Golden Arches

Too much standing up these days is causing unprecedented maladies of the soles. Now that I have discovered this map to better health though, everything should be perfectly fine within seconds. I'm too tired to think of anything more to say on this topic, so just make something up in your mind and pretend that you read it here.

VJ - "Darts and Ninjitsu don't mix."

I thought I had been throwing darts about as accurately as throwing banana peels at road signs from a car window, so I bought this new practice board to try to sharpen up my game. I'm not really sure if it is helping though, as I can't seem to find the 20's, doubling out is all but impossible, I could barely finish a game of cricket, hitting the bull sets a satanic ritual in motion and if you happen to hit one of the dudes in pajamas, friends and neighbours are stricken with searing pain in a voodoo effect. Strangely, I have still been nailing that "1" in the bottom right corner very consistently. The manual that came with it recommended various strategies of defeating your opponent though, including:

• salting someone's eyes when they are at the line
• debilitating nerve pinches while shaking hands
• joint manipulation (the human kind...not the smokey kind)
• catching opponents darts out of the air before they hit the board
• hiding in a shadow of the bar and shoulder rolling to the line when it is your turn
• making your opponents eyes water by wearing a tight, black, full body jump suit.
• humming or whistling at the fundamental frequency of your opponent's darts, making them disintegrate in the air.
• throwing a few darts "just a bit inside" to brush your opponent back off the line

Playing the top team in the other division this week, so I will put these to the test. Unfortunately, I am going to have to work until 730 on Mondays now, so I might be playing a bit less, or maybe just a bit later. Aw hell, by that time of the evening, students are sick of being in class (as am I) so I'm sure we can all compromise and get out of there early!

Hubba Hubba

Korea is fond of the word "hub." The media throws that word around like a short order cook juggles eggs in the morning. The main difference between those two is that after you have an omelet or a couple of sunny-sides, you generally feel satisfied and can carry on with your day...after reading the Herald or Times, you generally feel like laying down with a cool cloth over your eyes and listening to the pan flute until your headache goes away.

Click Here to see how many results pop up on the Korea Times website with the keyword "hub" from March 2006 to March 2007

Here are a few examples of the 210 uses of HUB in the past year...

• City Looking to Become Hub for Entertainment
• Cheju...planned for the island's growth into a Northeast Asian hub
• Foreign companies' research and development (R&D) centers are leaving Korea, undermining the country's scheme of becoming the chief research hub of Northeast Asia
• The Korean hub airport won the honor for the second consecutive year...
• ...hopes to be a Regional Business Hub
• Korea’s hopes of becoming the logistics hub of Northeast Asia...
• (About my University...Hongik) The spirit of the school is in keeping with Seoul’s project to make the city a cultural hub of Asia.
• (About my former employer...HUFS) Through the center, the school will help the city, whether it be Seoul or Inchon, become an Asian cultural hub and boost the image of Korea in the international community
• Yonsei University has joined a biomedical hub project in the Inchon Free Economic Zone

In most cases, articles are not about businesses or places being hubs, rather that they hope to be a hub, or are trying to be a hub, or planning on trying to be a hub, or hoping that they might try to make an effort at considering being a hub or hub-like hub. I guess you could say that Korea is a hub of potential hubs.

The Earth

I've always really dug this pic, so I thought I would post it up. A few key areas of note...

• North Korea and South Korea in contrast
• The Dark continent...indeed
• I need that East coast of North America to keep slugging down the energy so I can make some $$ with a few stock investments.
• There seems to be a lot of room on the planet, so why don't we all just move one pace back and spread out a bit.

Enjoy.

The God Who Wasn't There

It being Sunday, I thought I would observe the Sabbath by watching a documentary entitled "The God Who Wasn't There." It brought up several interesting points about religion from a historical standpoint, but the director eventually fell apart by revealing that he went to a Christian school and then went back to the school to have some sort of childish confrontation with his former headmaster. That in turn lead me to various readings about religious this and that: conservative politics and complaints about liberal religious views, Westboro Baptist Church, a few atheist readings, evangelical scams, free will and then of course a few hockey highlights (dammit...the Leafs!).
A few thoughts on the above:

• mixing personal beefs and vendettas with otherwise fairly informative commentary makes for bad viewing
• Westboro Church...how does that place keep afloat?
• I'm not sure if many conservatives stand for anything anymore, except for the fact that they want to point out that everyone else is always wrong. Tiring...and in my opinion, it is not really in line with my own conservative values. Strap on a pair...say something and stand behind it.
• Some dude in Houston is claiming to be the second coming of Jesus, and as far as I'm concerned, he probably is every bit as god like as the original Jesus.
• Philosophy requires reading things that singe my mind and make me need to catch a siesta on the couch.
• The Leafs better pull it together and get in the playoffs.

I don't mean to offend any of you God fearing folks out there in VJ land, but I stumbled across this site and it brought a smile to my face...after reading all these complex arguments and scripture quotes and philosophical hodge podge, this lays it straight. God FAQ

Geckos Shenanigans

Darts at Geckos last night proved to be a good time. Geckos is on "The List" for its piss poor service and staff that are about as friendly as the anger management support group that meets there every second Tuesday of the month. No incidents with the staff last night though, as they never once approached us...

