January 2012
1 post
Seriously, religion, what is it you're so afraid... →
December 2011
2 posts
Good Minus God →
A very eloquent analysis of morality in the presence or absence of the Divine.
Marine Equality →
I don’t personally know very many people in the military, nor do I have any particularly strong ties to it (besides a father who was in the Marines), but I do see them often in the city here. In general, I’m worried by their isolation, how each base is replicated to be exactly like a chunk of America, carved out by a melon baller and plopped right in the middle of where ever, Seoul for...
November 2011
2 posts
This literally makes me ill. →
I really wish I could start reading/watching/posting positive things about events back in my home country, but there just doesn’t seem to be any. At what point did the religious right become so hateful? At what point did they decide that no one different from them deserves a happy life? At what point did they achieve so much influence? It’s crap like this that further entrenches the...
October 2011
4 posts
I joined a gym rawwwwr!
Yeah yeah, not really ground-shattering newsworthy stuff here, especially considering that this is my first post to this site in a looooong while, but still I’m really excited! I went by this one fitness center near my house last night, and it seemed a’ight. Yoga classes, plenty of machines and free weights, not overcrowded like GHFC. But pricey! And any personal training I might want...
August 2011
3 posts
Aggghh, my retinas
Why do pupil dilation drops last for 24 hours? And why do they completely @%#! up your vision???
Whatever, three more weeks and I can throw away these glasses forever!
Farming the Cow Level →
TL;DR version: Diablo 3 will use two auction houses; one that works on in-game currency (gold), and one that uses real-world currency ($, 원, 円, £, €, perhaps even §). Pay a nominal fee to list a virtual item, earn real world cash if it sells.
Now, I have to admit that this seems like a natural progression of legitimate business models for online games, it’s microtransactions in the direct...
July 2011
8 posts
Wet wet wet
The monsoon season sure is ending with a bang this year. It’s been raining for the last 18 hours at least and shows no sign of stopping until Friday. Wish I could move these clouds over Hawthorne instead.
Laserface
I have an examination next week Friday to see if I’m a good candidate for LASIK. It’s not as cheap as I originally expected, since that’re constantly updating their equipment, but this doctor has 10 years experience and thousands of operations behind him. Plus they’ll update my eyes for free if my vision ever starts to deteriorate, for life. I can’t wait to be rid of...
Censorship
No no, this post isn’t a diatribe or social commentary on censorship. I’m not in the right frame of mind for something like that. Instead, I want to know what you all know about media (of any sort) that crosses international borders and… changes.
For example, blood cannot be displayed in games in France and Germany. It’s usually turned green in those countries. Also, the...
We were in the news ㅅ.ㅅ →
MudFest was an absolute blast. There’s mud in my eye, I wasn’t angry, I just couldn’t open them all that well. Sarah didn’t manage much better.
The next evolution over DotA?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111705-Blizzard-Probably-Envies-This-Fan-Made-StarCraft-MMO
I am entirely too out of touch with my industry if this is the first I’m hearing on this project. Hot damn, that’s amazing.
I wonder if they’ve considered bringing it to the Korean market… I should have my people call their people and set up a business lunch outside a...
G+
I’m in Google+, can I send invites? I don’t even know. I’ve barely touched it… I guess I’m a terrible tester. But to be fair, I barely touch Facebook. DAE find social networking exhausting?
Finally, in I don’t know how many months, I get to see stars. ㅅ.ㅅ
June 2011
10 posts
Workshop tiiiime. Location share test!
Gordon Brown’s location@10:55am,7/1
South Korea Gyeonggi-do Gapyeong-gun Buk-myeon Sobeop-ri 655, Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
http://m.google.com/u/m/BUAThu
Suck it, Ebert →
California, a surprising bastion of conservative legislation these last few years, has been slapped by the Supreme Court in a rather momentous decision declaring that, yes, games are indeed art and the government has no business restricting what your children have access to. That’s your job, parents.
Waaaait a minute, you mean with this decision comes social responsibility? On the gamer...
황고단 입니다
Forgot to post this a little while back. Coworkers, after much deliberation with bellies full of chicken and beer, gave me a Korean name. Hwang Go Dan. I only hope I can live up to their expectations. I’m sure there’s an appropriate way to include the “disappointed Asian father” meme in here somehow…
EDIT: Might as well add two additional ways of writing said name, depending on how fancy you...
Something's missing
The grocery stores near my house inexplicably do not carry kimchi. WTF? Have I suddenly moved to bizarro-Korea?
Extravagance
Sippin’ on sujeonggwa at what is probably the largest restaurant in all the land. Nights out with the coworkers are always an adventure!
Rearranging my closet of an apartment in order to fit in this enormous home theater I got, and “Papa Don’t Preach” gets stuck in my head. Pics when it’s done!
Just watched the Hangover on my phone. During the end credits, I tried to scroll the list back up. >.>
May 2011
1 post
“With all this excitement, money, and public interest pouring in, it seems like...”
– The real reason e-sports can’t go mainstream anytime soon
^ That’s a link, btw.
It’s a salient point, really. Anyone with even the slightest presence in the online gaming world knows how incredibly inhospitable it is. The anonymity of the internet clashes violently with the...
