Manifestation of the Buddha of Compassion, my ass

I went to the library to get a book on CD to put onto my iPod, because who reads these days, and I picked up one called "How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships" by the Dalai Lama. Knowing nothing about Buddhism, yet living in a Buddhist country, I thought I would make myself more culturally aware and expand my philosophical horizons. Plus, the English-language radio station here stinks.

However, this book (or the electronic recording of it, anyway) is just cwazy. I guess everyone's religion looks insane from the outside- virgin birth, anyone?- but assertions like my thoughts today can affect other people's past and future lives "in all worlds" were too much for me. I am just too much of a pragmatist to believe my thoughts are able to engage in time-travel. I am also opposed to meditating that "all sentient beings" be born into future lives with "good physiques." What, do bugs need to put that in their personal ads?

Maybe I am being too hard on him. It seems like he is going through a rough time- look at this must-be-true info I got off Wikipedia:
The current Dalai Lama has repeatedly stated that he will never be reborn inside ... of China, [and] occasionally suggested that he might choose to be the last Dalai Lama by not being reborn at all. However, he has also stated that the purpose of his repeated incarnations is to continue unfinished work and, as such, if the situation in Tibet remains unchanged, it is very likely that he will be reborn to finish his work. ... It is also worth mentioning that the 14th Dalai Lama has stated "Personally, I feel the institution of the Dalai Lama has served its purpose."

China, you've made the Dalai Lama, possibly the most peaceful man on earth, so pissed he's threatening to refuse to be reborn! Of course, he MUST be, so ...I guess he will... but not under YOU and your oppressive government! Take that!

In researching this blog post (yeah, can you believe I do that?) I did read a lot of sensible, thought-provoking quotes he has made about peace and self-control, so maybe I just got his "Spaghetti Incident" instead of his "Appetite for Destruction." Use your own judgment.

Crickets!!!

I'm in a crappy "computer lab" here in Korea. I'm being rushed out because there's people waiting and "everyone gets a turn". Take a long walk of a short pier, I say.

Anyway, this has been bugging me for the last two days and I didn't get a chance to write about it for a while. There's a cricket in my bathroom. He's been there for two days now. Chirping. Today I thought he was dead or moved on because he was quiet this morning; but this evening he's back at it again.

Originally, he annoyed me. I just wanted to brush my teeth and use the crapper in piece. Instead I'm assaulted by this chirp-chirping. I toyed around with trying to hunt him down and shmoosh him, but I was rushed in the AM and he got a reprieve. Then yesterday I was taking a shower and I stopped to listen to his chirp.

Chirp-chirp.

Chirp-chirp-chirp-chirp.

Chirp-chirp-chirp.

There seemed to be a rhythm or pattern emerging. I didn't hang out long enough to empirically capture the pattern of the chirps, but there seemed to be a couple of consistancies. First, the chirps came in bursts, followed by a pause. Second, they came in groups as short as two, but no longer than six. Third, the three chirp burst seemed to be the most frequent.

This had me thinking: is this really some short of cricket language? Is it preposterous to place a label like "language" on what could very well be a series of random cricket sounds that have no underlying meaning? Maybe I'm not qualified enough to make that assessment. But it does beg the question that if this is a cricket language, then what is the cricket trying to say?

Is he scared? Unfamiliar with his surroundings and in a strange world, is he pleading to other crickets out to help lead him back to a more hospitable place? Maybe he's trying to call other crickets to him. Maybe finding my bathroom is the best thing that can happen to a cricket. It's damp, there's plenty of food lying about in the trash, there's no birds flying about trying to snatch you up in their beaks. Could be worse, I suppose.

However, the pragmatist in me thinks that the chirps probably don't amount to anything sophisticated enough to call a language. They may have meaning, but not in the same way that we understand language. I guess that sucks some of the fun out of the idea of the cricket language, but I think it's still a novel idea.

So there.

Name Game

Things are finally coming to a close here on my little trip away from home. We should wrap up on Friday, but I won't be coming home until Saturday. Stinks.

On a lighter note, I've got a small collection of funny Army names that I've noted while I'm down here that I wanted bring to your attention. In the military, you run across many names that, when paired up with the appropriate rank, suddenly become a big ha-ha. These are actual people that work around me in the Army, for those that are curious about whether I'm just spouting off names.

