Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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Funny how people who reject the God-and-Jesus stuff find themselves made curious by the reincarnation stuff. You’ve doubtless heard the old joke about the atheist watching and laughing while the Christian and Jew each argue over how ridiculous the other’s belief system is.
I enjoyed that history of the Hash. How true do you think it is? Have you done any side research to verify it? So much is fake nonsense these days; you have to be critical of everything. I get suckered all the time. Never good to be gullible.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/September/2025 @ 12:43 am
That “reaction to my blog posts” was directed at you or referencing my grammatical shortcomings.
!!!!!! I knew it !!!!!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/September/2025 @ 10:49 am
By the way, if you ever want to review your quiz answers (I hope you used the “take a snapshot” function; you can email the PDF of your quiz results to me), just shoot me an email. I’m not some guru on a mountaintop, glowering down at you and waiting for you to climb to the summit, expecting you to get everything right on your own. This Substack project isn’t meant to be an arrogant, “You come to me” thing. I’m actually in the valley with you and willing to help you to the mountaintop. Obviously, I won’t simply give you the correct answers, but I can help channel your thinking toward the right answers. If you’re willing to make the effort. Big if. Lemme know.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/September/2025 @ 8:38 pm
I came across today’s YouTube video somewhat randomly, but I liked what I heard.
So that’s the same AI monk as was on that video I’d hosted on my blog here. Since you’d seen the video on my blog, the YouTube algorithm probably fed you this other video. All hail the algorithm!
Sounds like the reaction to my blog posts.
Come on—have I ever been that harsh? You’re basically a good writer in terms of content and tone, but you keep making the same damn technical errors again and again and again because you refuse to make the effort to study, always with the excuse of “old dog, new tricks.” And you’re only going to get “behinder” on my Substack course the longer you resist studying. It’s sad to see. But to be fair, I guess we’re all lazy about something. And being technically poor at English doesn’t mean you’re a zero at everything. There are ten thousand ways to be smart, and technical proficiency in written English won’t determine whether you go to heaven or hell. But stubborn adherence to mistakes, in English and elsewhere in life, might determine the nature of your hoped-for “do-over life.” Don’t get trapped in a samsara of lameness.
Ain’t that the truth!
My buddy Charles and I argue back and forth about whether Frodo cheesed at the end of the story. I tend to think he did, that he succumbed to the ring’s temptation, and that it was, ironically, Gollum who inadvertently became the world’s savior. Charles, meanwhile, gives Frodo a lot more credit than I do, and there’s a whole host of LOTR fans out there who argue that “Frodo got the Ring 99% of the way to the chasm, and that’s got to mean something.” To me, it means nothing if Frodo fumbles and screws the pooch right at the very end—which makes Gollum’s theft of the Ring a great example of evil inadvertently destroying itself.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/September/2025 @ 7:55 pm
Swan’s dinner choice should come as no surprise.
Crispy this time?
re: sweet-and-sour pork
Chinese or Korean style? What do you think?
(And yes, the structure of that sentence is off kilter. Don’t blame me, I didn’t write it.)
I saved it for my Substack. (“Off-kilter” is usually hyphenated no matter where it appears in a sentence. Some adjectives are like that.)
I’m going to walk the 2K to the start of today’s Hash trail on Rizal Extension, and decide where to go from there.
I’m saving this for Substack as well. Sigh… I had at least two Bad Online English posts about this problem (BOE #8, BOE #13). In one ear (eye?) and out the other.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/September/2025 @ 3:08 pm
“No, you only die once. You live every day.”
But once you die, you’re dead every day—and for a lot longer than you were alive. Not that you’ll care, of course.
Our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.
—Vladimir Nabokov, being his usual, cheery selfAnd while we were doing the Candy Walk yesterday, a new name came to mind: Decay Dance. Swan didn’t get it until I showed her the definition of decadence.
Oh. I’d immediately thought it was a play on “tooth decay.” As in: spreading joy and tooth decay to all the kiddies in the neighborhood.
Heading out loaded down with bags of candy. Those teeth aren’t going to decay on their own.
So I’m not the only one thinking about candy and teeth.
Swan gave that horny cow a wide berth.
Looks like a two-headed cow to me.
The road ahead wasn’t paved with yellow bricks.
