Photojournalism begins at home

I now feel for Brittany Spears and the paparazi she has to deal with. As I mentioned, we got a new camera recently, which means that Joel has taken at least 100 dumb pictures, testing out all of the options and features, and just being silly. Almost all of them were of me doing routine things, so here is a sampling:

Putting away laundry is a photo event, right??

This next one will satisfy your curiosity about what I look like when I'm drinking water:

This is my "why are you doing this to me" face, as I'm taking a shower:

Still, who can be mad at this angel?

Back from the dead?

WOW, I can't believe it's been six weeks since our last post! Our camera broke, so that put a chill on things, but still...I guess we'll have to make up for it with some really awesome new posts. Right after this one, I promise. Ha ha!
In May we went to Chongduk Palace here in Seoul, in an effort to soak up some local culture before our move to Italy in the fall. We had seen one other Korean "palace," and were not really that impressed; this one did little to change our minds. However, there was a nice pond area:


Here is another picture of the main building of the palace:

It's kind of cool with all of the painting detail and peaked roofs such, but these are replicas of the actual buildings- the Japanese burned down what remnants were left of these old wooden buildings during WWII. Also, growing up with the image of Cinderella's castle created a very high expectation in me of what constitutes a "palace." Still, we had a good time walking around and had a wonderful lunch for under $15 for all of us at a noodle/sushi place around the corner. Can't beat that!

Worst...

Meka leka hi, meka hiney ho!

At the request of Jessica, I have returned the offending format back to its former glory. Your wish is granted. Long live Jambi!

When the cat's away...

When you make the promise to spend your life with someone, and share all that you have with one another, you take it for granted that the person with whom you make this unending contract will NOT hijack your blog and change the formatting and post pictures of you that had a definate verbal contract clarifying, "Not for the blog" and so on and so forth....My advice is to get something like that in writing.

So, anyway, we have been so busy, with our trip to Cambodia and me back in school. It was really unbelievable to see ruins that are so old, and on top of that, be able to climb all over them. Here is a picture of us at The Bayon, one of the temples:


We had such an awesome time, the whole trip lived up to all of our expectations. Speaking of awesomeness, it's official: we're moving to Italy in the fall!! Yay! Start making plans now to spend the holiest of Christmases with us and the Pope. We'll be there for three years, so no excuses.

The air here has been horrific; If you're not familiar with the Chinese Yellow Dust Menace, check this out. I will never complain about how bad the pollen is in the states ever again. On the plus side, it has been much warmer (although toxic) outside, inspiring us to plan more sightseeing trips and outdoor activities that should make good fodder for the blog. Keep in touch for a more regularly updated and action-packed blog in the near future.

Finally, if you've read our blog and thought, "if only there was a blog about what it's like to be a depressed teenage girl who does not have a strong grasp of the English language," and who hasn't, check this out.

Coolest Mask Ever... and Jessi-cat

Like I wrote in the last post, this weekend is Buddha's birthday. We were out yesterday near Insadong to checkout the festivities. There was a big parade with floats and lots of dudes banging drums and bells. I guess Buddha is into that scene. While I we were there, I picked up what is arguably the coolest mask I've ever seen. The Koreans have all kinds of masks that they use for traditional ceremonies and dances etc. Check these out:

My brother and I have been picking up strange masks ever since he found his illustrious "devil" mask in Mexico several years back. So we've both amassed a little collection since then, but the one that I scored yesterday blows them all away. Check out this monster:

Wow! Can you believe that!? I don't know if you can make out all the details on it, but there's a big dragon on the face, two over the eyes, and two other faces on top of the head over each eye. It was a little pricey, but where else are you going to find something like this?

On an unrelated note, Jessica was transformed today into "Jessicat". Luckily, I happened to have a video camera nearby to witness this startling metamorphosis. Behold:

Happy Birthday Buddha!

It's Buddha's Birthday this weekend. The old guy is celebrating his 2550th birthday this year. You know, I didn't think he was a day over 1999. (rimshot)

Here's a short video from a parade that took place yesterday in Seoul. I'm not sure who the green guy is or what he's supposed to be dancing about, but it made an interesting video. Enjoy.

Sorry Mario, but your Princess is in Another Castle...