The first one is Major Risk. She's a medical planner and verges on paranoid. The name doesn't necessarily describe her to a T. It'd be better if she was some sort of reckless pilot-type.

Next is my personal favorite: Colonel Sanders. This one probably needs no explanation, but whenever I see him I can't help but think of the line from Spaceballs. "What's the matter Colonel Sanders? Chicken?"

The last one is maybe a little inappropriate for our younger readers. It's Major Wood. As in, "Watch out, that team has Major Wood." Har-de-har-har.

Well, that's all I got. I'll keep me eye out for more. Until then.

Jessica's Funny Comment

Jessica is sad that she doesn't get the responses to her blog posts that I sometimes do. She was telling me this the other night on the phone. She made a pretty funny comparison about her posts and my posts. She says:

"I write interesting stories and put up pictures about Korea and our adventures here, and I get no response. I pour out my heart and get nothing back. You write a post saying 'Hey, I had an awesome poot today!' and someone responds with 'Dude, remember that awesome poot you did that one time!?!' "

There's only response I can have to that: Hey, I had an awesome poot today!

This is Gay

Well, I'm not sure if this is gay or super dorky. Either way, I lose. But you're the one who's reading my blog, so what's that say about you? Bottom line is, let's not point fingers here and just look at the damn picture:

If you don't recognize what this is supposed to be, don't fret. You might not be a nerd. If you do, my condolences. This is supposed to be a real-life Firefox from the web-browser by the same name. Here's their logo:

I saw this link off Digg, so I can't take full credit. They, in turn, lifted it from a website called (sit down for this one) ThingsThatMakeYouGoAhh.com. Unbelievable what some people have time to write about on their blogs. *cough* irony *cough*

Is this dorky? Yes. Gay? Probably. Blog-worthy? Why not?

Wasting Away in Korea

Another day in Korea, twiddling my thumbs while I wait out my sentence during this training exercise. The count-down has already begun in the barracks. "11 days and a wake up," is what some of the veterans to this thing have started saying. That's really twelve days left, but you don't count the last one as a whole day because you'll be back in your own bed that night.

I didn't get any replies to my request for "Snakes on a Plane" reviews in my last post, but Brizmo made a comment that brought back some memories of an idea that I had kicked around back in high school. It's the "20 Year Movie". A quick Google search shows that, so far, no one else has concocted this idea across all known civilization. Here's the run-down:

Through some Deus Ex Machina mechanism, Earth is provided with a 20 Year Movie. It could come from some alien race, time travelers, Jesus, it really doesn't matter. What does matter is that this movie takes 20 years of solid, dedicated viewing to watch all of it. We're talking 2-3 hours of daily viewing, 7 days a week. It's enough so that it requires a serious time commitment on your part. The good news is that this will be, definitively, the best movie of all time. Assume that the otherworldly mechanism that introduced the movie also has a supernatural talent for plot and storyline. It'll be better than Citizen Kane, the Godfather, Star Wars, etc. It's really good. The down side is that you can't miss a day of watching. You have to be committed; all in or out. If you miss a day, you can't "catch back up" on the story. You will not be allowed to view any more of the 20 Year Movie under any circumstances.

So the question is: would you watch the 20 Year Movie?

Drop a comment and let me know your stance. Happy viewing.

Snakes on a Plane Arrives!!

I'm so excited. The world premiere of "Snakes on a Plane" is finally here!

Oh, wait.

I'm in Korea, and in some dumb exercise where I don't have any access to a movie theater.

Shit.

But that doesn' t have to mean that I can't take part in the hype over this Academy Award shoe-in. (or is it shoo-in? not sure) Take a look over at the dude from Snakes on a Blog. He's spent almost a year plugging this movie and got some pictures from the premiere in Hollywood. From the 41+ comments at the bottom of his entry, I'm guessing people enjoyed it.

Let's take a look over at Rotten Tomatoes and see what they have to say. Holy crap!! While the snooty critics only gave the film 76% (still not too shabby), the users have stepped up and given the film 96%!!! Some of the choicer comments include:

The greatest movie of all time? It's up there.

and

This movie makes Titanic look like Gigli

So it's pretty clear that the people love it. But what about you, our dear readers? Please tell me someone out there has had the pleasure of seeing this movie? If so, how was it? I'll review your reviews and post the best one.

Welcome, Visitors!

