Weather

So there's nothing much to report.  It's currently -14 degrees in Seoul, which means about -8 here.  I'm making some burgers for a midnight snack.

It's the New Year.

Happy New Year everyone.

...

That's just about it.

I found a picture that sums Korea up nicely.

The Reasons Why I Haven't Posted

My boss made me do some bullcrap pointless work that's now, not five days after being implemented (that took two months to finish), been taken down.  This is reason number one as to why I've not been posting.

This then gave way to a fierce sickness.  That's reason number two.

My laptop mysteriously stopped accessing the internet, but still allowed me access to skype.  Reason number three.

These three reasons cover the past three weeks of zero posting.

Now, for the past few days I've slept terribly.  In normal human beings, being insanely tired would lead to a good nights sleep somewhere along the line.  Obviously, being the human freakshow that I am, I'm not allowed to sleep.  It's Christ knows when in the Christ knows when, and I can't sleep.  So the photos I uploaded Christ knows when go another few days without being illustrated.  Obviously illustrated is the wrong word, but I don't know what the correct word is.

When you have a picture and you write words to describe the picture, or what's happening within the picture.  Like illustrating a narrative, but in reverse.  I don't know what it's called.

The particularly frustrating thing is, I obviously do know what the word is, I just can't access it.  Being stupid is one thing, forcibly becoming stupid due to inherent genetic deficiency is quite another.  Ignorance is only bliss when it's not optional.

Another fantastic thing is that I went to the gym today.  I'm physically exhausted, and due to crappy sleep for the past few days, mentally exhausted.  The good news is that because I went to the gym I ache.  I ache really badly.  The fantastic news is that my exhaustion and fatigue have left me with no apetite, so my body has nothing to repair itself with.  This will lead to me aching for the next few days instead of hours, as it should be.

This physical and mental self-destruction is a generally fantastic way to go about life, and I  recommend everyone deprive themselves of sleep and food as I have.  I foresee it becoming the next fad diet.  It's all the more beneficial if a third party forces it upon an unwitting subject without knowledge or consent.  I find it all the more effective this way.

I can't wait to relapse into illness again, because the system shock of zero food and sleep makes my body shut down.  Yay, a solid month of undoing all the gym-work, fitness and health I've cultivated up to now.  Woo hoo.

This is one of the few times I will say this.  This post will have spelling mistakes, punctuation errors and grammatical anomalies.  I do not care.  I defy anyone to write in this condition and make sense.

The Wedding

So we had to get up extremely early in order to go to this wedding.

We were up at around 10 AM!

Unbelievable right?

When we arrived the bride was waiting in a small room.  She was already doled up and looking rather nervous.

On a side-note, the venue we were in consisted of four separate wedding areas.  Are they chapels?  I don't know.

Each area had two weddings, totaling eight.  I don't know how much each wedding cost, but I think it's a fair assumption that they make an awful lot of money!

On a personal note, I rather like this picture.  This is the groom (is that how you spell it?  I've never read about, willingly listened to or thought  about a wedding before, so I've not a single clue about wedding terminologies.) amid the sea of chaos that is his wedding.

I'd never met either of them before, but they're awesome.  (I went with Amanda, who knew the bride from her previous job.)

I don't know what the groom is looking at *ahem*.

The man in the picture is the official photographer.

I was the unofficial photographer.

I wanted to show you the camera he was holding, and at some stage link the camera I was using.  Serious penis envy.

I wanted to get in close for this picture, but then you miss the psychadelic background and their literally perfect attire.

I know people go to all kinds of trouble to get the perfect look for their wedding, but jees, this must have taken hours to put on.

Not the hair though, Koreans love making their hair look like this every day.  (It's the same with the Japanese!)

There were some obligatory cutesy photographs.

Interestingly they both work with foreigners, I believe teaching English (don't quote me on that) so their views are quite progressive.

Therefore this display of Asian cute was rather embarrassing for all involved, but I guess the real photographers picture was good enough.

If I had access to a computer with some kahoonas I would edit the following orange images, levelling the colour balance and making them substantially less orange.

On the flip side, I enjoy these pictures because of the way in which their standing, and general composition.

I took a few different shots at different zoom levels to try and find what worked best.

The further out you go with the zoom, the more distorted things look.  This is obvious (look at the crazy toppling buildings you see with small numbers on your own cameras!) in theory, but leads to some complicated effects in practice.  I guess the difficulty comes in knowing when to use these different properties and when not to.

