TAI12 #235 Better Nate Than Lever...

THE ANSWER IS 12

#235  Better Nate Than Lever...

Welcome to the Show...

6/23/11 
     The first semester's over!  I can't believe I survived.  Several sh*tstorms of varying subject matter and intensity ensured that this semester tested me like no other before it.  I am glad it's in the can.  I finished all of my work at 1748 yesterday afternoon and handed in the final papers this morning before a staff meeting which gave new meaning to the word "ricetarded."  My biggest concerns are that the summer break is just that, and that the second semester will pick up right where this one left off in all aspects of my life upon my return from wherever the heck Brett and I end up going.  We have a ticket to Bangkok on July 6 and a ticket from Ulaanbaatar on August 25.  We haven't really begun to fill in the blanks yet, especially the part where we get from Thailand's capital to Mongolia's.  I guess we'll just nuke that whale when we come to it. 

By the Numbers...

20,000  :  Price, in won, of a gram of heroin in North Korea where people are serving it to house guests, because you don't have to serve side dishes with it like custom dictates you do when serving alcohol. 
12,500  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea in 2010. 
12,400  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea in 2009. 
12,100  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea in 2008. 
5,300  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea between husbands and wives of different nationalities in 2010. 
6,500  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea between husbands and wives of different nationalities in 2009. 
5,600  :  Number of divorce suits filed in Korea between husbands and wives of different nationalities in 2008.
10,277  :  Number complaints received by the Korea Consumer Agency regarding plastic surgery between 2006 and 2010.
338  :  Number complaints investigated by the Korea Consumer Agency regarding plastic surgery between 2006 and 2010.
9-10  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, paid by a restaurant in Seoul to two brokers each to have the restaurant featured on an MBC and SBS show about "great" restaurants in Korea.  A new documentary, “The True-Taste Show," also states that these shows pay people to be "customers" at these featured restaurants to be seen enjoying their fare and giving thumbs-ups.
3  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, paid to Kim Hye-sook in 2009 by the Korean government as compensation for being given scissors while serving a prison sentence.  He used the scissors to cut off his penis and flush down the toilet, claiming that he was a woman.  Read more on down.
30  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, for a man to subject themselves to unnecessary surgeries to become a "woman."
100  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, for a woman to subject themselves to unnecessary surgeries to become a "man."
25,000  :  Number of Big Macs Dan Gorske has eaten over 39 years.  While the number is disturbing, it's not as disturbing as the fact that he documented most of them.  He has many of the boxes and receipts from his Big Macs and kept count on calenders he's kept over the years.
531,929  :  Number of Korean "drinking bars and clubs" nationwide in 2005.  
580,505  :  Number of Korean "drinking bars and clubs" nationwide in 2009.
25,393  :  Number of bars in Korea in 2005.
31,626  :  Number of bars in Korea in 2009.
93,576  :  Number of people employed in Korean bars in 2005.
103,387  :  Number of people employed in Korean bars in 2009. 
2.8  :  Revenues, in trillions of KRW, of Korean bars in 2005.
3.5  :   Revenues, in trillions of KRW, of Korean bars in 2009. 
29,857  :  Number of room salons (karaoke bars that hire "hostesses") in Korea in 2004. 
30,466  :  Number of room salons (karaoke bars that hire "hostesses") in Korea in 2009.
590,000  :  Number of foreigners who have stayed in Korea for more than three months as of 11/1/2010.
238,000  :  Number of foreigners who had stayed in Korea for more than three months as of 2005. 
299,000  :  Number of Chinese living in Korea.
59,000  :  Number of female and male Vietnamese in Korea for marriage and work, respectively.
26,873  :  Number of car accidents caused by drunk driving in 2008 in Korea.
969  :  Number people killed in those accidents in 2008.
650,000  :  Size of South Korea's active military forces.  
1.19  :  Size, in millions, of North Korea's active military forces.
3.2  :  Size, in millions, of South Korea's military reserve forces.
7.7  :   Size, in millions, of North Korea's military reserve forces.
2  :  Estimated number, in millions, of South Korea's military reserve soldiers who don't have a rifle.
30  :  South Korea's annual defense budget, in trillions of KRW.
110  :  South Korea's annual military reserve forces budget, in billions of KRW, (0.35 of the total defense budget).
322,473  :  Number of unmarried 30-somethings in Seoul at the end of 2000.  
656,814  :  Number of unmarried 30-somethings in Seoul at the end of 2010.
5  :  Number of cases of cannibalism mentioned in a 791-page report on crime issued by by the North Korean police force in 2009 giving "guidance on how to deal with criminals."
47,682  :  The number of hours a person has to watch pornography before it becomes boring, according to Deadpool.
255,403  :  The number of Koreans who died in 2010.  
172,276  :  The number of Koreans cremated in 2010 (67.5 percent of all deaths).  
33.7  :  Percentage of dead Koreans cremated in 2000.    
200+  :  The number of Koreans arrested for prostitution on the U.S. East Coast in the last five years, partly credited to the 2008 visa waiver program that allowed Koreans easier access to the U.S.  
33  :  Percentage increase of reported rapes in Korea over the past three years.  
15,819  :  The number of rapes reported in Korea in 2007.  
21,116  :  The number of rapes reported in Korea in 2010.   
8,772  :  The number of expats in Seoul in 1960.  
13,793  :  The number of expats in Seoul in 1980.  
61,920  :  The number of expats in Seoul in 2000.   
262,902  :  The number of expats in Seoul in 2010.   
1.51  :  The number (in millions) of animals used in Korea in 2010 for cosmetic and pharmaceutical testing.  
78,905  :  The number of Koreans of over the of 65 without a registered residence.  
679  :  The number of those elderly Koreans without a residence currently receiving a regular monthly government pension of up to a mere 88,000KRW.   
4  :  The number of Americans receiving medicinal marijuana from the U.S. Government.   
892  :  The number of people who have jumped off of one of Seoul's Han River bridges between 2006 and 2010.  
375  :  The number of people who successfully ended their lives jumping off of one of Seoul's Han River bridges between 2006 and 2010.  

I Get Smart...

4/26/11 
     It took a lot of internal debate, but my dumb ass bought a smart phone... for free.  I signed a two-year contract and switched phone companies from SK to LG to get a free Samsung Galaxy Tab.  I decided to go large considering that I don't own a car and spend a so much time on subways and buses here.  It hasn't been a big of a pain in the keister as I thought it would be, although I have had several problems.  The first issue to arise was when I tried to access my Gmail account.  I unwittingly checked a box that allowed my Tab to sync with my Gmail account.  I suddenly found a couple hundred extra contacts in my phone book that I had no intention of putting there.  I am glad, however, that I did my Gmail before my Yahoo account, which has 800 contacts, the majority of which I have no contact with.

Update

9/27/11
     Having spent the summer traveling with my new phone/flatten brick, I can up my level of infatuation with this strange device.  The wi-fi was extremely useful.  I got plenty of use out of it watching old blacksploitation and kung-fu videos.  My newest favorite use of my Tab is the Kindle application.  I was enjoying occasionally flipping through some comic books on the Perfect Viewer, but having a tiny device with 90 books (so far) loaded onto it is a wonder!  I have knocked out King's Under the Dome and Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and currently working on Craig Ferguson's American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot.  Declan's Word of the Day programs are fun, too. 

Worst Mother of the Year...

5/26/11
     This award goes to Jang Hyu-hee for screwing with her daughter's face and mind.  She had the 12-year-old undergo plastic surgery to "fix" her eyes.  What was wrong with her eyes?  Nothing, except that they were Korean.  Her mother westernized her eyes so that she would be "prettier."  It's unnerving that a mother would plant these kinds of thoughts into her daughter's mind.  They should have accompanied the unnecessary surgery with a complimentary lobotomy for Mrs. Jang. 

Weakly Konglish...

