Every time they take this video down I am going to find it and embed it in a blog post until you hate fun as much as I do.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Bush commutes Libby's sentence
I hope this act helps more people like me come to hate Bush. I am so angry I can't even intelligently express it. I just really want this to be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Calling all techies
So I am buying a new laptop this summer, and I need some advice from anyone who cares to give some. I have just been comparison shopping Dell, Gateway, and HP, and it seems that HP has the best deal. I've already been told to go for speed in the laptop itself and relegate things like DVD-R/RW and bigtime memory to external devices. This seems like a very reasonable thought. Ideally I would like to get the fastest cheapest most portable laptop possible. I will primarily be using it for video and music editing/watching/listening, internet, Office, that kind of thing, just general use stuff, but I want it to be as fast as lightning and last for a long time. I'm looking to spend around $1,400 including external drives, excluding scanner and printer, which I will buy once I get a job. I am looking for any useful thoughts, especially basic things that I haven't considered. What do you say, am I walking into a minefield? Am I missing a crucial piece of information? I did notice that HP strongly recommends that you get 2gigs of DDR memory with Vista Home Premium for $100, even though I know you can get a USB flash drive that will do the same thing for much cheaper, so clearly there are monkeyshines to be avoided.
Flight of the Conchords
I believe you when you say you like this show and these two guys. I believe that you believe it. But when you take a look at the show from outside the incredible hype that has built up around it, you see that it's just not funny. What is it supposed to be, like an 'Office' version of Tenacioud D, basically? It's really not funny, please stop enjoying it.
The Return of the California Knockout
When I was in 6th grade my class went on a one week school trip to a camp in upstate New York called Frost Valley. On the very first day, practically as soon as we got there, a couple of guys started talking about doing the California Knockout. One guy stood up against the wall and invited his friend to administer the chest compression necessary to induce said knockout. I remember at the time thinking it was one of the stupidest and clearly dangerous things I had seen my classmates do.
You can't keep a good bad idea down, though, and know the dread California Knockout has surfaced in Korea under the infinitely less interesting name "The Choking Game". Gusts of Popular feeling has a great post on the issue with pictures that look exactly as I remember. This time around, however, there seems to be a solo version played with a noose that looks like some sort of kiddie version of autoerotic asphyxiation.
Not to oversimplify things, but I believe that the cure to this kind of boredom-induced tomfoolery is probably sports. Let these kids play some sports, Korea! Something that lets them work the arms, perhaps, because soccer obviously is not doing it for them.
You can't keep a good bad idea down, though, and know the dread California Knockout has surfaced in Korea under the infinitely less interesting name "The Choking Game". Gusts of Popular feeling has a great post on the issue with pictures that look exactly as I remember. This time around, however, there seems to be a solo version played with a noose that looks like some sort of kiddie version of autoerotic asphyxiation.
Not to oversimplify things, but I believe that the cure to this kind of boredom-induced tomfoolery is probably sports. Let these kids play some sports, Korea! Something that lets them work the arms, perhaps, because soccer obviously is not doing it for them.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Review: Transformers
When you heard that they were making a movie out of the Transformers, your likely reaction was "Awesome", followed by "Wait, the special effects will no doubt be amazing but how will they ever make a story that won't be terrible and make absolutely no sense." Well they did manage to tell a pretty damn good story, deliver a compelling bunch of characters and not leaving you calling shenanigans on the movie's plot holes as much as you thought you would.
For instance, sure the Autobots woud speak English to their human allies, but why would they speak at all to each other, especially when no humans are around? Why would Megatron ever speak at all to the humans he hates so much? The bottom line is that you are not going to give a tinker's damn why if you are at all interested in having a good time more than being a know-it-all wise-ass.
My wife loved the movie, as did one of my students' moms, who we happened to run into at the theater. I think this is mostly because of the amount of personality imbued in Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro who acts as guardian for the movie's protagonist. He has a really rough ride through the movie and engenders as much audience sympathy and identification as both King Kongs combined.
If you're wondering why I keep referring to the 'human allies' and 'the movie's protagonist' it's because I've forgotten all the human characters' names. Oh well, I didn't forget any of the Transformers' names.
The style of the movie occasionally gets a little too crowd-pleasing for my tastes, especially in the gratuitous use of bathroom humor and masturbation references (gratuitous, at least, for a movie being marketed to very young children). John Turturro's character get's tiresome quickly. I found myself puzzled by scenes involving CIA codebreakers that seemed to add nothing and go nowhere. The movie could use an aggressive edit. That said, there isn't a moment of Transformer action that I would do without. If anything, you may, like me, be left wishing you were watching the movie on DVD so you could bet a good look at what was going on in the fight scenes. One scene in particular in which one robot shoves his hand in another's face left me wishing I had a remote in my hand to slow forward through the move again.
Enough already, just go see the movie with your girlfriend or wife and you won't regret it.
Transformers: A-
For instance, sure the Autobots woud speak English to their human allies, but why would they speak at all to each other, especially when no humans are around? Why would Megatron ever speak at all to the humans he hates so much? The bottom line is that you are not going to give a tinker's damn why if you are at all interested in having a good time more than being a know-it-all wise-ass.
My wife loved the movie, as did one of my students' moms, who we happened to run into at the theater. I think this is mostly because of the amount of personality imbued in Bumblebee, the yellow Camaro who acts as guardian for the movie's protagonist. He has a really rough ride through the movie and engenders as much audience sympathy and identification as both King Kongs combined.
