Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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Turns out, she had hung herself.
D’oh! Spot the error!
Remembering one of my favorites, Keith Whitley, who departed this life at thirty-four years old.
I couldn’t help but notice the manner of his departure as seen at the link. Talk about “serving as a warning to others.”
Sorry to hear about your sleep quality and the canceled bar hop. Good luck with the lung-doc appointment. Can they do a treadmill test and measure your vital capacity? Oh, wait—you’ve got one of those spirometers, right? Wash it out and… heh… give it a blow. And give those numbers to your doc.
re: that video
Have you ever watched Indian videos where the guy or gal switches constantly back and forth between English and Hindi or Punjabi? This lady reminded me of that. Her intended audience is Filipino. Another thought: what she says about the connection between poverty and short-sightedness makes sense. But as she also points out, it’s not just exercises in bad financial judgment that keep people poor: poverty corrals one into a scarcity mindset, making everything about survival… except when it’s time to borrow money so as not to look bad in front of friends and relatives. It really is a vortex, but something has to be done to break the cycle. Otherwise, you end up like my buddy Tom’s in-laws, always grubbing for money whenever Tom visits the Philippines.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/October/2025 @ 6:30 pm
You’ll get a 100% if you try, try again. As it says on the site:
How to use the quiz as a learning tool:
1. Finish the quiz, look at your score/grade, then hit the “show incorrect answers” button.
2. Review your answers. Ask yourself what might’ve gone wrong. Each question is reflective of a rule or principle taught in the relevant BOE (Bad Online English) units.
3. Hit “Download PDF snapshot” so you have a copy of your quiz answers + which questions you got wrong. For whatever ChatGPT-ish reason, the PDF gives you both a plain-text rendering of your quiz plus a screen-capture-style image of your quiz. Print and/or save.
4. Look over the relevant units (each quiz’s title contains the names of the relevant units) and try to find the principle underlying the question you got wrong. Study and re-study that principle.
5. Take the quiz again. It ought to be at least a little different this time. If not, hit “refresh” on your browser. There should ideally be different questions, in a different order, but they’ll be about the same topics.
6. Repeat this process until you start getting “A+”es. Then move on to the next quiz (whenever that one comes out).
7. Don’t cheat. This quiz, despite being designed to minimize cheating, is fallible like all quizzes and tests. It can be gamed. But why would you game the quiz? What purpose would it serve except to promote the lie that you got good at the relevant topics when, in reality, you’re still making the same dumb mistakes because you didn’t internalize the rule?
8. Instead of cheating, get good. For some of you, this will be easy. For others, it’ll be harder. But you’re under no pressure to tell anyone anything about your progress unless you’re infinitely proud of your most recent score or compulsively confessional even when you fail.As always, nice photos. Happy Anniversary.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 19/October/2025 @ 9:58 pm
Looks to have been a very nice walk. But you can keep your weather.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/October/2025 @ 11:58 pm
(second try)
Crap—I see that I wrote “Comment is renewed; faith is restored” two comments ago. Goddamn predictive software. I need to stop typing comments on my phone. And I need to proofread more closely before hitting “post comment.”
Commitment is renewed; faith is restored.
I wish your blog and mine had edit functions for comments. That way, I wouldn’t have to post these followups.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/October/2025 @ 2:12 pm
Okay, I phrased that poorly. About this:
“Have faith that you are strong and you’ll get through [these] tough times.”
Put the comma after “strong” because what comes after “strong” is an independent clause—not because you need to avoid a comma splice (which is still your blind spot because you still can’t tell me what a clause is). My mistake. I must’ve been high. A comma splice is when you improperly use a comma instead of a semicolon.
Remember: separate two independent clauses with a semicolon or a comma-conjunction. A sentence with two independent clauses is a compound sentence.
Bill sat down; he was tired. (compound)
Bill sat down, for he was tired. (compound)
Bill sat down, and he took out his cell phone. (compound)
Bill sat down, but he wanted to stand. (compound)A complex sentence has an independent clause and a dependent clause. No semicolons here: use a comma if the dependent clause comes first.