I saw this story on digg this morning; don't know why, but it really caught my attention. Maybe it's because I'm secretly still a huge dork. It appears that some gallery in California is hosting a show where all the works are inspired by 80's era video games. Check out their preview gallery here. Really brings back some memories. I can't help laughing at the one called No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford. The way that he's dangling that remote, looking so dejected, is perfect.

Happy Birthday to Justin

We here at FilletofSeoul would like to wish Lil' Justin Springer a Happy Birthday. If you have a minute, send him an email and wish him one too. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.

In other news, many of you have noticed that there's a big blank space below that says "Map Test" with nothing there. Don't worry, you're not missing out on anything. I'm just trying something out and it's not cooperating. But when it does, oh boy, you're going to crap your pants.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone! Hope everyone is enjoying the arrival of spring and Easter. Aidan had a couple of pictures with the Easter Bunny. He was extremely excited about the guy in the bunny suit and another guy who was in a dog suit. I've never heard of the Easter bunny's helper, the dog, but I'm willing to expand my horizons.

Jeffrey Goines is Alive and Well

For those of you who aren't familiar with Jeffrey Goines, he's the crazy guy from "12 Monkeys" that wants animals to take over the world. I came across an article today that reviews a speech made by a "ecologist" at the Texas Academy of Science. The review is located here, and I recommend you take a second and give it a read. Don't worry, I'll wait.


All done? Good.

Does anyone else get a little worried when they read this article? Not only the idea that eboloa is evolving into an airborne variant that could wipe out 90% of the population, but that this crazy bastard is welcoming the apocalypse with open arms. How many more people share these kinds of ideas? And how many dedicated individuals would it take to bring something like this to fruition?

Hey, forget about the Islamic fundamentalists for a minute and take a look into this crazy S.O.B.'s activities. I hope that someone is keeping a close eye on Eric R. Pianka and what he's up to. And in the spirit of freedom of information, here's his email: pianka@mail.utexas.edu . Why not tell him what you think of his global extermination plan. Do it now, before he goes underground!


"Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

It's the Wiggle Waggle!

Hey Kids! Check out the latest dance craze that's sweeping the nation: the Wiggle Waggle!



Move over "the Twist" and "the Mashed Potato", there's a new kid in town and she's got all the hot moves. Let's hear it for the Wiggle Waggle!!

Shenanigans at RSOI

Well, it's happened again. No posts for almost a week, then Jessica and I hit you with back to back posts. Whammy! That's why this blog brings "the ruckus".

I'm still at an undisclosed location on the Korean peninsula, involved in a massive Army staff exercise. We're supposed to wrap up at the end of this week, but let's all hope for an early end to this misery. There's not a lot of things to get excited about during a staff exercise. There's very little "real world" pieces moving around out there; the vast majority of activity takes place in a giant computer simulation where "puckers" move little computerized tanks and troops around on a artificial battlefield. They're called "puckers" because they don't use a mouse, they use a "puck" which is like the controller that drafters use in CAD. Why it's called a puck, I don't know.

Anyway, the majority of my time here has been spent receiving requests to send fake helicopters to imaginary troops and deliver imaginary supplies. The real kick in the teeth is when you start to feel a sense of accomplishment because you got your fake request in the fastest and "made the mission happen". There is no mission. The order gets signed and a "pucker" moves a computer icon from one place to another. Hooray!

The nuttiest thing I saw during these two weeks of aggravation had to be the "Classified Three-hole Punch". There's an office across from ours in the compound that has three hole-punches sitting on a table next to each other. They're identical except that they're each painted a different color: industrial grey, bright blue, and deep red. It took me a second to realize what I was looking at. These were for punching holes in documents of different levels of classification. The grey was for unclassified, blue for classified, and red for secret. I guess that they didn't want the tiny little secret paper dots getting mixed up with the tiny little unclassified paper dots and making their way into the trash where a dastardly North Korean could find them and piece together something from that one letter "R" that he found. Of course it begs the question, how would he be able to discern the secret paper dots from the unclassified paper dots? I guess those guys are just that good.

