Always a fan of theonion.com, but I do believe they have outdone themselves with this gem about NK's ability to spend a few billion on war machinery but not a few pennies on food for their citizens:

A few highlights in case you don't care to read all about it

- "This is a grand day for the Democratic Peoples Republic Of Korea, whose citizens have sacrificed their wages, their food, and their lives so that our great nation could test a nuclear weapon thousands of feet beneath our own soil," read an excerpt from the statement. "Now the rest of the world must stand up and take notice that the DPRK, too, is capable of decimating years of its wealth at any given moment."

- Across the country, North Korean citizens cheered wildly after learning their nation had violently transformed the equivalent of 2.3 billion hot meals, 11 million housing units, and 1,700 hospitals into their component atoms. Others celebrated by gleaning recently harvested rice paddies for leftover grains.

- Yet, despite North Korea's claim that it will proceed with further nuclear testing, the international community is skeptical of whether it has the means to do so, in wake of news over the weekend that leader Kim Jong-Il has authorized the use of the remaining three percent of North Korea's GDP for the construction of six monuments bearing his likeness.

 

Ouch...!  haha.

 

In an unrelated, yet mildly related and equally cutting (pun intended...you'll see) site is the Korean equivalent: http://theyangpa.wordpress.com/ ("yangpa" in Korean = "onion" in whatever language that is). 

If you are in Korea, the sarcasm will really be appreciated...if you are not in Korea, well then, I am not sure what you will make of it.

Just a little quip from the yangpa related to the national pastime of getting cosmetic surgery:

 

Number of Eyelids in Korea Nearly Doubles
Despite no significant increase in the population, the number of eyelids in Korea has nearly doubled. In a completely unrelated story, a local plastic surgeon was seen rolling around in a pile of cash.

Ohh...long time no blogging.  Just sort of forgot about it for a while...

 

What inspired this post was a quote from Christopher Hill that I saw on CNN today regarding North Korea's nuclear test plans:

 

"North Korea "can have a future, or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both," Hill said." 

 

Ohhhhhh, them's fightin words.  If that's the case, watch for my illustrious return to Canada to avoid being chalked up as collateral damage when Kim Jong Il makes good on his promise to "turn Seoul into a sea of fire".  KJI...so short, but so poetic.

 

Korean Thanksgiving is tomorrow...what that means for me is sweet F.A. really, but it is nice to not have to go to work.  Since I will be around the house, I will maybe see if I can't churn out another blog entry. 

 

Feliz Navidad

 

Over the past couple of weeks of hot weather, Kitty has taken to lounging around near the air-con and spouting off snappy quotes such as this gem:

 

VJ:  Kitty, what the hell is going on here?

Kitty:  Leave me alone.  I am boiling my cane off.

 

 

In other news, USA-Korea basketball today was awesome.  We cruised out to Jamsil Sauna...er, I mean "Gymnasium" to watch Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, etc. put the hurt on the Korean national team.  Those guys are incredible athletes to see in person.  I never really got into basketball, but seeing that game today was dy-no-mite.  Big, strong and fast...you just get the feeling that standing in front of any of those guys thundering down the court is increasing your life insurance premiums exponentially...if they hit you...good night!  If you want to read up on the game, here is the link. 

 

 

In talking about the upcoming Korean monster movie "The Host", which involves a monster being spawned out of the Han river and causing mayhem and madness, I made a joke a few weeks ago that the film probably blames the USA for the monster, saying that the US put toxins in the river and created monsters.  Well, I just read the review and guess what, dear readers?  VonJackass was correct!  Rare but true...

 

""The Host" is also set on the Han River. A mysterious creature appears on the terrace land of the water. It has been mutated by toxic chemicals that the U.S. army poured into the river. " 

 

The entire review can be found here.  I urge you to read both of the film reviews...just for laughs.  

