Yes, I blew up the Permalinks. But I fixed them! On the test server! BUT BUT: We’re going away for the weekend. Which means your changes will wait. So: Next week: Them links above gonna go somewhere and some things gonna get shifted around and BECAUSE I VALUE THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE you’ll be able to comment. Because that is how we roll.

I am almost done with those changes. I got a new after school class dropped in my lap which gobbled up my free time. That and plugging holes in web code is generally a “Down the rabbit hole” kind of thing. One thing leads to another…

Those of you who have known me for more than 15 minutes know that I am basely inept in sports. It’s not that I’m particularly bad at one or the other, it’s that in the innermost core of all sports is a series of deeply unified skills: Depth Perception, Coordination, Reflex, Not-Being-Afraid-Of-Being-Hit-By-The-Ball. These are the atoms of sports. Sports are made of them. They are toxic to me.

I’m a thinker and not just in that haughty, “Oh, you didn’t read Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics?” way, but in the ‘There is a ball coming towards me. I have several options, can one of you PAUSE TIME so that I might deliberate on the best outcome?’. But even if you could pause time, even if I suddenly developed the iron will to know what to do and when to do it, I lack the skills required to enact that solution- I will whiff the ball. I will fumble the catch. I will miss the lay up. Barring a sudden re-orientation of reality, these are garaunteed feats.

The point is: Playing sports in America is the only thing I can genuinely count as ‘embarassing’. I am a roll with the punches dude, but when it comes to sports I feel like I’m 7 again and completely helpless. So when Thursday rolled around and it was revealed to be ‘Sports Day’, I shook.

When I was looking at colleges I blacklisted any that had a Phys Ed requirement. I have not been in ritual, mandatory exercise situations in 7 or 8 years. This is a good thing, I am very, very comfortable with this. That ship sailed. It’s not even on the horizon anymore. I’m just chillin’ out on the beach. I had forgotten what a, uh. Well, let’s dial it back a second: At first there was sunlight. Then people were like, “Oh, UV” and then gamma rays and x-rays and whatever. Our knowledge of the spectrum increased dramatically. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Sports Day increased my knowledge of the embarassment spectrum enormously. Because here’s a thing about being bad at sports: Everything thinks they can redeem you. Drunk on every romantic sports film cliche ever set to celluloid, every apt Sportsman believes that you are a star quarterback unfulfilled. You must be nurtured! This is bad enough in English. If I’m hiding off in left field or shooting for the gutter, it’s not because I’m waiting for a mentor. It’s because I want to get it over with and with as little fuss as possible.

In Korean, this is twice as bad. I’m now not only fending off the good intentions of the able, I’m trying to interpret those intentions through a miasma of hand gestures, fumbled balls and broken English, all while trying to make a good impression. My face started to do that thing it’d do at trade shows when I’d been smiling too long, it got all quake-y, like arms do when you try and move a couch by yourself.

So I’m trying to fake my way through bi-lingual Volleyball and I look off in the distance- The female teachers are tossing a plunger into a bucket. That looks like it’s my speed.

Fortunately, my awfulness has the kind of universal, “One World, We’re all Brothers” appeal that Oprah would kill for and it becomes apparent that I’m not a flower waiting to blossom, I’m the house plant that’s beyond watering. They give up passing and asking me to serve and I give up the ALL SMILES ALL THE TIME thing and everyone is satisfied. The game ends and we drink beer and eat pig feet and pork belly, which makes it even-steven by me.

Ugh. Sports day.

FUN FACT: All Koreans own a FULL TRACK SUIT waiting to be deployed at a moments notice.

FUN FACT: I do not.

I made all the changes and then took a freelance job and then took on 3 more classes, so I’ll upload them tommorrow and then we can be regular posters.

In the meanwhile,a thought: “New York is the greatest/If you can get someone to pay the rent”- LCD Soundsystem

I am even right now as we READ fixing the website and remembering why I did not pick this as a full time job.

I’m dying for a better camera. I left the D70 at home because it was a bulky dinosaur that only accepted an obsolete memory format. Does it take pictures? Yes. Should I complain? No.

But all we have on hand is Murray’s beloved PowerShot (Why, yes, ther very same one used to take pictures of JESUS) and a surprisingly agile camera phone.

But if I just wanted pictures I could nab the D80, which is reasonable given that the prices are through the floor. But the D90 takes sweet, sweet 720p video. And I keep saying: ‘Dude, you do not need video’, but then I see stuff like this:

And money DISSAPEARS from my wallet.

This week I solemnly pledge to:

Signed,
Scott

P.S.: lul. Add: “Fix front page permalinks” to that list.

Noodle Soup is not really a tradition in Korea, although there are plenty of soups with noodles in them. A lot of them are served cold with hardboiled eggs and can be had for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 bucks. This soup comes from the market near our apartment. It’s 2000 won (1.75-ish?) for a quantity that can be described as ‘embarrassing’.  These photos do a poor job of explaining the scale of that bowl. It’s very deep. You could feed 2 people on it.