Ah, the joys of poor drainage. Korea has those problems, too. Come to think of it, so do the States. Specifically, Route 66 eastbound, not far from the Centreville exit, during a nasty summer storm. So bad that you’ll start hydroplaning at 35 mph.
Maybe Trump could incorporate some broken beer bottles into the border wall.
At first glance, those shards looked like a mass of butterflies settled there.
Thanks for nothing English.
What’s missing?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/September/2025 @ 4:35 pm
I don’t know my birds, but I’d guess those are swans.
Those look closer to being egrets than swans, but here—you judge. I don’t know my birds, either. For all I know, they could be herons or some kind of crane.
Today’s YouTube video also comes from the LTG archives.
Hilarious. If that animator is still around, what topic might you suggest to him?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/September/2025 @ 9:21 pm
The day that lives on in infamy
I thought that that steak looked like pork, and it was. The word Gammon is also etymologically related to the French jambon (ham) and the Spanish jamón (also ham). In Old North French, jambon was gambon. You can read more about the etymology here.
Sorry that Wombat turned out to be a bust. What would bring you back?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/September/2025 @ 10:55 pm
I’m ragging on Kevin Kim about a joke I made when he pointed out “dole” should not be capitalized in one of his Substack posts.
You’re being disingenuous: I’d said that “dole” should not be capitalized in the expression “on the dole.” Whether “dole” is a noun (“the dole”) or a verb meaning “to mete out or allocate” (“to dole out”), it’s always lower case except at the beginning of a sentence. The brand name, however, is a different story.
It’s the “Ber” months, and that means the Christmas goodies are filling the shelves at Royal.
You’d think that a country full of Catholics wouldn’t have to buy the same trinkets again and again, year after year. Then again, here in Korea, Buddhist-trinket shops remain in business with no sign of closing up.
…but credit where it is due[:] he was still making the effort to do the things he enjoyed until the end.
I guess putting “Fucking Old Man” on that announcement would’ve been, as the French say, de mauvais goût.
the Hash Grandmaster, Buddy Fucker
So poor Dave can’t escape nicknames. He’s either Buddy Fucker or Daddy Dave, never just Dave.
So, the situation stinks. Or maybe that’s me. It looks like I’m going to have to get used to sponge baths and cold bucket of water showers for the foreseeable future.
So no solar/camp shower?
Been there, done that. Zero points for me.
I might have one point, but I can’t remember. Have I ever listened to music on a boombox outside? Otherwise, zero for me, too.
Swan is a certified caregiver, so I’m in good hands.
I hope “certified caregiver” means “able to be a first responder.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/September/2025 @ 7:36 pm
Branching out.
Damn, that’s just a branch? Looks like the whole tree except for the root system.
Cums Alone got recognized for her 50th run with the SBH3.
Congratulations. And to think she started off not wanting to do this sort of walk. You’ve changed her, and she’s changed you. Whatever her previous guy had brought into her life, you’ve managed to bring something new and different. Not a bad thing at all.
Speaking of down, we still have no water, and if the Alta Vista guards are correct, we may not have service restored for two or more weeks.
Definitely get a sun shower, or get used to sponge baths. Of course, the original “Sun Shower” (seems to be gone now—I see only listings for “solar shower” and “camp shower”) had that brand name because it hung out in the sun and warmed up, giving you a warm (but not golden) shower. If you were to use it indoors, warm water would not be assured unless you warmed your water up before putting it in the shower bag. If you’re OK with showering in front of the neighbors, you could hang the thing outside, let it warm up, then shower in just your shorts the way people do beachside in the States.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/September/2025 @ 6:19 pm
And it broke. The water department folks were kind enough to send a water truck to fill up buckets and barrels so we could have access to water the old-fashioned way.
Do you have a camp-style “sun shower” that you can set up in your bathroom to take showers with the water provided by the water truck?
Almost as scary as reading my blog!
Since those are mostly spelling errors in the toon, it’s less a house of horrors for grammar and more a house of horrors for mechanics (spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc.)!
Ooh, that “walks into a bar” joke has a major fuckup in it. “Drinking,” in the context of “drinking to forget,” isn’t a gerund—it’s a participle because it still has a verb function.
