So it seems that, even now that a couple of hostages have been released, the (recently somewhat muted) negative sentiments felt by netizens in Korea towards Protestant fanatics (which I wrote about here) still have not ebbed away. Comments on the subject among netizens seem to suggest a continued negative feeling. One of the harshest I’ve heard so far, related to me by Lime, was when someone commented, “We should go to the airport on the day they get back… and bring eggs.” A couple of things seem certain: The hostages who do get released aren’t going to come home …
Month: August 2007
Watched/Read/Listened: July 16th to August 13th
First off, I’m writing this in pieces, as I complete each book, so that my comments about each aren’t based on hazy recollections of a month past or more. BOOKS: Blameless in Abaddon by James Morrow I’ve been a fan of James Morrow’s writing for years now, since I read, by chance, his novel Only Begotten Daughter back in my undergrad days. Since then, I’ve read Bible Stories for Adults, This is the Way the World Ends, and Towing Jehovah, the latter of which is the book to which Blameless in Abaddon is the sequel. Morrow’s made a name for …
Pulling Your Feet Up
So one of the things I’m planning to do in Japan, mostly on trains, is proofread some of the writing I’ve done in the past year. I have a good stack of stories that need editing and proofing before they can be sent out, and it’s the kind of thing I’m more likely to do when I don’t have a PC with me. Since I’m leaving my laptop at home this trip — carrying it about for three weeks feels just ever so slightly too cumbersome — I will be bringing a portable hard drive (with my most recently forked …
Having spent much of the night…
Having spent much of the night doing ten things at once, like scanning poems for a readings package I was hoping to finalize before leaving, and ripping CDs, and trying to remember to go fetch the laundry that’s in the dryer, and install some programs on Lime’s computer since the drastic OS-reinstallation we had to do the other day, I find myself sitting here, almost at 8am, and not even tired. I’m not bragging. I suspect this is probably bad, since I’ve done with only 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night for a while now. I leave for …
Pre-Enlightenment “Rationality” (So-Called) and Aquinas’ “Five Ways”
Why Aquinas’ Five Ways? So. Toward the end of a discussion about whether atheists are angry and unhappy people — by the way, my basic sentiment is that if they are that way, it’s because of all the zealot nutters we have to deal with in life, and that, actually, most atheists I know aren’t all that angry or sad — someone challenged my assertion that Aquinas’ Five Ways is transparently fallacious and relies on all kinds of assumptions that simply need not be accepted by a listener. This was in the course of a discussion that had such amazing …
The Thing It’s About
Why am I actually thinking about my high school days? I grew up in the era when music videos virally took over popular music. Most of them were awful. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” sent me hiding under my bed… the werewolf, not the zombies. I’m not too proud to admit that. This (link included for the Livejournal readers, for whom the Youtube video may not show up) was one of the few music videos that gave me a song I actually liked, though then and now I think it’s about 20-30 bpm too fast. The Northern Pikes were just a small …
Not Surprised. But This Reminds Me…
Apparently mentioning hell or death makes you R-rated. Which reminds me that the MPAA’s rating systems are a load of bullshit anyway. Some random yahoos who don’t even fit the criteria, and who have made careers out of rating films inconsistently and in stupid terms, do not constitute a representation of the culture in general. Far better if filmmakers were simply expected to “tag” films with content that potential viewers might be attracted to or might find objectionable. I mean, if a film is tagged <lesbian love scene>, you’re gonna pick up way more viewers than you’re going to lose. …
Factoids
Feeling Factoidy today, while catching up on friends’ blogs, like Kat’s: 1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts. 2. Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves. 3. Tagees should write a blogpost of eight random facts about themselves. 4. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged (named and shamed). 5. Go to their blog, leave a comment telling them they’re tagged (cut and run). Okay. Um. Except I’m not going to go tag them. They notice, or they don’t, I’ll tag them here. I like chocolate. Too much. Like …
I Don’t Luv Bees
Alexis’ post about going to Girouxville “to visit a local apiary and watch honey extraction” brought back some funny memories for me. I don’t think I’ve ever posted about that job experience in its entirety, and it’s interesting in a number of ways. Mostly in terms of the things I learned: If you’re not sure whether you’re asthmatic, a week working as a fieldhand will confirm or falsify the diagnosis. I was playing saxophone a lot then, and using my inaler not so often, so i didn’t consider my asthma so severe. But the first week on the job — …
What Brings You Here?
Right, so I’m doing the obligatory “what search keywords brought people here” list. Some of them are really pretty damned funny. The first list are understandable, even if they’re weird: korean dabang girls praying mantis eats hummingbird the punishment of plagiarism in government publication bulgogi seamus heaney viking dublin happy birthday song in korean words hwang sin hae band jjambbong gnome or ubuntu workout tracker tardigrade video altissimo register fingering chart for alto saxophone noh mu-hyun anti chrisian in korea canadian teachers in korea www.gordsellar.com With the exception of the last search — I can understand why searching my URL …