Jam Packed

That's what my apartment looks like right now. Stuffed to the rafters with sticky, delicious jam. Mmmm... jam.

Actually, it's filled with moving boxes. Right now, about 60 of them. There's probably another 60 coming in about two weeks. The place seemed really spacious before all our junk cluttered the place up. I guess when it's all put away, it'll seem a little better.

As I'm going through the boxes, I feel like Steve Martin in "The Jerk". At first, my reaction is, "What is all this junk. I don't need any of this stuff!" Then I open a couple of boxes and find some things for the kitchen. "Except for these mixing bowls. But that's it!" On to the living room. "And this DVD player. Just these mixing bowls and this DVD player." It continues ad nauseum. I guess we just have a lot of stuff.

I've also been building a kitchen since our place was without one. We ordered some stuff and it came in big flat boxes, which I had to open and transport upstairs to assemble. At that point, picking out the thick solid birch countertops started to seem like a mistake. But I managed. Here's a little "from conception to completion" for you. This is from the kitchen planner software that I used to figure out the layout of this thing.



And here's an almost complete kitchen.



Pretty good, right? That's a one-man show in one day. And the one song that was in my head throughout the time that I was putting it together was Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing".

We got to install microwave ovens/
Custom kitchen deliveries

It was a long day, but it won't be long before our place starts to come together and we can finally settle into that long winters nap I've been hearing so much about.

Damned Singing French Woman

I've been packing this afternoon in preparation for a "business trip" that I'm taking next week. While I've been pulling all my stuff together, I've had on CNN to keep me company. It's the International version of CNN, with the anchors that are a special blend of nationalities so as not to upset or isolate any particular group of viewers. Is he Indian, or Arabic? African, or Asian? Their backgrounds are so muddled, it's anyone's guess. But they all speak the King's English, so it brings a nice sensibility to them when they announce riots in Lebanon or radiological scares on British Airways. But I digress...

There's a commercial for Novotel, which I just learned is a hotel chain in Europe, that has been playing in heavy rotation on CNN. It features animals making themselves at home in the hotel rooms while a woman sings this semi-creepy, semi-sweet song ever so softly in the background. I don't know if the song itself is noteworthy or I've just listened to it twenty times today, but I can't get it out of my head. And it's only five or six lines longs. A quick Google search yielded that the woman singing is Emilie Simon, who is French. She has a website, Follow the Blue Light, which is completely in French. Would it kill her to have an English translation site up? The only reason that I stumbled onto her was because I heard her singing in English on English language TV. But it's her site, I guess she can do as she pleases. Give her a look and see if you can download the clip from the commercial. I'm sure it must be somewhere on there. If you can find it, listen to it about twenty times throughout the day at about ten or fifteen minute intervals. If it doesn't start driving you nuts, then I guess there's just something wrong with me.

But I guess we don't need this little exercise in active listening to tell us that, do we?

Happy World AIDS Day

What's the last thing that you want to hear on World AIDS Day? How about this?



Jeeze. Thanks for "breaking it to them easy", Olde Tyme Quaker Man. You really are a jerk.


On another note, here's what I've been reading lately. Empires of Light, by Jill Jonnes. It's a somewhat dramatic telling of the discovery and rise of electricity in the late 1800s. More specifically, how Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse helped shape the electrical world from its infancy into what we now have today. It's pretty fascinating. It also reinforces Edison as one of the baddest asses of all time. In his day, he had the fame and influence of a Bono/P. Diddy cross. Extreme crossover appeal. One of my favorite passages from the book describes Edison's method of dealing with striking workers in his light bulb factory:

At the lamp factory out in New Jersey, eighty highly skilled filament sealers formed a union and "became very insolent," said Edison, "knowing that it was very impossible to manufacture lamps without them." When they objected to the proposed firing of one of their members, Edison quickly designed thirty machines to automate their work. Then he fired the man as planned. "The union went out," said Edison, following up with the punch line: "It has been out ever since."

The moral of the story? Don't screw with the world's foremost genius inventor.

A Tree Grows in Vicenza

And it's yellow.

I was walking through my fair city this weekend, when I came upon this beautiful yellow tree in a park. If ever a tree was "ablaze" in color, this one was. I came back the next day to take some pictures of it to share what a fall day looks like in Italy. Enjoy.













The last one is my favorite. And done in manual focus to boot! Eat my ass, Ansel Adams!!

Hey guys, remember me??

