April 2010
2 posts
Double Trouble - The Roots w/Mos Def
The cherry blossoms are here! Welcome spring -...
March 2010
14 posts
I'm Kind of a Big Deal
So at the Lotte Giants game this past weekend, I was interviewed by eFM, the local English language radio station for a segment that aired this morning. Check out the link below… download the show from 3/30 and skip ahead to about 32:30.
이 대호 Bitches!
Do I Have Any Asshole in My Teeth?
One of the more frequent statements you’ll hear from Koreans when praising their own country is that ‘Korea has four seasons.’ I haven’t been here long enough to say one way or the other, but foreigners generally roll their eyes and chalk such talk up to popular nationalistic topics of conversation such as Dokdo and Kim Yuna. Yesterday, however, certainly felt like spring...
Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
I wanted to play Enthusiasm For Life Defeats...
The Great Equalizer
Every St. Patrick’s Day, I get excited. The green beer, the kisses, the sodabread (not this year), and the Irish music. But sometimes, Irish music can get old. There are only so many times I can listen to a flute, or a bagpipe, or an accordion play the same damn happy riff. This year, however, I have the great equalizer:
http://trololololololololololo.com/
Just listen to that once or...
Down the Rabbit Hole... part 2
The age demanded that we sing And cut away our tongue. The age demanded that we flow And hammered in the bung. The age demanded that we dance And jammed us into iron pants. And in the end the age was handed The sort of shit that it demanded.
-E.H.
After the cops left, we foreigners quickly regrouped and tried to make sense of it all. It seemed that Logan IV and Gabby were long...
Down the Rabbit Hole
There are just some things you can’t prepare for. They happen and you must react. The luxury of examining options and consequences comes only after the dust has settled and it’s times like these that really show people for who they are and how their mind works. This is a story of one such event. Some names have been changed and the details embellished with the intent to...
The Naked Lunch - KRD →
And I Finally Got a Fucking Toastie!
Ever since a couple days ago, I’ve remained dangerously low on stimulants… which - after a few weeks of surviving on coffee, second hand smoke, and soju - is intoxicating in and of itself. Insomnia or fatigue strike at the most inopportune times and I spend my days close to angrily snapping at some poor Korean that forgot to put an ‘s’ on the end of ‘loves.’ ...
Kanye on Creativity
putthison:
Kanye blogged this, my man Colin converted it to non-all-caps:
I’m on the plane listening to the college dropout. It brings back so many memories. When we made it I had all 6 parents, 4 grandparents and my mom and dad. Now I have my dad and my grandfather. Music is so nostalgic. Every song I listen to brings me back to when I first played them for my mom, when I first played...
February 2010
10 posts
Seoul-Long and Thanks for All the Tacos!
Standing around the entrance to the KTX station, we were enjoying our last moments in Seoul. We reminisced and laughed and made pacts about certain details never being revealed to the world. Someone wondered aloud if they could stand to live in Seoul and, as if on cue, he approached. You rarely encounter beggars in Korea. Confucian ideals provide that such lifestyles are extremely taboo. This...
More Fun Korean Commercials →
If I never again witness this poor vegetable’s violation by an ATM card, I will die a happy man.
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord →
“The real reasons behind the violence are breaches of karaoke etiquette, like hogging the microphone, laughing at someone’s singing or choosing a song that has already been sung.”
'Angriest Blogger' Leaving Korea →
Looks like there is a hole that needs to be filled in the pissed-off-blogger-in-Korea-named-Brian market…
2080 - Yeasayer
The Toastie Nazi
Ryan: are you consistently discriminated against?
me: not overtly
me: well… there is this one guy that won’t sell me a fucking sandwich. Don’t get me started on him
I realize I’ve commented extensively on the lack of equal treatment for foreigners. It can be eye opening to the way different groups or individuals are treated back home. But it is also infuriating,...
WTF
Taking attendance today: One of the students was out… usually the other children scream out ‘obsoyo’ which I can only assume means, ‘absent.’ But this time, the kids start yelling out that she’s dead. They were all pretending to be in a car accident and screaming, ‘DIE DIE DIE!’ I thought to myself, ‘Oh my god… what happened?’...
January 2010
10 posts
In Tender Praise of Bibimbap
Oh Bibimbap… life on this peninsula would be dark indeed without your nutritious guidance to light my way down the path of sustenance. Eating in Korea is a matter of necessity. Rarely do we Waegook find comfort in our meals. We are forced to eat on the floor. We play through the pain of tingling limbs and do our best not to sit in red bean paste. We politely sample the Kimchi and gnaw...