Since Bill was tired, he sat down. (dep. clause first—comma)
Bill sat down since he was tired. (dep. clause last—no comma)What’s a clause? A group of words with a subject and a related predicate.
What’s an independent clause? A clause that is a complete thought that can stand on its own.
What’s a dependent (subordinate) clause? A clause that can’t stand on its own. It needs (depends on) an independent clause to complete the thought. Dependent clauses are introduced by subordinating conjunctions: if, when, unless, before, after, that, because, although, even though, whenever, wherever, since, etc.Over and over and over again until you can repeat this back to me. Up to now, you never have. I don’t know why.
Are these clauses? How do you know? (When you answer, don’t forget the “How do you know?” part. Otherwise, it’s just guessing, which is worthless.)
• Sheila belched.
• Eyeing the crowd, …
• When the aliens arrived, …
• After Sam had had his drink, …Dependent or independent clause? How do you know?
• Unless you hand over the data, …
• If it rains, …
• …I plan to jump off my apartment building.
• …after they finished dinner.Compound or complex sentence? How do you know?
• I’ll kill you if you do that again.
• Because you’re older, you need to go first.
• Sharon knew the turtle’s dark secret, but she would never tell it.In your own words: What is a clause?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/October/2025 @ 1:28 pm
“Good things come through times of sorrow.” I disagree with the sentiment, but the sentence seems correctly written.
No argument here.
“Love is share bonds are strenghered.” Yikes. Make it shared, add a ‘that’ after ‘bonds,’ and spell ‘strengthened’ correctly.
So your correction is “Love is shared bonds that are strengthened.” Yeah, that works. An alternative might be “Love is shared; bonds are strengthened.”
“Commitment renewed.” “Faith is stored.” I’m not sure how you can store faith. I’d make it one sentence: Commitment renewed, faith is restored.”
For parallelism’s sake, add an “is” before “renewed,” and avoid a comma splice by using either a semicolon or a comma-and:
Comment is renewed; faith is restored.
Commitment is renewed, and faith is restored.“Have faith that you are strong and you’ll get through this tough times.” Either use these before tough or make it a singular time.
And add a comma before “you’ll” to avoid a comma splice—your blind spot.
“Better days are ahead..” You need another period in those ellipses…
It’s just one ellipsis.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/October/2025 @ 12:06 pm
This is Scott’s first outing with the group since his mini-stroke. Spoiler alert: he made it the whole 7K!
Good to read that. Congrats, Scott!
That guy above in sandals is visiting from the States without proper hiking footwear. By the end of the hike, his feet were bleeding. Still, he told me it was the best time he’s had in the Philippines.
Brave, and stupid, to hike in mud with sandals. But I’m glad he enjoyed himself.
A leap of faith for Swan.
I’d be slipping and falling on my ass. I hate mud. For big guys like me, it’s treacherous.
(I just now noticed how poorly written the sentiments on that banner are.)
Think you can proofread it?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/October/2025 @ 6:09 pm
I don’t know… I see a lot of pics of enchiladas covered in cheese. Yes, there’s usually a red sauce, too, but cheese is normally pretty integral. Or is this a case of “the Filipino way”?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/October/2025 @ 4:18 pm
At least the enchilada looks like an enchilada!
Tuesday may be a nothing day, but at least one day out of the week should be just for chilling.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/October/2025 @ 5:47 pm
Good job on 42K, Brian. Yikes, I hope you took short breaks along the way. I’ve walked 42K, 44K, and 60K, but never without short breaks for drinks and/or snacks. One segment of my upcoming long walk is 40K. Sometimes, when we push ourselves, we come to realize certain things about our bodies, and we’re all wired differently. Like John, I’m glad you didn’t suffer any damage, and I’m glad you determined that hydration was the culprit. When the weather is warmer, I tend to bring along more water on long walks, but with the weather substantially cooling down now, I don’t need more than a single liter in the form of two 500-ml water bottles. Yay, microplastics!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/October/2025 @ 12:01 pm
He wrecked it.
Meanwhile…
Her (with a Darth Vader voice): Impressive. Most impressive.