This is probably not the most earth-shattering news to post for my big, triumphant, come-back post, but I'm warming back up slowly.
I came across this on The Onion, which, believe me, I know is soooooo freshman year, but I just read the main page and never really look at all of the linked articles on the left. Lo and behold, apparently they have stuff like this:

I wish some small-town newspaper would come across this and run it, for reals. By the way, I think that is baby Byrom making his cartoon debut as "Liberty Jr."

Congrats from Quaker Man

Olde Tyme Quaker Man and I would like to congratulate Cory and Kelly on the birth of their son, Simon. Have a peep at the lil' guy over at Kelly's blog, i like my typography bold. She's the artistic type, so you'll find plenty of uber-cute pictures of the baby there. He's getting more press than Suri Cruise!

Meanwhile, if you enjoy Olde Tyme Quaker Man like I do (and I really do), then take a minute to make your own Olde Tyme Quaker Man pictures. There's 1000's of things that you could have him say. Or, if you're a "Blogs of Note" hack, you can just peruse the 1000's of things that other people have had him say. Here's to not thinking of things ourselves!!

"Blogs of Note" is a Farce

I'm fed up.

I'm fed up with two-bit hack blogs getting placed on the "Blogs of Note" pedestal. Case in point: a sampler of things.

This charlatan makes a GD one frame "comic" about a group of anthropomorphic breakfast foods. PS - it's just as funny as it sounds.

There's Mr. Toast:



And his friend, Joe the Egg:



Oh, don't forget Shaky bacon!!



You can't make this stuff up people. Somewhere out there, Dan Goodsell is sitting behind his Macbook and publishing this stuff to the internet. God forbid he's making a living off it. Actually, I don't know which is worse: that he makes a living off being a hack web cartoonist, or that he does this in his free time. I think I'm going to stick with the former.

And before the pointed criticism starts coming, let me just acknowledge this now. Yes, I just used "anthropomorphic" in a recent post (ed: see Italian Spraypaint). No, I didn't just learn it and now I'm inserting it whenever I can to try to sound intelligent. It just happened to come up twice recently.

So thanks again, "Blogs of Note", for bringing only the best and brightest blogs to our attention.

Ahh... Venice

Here I am taking the ferry on a dismal day into Venice for the first time since I've been here. Most people rode down below, but I decided to brave the elements in the hope of getting a better view of the city as we approached. Oddly enough, there was a Korean couple up there who were kind enough to take my picture. Good thing I learned two words in Korean! "Hello" and "thank you" can take you a long way.

Once I landed in Venice, I embarked into the city. Not a block from the ferry stop, I crossed over a beautiful old bridge that spanned the "Grand Canal". It gave me the perfect vantage point to snap this obligatory Venice shot.



Another view from the bridge.



Not sure what that building is, but I caught it from the opposite angle when I was at St. Mark's Square. This was taken right at dusk, and I think it came out quite well. There were some noisy Germans with what was probably $5000 worth of camera equipment taking this same shot.



Here's a gloomy back canal off the beaten path. There was no one around when I took this picture and the city was silent as a tomb, even though it was a Sunday afternoon and there were 1000s of tourist not half a mile away. I wish I had some HDR action on this picture.



Finally, St. Mark's Church. This doesn't really capture the scale of the church or the square that it sits in. Massive. I was trying to get a close up of some of the detail that is on the front here. Inside is even more impressive, but alas, no photography allowed. You'll just have to take my word that it was one of the most impressive things I've seen. Every square inch of the interior was coated in gorgeous mosaics depicting saints, Christ, disciples, etc. The ceiling was mostly gold and the floor was marble. But all of it comprised of thousands (millions?) of tiny squares that made up these images. Truly humbling.

Watch Out, Hotdog Warrior!!

This is one tough hombre. Who would be crazy enough to take on the !HOLA! du rag man? Not I. But maybe if Hotdog Warrior set his wiener down for 5 minutes, he might stand a chance.

I see things going down like this: Hotdog Warrior is about to take a bite out of his favorite hotdog. !HOLA!-man approaches and calls out HDW. HDW ignores him, too preoccupied with the bite he's about to take. !HOLA! knocks hotdog out of HDW's hand and asks if he heard him the first time. HDW goes bezerker and tears out !HOLA!'s throat with his teeth. That's probably the only way that this Battle Royal can play out.

