Searching for Serenity

8 days later

2008-01-08T22:45:00.000+09:00

chinese characters
reverse parking
wine
posture
tea
will power

above all,

source: www.allposters.com

Why So Serious?

2007-12-15T12:07:00.000+09:00

EDIT: the goodies just keep on coming...

When I first heard who was cast as the Joker, I was a bit skeptical. But then,

Now that's just down right creepy.

Summer 2008 can't come soon enough.

Idiots in the Spotlight

2007-12-11T11:20:00.000+09:00

I think I've mentioned before how the internet-using collective, or Netizen, can be overbearing and quite judgemental here in Korea. One of the reasons I'm nervous to blog in Korean; I'll accidentally criticize their favorite pop-star's favorite meal, and I'll be National Asshole No. 1.

Having said that, every once in a while, there are instances where the internet brings to light wrongdoings that in the past would have gone unnoticed. Especially here, where virtually every citizen is armed with a camera phone, or better yet a high priced Digital SLR camera, jackasses and idiots now need to watch their back more than ever. Prime example: Dog-Poop Girl.

One tool that makes this possible is Naver. The no. 1 portal in Korea, over 77% of web searches go through this one site. (source: KoreanClick) Plus, many Koreans have Naver as their homepage; it's where they read their news, check the weather, start their web-surfing, etc. By dominating the market in such fashion, Naver is currently, in my opinion, the single most powerful media outlet in South Korea today. Whatever bit of info makes the front page is almost automatically upgraded to "National Interest of the Week". Dog-Poop Girl was no exception.

I used to wonder how people would react if, for example, all residents of the same city, such as San Fran or New York(actually, just Manhatten would still prove an interesting experiment) shared the same homepage. Maybe something similar is happening through the magic of "social networking". Exhibit A: Penn State dumbass. What could have ended as a story amongst classmates on how they saw an inconsiderate jerk on campus is now told (inter)nationally.

The quote is the kicker:

“I personally don’t care if it hurt other people’s feelings…if I wanted to hurt people, trust me, I could come up with the greatest campaign to hurt everyone. I would photograph myself as a Virginia Tech student and write I Hate Virginia Tech on my shirt and Kill Them All and send photos to everyone in the school.”

Yeah, you're one considerate human being. -_-...
Kind of reminds me of another guy's halloween costume I saw right after "Team America" came out. He was supposed to be Kim Jong Il. Maybe it was because it wasn't a well-made costume, but it wasn't very funny.

I still feel uncomfortable knowing that there are people out there who have no qualms about digging up my personal info and posting it on a heavily read public forum if they deem it fit, but those same people also lead the charge in tracking down inconsistencies in politicians' statements better than the mainstream media. (which may say more about the media... )

The lesson, I suppose, is don't be the idiot.

20 - 13

2007-12-02T16:11:00.001+09:00

source: AP Photo/ Paul Sakuma

The Axe is back in its rightful place.

I really REALLY wish I could have been there...

Thanks to Harbaugh & Co. for a fun season; just listening across the pacific was good for the soul that's been tarnished over the past 5 years.

and an extra feature that futher warmed my heart :
A Scrubs Proposal.

Somedays,
it really is difficult not to be in a good mood.

Quick Thought

2007-11-27T14:58:00.000+09:00

“an error made in your own judgment is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first allows you the ability to correct it, while the second destroys ones ability to distinguish truth from error”

-Ayn Rand

unfortunately for some, they fail to recognize after making an error, and continue to do so over and over and over again...

Back ... with a whimper

2007-11-22T20:26:00.000+09:00

last post dated July 26th.
Almost four months to the day later, post number... 40 something.

I was chatting with someone recently, and she asked me to tell her something interesting. I replied by saying I only have stories of work and Korean politics, which would be more depressing than interesting. She then shot back that she read somewhere that one who does not have a topic other than work to talk about, that person is considered boring.

6 months into a new job, I've reached boring status. Just lovely.

In my somewhat feeble defense, I have been working relatively hard; long hours, multiple trips to various corners of this small country (which given traveling conditions take much longer than they should), unpaid overtime, etc.
But still, told that you're boring to your face; unless you're in the profession of creating holes, not something to write home about.

Coincidentally, this same person also asked me a couple weeks ago with the year winding down whether I felt I had lived my life to the fullest this past year. At the time, again, I replied that I hadn't really thought about anything other that work.

What was more surprising about that response, in retrospect, was the fact that 2007 was actually full of significant events for me.
Finished quasi-military service,
enjoyed a month off in the US meeting up with old friends,
went to spring training,
went to Japan (twice),
went to England and France,
attended (prob. the first of many) a "close friend" wedding,
started a new job,
etc. etc. etc.

and the only thing I could think of to say at that time was, "dunno, I've been busy recently."

sigh...

Maybe the moral of the story is I need to work less.
Either that, or I need to get a life.

I choose to think it's the former.

yeah yeah yeah. point taken. -_-...

(that's supposed to be a yawn, you know, implying boredom... nevermind...)

South Korean Hostages

2007-07-26T21:36:00.000+09:00

I can't understand religious fanatics.

I respect people with strong religious beliefs; it's inspiring at times to see individuals so strong in their faith that they can ask for and receive a lot of answers to the most difficult of questions.

Yet...

When a church group goes to a predominantly Muslim country,

When a group of citizens flitter off to a country their own govt. desperately asked them not to go to,

When they travel within the said dangerous country without registering their destination with the local police because the paperwork was too much of a hassle,
And as a result, this group is captured and held hostage by a militant group threatening to kill them,

I really wonder...
What were they thinking?

I really hope all the hostages are safely released and return home.

Yet, when I see stories that claim the Taliban are demanding that the Korean military leave the country,
and the parents of the hostages come on TV and demand that the govt. heed the demands of the militant group,
I wonder why my govt. officials have to deal with a situation created by people blatently disregarding repeated requests.

With stories of the Taliban asking for $100,000 as ransom,
I must admit I think it's a waste that my country's taxes may end up funding the Taliban.

As a Korean citizen, actually as a human being, I hope all the remaining hostages come home safely.

But I really don't get it...

Just to have a post during the month of May...

2007-05-31T22:12:00.000+09:00

Been over a month since my last post.

Quite a few things have happened during this 39 day span...

I've been to Japan and back.
(Okinawa is a really nice place, Tokyo is always a fun place.)

I've officially broken a 100.
(Still have quite a ways to go for a single handicap.)

A Korean conglomerate chairman has been charged of hiring mobsters to help him beat up a bar employee for hitting his son.
(Started a blog post on this a while back... I'll have to finish it sometime.)

These events didn't necessarily take place in this order.

Oh yes, I'm also officially part of the workforce.

Let's just say I'm no longer making video games.

I actually expected to make a lot more posts during my "time off".
Instead, I had more days when I didn't even turn on my computer.

Funny how now that I'm "busier", I'll probably end up making regular posts again.

And since all the popular blogs are those that have posts with pictures,
two women who have been all over the news recently:

top: Jeon Do Yeon, best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival this year;
bottom: Honey Lee, 2007 Miss Universe third runner-up (2006 Miss Korea).

Yay Korea, I guess.

Now if only the men could learn how to pitch...