6/2/11
     I found this gem on The Korea Herald's ever-incorrect website: 

Queens may can Korean-only signs in K town

6/22/11
     The Herald scored again with:

Security fuards accused of animal abuse

     This one really pissed me of because it involved some security guards who chased a cat through the 13th floor of an apartment building until it "fell."  They went downstairs and beat the still-breathing cat to death with bats.  Because this wasn't enough, they dumped the poor feline's body in a food waste disposal.  I think we would be completely within our rights to do the same to every malicious animal involved.  As I've said many times before, the world is way overpopulated and sh*tstains like these wouldn't be missed. Damn these security fuards (whatever that means)! 

Tab A...

6/20/11 
     My old phone finally crapped out on me in late March.  It wouldn't take a charge anymore.  I had to bite the bullet and score a new piece of ignorable machinery.  It was time to go for a smartphone.  I weighed the options of getting a regular-sized phone, but decided against it and went with something different.  I am now actually a proud owner of a Galaxy Tab.  I have always hated cell phones, but I love my Tab.  Of course, I like it for all of the wrong reasons.  I refuse to sync my new phone with my Yahoo!, Gmail or Facef*ck accounts, although I did accidentally sync my Gmail when I first started playing with it.  It took me a good long while to manually delete all of those contacts from my phones memory.  I do, however, like the applications I have been able to find for it. 

Goodbye and Good Riddance...

9/13/11
     Janet Hardt is dead, and the world is a better place for it.  The 63-year-old woman died after injecting melted beef fat into her mouth and chin.  The article said that she died in Homewood, Illinois of an unrelated infection in her colon wall.  The idiot had done this multiple times in the past and had undergone numerous plastic surgeries as well.  Goodbye and good riddance. 

Redundancy, Saying Things Twice and Repeating Yourself...

9/26/11 
     I have said this many times before:  I love The Korea Times.  I'm certain that it's Korea's version of The Onion.  It published these two articles on the same day:

"3 of every 4 elementary school teachers women"

and 

"One fourth of elementary school teachers are male" 

     If they hadn't published both of these articles, I wonder what people would have thought if they had only read one of them.  I can see people here thinking, "Wow, three-fourths of our elementary school teachers are women, but what are the other 25 percent?" or "If a quarter of  our elementary school teachers are men, then what the hell is teaching the majority of our kids!" 

Disturbing...

9/29/11 
     I didn't know that "Organic Sound" meant pedophilia.  This is truly disturbing.  The person who designed this flyer shouldn't be allowed within 100 meters of schools, churches and crack houses.

TAI12 #234 Freedom at Last...

THE ANSWER IS 12

TAI12 #234 Freedom at Last...

Welcome to the Show...

5/1/11
     I've been getting out and hitting the road.  The past couple of weekends.  Last semester, I spent a total of three nights away from my apartment, and I didn't spend too many more away in the spring semester last year.  I can't remember a month where a mere three nights wasn't a slow month.  I wandered around Gwangju two weekends ago and Dongducheon last weekend.  Gwangju wasn't too exciting, although I did find a couple of large traditional markets and a lot of street food.  I had some so-so Indian food in Dongducheon and drank a lot as rain fell on the small town's collection of Filipina juciy bars, restaurants, phone stores, and pawn shops.  It feels good to be on the road again.  
5/3/11
     I have lived in Asia for more than nine years.  I bought my first bamboo plant today.  I also finally found a 75cm yoga ball this afternoon.  My old chair's back had broken long ago, so I figured that as long as I can't lean back, I might as well be able to sit on a bouncy ball while I don't do it.  The long winter came to an end at long last this week.  I bought lettuce and spinach seeds today and got them into my window garden.  The next time I eat dead animal at a restaurant, I'm going to pocket some hot pepper seeds. 

By the Numbers...

126  :  Number of schools that shut down in Gyeonggi Province on 4/7/11 due to local fears that our first rain since Japan's nuclear meltdown  would contain radiation.  
1  :  The maximum number of arms people would Maine could have if they wanted to legally carry a switchblade if the state passes a new law under consideration.  Federal laws allow one-armed people to carry a switchblade on federal property as long as the blade is three-inches or shorter.  The blade-length rule would be the same in Maine.  
135  :  Value, in US dollars, of coupons for single-shot shotguns in local sporting goods stores being given to first-time satellite TV subscribers to Dish Network at RadioShacks in western Montana and southwestern Idaho.  Sign me up! 
31  :  Percentage of foreigners in Korea who named tteokbokki as their favorite food in Korea in a recent survey of 455.
29  :  Percentage of foreigners in Korea who named chicken on a stick as their favorite food in Korea.
20  :  Percentage of foreigners in Korea who named soondae as their favorite food in Korea.
137  :  Number of Korean primary and secondary students who committed suicide in 2008. 
202  :  Number of Korean primary and secondary students who committed suicide in 2009. 
146  :  Number of Korean primary and secondary students who committed suicide in 2010.
420,000  :  Number of people whose personal information was stolen recently by hackers from Hyundai Capital, 23 percent of the company's total clients.
450,000  :  Number of cell phone subscribers in North Korea as of late 2010 after only having cellular service for two years.
230,400,000  :  Number of $2 bills printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing in 2006.
494  :  Number of Koreans, per 100,000, who died from alcohol-related diseases in 1983.
2,023  :  Number of Koreans, per 100,000, who died from alcohol-related diseases in 1992. 
5,047  :  Number of Koreans, per 100,000, who died from alcohol-related diseases in 2004. 
4,417  :  Number of Koreans, per 100,000, who died from alcohol-related diseases in 2009. 
70  :  Number of North Korean female defectors forced into prostitution in Qingdao, China between February 2007 and November 2009 by a male North Korean defector and four unnamed others.  The men confined the women in cells.  
30  :  Profit, in millions of KRW, the five craptactular pimps profited off of the 70 women over the course of 34 months made by taking 20 percent of the 100,000KRW pay the girls received for hooking in bars.
400,000  :  Amount, in KRW, extorted by the same five pimps from a runaway victim.
10  :  Number of years the personal information of Korean sex offenders who served more than three years in prison will be posted on the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's “online sex offender alter system” website at http://www.sexoffender.go.kr/  
5  :  Number of years the personal information of Korean sex offenders who served less than three years in prison will be posted online.
2  :  Number of years the personal information of Korean sex offenders who pay fines and serve no prison time will be posted online.  The information will include physical descriptions and information about their criminal records. 
2.42  :  Number, in millions, of Koreans registered as disabled as of June 2009.
95  :  Percentage of disabled Koreans who are listed as disabled as the result of disease or accident. 
240  :  Number, in millions, of 911 calls received annually in the U.S., less than half come from landlines. 
75  :  Amount, in millions of U.S. dollars, of homeless-veteran benefits slashed from the latest round of budget cuts by Congress.
7.4  :  Amount, in millions of U.S. dollars, of guaranteed funds left in the budget for the U.S. Army's sponsorship of NASCAR.
20  :  Amount, in millions of U.S. dollars, of guaranteed funds left in the budget for the National Guard's sponsorship of NASCAR.  I am horrified that our government cares more about hillbilly racing than it does the people who have sacrificed so much for our country.
3.48  :  Number, in millions, of animals slaughtered in Korea since November to contain the nation's worst-ever foot-and-mouth epidemic.
2.6  :  Cost, in billions of U.S. dollars, from last November to March of Korea's foot-in-mouth epidemic.
11  :  Number of aircraft carriers the U.S. has; no other country has more than one.
48  :  Number of submarines the U.S. has.
952  :  Number of admirals and generals in the U.S. military.
17  :  Number of intelligence agencies in the U.S.
1,500  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita on its military in 1998.
2,700  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita on its military in 2008. 
500  :  Average amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita by America's NATO allies.
60  :  Percentage of Korean high school students who recently said they don't believe that the government's efforts to improve English education has improved their English proficiency.
100  :  Percentage of me who agrees with 60 percent of Korean high school students.
1,500  :  Number of balloons carrying propaganda in South Korea annually.
250  :  Number, in millions, of propaganda leaflets sent up by balloons to North Korea so far.
3  :  Number of speakers of the world's most endangered language, Dusner, an Indonesian tribal language.
130  :  Estimated number of languages in the world spoken by less than ten people.
6,000  :  Estimated number of languages in use in the world today.
50  :  Percentage of those languages expected to be extinct by the end of the century.
24  :  Amount, in billions of KRW, the Seoul Metropolitan Government expects to spend to replace traditional crosswalk lights showing a male figure with lights displaying a man and woman together to somehow help women's rights in an incomprehensible way.  Way to flush your money down the crapper in the name of political correctness, Seoul! 
30.21  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Canadia, according to a recent Newsweek article reported in The Chosunilbo. 
31.84  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in England.
43.41  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Taiwan.
44.67  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in America.
44.94  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Czechoslovakia.
53.17  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Brazil.
98.70  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Australia.
114.70  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Finland.
156.75  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Japan.
526.76  :  Amount, in U.S. dollars, spent per capita in 2006 on porn in Korea, the highest amount in the world.
1,800  :  Number of Korean children waiting to be adopted.  