Italian Spraypaint

Last weekend, I drove out to Venice just because I could. I didn't really have a plan; only to drive east until I hit the city. Instead of taking the cold, industrial Autostrada, I took backroads and saw the countryside along the way. While passing through one town, I happened upon this huge mural of graffiti.



It was executed so beautifully, that I stopped to take a couple of pictures. There was a nice continuity to the whole wall; I'm guess the same guy or guys did the whole thing. Here's a couple of details from the wall. I call this first one, "Termite Termination" or "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the saw mill".



I'm not sure who's winning this battle. The treeman looks like he's about to go down for the count, but does Guy with an Axe have what it takes to finish the job?



I wouldn't have gone with an anthropomorphic "Fonzie Cat" depicted on what appears to be a postage stamp, but I think it works here.



The building that these were on was some sort of wood mill, but the way. That explains the "wood" theme that seems to be carried throughout the mural.

100th Post!

I didn't even realize it, but the "Hotdog Warrior" post below this one is our 100th POST! Can you believe it? Thanks for sticking it out with us for this long.

George Clinton's Latest Business Venture

Let the sounds of Parliament Funkadelic sooth your fussy baby to sleep.

Hotdog Warrior!

As promised, here is the valorous Hotdog Warrior!


This dude is on the display over the hogdogs in the shoppette here on post. The picture is a little faded; I suspect that he's been waiting to take a bite of that hotdog for many years now. But that hasn't faded the look of anticipation on his face, has it? Also, who holds their drink up so close to their face like that when they're about to take a bite? It's like this picture was taken inside a phonebooth.

Maybe... it was.

The Lowdown

I've been away for a while; running errands and getting things set-up around here in Italy. Things move at a different pace here, and there's no cut-and-dry method of taking care of anything. That being said, I finally bought and am the proud owner of an '87 Mini! Ain't she a beaut?



It's pretty much exactly like driving a go-cart, but with enough speed to get you along in the Italian traffic. I'm a big fan. I also finalized my other car purchase: the BMW wagon. It's much more practical, but still a good car.

I've spent the week here going through the orientation that the army has for new arrivals to Italy. It's been a great little education in about four days. We've took a couple small outings into Vicenza and our Italian instructor showed us some of the finer points of public transportation.

We made a stop at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. It's the world's oldest indoor theater, built around 1580. That's wicked old! Here's a picture from inside:



That's the stage. The buildings in the background are made in a forced perspective to give the appearance that the set extends back further than it actually does. There's also a system of mirrors and lenses that were used to give the appearance of dawn, day, and dusk with the candle-light that they once used to light the stage. Pretty incredible.

That's all I have time for now, but stay tuned for my next installment: the Hotdog Warrior!

What's with Italian radio stations?!

I've been listening to a lot of Italian radio here in the hopes that it will help with my study of the language. Kind of like when Bart went to France in "The Crepes of Wrath" episode. Unfortunately, I haven't had the same kind of luck as he did. I'm just now getting the pronouns and to be verbs figured out. But I guess Rome wasn't built in a day! Har-de-har-har!!

What I have noticed about Italian radio stations is the crazy mix of songs that they put on the air. The have their own mix of Italian language pop hits and Euro/US pop that they put together. It's seems pretty standard, really. What's been throwing me are two older songs that are getting a lot of airplay. As in several times a day, like standard rotation. They're both older songs, and english language songs too. One is Africa from Toto. I couldn't tell you the last time I thought about this song. Years, to say the least. By in Italy I hear it at least once a day. The other song is a little more obscure and I'll be honest when I say that I didn't immediately recognize it for what it was. It's We Don't Need Another Hero by Tina Turner from the Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome soundtrack. Now I'm sure that I've heard this song, because I've seen MM:BT, but I would come up blank if that was the answer for Final Jeopardy.

It's been playing a lot, but I didn't get clued in until I started listening closely to the lyrics and heard her sing "All we want is life beyond the thunderdome". That's when I had one of those "wait a minute" moments. How many songs out there have "thunderdome" in the lyrics? It's got to be in the single digits. Not that there shouldn't be a lot more songs about the Thunderdome. It's one of our national treasures, after all.

In fact, I'll post any song that is written in the comments that contains the word Thunderdome. Get set - GO!

Another Car contender

Here's another contender to the car competition. It's an Alfa Romeo of unknown year and model! I just saw this today walking toward the rental car hut to try and procure a machina for this weekend.

By the way, you may or may not have noticed that I've started putting any Italian words that I use in the blog in Italics! w00t! I'm finally using Italics in the way that God intended them!

