funny story, gloomy story, shocking story

First, the happy news about the gloomy story. I’ve been working hard on my ghost story and I just hit page 160 last night. Second, a funny story about my neighbor Mike’s phone number. He had to change it last term because some kid had gotten ahold of it and was calling him, just to say “F*ck you!” and then hang up. At some point, the kid shared the number with a teenaged friend, who joined in. By the end, the teenager was—and I’m guessing at this—using the voice message system in his cell phone to send a four-letter voice-message …

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Valid and Invalid Complaints

Sometimes foreigners complain about life in Korea. Sometimes their complaints are valid, and sometimes their complaints are ridiculous. Let me give you an example. I just had a ridiculous conversation on the phone with a woman who told me, “No there’s no problem! No problem!” when I know from recent phone calls that there is indeed a problem. I had gotten a month behind on my internet/landline bill, and die to misunderstandings with the text-messages that the telecom company sent (and my own carelessness reading the bills) I had been perpetually one month behind for a long time. Finally, I …

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Remember Earth2? Dead Like Me canceled… and Rebecca Gayheart’s sorta sad story

Yes, Earth2, that ill-fated one-season SF TV show (imdb) (fansite 1 2 3 in-dept-critical-analysis-page rpg-fansite). Okay, it wasn’t as brilliant a show as it perhaps could have been, but it was at least interesting enough to grab my attention in 1994. I remember a few years later, people were still whining online about the cancelation of the show, and even several years after its cancelation, they were trying to agitate for it to go back on the air with a new season. I had desperately wanted to watch it again, and looked online. Someone who’d taped all the espisodes was …

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Progress!

I’ve just hit page 145 of my novel draft of my ghost story. I’m guessing there’s another eighty pages to go, maybe. My protagonist has just lost a useful ally (and sort-of friend) but he has managed to almost-complete his errand in Pyongyang, after which he’ll be free to go back South and figure out why he was brutally murdered. And now he can at least speak and understand a little Korean, too. I’m pleased, and conservatively guessing I won’t finish the draft before camp starts on Monday, but that I may well finish it the week after camp finishes, …

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