 

Now just imagine the uproar in Korea if either of the scenarios in those films were reversed. Just for historical sake, James Bond "Die Another Day" caused protests and boycotts of US goods because it showed a car falling out of an airplane into a farmer's field in Korea.  And everyone knows there are no farms here.  Farming is dirty work. 

In linking through various stories on various blogs, I came across this gem about the Japanese concept of nihonjinron...the entire post can be found here.

I reserve comment, but needless to say, I have heard many of these same arguments before, but the word "Japanese" was replaced by other "races".    I have not been to Japan in a while, but maybe some of you have been living there for a while or have recently visited can shed some light on this way of thinking, although I get the feeling that this was more along the lines of their thinking 100 years ago or something, but then again, in this day and age, you never know. 

 

Nihonjinron as pseudoscience

Racialist modes of thinking predominate in many types of nihonjinron writings, with some writers citing dubious "scientific" findings as justification for a variety of social practices or political policies that are identified as being "inherently Japanese". ^[4] Examples include:

• Japanese people have different brains from Westerners and hence cannot pronounce "r" and "l" correctly. ^{[citation needed]} Consistent with depictions of the Japanese race and Japanese nation as indistinguishable, this suggestion ignores the example of Japanese youth growing up outside of Japan speaking another language, who display no discernible difficulty.
• 'Because of the unique properties of their language, the Japanese people have brain patterns that differ from those of most other people in the world. Whereas vowels and consonants are processed respectively in the right and left hemispheres of 'Western' brains, for example, it is argued that the 'Japanese' brain processes both sounds in the left hemisphere. [1].
• Japan is the only country with four distinct seasons, and Japanese people thus have a unique connection with nature. Technically Japanese climate can be viewed as marked rather by two seasons.^{[citation needed]} The four seasons celebrated in the nihonjinron reflect a division inherited from canonical distinctions in Chinese poetry.
• Only the Japanese language has words for various subtle emotions and shades of colors. These cannot be expressed in Western languages. ^{[citation needed]} This suggestion ignores that the Japanese adjective aoi means both green and blue - the separate word for green color, midori (meaning jade), is an imported noun. A lexical gap (lacuna) is a common phenomenon when comparing languages and not unique to the Japanese language.

Some frustrated Western businessmen consider nihonjinron fabricated rationales of pseudo-science for Japanese protectionism, citing as examples claims that foreign cars are too big for Japanese roads, foreign towels are too rough for Japanese skin, foreign shampoos were unfit for Japanese hair, or that foreign beef could not be digested by Japanese intestines. Other cultural critics note that supposed aspects of Japanese culture, such as the widely-reported used-pantie vending machines, function as a sort of meme in the West, repeated over and over long after the phenomenon has disappeared. Perhaps the best final word on this topic was stated more than a hundred years ago, by Oscar Wilde: "The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them."

I was at the aquarium the other day and this fish seemed smitten with me, so I decided to give it a kiss through the glass.  As these things go, she pretended to be shy, but then smootched me caringly.  What a sweetheart!

North Korea thought it would be a good idea to fire around some missiles this morning.  Strangely, I was thinking with the shuttle launch early this morning that NK might do someting like this.  I'm sure the news is everywhere, but just in case you are only reading Korea Times or The Korea herald (which has no story about this yet), here is a link. 

I guess papers here are still trying to put the proper spin on this story to toe the line with the "Peace and Prosperity Policy" (which has entailed NK acting like a spoiled child and the SK government giving vast amounts of money to NK in a continuous stream).  Government's handling of NK is analogous to raising your child's allowance when they break their curfew because you think if you punish him, he will try to burn down the house while you are sleeping.  The "no balls" approach leaves SK on the outside with everyone...US, Japan, China, North Korea, Russia, Haiti, Angola...you name it. 

Come on Roh...strap on a pair. 