Anyway, this car looks beautiful. The body is in great condition and the paint looks like new. The cream color leather interior, from what I saw, follows suite. It has power windows, seats, locks, etc. Plus a sunroof!

Not sure what model, year, or miles on it. But it can't be more than 10 years old. Anyone out there know anything about Alfa Romeos? It's a V6 with turbo; so it'll get you on and off l' Autostrada without any problems. Seller originally asked 2700 Euro, but that was marked out and 2150 Euro was written in it's place. That's about $2700. Could probably walk away with it for $2300-2400 without too much of a fight, depending on how long he's been trying to sell.

I set up a test drive with him on Monday morning, so we'll see how it turns out.

Get Out of the City!

After finally cracking a way to transfer pictures off my camera and onto the internet, I am pleased to present to you a small offering of pictures from Vicenza.

There are only four right now, due to my time limit running out on the shared computers that I'm having to use right now. I was in the middle of uploading these when they guy running the room told me my time was up. I tried to stall a couple of minutes so that the rest of them could finish uploading, but people were waiting and I didn't want to be that guy.

These four shots are all from the roughly the same area. This is in the heart of Vicenza on a bridge that crosses over a canal through the city. The big plaza is about a block away and is the official centtro of the city.




Here's the right bank of the canal. I'm standing on the bridge over the water when I took this picture

Left bank of the same canal.

This is the reverse of the canal. I've turned 180 on the bridge and shot the other way.

This is a bell tower that jutes up from somewhere deep in town. There aren't really any tall building here, so these towers act as great reference points when you're wondering downtown.

I've got some more pictures from this Saturday morning that I was downtown, but I'll have to get them up today sometime. I can't wait for my computer to arrive so I can have dedicated access and not have to keep schleping over here to the library like a homeless man.

Mi Auto

Actually, only for those viewers who influence the car that I will buy. If it doesn't apply to you, then sorry.

Here's some of the cars that I've looked at/driven:

The Mercedes 300.

I drove this car this evening. I wasn't too impressed. The guy selling it was nice enough, and I didn't think he was trying to bullshit me about it. He's only asking $1200, but the car is an '89 and drives like it. Plus, it's a V8 and he said it can be a gas hog.

Verdict: C-

The Mini Cooper.



I like this car alot. It's got a lot of personality, and I think it looks swank for Italy. It is an older car. That being said, it doesn't have a lot of the extras that you are used to in a more modern car. However, for a daily driver to PT and office, it might do the trick. A testament to it's mechanical condition: I met the guy at the car today to take it for a drive. He said it's going to need a jump to start up because it's been sitting there since May and hasn't been started. Just for grins, he opened it up and tried to turn the key to see if the battery had any juice at all. Not only did all the lights come on, but with a little bit of effort it fired up on the second try! I'm not sure if any of my previous cars could do that!

Verdict: B+

The BMW 520i Touring


This car is a contender. Looks great inside and out. Haven't driven it yet, but we've owned an older BMW before and it still performed great. This is a 5 series, so it should be a higher caliber car to begin with. Guy is asking $4200, but I'm pretty sure I could get him down around $3500 if push came to shove. Seller has left the area and is selling through a friend by proxy. I think he's anxious to off-load the car, so a deal might be had.

Verdict: B- (due to not driving it yet; potential A)

So that's the run-down of the current car situation. I'll keep you posted on the winner of the competition.

My Town is Cooler Than Your Town

It just is, so let's accept it and move on.

This is kind of a wrap-up of the last 24-48 hours or so. It's probably going to be all over the place, so try and stay with me.

Drove around all Sunday afternoon in the countryside; getting lost, finding myself, lost again, back to Vicenza, repeat. The countryside here is amazing. It completely exceeds all expectations that I had for it. You know sometimes you enter into something with an idea in mind as too what it will be like? Then it happens and you think, "That wasn't anything that I thought it would be like." Well this is just the opposite. It's 20x better than I thought it would be. Of course, I've only been here nary a week, so I just might be in the "honeymoon" phase with Italy.

In my week here, I've noticed some things about Italians that I did not know. Specifically, some things about the way Italians dress that I did not know. For example, Italian women are crazy about cowboy boots. I should preface that with Italian designed cowboy boots. These aren't Justins or Tony Lamas; these are Italian fashion boots. But they basically look like girls' cowboy boots. They were them with dark hose and a skirt or shorts. Looks strange, but almost every other woman over here wears them. Another thing is the furry jacket hood for the men. Lots of guys have the super-furry hood on their coats. And typically the coat is a little short on them. It could not look more gay. But it's a hit here.

