Or the equivalent in darts.

First round in the playoffs last night saw Ride it In from Dolce Vita take out Dillinger’s 13-5.  The playoff format is the first team to take 13 legs wins the match.  We came out of the singles round up 10-2 and there was really no stopping us after that.

The Dillinger’s folks are a good bunch of fellas and we had some laughs along the road to victory.  YJ treated both teams to a round of shots after the match which is always a nice touch.

Onward and upward in week two is our plan.

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…but they are tasty!

Dined at the Tabom Brazil, a Brazilian steak house in Itaewon the other day.  It’s like a South American barbecue, with the meat cooked on skewers, rotisserie style.  The bring various cuts of meat, seven in all, including beef, chicken, and pork.  Hell, they even brought out some pineapple on a skewer.  It was all quite delicious.  Best thing of all, it’s all you can eat and they keep bringing it around until you beg for mercy.

It’s relatively pricey, at about W30,000 each.  But we had a nice table overlooking the street and we left stuffed and satisfied.  I’d call that good value for the money.

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Not the board game, the bar game.  Yes, it was trivia night at Bless U Pub and I participated.  Now, I am by no means a trivia buff and to be perfectly honest I’m not particularly a fan of these contests.  Suffice to say, there are other things I prefer to do in a bar and I would normally not even make an appearance on Trivia Night.

But last night I encountered a last minute cancellation of a planned dinner at a Brazilian steak house in Itaewon.  So plan B lead me to Bless U.

I imagine most folks are more familiar with the in’s and out’s of trivia gaming than I am.  This Bless U version was decidedly low tech.  Basically,  you’ve got an MC reading questions and teams of players reaching agreement on an answer and writing that answer on a score sheet.  These were last night’s categories:

1. This land is your land, this land is my land
2. Tarantino
3. Before they went solo
4. The Olympics
5. Acronyms

Some of the questions were pretty difficult–for example, naming the five countries that currently have laid claim to land in Antarctica.  Others were pretty easy like in which current state is the Hopi nation located.  I enjoy Tarantino films, but I had no idea what “The Bride’s” real name in Kill Bill was, nor did I know the combination of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.  With the combined knowledge of my teammates, we managed to do pretty well with the Olympics and Acronym categories, although we couldn’t remember what the second “A” in NAACP stood for, even though it was pretty obvious after hearing the answer.  I hate when that happens.

Anyway, I excelled in the “Before they went solo” category, knowing such tidbits as Kenny Rogers was with The First Edition and Linda Ronstadt played with the Stone Poneys.  The MC was very surprised we knew those answers and one of my teammates, bless her heart, shouted out “that’s why we have an old guy on our team!”.  Ah well.

I also knew that Rod Stewart and Ron Wood had played together in the Jeff Beck Group.  The MC insisted the correct answer was Faces.  Which is just as correct as the answer we gave.  After the contest was done, we looked it up on the internet and showed that Jeff Beck was also a correct answer.  To his credit, the MC gave us the points.

So, when it was all said and done we were good enough for second place.  Our prize was two free pitchers of beer,  Of course, I was pretty much beered out by then and needed to catch the subway home, but it was nice to do well regardless.  We gave one of the pitchers to a non-winning team for their creative answer on what the M-G-M acronym stood for.  They said “lions and tigers and bears”, which was pretty funny when you think about it.  Our maybe it was just funny to us.

Anyway, I wound up having a good time and as a bonus got some material for this blog post.  I’d call that a win-win situation.

Peace out.

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I’ve mostly been confining my political rants to Facebook, but a recent issue had a (slight) Korean angle, so I’m going to run with it here at LTG.

It starts with the Washington Post running an expose hit piece on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.  Yes, the paper that brought you Watergate used all the powers of investigative reporting to discover that Romney may have been a bit of a prick.  In 1965.  In high school.

The other night at darts, a friend’s Korean wife who is just about as apolitical as you can be, expressed outrage that anyone could be held accountable for adolescent behavior occurring half a century in the past.  Her husband, who doesn’t like to talk politics but leans well to the left, was equally nonplussed, saying “That is just wrong.  If people are going to be judged based on how they acted in high school, no one will be qualified to be president.”

