Never Give Up

Talking to my fiancee today (who comes home in 2 days, woot!), and during the course of our conversation she told me to never give up (it was in reference to my Alpha-dogging Toki (wait, that sounded dirty (wait, I just used parentheses inside parentheses, like LISP))).

Anyhow, that instantly reminded us both of this awesome MuchMusic commercial from a few years ago. I just knew someone had to have posted it on YouTube, so here it is:

Know Your Place

Stumbled Upon this from GraphJam:
Oh ya! Go Pink!

D&D Podcast

Last year Wizards put out a 8 part podcast series of the folks at Penny Arcade and PvP playing an adventure with Christ Perkins. A couple months ago they started another with Wil Wheaton (of Trek and internet geekdom fame) added to the team. I've quite enjoyed listening to these on my morning commutes and with the last episode wrapping up last week, I'm thinking I can't wait until they do another (and I hope they do)!

High points for me included the awesomeness of Jim Darkmagic (of the New Hampshire Darkmagics), the party Wizard. He pulled out the rolls and rocked the first series, and in this second he did not disappoint. Jokes of his legendary powers throughout the series (You? You are not Jim Darkmagic. Jim Darkmagic is seven feet tall! With a shock of red hair!) had me laughing on the subway with people staring.

Of particular amusement in the final part was Jerry's (the Cleric, Omin) consistent rolling of ones. We've all been there, and you feel sorry for him, as he sounds pretty upset during the final fight when he rolled double ones on his attack (Wil used a power to give him a reroll), but at the same time the banter directed at him was pretty funny. They posted a comic of his final attack with quotes straight from the recording:
And Wil posted a power card of the attack he personally was going to use on Jerry if he missed: "Wheaton's Vicious Cock Punch of Furious Anger"

Anyway, the point of this all is to say the series is a fun way to pass some time.

April Fools' Day - You're Being Watched

An office April Fool's prank.

As my company is a telehealth organization and thus deals with both patient data and video cameras, you can imagine that security and privacy are important issues. Well, someone (I suspect I know who), posted this in the hallway to the washroom for April Fool's day. It was quite well received and quite well done. Several have commented on the level of quality of the poster, which has a very professional ring to it.

More Funny Korean English Shirts

I mentioned before the funny English shirts Korean kids wear. Well, before I went on my trip, my fiancee sent me a thread from Dave's ESL Cafe, a forum for ESL teachers. It contains a few more priceless shirt quotes and pictures:

One of my kinders, "Happiness is a strong cocktail".

Girl in first grade middle school came into my class last week with a t-shirt that said:
"I want to use your thighs as earmuffs"
Through fits of laughter I offered her 10,000 won for it. The only thing she could say was "Teacher, what it means?"

Saw another recently, on a 20-something girl:
Big letters : FEEL ME UP
Smaller letters under it: Like a child

Such A Typical Ajumma

I previously explain the Korean stereotype of the Ajumma. Well, here is a video that sums the Ajumma and their ability to push through anyone unphased (it happens 30-40 seconds in):

Korean Adventure: Thursday

Friday was a school holiday of some sort, so Thursday was my last day at the school. It was fairly uneventful, marked by the occasional group of students making their way to the English office to say goodbye. More goodbyes were said to the teachers, some of whom are transferring schools and won't be there when I come back in the spring.

In the evening, we decided to head to the financial area of Seoul which occupies an island in in the Han river. Our destination of the 63 Building, the largest building in the area and third tallest building in Seoul. It's 60 stories tall, with 3 more underground, hence the 63 Building. There's a windowed observation elevator and the top floor has an observation deck and mini art gallery. There's also a aquarium at the base. Oh, and the place is a horrible ripoff.

First, we didn't realise that the observation deck and the art gallery were the same place, so we weren't guessing we'd have to pay to see the deck, or at least, not much. The gallery cost 10000 won each. Now, every museum and tourist attraction I've been to in Seoul was less than 6000 won entry, usually 3000-4000. This place was 2-3 times the cost, and was so bad. The art gallery is tiny, and not exactly quality. The current exhibit, which had been showing for the last 6 months, was Hello Kitty art. Seriously, and the stuff was really bad. I could not make this up, take a look:

I mean, what is this stuff?



Never underestimate the Asian popularity of Hello Kitty.

And this was a video of shitting snowman ice cream cones!

