Loyalty vs. Sexual Harassment

Almost like Battered Wife Syndrome, does company loyalty and the desire to succeed in the Korean business world outweigh the costs of reporting sexual harassment?

Would an apology for the Kanto Massacre be futile?

There was an article about the slaying of Korean migrant workers in Japan in the aftermath of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Should there be an apology? Have the comfort women proven that Koreans don't accept apologies from the Japanese?

Birthrates and Banging

 The Korean government is trying a new lights-out policy that is supposed to encourage banging. You think it'll slow the rapidly decreasing birthrate?



If you think I'm wrong, have a question or would like to be on the drunken special weekend addition called "Meanderings Over Makgeolli", you send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com

Junk Food Ad Restrictions and Korean Food Snobs

Does banning junk food ads make sense? Will it reduce the child obesity rate? That, and Korean food snobbery.



If you think I'm wrong, have a question or would like to be on the drunken special weekend addition called "Meanderings Over Makgeolli", you send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com

Universal Studios in Korea?

You think it's a good idea? It'll be interesting to see how it pans out and what it means for Everland.



If you think I'm wrong, have a question or would like to be on the drunken special weekend addition called "Meanderings Over Makgeolli", you send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com

IRS and American Taxes

I offer a little assistance on the matter.



If you think I'm wrong, have a question or would like to be on the drunken special weekend addition called "Meanderings Over Makgeolli", you send me an email at asktheexpat@yahoo.com

Podcast Home

Alright, I've been having so many damn issues with different podcast hosting sites that I've decided to bring it all back here. So, from now on, all of my podcasts will be hosted here.

If you're interested in past podcasts, then click here and here, but the rest of them will be here.

I Wonder...

It's always fun to imagine what we might look like when we're older. What's more fun is exagerrating the characteristics that we already have.

Take my buddy, Liam. He's already balding, but in case you were wondering what he might look like in five years.



As we all know people's ears and noses continue to grow with age. Micah won't be happy.



Neither will I.



And if my beautiful wife was an anime character?



And finally, what if Glen was gay and ugly?

I'm Back-ish

While I'm a lot more interested in the political climate rather than the NOTHING climate, I thought I would write a little something.

Since my job, essentially, is to talk to people about anything they would like (within reason...most of the time), I have come across some interesting people and interesting quotes in my month here.

So, I'll throw out some daily quotes for ya...

Here is one from yesterday...

"Only Korean people understand the need for room salons."

And today...

"Horoscopes generally do not apply to Koreans."

Brilliance.

Election Break...

I'm putting this on hold for a few weeks. The election and work are taking up most of my time. Blabbing about nothing doesn't make the cut.

Misogynism at its best...

This was too funny not to post.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Sound of the Week: Techno Remix

Queen is one of the greatest bands of the past century and I really didn't discover their greatness until I moved to Korea and made a slight crack in the jam band bubble that I had chosen to keep myself in for the past ten years. So, today I'd like to offer this great Queen tune that has been remixed to my liking.

Here's the original of "Living on my own".

And here's the techno remix.



The remix is better and really rocks from 1:45 on...

Long Hours

For the past three weeks I have been putting in some serious working hours. I'm averaging around 80-85 hours a week. It hasn't been that bad really and I would be a lot more eager to work these hours if it didn't include a stop over at my old school to teach the kids. However, it seems that they still can't get their shit together over there and have yet to find even one new teacher. My responsibilities officially end on August 29th there and I am counting down the hours.

Sound of the Week: Techno Remix

It appears that work and everything else is finally setting itself into a nice steady routine, so I should be able to focus a little more on this site. I say that, but I'm not so sure. The political season is getting pretty hot, so The Clam might be seeing a lot more action regardless.

Still, I'm here now and want to introduce the musical theme of the week: The Techno Remix!

So, today's super amazing remix features a John Parr song from the classic film, St. Elmo's Fire.

Click here for the original.

Here's the remix...



Any remixes you want to hear?

The Tough Guy Chronicles: Used Bathwater

This is an odd Tough Guy today. The blog is in Spanish and I didn't even bother to translate any of it because the title was enough.


First the full title, " Bathwater: I Still Love to Wash in Your Old Bathwater".

That's gross. Do I have to write more?

***Update***

I did translate some of it and this is what I got...

"And the only thing I wanted was the simple things, a kind of simple life. And all you needed was a simple man .. As a patient you are looking for domestic abuser fight, everything that I wanted were things simple. A kind of simple life .. If we knew tomorrow for the first time Will start all over again? Will attempt to make my own? Now all the simple things simply are quite complicated for my life .. When everything you always wanted are things simple. A kind of simple life."