Of course, their anger at this smear job is understandable.  They have the good fortune to be living in Korea where they are not subjected to “news” stories that read like press releases from the Democratic National Committee on a daily basis.  Otherwise they might not have been so surprised at just how low the Fourth Estate has fallen.  The press cannot fulfill its historical watchdog role when it is in the tank for the party in power.  Jennifer Rubin, the token conservative blogger at the Post, has a nice column up showing just how one sided “reporting” has become.

What always gets to me though is the blatant hypocrisy.  It was just days ago that presidential adviser David Axlerod was making the rounds saying how outrageous it was for Obama to be criticized for eating dog.  After all, Axlerod reminded us, he was just a child.

But it is worse than that really.  See, it turns out that Obama has some bullying in his past to account for as well.  In his so called autobiography Dreams of my Father, Obama recounts how he shoved a girl because he was being teased by his classmates that he was her boyfriend.  Hey, I’m all in favor of what happens on the playground, stays on the playground.  But it’s got to cut both ways.  That’s just basic fairness.

Anyway, the latest attempt to demonize Romney was not particularly well received.  Even the leftist left leaning Time magazine felt compelled to offer a lukewarm defense of Romney, noting that Obama wasn’t disqualified from office based on his admitted pot-smoking, coke-snorting past.

Anyway, I think bullying is bad and wrong and that it has been a part of the socialization of children since the beginning of time.  So I’m not attempting to condone the behavior of either man when I say that of the two, Obama comes off worse in my view.  It sounds like Romney was a smart ass instigator.  Obama was pushed into his abusive behavior by peer pressure.  To the extent it matters (and of course, it doesn’t), I know who I would rather see as the leader of the free world.

In the end the Post failed in its attempt to change focus from the abysmal Obama economy to Romney’s alleged bad character as a high school boy.  You can’t really blame them for trying, because after four years of utter destruction, Obama has nothing else to run on.

UPDATE: A musical accompaniment.

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Hope all you mom’s out there have a great day. That means you Renee and Lauren!

I surely am missing my mother.

Camping on the Kern River circa 1958.

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Today is Parent’s Day in Korea.  If you still have living parents, tell them you love them and give them a big hug.  Sure wish I could.

We took Jee Yeun’s father to the chicken hof this afternoon.  Drank beer and ate chicken Korean style.  Jee Yeun’s mom is visiting family “in the countryside” so she missed out.  Dad seemed happy with his white envelope.  Hell, who wouldn’t be?  It’s the perfect gift.

Jee Yeun’s daughter and boyfriend gave me a very nice box of goodies.  Chock full of all the treats and snacks they witnessed me devouring these past few months.  It was very thoughtful of them and much appreciated.

And that’s about all I’ve got say on the topic.  Cheers!

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Eye, eye, eye.

I, I, I.

Immigration, Immigration, Insa-dong.

Started at the U.S. Embassy.  Told them I was an American in distress.  Explained the visa issues I’m having with Jee Yeun.  Told me they couldn’t help with that and suggested I go around the corner and talk to the Immigration Service.  Asked if I needed an appointment, was told “don’t know, not my department”.

Talked my way in to immigration and had the good fortune (or maybe misfortune, depending on the outcome) of talking to the agent who had denied Jee Yeun’s tourist visa application last year.  She has subsequently resubmitted with additional documentation.  It’s been over two weeks.  The agent said, “oh yeah, I’ve got that, just haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”  He assured us he’d get right on it.

I said I didn’t want there to be any confusion because I had applied for a fiancee visa in January and still had not heard a word.  I didn’t want to create the appearance that we were trying to game the system.  We just want Jee Yeun to be able to visit the USA while the fiancee visa is pending.  He said he’d check on that too.

So, we’ll see.  Jee Yeun says she has a “good feeling”.  I, being wiser to the byzantine ways of government, am not to sure.

We left the embassy and cabbed to the Korean immigration office in Jongno where I got my passport stamped “extending my sojourn” in Korea through June 7.