Steep and slick, just the way I hate it.
Not what she said, I imagine.
Our marathoners were once again leading the pack.
Wow, so these are the ladies who actually run the whole trail every time?
Overall: nice hike, nice view. Congrats to Swan on 55.
A Corona hasher brought along her boyfriend, who had never hiked a Hash trail before.
I hope the Hasher doesn’t blame herself for the death. The boyfriend made his choice and took his chances. I wonder what kind of shape he’d been in.
The innards.
While the fusion burrito looks nice, I’d love a description of the innards since you can’t really tell what’s inside. That’s one skill I need to improve as well: food photography.
re: Pea
She sounds Westernized enough to resent the intrusiveness of noise and relatives.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/October/2025 @ 8:31 pm
Turning 70 brought with it some mental challenges associated with accepting that I’ve turned the page to the final chapter of my life.
“Age is just a number.” Until we realize it reflects certain realities that we can’t fool ourselves about.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/October/2025 @ 2:13 pm
My dad made it to 83 despite his lifetime of beer drinking and smoking. Ever since I turned 70, I’ve been feeling like it could all end tomorrow.
I don’t know why you feel this way if your doctors insist your signs all seem within the safe norm for your age cohort. No diabetes, no high blood pressure, no fast resting heart rate, no liver problems. The only worry you really seem to have is COPD, and if I were a betting man, I’d bet that COPD will be what gets you in the end. The story of Leonard Nimoy is frankly terrifying: the guy had quit smoking thirty years prior, and the COPD in his lungs had basically lain in wait before finally kicking in. That kind of life-trajectory, when you think you’ve shaken a habit or a malady only to be ambushed later, can feel like a catastrophe. Since you seem to have little else to worry about, I do hope you worry about your lungs. All those hills you’ve been skipping… maybe find an easy way to start doing them on your own time. Take frequent breaks while going uphill. Make it your goal to do three summits a day, but slowly. Since your heart’s not in danger, you don’t have to worry so much about that. Just watch your breathing, and when you’re down from the mountain, do meditative breathing exercises since you’re not going to give up your drinking habit. Expand your alveoli. On Hashes, stop shortcutting and just go slowly. That philosopher I read, Dr. Vallicella, thinks it’s better to add good habits than to try taking away bad habits: don’t stop drinking, but do start exercising your lungs, then. But beware Vallicella’s worldview: he used to be a smoker, and now, he’s an avid mountain hiker with possibly terminal throat cancer.
Anyway, it’s your life to live or waste as you please.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 13/October/2025 @ 3:53 pm
re: earthquakes, volcanoes
Stay safe. The PI is in the Ring of Fire, right? So this kind of event isn’t unique.
Honestly, I’m wondering how much longer John’s will be around.
I’ve been waiting for this news for a while. How long can such a place last without its original owner’s force of personality? John was a true foodie. His ideas of quality were molded by his love of, knowledge of, and respect for food. After his death, the only people who could really carry on his tradition would have to be fellow foodies, not whoever is running his joint right now. So this was only a matter of time.
I hate to sound cold, but—gone by this time next year?
re: Joy
I wasn’t going to say she looks revolting, but she does look a little preggers. Is she? She seems to be a few months along. That’s a pretty distinct bump. Who’s the lucky father? I realize this isn’t the kind of question you can ask a woman directly, and in a small town, if you did ask around, word of your snooping would eventually get back to Joy, so I have no idea what you can do to find out the truth without causing the womenfolk to chase after your balls with hedge clippers.
Ask the AI god: “subtle ways to find out if a Filipina is pregnant.”
Or ask Swan what she thinks is up. Women have that sixth sense.
But man, was I in for a surprise! There wasn’t a pussy in the place.
I assume that’s someone with a little “something extra.” Or did they go snippy-snip with the hedge clippers, leaving only the chromosomes?
