Game on

A spoof of the Apple vs. PC adverts. Kinda geeky, I know, but quite funny too.

Killer tunes

The Killers have a new B-sides/rarities album out this week. Haven't heard it all yet, but I'm hoping it's a more back-to-basics effort than Sam's Town, which had some good tracks but was overhyped and failed to capture the must-have sound of Hot Fuss. You know -the one that just made you wanna stick the album in the CD player, weld it shut and rock it 'til the wheels fell off.

The first single, 'Tranquilize', features guest vocals from legendary songster Lou Reed and is positively brilliant; a real return to form from Brandon and the boys. Crank it up, lie back and listen.

Here's one of the other tracks I managed to find on Youtube, a slow and underscored cover of Dire Straights 'Romeo and Juliet.'

Getting better...

The wintry view from up here on the 15th floor when I got up this morning. Not a lot of snow, but it's an improvement.

Cold comfort

Last night we had the first snow of the season. Bundang got simultaneously pelted with a shower of sleet - some of which was still lying in shaded spots this lunchtime -  and a thunderstorm. Has anyone else ever witnessed that particular combination before? It was certainly a first for me. While I don't expect the current cold snap to persist through to spring, the early chill and snowfall hopefully bodes well for the winter to come.  Ski, ski, ski!

Like pulling teeth

I passed another age milestone yesterday - my first wisdom tooth extraction. Now, I really hate going to the dentist. It's an irrational distaste: I've never had a bad experience with them; I owe my perfectly aligned row of upper teeth to their workmanship; hell, I've even had dentists as flatmates during my uni years.  But I continue to procrastinate about making appointments. These days it's more in fear of potential extractions of cash from wallet than teeth from jaw.

__________

"So, Mr. Thomas. We're going to take out the one on the right today."

The news came as rather a shock. After my check-up last week I knew this was on the cards, but not so soon. I'd been expecting to get some minor fillings done first, thinking this task would be more urgent than removing teeth which had been there for a few years and weren't going anywhere. Evidently I had thought wrong. Before this could sink in, he then proceeded to explain at length and in graphic detail -dentists are all sadists - the possible complications and side effects of the surgery, and then concluded with, "...but don't worry." If he had really wanted to assuage my fears, a more effective tack would have been to omit listing the potential pitfalls and go directly to the injection of local anesthetic.

The extraction wasn't as drawn-out as expected, but it had its moments. The dentist was kind enough to semi-blindfold me, placing a sheet with a mouth-hole over my face so he could go to work without having to look into my pleading eyes. The gap between the sheet and my nose was wide enough that I could catch occasional glimpses of the tools of the trade - sharp, pointy, sleek- as they approached my gaping mouth. I couldn't see much, but hearing and feeling were more than enough without any further sensory input.

As he worked the tooth back and forth, it felt as if he had mistaken it for a corkscrew and my jawbone for a nice bottle of house red, such was the pushing, twisting pressure he applied. I wondered about his intentions; internally, of course, as it is never wise to question the judgement of anyone holding a sharp object in close proximity to one's visage*).

Just as I wonder, it was all over and, after a mumbled "thank you",  I left with a gauze clamped between my teeth and a prescription between my fingers. The afternoon brought with it a dull throbbing pain as the Novocain wore off, and the the rest of the day was spent practicing a form of involuntary self-vampirism. As I went to sleep, a line from an Arctic Monkeys song -"...sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist" -floated lazily through my head. 

* A similar reasoning can be used to prove the unsoundness of conducting domestic negotiations in a kitchen environment.

Wii with confidence

Something to keep you safe, or at least mildly amused, when playing videogames.

The hills have (Irish) Eyes

And also Canadian, South African, American and Kiwi ones (before I get angry "Why did only the Mick get mentioned?" emails).

Over the weekend, five of us embarked on a marathon bike trek around the eastern fringes of Seoul and the area surrounding the Han river, a journey that featured some stunning autumn scenery and a variety of interesting /challenging /tough /nigh-bloody impossible (delete according reader's level of fitness/motivation) hills.  Along the way, we encountered the kind of utter randomness that Korea is always capable of throwing at you. There's been some discussion recently about the sadness of becoming numb to Korea's little eccentricities - kimchi with everything, getting gift boxes of SPAM for thanksgiving, the legions of  'darth ajummas' with their Vegas croupier-wannabe visors strolling through the parks - but it's refreshing to see that the stranger side of life on the peninsula can still raise an eyebrow and a smile.

Early Saturday morning we set off from Yatap and rolled east towards the town of Yanypyeong, which is not to be confused with Yongpyeong unless you want to partake in a  hundred mile detour. The weather was about as perfect as one could hope for at this time of year- cloudless skies, crisp air, hardly a gust of wind - and we were all in fine form for a day on the road. 

Several miles outside Yangpyeong (I think), we encountered an abandoned Egyptian restaurant, replete with a pyramid, a model sphinx and some Valley of the Kings statues.

 

Not far up the road, Jared took some great pictures of a truly bizarre outdoor art gallery, highlights of which included a giant wire-frame chicken and a ten foot tall bird whose head had been replaced by a bonsai tree. More startlingly this fowl had,  inexplicably,  what appeared to be a metallic penis with a lion-head for a helmet. The mind boggles.