Being as how it was now a little after 3:00 and our dinner engagement in Itaewon wasn’t until 5:30, we were in a bit of a “no man’s land” kind of bind.  Not really enough time to retreat back to our Gireum abode, far too early to start drinking in the ‘twon.  So, we hiked over to Insa-dong for a look around.

Jee Yeun professed hunger so we found a place where she could snack on mandu.  Then upstairs for some coffee and people watching.  I hadn’t accurately calculated the traffic our bus would encounter on the short trip to Itaewon, so we turned up a few minutes late for dinner.

And that is my tale of the I’s.

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Well, when I’m fending for myself a nice bowl of breakfast cereal is always quick and easy.  And if Flion the Lion gives them a paw thumbs up, it must be good, right?  Of course Post is a trusted name in the cereal field and if Tony the Tiger can shill for rival Kellogg’s, then I have no problem with Flion the Lion.

But what exactly is it that I just ate?  Ah, the side panel has a handy English translation:

But of course, Corn Flight!  I should have guessed it.  Except I’ve never enjoyed Corn Flight before.  You might say it carried me to new heights.  I’m sure this flavor is bound to really take off!  Why don’t the airlines serve this on those long trips across the Pacific?  But enough of these corny puns, I’ve flown high enough already.

In other news, you gotta love the naming conventions here in Korea.  Take the convenience stores you find in the railway stations:

Why no one ever thought to name a store “StoryWay” before is beyond me. Although you won’t find any books in the Story store, they do have magazines.  But once you come up with the perfect name for your store, you really need a catchy motto so no one is confused about what you have to offer.  “Smile, Smart, Speed” certainly brings three totally unrelated “s” words together nicely, don’t you think?

English can be a dangerous thing I suppose.

Finally, if you are like me you’ve been wondering whatever happened to those Blue Man dudes.  Well, I found one of them alive and well up Uijongbu way.  Er, not so much alive I guess, but immortalized anyway.

And there you have it ladies and gentlemen.  Is there any reason not to love this country?

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Ah, I couldn’t resist riffing on this classic rock anthem from Chicago.  Still sounds great 35 years later, doesn’t it?

Last night we dethroned the reigning B division champions, Gecko’s Jeckels by the score of 17-8.  There is still one week left in the regular season but through the magic of mathematics we have clinched the title.

After several celebratory shots and fawning praise from our beloved team Captain Bridget, Jee Yeun and I took the late night bus ride back to Gireum-dong.  And lo and behold we discovered Jee Yeun’s daughter and boyfriend dining Korean-style outside the GS-25 convenience store.

So, Jee Yeun bought a bucket of noodles and I bought some dried squid and imitation crab meat with a beer chaser and we joined them at the table.  I felt so Korean!  Except that I couldn’t follow much of the conversation.

It was a great finish to the evening anyway.  Today is a national holiday here (Labor Day) so most folks aren’t working.  Jee Yeun has some adventure planned but I am still not clear exactly what that will entail.  The camera is ready so check back for more fascinating details tomorrow.

All Hail the B Division Champions from Pub Dolce Vita–Ride it In!

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Back in the days when I was armed and dangerous.

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I can’t remember the last time I bowled.  Well, actually I bowled Saturday night.  But before that I mean.  I played league in Prescott, Arizona in the early 80s, and I don’t recall visiting the lanes since.  Bowling in Korea is like bowling anywhere else I suppose, but the girls are cuter.

As is the tradition in bowling, prior to the game players spend some time searching for their balls.

Jee Yeun showing the form that garnered her 3 strikes.

When you’re old and fat you can’t help but look ridiculous most of the time.  That is especially true when rolling a bowling ball.

Jiwon and Sohee share a tense moment during the game.

When it was all said and done, we were finished.  Ahem.  A fine looking group to be sure but I don’t expect you’ll be seeing any of us on the pro tour anytime soon.  Still, a good time was shared and I suppose that’s the point.  Thanks to Koichi and Jiwon for having us out for a night on the town.

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When it comes to apples it is tough to beat a nice crisp, juicy, and sweet Korean apple.  We eat them by box.  Literally.  Today our second shipment arrived.  Forty individually wrapped apples ready to eat.  At W50,000 they are a bit pricey, but what here isn’t?

Yes sir, no matter how you slice them, they are tasty indeed.

They are even better with a nice slice of American cheese on top.  But then, what isn’t?

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Got an email from a friend back home worried that I might be consumed in fire when the crazies up north reduce Seoul to ashes.  Ho hum.  It’s all so ridiculous and unsurprising.  I told him no one here takes DPRK rhetoric very seriously and it was tantamount to a spoiled child throwing a tantrum to get what he wants.  Sadly, it’s been a rather effective negotiating ploy as the ROK usually acquiesces with additional food, fertilizer and other aid.

I guess the only thing really interesting about this round of threats is they’ve moved on from “the sea of fire” imagery to the more creative special action that will “will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, (or) in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style”.

Good luck with that.  In the meantime, here in the world of reality we will continue to mock the ineptitude of your government while feeling sorry for the poor people who had the misfortune to be born north of the 38th parallel.

Just in case they really, really mean it this time, I’m set to go out listening to Johnny Cash.

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…in 10 minutes.  Give it a watch.

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Ok, so it’s not all that original and there are the requisite typos and grammatical errors.  But it’s mine!

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My dart league team, Ride it In.   (L to R) Jee Yeun Lee (head cheerleader, score sheet minder, and getter of drinks), Bridget Werner (Captain), Yours Truly, Jacob Leonard, Cory Clow, and Greg White.

Last night we took on the boys from Sin Bin Sports Pub.  I’m no hockey fan, but I understand “sin bin” is the nickname for the penalty box in that icy sport.  They actually have a penalty box sin bin built into the bar.  Haven’t seen anyone thrown in there (yet) though.  The pub also features a shuffle board, a bar game I haven’t seen since my childhood.  Yeah, when I was a kid my dad took us into the bars with him and we played while he drank.  Actually, I recall one night where he drank a lot and challenged some guy to shuffleboard for money.  And he lost all his.  The bartender slipped us boys a few bucks so we’d have gas money to get home.  Ah memories.

Anyway, we came out of the match with a 20-5 victory, the second week in a row we’ve achieved such a lop-sided win.  We need it though because our arch rivals from Gecko’s are hanging tough.  We meet them head-to-head in two weeks.  Not to sound cocky, but I’m smelling a championship in our future.

One of my goals for my return to Korea was to reinvigorate my dart game.  In the states I was playing one night a week and was lazy when it came to practice.  It was no surprise that my game had regressed significantly.  I’ve been throwing well of late, and came out of last night match with 13 marks, including a 5 bulls, 3BS, two 7 marks, and a couple high tons to go with a 7-2 performance.  A satisfying showing.  I just need to keep it up.

Sin Bin is one of the newer pubs in Itaewon and they’ve done a pretty nice job with their darts setup.  The Satan is saying “I’m a dart player, get me a drink” or something like that.

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The view from the back door.

Had a nice weekend at Daechon Beach, although the drive down was quite the fiasco.  Apparently a large percentage of the Korean population decided to venture out on the highway with us.  Took a different route home and that proved to be a big improvement.

And really that’s about all that has been happening.  But stay tuned, you never when the next big event may strike.

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Easter Sunday we went to the movies with Lonnie and Jaime to see The Hunger Games.  Everyone else thought it was great, I found it entertaining but not spectacular.  I hadn’t read the books but had heard some of the criticism that it was derivative of other works.  I’m not sure why that matters or how it differs from most movies which draw inspiration from numerous sources.  I won’t engage in spoilers, but from my perspective this future world is what we can expect when we become pawns of the government, an Obamatopia if you will.  I also noted that “the 1%” living in Capital City were clearly liberals because they dress just like many of the folks I’ve seen in San Francisco. Anyway, the future portrayed was like North Korea on steroids.  Enough said.

This is the first time I’d been to a Korean movie theater in several years.  The best thing about it compared to the USA is that it is relatively cheap.  I scored a large popcorn and large Coke Zero for W7,000, less than half what I would have paid back home.  I also like that you get assigned seating when you purchase your ticket.  I really should go more often.

We saw the movie in Myeong-dong and the theater was up on the eighth floor.  As we were coming down the kaleidoscope of escalators a voice called out “Jee Yeunah”!  It was our old friends Bill and June Rago from Nowon out for an afternoon of shopping.  Apparently, I stand out in a crowd of Koreans for some reason.  We had a brief visit and made plans for lunch on Wednesday.  In a city of 13 million it was quite a coincidence to encounter some folks I actually know that way.

Later on we walked around the shopping district looking for a place to eat.  As much as I enjoy Korean food, we all agreed something different was in order.  We settled on a place called “Pane Pasta” which none of us had previously tried.  And it was good.  The weird thing was after we got home we saw on Facebook that Jee Yeun’s daughter and friends were in Myeong-dong and they were trying a new restaurant–Pane Pasta.  What are the odds of that?

Last night was darts night and we took on the boys from Dillinger’s Bar.  I contributed an 8-1 showing in a 20-5 victory.  Our team is in first place and this win will go a long way to keeping us there.

We took the bus home and on the 40 minute ride I counted 7 Paris Banquettes and 1 McDonalds.

It’s raining today and that’s perfect nap weather.  I just woke up from mine.  And that brings you up to the minute on my fascinating life in Korea.

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I had a good Friday (ahem) but yesterday was really special.

It started with the mid-season dart tourney at Dillinger’s Bar in Itaewon.  I had the good fortune to draw Sam Heyward as my partner and to also throw a tad better than I usually do.  We had the misfortune to face Paul Winterburn and his partner who were pretty much unstoppable.  They knocked us out of the winner’s bracket but we fought our way back to face them in the finals.  Alas, we came up short and had to “settle” for second place money (W180,000).

I did have the pleasure of throwing a ton-80 for the tourney high which was good for another W20,000.  It was just a tiny bit sweeter because it topped Paul’s ton-50.  Paul got his revenge I suppose by beating me in the high mark shootout.

But the bottom line is I had a great time throwing against some outstanding players, hanging with some friends, and of course being cheered on by my number 1 fan Jee Yeun.

And that’s not all!

After darts we (the Werner’s, the Scheepstra’s me and my sweetie) went out in search of some food to mix with the copious amount of beers previously consumed.  The tables in the galbi house we prefer were full and none of us felt like sitting on the floor (I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get back up).  So, we tried a new to us back alley barbecue joint and enjoyed some galbi, samgyapsal, ukgaejang, daenjangigae and the traditional sides.  Which we washed down with chungha and more beer of course.

The dinner table conversation (of what I remember) is not fit for recitation here.  Suffice to say the Werner’s were in classic form, Lonnie was instigating, Jee Yeun was telling tales out of school, and Jaime was quietly pondering what the hell she had got herself into.  In other words, we laughed our asses off.

But wait, there’s more!

After dinner, we trekked over to the local norebang to flex our vocal chords and butcher some popular songs.  I opened with the classic Bee Gees tune “I started a joke” and scored a perfect 100.  This, for some unknown reason, sent my counterparts into fits, screaming such nonsense as the “fix was in”, “no way” and “you’ve gotta be kidding me”.  (I was drunk, but I never forget an insult!)  Suffice to say, NO ONE sings the Bee Gees quite the way I do.

Anyway, for the rest of the evening the group tried in vain to beat that first 100 (heck, even I couldn’t replicate it).  Jaime came close with a 98 on a sweet Korean song.  Bridget and I were robbed on “Knock three times” (I know, I know.  But Bridget loves Tony Orlando and Dawn).  Lonnie and Chris were certain they’d hit it with the evenings final song “Hotel Califorinia”, but alas, they too fell short.

Oh, and we drank more beers.

Then we all managed to catch taxi’s with surprising ease and an almost perfect day (damn you Paul) came to an end.

Happy Easter!

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I thought of my blog buddy Kevin Kim when I saw this.

Hit random and enjoy a rather unique and creative comic.

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