The International Language of the Finger

I got the finger from an old Korean lady today. This is really shocking, for many reasons. First, I can't remember ever getting it "for serious" in the states, Home of the Finger. But here I am, 10,000 miles away, getting it from some dried up old hag who can't drive. Oh, yeah- I guess that's a BIG surprise- it was a driving-related incident. I won't go into the details, other than to say she pulled in front of me in an intersection, creating a gridlock situation for all four directions. I thre my hands up in an irritated gesture (but not the finger), which was so offensive to her that she stayed put even as other traffic moved, just to be in my way, and when I honked at her, she gave me the bird.
The second issue is that a Korean gave me the bird over a driving issue. I won't bore you with the standard "Koreans drive like maniacs!" line, but this is a place where motorcycles drive on the sidewalks and old people pull carts like horses in the street, right in the middle of the lane like they are a car. Here is a picture of a guy with a cart I stole from another website that looks to be a photojournal of Korea. Just picture this guy in a lane on a highway:

Also, how does she even know about the finger? I did't think it was a universal signal, but I guess it's just one more American culture export we are so kind to share with the world. Go USA!!

Know when to walk away/Know when to run

Day Four of the exercise has come and gone, and the sun now sets on the Korean peninsula. Wonderful. Another day closer to ending this Exercise in Futility. Get it?!? I'm in an exercise, and it's and exercise in futility! Huh? Nothing?

Anyway, the majority of my time down here has been spent working out and playing cards. Your tax dollars at work! The guys that have been working down here have been the IT guys. They've been scrambling to fix everyone's internet, phone, VTC etc. And it's been a challenge. Two solid days of working on getting everyone straight, and it's still not quite right. But pretty standard for the Army. If they get it at a 70% fix, we'll work around that.

Before I sign off, I'd like to share a little nugget of fun with you. I'm currently on a shared computer in a Cyber Cafe on the installation. When I logged on to check my hotmail, the name of the previous user was still in the log in screen. It was lonewolfhunter@hotmail.com . Lonewolfhunter?? Are you kidding me? Who could take themselves seriously and enter that as email? I guess lonehunter and wolfhunter were both taken. Why not drop 'ol lonewolfhunter a message when you get a chance? I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. 'Snarf!

It stinks, and I don't like it.

Another exciting entry today. It's been over a week since the last post, but I don't want everyone to think that we've forgotten about you. Today I'm posting from an undisclosed location on the Korean peninsula where I'm currently involved in a training exercise that rivals all others in the amount of downtime that I have.

Yes, I'm talking about RSOI. For those uninitiated into the ways that the Army works on the Korean peninsula, I'll give you a quick rundown. If the North Koreans choose to attack S. Korea and the "balloon goes up", the U.S. Army will quickly mobilize a bunch of forces onto the peninsula in support of the operation. Part of my job will be overseeing their Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration. Hence, RSOI. Basically getting them off the plane/ship and into the fight in the least dicked up way possible. That, at least, is the goal.

So every year, the U.S. forces on peninsula come together and practice what it would be like for all these forces to arrive and how we would best deal with them and move them out to where they need to be. However, we do all this with no actual forces involved. Thousands of grown adults pretending imaginary forces are coming on ships and planes into theater, then unloading their imaginary baggage, then pretending to move across country to an imaginary battle that is not taking place. It's like the worlds most involved Dungeons & Dragons game with tanks instead of swords and wizards. I call it dorked up.

My biggest problem right now is convincing myself to "get into the role" of the exercise. I can't seem to get past the fact that it's so artificial and that no actual soldiers are moving around or helicopters inserting troops anywhere. It's fake. There's people that are thinking up "problems" that will happen during our time here so we can "solve" them and feel good about "overcoming an adversity". Am I using too many "quotes"? "Sorry".

Anyway, I would like to send you some pictures of the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) floor, because that is pretty cool. There's a giant 50'x20' video display that streches across the front of the floor. It's surrounded on both sides by four 50" flatscreen displays. Then on the floor are rows of desks with mics on them and a camera that automatically zooms onto your face when you speak into the mic. It's the kind of stuff that you see in the movies when they show the secret military underground command post. The only difference is that this place has a lot better lighting than in the movies. Also, no smoking. But other than that, pretty close.

I'll write again should any shenanigans take place here in the next week or so. But don't hold your breath.

Inside Karl's Head

This isn't really a Joel and Jessica post. It's actually an ol' blogging trick that I have gleaned recently. Here's the tip: see what's "hot" in news/entertainment, mention it a couple of times in your blog, and hope that the Google search picks it up and sends some readers your way.

So, Jessica and I have been enamored with the Ricky Gervais podcast over the last couple of weeks. He has a free 30-minute podcast over on iTunes that you can download for free. There's about 6 episodes that are up there right now. They are really really funny and I suggest that you check them out if you haven't already. By the way, assist to Justin for turning me on to them.