Finally a Volunteering Opportunity I Can Get Behind,
Or on Top of,
Or on the Bottom of...

4/4/11
     Korea doesn't have a great record concerning the care of its disabled citizens.  While conditions have improved in recent years, the nation still has a long way to go.  Some families continue to hide their disabled relatives from the public.  Some still abandon disabled children.  The Korea Times recently reported on the sexual discrimination against and lack of sexual experiences of the disabled here.  The 2005 documentary, Pink Palace, follows a cerebral palsy sufferer, Choi Dong-soo, as he unsuccessfully attempts to screw a hooker in the red-light district of Cheongnyangni.  The 48-year-old virgin was told by one whore that he could "buy nothing no matter how much you would pay."  In a country with so much prostitution, I find it hard to believe that so many hookers would favor their prejudices over money.  
    Enter the "sex volunteers."  Sex volunteers are healthy people who volunteer to bang disabled people.  Korea didn't invent the service.  Japan and the Netherlands have had the service for some time.  Detractors call it "pro bono prostitution."  I'm all for this.  When people have an itch, they need to scratch it.  I would be more than happy to help them out.  It would make for an interesting Eagle Scout project!  Where was this when I was choosing my project?  I could have gotten a lot more volunteers for this than I did to help me install smoke alarms.

My Body, a Dry County...

4/12/11
     Today marks my 31st day of zero alcohol consumption.  What has it done for me?  Not much.  I haven't lost or gained any weight.  I saw no change in my insomnia (except for two nights in a row of the worst sleep I've had in years).  I didn't spend as much money as I probably would have otherwise. I didn't Hash any less; I made it to at least one trail every weekend except for last week.  Now comes the debate as to what I should do next.  I didn't really miss it, although it did detract a bit from the circles and ensured that I wouldn't go to any on-afters.  The only time I really thought about it was after getting some bad news last week.

4/13/11
     Day 32:  At some point in the past, I had envisioned myself getting well tanked tonight.  Not all of my visions portend moments in realities.  I wonder how long I will keep this up.  I don't really feel any pull one way or the other as far as continuing or staying dry is concerned. 


4/25/11
     I was about five hours shy of completing my 35th dry day when I decided to drink my special Jinro House Wind/Soju concoction while playing poker with some coworkers and an old worker returned for the evening.  My five weeks didn't really change anything.  I stayed in more than I usually do.  That's about it.  I'm sure it probably was good for my body, but it didn't really do much for me otherwise.  It was an interesting experiment.  I think I need a shot. 

Mentally Challenged Designs...

4/13/11
     It opened late, but it opened.  My glorious company built a new complex/building at the tail end of campus.  It took a year-and-a-half to cut into the land and pour all of the concrete.  As I understand it, the government funded the project to give us the Yongin KNU Mentally Challenged School.  It couldn't have a more appropriate name.  The building itself looks mentally challenged. It has a slew of mismatched fall colors.  They used two distinctly different stains to color wood paneling slapped onto parts of the building's exterior.  Some of the plain steel walls remind me of videos I've seen in videos about North Korea.  It has odd angles in odd places.  The new road in front of the building drops in a fantastic, roller coaster-worthy way that all but guarantees that numerous special needs students will be sent tumbling down.  All in all, it's a crap factory from a rejected Doctor Seuss book.

Quote of the Week...

4/14/11
    "I don't know the difference between a hippie and a hipster, but it's fun to watch either one of them get beat up."  - Norm MacDonald  -  The Sports Show with Norm MacDonald S1E1 

So Much for Stereotypes...

4/14/11
     Stereotypes come from somewhere.  Apparently the people who scribble for The Korea Herald haven't heard the one about Asians and math.  The Herald ran an article about the population make up of Seoul.  It said that 10.5 million people live in Seoul (not including the metropolitan area).  Men compose 49.5 percent of the city's population.  Women are only 50.3 percent of the population.  That means that 0.2 percent of the people in Seoul are neither men nor women.  What are these 21,000 creatures?  Hermaphrodites? 

Bad Move...

2/23/10
     Korea has been on the attack for years now.  And just what is the nation attacking?  Street vendors.  Years ago, Seoul cleared hundreds of them off of the streets of Dongdaemun to make room for the Cheonggyecheon River restoration project.  The government gave them the Dongdaemun Baseball Stadium to set up what became a fairly successful flea market in response to their protests.  The government rescinded that when it razed the nation's first modern sports stadium (built in 1926) a few years ago to make way for the Dongdaemun Design Park & Plaza.  This time, the vendors weren't offered a new spot to sell their wares.
     Two years ago, Seoul moved 730 street vendors from six streets in the Jongno area to eight locations to their dismay.  One traditional candy salesman says only 30 of them are able to make ends meet at their new locations.  The "yeot" (taffy) vendor claims that his daily sales plummeted from 70-80,000 KRW to 10,000 KRW. 
     Seoul is doing it again.  This time vendors are being removed from nearby Insadong.  If you don't know Seoul, Insadong is its traditional shopping area for tourists.  It has streets of art stores, traditional tea houses, restaurants with traditional food, and tons of cheap tourist trinkets.  It also has 76 street vendor stalls lining the streets hawking old currency, traditional street foods and more tourist junk.  The city is going to relocate them to an out of the way area and charge them one million KRW annually to legalize their businesses.  The vendors fear that the remote locations will have the same effect on their sales as seen with the Jongno vendors.
     The government wants to clear the streets of Insadong to allow for more pedestrian traffic.  Store owners in the area will be happy to see the vendors leave.  Store rentals run between five and six million KRW monthly.  Street vendors set up in front of these stores and pay nothing.  The problem is that it would be difficult to argue that the vendors actually detract from the stores' sales.  I don't like this at all.  There has to be some way to find a compromise that allows the street vendors to stay where they are and let the government collect some revenue from them.  The street vendors are a major part of the draw of Insadong, and it would be a shame for the city to lose yet another of its tourist draws.  

Picture of the Week...

4/22/11

     You have to respect Korea's pimps and prostitutes.  They just can't or won't understand what "illegal" means.  They have taken to the streets many times over the years to protest the fact that they are actively and openly practicing an illegal profession.  This picture comes from their latest protest way down south in Yeongdeungpo. 

Picture of the Week Pt. II...

4/25/11
     I love The Korea Times.  Their editing abilities are only beat in incompetence by The Korea Herald's.  These photos accompanied the following headline:

School secretary and former porn star strips again

TAI12 #233 Back to the ghetto...

THE ANSWER IS 12

#233 Back to the ghetto and back out...

Welcome to the Show...