Another shot with Amanda and the bride.

I probably should have placed them both central - something I could do in post using any photo editing software.

If only I had a computer!

Now this is the real reason I agreed to take photographs!

Korean hanbok (sp?) is the traditional clothing in Korea.  Unlike Japan however, you rarely, if at all, see people wearing them.  Just like Japan they're extremely expensive; unlike Japan they're somewhat plainer albeit more frilly.  To clarify, I mean plainer colour wise.)

After talking to the bride for a few minutes, I realised what this recessed cave actually was.

It's a picture frame!

This would work a little better if your eye wasn't immediately pulled through the illusion to whomever is sitting inside; as the frame requires a wider perspective.

Nice idea though!

Being forced to sit for hours on end must be tedious; but there were no shortage of people on hand to ensure not a single strand of hair was misplaced.

I'm serious.  It was immaculate.  Perfect.  Whenever a hair fell out of place, three people jumped up to correct it.

Having never been to a wedding myself, this was the first time I'd seen the procession.  (Is it called that?  I honestly don't know)

I'm not entirely sure what was happening, but someone (presumably her dad?) walked with the bride to the altar, a lot of talking was done, and then everyone left.  (There were a number of photographs taken not including the man and wife.)  (I assume they're man and wife at this point, and not simply bride and groom?)

This was the best part!

The food was pretty nice, but I was forbidden from taking the free beer that was on offer home.  It was three PM, and I simply couldn't stomach the thought of drinking then; so I wanted to take a few bottles (that no one else was drinking either) home.  I was told off.

I wasn't told off by staff or bouncers or anyone official - but by my date.  How very galling.

In a random segway, here is a woman on the wii fit.

We went Christmas shopping after the wedding, and they were advertising the wii fit.

I've seen this thing in four different countries now, and the buxom wenches always wear the same thing.

I wonder if they ship the clothes around the world to save buying new ones for all the people who do displays for them.

She wasn't exactly enthralled by her positions as head performer of monotonous tasks, but she was good.

Really good.

How good?

See if you can do the 'stand on one leg while bringing your other leg up to your chest and holding it there for five seconds,' routine and get a score this good.

I defy anyone to.

Above:  A random building that looked cool, lit up like that.

This is a random picture I took of Amanda looking out of the window on the bus.  The  bus ride was looooooooong, so there was tons of time to mess around taking pictures and generally annoying the Koreans - who think it's a national crime for a Korean person to date a foreigner.

Interestingly, she's not Korean.  The dumbass Korean folk can't see outside of their little country though, and assume everyone who looks asian is Korean.  Statistically speaking, they're more likely to be chinese.

Learn some maths please, Korea.

This is the disfigured cake that was eaten afterwards.

There should be an extra ear and paw, but I got hungry and started eating.

I was rather enamored with this particular cake, hence the multitude of pictures.

The pink tasted like strawberries!

 

And finally a picture of the happy couple and an intruding presence.  They changed from their wedding garb to these matching, traditional  hanbok in record time.  I'm told that some weddings can necessitate four or five clothing changes, depending on which religion(s) they're choosing to observe.  I suppose your best bet is to always appease as many gods as possible; especially with divorce rates being what they are now.

Latest

So I've not been able to update my blog for the last week or so, because  I've been incredibly busy.  I've also missed going to the gym.  I'm also sick.  I've busted my ass off doing my boss favours, like building a basic website for the english department, and making videos of the kids so we actually look like more than a ragtag bunch of chancers.

Being the only idiot willing to do this hasn't paid off, as she cancelled a half day (a week ago) tomorrow.  When asking her why she promised us a half day that she had no intention of keeping (it turned out that this full day seminar was planned three months ago) I was labelled ungrateful and told that many other teachers don't get breaks over Christmas.

I should, apparently, be grateful that I now have to sit in a crowded minibus with five people I loathe for two hours on the way to some god-forsaken place in the ass-end of nowhere, to look at a couple of books.  Then spend an hour travelling to the outer recesses of the ass end of nowhere to watch a half an hour class demonstration, to then travel three hours back to the literal arse-hole of nowhere (Geoje).  It turns out, the one nice Korean person; the person who I'd assumed everyone that I hadn't met in Korea was like, is actually abhorrent too.

Some countries have no redeeming qualities.  I give up.

I hate Koreans.  I hate Korea.

There I said it.  War is probably the best thing these morons can hope for.

