Glitch: Tersesat Dalam Waktu (My First Indonesian SF Film)

So, I’ve just finished watching Glitch: Tersesat Dalam Waktu (English: Glitch: Getting Lost In Time) as I write this. (It will end up being posted later, but I’m writing it now, so I’ll just write it in the present time.) It’s one of the DVDs I managed to pick up while in Jakarta that is actually an SF movie, as opposed to mainstream drama or horror. (SF seems rare there, but horror is practically mainstream cinema in Indonesia, from what I can tell.) Anyway, the premise is that some sort of time loops have been set up for some unknown reason, …

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The Uses of Doubt

I have been thinking about a story I drafted a while back — maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, I can’t remember — and to which I haven’t yet gotten a chance to return, though I may soon. In any case, it’s a fantasy tale of two cultures — a low-tech patriarchal culture being overrun by a high-magic matriarchal culture. It was, in fact, inspired by what a Taiwanese student in one of my classes in 2008 wrote about the Taiwanese colonial experience — the way Taiwan in general experienced Japanese occupation, but also how the Chinese mainland …

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There Are People They Shouldn’t Let Out in Public…

… and in Korea, many of them drive taxis. Monday evening, we met an extra special case of this, and it ruined a chunk of our evening. I wonder if it’s just the part of the city I’m in? I never have these sorts of problems outside of a stretch of city from Yongsan (where a random older bastard drunk tried to pick a fight with me for not saying “Hello!” to him with a hakwon teacher smile) to Yeokgok (where scumbag scooter drivers shout things like “slut!” at Korean women who happen to be beside a foreign man, and …

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Wanna Be a Famous Blogger? Here’s Who to Criticize…

Though I tend not to really pay much attention to the hit rates on my blog, I occasionally pop by Google Analytics just to see what people have been looking at and what’s brought them to my site. This is something I particularly do on days like today, when I am stuck at home. I lost my voice on Monday and took today off to let the medicines I was prescribed kick in and make everything all better. Looks like I’ll be back to work tomorrow, but my throat is still a little blah at the moment. (I expect it’ll …

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How to Kill Your Successful Business In Five Easy Steps: Step 4

This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series How to Kill Your Business in Five Easy Steps

For those just joining us, this is a series. There’s a series of links at the bottom of this post, so you can start at the beginning if you like. Step 4: When the Money Gets Tight, Screw Your Workers (Or Try Your Darnedest) or, Kick Morale in the Teeth Even Harder I’ve already traced through the process of bringing a company to the doorstep of ruin financially, and damaging morale irreparably. Now, the next step is much easier to pull off if your staff is easily divided in some arbitrary way — by race, for example, or sex. Another …

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How to Kill Your Successful Business In Five Easy Steps: Step 5

This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series How to Kill Your Business in Five Easy Steps

For those just joining us, this is a series. There’s a series of links at the bottom of this post, so you can start at the beginning if you like. Step 5: Maintain Your Deathgrip Till The Bitter End There’s something to be said for the person who says, “Honey, I don’t think this is going to work out.” For the member of the garage band who says, “I’m tired of playing these songs, and you aren’t, so I think it’s time I quit.” For the hairdresser who admits that she has fantasies of setting clients hair on fire, she’s so …

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How to Kill Your Successful Business In Five Easy Steps: Step 3

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series How to Kill Your Business in Five Easy Steps

For those just joining us, this is a series. There’s a series of links at the bottom of this post, so you can start at the beginning if you like. Step 3: Kick Morale In The Teeth When times get tough, the tough get going. But actually, as a worker, when times get tough ion a way that looks like they’re not going to get better, it doesn’t matter what the tough do: it’s the smart that you want to keep an eye on. And when times get irrevocably tough, the smart invest their energies on where it will pay …

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How to Kill Your Successful Business In Five Easy Steps: Step 2

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series How to Kill Your Business in Five Easy Steps

For those just joining us, this is a series. There’s a series of links at the bottom of this post, so you can start at the beginning if you like. Step 2: Be Irrational About Diversification A week or so later, word came down that the top that the XP Office tutorial was to be set aside, and instead I was to think up a new project. There were all kinds of big project proposals being pitched –including one to the US government, to make their websites “accessible” as per a legal mandate of around that time. In retrospect, I …

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How to Kill Your Successful Business In Five Easy Steps: Step 1

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series How to Kill Your Business in Five Easy Steps

Recently, I posted about the fact that someone needn’t come to Korea to experience being held at arm’s length in a group, regardless of what one does to assimilate or join. Working in a family business is a great way to experience this. Also, sometimes people ask me what I did before I came to Korea. If it seems like an idle question, then I just say, I went to grad school, and taught at Concordia University while I was studying there. Also, some tech writing. And I leave it at that. The fact of the matter is, whatever I …

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Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer’s Yeast by Jeff Sparrow

Wild Brews is a wonderful little book that deals specifically with the wild-fermented beers in the Belgian tradition — that is, Lambic (and various subtypes and blends like Framboise, Gueuze, Kriek, and so on) and the Flanders Ales. Anyone who is even a little experienced in homebrewing is going to at least be intimidated by the idea of brewing a lambic. Most of us make beer happily knowing that the fruits of our labours will be drinkable in a month or two, six months at the most in many cases — it’s a rare beer that takes a year to …

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