One Bad Week

2007-04-21T19:43:00.000+09:00

From the state of Virginia to the prefecture of Nagasaki, it's been a very bad week throughout the world.

(And yes, one could point out how completely ignorant I am of other regions of the world that have large number of casualties every single day.)

... Not much to say...

A very belated expression of sorrow to all the people affected by all that has happened.

Really makes me thankful and ashamed to think irritation to traffic jams make up the most stressful aspect of my days...

The Flip Side

2007-04-15T11:53:00.000+09:00

I made a post a couple days ago about a guy who drove a car into the lobby of the building belonging to SK Telecom, the largest mobile phone service provider. In it, I made one of the cardinal mistakes which I loathe in many a newspaper today; I didn't present both sides of the case.

Always good to know both sides.

So, with special thanks to Ray for bringing it to my attention, here's what possibly was going through the guy's head.

A couple of points:
There have been conflicting reports on what exactly this man does for a living; the current consensus is that he's a hospital worker / evangelist who does a lot of traveling and therefore needs international roaming.
Also, I originally wrote that the car was rented by the hospital; other reports have said that the car belonged to a friend. I stand by my original statement in saying the if you're going to pull a stunt like this, have the stones to use your own damn car. (Having said that, he may not have survived had he been in a Hyundai...)

In the video clip, he talks about his frustrations in dealing with the two companies involved: Samsung the manufacturer of the phone, and SKT, the service provider. Due to the nature of his work he travels to various countries, and bought a Samsung SCH-V920, a phone that supposedly could connect to all three networks of CDMA, GSM and JCDMA, spanning 90 countries. Apparently, this was far from the case. He says that once he tried using the phone in China, service was not available. Upon returning to Korea, he couldn't even call other people not on SKT's service. In fact, on further inspection, he learned that the gsm chip in his phone did not comply with the global standard used by the US and many European countries, so had he gone to the US, his phone probably would not have functioned properly there either. He was frustrated and contacted SKT to replace his phone. He did this up to 16 times (the number seems to grow with every passing article... <roll eyes>) and demanded a meeting with a customer service representative. When his requests were turned down, he showed up on their doorstep, and refused to move his car until his demands were met.

So, it does sound like he had every right to be disgruntled. In the interview, he's very knowledgeable about the technology and points out the two conglomerates' unethical behavior. In response, SKT released a statement that said their records showed that the guy bought his phone the day he left the country, and that he didn't follow the process to see if his phone was correctly initialized and connected to the network before his departure. They further point out that he's an ex-employee who was fired in '93, and that his actions should be taken with a grain of salt. SKT does admit that the gsm chip in the phone was faulty and recommended he take it to a nearby retailer to get in replaced, but he showed up at the company headquarters, so there was little they could do.
Somehow, it doesn't sound like you're sorry if you're quick to slander the person you're apologizing to in the same breathe...

In conclusion, by learning (hopefully most of) both sides of the story, I now am still sad that my country is full of idiots who think they can just create havoc stemming from frustration and deal with the repercussions later and is also full of companies that fully deserve a lot of the malice that is directed toward them.

Oh joy...

The Playstation Queen

2007-04-12T18:36:00.000+09:00

South Korea is a haven for pirated software.
Be it games, word processors, photoshop or even entire operating systems, odds are if you know the correct channels, most everything computer software related can be had for less than the suggested retail price.

Today, the "Playstation Queen", one of the leading authorities on bootleg video game sales, was arrested. She mainly dealt with Playstation I, II games with some XBox 360 on the side, and was apparently famous for guaranteeing the bootleg rip was top quality and had a 100% exchange policy if the copy did not work. She copied over $10 million worth of software and netted a profit of $500K in the process. And of course, it turns out that "she" is actually a 45 year old guy.

Something like that... well, actually no, nothing like that at all.

But one gets the sneaking suspicion that the many pale faced gamers had this type of figure in mind when buying their bootleg discs.

Now first off, let me be the first to admit that I clearly have not paid for every last bit of software that I have ever used (shareware and freeware notwithstanding, obviously). So it's not as if I'm trying to look down from a pedestal and criticize.

Having said that...

It saddens me that the cultural norm in South Korea is to download the software, song, movie, book, whathaveyou with nary a second thought. Having worked at a company where the creative content was our livelihood, I saw first hand how hours, days, weeks even months of work can all go for naught in a few seconds. Yet once the news started reporting of the arrest, the internet message boards were full of posts such as

'Sorry we couldn't protect you, your highness'
'You were truly a hero with utter selflessness'
'How many of you out there who are criticizing him only used legally bought software?'
'F***ing companies, your games are too expensive and aren't worth purchasing'
'Why should I pay full price when I can get the same thing for less?'

The last three really illustrate my point.
The climate is such that downloading is considered the norm. In fact, people go on to think that since the they perceive the product to be overpriced, they think it's justified to get a bootleg copy. With almost every household in the country connected to extremely high speed internet, the Korean entertainment industries are suffering severly. The CD market is almost nonexistant now; the movie industry as a whole was in the red last year.

Yet on the street, there are more people with mp3 players than not.
<Sigh>

Hopefully, this will one day be a country where people can be justly rewared for their hard work and creativity.
And I don't mean the guy that makes the next generation p2p client.

Just for fun - Visited States

2007-04-10T20:51:00.000+09:00

create your own visited states map

It's the US version of the widely circulated "Visited Countries" thingie.
I tried that, but it was quite sparse, so I figured I'd go for this one.

To be fair, a good chunk of the states, specifically the red line between NY and CA were due to driving out to school right after 9/11, but hey, I was in the state, however short the duration.

Cingular, beware

2007-04-10T17:35:00.000+09:00

During the day today, a disgruntled customer drove a Mercedes Benz S500 into the lobby of SK Telecom's main building.

The story goes, the customer is a hospital employee who needs(?) international roaming on his cellphone, and recently purchased a phone which he believed was capable of said service. Upon a number of unsuccessful episodes, he asked SKT to replace his phone. He did this upwards of ten times.

When the company still didn't respond to his demands, he decided to use the Mercedes rented by the hospital for business use and park it in front of the entrance to the building. When building security came and told him to move it, he rammed it into the revolving door.

Apparently, even after he crashed the car, he still refused to get out and demanded a meeting with the CEO; he was finally removed from the scene when the police arrived.

A couple points come to mind:

1. What would a hospital rent a Mercedes S500 for? Low on ambulances?
-_-...
2. This idiot was upset over an at most $50 monthly service, so he crashed a $200K car?
How the hell are you working at a hospital? Even a janitor has to know numbers to know how much disinfectant to spray on a floor that's just been puked on.

The one piece of good news coming out of all this is that no one was killed.
Actually, that's not necessarily good news.

That's one dumbass too few.

Home Sweet Home

2007-04-01T18:40:00.000+09:00

Phoenix, Arizona

Time Square, New York

Harajuku, Tokyo

I'm not much of a picture person, so I didn't take any pictures while in CA or TO.
(not post worthy, anyway :P)

Bottom line:
It's great to meet up with family and friends after being in only Korea for a while.
Working is so different from going to school; without an end of quarter or semester to give you a jolt and force you to realize time is going, the days just blend together where today feels like yesterday and the day before.
Getting a chance to step back, taking a look at how I've come to this point...