Anyway, some market stalls have big back rooms attached to them. This one has a really big back room that serves as one the market’s few proper dining areas. You wander in off the street and order in the only way we know how: “Two”. As far as we can tell, this is the only thing they sell and nosy glances at other tables seem to confirm this suspicion. Outside of the backroom, where the dining area faces the market proper, 3 ladies tend to 3 enormous cauldrons of hot broth while another woman mixes, rolls and cuts the noodles by hand on the spot. Place an order and she grabs a handful of the raw noodles and pops them into one of the soup cauldrons. A few minutes later she strains out the noodles, adds them to that freakishly sized steel bowl, tops it with the broth and off it goes for a final dosing of seaweed, sesame seeds and scallions. The end result is a broth that’s been thickened by the starch of the noodles, not unlike the fabled ‘pasta water’, the secret trick of killer cooks everywhere.

We’re not sure exactly what goes into the broth, but it comes studded with chunks of zucchini and white onion and is definitely not without it’s own distinct taste. We’ve never found a stray hunk of meat, but maybe there’s a bullion involved somewhere? It’s not salty. Which reminds me: I have yet to see a salt shaker in a Korean restaurant. What you see above is a pepper shaker- Koreans LOVE to dose their soup with obscene amounts of pepper. I join them in this when it comes to earthier, meatier soups like a Dduck Bulgogi. It seems wrong here. Back to the point: Most things are really quite well seasoned and what’s not, well. Usually you make up the difference in hot pepper paste. That Satanically-red stuff above is a blend of dried red peppers, scallions, garlic and god knows what else. 2 tiny teaspoons of it were enough to render my gigantic bowl of soup nearly inedible. I watched a prissy looking Korean woman across the aisle spoon in EIGHT teaspoons and she looked like she was bored with it. LIAR.

Anyway, this has quickly become a default dinner for us. If we’re not sure what else to eat, it’s off to the market for noodle soup. And we’re not alone- Something that’s great about traditional Korean fare is the multi-generational clientele. We sat across from a the aforementioned prissy firebreather, but behind a mother with two kids. Teenagers ate in the back and old folks slugged Soju and slurped noodles against a far wall. It always feels deeply actual and maybe more like home than anywhere else.

Dessert today was potato roll (WHICH THEY LOVE) with sausage and mustard and pickles. I was like, Where’s the dessert? And they were all, Uh dude this is SCRUMPTIOUS SINFUL DESSERT and I was like ARE YOU FROM THE MOON.

Towards the end of summer nearly every c. store, grocery store and store with a freezer has a crazy markdown on ice cream confections. We’re talking 40-75% off. This is good for people like me who tend to buy things that look like they’ll kill you. Case in point: Corn Ice Cream. When I saw this in the freezer I said- and I did say this out loud- “No, come on”. It was clearly a corn flavored ice cream pop. I took it home and stashed it in the freezer and totally forgot about it. Until last Wednesday when I had  a crazy jones for something frozen.

Now, I’m not against weird flavors. I like weird flavors. But this seemed to wander into. Well, can you imagine the boardroom scene? American Ice Cream companies have wisely followed the “Take a flavor and shit to it” formula with great success. Chocolate and Pretzels. Okay! Heath Bar and Bannana. Okay! The zaniest we’ve ever gotten is Marzipan.

So, anyway, I unwrap this thing and am immediately consumed with delight. This is no popsicle. This is a CORN COB made of WAFFLE filled with buttered corn ice cream. The real kicker? Underneath the corn cob waffle is a layer of chocolate. It also has little frozen chunks of corn in it. That I wasn’t so crazy about, but I’ll give it a pass. I immediately wanted another.

Problem was, with those crazy 75% off sales, nearly store had an empty freezer. I stopped in every shop we walked past for days looking for my beloved corn ice cream. Nothing. I found a knock off popsicle version, but not the waffle kind.

And then Murray launched her own search and came up with 3 more from god knows where. This is why you get married. Because some day a beatiful woman will turn up at your door with corn flavored ice cream and make it all okay.

Unfortunately, I’m still grappling with some nasty gastro-intestinal bug and I am forbidden from eating diary for a WEEK. I am sure that this is a test and I’m also sure that I’m bound to fail it.

Corn Cob Ice Cream, you’re the greatest.

John Darinelle is my favorite lyrcist in current circulation and a major inspiration in general, as well as a funny dude and a nice guy., so his appearance on the Colbert Report is one of those ‘two great tastes that taste great together’ moments.

See: http://pitchfork.com/news/36726-watch-the-mountain-goats-on-colbert/

Chuesok is known as the Korean Thanksgiving. It is happening like right now. Well, it technically doesn’t start until Saturday, but the entire country is in the throes of it. We’ve been warned about any number of tragedies that occur: Empty ATMs, closed hospitals, apocalyptic traffic. I’m not sure if they’re exaggerating, but we swung by the ATM around noon and found a mammoth line that showed no signs of slowing. Already two ATMs were fully empty and as of tomorrow afternoon there would be no one left to stock them.

Chuesok is a kind of double-holiday: You eat to celebrate the harvest and you eat to celebrate your ancestors. Most families travel out into the country to visit relatives they usually don’t see the rest of the year and to visit the graves of the dearly departed. Hence, trying to get anywhere becomes a nightmare. Lots of people travel on Thanksgiving, but the United States is a big places with a lot of roads. Korea is a smaller placer and as a majority of it’s citizens look to vacate the cities it’s roads swell and burst.

So, sweet 5 day weekend for us (Chuesok proper is Saturday, most people leave on Friday an come back on Monday. THursday is a freebie, I guess), but one that leaves us essentially stranded. We have to go grocery shopping tonight because anyplace with food will be closed for the next 4 days. Crazy!