Another revelation came to me after I had some Italian pizza. I had the first one, and it was great. It was distinctly different from an American pizza, but it was very fresh and tasted great. The crust was thin and crispy, and the sauce was almost dry and chunky. Then I had another pizza at a different place. I expected it to be similar to the first, but maybe put together a little different. This one was very much like an American pizza; the crust was thicker, the sauce runny, it even had that layer of grease that you find on a New York style pizza. I was surprised at the departure from the other place that was just down the street. Surely, I thought, there was a regional norm to expect from your pizzeria. Apparently, there is not.

Mission: Inaccessible

Well, I'm in Vicenza, Italy for my first week. The order of business is pretty cut and dry when you arrive at a new place:

1. Check into hotel.

2. Look for a car.

3. Look for a house.

4. Move in.

5. Let boxes sit around your new house because by the time you finally get everything unpacked, you're going to have to move again.

That last one isn't really the case, but it feels like it sometimes.

Currently, I'm on steps 2 and 3. They're going slowly, but going never-the-less. There are a couple of cars here at Ederle that I'm eyeballing. One is a older Mercedes and the other is old style Mk III classic Mini. Both pretty cool and euro-trashy, which is what I'm going for.

As it happens, Jessica and Aidan aren't here with me. They had to wait in the US to get their Italian visas straightened out, so I'm here unaccompanio. As I have been looking at cars, I've been taking pictures so that I can email them back to Jessica so she can see them.

So I take my camera to the library to try and upload the pictures on Photobucket so she can see the cars that I'm checking out. But of course the public computers at the library won't connect to my camera since they're restricted because the Army is terrified that someone might look at a naked woman. But they do have a CD ROM. So off I go to the Photo mat.

The Photo place wants $7.00 to burn my pictures to a CD. Hells to the nah, sez I. Got to find a better way to do it. I'm scratching my head for a bit and I wonder into the electronics store. As I'm looking around and thinking, I see all the new, shiny computers set out for display on the floor. They're all up and running. And none of them have any accessibility restrictions.

I buy a small pack of blank CDs ($5) and leave the store to prepare. I take out one CD and attach the USB cable to my camera while placing it in my camera bag with just the end of the cable exposed. Then it's off to the store for Mission: Inaccessible. I sidle up to one of the new machines and stick my throbbing camera cable into the eager USB slot on the front of the computer. Jackpot. The computer recognizes my camera without a hitch, and within 5 minutes I've pulled off the pictures that I need and burned them to CD. I made it out without disturbing the crowd of kids that had gathered next to where I was to watch "Disney's The Shaggy Dog". Tim Allen, have you no shame?

Then it was off to the library where I was sure that my CD would let me access my pictures on the hopelessly crippled public computers. After waiting for a free computer to open up, I realize that all the computers have been replaces with new black Dell computers. "Shouldn't affect me," thought I. But no, it did. When they upgraded the computers, they must have configured Windows to be even more inaccessible. You can't even click on a My Computer icon. The CD drive wasn't even recognized. My mission... had failed.

Now my only recourse is to go out into the Italian economy and try to find an internet cafe or some such establishment to upload my pictures. Is this worth it? What's with the crippled computers? Are we so terrified that some kid is going to look at a boob? Or are we really worried that some terrorist is going to send messages to Al Queda at the Army library in Italy? Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems a little like overkill.

Let's Name a Blog

I'm officially in Italy.

After arriving on Halloween and recovering from my jet lag this week, I have officially arrived. Which brings me to the title of this entry: I have to change the name of "Fillet of Seoul".

Most likely, we'll just get another blog and redirect from this one with one final post. But I'm having a hard time coming up with some title for the new blog. After "Fillet of Seoul", I feel obliged to come up with a catchy name, or at least a crappy pun.

So I'll take all comers. Post a comment with your best title. The winner will see their name in lights.

Instant Karate Expert

Tired of spending your hard earned dollars on weeks of karate training, only to get mediocre results? Tired of wasting all your free time in the dojo practicing for hours and hours without anything to show for it?

Don't worry, because here's the miracle break-through in martial arts training that you've been waiting for! With the purchase of a simple red karate outfit, anyone can become a karate expert. Watch this completely unskilled child become a Karate Master in the blink of an eye when he dons the outfit:





Truly amazing. Act quickly. These outfits won't last long!