If nothing else, I really should try and not get caught up in the daily routine so much to lose sight of the big picture and just go through the motions.

Now,
it really feels like

The Beginning of the Rest of my Life.

Halftime

2007-03-15T02:01:00.000+09:00

Just about reached the halfway mark of the "Rich Hyun Reunion Tour".

CA - Check. :)
AZ with NV - CHECK. ^_^
TO - eh. (not officially left yet :P)

So now, I gots NY and JP coming up.
Back is kinda hurting, but c'mon, it's crunch time. Suck it up and power through.
Also, the Stanford Cardinal is having their game tomorrow at 12:20 EST.
(hehe, Card vs. Cards. Whoever said sports dorks don't have a sense of humor?)

Go Card.

Officially Done

2007-02-28T17:15:00.000+09:00

FREEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOMMMM

My oh my, this feels good.

February 28th, 2007, I officially ended my "tour of duty" in the tumultuous online gaming industry to safely regain my status as a civilian.

There's so many things I've wanted to do but couldn't over the past 26 months:

Play video games!
no, I could do that... In fact I've gotten really good at Winning Eleven...

See my friends and family!
... er... hmm...... this is harder than I thought...

Travel overseas!!
well technically, my company did send me to the GDC and E3...

OK, What are the real differences now that I'm no longer a soldier... Hmmm....

Oh, of course! If a war breaks out, I won't be part of Operation Human Shield!
(There's actually no proof that I would have been part of OHS, but seriously, if the North Korean commies are heading straight for Seoul, where else could the military use a bunch of gangly out of shape computer game making geeks?)

Bottom line, it feels great to get this over with. Even though(and I'm well aware of this) I had one of the cushiest military jobs ever, there was always something hanging over my head.

The fact that I couldn't leave the country unless for official company business.
Or the off chance that I may actually be forced to join armed combat.

All in all, I truly feel blessed to be allowed to substitute real military service with an opportunity to use the technical training I got at school, and meet some bright, funny, motivated people.

If anyone tried to make me do it again, I would run. Very fast.
But, as of now, I'm glad I did it.

American Beauty

2007-02-28T00:14:00.000+09:00

source: Dreamworks

'Remember those posters that said "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"?...'

- Lester Burnham

IT

FEELS

AWESOME.

The Sun'll Come Up~

2007-02-27T11:38:00.001+09:00

Tomorrow
Tomorrow
I love ya
Tomorrow

You're only a day away~~~~

-- turns out the actual lyrics are "you're always a day away"
not the same effect.

Aces - A Different Kind

2007-02-26T11:29:00.000+09:00

Now reached its true end with Barry crossing the Bay, but the Trinity that got me hooked on baseball.

Spring Training.

Rock.

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...............

2007-02-25T10:37:00.000+09:00

The realization that since the 28th is also a work day, I have four days left today, not yesterday...

Aces - Four of a Kind

2007-02-24T15:50:00.000+09:00

The best hand I've ever had while playing poker.

(Hehe, Dru Hill had a full house that hand... A gambler's dream...)

subtlety went out the window a long time ago anyway...

Long Island Iced Tea

2007-02-23T12:26:00.000+09:00

Also found on the "speed bar", the base liquors that make up this internationally renowned cocktail.

Sixth Man Club feat. "The Shot"

2007-02-22T11:06:00.000+09:00

--Edit: I found the youtube clip. Man.... I still get chills thinking about this day...

My greatest sporting event experience EVER as a member of this Stanford basketball student section.

dnL

2007-02-21T11:51:00.000+09:00

The original forefather of this (presumably failed) caffeinated soft drink.

(although, I'm still quite thankful for the free shirts & boxers they handed out on campus.)

Magic 8 Ball

2007-02-20T11:50:00.000+09:00

Will Spring Training 2007 kick ass?

Stanford Golf Course

2007-02-19T09:07:00.000+09:00

A full round of twilight.

David Letterman

2007-02-18T14:16:00.000+09:00

The signature listings of this late night talk show icon.

Also, Happy New Year to all the Lunar New Year celebrating folks of the world.

Fire...

2007-02-13T12:03:00.000+09:00

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/ap/world/mainD8N78DE00.shtml

There was a fire burning, with people trapped on the wrong side of the bars.

The building is a 4 story cement structure, which is one story below the height where building regulations require the installation of smoke/heat detectors and sprinklers.

The floor was some sort of plastic covering, which quickly released toxic gases.

Night duty was supposed to be three guards; two guardsmen and one official with key privileges. On this particular night, there were only two guards.

light blue near bottom is the entrance, the numbers in red boxes are the casualties.
<source: The Hankyoreh Newspaper>

Once the guards realized there was a fire, one ran to get the keys while another vainly fired the fire extinguisher through the bars. Within minutes, the entire floor was filled with unbreathable gases, while the people were still trapped in their cells.

5 min. later, an official with the keys arrived on the scene, but due to the sitaution could only get as far as room 301, or the one right next to the exit.

9 min. later, someone finally called the fire department, and once they arrived, they went inside to open the rest of the cells.

10 people died, 17 people and counting received various injuries from the fire and toxins in their respiratory system.

Some very simple steps, and a lot of the damage could have easily been avoided.

Basic crisis training.
A fire drill.
An official with keys actually being on duty according to the regulations.

Sometimes, the state of this country... depresses me.

Otaku exercise

2007-02-12T11:43:00.000+09:00

Are you an Otaku?

How many characters can you recognize?

Beauty is Painful

2007-02-06T15:52:00.000+09:00

That's the literal translation, anyway, of the movie titled "미녀는 괴로워".
It opened in theatres last December, and did very well. Last I heard, they broke the 6 million viewers mark a couple weeks ago. (In Korea, the success of a movie is measured not by how much money it makes, but the number of tickets sold. I guess the rationale is that money figures are inflated for more recent movies because ticket prices are constantly on the rise. )

The premise is that the main character, let's call her Jane, has a great singing voice, yet can't be a singer because ... he visuals lack a certain ... acceptability. Jane's problem is that in Korean society, being ugly is unfortunate, not doing something about it is a sin. Given her situation, she acts as the voice of a star singer; a girl who can't sing but has good looks.

Naturally, the pretty one is a horrible person while Jane has a heart of gold. After much abuse, Jane can't take it anymore, and decides to go ahead with a full body makeover. And by makeover, I mean reconstruction.

From this

to this

Presto, a whole new world. Used car salesmen were nice to her, telling her the entire lot is full of bad deals, policemen making sure she's okay when she rearends a stationary cab in front of her. Jane felt reborn.
With no one recognizing her after her transformation, she auditions, becomes a singer, yadda yadda yadda.

The storyline itself is quite predictable, so no need to rehash that. What I should have seen coming miles away was what happened in the real world.

A couple days ago, I read an article talking about the recent plastic surgery phenomenon brought about by this very movie. With the film's resounding success, plastic surgeons throughout the capital were bombarded with patients coming in who wanted the exact "full body reconstruction job" they saw in the movie. They wanted the whole deal. Now, it's gotten to the point where some places are actually advertising the "movie package", with customizable options.

How quaint.

I acknowledge that I tend to side with the conservative point of view more often than not. I'm not a fan of plastic surgery, esp. 'cosmetic' surgery. It's a shame that plastic surgery has become so common that procedures that don't require a month or two of recuperation is not even conversation worthy. Having said that, it has been documented over and over again that good looks do make a difference, be it in an interview, as a shop clerk, whatever.

