Modern discourse is fuckin wack, yo.

OK, maybe I’m a dork, but in recent months I’ve become increasingly concerned with the misuse of language. The straw the broke the camel’s back came last night when I passed a night club with a neon sign over the entrance which read “Ghetto Tea Party.” What the hell? While the image of Tupac dabbing his mouth daintily with his doo-rag while Method Man says “Yo these scones is off the fuckin tizzy god. Hook a brutha up with the recipe” is a faintly amusing one, this is just a gross misuse of language. So in response, I developed a few rules of language that I would like everyone to follow from here on out.

Rule #1 – Some adjectives should never ever, ever, fuckin ever, be paired with certain nouns. The combination of “rectal” and “thermometer” comes to mind as a good example. This is obviously just wrong. “Ghetto Tea Party” clearly falls into this category.

Rule #2 – Some verbs should never take certain objects. This is a lot like rule #1 I know but it seems necessary. There’s a sign in the men’s room of my old hakwon (a language school) that reads “please love our bathroom.” and a friend of mine told me the cafeteria in his office has one that reads “no dumping in the sink.” Both of these are better than the ghetto tea party thing, but still.

Rule #3 – Only apply words to their related fields please. Too many words are applied to concepts they have absolutely nothing to do with just because they have a relatively positive connotation. There’s a craze over here for “well being” products. Originally, this related to health products, particularly those with green tea in them, which is supposed to be pretty good for you. Now it’s used for everything. I saw a grammar book in the bookstore titled “Well Being English.” I’m sorry, but unless the pages of that book are somehow made out of pressed green tea leaves and edible, this is just bullshit.

Rule #4 – There’s way too much coining of new terms and phrases going on these days, especially in the political arena. I mean really, what’s the point in calling Cheney and Rumsfeld “neo-conservative hawks”? Didn’t we have a perfectly usable and accurate term for this already in “fascist shitheads”? I just don’t see the point in having two words for the same damn thing.

So if everyone could please try to follow these for simple rules I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Nothing says "Good Fortune" like a box of Spam

Ah it’s that magical holiday season again here in my little corner of the world. Next week is the Lunar New Year. The exact significance is a bit lost on me but I know it involves Spam. I know this because sometime next week my boss will smilingly present me with a nicely wrapped Spam gift pack (yeah that’s what I said) and wish me good fortune in the New Year. Why Spam should possess any extraordinarily auspicious symbolism is beyond me but apparently it does. When asked, my Korean friends will tell a heart warming little story about how after the Korean War food was scarce and the Spam dispersed by the US army helped families make it through those lean times. But hey, quaint history aside people, its still fuckin Spam. So anyway I’ll smile, thank my boss, maybe do a little bow, and go off to enjoy a three day holiday (well not actually cause two of those days are a Saturday and a Sunday this year and you can bet your sweet ass we don’t get jack shit for that). Furthermore, “enjoy” would not be the correct word for this particular holiday. Nearly everything is Seoul is closed (presumably the store owners are all busy scarfing down Spamish delights with their families), and travel is basically impossible. No joke, get on any major road during these three days and the only movement you’ll experience will be due to tectonic drift. This means my boredom level will rise to something roughly equivalent to what you would experience if you were entered in a three day scrabble tournament with a sub-average monkey, a junior White House staffer, and a spastic clown who only spoke in haiku. So most likely I’ll spend this holiday contemplating the virtues of processed meat products, guzzling large amounts of Soju (a Korean alcohol that doubles as a fine industrial cleaner), and subjecting the rest of you to my questionable comedic abilities. I can only hope you start this New Year as profitably as I’m going to.

Game Theory Applied in Pentagon Washroom

Game theory apparently has found a new application in the washrooms of the Pentagon. Isolated in their individual stalls, the military’s leading strategists are presented with a two choices: to flush or not to flush. Obviously, the best possible solution would be for all the generals to flush. However, a problem crops up because none of the generals know the true intentions of the others. If one general flushes and another doesn’t, then the general who flushed may be presented with a rank, shitty toilet seat on his next trip to the can, while the general who didn’t flush may be rewarded with a clean, sanitary toilet fit to eat off of despite his previous disgusting behavior. Under this situation, all the generals conclude that their most logical course of action is not to flush. While this dooms them to an increasingly vile bathroom, it also ensures that the other generals share their fate. Use of game theory has also been reported in the White House, where both Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Rice have secretly chosen to take the last doughnut for themselves after the national security briefing rather than share it.

It's Time For Some Changes

Well, with Christmas behind us, its time for me to take stock of the last year and decide how I can better myself in the coming one. Yes, that’s right. It’s time to make some New Year’s resolutions. You know I normally just skip this. But this year I’m really going to try to make some changes in my life. I’ve come up with four that I think can follow through. So here we go:

Resolution #1: As of this year, I resolve to act blindly, impulsively, and violently, with no prior thought to the possible consequences of my actions. I’ve been doing way too much “looking before I leap”. That’s gonna stop, I promise.

Resolution #2: I resolve to be far less tolerant of those who hold opinions different from my own. In the past, I’ve been know to engage such misguided morons in honest, open debate, hoping to either see their point of view or bring them over to mine. Well no longer. From now on, when faced with someone with a viewpoint that clashes with my own, I will confine myself to shouting incoherent denunciations of that person, preferably with heavy doses of obscenity thrown in for good measure.

Resolution #3: I promise to stop wasting my time investigating the direction of our national and foreign policy. Instead, I will focus my energies on highly charged emotional issues, such as the Terry Schiavo case, which have little or no effect on my own life.

Resolution #4: I promise to be more trusting of what I am spoon fed by mass media, especially Fox News, and accept their information at face value. I mean, forming my own opinions is sooooo much work. If they’ll tell me what to think, doesn’t that save me a lot of time to follow up on my other resolutions?