 4/6/11
     I know I haven't been writing much lately, and by lately, I mean the last year or two.  If you read these, then you know that too.  I have too much free time on my hands, and don't know what to do with it.  I know I should be writing more, but I guess I just haven't much to write about.  I've been back for six weeks, but I haven't had much to write about.  I've gotten drunk a few times at the Hash.  I stayed up all night my first night back so that I could make the YKH3 at the way-too-early Hashing hour of 1000. 
     I decided to give up drinking for a month.  I'm at 27 days now.  Despite a bit of boredom (I don't really hang out with anybody from work, and most of my non-KNU friends have left the hood), I haven't really missed it.  I want to get out and travel more.  I only stayed three nights out of my apartment last semester.  Only three nights used to be a slow month, let alone a semester.  I want to get more real writing done, as opposed to the write-ups I have been doing of the crazy stories in the local newspapers.
     Here goes some old tales and write-ups...

12/30/10
        It's time to wrap up 2010.  While I had a lot of fun this year, I can't say that I'm sorry to see it go.  Between Dad's health problems and my finishing up grad school, I didn't have many free, unworried moments this year.  Dad is much better and is up and around as much as he feels like it.
     I landed on the December 12, had one night at Mom and Dad's and then was driven to Brett's to stay one night.  Brett flew out to Baltimore with me the next morning, so I could give my final presentation in Winchester, VA.  It was the first time I had visited my campus or met my professors during my four years of studying at Shenandoah University.  Although I mangled my presentation (partly because they didn't have a computer set up so I could show the PowerPoint slides I had made), the school's website now shows me having earned an A- (3.00) in my final course.  This gives me a final GPA of 3.392 for 33 credit hours, better than I did in either of my undergrad degrees.
     Brett and I rented a Hyundai Santa Fe and drove back to OKC.  We didn't take into account the fact that neither of us really knows anybody out that way or that we were traveling during winter.  We stopped off at the Shenandoah Caverns after finding the Skyline Drive closed due to winter weather.  I got Brett decently toasted on Beale Street in Memphis after we had dinner at the best eastern style barbeque restaurant I've ever experienced, Charles Vergos' Rendezvous.  Our trip concluded with a pit stop at the Wiederkehr Winery in Altus, AK where I relieved them of four cases of some of the best wine made in America. Brett crashed the next weekend in Weatherford.  We met up with E-boy, Jen and Cutitz for a night at the Bone and Cowballs.
     I had a couple of days to recoup before Brett and Cooter rolled into town for Christmas.  Mom and Dad threw their traditional Christmas Eve party.  We ate and snacked well.  Cooter cooked an amazing beef roast for us for Christmas dinner.  A pan of bread pudding from the Downtown Diner completed the meal.
     Cooter left town a couple of days after his birthday and took me with him.  We popped by our other brother Jim's house on the way to Boulder and spent the night.  It was the first time since 1989 the three of had been together.  We drank and sang the night away in Jim's Omaha basement.
     We pushed on the next morning to Colorado on Cooter's birthday.  We met some of his friends, including a birthday buddy, in Denver for dinner and a couple of beers.  

By the Numbers...

1  :  Number of years imprisonment Korean women face if caught having an abortion.
2  :  Fine, in millions of KRW, Korean women face if caught having an abortion.
342,233  :  Number of abortions performed and reported in Korea in 2005.  I wonder how many they didn't report.  
476,000  :  Number of births in Korea in 2005. 
2,000  :  Number of aborted fetuses found hidden in a Buddhist temple's graveyard in Bangkok where abortion is illegal unless a woman has been raped, the pregnancy threatens her life, or the fetus is deemed to be "abnormal."  
1,125  :  Number of Korean children adopted overseas in 2009.
1,250  :  Number of Korean children adopted overseas in 2008. 
1,314  :  Number of Korean children adopted domestically in 2009. 
1,306  :  Number of Korean children adopted domestically in 2008. 
712,227  :  Number of students who took the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on November 18, 34,000 higher than last year. 
1,206  :  Number of CSAT examination sites nationwide.  
10  :  Number of hours given to take the CSAT.  
5  :  Number of sections on the CSAT:  Korean language, mathematics, English, social and natural sciences, and a second foreign language.  
234  :  Price, in KRW, of the Chinese-made pencils given to CSAT test-takers to use; they aren't allowed to use their own pencils to prevent cheating.  
80,000  :  Number of people who have signed a petition asking for an investigation the poor quality of the pencils.  Students claim they broke too easily and were too loud, severely distracting the test-takers. 
60,000  :  Number of iSheep who have pre-ordered one of the six versions of the iPad set to launch in Korea on November 30.   
200,000  :  Number of iPads KT, Korea's Apple vendor, plans to sell this year.  
150,000  :  Number of Galaxy Tabs Samsung believes it will have sold by the end of November.  
2,900  :  Number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea in 2009.  
2,000  :  Number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea so far this year.  
20,000  :  Total number of North Koreans to defect to South Korea since 1967 (The first known defector was a 21-year-old soldier; number 20,000 was a 41-year-old woman on 11/15).  
3  :  Number of months North Korean defectors are interrogated by military intelligence agents.  
3  :  Number of months North Korean defectors spend learning about how to live in the South at a state-run facility called Hanawon.  
4,955  :  Number of Korean buildings 11 stories or taller inspected in November after a 38-story apartment building caught fire in Busan.  
413  :  Number of Korean buildings of those inspected to be found unprepared for fires.  
70,000  :  Estimated number of Koreans who have undergone sex change surgery.  
65  :  Age in Korea to make a person unconditionally eligible for free subway rides.  
219  :  Number, in millions, of Koreans who rode the subway for free in 2009.  
222  :  Cost, in billions of KRW, to Seoul Metro for all those free rides.  
3,000  :  Average monthly pay, in KPW, of North Korean laborers (US$1 = 143.079KPW).  
300,000  :  Average monthly pay, in KPW, of North Korean workers at the joint North-South Korean Gaesong Complex.  
3,919  :  Number of underground shelters in Seoul (not including air-raid shelters built during Japan's occupation).  
23  :  Number of nuclear-proof shelters in Seoul.  
20  :  Number, in millions, those shelters can accommodate.  
1,700  :  Number of residents on Yeonpyeong Island, the island North Korea shelled on November 23.  
1,200  :  Number of Yeonpyeong Island residents who evacuated on November 23.  
43  :  Number of Yeonpyeong Island residents remaining as of November 25.  
800,000  :  Number of smartphones sold in Korea in 2009.  
6.8  :  Number, in millions, of smartphones sold in Korea in the first 11 months of 2010. 
930  :  Estimated amount, in billions of US dollars, of America's cash supply.  
110  :  Estimated value, in billions of US dollars, of $100 dollar bills recently printed incorrectly and quarantined.  
120  :  Estimated cost, in millions of US dollars, of this tater tot-level mistake.  
270  :  Number of Koreans who died from H1N1 in 2009.  
1  :  Number of Korean who died from H1N1 in 2010 (on 12/30/10).  
763,700  :  Number of people who tested positive for H1N1 in Korea between April 2009 and August 2010.  
7-10  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, Koreans are paid less than foreigners to teach English in Korea. 
60,000  :  Number of pornographic websites China shut down in 2010.  
450  :  Number, in millions, of Chinese who use the internet.  
34  :  Percentage of Chinese who use the internet. 
30  :  Percentage of the rest of the world who uses the internet. 