<sigh>

Plastic surgery can be and is used to help people, such as burn victims, dog victims, etc. (I wonder if this counts as plastic surgery...) The raised nose and augmented cheek bones? ... It seems like too much.

As for the movie, it was well made. Made me laugh outloud a couple times. The main character did well in her fat suit and without.

A solid 8/10.

14th Day of the Month

2007-01-28T12:22:00.000+09:00

-- This is a post I made in June of 2005 during blog attempt no. 1. Shows the extent of the commercialization of dating in Korea. Sure, it's like that in many countries, but I think Korea is definitely setting the curve.
<Sigh>...

The 14th of February is Valentine's Day. Every single country that I've been to is at least aware of this so-called holiday, if not celebrates it.
A couple of days ago, on the 14th of June, I found out that Koreans, and possibly the Japanese, have a special occasion for every single 14th of the year.

I thought everyone should be aware of this, and plan accordingly. Yeah right.
Just for fun, I've added some random thoughts that come to mind as I type away.

Jan. 14th: "Diary Day". One gives the person one loves a diary to start off the brand new year.
Yeah, since clearly the first two weeks of the year are always rubbish, and might as well be forgotten with all the crap from the previous year.

Feb. 14th: "Valentine's Day". Girls give chocolate to the guys they like/fancy/love whatever.
Already covered in a separate blog entry.

Mar. 14th: "White Day". Guys give candy to the girls they like/fancy/love whatever.
It usually ends up being whoever gave them something on Valentine's Day.

Apr. 14th: "Black Day". People who have spent Valentine's and White day alone don black clothes and mourn the fact that they aren't loved by anyone.
They usually eat something black as well; a popular dish in Korea is "JJaJJang Myun", a Chinese pasta dish.

May 14th: "Rose Day". People who've had action on Feb. 14th/Mar. 14th, or if they now have a "special someone", exchange roses.

Jun. 14th: "Kiss Day". After the preliminary mating dance of Valentine's and White Day have passed, the day when they exchange their first kiss.
Right...

Jul. 14th: "Silver Day". Introduce that special someone to your friends and family, exchange silver accessories of some kind.
I'm assuming ring? Maybe not. Who knows.

Aug. 14th: "Green Day". Escape the blistering heat of the summer with that special someone and take a much needed vacation into Mother Nature's arms. Single people can drown their sorrows in a bottle of Soju, the Korean equivalent of vodka which is sold in green bottles. (Although, soju is never mixed in any drinks; it's only drunk in shots.)

Sep. 14th: "Music & Photo Day". Introduce your by now should have become serious lover, I guess, to your friends in a place full of music, and take a photo as a keepsake.
Hmm... I sense some inconsistencies here, since you should have introduced him/her to everyone as you were forking over the silver. hmm.....

Oct. 14th: "Wine Day". Take your significant other to a fancy smancy, romantic place and have some wine to enjoy the beautiful autumn day.
I hear "Opus One" is quite good.

Nov. 14th: "Movie Day". Grab a good flick, and enjoy a refreshing glass of orange juice.
I don't write these things, I only translate. Good gawd...

Dec. 14th: "Hug Day". Drive away the cold winter with a heart-warming embrace with that special someone.

Well, there you have it. All twelve 14ths have some special occasion attatched to it. Now that you know... You might as well forget that you ever read this blog and go on wishing you hadn't wasted the last five min. to read the entire entry in the first place.

Have a nice day.

Boiling (Arrow) Point

2007-01-23T16:22:00.000+09:00

Last week, South Korea had our version of the disgruntled postal worker finally snapping, and using his handgun to open fire on his coworkers.
Only he wasn't a postal worker; he was an ex-professor.
And he wasn't attacking his coworkers; he attacked a judge.
And he wasn't using a handgun; he used a crossbow.

yes, you read correctly. CROSSBOW

So basically, the incident was virtually identical down to the ... er, disgruntledness of the perpetrator.

The assailant, let's call him Kim, camped out at the stairwell of the judge's apartment where he could see the the door. When the judge returned home that night, he got out of the elevator and took out his keys, heard a noise from behind and saw Kim approaching him. Before he knew what happened, he had an arrow sticking out of his stomach, with the wound 2 cm. deep.

not something you "accidentally" leave the house with in your pocket...

Although this sounds like your run-of-the-mill crazy, one has to wonder: what led Kim, who was once a respected professor at a well known private university to become a modern day (albeit not nearly as accurate, or was he...) Bill Tell?

In 1995, Kim was an asst. math professor and member of a panel overlooking the university's college entrance exam for the year's 12th graders. He noticed that a question worth 15 points on a test out of 100 had a mistake; the assumptions were such that there was no valid answer. Upon discovering this error, he reported his findings to his superior, and suggested that all the students be either given full credit or no credit, straight across the board.
No one knows what happened behind the scene, but the school released a modified solution set, and awarded partial credit depending on the students' answers, without Kim's input. Later on that year, Kim was passed over for promotion, twice, on grounds that he awarded grades to students who never showed up to class, and he made slanderous comments about other professors during his lectures. The following year, he was not rehired.

Kim sued the school saying he was mistreated, that this was all a ploy to get back at him for pointing out a mistake in the exam question. The courts ruled for the defendant, and his appeal was also denied.

Upon his arrest for the "firing", Kim said he did what he did to expose the justice system for its corrupt ways. Kim added that he had no intention of actually firing the crossbow; he merely wanted to convey to the judge how serious he was. He was arrested possessing 9 arrows.

I get the feeling Kim was wronged. Knowing the South Korean education system, and the bureaucracy at a private school, I can easily see the fish causing ripples getting booted out of the pond.

BUT

Taking action into your own hands... Firing an arrow at a judge... Can't say I agree with his course of action. Even if he was always in the right leading up to this incident, the mere fact he pulled the trigger puts him in the wrong, fullstop. It's like a celebrity couple where the wife is unreasonable, violent, belligerent, every type of crazy in the book. Even though the husband may be the victim the entire time, the moment he hits her, he's the bad guy. End of story.
(BTW, this is a true story; a celebrity couple got married, went on their honeymoon, got back and got divorced in a span of 18 days. Turns out the woman's mother was a psycho, and the guy, having had enough, hit her. His case was tried by the ever watchful eye of public opinion and the ruling was: he's the asshole .)

Although it may seem extremely difficult at times, gotta have faith in the system.

...

And this is coming from me... That's got to have significance in itself.

The Bootcamp Chronicles - Part II

2007-01-21T15:26:00.000+09:00

With the weekend upon us, here's some weekend tales from the barracks circa July, 2006.

People describe the 28 days in the trenches as a time when one is always dirty, always tired and always hungry. The weekend is a magical time when one has the opportunity to take care of at least two, possibly all three ailments that define his weekly existence. How, some may ask?

God. (with some help from Buddha)

Every trainee and soldier has the right to choose a religious service to attend. Also, it is mandatory to exercise this right. Basically, everyone has to choose between going to church, cathedral or Buddhist temple. The times are spread out so that the services start at different times. This is mainly to avoid everyone moving at the same time, and for some to be around in case there's an emergency situation. Plus, it provides the opportunity for some to plan their weekend in a way to lighten the workload as much as possible, hence helping out with the “tired” bit. Let me explain.

