I for one welcome our new robot overlords

Jonathan Coulton does it again.

Monday

when you're sitting at a baR, drunQ and cant remember why?

You just might be me...

Ooops

I (heart) Microsoft...

I've been first in line on the "crap on MS" line when the case called for it - Internet Explorer's inability to deal with web standards; Word's bloat; Frontpage sucking harder than a trainload of whores on the way out of town, and the fact that Publisher IS THE WORST PIECE OF SHIT EVAR FOR DESKTOP PUBLISHING.


But credit where it is due. I am coming to love Excel because of how nifty it is parsing demographics (and I bet I'd love Access if there were a Mac version). And Entourage just completely punked my Apple mail program which never could seem to communicate with my POP servers. I just popped my email addies in the box, added "mail.server" to the POP box and it worked the first time! Mirabile Dictu!

Working on my second review for Acta Koreana and cranking out a first copy of a reference letter that will (allegedly) come from the BKF on my behalf.

I will meet him in southerly cowish town on Monday to discuss the reviews and certainly break the seal on no-beervember. Failure...... mmmmmmmmm, it tastes like hops! ;-) No sweat there, I've been living the clean life (symptom - totally normal blood pressure. Now that just isn't right!) and will go right back to it or the BAG will murder me in my sleep.

Well, if she'd stop snoring and let me GO to sleep.

INSP LYRIC

Always took candy from strangers,
Didnt wanna get me no trade.
Never want to be like papa,
Working for the boss evry night and day.

I need a love to keep me happy,
I need a love, baby wont ya keep me happy.
Baby, wont ya keep me happy.
Baby, please keep me

Separated at Death?

Is it just me or is Zach Braff
<------------

Just about ready to work in the John Ritter Biopic?
--------->

I BELEIVE!

Now...

if you are advertising your brilliant way to build wealth you just might want to use a spellcheck..




And make sure your site displays properly



Cause otherwise? It might be clear you're not gonna help be get rich...

The best review evar on the intarwebs?

Expansive and yet vacuous is the prose of Kahlil Gibran,
And weary grows the mind doomed to read it.
The hours of my penance lengthen,
The penance established for me by the editor of this magazine,
And those hours may be numbered as the sands of the desert.
And for each of them Kahlil Gibran has prepared
Another ornamental phrase,
Another faux-Biblical cadence,
Another affirmation proverbial in its intent
But alas! lacking the moral substance,
The peasant shrewdness, of the true proverb.

Sinfested.....

The meeting with the Koreans went well despite the fact that the most powerful one labored under the misconception that I wanted to be a translator and, within about 35 seconds, was telling me to go to Harvard and get a PhD there ("Mom? Is that you?").

I demurred that I am very old, lazy, and far more interested in the critical and marketing sides of the whole endeavor. Which she understood and I would be very surprised if this didn't result in a job offer in short order. Probably in Seoul and at a decent Uni, so alla that is good. The day was also lovely and a trip to Bigger City is rarely a bad thing and in this case it certainly wasn't.

I also handed the review of The Dwarf off to BKF and he will have a go from his side. I think it needs a bit more grounding in the politics of the era, so I am off to read on that and BKF will certainly have something to say.

In the meantime I am completely reminded why I love sinfest:

CRAZY SOCIAL REALISM!








BITING SOCIAL COMMENTARY!









POIGNANT POIGNANCIES!

Biggish Day?

Today I head up with the BKF to Bigger City to meet with Yun-Hyang Lee of Ewha University and Vania Haam of the ATA Korean wing. I think this is something like a job interview at best and another character check at worst.

So I spent last night resurrecting a thing from the past, the "Briefcase full of BS." In this case it is a lovely brown-leather traveling case with my updated CV, two copies of my review of Cho Sehui's The Dwarf (for Ed, you know! It would be a coincidence if a copy happened to appear in front of the Women of Ewha. Coincidence I say), my new cards and several articles about Korean history and literature. Also, of course, a dog-eared and annotated copy of The Dwarf. Let's hope no one of the crew I'm meeting are of the "pristine book" religion.

In any case, as the plan was to pick me up at 9, the BKF will be here around 10 and then it will be off to whatever it is.

On the other side of this coin, the planning process at work seems to be going well, although I frequently find myself arguing on the side of the consultant and not my president, who occasionally goes OCD over some PowerPoint slide or arcane piece of data that is generally unimportant while we are still discussing meta issues. I also wish the consultant would learn to recognize when the president has dropped one of his little jewels (normally a metaphor he is proud of, a joke, or some story) so that the president would not have to continue repeating these until they are acknowledged. It really slows things down. Not so much as the Pres being in charge of the Powerpoint (it hurts to watch someone struggle to do something relatively simple. But you grab the mouse out of the President's manly and noble hand only at the risk of your continued employment).

Ah well... it's a lovely day in Big City and I have 30 minutes or so to enjoy before the Embassy arrives. And the landlady is gone all next week, so I shall have privacy.

For what, God knows, but it is good to know it is there.

Finally, my favorite self-absorbed blogger continues to struggle under the massive weight of the beauty and solemnity that she so gracefully carries...

My inner introvert lets out a sigh and bemoans the fact that I am already popular

Alas.. struggle on Namaste, struggle on!

"Harvest Fest" and Harvesting Silly Seeds..

Spent the evening at a "Harvest Fest" with a local church - the can't call it Halloween because Satan might come, and the we'd all be covered in blood-red, ropey splooge or something. Still, plenty of fun as the kiddies went wild for our games and giveaways and we had three members of our Women's Softball team there and they are always wildly enthusiastic and full of incredible energy. They had just come from school and directly after practice, without eating anything, but delivered for the kids. I feel a little *sniffle* coming on.

Got home and I've had another paper accepted for conference presentation. Hilton Head, South Carolina, Mid January. Maybe take the BAG and make it holiday-like. I am getting good at the "means nothing but sounds like a conference title" thing. Because I'm working on a review of "The Dwarf," I came up with this monstrosity:

Representing Modernization: Infinity and Inversion in Selected Work of Kim Yong-Ik and Cho Sehui

Now that's just shameless, since I have no idea what I will write about. Still, it will be another trip to someplace..... else... and another notch on the publication/presentation bedpost.

And, of course, plenty of fun to write as I will have to delve much more deeply into the Modernization/Industrialization of Korea, which was a pretty interesting period.

Ho hum...