If you're wondering why I keep referring to the 'human allies' and 'the movie's protagonist' it's because I've forgotten all the human characters' names. Oh well, I didn't forget any of the Transformers' names.
The style of the movie occasionally gets a little too crowd-pleasing for my tastes, especially in the gratuitous use of bathroom humor and masturbation references (gratuitous, at least, for a movie being marketed to very young children). John Turturro's character get's tiresome quickly. I found myself puzzled by scenes involving CIA codebreakers that seemed to add nothing and go nowhere. The movie could use an aggressive edit. That said, there isn't a moment of Transformer action that I would do without. If anything, you may, like me, be left wishing you were watching the movie on DVD so you could bet a good look at what was going on in the fight scenes. One scene in particular in which one robot shoves his hand in another's face left me wishing I had a remote in my hand to slow forward through the move again.
Enough already, just go see the movie with your girlfriend or wife and you won't regret it.
Transformers: A-
Culture Shock Redux (part 2)
Yesterday Miyoung and I went to our friends Idan and Namheng's wedding. It was similar in substance to our own.
Afterwards we went to Itaewon, the foreigner enclave in Seoul where much of the US Army spends its downtime as well as a number of people from Africa, South Asia, and every other conceivable place. Now I get into Itaewon about two or three times a year, and for the most part I live in a 100% Korean world, where even the people I deal with on a day to day basis don't speak English. Most of the Americans in Itaewon live in a world where they are as sheltered from actual Korean culture as much as possible. They are more likely to see a Korean in a traditional palace uniform on one of their outings than they are to see a typical Korean in his or her own natural environment.
Anyway we get to Itaewon at abou 12:30 and it's sunny and hot with not too many people around. Miyoung and I go to Starbucks and hang out there for a while. I feel some sort of strange vibe around us. Perhaps, I think, I am giving off a weird feeling because it's so odd for me to see so many foreigners. I don't give it too much thought and we leave to go shopping. We hit the Columbia store and Miyoung buys me youthful looking pants that I am slowly growing accustomed to. back on the street I catch one or two guys looking at me funny but it doesn't really register. I assume it's because I am clearly not in the military.
Anyway we walk to the geographical end of Itaewon and cross the street to loop back in the other direction. Miyoung and I are walking fast and pass a short black guy and a short tattooed black woman walking together. I hear the guy say as we pass "That guy was checking me out. You know that guy?" and I assume he means I'm sizing him up or giving him the stink eye or something. I wonder to myself why that guy thought I would want to fight him on the street.
Miyoung and I get to the subway station and go down. As we walk onto the platform we walk past a seated couple, this time a white guy and a tattooed white girl. The guy turns to the girl and says "Check out that guy's shirt!" and suddenly it dawns on me: I'm wearing a pink shirt. A pink polo shirt in Korea is an extremely common thing to see. I actually own two pink shirts. I hadn't thought a thing of it all day, and I had been walking around catching looks from people who I now realize thought I was gay.
After we got on the train I explained to Miyoung why I could never wear my pink shirts in America, but she didn't quite get it. "Why would they think you're gay?" she asked. I explained that it's not that they'd think I was gay, it's that it's just not done in the US, unless I'm mistaken or something big has changed in the last few years. Somehow I had let this get away from me, and so yesterday I made the mental note: de-Koreanize my wardrobe before I return to America.
Afterwards we went to Itaewon, the foreigner enclave in Seoul where much of the US Army spends its downtime as well as a number of people from Africa, South Asia, and every other conceivable place. Now I get into Itaewon about two or three times a year, and for the most part I live in a 100% Korean world, where even the people I deal with on a day to day basis don't speak English. Most of the Americans in Itaewon live in a world where they are as sheltered from actual Korean culture as much as possible. They are more likely to see a Korean in a traditional palace uniform on one of their outings than they are to see a typical Korean in his or her own natural environment.
Anyway we get to Itaewon at abou 12:30 and it's sunny and hot with not too many people around. Miyoung and I go to Starbucks and hang out there for a while. I feel some sort of strange vibe around us. Perhaps, I think, I am giving off a weird feeling because it's so odd for me to see so many foreigners. I don't give it too much thought and we leave to go shopping. We hit the Columbia store and Miyoung buys me youthful looking pants that I am slowly growing accustomed to. back on the street I catch one or two guys looking at me funny but it doesn't really register. I assume it's because I am clearly not in the military.
Anyway we walk to the geographical end of Itaewon and cross the street to loop back in the other direction. Miyoung and I are walking fast and pass a short black guy and a short tattooed black woman walking together. I hear the guy say as we pass "That guy was checking me out. You know that guy?" and I assume he means I'm sizing him up or giving him the stink eye or something. I wonder to myself why that guy thought I would want to fight him on the street.
Miyoung and I get to the subway station and go down. As we walk onto the platform we walk past a seated couple, this time a white guy and a tattooed white girl. The guy turns to the girl and says "Check out that guy's shirt!" and suddenly it dawns on me: I'm wearing a pink shirt. A pink polo shirt in Korea is an extremely common thing to see. I actually own two pink shirts. I hadn't thought a thing of it all day, and I had been walking around catching looks from people who I now realize thought I was gay.
After we got on the train I explained to Miyoung why I could never wear my pink shirts in America, but she didn't quite get it. "Why would they think you're gay?" she asked. I explained that it's not that they'd think I was gay, it's that it's just not done in the US, unless I'm mistaken or something big has changed in the last few years. Somehow I had let this get away from me, and so yesterday I made the mental note: de-Koreanize my wardrobe before I return to America.
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