I guess she broke up with someone and apparently he might have loved a good "domestic abuser fight". Who doesn't? I would like to mention that this Tough Guy posted the lyrics to Don't Speak, so her ex is lucky to have made it out. And since she titled her blog "I Still Want to Lay in Your Filth", I can only imagine that she is pretty obsessed (or waiting for that invisibility suit to be created).

Can you think of a better way to say "I Still Love to Wash in Your Old Bathwater."


***Update 2***

Wait! Do you think that she has kept his old bathwater in her bathtub since they broke up and she STILL loves to wash in it? If so, then she might just be the toughest Tough Guy yet.

About time

We all heard so many great things about the "future" when we were growing up. Ronald Reagan promised us star wars, Michael J. Fox teased us with the hover board and The Jetsons made us believe that robots with attitudes would be doing our laundry. Yet, here we are in the year 2008 and I haven't seen anything even close to that. I feel like it was common knowledge that we would at least have flying cars by now and still we have nothing. In fact, before today I couldn't have thought of one invention that seemed "futurey".

Luckily, some nerds at Berkley have been spending millions to give people like me some hope for a sensationally fictionalized future.

"Scientists have created two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device. One approach uses a type of fishnet of metal layers to reverse the direction of light, while another uses tiny silver wires, both at the nanoscale level. Both are so-called metamaterials -- artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index."

So, light is bending and stuff is happening. I want to know if I can go to the store and buy an invisibility bodysuit. Again, my dreams were dashed.

"We are not actually cloaking anything," Valentine said in a telephone interview. "I don't think we have to worry about invisible people walking around any time soon. To be honest, we are just at the beginning of doing anything like that."

Nothing soon, but they did say that they are at the beginning, so I have some hope. I wonder though, if I were one of these scientists and I created a cloaking device I'm not so sure that I would tell other people about, so why would they? Don't you think that they would want to do a little spying before releasing it?

You know what I would do?



Nope. I would have something to do with this...



But what?

Olympics

Exclusive Summer Olympics news & widgets at NBC Olympics.com!

Weightlifting

고 and I are watching Weightlifting. It looks like it's going to be between Taiwan, Korea and Turkey for the top three spots. The great part about being in Asia for the Games is that the are aired LIVE. We don't have to hide from the news until the event airs. Also, it appears they are going to show all of the events rather than only a few events like the US did in 2004.

Live Update: Apparently, China decided not to enter the competition until the weight was up to 90k. Now it's between Turkey, China and Korea. China expects 78 gold medals from Lifting.

Live Update: The Chinese woman is up to 95k. The other two are still hanging out at 88k. This gold was already figured into the total amount expected, so the US didn't lose any ground.

It looks like China will get gold, Turkey silver and Korea gets the bronze.

"A vacation from ourselves"

Many people grow facial hair in the winter. Well, some people do. Last winter we all grew mustaches and have started to throw ideas around for this winter. The idea for this came last year when a reference to a classic Seinfeld surfaced. I forgot the title of the episode, but it opens with Jerry and George sporting the stache. They were taking a vacation from themselves.

I thought it was a good idea last year and would like to do something similar this year. The challenge will be that those who participated last year have either left Korea or work in different places this time around. A solo mustache doesn't have the same flare as a gaggle of staches, so it might need to be a little less overt.

Glen has suggested that we grow absurdly long and bushy "lamb chops" (stupid Brits). I assume he is referring to our old friend Ambrose.



Connecting the side burns to the stache presents a problem for most non-Union Army generals, but there are plenty of options. We could grow long soul patches or neck beards. We could do the reverse mullet and grow our bangs out really long.

Any suggestions?

Ban the Glasses

We were eating dinner last night and our server was wearing the same kind of glasses that every rapist and pedophile I see on TV seem to sport. So, I think the best way to catch a pedophile is not through extensive manhunts after the fact, but by arresting everyone who is wearing these specific frames.

This is Marc Dutroux. He's a Belgian pedophile and if he was arrested the second he purchased these glasses, then he would not have committed the crime.

By the way, this guy is a member of a political party in Belgium. Their stated goal:

"To push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalisation of child pornography and sex with animals."

And you know why they want to lift the "ban"?

"A ban just makes children curious."

Using the old same drug use argument, huh? Do they really think that because sex with old men is banned, that children are going to be more curious? I'm afraid not Belgium.

So, rather than getting into just how disturbed that reasoning is or the fact that they claim that they "want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals", I think I have figured out how to put an end to this crime all together.

Ban the glasses. Problem solved.

***Update***

While looking for more pictures of these glasses, I came across this video.

This guy's got it down.