Whining Wino

Last week I slept pretty late every night and I confess that it wasn’t because I was working or out socializing or even doing anything productive, but I was just unable to sleep at a timely hour due to some slight insomnia. So sleeping between 2-4 am all week turned me into a pretty sleepy child when the weekend rolled around.

On Saturday I had to wake up early for an obligation and then from 6-10 pm I went to an all you can eat/drink wine event and ended up drinking more than expected (but I think I built up my wine tolerance!) After hours of drinking and eating cheese and chips I was quite sloshed by 10. Despite friends badgering me and calling me out for not going to the second round of drinking, I knew I was not going to make it far. With my glazed stare I looked peer pressure in the eye and bid adieu, for I was done. Game over. 

Ed took me home. As we are riding a taxi to my apartment I lean my head out of the taxi window with my mouth wide open like a dog.

I proceed to think about two things:

1. A fly flying into my mouth

2. A car coming too close to the taxi and slicing off my head.

After those two thoughts I slowly bring my head back inside of the car. The taxi driver is eyeing me, “If you’re going to throw up just let me know in advance” he mummers.

I get home and walk straight into the bathroom and puke a sea of misty purple. It was a pleasant slimy puke with a strong consistency. My face was just close enough to the bowl that my own puke could bounce into the toilet and then onto my face. Don’t act like that’s never happened to you. I brush my teeth and wash my face and plop into bed. It is only 10:30.

At 4 am I wake up, take out my contacts, wash my face again and chugged water. I decide it would be best to go back to sleep for a little bit, maybe wake up at 7AM and get an early start on my Sunday. I wake up 8 hours later at noon thirty.  

As a result, after 14 hours of sleep I found myself tossing and turning in bed last night and falling in and out of sleep over the course of the night. I really need to realign my sleep schedule. I also need to build my wine tolerance because I’ll be going back to the all you can drink wine event soon!

Best wine convo:

Guy 1: Man, I’ve been such a wino lately

Guy 2: DUDE! I’ve BEEN a wino! I whine all the time to Jihae!

*silence*

Inflated Prices on Imported Goods

The other day Aaron (my office building mate) and I went shopping for about 90 minutes in the Hyundai Mall at Coex during the middle of the afternoon. The main objective was to find the perfect gift for his girlfriend's birthday. As the commitment phobic guy that he is, he wanted to find the perfect gift that screamed "I like you, kind of but dont start thinking marriage and babies yet." So this limited us to perfume, or diamond-less jewelry. 

We walked around and did price comparisons and were blown away by the inflation of prices for EVERYTHING in the entire department store. 

Today Aaron told me about his plan on how he will gift his future mistresses... 

He ended up buying her perfume. 

Cute Poo

A little bit of morning poo to get your day going on the right foot!

Have you ever seen poo in a cuter form? I can't completely understand all of the lyrics but it's more important to focus on the cute imagery anyway. This video is like the happiest slap in the face. Does that make sense? Ok, good. 

Have a good Friday! 

So there are good people left in this world...

I have a coworker who adopts stray cats and dogs and raises them in her small apartment. Currently I believe she has 3 cats and 2 dogs, and she takes care of them and smothers them with some TLC until she can find them a safe new home. She is definitely a good person. She even blogs about her pets, and gets over 2000 hits per day purely on pictures and videos of her dogs and cats. I would link to her blog, but she’s very secretive about sharing these things.

Last week I worked out of the R&D center and passed by her desk to give my hellos, and couldn’t help but notice the bags of cat goods next to her desk. It turns out that she is now supplying kitty litter and food to the homeless cats that live around the office building.

3 bags of kitty litter and one huge bag of cat food.

Canned tuna & crab, and other treats

I’ve known her since my first day at work and back when I was new and didn’t have any friends in Korea, she took me out and helped me acquaint myself with Korea, and have been grateful ever since. People like her remind me that this world ain't so bad. 