Eying the woman creepily, Orlando edged closer. (participle)
I love sitting on a jetty at the beach and fishing for crack whores. (gerunds)A gerund might be derived from a verb, but it functions as a noun. A participle functions more directly as a verb. Usually, there are present and past participles.
“I’m working now,” grunted Frank as he squeezed out a prodigious turd. (present participle)
“Have you ever eaten fried breast implants before?” Brighton asked. “They’ve been a delicacy here since the war.” (past participles)Thanks for the shout-outs.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/September/2025 @ 3:25 pm
Out and about in the City of Angels
Sounds as though Angeles City is worth a few revisits, but how nice the city is may also depend on the company you keep. Overall, it looks to have been a good time. So, when are you going back?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/September/2025 @ 3:41 pm
It got easier after that day, and keto Spätzle (see here) turned out to be even easier to prepare.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/September/2025 @ 9:02 pm
And the mashed potatoes were the breast. I’m sure that design was an intentional tit for tat.
I would’ve gone for the Spätzle (that’s the German spelling; the menu spells it “Spätzli,” Swiss-style). I’ve made my own many times. Early attempt here.
Have a good rest-of-the-weekend.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/September/2025 @ 4:38 pm
Brian,
Noelle = no “L,” i.e., no letter L in her name, which is written “HIJKM,” skipping the L.
I overthought it at first, then it occurred to me that the puns John likes are reminiscent of SAT-math problems: not meant to be overthought. Et voilà.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/September/2025 @ 1:09 am
Enjoy your field trip. As for this:
You probably have to be an old fucker like me to get this one.
I may be 56, but I know a thing when I see one.
As for the Popeye meme: in the book Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie Schwartz, who’s dying of ALS, makes up a new aphorism: When you’re in bed, you’re dead.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/September/2025 @ 4:22 pm
Yeah, I’d been wondering whether “bilboing” (Bilboing—capital B? seems odd for a verb) meant something like “taking a long walk across the land in the manner of Bilbo Baggins.” So, trekking, basically. But you’re saying it’s specifically “hopping from bag to bag”—presumably because Bilbo is a Baggins. Well, it’s your word, and I don’t think anyone else is using it, so I hope to see more of it in future blog entries. My only humble suggestion would be to make the verb’s spelling all lower case since most verbs aren’t normally capitalized. You are, of course, free to do what you want. Google AI suggests that capitalization of “verbified” proper nouns depends on how widely recognized the original noun is, e.g., “to MacGyver” something (an expression I’ve used a few times, capitalized, on my own blog) or “to Google” something. And since Bilbo is a widely recognized character, I guess you can retain the capital letter. At the same time, a lot of verbified proper nouns are now lower case: bowdlerize, pasteurize, mesmerize, sandwich, lynch. So it’s up to you. You’ll also need to develop present-tense, simple-past, and perfect-tense spellings for your neologism:
I Bilbo, She Bilbo(e)s
I Bilboed (Bilbo’ed? Bilbo’d?)You already have the present participle “Bilboing.” And it has no apostrophe, so I guess the preterite and the past participle would be “Bilboed,” no apostrophe.
re: Swan’s birria problem
Swan can request that the tacos be fried on the skillet a little longer to crisp them up. If that is beef consommé coating the tacos, then it’s partly grease, anyway, so it should be like pan-frying the tortilla after the consommé’s water content steams off. However, there’s the matter of the filling: you don’t want to overcook the filling because of extra cooking time, so Swan might have to further request that the filling be put in the taco after the extra frying.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/September/2025 @ 3:19 pm
I get that “Bilboing on the bags” is a Baggins pun, but what does the verb “bilboing” even mean?
Swan’s birria tacos looked more deeply colored this time, as if they’d finally been dipped in the fatty consommé. I’m glad the restaurant made the change.
I suppose this is a Filipino tradition, but these plates of food were left behind the bar in memory of the recently deceased bartender, Vangie. We added the lollipop.
Food offerings (or whatever they are) sound more like an old, native Asian tradition that lingers on in the culture and less like Catholicism.
We’ve hired a new house helper, and she arrived from the province last night. She is the aunt of our neighbor’s helper, so at least it isn’t a blind hire. She’s been busy all morning with the chores, so, so far, so good.
Congrats on finding someone.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/September/2025 @ 9:39 pm
Looks to have been a good walk, and I’m always glad to see Scott out and about.