Hope the charity event went well.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 13/October/2025 @ 12:22 am
Basic HTML is easy enough. You have to use open and closing tags that surround the text they affect. The tags are placed inside angled brackets, also called French brackets or French quotes, but not doubled up. My comments on my blog, just like on your blog, use basic HTML. Just surround your text with the open and closing tags. I’ll show you, but with square brackets instead so the code remains visible when this comment is published:
[b]bold[/b]
[i]italics[/i]
[u]underline[/u]
[s]strikethru[/s]For links, if your text is “fart,” and you’re linking to your favorite fart site, the tags look like this:
[a href=”https://fartsite.com”]fart[/a]
And that’s it. That’s all the HTML that most normal people need. Easy. Try to learn it. Just remember to use angled brackets.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/October/2025 @ 6:47 pm
To create boldface and italic text in your comments, you have to use HTML tags. I had mistakenly paired the right open tag for boldface ([b], but with angled brackets) with the wrong closing tag ([/p]; it should’ve been [/b]), thus resulting in an entirely boldfaced paragraph.
With your comments window, you have to know some HTML if you want to be able to format text (bold, italics, underline), add links, do blockquotes, etc. There are no buttons for us peasants.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/October/2025 @ 4:16 pm
(second try… bad HTML tag)
Not that it matters, if I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.
There are several ways to correct the above.
Not that it matters. If I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.
Not that it matters: If I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.
Not that it matters—if I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.
Not that it matters; if I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.
Not that it matters, but if I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.AI seems confused on whether “Not that it matters” is an independent or a dependent clause. In the above examples, I’m obviously treating it as an independent clause, hence the period, the semicolon, the comma-conjunction, etc. I therefore feel free to contend that, functionally speaking, “Not that it matters” is an independent clause. AI can disagree if it wants to, but here’s proof that, in at least one instance, it admits that the phrase is an independent clause:
The corrected sentence is: “Not that it matters; if I don’t like it, I’ll just leave.” This correction is needed because “if I don’t like it” is a dependent clause, but “I’ll just leave” is an independent clause, and the two parts are joined by a semicolon, not a comma. “Not that it matters” is also a clause, and a semicolon is used to connect two independent clauses that are closely related in meaning.
This sentence from the above—
This correction is needed because “if I don’t like it” is a dependent clause, but “I’ll just leave” is an independent clause, and the two parts are joined by a semicolon, not a comma.
—is totally false, an AI hallucination, not relevant to the correction at all. Watch out for AI bullshit. AI will lie without even knowing that it’s lying. “If I don’t like it” and “I’ll just leave” cannot be joined by a semicolon because “If I don’t like it” is a dependent clause. What can sport a semicolon is the (independent) clause “Not that it matters.” “If I don’t like it” and “I’ll just leave” are just fine being joined with that comma.
That’s why I’m bothering to provide you with answers to the question of how to correct the above: because it may not be obvious to laypeople or even to AI. I was going to smack you over the head for committing yet another comma splice, but the more closely I looked into the phrase “Not that it matters,” the more I realized that a nuanced discussion was necessary. So: no smack today.
And here’s another weird thing: even though “Not that it matters” is in the indicative mood (not to be discussed on my paid Substack until October 24), it also has one toe dipped in the subjunctive mood since there’s something hypothetical about saying “Not that it matters.” It’s a bit like saying, “This doesn’t really matter, but…” or “This wouldn’t matter anyway.” “Not that it matters” is truly a strange phrase the more that you think about it.
At least I’m not in jail.
Ah, the unsurprisingly sordid past. Find cheap women, get cheap results. Have you finally learned that lesson?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/October/2025 @ 5:40 pm
Sorry, correction: Zen in the Martial Arts, not Zen and…
Senility.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/October/2025 @ 8:37 pm
Our old dispenser was the [water-bottle-on-top] ilk. This model holds the water bottle inside. So, no more lifting that heavy bastard.
Wait, so this new dispenser is subject to the vagaries of your neighborhood water supply? I.e., the next time you don’t have any water, your machine won’t have any water, either? Just like your shower? Well… if you’re OK with that, then OK. Personally, I think the old bottle system is better. The bottles might be heavy, but they don’t disappear on you when the neighborhood water goes out. (Or am I misunderstanding what this is all about? Is this dispenser not attached to your neighborhood water supply?)
