how much marijuana is sold annually.
- The global drug industry makes up one percent of the world's commerce being worth $320 billion.
What can we do? Being honest with our children would be a start. We put so much focus on marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and meth, we almost completely ignore the more common dangers of cigarettes and alcohol.
More People Getting What They Deserve...
5/13/10
Korea is a pop band factory. Management companies piece together and churn out soulless, uncreative, cloned girl and boy bands faster than I can crap out good Mexican food. A scandal has emerged thanks to an underpaid tutor in the U.S. Korea sent the Wondergirls to the U.S. in hopes of breaking into the market. Daniel Gauss tutored them in English from October 2009 until this month. He claims that their management group, JYPE, mistreated them through the course of their failed attempt to gain popularity in the U.S. JYPE and several of the girls claim his accusations are incorrect. I don't really care either way. The next part, however, is interesting. Korea crapped its pants when the five girls' single "Nobody" became the first Korean song to get onto the Billboard Hot 100 chart; it debuted at 76. How did this song that you probably have never heard of (unless you live in Korea) manage this feat? JYPE sold the girls' CD for $1.00 at clothing stores around the country. Losing money on the disc gave the Wondergirls the claim to fame in Korea. All it takes to get onto Billboard is to sell your music at a loss!
Movie Time...
5/17-6/11/10
I've been getting out to more movies since I finished my classes. If you haven't seen it yet, Kick-Ass is one really good movie. I saw something I have never seen before in Korean subtitles. For those of you who don't know, the Korean words for f*ck and 18 sound almost identical. In the past, the subtitles always read "젠장", when somebody says most any curse in English. It is a light curse like "hell" or "darn." The people who subtitled it actually put the number "18" in the movie for one of the F-bombs dropped. It was hilarious! The problem is that not too many decent flicks have came this way since then. Iron Man 2 wasn't quite as good as the first, but the way they worked towards setting up the upcoming ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers was pretty interesting. Book of Eli had too much religious garbage, but was otherwise a good movie, if not a little predictable. The Crazies was an incredible remake! I wonder if we'll see a sequel. Timothy Olyphant is bad-ass. Robin Hood wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, but there are many worse ways to kill two-and-a-half hours.
I saw The A-Team yesterday. After G.I. Joe and Transformers 2, it was great to see a movie that didn't take a steaming crap all over my childhood. It was a little bit over the top (especially the tank and then the container ship at the end), the obvious double-cross was obvious and Murdock's small roll in the final plan felt awkward. Other than that it was incredible. The new team had great interaction with each other. I can't wait for a sequel!
Weakly Konglish...
5/19/10
I saw the following on the back of a student's t-shirt today:"Make Ear bike and girl lower Looks damn cool And Ride fucking easy you know Supplier make you hot"
6/8/10
This great Konglish is currently plastered on buses in Seoul. I think it's an English hagwon for people wanting to learn sex talk.
6/13/10
I'm continually amazed by the horrific language on the clothes people actually wear out in public. One of my students last week wore a t-shirt that said:
EAT
FUCK
KILL
Yummy...
5/19/10
Last night I ate at my favorite local all-you-can-eat tuna restaurant, when Mr. Jeong offered me a shot of a strange booze I hadn't had before. He handed me a shot glass of brandy, gold flecks and the ocular fluid collected from many tuna. It was a little syrupy but surprisingly good.Two More Reasons to Hate the Olympics...
5/19/10People who know me know how much I don't like sports in general and the Olympics specifically. It's sad to see people quadrennially pretending that gymnastics, synchronized swimming, equestrian dressage, ping pong, curling, and figure skating are real sports. London is hosting the 2012 summer games. The city unveiled its mascots for the games. I hope they were only joking. Wenlock and Mandeville are two horribly creepy cyclops creatures. The male monster has some sort of flipper-claw appendages and a blue crotch. I've heard of having blue balls, but never of having it evolve into an entirely blue crotch. The girl wears colored bracelets banned in some public schools, because students have worn them to signify sex acts they have done. The two weeks we lose out on real television programming is bad enough without having these androgynous demons on our screens. Wenlock and Mandeville have taken the title of "Most Disturbing Mascot" from Atlanta's 1996 Izzy.
Police Pick Up...
5/24/10I got to hang out with the Beaver this weekend. It was a typical weekend for us. Unfortunately, that means it was absolutely insane. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he was a Buzzard or part of the K-Town Mafia. Beav's job had him up in Seoul for two weeks conducting interviews. I went up to hang with him on his last weekend. We bounced around random bars and makgeolli joints all afternoon. We met a friend of his for dinner at a restaurant that does a Korean take on Chinese lamb. It was very interesting. It wasn't quite as good as the original, but it was really good. We left his friends and decided makgeolli time had come. We couldn't find a makgeolli joint, but we did find two police officers. We asked them for directions and to take pictures with them. They decided to drive us to a place in their cop car. First they let me take pictures of the Beav in the back seat and in the driver's seat. It was crazy. They put us in the back of the car and drove us to a makgeolli joint near the Times Square Mall. We shocked the bar's patrons and owners when our police car pulled up with its lights on. We shocked them further when our two officers had to get out of the car to open the back doors to let our stumbling, cracker butts out for more drinking. I love this country!