So basically, what I’ve resolved is that this year I’ll try to be more of an American. Happy New Year’s everyone.

Postal Service Saves the Children, Ruins Christmas

This week, the United States Postal Service foiled a major terrorist plot to kill and maim the nation’s children by destroying millions of suspicious packages. Postal authorities were initially tipped off by the huge influx of packages and the fact that all of them were from the same sender, a shadowy figure known only as “Santa”. When a background check failed to produce a social security number or any other official documentation, and returned an obviously fictitious address at the North Pole, officials knew something was off.

Further investigation revealed that Santa had been watching the nation’s youth all year, keeping a list of god-fearing patriotic youngsters on an apparent hit list simply called “The good list”. The fact that none of children on the bad list were to receive any of the packages confirmed the nature of the plot. “Evidently, this fiend’s intention was to eliminate all the good young Americans and leave us only with the depraved rabble we currently lock in detention centers or send to public schools.” said the Postmaster General.

With the plot safely foiled, authorities are now switching to the search for this terrorist. Fighter aircraft have been scrambled across the nation with orders to down any airborne sleighs or reindeer not broadcasting their FAA call numbers. Unfortunately, Santa has proven surprisingly elusive. In a clever ruse that tied up many of the nations security assets he deployed literally thousands of look-alikes at local malls around the nation. While these individuals have been rounded up and are presumably in secret detention centers with electrodes attached to their genitalia, they have offered little hard information concerning the whereabouts of the true Santa.

The arrest of one of his elves has aroused concerns of heightened profiling by law officials, as many of the nations shorter drivers are being stopped and questioned, or summarily shot. Citing the new powers provided in the Patriot Act, the FBI is requiring fir and pine tree farms to submit information on all of their buyers. Authorities have also uncovered evidence of an apparently separate plot by a rabbit to rot the teeth of children sometime this spring. The federal government is asking all citizens to cooperate with both investigations by shooting any rabbits or older men with white bears and a red jacket on sight.

Girl Rock Induces Spontaeous Sex Change in Korean Garage Band

Once thought to only occur in certain amphibian species, researchers have been left scrambling to find an explanation for the spontaneous change in gender in the members of a Korean garage band, apparently induced by their switch to girl rock. While the members of the Beanpowder Band still retain the outward appearance of men, they are now in all essential aspects women. While unable to accurately describe the biological processes involved, researchers have definitively identified the band’s choice of music as the primal cause of their change in gender. Several months ago, the band’s male singer left and was replaced with a female singer. This necessitated a change in music, resulting in a profusion of girl rock in the band’s repertoire. Somehow, heavy doses of Natalie Imbruglia and Avril Lavigne have turned these once men into simpering women.

Rhythm guitarist Chris Newton kindly took time away from his aromatherapy to discuss the situation with this reporter. Surrounded by candles and fresh wild flowers and with Blondie playing in the background, Mr. Newton seeped femininity. Yet he strongly argues that no change in the band or its essential character has occurred (clearly a strong case of denial). “Yeah I know that since we’ve taken on Un-ha we don’t do stuff like System of a Down or Panterra anymore, but honestly dude, I think ‘Sk8er Boi’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me’ rock just as hard as anything we used to do” said Mr. Newton in between sips of white zinfandel. “But of course, when we do a concert, we don’t just do the heavy stuff like that. We like to slow it down and do stuff for the ladies as well” At this point the interview broke down for several minutes while this reporter attempted in vain to stifle his laughter.

When the interview resumed, Mr. Newton went on to discuss changes in the band’s change in venues. “We used to play in this one bar. It had great sound system and the owner let us drink for free. But the lighting was terrible. It made my skin look all sallow. At our new place my face is just glowing. I don’t think it’s just the switch in facial scrub either. Besides, the old place only gave us beer, and we were starting to worry that we looked bloated on stage.”

While they have failed to identify the biological processes, doctors have been experimenting with a regimen of heavy metal, ultimate fighting, and pornography to affect a cure. The prognosis, however, remains grim, as the patients continuously complain about the needless violence and degradation of women in their therapy.

If it isn't Scottish, it's CRAP.

“It’s shit being Scottish! We're the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization.” At least that’s the view of Renton in Trainspotting. Having never been a disadvantaged, drug addicted urban youth in Scotland, I’m not in much of a position to refute his claims. Although I will say that the fact that he gets to nail that hottie Diane in the movie does point to a certain amount of hyperbole in his statement… but I digress. So while I cannot, in fact, say whether it is or is not shit being Scottish, I can tell you that pretending to be Scottish in Seoul fuckin rocks… at least for one night of the year anyway.

Last Saturday night was the St. Andrew’s Ball, a night for the patron saint of Scotland and one of the best social events in Seoul. It’s basically a night of food, scotch, and lots of Scottish country dancing… yeah Scottish country dancing that’s what is said, clown if you must. By way of a quick description, Scottish country dancing is about what you would get if you took line dancing, cross bred it with a bottle of scotch, and dressed the offspring in a kilt. This is of course preceded by an excellent dinner, a few speeches that leave those of us how are mere Scottish posers at the dance entirely mystified, and of course, the address to the haggis.

Let me take a second here to dispose of an old myth. Haggis is actually pretty friggin good. So anyway the address to the haggis is a poem by Robert Burns about the virtues of haggis (basically that those who don’t eat it are spindly legged momma’s boys compared to the Scots). Told properly, as it was by our Chieftain (who is definitely not spindly legged), it makes for a very entertaining performance.

Then, of course there is the dancing. This can involve a bit of directing of traffic, as not everyone is able to get to the practices and large amounts of Scotch are not generally conducive to activities requiring coordination. That said, we made it through the evening with no injuries and everyone had a good time.