Just start it when I'm not here, please.

Wow that actually makes me feel a lot better.  Maybe I can make it through the thirteen hour day tomorrow by repeating that phrase over and over to myself.  Or maybe I can play table tennis halfway through the day, to give me some energy?

You Son of a Bitch

So let me regail you with a short story.

This happened not long ago, in a land far away.  (This land happens to begin with a k and rhymes with diarrhoea).

I was playing table tennis, when a Korean arrived.  I suggested we play together, and he beat me two full sets.  The first was decided, 21-19.  The second 26-24 (roughly speaking; a number of extra points were played).  I decided I'd had enough, so proceeded to annihilate him, 21-10.  Having agreed to play five games/sets, he valiantly decided to call it a day, and left the table.  He didn't say a word, put his bat back or the ball.  He just left.

Asshole.

Although he won more games, I completely destroyed him mentally - and, afterall; isn't making new friends what internationalisation is all about?

(He was good at table tennis though, I'll give him that.)

(And he took about five forehand smashes to the face, so fair play to him for lasting that long.)

When People Mention Room Temperature

So I was reading an article about one of the attributes of quartz crystals being their relative indifference to room temperature; i.e they don't change shape much when room temperature changes.  I looked over to my thermostat and it's currently 11 degrees celsius in my room.

I didn't even realise that I'd forgotten to take my coat off after work.  Whoops.

So Much Table Tennis

So we met a Korean down the gym today.  He plays amazing table tennis.

Essentially he kicked the two Korean guys (who we were playing) off the table and started kicking us all over the table.  I played him to eleven twice, the first time I got two points, the second time I got seven.

This isn't a fair indication of our relative abilities, he was infinitely better than us.

He then proceeded to berate us, throwing all kinds of shots at us, telling us to forehand topspin everything back to him.  At first I thought it was arrogance, simply showing that he was better than us.  After half an hour of beating the orange from the ball though, I realised he was just training us.  My partner left, leaving me to continue battering the ball for another forty minutes.

As a result, I now have an extremely competent (and powerful) forehand topspin.  There's also an extremely discoloured matte part of my bat, on the forehand side.

If I can work on my backhand topspin, I think I'll be a force to be reckoned with.

The way my colleagues play is short and finicky, so we don't get much chance to practice the long game; so this was a refreshing change of pace.

A nice Korean! (Kind of)

Never Before Seen

So here are a few never before seen pictures that I've taken on the island.  They're all random ones taken with a colleagues phone.  Until now they've been unaccesible.

 This is from my ill-fated attempt at american football.

The particularly frustrating thing is that it wasn't ill-fated because of me; but because Koreans are Koreans, and there's no helping that.

 This is me in the gym the other day.  There's a video to go with this picture, but it's temporarily unavailable.

That's 280Kg's on the machine, in case you're wondering.

(7*20Kg weights on either side.)

 And this is on the extension phase of the above exercise.

My aim is for 300 Kg's.  By next week.

The local cake shop had this in their store.  I was a little bit too large to fit behind it, to properly fit my head inside (a small child came up afterwards and showed me that it was certainly intended for tiny people) but the effect is equally ridiculous, either way.












I love how all the Christmas stuff in that particular shop says, 'you are not alone.'

They're either fearing alien attack, or loneliness.

5Km Run, Cancelled

It turns out the deadline for the 5Km run application was at the beginning of the week.  Due to some crazy stuff that happened in the office, my boss wasn't able to spare the time to complete the application.

I was up to 4.25 Km at 13 Km/h.  This equates to a substantially lower speed when not on a treadmill.

I was sad that I couldn't participate, so I bought myself a gingerbread man shaped cake.  Alas, I have no camera on hand to take the picture, so you'll have to imagine it.  It's Christmas themed, with a bread cane, earmuffs  and a little present (also some kind of bread product) underneath.  It has a delirious smile.

In other news, it's rather cold now.  No snow, as of yet (I think England wins on the cold and snow front right now) but I'm hopeful.

5KM in Under Twenty Five Minutes

So as of a few days ago, I'm invited to a 5KM event, marking the creation of a new bridge linking the island to Busan.

It will open at the weekend, and I have had the past few days to train for the event.

My aim is to run the 5KM in 25 minutes or less.

The only problem is, I don't know what my average speed should be.  I went balls out on the treadmill, only to fail at 3.75 KM.  It later transpired that my pace would have put me in a sub-twenty minute zone, should I have succeeded.