At any rate, on to the darts...I lead off again, which was a diamond for me last season, but is getting mixed results so far. I kicked off the match by getting taken to the cleaners in cricket. I was in need of a sherpa to navigate me towards the cricket numbers as I continuously pounded triple 2's (seemed like I hit it about 10 times...may have been 17 times, may have only been once...who knows). 01 was much better as I got in the groove, but the guy I was playing was throwing cricket like a maniac last night and put me out of my misery in the third. He played a hell of a cricket game again I must say.

Colin has been playing really well as of late and kicked ass. TK was depressed about something but held on to win. The Goat ate a tin can and then handed out a beating. Doubles went as planned as well, but I'll be damned if we could close out that team game.

TK and I won '01 2 straight, but when I looked at the sheet at the end of the night, it was marked 2-1, so I double checked with the lads and sure enough, it was 2 straight; however, the Geckos chaps seemed to have developed sudden memory loss and "couldn't remember." I wanted to check with the scorer to be sure (he was from their team and surely would remember struggling with mathematics through 3 games instead of 2) but he was mysteriously not to be found. I suggested giving him a buzz, which was at first rejected, but then they finally rang him and he confirmed that we had swept it. Kind of a strange feeling at the end though...it seemed like they thought I was trying to be a jerk about it, but I wasn't at all...I just wanted to make sure it was correct.

I spent the day today practicing a new stance and technique that I think will improve my score immensely in next week's match. I double checked the rules and didn't see anything wrong with it whatsoever. Here I am this afternoon firing a few darts around in my back yard as The Goat and TK look on...not a treble 2 the whole afternoon. I think I'm cured.

Boston's Brad Delp

Well, Boston's singer, Brad Delp died the other day and I meant to get a posting up a bit sooner. I looked all over the place for a good video of them from back in the day, mostly to see a couple of ragged beards and 3 foot high bonnets of hair, but couldn't find anything decent, so I settled for this bootleg from a live show. I have always been a big fan of Boston and I recommend to music lovers everywhere that you take a few minutes out of your day and listen to Boston's 1st. self titled album.


Something about bands in the 70's though...it seems that they were so into their ~ahem~ "music" that they were a bit slack on the hair care products and grooming essentials. 30 years later it makes for some good picture viewing though.

Gary the No Trash Cougar

School is back in session and it is great to see all the kids in my neighbourhood heading off to their newly built school with it's freshly manicured dust and brick playground. (I would take a picture, but it seems rainy and chilly outside and I am too lazy to bother)
At first the new school was driving me absolutely insane with its annoying music blasting every morning, like an audio bat signal alerting the good children of nogosan-dong (and probably most of Mapo-gu) that it was time to go to school. I must've not been the only one annoyed, as the music has since stopped. One of the more vexing things about the kids though is that they seem to take a lot of pride in littering, so I thought that I would steal a page out of the old Peter Griffin scrap book and make an appearance as "Gary the No Trash Cougar" to teach the kids to start giving a larbage.

Grading curve gone around the bend

A buddy of mine over at Myongji College passed this tale of the unusual my way a few days ago. Names, dates and facts have been obscured to protect the innocent and VJ Enterprises from potential law suits.

It all started with a cheater. Not the run of the mill dopey freshman bonehead who "doesn't know better," but a senior. A woman (girl, lady, lass, female, testicularly challenged member of humanity...whatever the PC expression is these days), henceforth referred to only by her family name, Lee, to be exact. Last semester's final exam was highlighted with Lee getting caught in the act pulling out a cheat sheet which caught the eye of the all seeing, all knowing Owl Man known as her professor. The Owl Man of course brought the hammer down and gave Lee 0 on the final exam, which resulted in her receiving an F in the class. Now, for those of you not familiar with the Korean education system, it is all but impossible to give someone an F in class, no matter how little work they have actually done or how much they have cheated. An F or D usually results in someone from the University Administration office ringing a professor and explaining the old party line, "you have to understand his/her situation and give them a C." (That is better left to another conversation at another time) However, the F stood and Lee indeed failed the class, and as a result could not graduate.

Some of you may wonder, "What happened next?" while others click on and sigh, "Who gives a ~?"

What is indeed happening is that Lee didn't feel like taking a winter class in order to graduate or try to enroll in another class to finish up her degree...no no no. She figured that she was robbed of her chance to graduate and is now suing the college and also the professor. Yes indeed. Now, I am not sure how this is possible, but lawyers have been known to get on board any shot in the dark in hopes of making some cash, so it is not all that hard to believe.

I hope that this doesn't see any kind of courtroom or even a settlement, or it will be absolutely impossible to fail anyone ever again. If I hear any more about this, I will post it up as it happens.

(Artist's rendering of the way the cheating may or may not have happened:)

Coach Jules

Ha! I was strolling through a collection of "cheap shots" on you tube and remembered this gem from a couple of years back. Enjoy. Inglewood jack!

This game seems like poker, only we're idiots...

This number reminded me of the first Poker extravaganza at The Goat's place many moons ago. As the night wore on into the sunrise hours, the quality of play dropped to unspeakable levels. I would love to hit the casino here, but my past track record of wildly erratic play doesn't lend itself well to coming out on the plus side of things. Could be fun though...