happy 50th birthday, heart attack in a bowl

from one of my favourite comedies of all time supertroopers:

"where you boys headed?"

"c-c-canada. we're going over the border to canada for some french fries and gravy, sir."

"poutine."

"canada, huh? almost made it."



pronounced poo-tsin in qweebek. tabarnak, tu m'apprenderas pas comment cé qu'y dise poutine, criss. bon anniversaire!

the guy with the enornous head from muhan dojeon (pronounced "moo-han doo-jon" or "the funny")

yesterday, whilst walking home from poker at teacher bjorn's, jason noticed a tall korean fella with a bit of a 'fro standing in front of chungmu art hall. this famous comedian dude named jeong jun-ha, who makes up one fifth of this comedy troupe named muhan dujeon, was standing around talking to some of his friends. he is one of the stars of the hairspray musical here in seoul.
muhan dojeon have their own tv show and are spokesmen for every second company in korea. their tv show translates to "infinite challenge". each episode they go up against one another in some sort of, go figure, challenge and it sometimes involves western celebrities. it always ends up hilarious because they're not the fittest guys in the locker room and they're quirkier than sarah silverman.
plagiarizing from wikipedia, here is some info on jeung jun-ha:

"Due to the extraordinary size of his head (8kg) and huge amount of meals which he eats (in the 50th episode special-S03E50, he had a Challenge where he had to eat 50 plates of noodles in 300 seconds. The plates altogether was about 10-30 kilos. he succeeded, but he had to go straight to the lavatory and sleep at the back of the studio)."

i mean really, how awesome is that? way to entertain and take one for the team. total slugger in my books.

here is a website with two clips of the show and the only ones i've found with english subtitles. but really, it's just as funny, if not funnier, watching without them. the first clip is a freeze game where they have to put on kids clothes without getting caught moving. the second is my favourite and it's with thierry henry, one of the most well known and highest paid soccer players in the world. i also heard that paris hilton was to be on an episode last week. sadly missed that one. koreans are too nice to make fun of others so instead, the muhan dojeon-ers make asses of themselves. what a bunch of hams!
their faces are plastered all over the subway and they're all gazillionaires, or so i'm told. maybe he's the equivalent of adam sandler or even a quirky rick moranis in his hay-day. i showed the picture to my students today and i gained minor celebrity status but i'm still no jeung jun-ha. sigh.

pepero day

so today, november 11th, is pepero day. it's a corporate holiday initiated by lotte. lotte owns a lot around these parts. so do samsung, doosan, KTF, daewoo, hyundai, LG, and SK. now i'm no economist but i wouldn't doubt these companies are responsible for 99% of south korea's gdp (the other 1% being bootleg dvd stands found in various subway stations).
anyway, pepero are these chocolate sticks much like pocky that you can get back home and if a boy fancies a girl or vice versa then they'll give them the pepero sticks. how cute in a capitalist sort of way. i got a few boxes from my elementary skool girls. cute indeed.

facebalk

so a few weeks ago i caved on this whole facebook craze and i'm sort of hating myself for it. it's like going back to eating animals or something and i feel really dirty inside for doing it. not going to lie though, i've learned a lot since i've surfed around and mostly had a good/insightful time doing it. some of those insights are listed below:

1. there are any number of groups to join and feel a part of something bigger. my favourite being "People who don't believe in fan death". for those of you who are more intelligent than i and do not have a facebook account, "Fan death is the Korean belief that sleeping in a room with an electric fan will kill you. No longer shall innocent fans get the blame." it's totally true. kinda.

2. people sure let random strangers know a lot about themselves, for example, if you don't know what you're doing you can let someone know your name, what you look like, what your friends look like, where you work and other scattered info (ie. your favourite drink at the bar, or my favourite, reasons why you hate your boss)

3. updating and publishing your status is not only sometimes irritating and pointless, it's also like you're helping out big brother watch over you by letting them know your every move. and really, who cares if "steve is walking the dog" or "tommy is lovin' the new fifty cent while painting his toenails". that's wack, yo.

4. teachers on facebook should be careful. most students are ruthless little critters and whence upon they see your profile there'll never believe you have a life outside the classroom. embarrassment will ensue. you will become red-faced. their marks will drop. everyone wins.

5. "titties" is an acceptable word while playing scrabulous (sorry mom)

6. there are so many people on facebook that anytime there is a crime or someone in the news and they don't have a picture attached to the news story the first thing i do is go straight to facebook and do a search and check out what the culprit looks like, or at least what their friends do. it's great!

7. i have way too many friends that i've grown up with that now either have babies (sometimes multiple) and/or are married/separated. i'm having a good time and am happy with my life. i'll hold off for a bit thank you very much.

one of the reasons why i stayed away from facebook for so long is the amount of controversy surrounding "data-mining" and facebook's funding by venture capitalists. there has also been concern that the US government was spending millions on websites like facebook, myspace, and other online communities to put individuals in databases. this has all occurred since 9/11 of course. so basically, if the US government was interested in what i'm up to they could now easily gather info on who my friends are, where i'm living, working, what my birthday is, etc. it's actually quite scary. this is a neat little flash video that sums it all down. do your own research though.

oh yeah, korea is fun too. thanks for asking!