One learns very quickly during bootcamp, and from what I hear in the military in general, that there are two types of personnel: those who are working and those who should be working. If a superior ~~orders~~ "asks" for volunteers to do a certain task, one must make a split second decision on whether future tasks will get progressively easier or more difficult. If it's the former, feel free to stand in the back or try your best to blend into the mass. If it's the latter, you better make like that kid in third grade that got pixie stix instead of his vitamin C in the morning and run to the front of the room ASAP. The only way to avoid doing anything completely is to not be present. Considering that you're never supposed to be alone anywhere at anytime, (the military takes the buddy system to previously unheardof heights) your only way out is through "official business".

Now, let's say the churchgoers have to leave earliest, at 8:45. Breakfast goes from 7 to 9. Those who have to hash obviously have to stick around until all the trays and utensils have been washed so they are ready for the next meal. However, if your squad happens to be on hash duty but you have to go to church, the church isn’t going to wait until hashing is done. You just leave. The remaining squad members will finish the rest of the work. Oh well, such is life. Hehe. Just enjoy the break away from work, and maybe even grab a couple Z's along the way. Recuperation: almost as nice as salvation.

Bottom right corner - I totally sympathize.

Personally, I didn't make my weekly religion decision based on departure time. I made mine based on the second aspect.

"Chow", for a lack of a better word, leaves much to be desired. Compared to the amount of activity that one normally undertakes during the daylight hours, the portions are quite small. As a result, many fondly remember bootcamp as a time of famine. Many outsiders recognize this, and from the kindness of their hearts, provide extra incentive for the military personnel to attend religious services on Sunday.

They give us FOOD.

No, not this...

Religious service is a two part affair; once in the morning and once in the evening. Usually, the morning session is the sermon, speech, teaching, whatever you want to call it. More theologically oriented, basically. The evening session is more performance centric: they might just show a movie (I watched 'Sister Act' the week I went to cathedral, hehe), or have outsiders come and put on a show. The important thing is that there are two sessions, because after each session, they hand out food. The items vary between religions, but basically it would be something along the line of two choco-pies, a soft drink, two snicker candy bars, and maybe a popsicle. To be honest, the snack menu is THE deciding factor in which religion it is for the week. I went to church the first week, learned that the cathedral handed out pizza bread, went there the next week, saw that the Buddhist guys got popsicles, went there for week three, only to learn that everyone got popsicles in week three. But point being, the weekend service is a great opportunity to stock up on goodies for the upcoming week. I hate to imagine what bootcamp would have been like without my 6 candy bars that I had saved up to eat on my two long walks. (that's another story…)

Finally, some bonus points for Christianity: church stands out from the other two in that they always have outside people come in for performances during the evening session. And once again, the performers know who their audience is, so they plan accordingly.
They bring female performers.
When one is cut off from something, any aspect of life really, the scarcity vastly improves the perception of said good. The reaction is unbelievable. I now understand why the ugliest of celebrities receive such loud ovations at any given USO show.

1 + 2 + 3 = ...

two thumbs up!

And yes, my fourth week I went to church.

P.S. Oh yeah, the dirty thing. You have a lot of time on weekends, hence more opportunity to wash up.

Wag of the Finger

2007-01-14T20:48:00.000+09:00

"I am flaccid with rage." - Stephen Colbert

hehe.

I miss watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on a regular basis.
I think it's even funnier now that I'm living overseas because I don't watch any of the actual pundits that they're mocking; the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are now my main sourcees of US news.

Yet strangely, I don't sense I'm missing out on much...

-- I'll try and make this the last iPhone related post I write for a while; I'm soooo not obsessing.

Hello Mr. Ponds, another Vodcar Martooni?

2007-01-12T17:20:00.000+09:00

48 hours have come and gone since Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to much fanfare. Now that the initial shock and wow factor had died down, the skeptics are out to criticize the functionality of a phone still 5 months away from its release.

Among these, endgadget has an article commenting on the similarities between the iPhone and the LG KE850. The LG phone, released a month or so ago in Europe, is also known in Korea as the "Prada phone"; the exterior design was a joint effort with the famous Italian brand and the phone is proudly on display in the many Prada stores throughout the EU.

Naturally, the Korean "netizens" had a field day with this, claiming this was further proof Korean technology is indeed on the absolute cutting edge since global companies such as Apple Inc. (no longer Apple Computer Inc. ^_^) copy from LG. Some of the extremists were adding comments on how LG should receive a fee for each iPhone sold.
Putting aside that "design", although plenty important, is a questionable aspect of "technology", such misguided patriotism is rather worrisome. LG themselves released a press release saying there was no infringement, yet the people have spoken: LG is the winner.

Errr.... right.

These same people were also cheering for the victory of Starpreya over Starbucks; the Seattle coffee maker filed a claim in 2003 for patent infringement but the supreme court ruled in favor of the defendant.

you tell me.

Some of the points from the court documents include:

The overall emblem and name of the two companies are inherently different.

Considering the length of operation and marketing strategy which Starbucks employed, it is difficult to claim the logo was well known until the trademark was registered.

Apparently, Starbucks lost an earlier lawsuit as well when they sued for patent violation. The court then ruled that the word "star" is a common English word and Starbucks and Starpreya are different enough, and the Starbucks logo uses a mermaid while Starpreya sports a godess.

...

Consistency, people. That's all I ask. If we keep this up, how are we any better than China?

Sure, Starpreya and Starbucks are different,
yet Sammeng Amycall and Samsung Anycall is outrageous?
I suppose we had the decency not to call it Starducks.-_-

Consistency.

Please.

I wish that my country was not the laughing stock of the world.

iPhone is here...

2007-01-10T16:53:00.000+09:00

After months of speculation dating back to 2004 (I believe), Apple finally announced that they will start shipping iPhones in June of 2007.

The past year was full of rumors and "leaked" designs of what people thought the iPhone would look like; there's even a blog with mockups, some more serious than others, on what Apple fans worldwide had in their mind. (Actually, looking through that blog, a couple of them seem to have come quite close to the eventual product)

this one is kinda similar in that the whole thing is a touchscreen...

The specs and all the new features are summed up quite nicely on Apple's page; no need for me to rehash that here. The aspect most interesting to me is that the phone is also a "widescreen iPod"; the entire screen is a touchscreen so you can enjoy widescreen video compared to the slightly limited viewing screen of older iPods. I would have been very interested in getting just a stand alone widescreen iPod in the usual 30gig or 60 gig variety (or is it 80?), but instead Apple made a all-in-one killer device.

So, here's the big question: is a 4GB widescreen iPod worth $499? I would have to say no. It's really annoying that the phone will probably never be released in South Korea since we're a predominantly CDMA using country (Damn you, Qualcomm!!!) and the mogul service providers have their own requirements for all cell phones.

Oh well. But still, this phone does look like no other phone out there; both in design and in capability. Battery life may be the one big issue, but as of today, looks like Apple may have yet the next big thing.

"Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just kinda makes life more fun. It's like the exact opposite of terrorism."
- John Mayer

The keynote is quite the fun watch. Worth checking out.

