I forgot my wallet on my yo (my sleeping blanket) on the floor of my room, because I was running late and in a hurry. So I caught a cab to school but ended up realizing I’d forgotten my wallet just in time to stop the cab and pay the guy everything but about ten cents’ worth of the fare in coins. One of my students, a purple-haired, long-fingernailed, oddball, declared, “I am UNDEAD!” in class. In English. During a semi-appropriate section of a speaking exercise. It was amusing. (He’s my favorite student in the class, just because I think …
Author: gordsellar
On Governor Ahnuld
Over at the Infinite Matrix, Eileen Gunn’s editorial #36 has some comments from various SF writers about the election of the ludicrous Governor of California. Mr. Schwartzenegger is still shocking me, and it’s been a few days. I think I mostly agree with Ursula K. LeGuin, though I lament the coming collapse a little less than she does; I don’t understand Womack’s comment… but Terry Bisson and Pat Cadigan are right on the money. Maybe I should read their stuff, huh? Thanks to Melissa of Use Your Words for the link, even if she got it at Bookslut…
Hepatitis, Twenty Kilos, and the Old Guys in the Diner
Today I ended up spending more time than I intended at the hospital. The doctor told me that other than a little hypertension, my only problem is a need to lose a little more weight… she said, and I am not joking, twenty kilograms. Aside from the fact that this is ABSOLUTELY INSANE, she seemed quite nice and helpful… I’m just glad my Korean is good enough to understand about 85% of what she was saying. Anyway, the other bit of news was that I needed to get Hepatitis-B immunizations, so I started that today. After I got my first …
Busy Weekend…
Well, this was an excessively busy weekend. On Friday night I hurried up to Seoul… My saxophone was being repaired at a shop in the famous music market there, called Nagwon Sanga, and I’d been too busy (or sick, depending on when we’re talking about) to go pick it up. I needed to get my saxophone so that I’d have it on hand for the K-Rock festival (sorry, can’t find a link for it!) audition that Dabang was playing on Saturday. It turned out, as I heard via a phone call on the bus, that the K-Rock audition wasn’t in …
Friday Five – Recommended Reading For A Child’s Development
Sorry this is late, I just had a very busy weekend. More about that in another post, as you probably will have seen above. The latest Friday Five topic, from Chris: People once thought that it was important for boys to study the works of the great Roman orators so that they would develop both their language skills and their sense of honor, duty and propriety. (This was a particular theme in the biography “John Adams,” as the love of these boyhood texts stayed with the honor-bound Adams all his life.) I often think about the books that had a …
The Tiger Meant Well, Really He Did…
or,
Idiotic Crap That Some Guy Who Looks Like Jean-François Said…
Sure, Siggy: the tiger wanted to help Roy. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable about this whole thing. Okay, this is just subjective, but Siegfried looks a hell of a lot like a fairly unsavory, backwards, emotionally and intellectually retarded, and generally screwed-up French guy I know in Korea. So basically I think everything he says is crazy.
Politics and Religion
I was browsing on Arts & Letters Daily (again, as I do daily) when I found an article about the so-called “Brights” and the politics facing them. A snippet: What do you call someone who is not religious? Is there a need for a new name for such people? And should not politicians acknowledge them? Well, I have two thoughts on this. First, the term “Brights” to mean nonreligious people was just a stupid choice. It’s far too like to push too many sensitive buttons. I’ve met a number of really obnoxious atheists who think they are atheist because they …
What It Is To Be Earthling
I was looking at the weird search combinations that led people to my website (and some of them are pretty bizarre) when I ran across this webpage: poeticgeek.net, where the main poster is another blogging Gord. On the page, I found an interesting post by said Gord, attributing its contents to his friend Erik: Y’know how humans are always doing weird and wacky things. Everyone always says how screwed up humans are, and that there must be something “wrong” with since we don’t act like normal animals. Well a recent article that I read shows that it’s not humans that …
100% effective male contraceptive
That’s right. As posted on the Transhumanity webpage, the BBC recently reported on a 100% effective contraceptive for men. And you don’t even need to remember to take your pills daily. I don’t know if I’d be lining up to take it right now (I’d let some people try it for a few years to see), but then again I (sadly, waah waaah waaaaah) don’t need any contraceptives these days. Here’s the blurb, cribbed from the Transhumanity page: Male contraceptive 100% effective October 07, 2003 BBC – Scientists have developed a male contraceptive which was 100% effective and side-effect free …
Total Recall, Like, Totally
Yes. They made the Terminator a Governor. I thought people would have learned after that whole Reagan thing. This puts it more clearly than anything else I can imagine: Voters traded a career Democratic politician who became one of the state’s most despised chief executives for a moderate Republican megastar who had never before run for office. Davis became the first California governor pried from office and only the second nationwide to be recalled. What’s next? Van Damme takes over the Pentagon? Traci Lords for President? I thought a WWF wrestler as governor of Minnesota was as ridiculous as things …