 

 

God...there is 2 hours and 34 minutes of my life I will never get back.  I was feeling pretty offside today after staying up all night watching soccer action and playing darts and what not, so I thought a trip to the movies would be a good idea.  From the get go I knew it was going to be a long afternoon when the opening credits of "Superman Returns" took about five minutes while we were tortured with computer animations of outer space...

 

Well, Superman did return and he did a lot of super stuff.  I could somehow imagine my Mom's famous quote "Owwww.  What a man" said in her most sarcastic tone.  Anyway, the movie is long, boring and a total waste of time.  The story could have been told in about 20 minutes, but I think the director (I don't care who he is) though he would try to make a piece of "Art".  Although it wasn't art, it certainly was a piece of something. 

What's up with these movies holding us hostage for two and a half or three plus hours?  I don't have the attention span to deal with that kind of over-indulgence.

 

This review pretty much sums up my opinion, although the writer does find a couple of things that he thought were cool...a couple more than I found.

 

How many more remakes and sequels must we endure?  Have people completely run out of ideas for new movies?  Welcome Back Kotter?  A Good Times Movie?  I heard there is a new Rocky coming out...that should be about as good as Rocky 13 was.  A Clockwork Orange Redux (sponsored by Minute Maid).  "Star Wars - More Imaginary lands with funny characters" is due out any day.  Million Dollar Baby was popular last year, so it is high time that they come out with something like "Million Dollar Toddler" or "Two Million Dollar Teenager". 

 

Any remakes or sequels you would like to see?  Leave a comment and I will get the VJ production crew on it. 

 

P.s.  For some reason, the Superman logo reminds me of a uterus.  Jesus...what would Freud say about that?

 

 

I wish I would have had seen this video when I was a kid cuz then I might actually be able to speak properly. 

 

On other notes, it is Canada Day, so that shall be celebrated in the traditional manner:  watching fights (Pride Critical Coutdown), BBQing meats (The Goat is going to be out today, and if you have looked at his blog lately, he has been cooking up a storm, so I am expecting something extra delicious) and watching some World Cup action.  Herbal remedies are frowned upon heavily, so that little piece of Canadiana will have to be ignored for now, but I'm sure a few buddies back home will more than make up for it and their glaucoma will be cleared right up by July 2nd.

 

Nothing sums up the spirit of world cup quite like this photo.  Apparently this guy thought the best way to protest Korea's "unfair" loss (is there any other kind???) in Saturday's game against Switzerland was to offend everyone by immortalizing his image for future generations to come.  I don't know if it did anything to make the refs rethink their calls out there, but it sure should make the world rethink the legality of soju. 

Summer is here my friends.  Ahhhhh...it is a good feeling, or as it has been said, "it gives me good feeling."  Enjoying snappy summer tunes is a basic human right that we are all entitled to, but unfortunately I am fresh out of ideas.  Korea is not exactly a hotbed of creative or interesting music - unless you are into lip-syncing and boy bands dancing around like Michael Jackson circa 1984 (I will give the benefit of the doubt to Hyo-Ri because she is just so...yikes!), so what I am hoping you will do for me, dear friends and readers, is give me a few suggestions in the comments section of what you are listening to these days...you know, recommend a few gems and toe tappers to get me through this dark era of music.  I am open to all suggestions, so don't worry that if you suggest something that you are going to get mocked and teased for your taste in music...I'm just trying to get into some new and fresh music, and hey, if it is good enough for you, it is good enough for VonJackass.  That being said, I am hoping that everyone who stops by the old VJ blog will throw in their 2 cents worth.  My sanity and MP3 player thank you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optimism Boosts Health

 

Another study from the Dutch shows there’s power in positive thinking.  Researchers found that optimism is good for the heart.  It looked at a group of older men and the most optimistic of them had a roughly 50% lower risk of cardiovascular death over the 15 years of the study.  They were asked to respond to statements about their lives like ‘I do not look forward to what lies ahead for me the next few years’.  Previous studies showed optimism helps boost overall health.