Edit: 4 hours after my initial post, it still hurts that the iPhone will probably be unavailable in Korea beyond 2010.

Tirelessly Working For Gender Equality...

2006-12-27T12:49:00.000+09:00

Prostitution is an illegal yet rather thriving industry in South Korea. Naturally, the Korean govt. has passed laws and tried various tactics to try and curb the sex trade activity somehow. The latest attempt is quite... novel, if nothing else. (OT: there's an entry for "Prostitution in South Korea" in Wikipedia? -_-...)

Shhhh, technically prostitution is illegal...

The Ministry of Gender Equality announced that they would provide cash prizes for those who pledge not to visit brothels. They claim that 94% of all brothel visits are by drunk men, so with plenty of year end parties happening where liquor runs wild, they want people to promise to engage in more acceptable forms of entertainment. For companies, or any large group really, to apply, they simply log on to the Ministry's website, register their party, and the people who will attend the said party and are willing not to go buy some late night action, they sign up and enter their social security number. The party with the largest number of participants will get 1 million won, or $1077, second place 500 thousand won and third place 200 thousand.

don't Buy My Hookers!!!

Naturally, this er, event is causing a bit of a stir amongst the Korean public. Predictable protests include, "are you saying all Korean men are sex offenders?", "is this really where my tax money is going?!", "how are you going to realistically track those who pledged?" etc, etc, etc.

Me personally, my gut reaction was "you've got to be kidding...". I agree with the points raised too:

Seems like a waste of my tax money to basically bribe people not to go pay for their sexual urges.

It's virtually impossible to follow all the individuals who say they aren't going to brothels. Considering it's people who're willing to break the law, what's to say they won't lie, pick up the cash and spend it on a night of illicit prurient activity?

The "pegging all Korean men as visiting brothels" thing didn't really come to mind - seems like a guilty conscience needs no accuser. hehe.

Anyway, I've always felt that Korea has a tendency to over-police; the govt. seems to think that creating new policies is the answer to everything and the people will blindly follow. The people in charge hopefully realize they dropped the ball on this one; if you want real gender equality, how about working on a plan for a women military draft? (and cutting the service time for everyone ^_^) Pretty please?

-- Edit: so they changed the terms slightly; no cash prize, it'll be in the form of coupons. No mention what type of coupons though...

The New Three Pointer

2006-12-21T22:30:00.000+09:00

June 21st, 1997. Los Angeles. This was a huge day for women sports: the official launch of the WNBA with the tape being cut by a game between the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks. It is also the day that the Sparks' center, Lisa Leslie in all her 6' 5'' glory rose magestically through the air to slam that basketball through the hoop with authority. She was met by the combination of gravity and iron; she slammed the ball into the front of the rim, never to try again for the next 5 years. (note: she eventually did succeed)

Up till then, male journalists wondered out loud why players as tall or taller than Leslie with good jumping ability didn't try and dunk. Players would get rather upset and respond with snippy comments.

The Utah Starzz's 7-foot-2-inch Margot Dydek is the league’s only player who can dunk with ease -- as she, and a few other women, have done in European leagues, to little fanfare. But she prefers to lay the ball quietly off the backboard. "Why should we care about the dunk?" she said in a phone interview. "Two points is two points. When dunking is worth five points, then I'll think more about dunking."

Well Margot, I've got something for you:
Yesterday, the Korean Women's Basketball League decided to award three points for dunks. The article is in Korean, but shows a picture of a foreign player Maria Stefanova dunking for the first time in WKBL history: it was during the summer league of 2006. For a league created in 1997, it basically took 10 years and hired outside help to get the first dunk. And now, it's the highest scoring shot a player can attempt.

Dunking isn't all basketball is about. Esp. in Korea, I really doubt half the women players can even reach the rim let alone elevate enough to throw a basketball through the hoop. I understand the league is trying it's hardest to get the game and its viewers excited, but this just seems like a bad idea. I'd rather see them draw a 4-point line.

And just to wrap things up, here's a guy dunking over 5 people.

This Is Possible Only In...

2006-12-15T14:32:00.000+09:00

This Is Possible Only In... - video powered by Metacafe

Although, the creators seem to have mistaken China for Korea, but other than that, kinda funny.

Personal favorites are Australia, France and Canada.

The US one is something I actually mentioned to people before; so many people in NY take a cab to the gym and take the elevator to the second floor. Good to see they're really motivated to exercise.

MKL - Golden Goddess

2006-12-14T22:14:00.000+09:00

The world can be a tough, scary place where little goes right and the good seem to suffer a lot more than they should. At times, it seems like everything goes wrong and one's life is the succession of proofs that no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. Yet, there are also those moments when life is a happy time, things just go one's way and all that good shines brightly through the haze of despair.

To me, the embodiment of all that is right is none other than one Molly Kathryn Logan.

Ever since the fall of 2000, I was fortunate to have her as an RA, counselor, sports attending companion and of course, good friend. Two years running, she sent me birthday cards across the pacific which I thought was close to untoppable on the coolness meter. This holiday season, she did one better.

In the middle of opening it, I decided to chronicle the event.
The ribbon was originally in a much neater bow.

To be honest, I totally thought it was a joke.

Notice the depths she went to during the packaging process.

Lo and behold, home made cookies.

Tasty too. (I need to shave...)

Thanks Molly. You're the best.

The Bootcamp Chronicles - Part I

2006-12-10T17:27:00.000+09:00

So despite my original intenet, looks like I have virtually no posts on bootcamp. Well, let's fix that.

I must say, bootcamp already seems like an enternity ago while in reality, it's been a little over two months. My time was from July 13th to August 10th, one of the longer 29 day periods of my life. Everyone has a similar memory, like a boring meeting that goes on and on; you know the end is approaching, it just can't come soon enough. Well, it all started with a three and a half hour drive.

The training facility is in an area called Non-San, a good three to four hour drive away from Seoul. My sisters came with me to keep me company, God bless them, but the reality of the situation didn't hit me until we pulled into the small town to see it overflowing with guys in their between in their early twenties all sporting buzz cuts.

It's the happiest day of our lives... not.

Family members stick around for a brief ceremony at the "welcoming center" where the head of the center makes a speech about how your sons will return to you as men, or something to that effect. A fair number of parents, and sons, shed tears especially if they're signed up for the 2 year variety. But eventually they must let go of each other as all the trainees, in rank and file, march around the field once and disappear into the buildings where they are no longer civilians, but military personel.

Inside, we received everything that we would need for the next month. In true military fashion, every five minutes, we had to make sure that we weren't missing anything by calling out all of our belongings.
(Imagine the scene from Austin Powers, where after he's defrosted he receives his belongings with the guy in charge painstakingly calling out each object)

3 pairs of underwear and undershirt, brown.
3 pairs of (almost) knee socks, green
1 hat, camaflouge pattern
1 official military notebook
1 official military songbook
1 belt buckle, metal
1 belt
1 pair of official elastic rings, green (to keep pants from covering boots)
1 towel, blue
1 shower towel, green.
1 toothbrush, orange
1 tube of toothpaste, to use between 3 people
2 bars of soap, one for laundry, one for washing.

After getting everything, we were divided up into groups and received numbered tags. From that point on, we were told we no longer had names, a civilian term. I was Rich no more. I was
27th Regiment 1st Battalion 4th Company 1st Platoon Trainee no. 24.

