Robot by the River: 2005-11-13

Do you wanna touch?

Yeah!

Wanted to be sure that this news didn't pass any of you by. Not quite as bizarre as Phil Spector, but still...

New Game (Variation on Braveheart)

"Back in the day", when excessively drunk, my friends and I would play a game named "Braveheart". The game required very little: only a wiffleball bat and some derringdo. The rules: two men/women--one holding a wiffleball bat--stand back-to-back, take 10 steps away from each other, and turn around. The one without the bat closes his/her eyes and puts his/her behind his/her back. (I focus on the political correctness only because the best person I've ever seen play this game happened to be a woman). The bat-wielder has three chances to throw the bat at the other person, with the objective being to hit them either in the head or crotch. A stomach or arm shot is worth points, but not the same amount as the more damaging areas. Often this game would result in no real damage, but periodically a ringer would smile, toss the plastic at a perfect trajectory, and land a direct hit on the opposition's grill, and the crowd would celebrate as if the Wall had fallen.

I've adapted this game to the hagwon classroom, and it was a great success this afternoon. I'm fortunate enough to have one class that has only two students, both male, and it hit me today that Korean children are more than sadistic enough to enjoy playing "Braveheart". I wasn't quite brave enough to let them use anything harder than a tennis ball, and rather than having them face each other, I had them turned in opposite directions. Still, watching them throw the ball over their backs and at the other kid brought joy to my heart, and while there were only five "hits", the victor did an inconceivable dance of joy each time it happened. No damage was done, and Liam and Joseph high-fived me harder than they ever have when leaving the classroom.

I'm not saying you should try it out in your classes, but I know it's now a permanent staple of this one.

Never seen this before...

But it's the closest anything has come to making me laugh as hard as the Carl Lewis video did in a long time. Where's Mark Shelley to trump me?

More Pohang Photos

No real stories to tell here, only photos to show. Of the hiking mountains I've been on, Pohang definitely had the most visual potential, but the crowds diminished the enjoyment level. Maybe if I had more than Sunday off... Anyways, here are some more photos (Credit to Marie, whose camera is still working and whose shutter skills are unmatched)

I never include many photos from inside the temples for some reason, but I have plenty of 'em.

Lotte Cinema and other recent movie-watching debacles...

Lotte Cinema, taking residence on the top floor of Samyeon's enormous Lotte Department Store, has recently become my movie theater of choice in Korea. While it only has 12 theaters, it shows films well into the night, with some showings starting as late as 2:00 in the morning. You don't need to stand on long lines to buy a ticket (and the crowds get damn large if you go on a weekend afternoon or evening), since the cashiers use a number-calling system similar to what you'd see at the DMV. There's an Internet Station right down the hall that you can waste time at while waiting for your movie to start (or if you're going to an earlier time, you can always shop on one of the other floors or dine on some Dunkin Donuts in the food court one level below). No arcade here, but there's a 7-11 on the same floor that keeps the same hours as the cinema, meaning you can purchase a precious Hite Stout/squid chips combo and sneak it in the theater; in fact, I don't even think you need to keep beer-drinkin' a secret here.

Not really a feature that I normally include when judging a theater: the entire place has a cruise ship theme, including tile mosaics of nautical compasses and boat wheels, a fake ocean view seen through the glass elevator as you're approaching the floor, and a fog horn that bellows every couple of minutes. It has a kitschy appeal similar to what Ronnie's has in St. Louis, and when you get to a theater near midnight, the sight of baby blue neon makes your psychology a little more sunny.

Managed to catch "Corpse Bride" (beh) and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (again, but it just opened here) here over the past couple of weeks, and some melodramatic martial arts/art film (a la "Crouching Tiger", "Hero, "House of Flying Daggers", so on and so forth) opens this week, so I'll more than likely catch that and try to interpret the plot on visuals alone. My plan is to make a trip to Lotte Cinema a weekly thing, even if many English-language features aren't on the horizon. Fortunately, that's not the case; we should have the new "Harry Potter" and "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" to subversively make me Wiccan and Christian respectively, and I can't imagine "King Kong" won't make its way here.

Also, Marie and I have been frequenting DVD Bangs quite a bit lately. I'll get back to that later.

Persimmon Trees

Jordan

Donnie

Jonathan

Joey

Danny

In my yet-to-be-posted detailing of my trip to Pohang with Marie, I'll provide ample words, but I figured I'm at school and could be brief with this post. Marie and I often dispute who the better photographer is between us, and while it's definitely her, we figured we could have a competition of sorts via my blog. Our theme: Persimmons. To reduce bias, I am not letting you know who took which photo, but if you could write a comment on which one is your favorite, that'd be great. Thanks.