I therefore need the internets to work out what my average pace should be.

One man, a weeks training and ten thousand won.

Can he do it?  Only time will tell.

The Korean Logic

So I play internet games at lunchtime while I relax, eating super noodles or the like.  This has been frowned upon by my boss; not because I'm playing games at lunchtime (it's time off afterall) but because the guy sitting next to me has taken my doing so to mean that it's okay to play games throughout the day, instead of working.

Now, he obviously a moron, but there's more.

My boss asked me to refrain from playing games at lunchtime in order to stop this other idiot playing games.  I said I would stop, with no intention of doing so.  Without any warning however, my boss has decided to cut off my internet, in order to send a message to the moron on my left.

In what universe does that make a lick of sense?

Only in the universe inhabited solely by Korea.

The Ice-Cream Cake to End All Cakes

 I'm going to start this miniature edition of the blog with an extremely cute dog.

Some of you may be wondering why I chose this mini dog.  It's extremely cute, but cute counts for little in my world; why the dog Sam?

 Well the dog has some internal assets that no other ice-cream cake in the shop possessed.

Firstly, it was one of the largest.  This isn't necessarily apparent in the photo, but the spherical dome and cylindrical body mean that a large amount of ice-cream is held within.

Secondly, the ears are made of chocolate, as is the little heart message at the bottom right, as is the pink flower thing.

All this chocolate adds up.

 Finally, and most importantly: IT HAD CHOCOLATE INSIDES.

It was an entirely chocolate ice-cream, with a pretend coating of strawberry ice-cream.  I like strawberry ice-cream, I like chocolate ice-cream, ergo I like this cake.

It was the only chocolate one they had of this size.

Plus it looks cute.

 Ok, so, now you're wondering why this particular cake deserved my hard earned money.

I'm going to let you into the thought process for picking chocolate cake here in Korea.

Firstly, is it chocolate?  If yes, proceed to question number two.  If no, find another cake.

Secondly, is is circular?  If yes, try to find one of the shape above.  If no, proceed to question number three.

Thirdly, does it have awkward angles?  If yes (as pictured) buy this cake.  If no, look for a cake that fulfils all requirements.

The reason for wanting awkward angles might not be apparent at first.  Underneath the chocolate coating is a layer of chocolate icing.  This coating and icing are applied after the cake is made (naturally).  The reason for wanting to purchase a bizarre shape becomes apparent when you cut into the cake, as awkward angles are difficult to coat with icing - you end up with an inch thick layer of icing around the difficult pointy bits.

 And here is a close-up of the edible pilot.

I think his name is Biggles.

I didn't actually eat him, but I did lick the chocolate from his boots.  (Look at his boots and the chocolate that's accumulated behind them.)

This is a picture of the  technology corner of my room.

Notice the plethora of wires, the random computer(s) I've managed to accumulate (they're both turn of the century models, so I can't really use them for much.  Is it too soon to refer to the year 2000 as the turn of the century?) and the refrigerator with all the Mandarin I'm currently learning.  It's really basic, but I can speak about five times more Mandarin than Korean.  A hint to xenophobes everywhere: Unless you are willing to teach foreigners your language, you have no right to complain when they don't speak it.  It's impossible to learn without help from someone.

Right now I'm going to look at a photo exhibition, then I'm off to do some shopping.  When I get back I'm going to apply for my Masters course (the form is formidable) and by the time that's half done (I don't expect to finish that until next weekend) it'll be time to do my ironing for the week, then bedtime.  The fun is never ending.

And that's the miniature edition of the blog.  Sorry there aren't more interesting pictures, I'll try and go/do something interesting sometime soon.

Stuff That Makes Me Smile

The first thing I came across that made me smile this week was this.

Seeing as I have two random junker PC's in my room, I want to try something like this.

The second thing that made me smile was this website.

The best way to surf this website (just like wikipedia) is to click on every term that you're unsure of, placing it in a new tab at the top of your browser.  When you're done reading the page, close it and move onto the next.  By the end of several hours, you'll have fifty pages yet to be read, and for every page you read you'll open up a couple of new pages.  If, however, you read in a niche with enclosed definitions, after a solid four or five hours reading you can become an internet expert in the given subject.

After doing this a few times you are ready to print out this certficate, and hang it on your wall.

