The world's last non-porn website

Now, I may already have mentioned this, but in Korea, you can have just about everything a human needs to have in life with rice. In the food department, they serve it up strait, puffed, mashed, shaped, coloured, sweetened, levened, or gelatinized. You can also find it in milk, wine, and beer form. It's a breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, and a dessert... hell, even a midnight snack. But the good folks over in Japan, long-standing rivals of the Koreans, have truly outdone themselves . They've clothed a woman with a miniature rice farm. Well, sort of... I'm not sure "clothed" is quite the right word. On a related note, I'm pretty sure that all it takes to be a news producer is to be able to work a ridiculous pun into every possible story title. I bet I could do that job... let's have a look at some of CNN's real headlines, May 13th, 2010, and give them a pun-upgrade: 6-month sentence sought for U.S. Missionary in Haiti Upgraded : Missionary position no...

I've been trying so hard, so very hard, to get into the habit of selling customers things that I would never buy myself. When it comes to menu items that I believe are good value, or tasty, or otherwise worth the money, I'm an excellent salesman. But other things, not so much. For example: when people ask for water, I'm required by the restaurant I work for to ask "Would you like sparking, mineral, or tap water?" It annoys the bejesus out of me for two reasons. The first is that people who order "just water" are almost always ordering it because they're on a bit of a budget and don't want to drop extra money on a drink, or like me, think that restaurant drinks of all kinds are a huge rip-off. Second, who on God's name orders a bottle of water at a restaurant? Who buys a bottle of water anywhere ? So I say "Sparkling, mineral, or tap water?" and most people just look at me like I'm a sales guy on a used car lot who just do...

Well, it was actually a 2009 resolution, so technically this one was nearly 5 months late in completion. Nonetheless, it's done! I ran the Times Colonist 10k, in a pretty darn reasonable time of 52 minutes 47 seconds. That was well under my goal of 60 minutes, and approximately 10 minutes short of my real goal, which is ultimately to beat Jordan. You heard me, old buddy. Next year, it's on.

If I owned one of those live-in rehab places, I'd name it "The Last Resort"

I was out for a walk last night at around 10, and came across -out of pure coincidence - a big apartment fire on Oak Bay Avenue! The top floor of a building, right across from Garden Works, was up in smoke; fire trucks lined the street and residents from the building and elsewhere were gathered around to watch the show... and what a show! I like a good fire. It's primal. I listened to all the people around, as they seemed to be 'giving reasons' to themselves and others for why they were standing there watching... analyzing the job of the fire fighters, talking about how the fire spreads, making phone calls and relating themselves to the one or two people they know who live in the building, and so forth. But they're all really there to watch a little bit of destruction. Our society is so well-built, so carefully shaped right from the buildings to the services to the educations and right up to our minds, that it's pleasing - at least occasionally - to see a little ...

Well, it's high time to write a thing or two. Honestly, if you're reading this, it's a little depressing that you've kept checking all this time to see if I've posted anything. But, still, I am truly grateful! Your diligence will, hopefully, be worth it. So, I ran ten kilometers without stopping the other day (see: new years resolutions 2009!). Took me 59 minutes, which puts my goal of running the TC10k (coming up in 12 days) in under an hour within reach. It's no guarantee though, because that 59-minute run very nearly killed me. I'm changing my goal to 'under 55 minutes', just to keep things interesting. You know, it's good to spend as much time combating your natural weaknesses as you do enhancing your natural strengths. My natural weakness (among many), as far as it seems, is endurance. Every time I practice and work on endurance, it is grueling, painful, difficult, and never does it come easy. So here we are; after months, and I mean months,...

I bought a cell today. It's to the point now where a cell is cheaper than a land line for people who don't talk on the phone much. My goal of dying of old age cell-phone-less has itself died, and so be it. I made it until the good year of 2010 (and Korea doesn't count, because land lines don't even appear to exist there anymore). Speaking of South Korea, it's quite something to see how far behind Canada lags in terms of its mobile technology and reception. My phone doesn't even have a touchscreen! Pfft. By Korean 2010 standards, I might as well be chiseling my texts onto stone tablets and strapping them to the back of a dinosaur.