Hehe. I still get a kick out of that just thinking about it.

In one day, we go from this

to this

So that was day 1. Minor details include handing in our "outside goods", learning the location of the mess hall, etc. We were all set to spend the next month learning what other real military folks get to do for 2 years.

Me: 4 weeks. Them: 104 weeks.
That thought helped me sleep rather well that first night.

Wait, it IS Cartman's Mom!!!

2006-12-08T22:05:00.000+09:00

A young Korean teenager was studying hard during his English lesson at his 'hak-won' or study institute. He listened intently as his teacher, a lady who had studied in Canada for her undergrad degree and current grad student, completed her lecture on past participles. Upon returning home, he decided the mounting pressure from his studies was too much to bear, and felt he needed a release.

He went on the internet, and downloaded porn.

It wasn't the first time he'd done this, but today... Something was different...

Lo and behold, the "star" in today's "feature" looked awfully familiar...

"OH MY GAAWWDD...."

uh... nice stereo...

This is all my imagination, but I'm sure the truth is not too different.

A couple days ago, a 33 year old woman was arrested for participating in porn. She went to Canada after high school, and while strapped for cash, starred in a couple pieces for $200 ~ $300 a pop. Despite being in, and even running a porno website being legal in Canada, due to her being a Korean citizen and currently in the country, she was arrested. The person who discovered her illustrious past was none other than one of her students, a 17 year old boy. While some users still questioning his true motive, with some hypothesizing that she turned down his advances, the boy wrote on the police dept. message board, "my teacher is in a porno!"

"I was in Canada for 5 years. Money was running short for living expenses as well as tuition."
"I didn't think I was doing anything illegal because it was legal in Canada."
"... There wasn't any actual penetration. ..."
"I didn't think people from Korea would find the site."

As is the case with all people found guilty by the "moral court of Korea", AKA the internet, her personal info including her full name, cell phone number, current school, family history and Cy address (Korea's version and predecessor of MySpace)was posted all over the internet within hours. Her Cy was bombarded with hate mail that she had to close it. But it didn't stop there.

Korean internet users have proven themselves time and time again to be quite the resourceful, tech savvy bunch. This time was no exception.

They figured out that her family was quite well off in Korea; her personal photos showed her enjoying a rather glamorous lifestyle in Seoul. They found out that she had an English name. They found out she befriended a Caucasian amateur photo journalist. They found articles she had written for a Korean internet newspaper with photos attributed to the same person, who coincidentally she shared her last name with. They found out that these two were married. Upon further inspection, they discovered that the same foreigner co-starring in her films was found in her personal family photos.

So, it seems the so-called cash strapped student was in fact making porn with her husband and selling it.

And the moral outrage was in full force.

Personally, I don't know how I feel about this. I feel bad for her parents who probably forked over a lot of money to send their precious daughter to a foreign country so she could learn English. I really don't think the reason she did this was to stay in school. In fact, her website even shows she made updates as recent as Nov. 30th, despite her returning to Korea in September. However, no matter how much you disapprove, it doesn't give you the right to pretty much ruin her life in Korea as she knows it.

And more and more believe that people who studied overseas are nothing but screw-ups...

The Math of Love

2006-12-07T15:01:00.000+09:00

Interesting article in the paper today about the economics of adultery in Korea. The gist of it was about the number of love motels changing their name to appeal to more than just the few who were looking for a quickie away from their spouses.

The interesting part for me was that "the few" weren't few at all. They estimate that 25% of all Korean adults are having affairs. 1 in every 4 adult having an affair? That can't be right, can it?

Here's the formula they used:

Total number of people in adulterous relationships =
number of motels * number of rooms * percentage of rooms filled * percentage of usage that are affairs.

There are approx. 30,000 love motels in South Korea.
Each motel averages 20 rooms.
Assume that 80% of the rooms are used.
Assume 70% of the rooms used are for affairs.

And lastly, assume a couple will frequent the love motel every 15 days.

We get 30,000 * 20 * .8 * .7 = 336,000.
That's 336,000 people who come to these love establishments a day.
Multiply that by 15 to account for the total number of unique individuals, and viola, 5,040,000.

5,040,000 adults in Korea presumably are having affairs.

Am I naive to be surprised by this number? Has it really gotten to the point where the advice is not "don't have an affair", but rather "just make sure you don't get caught"?
Or am I just horrendously late to the obvious?

Sigh...

Uncle Charlie

2006-11-30T19:00:00.000+09:00

I have a friend Shin who I met during college. He used to talk about a fakeout pitch where the pitcher completed his follow through and then threw the ball with the flick of his wrist at the very end of his motion. We actually tried it once during a friendly game of catch, but it didn't seem doable.

Now, Shin's countrymen are out to prove me wrong.

OK, so this isn't the pitch Shin had in mind, but still, pretty amazing.
(And yes, that's a mighty wide strike zone... )

Aaaah Shin, you visionary, you.

No Dance for you!

2006-11-15T23:49:00.000+09:00

So I recently learned, thanks to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, that the NFL is further pursuing their "no celebration" policy to the point that only the player that scored is allowed to do so. The example they gave was the NY Giants getting flagged excessive celebration when a bunch of players ran up to the one who had just scored and started jumping up and down together. Now, I'm no expert nor am I a referee, but... Group jumping up and down? Are you kidding me? It's not a as if it were dance that they had to rehearse beforehand. What's next, your team scores and you can't run up and give your teammate a high-five?

yup, partner. we did just gone score one of them touchdowns.

The NFL should take a look at the sport that the rest of the world calls football. OK, so don't let the fans start rioting and throwing things on the players other than insults, but seriously, soccer players are given the freedom to express their jubilation after scoring a hard earned goal. Can you imagine the day the authorities start coming down on soccer goal celebrations?

"Uh, Mr. Henry, beautiful goal there, really. But that's a yellow card for the rest of your teammates piling on top of you 'cause only the goal scorer can celebrate in a tempered, well-mannered fashion. "

Sheesh. It's a sport. It's entertainment. Let the players entertain.

--- Although, now that I think about it, I think in the Korean soccer league, ceremonies involving removing your top is not allowed, so Brandi Chastain may have been fined. Who knows. But having said that, this is Korea; a country that wanted to outlaw mini-skirts back in the day.

No Brandi, we (used to?) frown upon the likes of you...

Into the record books...

2006-10-28T20:14:00.000+09:00

poor guy... why's he doing batting practice when the game just ended?

John Gall was a fine college baseball player at Stanford. He was a junior my freshman year, I remember him hitting a big homerun in the college world series final that we would go on to lose. After being drafted by the Indians, he returned for his senior season and was drafted in the 11th round by the Cardinals. (btw, congrats to the 2006 World Series Champs).

Anyway, despite starting off on the 40 man roster this season for the red birds, he saw his numbers plummet, and was eventually released, passed waivers and came to play baseball in Korea for the Lotte Giants. By the end of the season, he was affectionately known to Lotte fans as "Double Play Gall", (actually, you can say a bad word in Korean that surprisingly sounds like 'John Gall', and they call him Double Play that).

And to tie in the post with the title, he is the first foreign player to play in the Korean Baseball League to finish the season without a homer.

There has to be a first for everything...