On the TVTropes website, note the inherent sarcasm evident in a number of the posts.  An inherent sarcasm is what, I feel, Wikipedia is missing.  Also note the clever reimagining of old cliches in some of the Trope titles.  Diabolus ex Machina is one of my favourites.

On a lighter note; pictures will be uploaded during the next instalment.  I don't have time to do it this time around.

As of Writing

As of writing, I have nothing to write about.  I usually just write a random selection of words, and the first idea that comes to mind is elaborated upon.

This time, however, nothing springs to mind.  Apart, that is, from a number of criticisms I've received over the number of commas I put into my writing.  These are often voiced by dad, but my addiction has also been noted elsewhere.

Interestingly, (I find) my verbose tendencies put me at odds mainly with my co-workers.  This is interesting because americans pride themselves on rote memorisation of huge lists of words.  Spelling competitions are a source of pride within america, and being wordy is considered a key facet of intelligence.

It seems however, that no-one told them that knowing the entire oxford dictionary, while impressive, doesn't eschew intelligence.  Being able to utilise the dictionary in an interesting manner impresses far more than simply listing words ad nauseum.

The reason I'm being so pompous today?  One of my colleagues keeps taking sly looks at my screen, and I hope he/she may well learn that snooping isn't necessarily the fastest way to a mans heart.

(Make me something delicious and I'll like you far more.)

(That is more of a hint than a demand, in case you were wondering.)

The weekend was good, I'll post some picatures (sic) when I get them.  I used a nice camera again, so hopefully one or two will be decent.  Also, I ate a cartoon dog-head ice cream cake.  Look forward to pictures of that one!  (That one was a demand.)

Birthdays.

It was Gabes birthday today, so we went out for an 'as much as you can eat,' style birthday party.

Or as they call it in america; a birthday party.

We ate pizza (four slices, for myself.)  Crazy burger.  (Two burgers and a plate of chips for myself.)  Macdonalds; (a burger, six chicken nuggets (I loathe the word nuggets, it sounds awful) and a large portion of chips for myself.) then onto a donut joint, (a small spherical donut for myself.) and finally an ice-cream.  (mint choc-chip for myself.)

The calorific intake will be somewhere near the six thousand, all things considered.

To cut a long story short - I'm going to the gym tomorrow.

How to Conceal Your Privacy, Korean Style.

So Koreans have love hotels just like Japan.  There's not enough space for fornicating, these buildings are everywhere.

In Japan there are myriad pieces of metal to place in front of your car license plates, so that you don't get caught cheating on your wife.

In Korea, they have hanging ropes to stop you being able to see the owner of any cars.  The problem is, the ropes only reach down to the bonnet.  (They keep their license plates in the same place as us...)

I don't understand why they try to hide their rampant social problems.  They're only lying to themselves.  (They're not fooling anyone either.)

On second thoughts, the ropes could be suspended to keep the rats out (they're huge.  One was squashed in the middle of the road, it was cat sized.)

Why Korea is so Messed Up (Socially Speaking) Reason Number 54.

Make your own captions for the cop and the woman being served dinner.  Blow it up to full size for a clearer view (4mb).

The winner gets it posted as the official caption for this picture.

It's Not a Font, It's the Shape of the Letters

So I just heard a fantastic quote from my Korean boss.

After four hours of semi-relaxed (see: we're all slacking, the designer isn't) design work, a final version (post-beta) of the school open-class invitation was created.

Some problems arose, and the integral portion (the font) was questioned, ultimately it was decided the font must change.

This caused suicidal thoughts within the creator (not me, before you ask).

Then, my boss chips in.  'You don't need to change the font, just change the erm...'  A minute passes, everyone waits with bated breath.  The anticipated answer is one of saving an hours further work.  Finally, a spark emerges from some dank recess of the mind.

'It's not the font, it's the shape of the letters.'

I nearly wet myself.

And this was my day.

Explain to me Why.

Just a quick observation.

Can someone explain to me why running an unadulterated version of Ubuntu (10.10) from an SD card with a persistence setup, is faster than running a notebook variant on an SSD?

This I don't understand.

That is all.

Breaking News: China is Mad.

China recently published its version of the traditional maritime map, for the South-East Asian seas it falls into.

The yanks have now moved to contain China, by befriending all the people that China have pissed off by declaring planet Earth theirs.

Except Vietnam of course.

I'd imagine it would take a lot of empty promises and back-handers to smooth things over with them

Of course China as a collective have nothing to fear.

America couldn't contain a paper bag.