Seumniette?

I’m somewhat mystified, but had to share: Lime just informed me that, among Korean fans of the TV series Lost, in online discussions the character Juliette, is (sometimes: see the comment section) referred to as 슴리에트 “슴리엣”, which for those of you who can’t read Hangeul sounds like “Seumniette.” The “n” sound is a liason between the m in “Seum” and the “l” in “-liette,” so the latter half of the name, “-liette” obviously taken from the character’s name, but “seum” requires a little explanation if you don’t speak Korean. It’s the second half of the word “gaseum” (which could …

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Hwansang Teukgeup

I think I spelled that right. Tonight, Lime and I were riffing on the theme songs of TV shows we watched as kids. She recognized far more of mine than I did of hers, which is only to be expected — English-language media got aired here more than Japanese or Korean shows got aired in Canada (with the notable exception of Astroboy, and, technically, Sailor Moon, though the latter came onto TV — or returned to TV, maybe? — only when I was too cool for cartoons). Anyway, amid us singing the theme songs for the Smurfs, the Flintstones (“They …

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A Shift

I got a significant surprise the other day when checking out the enrollment in my various classes. (Actually, I got a few, but one especially big one.)  For certain core classes in my department, the class limit is 30-ish, but for a number of content-course electives the class limit is 80 students. (My impression is that this isn’t actually a limit, so much as a split point — 85, 105, or even 125 students technically can enroll, but above 80, the class can be split in half, at the professor’s discretion. Unfortunately, this means the class will be split and …

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Bananagirl Wins the Prize

Back in the days when I still played with Dabang Band, we used to joke about hiring telephone girls to dance for one of our shows. You know, the girls in vinyl skirts who get hired to dnace when new phone shops or hardware outlets open. (See here or here for examples. There’s girls with a dancing soju bottle here, too.) I never took the idea seriously, but seeing the video below, I now think Dabang should have permanently hired on a troupe of such young ladies, contracting them always to wear blonde wigs and zebra-print hot pants. (And a …

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