57  :  Percentage of Koreans who said they would not marry a fellow Korean over a foreigner according to a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.  
31.8  :  Percentage of Koreans who said they would marry a foreigner.  
9  :  Percentage of Koreans who said they would NEVER marry a foreigner.  
41.9  :  Percentage of Korean parents who said they didn't want their children marrying foreigners.  
8.5  :  Percentage of Korean parents who said they would "strongly oppose" a marriage between their kid and a foreigner.  
12  :  Percentage of Korean parents who said they would consent to their kids having an interracial marriage.  
9  :  Number of years in prison given to a Korean pastor for being a pedophile.  The 65-year-old abused his religious authority to have sex with an 11-year-old girl and two other minors more than a dozen times.  He photographed their rapes and occasionally threatened them for not answering his text messages. I hope he gets shanked well before his nine years are up.  
2,863  :  Number of mail carriers in America bitten by dogs in 2009.  
146  :  Number of suicides among Korean students in 2010.  
202  :  Number of suicides among Korean students in 2009.  
33,300  :  Number of marriages of Koreans to foreigners in 2009.  
10.8  :  Percentage of all marriages in 2009 involving Koreans wedding foreigners.  
11,364  :  Number of Korean men who married Chinese women in 2009.  
7,249  :  Number of Korean men who married Vietnamese women in 2009.  
851  :  Number of Korean men who married Cambodian women in 2009.  
416  :  Number of Korean men who married American women in 2009.  
1,380  :  Number of accidents in Korea involving food delivery scooters in 2009.  
472  :  Number of mentally-deficient people who allowed an unlicensed man to perform plastic surgeries on them in Busan over the course of 20 months.  They should have seen a psychologist first and then researched their "doctor".  
170,000  :  Number of Korean illegal aliens in the U.S. in 2010.  
200,000  :  Number of Korean illegals in the U.S. in 2009.  
240,000  :  Number of Korean illegals in the U.S. in 2008.  The number might be down, but we still should strive to give all illegals the boot.   
1,141,839  :  Number of elementary school students in Seoul in 1990.  
566,149  :  Number of elementary school students in Seoul in 2010.  
25,382  :  Number of elementary school teachers in Seoul in 2000.  
29,335  :  Number of elementary school teachers in Seoul in 2010.  
339  :  Number of elementary schools in Seoul in 2000.  
463  :  Number of elementary schools in Seoul in 2010.  
35,000  :  Number of people killed in Mexico due to drug-related violence since 2006.   
160,000  :  Number of foreign nationals who married Koreans in 2009.  
180,000  :  Number of foreign nationals who married Koreans in 2010.  
5,000  :  Number of calls received monthly at six call centers across the nation from "troubled" migrant wives.  
18  :  Number of government-funded shelters available nationwide for migrant wives, each only capable of housing 20 people.  
2  :  Number of years foreign wives must endure a crappy marriage in order to obtain Korean citizenship.  
77  :  Number of suicides per 100,000 people over the age of 65 in Korea in 2009.   
61  :  Number of condemned criminals awaiting execution in South Korea.  
13  :  Number of years since South Korea's last execution.  
60  :  Estimated minimum number of people executed in North Korea last year.  
139  :  Number of countries who have abolished executions either in practice or in law.  So go to these nations and kill somebody, because they obviously don't care much about proper punishment.  
70  :  Number of Korean women tricked into going to Japan to work at massage parlors by another Korean woman who forced them to be whores to pay off debts to loan shark.  Authorities are still searching for the 37-year-old woman.  
35  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, made monthly off of the 70 forced prostitutes.  
25  :  Percentage of Koreans still using Microsoft's antiquated Internet Explorer.  It's completely Chewbacca that the nation with the fastest internet connections in the world would still use such an out-dated explorer.  
0.6  :  Percentage of Korean women who are raped or experience an attempted rape in 2009.  
0.7  :  Percentage of disabled Korean women who are raped or experience an attempted rape in 2009. 
90.3  :  Percentage of 2010 Korean university graduates who finished with a grade point average (GPA) of a B or higher.  
74  :  Percentage of 2010 Korean university undergraduate students who scored a B or higher. 
37.8  :  Percentage of 2010 Korean university undergraduate students who received an A in every class.

Burn This Witch...

10/28/10 

     A 19-year-old girl in Busan was recently arrested on charges that she had whored herself out to 20 men she had met online.  Normally this wouldn't be cause for concern in whore-happy Korea, but this young slut has AIDS and didn't tell her johns.  On the plus side, she claims that she urged her clients to wear condoms, but they refused.  The men paid 50-100,000 KRW to possibly infect themselves with an incurable disease.  If you're going to bang a hooker, wrap your junk!  Dumbasses.  These morons got (or will get) what they deserved. 

Future Korean Kancer Patients...

11/8/10
     Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MGEF) is changing the way the nation purchases alcohol and cigarettes.  Starting at the end of next year, Koreans will have to present identification cards to prove they are over the age of 19 so they can purchase booze and coffin nails.  The move will also put vendors on a three-strike program.  The will lose their license if they are caught selling to minors three times.  Koreans don't currently have to show proof of age.  The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) found that 80.5 percent of 80,000 students it surveyed had bought or attempted to by cancer sticks.  Another survey showed that 16 percent of male high school students and 5.3 percent of female high school students smoke daily.  Idiots. 

G20, G Funny...

11/12/10
     Korea played host to the G20 Summit today and yesterday.  The summit itself went off mostly without a hitch.  Other aspects of the event didn't fare so well.  Korea's focus on the superficial proved embarrassing.  In an attempt to make Seoul more presentable to the visiting heads of states, corporate executives, journalists, and protesters.  The city had advised residents to stop littering, to not barge into lines, to leave their cars at home and to actually stop at red lights.  The district of the city hosting the summit suspended part of its trash collection.  Korea has its citizens separate their food garbage into small plastic bags to set outside their apartments.  Cats, rats and dogs shred the bags and spread their contents everywhere.  To make the city temporarily appear cleaner than it normally is, the city isn't collecting those bags and asked people not to set them out until after the weekend.
     In preparation for the G20, Korea erected a two-meter fence around the mall and brought in 60,000 military, police and riot personnel to handle security throughout the city.  Korea also put a special law in effect for the event banning protesting within two kilometers of the COEX Mall.  This has forced the few thousand protesters here to hold their rallies north of the Han River. Three protesters did try to do their thing at the mall.  A Korean man protested Korea's Four Major Rivers’ Restoration Project.  A white guy held a sign reading “Recession is the medicine".  A Korean woman doused herself with flammable paint thinner without reporting her cause.  And a 13-year-old Korean-American boy demanded the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.  The police relocated the adult men outside of the two-kilometer perimeter, arrested the woman and left the boy alone. 
     PETA has emerged as a surprise protester during the G20.  The reason is even more surprising.  The COEX announced that it was going to use six goldfish to check the quality of the recycled water to be used in its bathrooms, so that the G20 leaders would have safe toilet water. PETA argued that goldfish "feel pain just as people do."

     Arirang Television stepped up to the plate to ensure that the event received ridiculous coverage.  The station ran continuous reports and advertising spots for the event.  The worst I saw showed caricatures of the G20 leaders.  Most of them showed large-headed leaders on bodies wearing suits or dress clothes.  The ones that didn't either made no sense or were insulting.  The following lists the interesting/insulting ones:

American President Obama:  playing golf
UK Prime Minister Cameron:  riding a horse
Brazilian President da Silva:  playing soccer
Russian President Medvedev:  skiing 
Indian Prime Minister Singh:  (my personal favorite) riding a flying carpet 

     The G20 Summit has cost Korean businesses plenty.  The summit's security measures all but closed down the COEX; only a handful of restaurants stayed open.  It hurt the Pepero Day sales of nearby convenient stores.  Even the Lucky Seven Casino has closed its doors for 63 hours to lose an estimated three billion KRW.  It also gave Korea's sex industry close near the mall a mini-vacation.  Nearly 50,000 of the security personnel have been put up in the motels, hotels and love motels around the mall, including Kangnam.  This sudden infusion of police has scared off most of the area's usual nocturnal clientele.  The police have temporarily stymied the business of much of the local sex trade in the "hostess" bars, room salons, "Kiss" room salons, massage parlors, and other "entertainment" establishments in the area.  Some places warned their clients to stay away until after the G20.  Some of the business has gone north of the Han where some of the businesses are even giving discounts to the displaced sex fiends.  Reports say that many of the working girls will temporarily relocate north of the river to follow the money and penises. 