 

At the top of The Longest Hill In Korea^TM  we rested and took in the view. Katie and I, following up on last weekend's Halloween military theme,  decided to mount a patrol for North Korean spies. Sadly, all we caught was a lone South African.

A group of twenty-something bikers were loitering just over the crest of the hill, doing their best to look world-weary and hard-nosed with their leathers and shiny superbikes, but a hello and a wave from Kath shattered their facade of coolness. The bikers, now looking about 15 years old, gave her a chorus line of beaming schoolboy smiles and cheers as she rode past.

The great thing about going up hills is going down the other side. We hit 60+ kph on some of the descents, and David clocked up a max speed of 71kph, though this doesn't count because his bike computer is faulty and neither Jared nor I want to give him the satisfaction of being a smug bastard.

 

Around 4:30 we decided to call it a day and halted at a 'Tourist Motel'. The light was fading but the decision to stop was taken mostly for another reason: none of us really felt like slogging up the hill directly after it.  I've placed the hotel's title in inverted commas because, despite its allegedly tourist-friendly status, none of the desk staff spoke more than a smattering of English. Not that it really mattered. I think we were doing fine with the Korean for, "I'd like a room, please," and, "Can you kindly direct me to the hotel sauna because my legs are about to fall off" (or words to that effect).

 

An icy mist greeted us as we awoke on Sunday, turning the parking lot into a backdrop scene from John Carpenter's The Fog.

With well-rested legs and in the cold light of day - and at that hour it was pretty feckin' cold - the 'daunting' hill we'd stopped shy of tackling the previous evening seemed both mild and short. Soon after setting off, we passed a beautiful lake, complete with a relatively (for this off the beaten track location) lavish marina and numerous speedboats at anchor.  The mist soon cleared and the sun warmed our numb digits, enabling us to manipulate gearshifts and brakes with opposable thumbs instead of frozen claw-like appendages.  Around midday we climbed the Steepest Hill in Korea^TM, which gave me nasty flashbacks of the two sidetrips I made during August's Danube tour. I didn't actually have to push the bike this time, but it was a near run thing; most of the ascent being made in the second-lowest gear on on my Scott.

우리는 자전거를 사랑한다 (We love bicycles)

The Seoul Metropolitan government plans to invest over 45 million dollars to improve the city's cycling infrastructure over the next 3 years.

...The city will expand the current 55-kilometer bike-only road length to up to 360 kilometers by 2010. For the plan, it will divide the city into five areas and invest 21.8 billion won to set up 45 bike-only roads.

A total of 24 billion won will be allotted to enable bike riders to safely travel between southern and northern Seoul. The bike-friendly project will also link Seoul city to other neighboring cities such as Guri City and Hanam City in Gyeonggi Province by 2009.

See the full article here:Seoul to be bike-friendly city by 2010

Absolutely law-dicrous

I saw this on BBC this morning, a selection of weird and wacky laws that are still on the statute books.

A little-known law which prohibits people dying while in the Houses of Parliament has been voted the UK's most ludicrous piece of legislation.

Another law which states it is treason to use a postage stamp upside down was placed in second place by those polled by UKTV Gold.

The most absurd international law was judged to be in the US state of Ohio, where it is illegal to get fish drunk.

The 3,931 people asked selected the laws from a shortlist of bizarre rules.

A total of 27% of those questioned thought the law against dying in the Houses of Parliament was the most absurd, while 7% voted for the legislation banning placing postage stamps upside down.

In third place, with 6%, came a law stating that only a clerk in a tropical fish store has permission to be topless in public in Liverpool.

Driving blindfolded

Other lesser-known laws making the top 10 included one banning eating mince pies on Christmas Day and another stating it is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour.

Almost half of those asked confessed to breaking the mince pie law, which was brought in by Oliver Cromwell in the 17th Century.

The unusual international laws on the list included legislation against naming a pig Napoleon in France, driving while wearing a blindfold in Alabama and unmarried women parachuting on a Sunday.

The Law Society last year revealed other bizarre UK laws still in existence on the statute book.

They included a ban on firing a cannon close to a dwelling house (Met Police Act 1839); a ban on the use of any slide upon ice or snow (Town Police Clauses Act 1847); and the prohibition of driving cattle through the streets of London (Metropolitan Streets Act 1867).

Dead whales

The UK's top 10 most ridiculous British laws were listed as:

1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27%)

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down (7%)

3. It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (6%)

4. Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned (5%)

5. If someone knocks on your door in Scotland and requires the use of your toilet, you are required to let them enter (4%)

6. In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet (4%)

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen (3.5%)

8. It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (3%)

9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour (3%)

10. It is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (2%)

False teeth

Other bizarre foreign laws voted by those polled included:

In Ohio, it is illegal to get a fish drunk (9%)

In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation (8%)

A male doctor in Bahrain can only examine the genitals of a woman in the reflection of a mirror (7%)

In Switzerland, a man may not relieve himself standing up after 10pm (6%)

It is illegal to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle in Alabama (6%)

In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on a Sunday could be jailed (6%)

Women in Vermont must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth (6%)

In Milan, it is a legal requirement to smile at all times, except during funerals or hospital visits (5%)

In France, it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon (4%)