My Grandmother, and current host, is an absolute hoot to talk to sometimes, amid the lengthy discussions about life, love, work, and philosophy that we have regularly. "I don't know much about rappers. Their pants always seem to be falling off."

I've been terribly behind on this site... there are many pictures to post but the fact is that, unlike facebook, blogger.com requires much more time and effort on the part of the user to resize, upload, and format them. All in good time. I am once again destroyed by jetlag. I've flown on no less than 12 different planes since I left for Korea 17 months ago, and that has been more than plenty. I even know which of my belt buckles set off airport metal detectors and which don't. I learned quickly that, at Seoul's airport, one can get a rather thorough frisking from one of the their unusually attractive security ladies (who you'd think were flight attendants by dress and smile) if one chooses to wear the right belt buckle through the metal detector. Hypothetically, that is. Back in Vancouver, I found that I could take a new skytrain line part-way to the ferry terminal. A security fellow, in response to a question about the new line, mentioned offhand that it had been c...

On the Trip I might as well publish the story here. Apologies in advance for the lack of photos; they will have to wait until I can access a computer which allows me to use USB, because hostel computers don´t. The trip has been, basically, cancelled. After a week in Madrid and a few days in Barcelona, I´ve realized that this isn´t the time for such a vacation... I´ve been feeling terribly homesick, partly because it´s been over 16 months since I´ve been home, and also because I just left my second and more recent home, Korea. I thought, while leaving, that I´d feel more ¨at home¨ going to western Europe, but it had the opposite effect... I´ve felt disconnected fully on both fronts, and sad for not having either of the homes or sets of routines that I´ve become accustomed to over the years. I had these intrepid ideas in my mind, of traveling to remote places, spending each night with new faces, and generally going rogue through Europe... but now that I´m here I just miss the people I...

Times have been good. I´m working on posting photos, but the hostel computers have time limits and typically don´t like people plugging in their USB cables. All in good time. I hope everyone is well back home, back in Korea, and back wherever else you all are! I tell ya, the wealthy demographics in the world are so spread apart, they go just about everywhere to travel and study and meet lovers and do everything else! Would we be so inclined to live this way if it weren´t for the close contact kept thanks to the internet? Madrid was great. I think the best part was staring ito Bosch´s ¨Garden of Earthly Delights¨at the Prado. Great stuff. Today Em and I may also hit up Barcelona´s picasso museum!

The culture shock even during this first day has been bewildering, confusing, and tiring. I've spoken Korean thank yous to a number of shop keepers, and I keep passing things and accepting things with both hands, Korean style. Everything is different, the buildings, the people, the sounds, even the smell of things. I'm tired, and frankly lonely and sad, missing what feels like two separate homes and emotional connections on opposite sides of the world at the same time. The hostel is nice, albeit smokey and full of people my age with drinking and drug stories to which I simply cannot relate. God help me I just don't binge or pass out or fight or deprive myself of sleep or make any of these stories that get passed around the bar table by my generation. On the upside, I can speak more Spanish than I previously thought. Somehow, those dozens of hours doodling on my desk in the back of Ms. Ciccone's class through high school weren't a complete waste. Looking back, ...

I'm going to Madrid on Saturday, after 16 months in Seoul, South Korea. It's been a good time here in just about every way. I'll be home in Victoria around the end of March, after a bit of touring through Europe, India, and possibly Thailand. Wish me luck, and I'll be home soon! I'm packing the computer now, so the next post will likely be from Spain.

