Look, man… you get to pick two of the following three. Two maximum. You can… … stand right in the middle of the space through which people need to pass to get into and out of the subway car, in a way that explicitly blocks the exit to the subway car, and don’t look around to see if someone behind you needs to get out (or even position yourself such that you’ve considered the fact someone might want to get on or off the train). … act shocked when the force of someone trying to push through the rest of …
Tag: Nonfunctional Systems
Phoneless Till Friday (Probably)
The thing I’m going to complain about isn’t that the KT shop gave me a note with the address for the service center, but didn’t write the name of the service center (so it was impossible to find and I went to the wrong place, because guess what? All Apple products except iPhones are serviced at one place, and iPhones are serviced at the other). It’s not that my employer, when offering an iPhone 4 to each professor on tenure track, failed to ask (though when I asked, I was told it had been cleared, of course) whether non-Koreans could …
Land of the Evening Nutter
So the other night, at the Bupyeong Subway Station, Miss Jiwaku and I were waiting for a train when some weird guy stalked up and sat down beside us. He immediately stared at her, glancing at me for a moment and then staring at her wide-eyed. It was obvious he was not right in the head, and I figured I had two options: Ignore him and hope he’d act civilized. Ask him what he wanted. I was wrong, of course: there was a third option, which is to get up and move away from the obviously crazy person. The thing …
Goods Dumping…?
Ever heard of Mr. Kanny cereals? I noticed these at a Lotte Mart one night a couple of weeks ago, and while they didn’t appeal at all — they seemed to be some kind of Italian corn breakfast cereal — something stood out about them. The Italian equivalent of “This Product Contains Only” was visible and easy enough to translate, but the next line was covered up by a little green strip of what looked like some kind of colored tape. We peeled off the green stuff on one box, starting on one said (which had a word that looked …
TMI
Usually, we use that acronym — Too Much Information, TMI — to respond when someone is disclosing information about herself or himself that strays beyond the boundaries of what we’re willing to listen to: the quality of recent bowel movements, what it feels like to have a colonoscopy, why vomiting this food is grosser than vomiting that food, weird sexual proclivities, and so on. However in this case, I’m referring to the kind of information requested by a major Korean company that shall remain nameless and the questions in their application form. Now, I must repeat, the company must remain …
Subways and Culture
Once again, I’m linking to Matt’s site, this time where he links an article on how the seats reserved for the old, pregnant, ill, weak, and disabled are, well… some old people seem to think those seats are just for old people, and doing things like shouting at pregnant women for sitting in those seats. Or, in one case, getting into a fight to the death over who gets to sit there. And, well, you know how it is: nobody’s really stepping up to tell them, “No, you have it wrong you crotchety old bastard, now STFU before someone knocks …
I’ve Got You Under My Korean-English Dictionary
A lot of Westerners I know balk at the way Korean high schools regulate all kinds of things in their students’ lives — hairstyle and coloring, an absence of piercings, and so on are all required at most high schools. Kids with hair that is too long risk having their hair cut on the spot by some teachers, and even corporal punishment. That’s right, a boy can get a whupping, because his hair is too long. A girl can if she’s suspected of dyeing it. (Heaven help those who are born with brown hair.) But what kills me is when …
Dealing with Scammers: Memes and Means
There’s a new meme on Facebook, the Name Game. Well, I don’t know how new it really is, but I hadn’t seen it until this morning. It goes like this: you follow the instructions and generate a bunch of “names” for yourself: Replace my answers with yours and tag as many people as you want (but don’t forget to tag me!) 1. Agent-name (the second one of your fist names and the street you live in) – 2. Moviestar-name (grandparent from your father’s side and your favourite candy) – 3. Rapstar-name (first letter of your first name and 3-5 first …
Starbucks Nespot No Movement? Help!
UPDATE (Friday, 20 February, 2009): Starbucks called me the day after I posted this, and it looks like the problem may have been fixed since I last tried. (Or partially fixed, with more fixing to come?) Read the followup-post here. ORIGINAL POST: I personally find it annoying that Starbucks Korea offers (with partner NESPOT) free wifi in all its branches throughout Korea… but only to Korean citizens. I find it even more ridiculous because when they launched it, it was advertised in English, all proudly and happily, until it was discovered that foreigners couldn’t register with their alien registration numbers …
Homeplus Update
Remember how I said they “fixed their website” to allow foreigners to register? Well, ordering is another matter, as I discovered after spending over an hour trying to get the damned order to go through. It’s not my card, because my card works with other sites. It’s something in the way their site handles cards. I imagine it just assumes the name on the card and the name on the national ID# are identical or something like that. Nobody bothered to think through the rest of the process when they “fixed” the website. So maybe they don’t want our business …