Just to end on a cute note... Viral Pikachu cat!!

Alien Pornography

When I was in high school I thought of this sexy super villain novel concept that I have always been meaning to adapt into an actual series, the only problem is that every time I explain it to friends, they unanimously agree that rather than a superhero novella, I described a porno book. The kind of sexy novel that 12 year old nerds buy at supermarkets for $5.99 and use it as a bathroom book to thump their trunks to frisky housewives read right before bed.  I’ve put that idea on hold for now, perhaps an indefinite hold. Maybe one day I’ll venture into writing porn novels until then you'll have to settle for my blarg.

I here is another story concept that turned from alien to alien pornography. I made this one up a while ago here's a snippet:

There is a planet far, far away called Clapsville. It is a rather cheery place where people frolic in the meadows in their own warm, nude flesh. Their days pass by, one day no different from the last, and everyone seems to do nothing but smile, laugh, and clap. The only underlying feature that distinguishes them from humans is that they have a penis growing out of one palm, and a vagina growing out of the other. They constantly clap. By themselves, with each other… one swordfight here one lip kiss there – and everything else in between. All they do is clap. Clap. Clap. 

I'm not sure which direction I'd take my alien story, but i'm thinking that it'd be a cute pixar cartoon. In 3D. Make that 4D.  Next time you're in a crowd and clapping in unison, think about the aliens in Clapsville. 

Hanky Panky

When I first moved to Korea a few independent sources, consisting mainly of coworkers and relatives, informed me that farting out loud is acceptable because that is natural, but something like blowing your nose is considered gross because it is unnatural, and blowing your nose into a handkerchief was an absolute sin. This bit of information was like gold to me because 1. I love farting out loud and 2. I don’t normally blow my nose unless I’m sick and 3. I have never developed the habit of using a handkerchief. I assured those people that Americans don’t normally use handkerchiefs, and convinced them that that is just a thing of the past or for old farts.

This past week I’ve been training with one of our US representatives who is a total meat loving, vegetable hating, all-American guy – handkerchief and all. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy his company and when he’s not blowing in a hankie, all I want to do is wrap my arms around his big belly, maybe spank around it a few times and sit back and listen to him use old timer phrases that I don’t quite understand. But I absolutely don’t get the handkerchief phenomenon – why not just blow into a disposable tissue? And why is it that putting your elbows on the table is considered rude but blowing your nose into a hankie at the table is acceptable? Why blow into a piece of cloth and then stick it in your pocket?? Booger galore up in the pocket

Aw now I feel bad for basically dedicating a rant to a nice colleague of mine. But honestly, it’s gross whether or not I’m in Korea or the US. .  


[Edit: sorry to disappoint! Next time i'll add in more STDs.]

Taylor Swift in Seoul

I was in a crabby mood when I decided to post on Friday but to follow up on that, the Taylor Swift concert was AWESOME. Seoul was her second stop on her world tour and though her fanbase isn't as strong here in comparison to the states or even Japan, it was very cool of her to stop by. I've been waiting for her concert for months, and her albums were basically the only thing I listened to on my iPod for the past few weeks.

Whenever I'm in the vicinity of a famous person I tend to fantasize that we will somehow bump into each other and become best friends. Forever. Taylor Swift was no exception. I started thinking about the kinds of things we would talk about, where we would go on vacation and how long it would take me to French braid her long locks of hair. I'm pretty sure we could be best friends, she just doesn't know me YET. 

Ed and I got there 15 minutes late and sat in our seats which were way in the back. Even though we had seats far away from the stage, the venue was actually pretty small so I could still see her dancing around. I instantly felt like we were already best friends - except there was just a huge crowd of people separating us.

As Ed and I were stumbling around and looking for our seats she began singing her current single "Back to December" and also my favorite song on her new album. The song is supposedly about Taylor Lautner, whom was her costar in the movie "Valentines Day" which just so happens to be TODAY!! ... uh oh... this poses a new problem. I shouldn't let her know that Taylor Lautner and I hooked up a few months ago.  