Are you there, KJI? It's me, Margaret...

2006-10-27T15:32:00.000+09:00

One of the fun things they taught us in bootcamp was so called "chaos theory". I can't think of the correct English term, but basically it's the tatic used during time of war when agents infiltrate into enemy countries, and create havoc from within, and trying to bring the country down from the inside.

Yesterday, the former leader of South Korea's Democratic Labor Party was arrested for communicating with an alleged North Korean agent. Today, we learned that this agent, a one Michael Chang who is a US citizen, is a member of the Labor Party, the ruling party, of North Korea. Authorities haven't confirmed yet whether classified information was leaked.

With the most recent and current administrations being rather pro-North, this is the first news regarding any North Korean agent activity that I've heard during the past 8 years or so. And what does the head of the Korean CIA get for finding this worm?

He handed in his resignation, which the president accepted.

But I'm sure this means absolutely nothing for my or South Korea's safety in the long run. I mean, everyone says the North can't possibly start a war, so they probably won't. Right?

Crap, it happened again

2006-10-27T10:17:00.001+09:00

Unfortunately, my attempt at maintaining regular posts failed once again, seeing as my last post was more than a month ago. Nuts. Oh well.

In today's edition of "what's happening in South Korea", we are hosting a women's soccer tournament. The Korean public's ongoing obsession with attrative people and Heather Mitts
being in town has been a match made in heaven. All news reportings have been about the attractiveness of the soccer team, and little to do with the sport.
The topics have covered her meeting with the designer Andre Kim, an article so ingeniusly titled "Heather Mitts, soccer player or supermodel?" , and various blogs asking "why be a soccer player when you're so good looking?

Ahh... reminds me of people watching women's volleyball at school...

Good times, good times.

Risu Ha - pioneer or legal footnote?

2006-09-08T13:55:00.000+09:00

I tried in earnest to get a flattering picture of "her". This is all I could find.

Risu Ha. She is the only post-op transsexual Korean celebrity (that I know of, anyway) . Now, I have nothing against transsexuals as a whole; I just don't like this particular individiual. She has a way of trying to overcompensate for her lack of estrogen by acting over the top how she thinks a women would act. Very annoying. Anyway...

She made a big splash into the celebrity pool 4~5 years back and now is a (I think) successful singer/actress/model/tv personality. For me, the most interesting part of then his past history is he successfully received a level 7 (1 being extremely fit, 5 or above being exempt from military service) which is a "mental disorder; come back again" by showing up in a dress and pig tails. Couple years later, off with the penis and "she" was free to go. I'm guessing this became a popular option... (sigh)

A before/after shot, just for fun.

The Supreme court announced today that, not unlike me not being able to choose whether I want to be a US or Korean citizen until after I've finished my service, they are now prohibiting men to get a sex change operation until after they've served. This all started last June when the court decided that a man who has undergone a sex change can legally be considered a woman. I'm not sure what the law is in the US, but now "born-again" women in Korea get a new social security number with the final 8 digit number beginning with the number '2' instead of '1', and all the perks that come with it. As a result, an alarmingly increasing number of men were opting for a sex change operation (twice the number from a year ago). With the birth rate already being at 1.14, good for the 4th lowest in the world, some ground rules had to made.

So I guess technically, this new wrinkle is not aimed at preventing guys from weaseling their way out of military service, but I just find the whole notion that such a law has to exist to be pretty damn hillarious.

Purely coincidence, but still...

2006-09-06T14:36:00.000+09:00

I've been told numerous times on how my obsessing over a sports team has absolutely no relation to the outcome of a game on any given day. I know I know, it's the truth...

But still, when the A's are winless since I've tried this whole "blog" thing is ... sad. Well, the A's losing in general is annoying because pacific time night games are morning games Korea time, and the outcome of the game influences my mood for the rest of the day.

Well, silver lining is the A's are still 5.5 games up. Here's to a good rest of September for the boys in green and gold.

New Beginnings... Again...

2006-09-04T14:16:00.000+09:00

I was always told that 1 human year was like 7 dog years. Quick search on google tells me I've been lied to; 1 human year is more like 10 ~ 15 dog years. Well, in either case, I'm making yet another attempt at a (hopefully longer lasting) stay in the blogosphere after a 7 to 15 dog year haitus, depending on what conversion formuala you're using.
Anyway, I hope this time around it won't be such a short lived experiment. There's enough happening in the world today to jot down a couple thoughts every so often. And thankfully, right now I feel like I have some funny stories to tell about a certain experience I had during the month of July/first week of August. It's called "Bootcamp".

Let's start at the very top.
Well, how about a brief background on this whole military thing, it being my first entry and all, and go from there. As good GW Bush has been so kind to point out for the past couple of years, Korea, or South Korea, has a neighboring country to the north that... for the lack of a better term, makes like difficult for many of the other inhabitants of this planet. Me being a resident of the country that is closest and most likely to receive the brunt of the damage if said "rogue state" were to do anything... war-like, a strong military presense is an important matter. So all Korean males are born with the requirement of military service; myself no exception.
There are various ways to fulfill this requirement; army, navy, air force, etc. the standard options are there as well as entering as an officer. For those of you who know him, Roger Kim is currently a Navy Officer, a captain I think. For the rest of the people, you start off at the bottom as 2nd class private, and serve for 2 years. Recently, the govt. has offered other options to better utilize the "resources" from a national standpoint. Those who are not physically fit work in civil service in place like city hall. The newest wrinkle has been the option of working at a small/mid-size company, where you can basically have a job and work for at least minimum wage (or however much the company decides to pay you) for 3 years. This is where I come in. Hehe.
As appealing as the prospect of firing M-16s, throwing grenades and crawling under barbed wire for 2 years sounded, I decided to venture into the video game industry, which is how I am currently a member of the server side programming team of Anipark Co., Ltd. Now, despite all these options being available, there is one constant that everyone must experience, namely a 4 week training period or what I affectionately decided to call bootcamp. Basically, it was a crash course of what people would have gone through in 2 years in a span of 28 days. Some claim that because of its concentrated nature, it's actually tougher, in some aspects, than the actual 2 year service. As one who has just come back from bootcamp, let's just say I have a whole lot of newfound respect for those who served/are serving their 2 year term. Roger, you're the
man. Really.

The big thing for me with regards to this whole experience is that now, when Korean males congregate and start talking about their military experience, I have something to add to the conversation.
There's a saying in Korea: Three topics that Korean women hate most when their significant other brings them up

stories of their military service.
football (soccer)
stories of playing soccer during their military service.

It basically drives home the point of how military service is really a big part of a Korean male's life; they can't stop talking about it. Having a common experience that 50% of the entire country can share seems to be more an asset than a loss. Plus, in order to live in Korean society, military service is a must. The reason Mr. Lee lost the presidential election in 1997 and 2002 was because he used some shady tactics and successfully
got his son not to serve in the military, which the Korean public saw as pretty much a crime. Among men, going to the military is like Full Moon on the Quad; (no gay military party comments, thank you very much -_- ) you're not a true Korean male until you've served in the military, a rite of passage if you will.

Come March 2007, I'll proudly say that I've finished what is asked for by my country. Or something like that.

This time around, I'll try to actually maintain a blog. We'll see what happens in 6 months or so. ^_^