WatchSo I’m teaching a class of 1st graders the letter S. The kids are shouting out S words and they start yelling STEEERIKE like an umpire. It was so cute, I tried to get it on video but they were shy…
The Din Before the Night
This is old and fresh. It was written a couple years back by my friend Derek, a fine writer who will one day be widely published and sipping his Old Crow from a glass made of hundred dollar bills. I found it while tidying up the ol’ hard drive. Enjoy:
So there I am sitting at the bar, drinking a drink, thinking the think, trying to read, trying to blend, not being very good at waiting,...
Adjumma →
For those of you that have spent all but a few hours in Korea… you know the Adjumma. They can be ruthless… they won’t hesitate to stick you in the groin with an umbrella. The adjumma all look alike. Sometimes they are kind to you and sometimes… not so much.
This is my new favorite blog. The guy has the whole love/hate thing for Korea locked down.
And for those of us...
I got nothin...
Today I spent a good two minutes staring off into space and daydreaming about an entire day when I won’t use chopsticks.
Octopus is an unnerving leftover meal. After being refrigerated for a few days, it turns black and seems to be less chewy.
Nobody uses chap-stick here… Combine that with the national obsession to be pale and skinny and sometimes I feel like I’m in a zombie...
Bob Marley - ‘Mr. Brown’
The Ream
I woke up this morning sore… but in a good way.
A few of the foreigner boys and I had gotten together for some tackle football last Sunday and my body was still recuperating. After two hours of working muscles that had lain dormant since ninth grade, I was having trouble walking… but I was still happy for the distraction from Korean life.
Each day since then, I’ve regained a...
A reading exercise in Korea
Joel is watching a baseball game on TV. The LA Doggers and the Red Socks are playing. It is the 8th inning and the Doggers are batting. Kacy is up to bat. He hits the ball and runs to second base. There is another player on third base. The catcher catches and drops the ball. The two runners run to home base. The audience cheers.
WTF?
Ddong Chim
I was going to write up a whole thing about this… but it turns out I found a blog where someone put in more effort than I would have. So I’ll do like Jayson Blair and just post a link to it.
Ddong Chim
While we’re at it… check this out too.
And yes… it’s just as humiliating as it sounds.
December 2009
9 posts
Cibo Mato: Birthday Cake via sixbucks
For...
WWHCD?
While riding home on the bus today, I saw some graffiti on a concrete wall. In poor penmanship, indicative of only ever spray painting Hanguel characters or Hello Kitty scenes, someone had scrawled ‘fuck you.’
Immediately I wondered, What Would Holden Caulfield Do?
“That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there...
Foiled again...
So I’ve been dealing with the fact that hulu.com doesn’t work in Korea. I understand how licensing issues might be a problem.
I have even begrudgingly put up with the fact that every time I type ‘www.google.com’ into my address bar, I automatically get directed to some wacky Korean version that only seems to search sites in Hanguel. I actually had to contact Google tech...
“The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories – not of things I...”
– Hunter S. Thompson (via whokilled)
In vs Out...
I had an idea the other day to document my on-going culture shock with a simple comparison of Korean things and American things. Today, we will learn about booze, urinals, and sidewalks.
Booze…
Drinking in South Korea lacks, in a word, diversity. There are a handful of locally brewed beers to choose from… liquor and wine aren’t always easy to find… if you are drinking...
Calling all nerds →
Just your basic online dictionary? Not quite…
This version has the usual definition and spelling lookups, but also a relevant word of the day and various word games. They have a Wild Card search that enables you to type any combination of letters to get suggested possible words - good for jumble or crossword puzzles.
My favorite is the forum where geeks can discuss grammar and...
School Work...
I recently wrote this paper for a sociology class I’m taking. It might read a little dryly, but some may find the subject matter interesting.
I grew up in a predominantly white, upper-middle class, rural town in southeast Connecticut. My upbringing was progressive and I can remember the many times I was taught about racism and discrimination in school. However, there was a serious lack...
Mysterious!
The following is what I wrote to myself, word for word, in an email before passing out last night.
I went with the korean mob boss mr kim. He took me where foreigners do not go. A strange person came with us. He was an outcast and it was my duty to dispose of him. THe dance club was crazy. We were the only foreigners there. the bouncers hated us because we weren’t korean. God bless...
November 2009
11 posts
sixbucks:
William S. Burroughs: Thanksgiving...
Grammar time
An exercise in alliteration:
I came across Chris Collinsworth’s cousin.
In Korea?
Here you go fatheads
I’ve been hearing that people miss the opportunity to comment on posts with the tumblr based blog. Do you agree?