Most of the show is focused around Gervais and his buddy Steven Merchant "probing" into the mind of their producer Karl Pilkington. Karl Pilkington may be one of the most unusual characters in radio. He's a little bit of an idiot savant of comedy. I don't think anything he does/says is intentional, but it's really funny stuff. Here's a picture of Karl, by the way.

However, there is a little bit of a stir in the world of Gervais and Pilkington. As I said before, the podcast up to this point has been a free download on iTunes. But the honeymoon has ended, and now Gervais is charging $1.99 for each new episode. But this is apparently not kosher with the throngs of people that made Gervais' podcast the "most downloaded podcast" in the world. Many people have rejected the notion of dropping two bucks for a half-hour, non-video podcast. I half to kind agree with them. The shows were funny, but $2 funny? I think I'll wait for the bitTorrent to come out.

Hawaii: Not Just for Elvis Anymore

I'm a little stressed this week, as I'm still trying to recover from our vacation to Hawaii, so don't look for any cleaver comments in this post, just vacation photos. And poor sentence structure.

One of the first things we did was go on a hike through what I guess I can call a tropical rain forest to a waterfall. At the top of the mountain, we stopped to take a couple of pictures:

Between the five adults, we brought two video cameras and two still cameras, one of which was also capable of taking video, and three cell phones. Ah, to be away from it all!!

Surprisingly, we had the beach to ourselves, for the most part. Here is Aidan enjoying the lonely water at Waikiki Beach:

We didn't breathe in Hawaii unless Frommer's recommended it, thanks to Justin's careful research, although I found several of the activities "so last year":

In case you didn't get that joke, it's a 2005 copy of Frommer's Hawaii. Ha ha, I'm hilarious.

After Justin left, we really had fun! Friday, we climbed Diamondhead-here I am at the top, with the crater behind me.

Of course, it's a different experience hiking with a 30-lb weight on your back:

After a week, we felt like natives. Here I am trying to blend in:

Joel took it a step further:

It was especially nice for us to be able to go with babysitters- I mean, family. Here we are at the hotel:

All in all, it was an awesome trip. I just encourage everyone to go now, while it's still "indie," before everyone finds out about this new 50th state. Hope you all enjoy the pictures and aren't too jealous. By the way, Tab, how about some of the Caymans??

Aidan Kaufman

I know, two posts in one day. It's like it's your birthday or something. This will probably blow my load for the week, so enjoy.

In the past, it's been pointed out that my younger brother Justin bears a resemblance to the late comedian Andy Kaufman. Personally, I didn't see it. But that's me.

Well, the mantle has apparently been passed to the next generation. My own son, Aidan, has recently appeared in some photographs looking suspiciously like Mr. Kaufman. Let's see that side-by-side comparison. First, Andy then Aidan.

Well, the jury is out. There is a contingent on the Interweb that insist that Andy Kaufman lives. They are generally creepy and too cryptic for this guy. Perhaps Aidan is the reincarnation of Andy? If you have a minute, drop a comment on whether you think Aidan looks like Andy. We'll tally the votes and post the winning opinion. Happy posting!

Not-So-Super Friends

While we were in Hawaii last week, Jessica went to a swap meet/flea market and bought Aidan a set of toys. It was a set of six for $8; pretty good deal, I thought. Granted, they were not "officially licensed" toys. Just a bunch of made in China knockoffs. But at $8, can't really expect too much.

Anyway, we got them back to the hotel room and showed them to Aidan, who promptly went ape-shit over them. He's been in a little bit of a Batman phase. Every superhero that he sees he calls "Batman". But he gets exceptionally excited over actual Batman stuff.

So he tears into the toys and starts playing around with them. Nothing too extreme, just the kind of treatment that you'd expect a two year old to deal to toys. Within minutes, Batman lost his first arm. We were a little surprised that he didn't last a little longer. But before we could dwell too much on it, Spiderman lost a leg. And it just continued from there.

The toys stayed with us for the rest of the trip and on the plane ride back to Korea, but they were not without casualties. Here's a line up of the previously Dynamic Sextet:



As you can see, only the Thing and Mr. Incredible have survived with all limbs intact. I credit their superhuman strength and non-articulated knees and elbows. But the real tragedy is Superman. Have a closer look:



Both arms, one leg and a head. He got hit harder than Christopher Reeve. Boo-ya!