Rice + Booze = Korea...
5/26/10
Korea's Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MOFAFF) held an event to invite potential nicknames for the nation's milky rice wine, makgeolli (막걸리). Makgeolli has gained much popularity in Korea and the region in past year. The country has decided that because "makgeolli" isn't the easiest of words for foreigners to pronounce, it needed to devise a nickname for it. Entries from 3,910 people included Makcohol, Koju, Kori, Soolsool, McKorea, and Rainydaywine. But were any of those good enough? No. MOFAFF chose the most straight to the point contender: Drunken Rice.
Korea's Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MOFAFF) held an event to invite potential nicknames for the nation's milky rice wine, makgeolli (막걸리). Makgeolli has gained much popularity in Korea and the region in past year. The country has decided that because "makgeolli" isn't the easiest of words for foreigners to pronounce, it needed to devise a nickname for it. Entries from 3,910 people included Makcohol, Koju, Kori, Soolsool, McKorea, and Rainydaywine. But were any of those good enough? No. MOFAFF chose the most straight to the point contender: Drunken Rice.
Please Don't Feed the Stupid...
6/10/10
Because obesity isn't a big enough problem in America, Donna Simpson is doing something about it. The 42-year-old mother of two from New Jersey crushes the scale at 600 pounds but has heavier goals. She wants to waddle her way into the Guinness World Records. She'll have to double or possibly triple her current weight in order to get the record. She's not doing it alone, mostly because it takes $750 a week to feed her. Sadly, she's not alone in her endeavor. She has a website where people can watch her like a modern-day freak show. She has videos of her packing in greasy foods and walking to her car. She has a fiancee seven years her senior who fathered her youngest daughter and finds her near-planetary status "sexy" and supports her large dream. Being morbidly obese with a goal of getting heavier doesn't make Donna lazy or stupid enough. She wants to perpetuate her ignorance by getting her own reality television show so that all of the non-thinking masses have more televised garbage to ingest.
She says that she wants a reality show "so that people can see a woman of size having a regular family." She's not a woman of size; she's a woman of many sizes. She's not trying to send a positive message. Carrying around a few extra pounds isn't a bad thing, but she's trying to eat herself to death. As the matriarch of her "regular family," she has Type 2 diabetes and has difficulty cooking the tonnage she consumes and showering the filth off after. Her message includes denying that morbid obesity isn't a factor in heart problems, diabetes and joint pain.
The only positive aspect of this story is that for as crazy as Simpson is, she is against gastric bypass surgery. A friend of hers died from the dangerous, unnecessary surgery. At least we won't have to worry about her show lasting more than season or two if she does wedge her way onto television.
I don't want to hear anyone out there saying that I'm being hateful towards obese people, because I'm not. I'm being hateful towards one ricetarded b*tch who wants to eat herself to death while attempting to convince others that she's not only normal, but also a good example to be followed. I hope that she has it in her will that she will be fed to a school of piranha at a zoo in front of people when her heart throws in the towel.
Kim Kil-tae could very well get what he deserves if Busan prosecutors have their way. They have demanded the death penalty for Kim. He is accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old girl in March. He has already confessed after they found his DNA in the girl's body but subsequently denied everything during the trial. Prosecutors have also asked that he wear an electronic monitoring device for 30 years, the maximum currently allowed by law for sex crime and murder convictions. I hope that he is killed off long before any electric bracelet ever touches his leg. Because obesity isn't a big enough problem in America, Donna Simpson is doing something about it. The 42-year-old mother of two from New Jersey crushes the scale at 600 pounds but has heavier goals. She wants to waddle her way into the Guinness World Records. She'll have to double or possibly triple her current weight in order to get the record. She's not doing it alone, mostly because it takes $750 a week to feed her. Sadly, she's not alone in her endeavor. She has a website where people can watch her like a modern-day freak show. She has videos of her packing in greasy foods and walking to her car. She has a fiancee seven years her senior who fathered her youngest daughter and finds her near-planetary status "sexy" and supports her large dream. Being morbidly obese with a goal of getting heavier doesn't make Donna lazy or stupid enough. She wants to perpetuate her ignorance by getting her own reality television show so that all of the non-thinking masses have more televised garbage to ingest.