     The most embarrassing mistake developed from Korea's lack of knowledge of English and Australia.  The 2010 World Lantern Festival started last week.  To tie in the festival with this week's G20 Summit, the city set up figurines of the G20 leaders dressed in their country's native clothing while hoisting their nation's flags.  The city confused Australia with Austria and dressed the figurine of Julia Gillard, Australia's Prime Minister, in a traditional Austrian dress.  Australian journalists got the story out, and Seoul made a half-assed attempt to correct the mistake by redressing Gillard in a formal black dress.  The new dress has no connections to Australia's culture, but at least it's not Austrian.  A Seoul city official increased the ricetardedness of this situation by stating, "It was hard to find a traditional Australian costume because the country has a short history. We just picked some pretty dress and put it on the figurine. We never thought it would become such a big deal."

More People Getting What They Deserve...

11/15/10
     Korea arrested seven people for forging and using fake identifications.  What's genius here is that they did it so that 21 Koreans could gamble in the country's foreign-only casinos; Kangwon Land is the only casino in which locals can gamble legally.  The fake IDs said that the holders had permanent residency in Bolivia, Ecuador or Paraguay.  They used these to get special passports from the government that would allow them to gamble anywhere in the country.  
     That's a lot of effort to put into doing something they could have done legally at Kangwon Land, the largest in the country with 132 gaming tables and 960 "slot and video game machines."  Of course Kangwon Land is not the kind of casino I'd want to visit.  The casino does not serve alcohol.  It has windows and clocks (generally a no-no in casinos).  The only good thing about Kangwon Land is that smoking is limited to certain areas.  One of the strangest aspects of the place is that family members can request that you be denied entry to the casino.  You can even file paperwork asking that you be banned. 

Darwin Proven Right Once Again...

12/28/10
     People just aren't very smart.  A Korean college student died after playing an online shooting game for 12 straight hours in an Ulsan PC room.  It's good to see another of the weakest thinned out from our herd. 

Job Insecurity...

12/28/10
      By now we all know the saga of the Terminator series.  What few people realize is that Judgement Day actually started in Daegu this month.  Korea has deployed 29 robots to teach English at 21 of the city's elementary schools.  The 3.3-foot tall robots have TV display panels showing a Caucasian woman's face.  Ironically, this crackerette is actually controlled by a group of Filipino teachers remotely in the PI.  Cameras mounted on the metallic bringers of doom allow the Filipinos to see and hear their students.  Cameras in the PI read the teachers' facial expressions and change the white avatar's expressions to match.
     Built by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the robots cost about 10 million KRW each.  "Well-educated, experienced Filipino teachers are far cheaper than their counterparts elsewhere, including South Korea," said Sagong Seongdae, a senior scientist at KIST.  Pre-programmed software allows the machines to sing songs and play simple games with students.  An official with Daegu's education office says that this rise of the machines is not aimed at replacing foreign teachers, but rather to help fill in positions in the more out of the way, less desirable teaching positions.  The government shelled out 1.58 billion KRW for the four-month pilot program.  This isn't the first attempt by robots to take over Korean classrooms.  Robots originally tried to take over Korea in 2009 by teaching English, math, science, and other subjects. 
     Sagong ended the Korea Times article with an asshole of a quote referring to the benefits of mankind's replacements:
"Plus, they won't complain about health insurance, sick leave and severance package, or leave in three months for a better-paying job in Japan... all you need is a repair and upgrade every once in a while."
    Crackers wouldn't be guilty of these if Korean schools would abide by rules concerning health insurance, follow their company policies regarding sick days and severance packages (if you even have them) and pay a decent salary (and pay it on time).  Korean schools, especially the private sector, need to learn that a contract is a contract and not to renege on it.  

TAI12 #232 Happy Hallowieners...

THE ANSWER IS 12

#232 Happy Hallowieners...

Welcome to the Show...

10/28/10
     The past month has been maddening.  I finished the massive paper I was working on for grad school.  I have to tack on a few more short segments to complete the overall project, but the bulk of it is done.  The last remaining hurdle is to get to Virginia to give my presentation to my professors.  The problem here is that my company is giving me hell about leaving during the two weeks after the semester ends.  The first week is for entering grades into the university's system (which I always have done on the last day of class); the second is for students to contest their grades (they all have my email address, and I check it every day no matter where or in what condition I am).  The foreign professors were allowed to ignore this in the past, because we had a camp to teach that broke our vacations in half.  Our company lost the camp this summer, so now we have the whole vacation and are expected to stay on the peninsula for those two weeks at the end of the semester.  I have to get to Virginia during that time.  I don't yet know what's going to happen.  I just want to finish grad school!
     Dad had surgery last week.  I was going insane over it during the week between his diagnosis and his surgery.  He got back home yesterday is doing great!  I'm so relieved.  I wish I could have been there for him.  Luckily Cooter was able to get some time off of work and drive down.  I'm sure that really helped morale.  L-Ron and Naureen also stopped by to show some love.  Thanks to all for keeping him in your thoughts!
     I got around to finally buying a new bicycle a few weeks ago to replace the one stolen from me almost two years ago. 
     The Women’s Human Rights Commission of Korea (WHRCK) surveyed almost 3,000 teenagers in June and found that only 66.9 percent of them were against having sex for money.  That's bad news for the 75 percent of men here who pay for sex.  

11/8/10 
     Dad had his staples out last week is doing fine.  I'm trying to wrap up my final paper and confirm my travel plans for this winter.  Talking to Jeffe yesterday, I found that I might be able to meet up with him at the S.H.I.T. H3 (So Happy It's Tuesday H3) after I present my paper in Virginia next month.  I'm going to get off of here and post this, so I can get to work. 

By the Numbers...

11  :  Percentage of Koreans over the age of 65.

12.8  :  Percentage of Korean middle and high school students who call themselves "smokers."

16.8  :  Percentage of Korean student smokers who smoked before entering middle school.  

425  :  Number of native English teachers in Korea who bailed on their contracts last year.

283  :  Number of native English teachers in Korea who bailed on their contracts in 2008.

252  :  Number of native English teachers in Korea who have bailed on their contracts this year as of July.

80  :  Percentage of Korean schools with native English teachers this year.

48  :  Percentage of Korean schools with native English teachers in 2007.

1,552  :  Number of students per native English teacher in Daegu.

778  :  Number of students per native English teacher in Seoul. 

7.5  :  Number (in millions) of unmarried couples living together in the United States.

2,300  :  Approximate number of hours Koreans spend at work annually, more than any other "advanced" nation.  I've learned from many people working here that that doesn't at all refer to the number of hours worked, just the number of hours spent in the office.  I find it difficult to count an hour in the crapper reading the paper and napping as "work."

20  :  Estimated percentage of Korea's economy controlled by Samsung.

130,802  :  Number of Koreans who committed suicide between 2000 and 2009, the highest among OECD member nations.  The article I read this in made a point of including the fact that one among that number was ex-President No Muhyeon.

60  :  Number of foreigners denied entry into Korea since the nation began fingerprinting and photographing "suspicious" foreigners at all 22 international airports and harbors.  The names of the 22 didn't match those given in their passports.

2011  :  The year Korea will start fingerprinting and photographing all foreigners (excluding diplomats and those under 17) staying more than 90 days.  Later in the year, it will change to include visits of any length.

1,500  :  Number of people caught entering Korea using fake passports during the first seven months of this year. 

732  :  Number of people caught entering Korea using fake Chinese passports during the first seven months of this year.

425  :  Number of people caught entering Korea using fake Thai passports during the first seven months of this year.

57  :  Number of people caught entering Korea using fake Mongolian passports during the first seven months of this year.

1.1 - 2.2  :  Price range, in KRW, listed on one website of a Korean tour agency for sex tours abroad.  Most involve sex with minors. 

45  :  Price, in KRW, some Korean whores claim to make monthly in New York City.

3  :  Number of languages used in a current anti--underage-prostitution pamphlet distributed in Cambodia.  The languages are Cambodian, English and Korean.  