Anyway, I'm going to tone down the creepiness and get back to the concert and reality, 

Taylor, being the cool gal that she is walked off the stage and headed toward the back where she had a small stage setup, coincidentally AROUND WHERE I WAS SITTING. She played a few songs there and I was in love. That girl is a natural on stage. 

The concert was only 1 hr and 40 minutes, which was too short for my liking. Ideally I would want her to perform for 6 hours straight, but that's not going to happen. It was a good concert. I left the arena floating on a cloud. 

-----

Taylor, 

I hope you have a wonderful Vday, you made my vday weekend! I totally understand that you were busy and we couldn't meet up and hang while you were in Seoul and I heard that you and Jake G are having some problems... Call me up whenever you get a chance. 

Love your best friend,

Jihae.

Postsecret Valentines Day

I mentioned this before but I've been saving postsecrets since 2005, so I have thousands of old postsecrets saved over the years. I always look forward to checking postsecret around holidays, esp during valentines day because theyre always so entertaining and usually over-the-top. Here are some love/valentines day postcards from the past.

More after the jump!

sofa king

I'm sofaking tired, braindead and overworked. i want to punch you in the face. Even though i'm goign to the Taylor Swift concert tonight, which ive been looking forward to for months, im not feeling very excited because i know i'll be thinking about work, this, that and that that that. also, i have to be at work after the concert by 10 45 for a conference call. i'm crabby and a box of complaints. there is nothing more agitating than knowing that i'll have to work through the weekend.

The monster starts stirring the concoction and adds in the last key ingredients; unicorn legs, dragon tongue, a drop of the president's blood and a lock of taylor swift's golden hair. right before the mixture solidifies the monster jumps in. Darkness enthuses. 

Cell Phone Chronicles: My Week In California

Sometimes going on vacation is tougher than work itself. Maybe I tend to make overambitious plans for myself and end up with swollen and blistered paws. Besides a few meetings, the lunar new year holiday was spent unlike most vacations.

I’m sitting here on the plane on my way back to Korea. Back to the grind, back to life! And for some reason I’m much more pumped about life itself. Maybe because the past 9 days were spent so relaxed and unfamiliarly familiar. It was like I jumped back into the past to the days when I lived carelessly at home with the comfort of a refrigerator full of fresh, plump produce and a never-ending supply of anything, everything!  Almost everyday was spent enjoying life by doing nothing new or necessarily productive.  It was like I rewinded back into the past. This was exactly how I wanted to spend my vacation and it was the most relaxing vacation I’ve had in a while.  

Thanks to my trusty iPhone, I documented most of my stay. So what did I do during my stay?

I took this picture of the frozen Han River as I was riding the airport bus to the airport. Goodbye frozen Seoul!

More after the jump!

Back

Last night as I was on my flight back I wrote out a new blog entry on my personal computer - I'll post it up later tonight when I get home. Over the holiday week I tried to sit down and blarg but I literally do not have an ounce of inspiration when blogging on my own free time, the inspiration comes best when I'm using company time, haha.

I severely hurt my back due to wearing a tight skirt at the end of last week and the pain was so severe that I couldn't sleep at night and standing up felt better than anything else. It was the kind of pain that started out small but slowly clawed its way up my back and to the sides. The type of pain where after rubbing icy-hot on myself, the pain would burn to a thousand degrees within seconds and felt like hell had relocated to my back. After acupuncture and a deep massage, I started to feel better but the 12 hour flight back to Korea was a killer. My annoying seat mates who got up 4 times during the flight were also no help.

I ended up exchanging the skirt for a larger size but who knew that a skirt could cause such problems? Those things should come with a warning label. Be scared. Be very scared. Beware of nightmares about possessed skirts that plant hell on your back. Be scared.

More later.