She says that she wants a reality show "so that people can see a woman of size having a regular family." She's not a woman of size; she's a woman of many sizes. She's not trying to send a positive message. Carrying around a few extra pounds isn't a bad thing, but she's trying to eat herself to death. As the matriarch of her "regular family," she has Type 2 diabetes and has difficulty cooking the tonnage she consumes and showering the filth off after. Her message includes denying that morbid obesity isn't a factor in heart problems, diabetes and joint pain.
The only positive aspect of this story is that for as crazy as Simpson is, she is against gastric bypass surgery. A friend of hers died from the dangerous, unnecessary surgery. At least we won't have to worry about her show lasting more than season or two if she does wedge her way onto television.
I don't want to hear anyone out there saying that I'm being hateful towards obese people, because I'm not. I'm being hateful towards one ricetarded b*tch who wants to eat herself to death while attempting to convince others that she's not only normal, but also a good example to be followed. I hope that she has it in her will that she will be fed to a school of piranha at a zoo in front of people when her heart throws in the towel.
Population Control...
6/10/10
More Population Control...
5/19/10
I'm hoping that Seoul prosecutors can follow in Pusan's steps. Kim Su-cheol got drunk, took a box-cutter to Usin Elementary School in Yeongdeungpo District, wandered the halls for an hour, and then abducted an eight-year-old girl from the playground. The 45-year0old took her 500 meters to his house where he raped her. He passed out after, because he "felt good." The girl escaped the sleeping monster and ran back to school. She was taken to a hospital for a six-hour surgery to correct the damage Kim had done. The police arrested him at his home nine hours later.
It's no surprise that Kim was on out on the street stalking victims. After all, he'd only served 15 years starting in 1987 for rape and has had only a dozen other convictions since he was released eight years ago. The 12 convictions include physical violence and hit-and-runs. Yes, hit-and-runs with an "s."
I hope that his time on this spinning ball of mud are extremely short.
I'm hoping that Seoul prosecutors can follow in Pusan's steps. Kim Su-cheol got drunk, took a box-cutter to Usin Elementary School in Yeongdeungpo District, wandered the halls for an hour, and then abducted an eight-year-old girl from the playground. The 45-year0old took her 500 meters to his house where he raped her. He passed out after, because he "felt good." The girl escaped the sleeping monster and ran back to school. She was taken to a hospital for a six-hour surgery to correct the damage Kim had done. The police arrested him at his home nine hours later.
It's no surprise that Kim was on out on the street stalking victims. After all, he'd only served 15 years starting in 1987 for rape and has had only a dozen other convictions since he was released eight years ago. The 12 convictions include physical violence and hit-and-runs. Yes, hit-and-runs with an "s."
I hope that his time on this spinning ball of mud are extremely short.
Dae Han Bandwagon...
6/13/10
Millions of Koreans shouted "Dae Han Min Gook" this weekend as Korea beat Greece in its first World Cup 2010 game. It was strange catching glimpses of the first World Cup since 2002. Yes, some of you are arguing that there was a World Cup in 2006. If you lived in Korea in 2006, then you know that this isn't true. Eight years ago South Koreans went crazy as their national team far exceeded their expectations as they co-hosted the Cup with Japan. Millions of red shirt-wearing Koreans poured out into the streets to watch their games on large screens across the nation. People in smaller neighborhoods gathered outside of buildings to watch games projected from LCD projectors set up in a window onto a weighted bed sheet hung outside of a building across the street. The excitement was enough to all but bury the story of the bloody naval battle between North and South Korea that took place during the Cup.
We didn't see any of that in 2006. I've asked several people here about why the last Cup failed to generate any fervor among the populace. I received the same answer from everybody so far. Nobody thought Korea was going to do well, so there was no reason to support their national team. Korea's soccer fans are all fair-weather fans. This year they think their team stands a chance, so the entire nation has jumped on the bandwagon to show its first iota of support in eight years.
Millions of Koreans shouted "Dae Han Min Gook" this weekend as Korea beat Greece in its first World Cup 2010 game. It was strange catching glimpses of the first World Cup since 2002. Yes, some of you are arguing that there was a World Cup in 2006. If you lived in Korea in 2006, then you know that this isn't true. Eight years ago South Koreans went crazy as their national team far exceeded their expectations as they co-hosted the Cup with Japan. Millions of red shirt-wearing Koreans poured out into the streets to watch their games on large screens across the nation. People in smaller neighborhoods gathered outside of buildings to watch games projected from LCD projectors set up in a window onto a weighted bed sheet hung outside of a building across the street. The excitement was enough to all but bury the story of the bloody naval battle between North and South Korea that took place during the Cup.
We didn't see any of that in 2006. I've asked several people here about why the last Cup failed to generate any fervor among the populace. I received the same answer from everybody so far. Nobody thought Korea was going to do well, so there was no reason to support their national team. Korea's soccer fans are all fair-weather fans. This year they think their team stands a chance, so the entire nation has jumped on the bandwagon to show its first iota of support in eight years.