Still in USA

Due to an unexpected roadblock, I'm still in the U.S. Turns out, Jessica and Aidan need a visa in order to live in Italy. I should have known. They needed one for Korea, so they should have needed one for Italy. The big problem is that they need to have the "official" U.S. passport (the brown one) not the standard blue "tourist" passport, which they have.

As it happens, the turn around time for these official passports is 4-6 weeks. So we submitted that paperwork recently and they will have to wait here in the states while I travel forward to Italy. I'm going to miss them both, but it'll give me the opportunity to have everything straightened out so they can have a smooth arrival when they come. I really feel bad for Jessica, because she's going to have to travel to Italy by herself with Aidan. He's can really be a handful at times, especially when you are by yourself.

So I'm departing Monday for Italy. I'll arrive in Venice on Tuesday, 1200 local. Ah, Venice. I'm going to have my camera with me, so I'll put up some pictures when I arrive. Keep posted!

Back in HotLanta

After an overbooked flight and two delays, we finally arrived in Atlanta from D.C. six hours after we had planned. Could be worse, I suppose. At least we arrived here today.

We're in Atlanta from now until Thursday, then we're off to Italy. While I'm in town, I'm available for viewings from 2:00 until 6:00. Exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis. Brizmo and CDB, send me an email with your latest contact info. I'll see if I can shoot you one to initiate contact. Hit me at joel.springer AT hotmail.com. No nude photos, please.

Man Without a Country

It's been ten days since our last post. Some of you might think that since we're no longer Seoul residents, "Fillet of Seoul" might cease to be. You're partly right. We are planning on shutting down this blog and opening another to highlight our European adventure in Italy, but not yet. We're still in between houses right now; staying with Jessica's family in Maryland, then my parents in Georgia for another week before heading "over there".

We've been busy here, seeing the sights and local haunts. I've got some pictures from the Smithsonian and National Zoo, but I can't upload them yet because I don't have the camera cable necessary to dump them. I think my Dad has one in Georgia, so hold on to your butts.

We've been living out of a suitcase now since 28 September, when the movers packed up the last of our household goods and shipped them out. Today is Oct 18. You'd think we'd be used to being transient already, but it still hasn't happened. My biggest complaint is how the dumb suitcases take up so much space on the floor of the room where we're staying. If only I had some sort of wizard powers that allowed me to levitate the suitcases up off the floor and hover over each other. Then they wouldn't take up so much space and we wouldn't feel so trapped in the room all the time! I imagine that it would work something like this:

Now that's just a rough conceptual sketch; the actual magic bolts will look much cooler in real life. Anyone have an old wizard hat lying around?

Aidan's Birthday Marathon

Because we're traveling this year between Korea/US/Italy around Aidan's birthday, he's getting multiple parties at each location. Tonight was his Korean birthday/going-away party. Our friends Kat and Tyler hosted a little get together for his with cake, candles, and presents. Here's the guest of honor during the money shot.

SUMO!!!

Please read the above title with all three exclamation marks.

As rumored/promised in an earlier post, here's a video of some of the Sumo that we saw while in Japan in September. It's taken a while to put it up here because we've been homeless and computerless for a while, but thanks to Kat and Tyler and their computer, I managed to stitch this together a couple of days ago. It's only about a minute, and with no music or snappy editing, but I think it captures the essence of what was going on. Enjoy!

Leaving Country

Well, the time has finally come to bid farewell to Seoul and Korea. Jessica and I leave Korea next Tuesday U.S. bound. The year has flown by, which became immediately apparent when we checked into the same hotel that we checked into when we first arrived in country. We've got a nicer room this time, but other than that it's the same old hotel. To tell the truth, we don't really like staying here. I can't put my finger on it, but the hotel gives us a weird vibe. Not exactly like a "Shining" vibe, but in that vein. The hallways are strangely quiet and there's some unusual ambient noise that seems to be in every room, but you never seem to get any closer to it.

Oh, and there's a couple of creepy twin English girls that randomly appear in the corridors.

Tsukiji Fish Market

From our recent exploits in Tokyo.

Here's a slice of life from the largest fish market in the world.