No one really goes to each other's apartment here in Seoul. In the (almost) year I've been here, I've been to four other apartments, one of which is in my building and barely counts. Am I a social pariah, or is there something bigger at work here? Hmmm....

I guess part of the reason might be that the streets don't really have names the way they do in the states- small roads have no name at all, and big ones include a number, signifying which "section" of the road a place is located. Of course, what constitutes a "section" is entirely subjective. Nor are addresses in order- they are determined by the order in which the buildings were built. So, the addresses might be 100, 540, 32, if those were the 100th, 540th, and 32nd buildings on that street. Awesome!

Business cards almost always include a map showing the location of the store. Directions always include colorful remarks like, "go over the Bampo Bridge, but take the bottom bridge. Make a left at the big twisted tree in the middle of the road. At the second Starbuck's, turn right into an alley. I'll wait for you there to get you the rest of the way." These are helicopter pilots- navigators by trade- that rely on running outside to a landmark in order to get someone into their building.

Once you do find the building, there are still more hurdles to cross. Most buildings here have security gates that require a pass to get in. Without one, you must call the guard, explain who you are and who you are visiting, and hope they raise the gate. Here are the instructions posted at the parking garage in our building:
Maybe it's not me after all...

From an Undisclosed Location

For those of you waiting for the "exciting conclusion" of my fight movie, you'll have to keep waiting. I'm currently on location at an undisclosed location somewhere on the Korean peninsula participating in a classified military exercise. How many blogs can truthfully make that statement? Probably 50? Could be a little bit more than that...

Needless to say, I don't have my camera with me or the ability to film anything even if I did have it. So you'll just have to wait. I'll put the idea together, then film and cut it when I get back.

So many crazy things have been happening down here, but I can't tell you about any of them. Truth be told, if I did lay them all out here, you'd probably ask yourself, "What's the big deal?" And you'd probably be right. But rules are rules.

I've been trying to think of some sort of promotion to cook up in order to bring some audience participation into the blog. I've got a couple of ideas, but they're too nebulous right now. While that may come as a huge disappointment to many of you, I offer this pledge: I'll give the idea some serious thought tonight and present my findings tomorrow. Just be prepared to step up with your input. Especially considering that we're reaching, and this is just a wild estimation, tens of readers out there.

Until tomorrow.

I'm ready for my close-up

If you haven't guessed it already, I've been on a film making kick lately. Here's my latest. It utilizes advanced "green screen" technology. Unfortunately, I didn't have a good plan of what was going to be my end product when I was filming it, so the story is a little lacking. And the ending is non-existent. But other than that, it's pretty sweet. Enjoy.

What it's like to have a two-year old

I have one kid. A two-year old named Aidan. And he's just one boy, but sometimes he gives me a run for my money. Like today. It's Saturday, so Jessica's at work until 4:00. That's a Saturday of Aidan and I hanging at the house, trying to keep occupied. But sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Aidan had two twin brothers. What would that be like? Hmmmm...






Well, at least they're all sitting still.

A Tale of Two Jessicas

I've been playing around with the editing software that I have on my computer. Last week, I just finished our Cambodia video that I've been hacking together for about two weeks. It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that the program is crazy-technical and I'm just learning "the ropes".

Anyway, here's an example of the kind if things that I'm figuring out in the program. Behold! Twin Jessicas!!





Yeah, it's not that impressive now that I look at it. It was mainly just an exercise that I did to see if it was possible. Pretty realistic though. I'll start to show clips from the Thailand and China trips as I get to them. Stay tuned!

Japan Richtlinien!!

Ahhh, Japan. Joel and I are in the planning stages of our final Asian trip- Tokyo. A friend of mine recommended a site listing some flea markets in the area. A hop and a jump from there, I found the site of Graniph, a t-shirt store.
Although it is old hat to comment about "the wacky Japanese" and their use of poor English, I was NOT prepared for their love of the German language. I don't speak it, but using the power of the internet, I translated a few to mean "sleep model" and "the future is their." Like the future belongs to them, or the future is over there?? Check them out for yourself- some are oddly listed under the heading, "French Tshirt."
One of the most disturbing designs is this drawing of a young topless girl with a devil tail poking out of a hole in her panties. Even as a line drawing, she looks criminally young- it's probably a violation of Megan's law to wear it in public.
Finally, here's a shirt for those of you fascinated by elongated hexagons: