Wednesday, January 24

Klingons in the White House?

Here's a great clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

BTW: Saturday's party was a great success. We had around twenty people in the apartment and everyone seemed to have a good time. It turned out that the dog was the center of attention most of the night, since many of our guests had to leave their own pets behind. The guest list was decidedly international: Americans, Koreans, Canadians, Brits, and more than a couple Irish folk all showed up. This may be a once a month thing- if I can secure some post-party cleanup for future events.

Saturday, January 20

Laughing Baby Controls the World!


Via: Funny Video Blog

Avenge Pluto!

Found this t-shirt at Think Geek. Awesome!
Shipping is going to kill me... but it will soon be mine! Mwa-hahaha!

Fuel My Blog


I added my blog to the Great Wall of Blogs over at Fuelmyblog.com. The site is slowly filling up, so
if you are interested be sure to stop by and grab your 40x40 square: IT'S FREE! And they made me the blog of the day!

In other news... We're having a little party tonight. It started out as a small poker night, but now there are a bunch of people coming over to whoop it up. So today we will spend cleaning and doing laundry. I'm sure Rachel will take (blackmail) pictures and we'll post them tomorrow. The dog is going to have a fit with all the new people. Good times.

Song of the Day in honor of Denny Doherty of the Mamas and Papas. R.I.P.:
"I Saw Her Again"

Friday, January 19

Eh...

So the job thing didn't work out. Oh, they wanted to hire me. I'm just not suited for that kind of work. I did substitute for five hours, though. What a long five hours. The kids were all great: attentive and curious, well behaved. It's just not in me to be a teacher and I am OK with that. Of course, Rachel laughed her ass off...

Song of the day: Cars Can't Escape by Wilco. (Starts at low volume... give it a sec.)

Wednesday, January 17

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho

In a few minutes I am off to a job interview set up by our friend, Danny. Apparently, one of the teachers at his school pulled a "midnight run"- he bolted in the middle of the night to avoid the unpleasantness of formally breaking his contract. Or something like that.

Anyways. That leaves a few part-time hours to be filled: possibly by me. I don't really want to teach English, but the extra money would be nice. I just worry about my visa status. As the spouse of a teacher, I am here on an F-3 visa and not allowed to work. If the school will help me get my teaching/work visa (an E-2, I think) then I will consider the job.

Wish me luck. (Of course, by the time you read this in the states, I will have been there and back... and made dinner, done laundry, etc. The time thing still messes with my head some.)

Tuesday, January 16

I Fell Out of Bed


Each day I wake around noon, start some coffee, see Rachel off to work, and stare at the empty white space where I should type blog entries. Sometimes I fill the space with pictures- which always feels like cheating- sometimes I fill it with depressing thoughts on the horrible state of the world. The pictures are always published, the depressing thoughts always end up deleted.

Why is this? I feel as if I have something valuable to add. None of it is new, but much of it is certainly worthwhile: "Stop killing each other" and "When is wealthy wealthy-enough". I guess I don't want to sound like Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along?" Is it right, though, to ignore his sentiment just because a cynical America laughed at him? King's beating by L.A.P.D. officers was a terrible crime and abuse of power. How did America react? We made him the butt of late night talk show jokes. We took another step down a bad road, deeper into cynicism, and cynicism has become part of our national character.

I suppose it doesn't help that we feel so helpless in the face of a justice system that acquits the officers involved in the beating. That was fifteen years ago and the Los Angeles riots sparked by the incident are still very much a part of popular culture: America is still digesting the rage and ineffectual violence of April 1992. Unfortunately, the process is carried out by sitcoms (The Office) and Arnold Schwarzenegger comedies (Jingle All the Way). Are we laughing so as not to cry?

A more recent example of flawed justice: Rachel and I had to appear in West Columbia's Municipal Court to pay a ticket for driving with a burned out headlight. We fixed the thing before our court date, brought the receipt, and paid a $20 fee. While we were waiting for our turn, though, we watched a parade of petty criminals (bad-check writers, video-rental scofflaws, etc.) pass by the bench. One case was a couple of young kids who were busted in their own home for simple possession of marijuana. They were each fined $500 and had to spend 30 days in jail. They broke the law and paid the price, I understand how that works. What I don't understand is this: five minutes later a guy stood before the judge on a charge of spousal abuse. It was his second offense and he was fined $75 plus the same $20 fee we had to pay for court costs. WTF? Two kids (around 19 years old) smoking a joint in their own home pay ten times the fine of a wife beater and get 30 days? It was the wife-beater's second offense! Why is he still walking the streets?

Rachel and I left the court room in disgust. We could talk of nothing else for days afterward. A year and half later and I am still pissed about that, but I also have to think, "No wonder I am a cynic." I only have to extend that feeling to a nation that has seen so many similar cases of injustice and no wonder we are an America that laughs at Rodney King, that laughs at AIDS jokes, and cries too seldom when terrible things happen to decent people.

So, no South Korea pictures today... just my naive, bleeding heart.

Saturday, January 13

I Missed the Comet!


Yeah. It was too cloudy last night. I'll try again tonight...
Here's a picture taken by Thorsten Boeckel in Bavaria, Germany.

So I missed the comet, but dinner was a hit. The pork came out delicious and tender and everyone had a good time. The Soju Jello shooters were a big hit. I thought they tasted like death but Rachel said they were good. Our guests, Travis and Bella, brought a bottle of Choya Ume Fruit Liqueur. It was very sweet- almost like cough syrup- but plum flavored and tasty. The bottle actually has some plums left in it. We emptied the whole thing, so I'm going to use the plums to marinate some chicken to take to tonight's dinner at the Canadians'.

We're international.

Friday, January 12

Don't Miss the Comet!


Well, I'm really out of touch over here. Apparently the Northern Hemisphere's night sky has been visited recently by Comet McNaught. It's news to me. I'm going to try to catch it tonight just past sundown. Follow this link for a pretty good viewing guide. Leave a comment if you catch it and let me know how it looks and I'll post my own observations tomorrow. (I'm not getting my hopes up: we have cloudy skies forecast for tonight.)

In other news... Rachel and I are having a couple of friends over for a late dinner and Soju Jello shots. Should be interesting. I'm making a pork medallion dish that has been marinating since yesterday. Mushrooms, broccoli and other goodies will round out the menu.

I really dig living within easy walking distance of the outdoor market. Everything is fresh and, once you get over the rotten fish smell, it is a lot of fun just walking around down there.

BTW: Click here for the song of the day.