Wall E

It knew it would be good, if only because all my friends stateside spoke good things about it. Thanks, Craintrain.

I wonder, if Finding Nemo was more child-oriented in humor with lots of jokes for the parents, and Wall E was a major departure from kiddie humor but still overall enjoyable, do you think animation could make a completely adult-oriented film? Even better, do you think animators could make good drama?

Death Class 101

If you live in Korea, you probably know about Korea's high suicide rate. Almost 25 of every 100,000 Koreans kill themselves per year, and this is one of the highest rates in the world. Fortunately, this information is not lost on Korea's largest corporations. As of this year, Samsung and Hyundai are instituting "well-dying" courses to help their employees understand what happens when you commit suicide. They do everything from write wills, take funeral pictures and get "buried" in real coffins. What an excellent idea!

Bill O'Reilly

I was listening to NPR online and I heard an old interview of Bill O'Reilly by Terry Gross. As much as I hate the guy, when you hear him talking calmly and logically about something, he's really very impressive. He has an excellent ability of shifting an argument into words that can't be used against him. He has an almost perfect command of logic.

Henry VIII

I was watching The Tudors and thinking about King Henry. Did you know that he had some of the most well-kept medical records to date, but there still is mystery surrounding his death? He had numerous leg problems--mostly from showing-off for ladies at the joust--and by the end of his life he was almost completely senile. He also suffered from burst ulcers and was bedridden and unconscious for the last week of his life. Despite all this, historians now believe that he died of syphillis. The proof? Most of his children were stillborn, and those that survived showed signs that they had syphillitic parents. Specifically, Elizabeth I was probably barren; "Edward VI died after his nails fell off and his body was smothered in an awful rash; and Mary I's husband complained of the horrid stench that emanated from her nose".

One More Time

I saw Dark Knight for the second time. It makes you think how people can die and you don't care, but then other people can die and you know you've lost something.

$$$$$$$

Anyone that went to Columbia Public Schools, check this out.

Welcome Back!

I came back to my school computer and these are the first four previous Google searches:

• chickens gary larson book
• elementary journal writing topics
• scott baio angry
• "bobbi brown"+"overnight cream"

I am an excellent teacher!

A Matter of Opinion

As some of you know, I have a Youtube page where I display the few (and very trivial) videos that I have made. I link to it on Facebook, and everyone (save my former coworkers and--I assume--friends from the Midwest) thinks they're abusive. Obviously, no one can take a joke.




Some of the best comments (not just from this video, but from all of them) include:

You are a horrible murderer. Have you got nothing better to do! You are a child abuser. You are a villain.

What a colossally stupid person you are

You need to grow up and get a life you dumbass. Ever heard of the phrase, "pick on someone your own size??" Man up son, you're NOT FUCKING 10

I've seen your videos. I'm going to research who hired you as a teacher! I'm going to find out where you teach. You're an evil piece of shit! Someone's head will be on a stick! If I find you first...you're DEAD motherfucker! Go to Japan asshole! Leave Korea!


Still, I am not without my proponents.

People are so overacting.he was just pushing a kid into a ballpit?Is that horrible?OMG!!!!If someone was on a bridge and you was pusing him into the water just for fun.You put it on youtube, and then people call you horrible, and show hatred.Life is funnny.Stop being such fags.

That the shit dude! fuck those lil kids up!

Back To It

Vacation is over and it's back to school. I was sufficiently strung out (in the non-heroin, all-liquor sense of the word), but the time at home was enough to bring me back to equilibrium. Home, of course, means Seoul.

I think school will go a lot better. There aren't any more problems with co-workers, and I feel like I have a new sense of how to talk to kids. I feel almost kinder; though that could be because I ride my bike almost every day. When winter comes, I might not be so nice.

Expats

There are lots of creepy old guys here. Usually with Filipina wives and shriveled rattails. I would snap picture, I don't want to get my ass kicked. In Korea it wouldn't be a problem.

Boracay

We had to wait 6 hours in the airport because our airline couldn't get their shit together. Apparently it happens every time.

Naturally once I got drunk on the island, I got walked home by the local transvestites. The first one had been a woman her whole life, and the second had been since she was five.

I wish when I went out again to the internet cafe she wasn't there to walk me.

Second Night

We went to the richer part of the city to meet a Korean friend, and then came back to our neck of the woods to hang out at a local bar. We drank with expats and their Filipina wives, and luckily we defused the drunk Brit who wanted to fight. Apparently America didn't care about terrorists before 9-11 because we were too busy killing British soldiers.

Also George, Europe will turn its back on you after the election. Obama is a muslim because he went to elementary school in Indonesia.

First Night

I'm in Manila, and my entire first evening was spent in the airport. Everyone gave me bad information, and my ticket to Boracay that should have cost $40 was actually $200. I almost didn't get them at all.

Update

The assistant to the supervisor did the "paper for paying before settlement" this morning, and said I should have my money by 3 PM. This means that the supervisor only had to fill out one paper before she went on vacation, and probably forgot on purpose. Bitch.

Itinerary

The schedule of my vacation as of now: 2 nights in Manila, 4 nights on Boracay, 1 night in Taipei on the way home.

I leave tomorrow at 10:30 AM.

Vacation Prep

It's always something, isn't it? If you buy tickets to a movie, they give you shitty seats. If you want a decent burger for cheap, it's across town and takes an hour to get there. If you want to date a girl, she's a virgin. Well, today I had another one: if you want to get your money, they won't pay you until Friday.