12  :  Numbers of years a 47-year-old Korean man was sentenced to last week for stabbing his paid-for, 20-year-old Vietnamese bride less than a month after marrying her.

10  :  Number of years the man will have to wear an electronic tracking bracelet once released from prison.

30  :  Amount, in millions of KRW ($25,000), paid to the girl's family by the government, not the murderer.  

50,001,273  :  Korea's population as of the end of September.  

336,492  :  The number of speeding tickets given to the top 100 speeders in Korea in 2009.  That's almost a ticket daily for a year. 

187  :  Average, in millions of KRW, owed by those 100 violators in unpaid tickets in Korea (the Korea Times says that many of these are embassies).   
42  :  Percentage of American young adults who have earned an associate's degree or more.  
56  :  Percentage of Canuckistanian young adults who have earned an associate's degree or more.  
58  :  Percentage of South Korean young adults who have earned an associate's degree or more.  
70,000  :  Fine to be charged in Seoul for people who don't leash or pick their dog's poop in 17 city parks.  
1.5  :  The number, in millions, of pets owned in Seoul.  
500  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, of 10 won coins a 53-year-old man collected from numerous businesses. 7,500  :  Price, in KRW per kilogram, the man earned for selling the copper coins after he melted them down. 700  :  Amount, in millions of KRW, the man profited in his sale.  
6.9  :  Population, in billions, of this spinning ball of mud, according to the United Nations Population Fund's 2010 report. 
48.5  :  Population, in millions, of South Korea, ranking 26th in the world.  
1.3  :  Population, in billions, of China, ranking 1st in the world. 
1.2  :  Population, in billions, of India, ranking 2nd in the world. 
317  :  Population, in millions, of the United States.  
12  :  The oldest age of a kid Korea will prosecute adults for having sex. 

Not So Classy Class...

9/29/10 

     The week before Chuseok I got to play two of my favorite songs in class:  Ween's "I Can't Put My Finger On It" and the Beastie's "Sabotage."  They weren't overly impressed.  That's what I get for playing them anything that's not shopping mall-assembled boy and girl-band soulless "music."  Today, in a unit about technology, I got to explain "iSheep" to a class.  Ironically, the mindless, following sheep is KNU's mascot...  I'd probably catch hell if any of my students paid attention and/or understood me. 

Weakly Konglish...

9/29/10 

     I teach at a speacial university! 

George Lucas Re-Rapes My Childhood...

9/29/10
     George Lucas raped me.  More specifically, he raped my childhood.  Repeatedly.  And the bearded bastard is at it again.  It started in 1997.  Lucas began releasing the special editions of the original Star Wars movies.  And they weren't pretty.  He used technology unavailable to the world in 1977-83 to update THE trilogy to what was supposedly his true vision.  It was sad to realize that the movie that had inspired so many children of the 70s and 80s would have blown chocolate salty balls had Lucas been able to do what he had originally intended.  It got worse...
     The year 1999 saw Episode I:  The Phantom Menace unleashed upon the world.  The Nearing clan drove to OKC to meet EJ for to see it on opening night.  The theater oversold, and we were denied entrance.  I did see it later and wished I hadn't.  F*ck Jar Jar Binks!  It only got worse in Episode II and III as Lucas expanded on his perverted love story and half-ass political storyline.
     The world breathed an exhausted sigh of relief when Lucas released Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith in 2005.  It was over!  Lucas had raped the original trilogy and brutally murdered two decades of expectations with the prequel trilogy.  As long as you ignored the animated Star Wars (which you should; watching a young Anakin protect a Hutt baby made me long for the sweet release of death), Lucas was done.  This was not to be...
     Starting in 2012, Lucas will roll out 3-D editions of all six films.  Why!?  Converting films to 3-D from 2-D never look as good as the original, if they were any good to begin with.  We were free!  We were done.  I was able to go to my grave convinced that Han had shot first, that one bantha poodoo joke total in THE trilogy was enough, and that Jar Jar was a nightmare I could eventually forget.  Releasing a load of converted crap only allows Lucas to make even more money from the destruction of my childhood and parents to take their children to even worse versions of three movies that had once defined a generation and three movies that destroyed that generation.  It's like comparing the hippies or the yuppies to the Greatest Generation.  We had something good, and everything that came after only served to insult it.  I hate you Mr. Lucas...and I haven't even gotten into the fourth Indiana Jones... 

An Eye for an Eye...

10/2/10

     There's a woman in Seoul I'd like to throw from a tenth-story window.  I'd also like the Seoul Central District Court to follow her.  I want to toss the SCDC for handing Ms. Chae a suspended four-month sentence.  She received the pat on the bottom for murdering her neighbor's cat by throwing him/her from the tenth-story window of her apartment building.  Chae works in a hostess bar and was drunk when she killed the feline.  She also paid her neighbor 1.5 million won in compensation.
     Another cat killer in Bundang is currently in the system.  This tosser threw his/her neighbor's cat from the 13th story of an apartment building after the cat supposedly knocked over a flower pot.  I hope they throw these two monsters off together after spaying and neutering them. 

Tool Times What the F*ck!?...

2/25/10

     "Reality television" has presented mankind with nothing but mind-numbing, tater-tot creating retardation programming since MTV first began to sell out its fan base in the early 1990s.  Reality has dug up a new low, and it is called Tool Academy.  This program takes a sinkable boatload of douche-bags, ass-holes, cheaters, liars, STD spreaders, wannabes,
This train wreck attempts to rehabilitate a group of guys who treat their girlfriends slightly worse than low-grade toilet paper.  Every man on this show should be dragged out into the street and clubbed to death like so many seals, while the girls should be spaded and/or neutered for not only having chosen these tater-tots, but for thinking that their Jerry Springer-worthy sh*t nuggets were worthy of redemption even after they had admitted to the multiple ways they had disrespected them.
     The only purpose these shows serve is to inform police where to go to take care of future domestic disturbance calls.  If you have to go on international television in order to mend your already fractured relationship, you have a relationship that can't work in the real world.
     If you can watch even one episode of Tool Academy, The Bachelor, any of the modeling shows, the nanny shows, or any "reality show" in general and not begin to have an inkling as to why some fanaticals are willing to strap bombs to their chest to take us out, then you should probably hang yourself from your bathroom's shower head, eat a shotgun or swim out into the nearest sea so that you can save the rational amongst us the trouble of putting up with you.  

F1?  F U...

10/25/10

     Korea's Formula 1 track opened this weekend in Yeongnam.  I've lived here for just shy of nine years, have traveled the country a lot, and I have never heard of this southern city.  The Italians were not overly impressed with it.  Milan's Corriere della Sera complained that the previously unheard of city has no lodging, forcing the F1 teams and audience to travel more than an hour to Gwangju where they had to stay in love motels.  The paper said that the rooms were dirty but did have condoms in every room.  A different article in the JoongAng Daily said that Mercedes-Benz employees paid upwards of US$310 to stay in rooms that usually go for less than US$50 a night.  I am a big advocate of staying in Korea's love motels...at regular price!  This is insane.  Thankfully, I'm smart enough not to buy a ticket to watch other people drive, so I won't have to worry about this sick scheme. 

Just Plain Sad...

10/28/10

      If you don't know who Girls' Generation is, then that means that you aren't Korean or live in Japan or that don't like shite manufactured pop garbage.  Girls' Generation is one of Korea's most popular pop groups.  The nine cloned lip-syncers are typical of the mindlessness of K-pop girl and boy bands.  They all wear nearly matching outfits that are slight variations of the same outfit, so that it would almost appear as if they had some form of individual thought.  Now Korean companies are looking at the group as a possible business model due to their popularity.  Only in Korea would people think that constructing a business model around a product whose only qualities are superficial is a wise idea.  I guess it makes sense to have a soulless company market to mindless sheep. 

Bah...

10/28/10

     A few weeks ago, I was teaching a unit on technology and tried to explain what "iSheep" are to my students.  I explained the concept that in the U.S., sheep are seen as followers who can't think for themselves.  Then I remembered that my university's mascot is the white sheep.  How appropriate. 