The Office: Humor AND Wit

OK, I am totally gay for the Office and went to the NBC website to see when the new episodes start this year (since we have no commercials overseas). Make fun all you want, but at least I'm not this guy, who posted to the message board:

I am absolutely crazy about The Office!! it is HYSTERICAL!!! even though it is mostly humor, it still does have some wit. but 4 a comedy show, humor is better than wit, though there should always be some.
TheOfficeLover
August 30 - 10:07pm PT

Anyway- watch The Office! Thursday, September 21! Yay!

Banzai!

Back from Japan, and what a place!! We spent four days there and it was too short. Plus, the weather was poor (read:rain) for the days that we were there, but miraculously cleared up on the last day that we were there. Jessica was feeling under the weather for some of the trip, so that plus the rain plus a two year old cut a little into what we were able to due during our time there; however, we were able to hit some pretty cool stuff while we were there. For example:

• Saw the Imperial Palace
• Caught a Kabuki show
• Went to a sumo match
• Visited the world's largest fish market
  

Here's a quick picture tour from the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Our first stop was the Imperial Palace. Much like the White House, you couldn't really waltz up into the palace. They had a huge moat (50 feet wide at least) all around the castle. I thought it was a great way to keep the "undesirables" out. Maybe something to consider, George W.?


Next was the sumo match. Tickets were a little high, but we were there for hours and had pretty good seats. I'll throw a sumo video up to give you a taste of the action In the meantime, here some looks from the stadium. These flags are displayed out in front of the stadium and I think are the wrestler's banners. Colorful!

Here's a couple of the dudes squaring off for a match. When they touch their second hand to the ground, then the wrestlers start fighting. It was pretty intensive stuff.


On the last day, I went solo to the Tsukiji Fish Market, one of the largest in the world. I was there early at 6:00 AM to see the action. It was amazing. The place takes up probably three city blocks or more and is crammed with every thing that comes out of the sea that you can eat. The biggest thing there was the tuna, and it was huge. Most people think of tuna coming in a little can, but these monsters was huge. Have a look:


Those tuna are resting on one of those huge shipping palette. Each of them was probably 150-200 lbs each. And there were hundreds of them all around the market. While I was down there, I found a small sushi bar that had the best, freshest sushi I've ever had. Indescribably good.

If you get a chance, check out Japan. A little pricey, yes. But totally worth it the visit.

Toyko = Awesome

Also, Tokyo > Seoul.

More to follow.

Ice Age 2: Electric Bugaloo

So, we're here in Tokyo, and I am stuck in the hotel doing some school work for a couple of hours, and I'm watching The History Channel. A show comes on called "MegaDisasters: Mega Freeze," and I am immediately cynical; Aren't we supposed to be preparing for global warming? I better check it out- after all, it is "Violent Earth Week."
In the first ten minutes, I am BLOWN AWAY by what a hyperbolic "The Day After Tomorrow" piece of promotion work this show is. Apparently, it's going to get about 15-20 degrees colder "in the blink of an eye," changing our climate "like a light switch," resulting in a Northeastern U.S. and Western Europe that will be "a relic of what it once was." They use the uber-technical term "rapid climate change" to describe this, and list a "chain reaction of calamities" including Black Death, the American and French revolutions, canibalism, volcanic erruptions, the economic collapse of European countries (not named specifically, sorry), and more, all due to the weather dropping "a few degrees." Holy S!
Thankfully, we might only experience a temperature drop of only a few degrees- but with greater disasters! The graphic they show looks like the Sherwin-Williams logo, but with a can of "Decorator White" spilling over the top of the globe. Don't think you are safe in the south- you'll get floods, famine, hurricanes, and more. Get that boating license now, because this will all happen in "our lifetime," of course.
On a serious note, ahem... I am so frustrated by the climate change discussion. Which is it, we have brought ourselves to the brink of climate disaster, or we can change it by making minor lifestyle changes like driving hybrids? I just don't see how both are possible. Either we made a huge mess and need to make major changes accross the world to correct it, or it's not that big of a deal and we can affect the changes we do make with minor, simple changes like recycling and deciding what we want from the fride door before opening the door (an actual item from an Earth Day brouchure from our power company last year).
So, let's just clear up the confusion here, OK? I'm sure this blog attracts physicists, climate change experts, geologists, right? I'll take a Marine Biologist, if that's all we've got...anyone??

Enter the Dragon

Without looking ahead, can anyone guess what this is a picture of?