I was somewhat surprised when the offending bartender came and sat down beside me, saying It’s been a while since we’ve seen you here. Um, you said I was stupid, remember? She gave me a funny look, as if she didn’t remember that, and just said it was nice to see me again. Okay, I accepted the olive branch and gave her cookies and lollipops to share with the girls. Then I went back to enjoying my beer and the view.
I wouldn’t have been so forgiving. I’m not convinced that people change except very, very slowly and grudgingly. If she’s a tiger who doesn’t change her stripes, she could insult you again in the future.
But the [shredded-beef] enchiladas were delicious.
So shredded that I don’t even see the enchiladas.
After satiating my hunger, I was ready to continue my journey to bars that [had] pissed me off in the past.
Is this some kind of weird self-abuse? In Zen and the Martial Arts (Joe Hyams), Bruce Lee is quoted as saying he’d learned to stop wasting time with people not worth his time.
That said, I don’t think this post is appropriate either.
That sign could definitely use some proofreading for punctuation. Some parts of it are almost impossible to understand. And as usual, it’s because of fucking commas. And apostrophes. And semicolons. And everything else.
re: Reekay
When are you gonna go meet this guy? I think you’d both have a lot to talk about. Or are you more of a “never meet your heroes” kind of person? I can at least understand that.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/October/2025 @ 8:35 pm
I asked ChatGPT about your cyber-security situation. (It was either that AI god or the Google AI god.) Here’s a link to what it said.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/October/2025 @ 12:29 am
re: your security problems
For future reference, how can you check to make sure you haven’t been invaded? It doesn’t seem fair for you to be shut down because of something you can neither verify nor control. Maybe that’s a question to ask the AI god. I’m sure there’s a way to see such problems and take care of them yourself.
re: habits
Just don’t let your habits stop you from trying new stuff now and again. Like Filipino food. How was that burrito, by the way? I didn’t see any pics of it, so maybe you Hoovered it up too fast for photos.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/October/2025 @ 9:09 pm
re: Erica, your charity
Good for you. And for her.
Any vision of a do-over life should include notions of service to others. Since Erica’s in Manila, I assume you don’t get much chance to see her, but as I discovered with Mom during her brain cancer, presence matters, too. Maybe consider giving Erica a visit or two and hanging with her for a few hours, just talking. I bet she’d love that.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/October/2025 @ 6:54 pm
That’s always a good sign.
For a glorious second, I thought that that said, “Beef near.” That would’ve motivated me.
That’s Boom Boom Manana on the right.
“Manana,” rhymes with “banana,” or “Mañana” (mah-nyah-nah)?
A little surprise on my journey through the LTG archives from April 2014: a post about my first time meeting the esteemed Kevin Kim. It was nice to meat with you at the Brazilian steak house.
Thus began my linguistic nightmare.
I’m glad the walk went well. It sounds as if they should be Hares more often.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/October/2025 @ 4:59 pm
Good luck with the shortcutting.
So we’re back to birria tacos with undipped shells?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/October/2025 @ 1:42 pm
The pride goeth before the falls…
Looks to have been a good walk.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/October/2025 @ 4:59 pm
The horrifically muddy path.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/October/2025 @ 10:56 am
re: acyrologia
Get in there and correct every error! Can you?
re: your French chef
1. soupe à l’oignon gratinée
2. moules et frites
3. soupe de poisson? bouillabaisse?Nice. Classic. I don’t know how to make any of those, but there are plenty of recipes online.
One of the nicer parts of our hike.
Surely, you jest. Otherwise, that looked to be a nice walk.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/October/2025 @ 10:35 am
Kevin, I’m blessed that getting wet doesn’t wreck my feet.
Try 26K with wet feet, and we’ll talk.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/October/2025 @ 11:56 am
Sorry to read about the rain. I hope it’s over soon. We’ve got rain heading our way next week. It’ll happen while I’m walking. Yay.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/October/2025 @ 6:25 pm
«« Back To Stats PageIt’s good to know that you and Brian find my female persona attractive.
Now, now—all I said was I’d had a good laugh.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/October/2025 @ 7:08 pm