I saw Avatar. It was very good. Some may like the plot and characters, and some will not. I think it depends on whether you've already seen films like Dances with Wolves, and Pocahontas, because if you have, you've already seen the plot of Avatar. The script was thin and stretched a bit too far. The visuals however, are more than worth it. Once you're settled in and enjoying Pandora, you'll be willing to forgive and forget any script problems. That movie officially crosses the line in my mind of knowing how movies are made. Until Avatar, I could see how shots were constructed and how CG is used to suppliment the sets and characters. But Avatar just doesn't make sense anymore... the digital and physical realities are so blended that there's little way to intuitively separate the two. I think this is what people mean when they say Avatar is some sort of revolutionary film. Today was my last day of work. It was a bit sad, but only a bit. I think I'll genuinely...

And winding up! My time in Korea is down to a mere 12 days. Four of then will be spent working, three on a hiking trip, one is Christmas, and the remainder will be spent organizing and preparing and seeing various people and buffets off for the last time. I'm saving a large number of pictures to be made into an entry about life here, as well as some extra to be posted after I get home. But for your pleasure, here's a photo of delicious, delicious pig feet (in the middle): Do not be alarmed. In all fairness, you probably eat just as many pig feet as Koreans do, only in the form of hot dogs and luncheon meat.

Over the last few days I've spent several hours (and there are more to come) organizing, filing, and purging my email inbox. It's painstaking, because there are all kinds of attachments and photos and valuable letters worth keeping, so I need to look at most things before they are deleted. And here's the thing: I can see an entire relationship run its course simply through emails. In the start, they're kind, friendly, helpful, and generally written with a sense of reaching out one's hands out to the other. As time passes, the emails become more practical, simply setting plans and occasionally bickering. Soon, we started to pick little fights and respond passive-aggressively. Eventually, the writings are consumed by issues and problems and over-reactions to words and events that, at the beginning, would have been utterly forgettable. Finally, there are the post-breakup emails, where both parties try to make some sort of amends, in the "we were both wrong, s...

Imagine you're a tall man. You're 6'3, well built, and very handsome. You're in the prime of your life and career. You are obscenely rich, worth somewhere in the hundreds of millions of dollars. You are a professional sports athlete, among the most famous, recognizable and ground-breaking athlets on the planet. You're a married man, but you spend much of the year travelling around the world on the professional circuit, staying in classiest of hotels and getting sports massages, while amassing seven-figure paychecks for tournaments and product placements. There are literally millions upon millions of beautiful women who would have you for a night or a lifetime without one moment's hesitation. I'm not saying he should have done it, or that he couldn't have helped it, but I do understand.

Google's been under fire for "posting" unpleasant things at the top of it's search results. Last week it was anti-semitic websites at the top of the list for the search term "Jew," and just this week it was a doctored image of Michelle Obama (to make her look like a monkey) as the first result for an image search of her name. First, people may as well stop being offended by things on the internet. It's a free medium, and many of its users are accessing it while in a private setting. Unconventional content is a norm, and understandably so; the internet doesn't have the compelling behavioral pressures of a social community, and its content reflects that. Second, it's not google's fault. I don't know what their search algorithms are (and they would baffle me anyway if I did), but they're just giving you the results. Google, not unlike a binocular company, isn't promising that you'll like what you see, it's merely trying to gi...

Manliness of main character (10 points) Camera work and production values (10 points) Usefulness of survival advice (10 points) Overall realism of show (20 points). Category 1: Manliness of main character Stroud comes out strong in the manliness department because in his show, he's in the wild for a full week rather than a mere 48 hours. He's also alone with no crew, making the ordeal that much more difficult. Grylls, on the other hand, is much more daring and balsy when it comes to what he decides to do on the show. He goes out of his way to eat absurdly disgusting foods, ascend and descend absurdly dangerous cliffs, and he also makes sure to involve large dead mammals as food and/or clothing in most of his episodes; a manly decision there is no greater. Digging deeper into their pre-show lives, we find that Grylls pulls ahead for manliness. According to Wikipedia, he's paramotored over the Himalayas (I don't know what that means but it soun...