I was originally supposed to get paid last Friday. It was money from the three-week summer camp that just finished. It totaled to about $1000. The lady in charge of the money promised us that we would have it before camp ended. The last day came, though, and the money wasn't there. I was a little worried. But, I thought, it's Friday--maybe the transaction won't go through until the end of the business day. Maybe it won't even be there until Saturday morning. So I waited. Then Saturday came and it still wasn't there. Now I started panicking. I'm leaving on Wednesday for the Philippines, and there are only two business days for them to transfer the funds. This is bad because in Korea, two days isn't enough.

I tried to take care of it today. That of course was hard. There are layers upon layers of people to talk to. First is the metropolitan school board. They said to talk to the district. I talked to the district, and they said talk to my school. I talked to my school, and they didn't speak English. Great. Finally, I found (meaning got the phone number of) the assistant to the lady with the money. She helped the lady with the money that ran the camp. But of course, she didn't have the answers. She said the lady with the money was out of the country and unable to be contacted.

Long story short, the assistant to the money lady said that the money lady just didn't do it. She left without doing the paperwork for our paychecks. The assistant told me that now the school has to do the paperwork, and we will get paid at the latest on Friday. That of course is too late, so I tomorrow I will get up bright and early to hound these people. I will first go to the military base to get some cheap American breakfast, and if I don't have my money by then, I will go and start some shit.

The bright side: my iPod is alive again. I went to the service shop, and it--although small, crowded and requiring an hour to find--fixed my problem. You know what it was? My plug was bad. It wasn't the heat, it was the goddamn plug.

Just think. In two days I will be here:

He Did It!

66% of the vote!

Fuckin' iPod

I've been outside a lot the last week because I'm the summer camp P.E. teacher, and today I had my iPod in my pocket. I had it there all day, and in the afternoon when I took it out, it wouldn't work. It clicked in my earphones, but it didn't light up. After a few seconds, it even stopped clicking. I took it home to charge it, but it didn't change anything.

I didn't think it was hot enough in my pocket to break electronics, but maybe it was. Has anyone had this happen?

Kenneth

His real name is Jack. Is that weird to you?

Cage Ball

I'm teaching cage ball at my summer camp, and as we were going outside today, one of my students said, "Teacher, a cage ball is a jew tycoon." I asked her specifically what she said, and she said that was it.

USO Show

It's important for you to represent your country abroad. You need to be the face of your nation and leave all non-Americans you come across with a positive opinion of the American people. This is especially important at tourist sites of world significance. Rule Number One: know what to wear.

I went to the Yongsan base last week for a summer camp field trip to the USO, and I learned some awesome things. First of all, they have a small restaurant with loads of American food, like hamburgers, hash browns, and salads with ranch dressing. It's super cheap, and you don't have to be military to get in. I also learned about trips to the DMZ. For example, if you want to take a tour, it is important that you "display a neat and presentable appearance." If you are military, you must dress "in accordance with Armistice requirements" without such attire as "battle dress, utility, fatigue, dungaree or flight suit-type working uniforms". If you are civilian, "informal civilian clothes commonly viewed as acceptable in equivalent public settings are normally acceptable. For example, clean jeans without fraying or tearing and a clean t-shirt lettered with profanity, and flip-flop sandals would be deemed unacceptable." (Figure that sentence out.) You also cannot wear clothing that is "faddish, extreme, torn, tattered, frayed, overly provocative or otherwise inappropriate".

Also, the following items are strictly prohibited:

1. "Shirts/tops without sleeves or that expose midriff."
2. "Short pants."
3. "Any items of outer clothing of a sheer variety."
4. "Sports uniforms or athletic clothing of any kind including track pants or stretch pants."
5. "Oversize clothing, commonly referred to as 'gangster' clothes, including oversize baggy/long pants, t-shirts, or sweatshirts, and 'biker' dress such as leather vests and leather riding chaps."

What if my leather were whole pants? Is that ok?

What if I could say something to better lead into this picture?




That would be sweet.

The Aftermath

It's the day after The Amazing Traveling Mixer Party. I couldn't exert myself even if I wanted to. It took all my strength just to get lunch. One thing I did discover, though--ice cream is excellent for a hangover.

The List

Added to The List since July 13th:

• Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife (Ricky Gervais)
• Death Race 2000
• Robert Altman
• Barry Lyndon
• Team America
• Andres Segovia and more
• Windy City Heat
• Arnold Schwarzenegger booed college visit
• Beetlejuice
• Synecdoche, New York
• The Science of Sleep
• Megastic.com - Tudors SE02
• mysoju.com
• The Hammer
• Tan California
• CGV Imax
• foie gras
• Wild at Heart
• Suttree Audiobook
• Dark Knight Imax

Random Blood

"On the third night they crouched in the keep of old walls of slumped mud with the fires of the enemy not a mile distant on the desert. The judge sat with the Apache boy before the fire and it watched everything with dark berry eyes and some of the men played with it and made it laugh and they gave it jerky and it sat chewing and watching gravely the figures that passed above it. They covered it with a blanket and in the morning the judge was dandling it on one knee while the men saddled their horses. Toadvine saw him with the child as he passed with his saddle but when he came back ten minutes later leading his horse the child was dead and the judge had scalped it. Toadvine put the muzzle of his pistol against the great dome of the judge's head.
Goddamn you, Holden.
You either shoot or take that away. Do it now."