Aidan and I were cruising around Seoul killing some time on a Saturday. We pass a major intersection that usually has a fountain next to it. The fountain hasn't been running lately, or at least I haven't see it because I've been out of town for a couple of weeks. In its place, however, is a giant wicker dragon! And by giant, I mean on the order of four or five stories. The picture above is a close up of the undulating body. Here's a better side shot of the whole thing. Check out the kids sitting up on top.

That's not exactly to scale, as the dragon didn't dwarf the 30+ story buildings in the background. But it was huge. More importantly, it wasn't there three weeks ago. It's a temporary structure that was erected for some reason and will be taken down in the near future, I'd imagine.

Driving down the street and happening upon this giant dragon made of bamboo and steel skeleton, I couldn't help but being overcome by delight. As hackney as that sounds, it's true. How wonderful is it to be surprised by the extraordinary when you're not expecting it? After seeing this beast up close, I took some liberties to spruce it up a bit with Photoshop to make it a little more fantastic. Don't know about you, but I always thought dragons should be green.

Cricket Update

I'm back from my exercise in Korea. Good news: we won. We always do.

Some of you might remember the Crickets!! post from a few days back when I was talking about the cricket in my bathroom. If not, it's a few posts behind this one; take a look to refresh your memory. The cricket in that particular post had a distinct pattern to his song that I talked about there. This afternoon, I was parking the car in the parking garage and I heard another cricket with a different sound altogether.

Instead of the "chirp-chirp pause chirp-chirp" pattern that the other cricket had, this one played a continuous, droning chirp. Like a broken record. What's the deal with this cricket? Is he a more contented cricket? Or was the first one happier and this one the scared one? Or are the completely different species of crickets altogether, each with a distinct song? If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that the first cricket (aka toilet cricket) sounded under duress while the second cricket (aka garage cricket) seemed more at ease. But who's to say?

By the way, at Jessica's request this will be the last cricket post.

Athiests who are afraid of death- I have bad news for you

I know I've been making a lot of posts lately- can you tell I have important schoolwork I'm putting off?- but here is one more hilarious thing I found on another person's website, "Depression, Anxiety, and Worry - What Can an Atheist (Or Anyone Else) Do About Them?"
It basically lists anxious or depressive thoughts people might have, and compares the way a religious person and an athiest would handle those thoughts. I was scanning down the list when I saw this one:

4. Overcoming the fear of death
The religious solution
The Christian religion promises its followers eternal life. Death is merely a transition from living this life to living the next life. Our death in this world is the opening to a much more wonderful world in the afterlife.
The atheist solution
(under development)

Under development!! Haven't quite figured that one out yet, huh, Harvard scholar? It does seem to put a big black mark on your case for atheism, but I will certainly give you credit for unapologetically laying your shortcomings out there for all to see.

He also suggests an unusual remedy for feelings of anxiety:
"Next get a hammer and touch the cold metal to your bones: cheek bones in turn, forehead, nose, shoulders, hip bones, elbows, knees, ankle bones, and soles of the feet."

Hope you're not feeling anxious AND full of guilt or depressed with that hammer in your hands.

However, you just CAN NOT MISS this ridiculous, self-important tyrade he has posted against his daughter-in-law. The sheer amount of time and effort he put into writing this, without ever realizing how insane he is and how he should just let this go, is proof-positive why you should NOT believe anything on his other site. One of my favorite parts is when he thinks an article about a school shooting, in which bullying is named as a contributing factor in the episode, is relevant to his relationship with his daughter-in-law, by whom he feels bullied. Boo-hoo!!! She had better make up with you before you start wearing that black trenchcoat around school (by the way, he and his wife are teachers).

Maybe you want to checkout his other sites:
You Should Have Told Me - Home Hygiene and Home Routines
Health Tips: How to Prevent Hemorrhoids, Bladder Infections, and Heartburn
The Sherlock Holmes Diet - Losing Weight Naturally by Knowing How to Eat

Oh, if only there was some way to contact him...oh, yeah, there is: interlac@erols.com

For parents who can't afford those steep pageant fees

Clicking a link led me to a page that led me to this page: www.babyvsbaby.com
It's like "Am I hot or not: Baby Edition." I went through a few of the "battles," as they call them, and felt gross judging one baby over another, none of which were really that cute (let's just say there are no baby Gap modeling contracts in these kids' futures). If, on the other hand, you enjoy harshly judging children that aren't even old enough to consent to being put on public display, you will probably also enjoy clicking on the "Losingest Babies" section. Enough said.
On that note, let's take a look at Jbaby, the most losingest baby, located on the right.