4:20 Find...

10/28/10

     This week's 4:20 find comes to us via a list from Time of the top 100 gadgets since the magazine went into publication.  http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2023689_2026093_2023751,00.html

At Least They Are Using Them...

11/5/10

     An 80 percent increase in the price of rubber for Korean condom maker, UNIDUS, has driven up the price of condoms and other rubber products by 65 percent.  Hookers and love motels are stocking up.  One pharmacist reported that they were his best selling product, going from selling two or three ten-packs weekly to nearly 30 daily.  This is really surprising in a country where only a reported 17 percent of men use condoms despite the prolific amount of prostitution. 

TAI12 #231 Still here...

THE ANSWER IS 12

#231  Still here...

Welcome to the Show...

9/17/10
    The new semester didn't bring about any real surprises.  Two of our people left, but we had the four hires our school ricetard-edly took on mid-semester this spring to bolster our numbers.  I lost the one class of overtime I had last semester.  The devil still works here.  I still have Friday's off, so the world isn't too bad of a place, this part of it anyway.  
     My final semester of grad school kicked off on the same day as KNU's new semester.  I'm off to a late start, because it took so long to navigate through the minefield of garbage on the course's website, I found myself mired in the second week with nothing to show for it.  I'm just now getting caught up with it all.  I can't wait to be done with this program!
     The semester got underway the day after my 34th birthday.  I have officially entered my mid-30s.  I enjoyed a great weekend.  Unfortunately, I can recall little of it.  It kicked off two days earlier on Friday at the sixth running of the Not Quite Right Hash (NQRH3) down at a wild bar well outside of Pyeongtaek built in the shape of a giant helicopter.  We had an on-after at an apartment.  I slept on Timber and Lucky's floor.  Lucky gave me a six-pack for the train ride north the next morning.  Nobody wanted any, so I had breakfast to myself.  The Yongsan Kimchi H3 and Seoul HHH blurred into one, long tear.  I picked up a room at Sincheon Station (the good one next to Jamsil), got cleaned up and went to dinner at my favorite Chuncheon ttalkgalbi restaurant.  An hour's nap after dinner set me straight for the remainder of the evening.
     I managed to get out of bed the next morning in time to dead hare a truly sh*tty trail for Southside.  I had vodka mudslides for breakfast as I walked and chalked.  Tot and Shitonya introduced me to the magical world of White Dogs as the three of us and Ball Cock Dumper bag-sat for the pack.  The police almost kicked us out of our down-down spot.  I convinced half of the pack to steer away from Evilwon for an afternoon and ate at a nearby Chinese lamb restaurant.  Timber took BCD, Brian and I on a Mr. Toad-style wild ride home in the magic Bongo, a great end for a great birthday.


    

By the Numbers...

1.42  :  Number of movie tickets (in billions) sold in America in 2009.
4  :  Number of movie tickets (in billions) sold in America in 1946.  They didn't have movies on television, videos, DVDs, or evilnet.
63  :  Price (in U.S. dollars) just for tickets for a family of four to see How to Train Your Dragon in 3-D at one AMC theater in New York last week.  Imagine what they probably would have to blow on snacks in addition to that.
3  :  South Korea's worldwide rank in rapes.
70  :  Percentage increase of child rape in Korea over the past three years.
4,419  :  Number of surveillance cameras installed at Korean schools.
10,000  :  Additional number of surveillance cameras to be installed at Korean schools around the peninsula.
23,000  :  Number of pager subscribers in Korea.
12,000  :  Monthly price, in Korean won, paid by Korean pagers subscribers to the nation's last surviving beeper company, Seoul Mobile Telecom.  Even it is expected to shut down next June when it has to reapply for its frequency license.
15  :  Number, in millions, of pager subscribers at Korea's peak in 1997.
8282  :  A popular pager code in Korea meaning "hurry up" if you know your Korean numbers.
1212  :  Another popular Korean pager code meaning "buy me a drink." 

On the Road Again...

6/10 

     I've got a few minutes between Manila and Kuala Lumpur to spit out a quick update.  It has been one wild week.  The wedding has kept me non-stop busy since Mom and I arrived Tuesday night and found an Ascott doorman who gave us an envelope with the details for a quick trail to the Outback.   I had already gone through some wine in Incheon and a half-dozen San Mig Pales on the flight.  That was to be par for the course until last night. Voice and I helped Cheeri prepare for the wedding for the next week between getting ripped. 
     The wedding was an experience.  The Catholic church was hundreds of years old and not air-conditioned.  I sweated like a Hasher in church throughout the ceremony in my special wedding barang.  I was best man, but not having done a rehearsal, none of us knew what to do.  I guess that Catholicism is popular enough and that time is short enough that they don't have to do rehearsals.  Luckily, I just had to stand, sit or kneel when the rest of the crowd did.  It was a beautiful ceremony, especially considering that I didn't have to wear a tux! 

6/30/10
     Cooter should be on the ground in Kuching if his flight arrived on time.  I woke up with a fever.  A two-hour walk with Mom and a couple of aspirin will hopefully fix whatever is wrong with me.  My guess is rabies or scurvy.
      Mom and I met with a lot of old and new friends yesterday.  We found Voice, Countess, Jeffe, Thanx, and Silicone.  We plowed through five cans of Tiger and 40 of Tsingtao at a street vendor's eatery.  I'm loving Borneo!

9/15/10
     This summer was amazing!  I attended my first InterHash and added a new country's stamp to my passport, Indonesia, for the first time in several years.  I saw so many old friends and made several new ones.  I spent weeks with Mommagram and Cooter.  I saw Cheeri get married.  I married Cheeri and Tarsier at the InterHash Red Dress Run in front of more than a thousand Hashers. 

      I even picked up a new job as Director of Worm Hole National Park in the great nation of Asskrakistan, conveniently located between Mexico and Africa.  Cooter brought my ped dead squirrel, Stinky Hayes with him and took Stinky to climb Mt. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia.  Cooter and Stinky met Mom and I in Bali for another wild week with Kartika, Deep Fly Diver, Doggy Style, Gag Order, Ian, and Kevin.

     Cooter went home.  Mom and I relaxed for 12 days in Bangkok.  She was worried about the Red Shirts, until I explained that all of that mess had ended in the spring.  I Hashed.  We Hashed.  I got to do my second Nonthaburi H3.  Mom got insanely lost on trail in the dark on a Monday night with Cowboy.  I had to go out on a search mission and lucked out when I found them very near the on-in.  Mom was happy to get massages and eat some great food.  We returned to my place for a week.  Mom flew back to Oklahoma, Dad and the animals the following Monday; I lit out for Bali later the same afternoon.  Thanks to the devil I work with, my department lost the camp we've been doing for at least a decade.  This gave me another two weeks of unexpected vacation. 
     Life has been fairly mellow since I returned.  The exception being my third weekend back on the R.O.K.  I made the short hop over to my favorite city, Qingdao, for the 10th China Nash Hash.  It was a fast and furious weekend hosted by some of my old friends.  I was the lone representative from Korea.  We had the brewery to ourselves Friday night.  Thanks to Cheeky for saving me from myself (which is no small task).  I ran most of the 14.2km running trail the next day.  Our hares had set up a beer stop for us at the TV Tower.  The buses dropped us off at a German/Chinese buffet brew and grill restaurant.  The hostesses and waitresses all wore cute, old-style German dresses.  We jumped around the usual cracker haunts:  LPG and Lennon.  I got my fill of street food Saturday night. I was well on my way to getting plastered at the on-after lunch Sunday when I remembered that I needed to check out of my hotel and catch my plane.  I grabbed a shower and a taxi and reserved the same room at the Ibis Hotel for my next visit this upcoming Monday.  The taxi stopped off for fuel along the way; I stopped off for a cheap bottle of Chinese brandy to stuff in my checked bag.