April 2011
5 posts
Well ain't that a thing? →
I don’t have a PSN account, but I know several people who do. Might want to be aware of what’s goin’ down, yo.
Steam & PayPal, sittin' in a tree
Well crap. Thanks to Steam’s rigorous security checks, PayPal finally caught on that I don’t really live in Florida anymore and locked my funds. Now all the cool kids are playing Portal 2 while I sit here wasting time on Reddit, trying not to read about all the cool kids playing Portal 2.
:c
In some small way, though, the price tag on the game saddens me a bit. Yes, the original was...
Varekai! 잘했군! →
I just found out that this is currently in Seoul until May 29th like 15 minutes from my apartment. Expect a Facebook event soon!
Too soon?
I held my tongue before now because, well, it seems selfish to complain about this. It’s been a month since the devastating earthquake in Japan that killed thousands and displaced more than a million people. And it ain’t over, what with the continued threat of nuclear reactors going tits up. Apparently they just raised the warning level from “5” to “7”, whatever...
Sa Ryang Do
Adventures were prolific this weekend as Marybeth, Ashleigh, Lo, Danielle, Dan and myself headed down to a little island off the southern coast of Korea for some serious hiking action.
And I do mean serious. This island was a deathtrap in most every sense of the word. But if 60 year old ajjumas (grandmothers) want to shove us out of the way because we’re not going fast enough, then by Zeus,...
March 2011
2 posts
*ville
Aphrodite help me and anyone who pays attention to my newsfeeds. I apologize in advance. By request of my boss, I’m about to leap into Farmville. Some social networking games are coming down the pipeline and, well, someone’s got to know what they’re all about. Might as well be me!
Legitimacy
I really don’t know why I’m so bad at blog writing. I actually enjoy it, but I know that every time I sit down to tap out an update to recent events, I end up blabbering on for two hours. It’s that loss of time that paralyzes me with apprehension any time I think about it. I don’t know how to be brief, which regrettably makes Twitter and I utterly incompatible. Who knows,...
February 2011
1 post
This Tuesday began like most any other day, that is to say largely uneventful. I showered, I put on a jacket, I rode a crowded bus to work. Work itself was busy, and I was occupied for most of the day and stayed late, until about 7:15pm. Edward, a friend from work (great name, by the way) knew this awesome Indian restaurant in Shinsa (north of Gangnam, for those of you with basic Korean...
December 2010
1 post
Step 1: Push "Play" on life.
So many people have been asking “how’s the new job” or “settling into your new apartment” and I just haven’t been able to give an answer. I don’t know if it’s due to all the recent E-2 visa changes, but it was taking forever to get my E-7 approved. Three weeks! All done now, though, and I’m a real boy again! And talk about down to the...
November 2010
5 posts
Day 1
Holy monkeys I’m exhausted. My first day on the new job and it was 12 hours long! They had a big deadline looming (tomorrow by 10am) so we cranked it out, as Frank would say, hardcore.
Combined with a 90m commute each way, I basically had a 15 hour workday. I haven’t been able to move into my new apartment yet, so I’m taking the subway from Gayang to Jamsil. It’s a...
The kids
I started telling my classes that this is my last week at SLP. It wasn’t until last week that I was 100% sure of my end date anyway, and I didn’t want to build up my departure too much.
Reactions were mixed. One class thoroughly protested, with a student saying (while giggling) “Teacher, you die to me!” I love it when they use funny sayings. One class seems intent on...
Veterans' Day
I think many people just pay lip service to vets on this day because to not do so is unpatriotic or whatever epithet you want to use. Yeah, so I might be cynical. This is nothing new.
I can, however, say with the utmost conviction that I appreciate the 30,000 or so troops standing between me and the maniacal Communist antics of Kim Jong-Il. Especially after visiting the Joint Security Area...
Heading to bed now, and I have to admit I’m more than a little scared about what version of the U.S.A. I’ll wake up to…
September 2010
7 posts
Chuseok, an essay
Written by a delightful little 8 year old named Rachel. Everything is [sic].
Chusok is on August 15th by the lunar calendar. We put on Han-bok on Chusok. We make Song-pyeon, and perform an ancestral sacrifice. We go to the ancestor’s grave. I had a fun when I made a Song-pyeon. I was very hard when I went to the grave. Because the grave was on top of the mountain and put on high...
“I will change baseball to figure skating because theirs no famous figure skater...”
– An 11 year old Korean child discussing what she’d change about the Jackie Robinson story if she could
Part of this complete breakfast.
So my 8 year olds turned in a homework assignment where they wrote about their breakfasts. Most of them listed kimchi and rice as the staple, and if they’re lucky they get cornflakes. Cultural divides are so interesting. From a Western point of view, this sounds horrid. From their point of view, it’s no wonder we’re a fat country with bacon and eggs and flapjacks slathered in...
Cross those fingers hard, guys...
For I have an interview next Wednesday at 9am Seoul time (8pm Thurs night EST). It’s for an Editor position; taking Engrish-laden translations of technical documents, instruction manuals, and yes, video game scripts and fixin’ ‘em.
They said they were pleased with my test (had to send one in when I applied) and credentials. Did you hear that, Ma? Credentials. All those years...
The new PC!
I’ve just about got everything set up on my new desktop. Boy howdy does it perform well. I love buying new hardware!