And the observation deck itself wasn't that great. The glass had this extreme sheen to it that made it incredibly difficult to take photographs. I mean, I know the flash would ruin things, but even just the lighting messed things up unless you were really careful to block all light. I'm glad we didn't pay for the aquarium too. My fiancee claims that this was the first time in Korea where she felt ripped off.

Traffic anyone?

Afterwards, disappointed, we decided to walk in the park that runs along the Han.

Perhaps not the most successful evening, but we had a good laugh at least.

Children's English Shirts

So, shirts with English on them are big in Korea. For the most part, they make sense except for shirts made for children. These seem to be filled with random English words or sentences. Sometimes it's not even English words, just English characters. It's fairly amusing sitting in a grade 4 class, reading these shirts that make no sense, and realizing that no one else gets that. Now, the school is fairly cold, so now that the fall has hit, there are few Tshirts for me to read, but my fiancee and the other English teachers have told me about some. Apparently their sometimes rather rude and inappropriate except that no one realizes. Here are two that I spotted last week:

ONE J BOY
MULTIPLIES
EFFECT

and:

U'R MIND FRIENDS
KEEP THE EARTH
AUTHENTIC
Z^TH - 26^TH
1964
LOVE GALAXY
UGIZ JEANS

Korean Adventure: Amusing Teaching Video

An amusing video that one of the English teachers found for the class. Some of the lines are hilarious like: "I've been vomiting" or "It's pussing".

I've heard it about 6 times now (each grade 6 class gets to hear it), and parts of it are actually getting stuck in my head. Scary.

Korean Adventure: Ajummas

So, Ajumma means "married woman" or mrs. or ma'am, basically. So, any married woman is an ajumma.

However, there is also this Ajumma stereotype joked about by younger Koreans, and especially by young foreigners in Korea (who picked up on the joke and love it). The ajumma stereotype is a mid aged woman, probably with a short perm, likely wearing some sort of floral shirt and a type of visor. These visors are popular in Korea mostly with ajummas. Actually, they're pretty much popular ONLY with ajummas. The Ajumma Visor if you will.

The stereotype goes beyond the physical however, the Ajumma is also a commanding personality. She gives her husband a strict allowance and is a terror on the subway, pushing or shoving people from behind to get to her destination. At a crowded restaurant the one night, as we were waiting for a table, a youngish woman behind us in line went over to a table they were clearing to try and take it. "Ajumma in the making," my fiancee remarked.

Finally, the hiking ajumma. She's sporting the same visor, but has a athletic jacket, backpack, and hiking stick. She will also own you on the mountain. I read a joke somewhere about the depressing realization foreigners teaching in Korea face about their own physical shape when they are consistently overtaken on the slopes by ajummas.

The blog Stuff Korean Moms Like, while I believe focuses on the stereotypical Korean mom living in North America, can pretty much double as a blog about Ajummas.

A correction to Saturday

I entirely forgot to post the pictures of the awesome postcards for my Saturday post.

They're there now for any who wish to view them.

Korean Couples Shirts

So, apparently the deepest sign of commitment two young Koreans can make is the couples shirt. Yes, both of you wearing the same outfit. Bigger than a ring? You betcha! We saw a number of them on our walk up Namsan. Unfortunately, we weren't able to subtly snatch a good picture. I'll try to find better shots before I leave but I don't want to seem too creepy.

My fiancee loves the couples shirt. She finds them hilarious, and convinced me to do it with her one day at her school. It was half a joke, and half serious. The teachers got a good laugh out of it.

Danger! Danger!

So, my fiancee is in Korea teaching for a year. I miss her very much and am grateful for Skype so that I can at least talk with her cheaply and see her on the webcam.

Anyhow, she has her own blog on the trip, (which isn't published, but if you know her, ask her for the link) and I just had to steal this picture from it to share. It's a warning sign on the elevators of the conference centre she's at for the week.

"Don't lean on the doors or you will fall to your death!"

I love it. I really like the emphasis on the hitting of the head.

Funny Skittles Commercial

Found this on youtube. Hilarious.

An Overheard Conversation

An overheard conversation:

Person 1: Picture Elmer Fudd being raped by Porky Pig.
Person 2: But they were never in the same sketches...
Person 1: Uhhhggg...That's what you find wrong about that image???
Person 2: Well it's just not feasible.