I might finish Season 4 of BSG this week, and the review will come soon after. I don’t want this one to blow up into a novel the way my Mission: Impossible review did, but at the same time, there’s going to be a lot to say—a lot of themes and concepts to discuss. I may have to learn the sacred art of editing my prose way down—something that not even the great Stephen King, lord of logorrhea, ever learned.
Always interesting to see the maybe-coincidental parallels between Catholic shrines and non-Christian shrines (Buddhist, animist, etc.).
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/September/2025 @ 6:42 pm
Reekay talks about expats who get sucked into supporting the family of the Filipina they are with
My buddy Tom often complains about having to help his father-in-law and other PI relatives who have no idea how to manage their money. This happens every time Tom visits the Philippines. I think the constant parasitism would be a deal-breaker for me.
The spaghetti looks good despite being garishly lit. What about switching proteins and doing a chicken-and-peanut-sauce thing? Too Thai/Vietnam-ish?
How long did your route end up being? Did you hit the magic 6K compromise?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/September/2025 @ 10:16 pm
Sorry—”thought about BECOMING.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/August/2025 @ 8:55 pm
Have you ever thought about become the male version of the Crazy Cat Lady, i.e., the Crazy Dog Man, helping the destitute animals you see? Or do you think straight-up Darwinism is the best solution?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/August/2025 @ 7:03 pm
Google suggests that your interesting flower is a beach spider lily.
Still, it seems like for every bar that shuts down in Barretto, two new ones open. Not sure how that works.
Hope springs eternal.
That feeling of impending doom hasn’t totally gone away
Where would that feeling be coming from? All your vital signs seem to be okay, or so you say. What could be the problem?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/August/2025 @ 6:47 pm
Happy trails to Teri. Good luck as Swan continues to search for a proper successor.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/August/2025 @ 7:44 pm
Looks to have been a great, massive party. Major thanks are in order to Swan and all who participated in the prep.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/August/2025 @ 3:32 pm
Happy birthday! There’s been a lot of obsession on your blog with the number 70 lately, and I’d thought age was just a number… or so you’ve insisted since forever. I’m pretty sure I once told you how my French Papa (nearly 90 now) had said he didn’t feel he’d started to slow down until he was 70. At some point, you’ll have to decide whether it’s a milestone or not.
In Korea, when you turn 60, there’s a party thrown by your kids called a hwan-gap. It commemorates going five times around the twelve-year Chinese zodiac—an achievement to be marked, in a culture where aging actually means something, and numbers are the signposts by which you mark your achievements.
You told me that the AI comment bots haven’t returned since that last time. It’s been a little less than a month, but I’m back a bit early because it’s your birthday. I don’t know whether I’ll return to commenting almost every day; it’s kind of relaxing not to feel any self-imposed pressure to say anything. But if the AI bots do make an appearance again, slipping past your vigilance, I’ll be gone for good this time.
That said, as I’d noted privately, my absence seemed to have brought other people out of the woodwork, adding variety to your comment section. I hope those people don’t sink back into silence now, and if those people ever felt I’d been “dominating the conversation,” so to speak, I apologize. I hope they realize that nothing’s stopping them from continuing to comment. It’s impossible for me to “shout” anyone down, and I wouldn’t want to, anyway.
I hope today’s shindig went well, and as I’d said in my email, I hope you’re not too hung over tomorrow, and that you get back on track with your walking routine to work off today’s many calories.
Here’s to today, and to many more birthdays.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/August/2025 @ 7:38 pm
Ah, I see it’s back. Bye.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/August/2025 @ 10:30 pm
The view from our perch included the Saints guarding the entrance to the Catholic church across the highway.
Some of those saints might be guardian angels or even archangels (wings).
Today’s YouTube video is the story of how a vlogger moved to the Philippines
My spider sense starts tingling whenever I see an AI-generated thumbnail. And I had to laugh at the script: “25 years old, but very mature for her age.” When guys (even AI guys) think with their dicks, they’ll make up any justification. And then, of course, she goes on to prove she’s not very mature for her age.
The AI narrator should’ve just moved back to the AI West with his AI wife.
That ain’t the right ring, Sam!
Okay, I cracked up at the image.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/August/2025 @ 8:36 pm
Enjoy your revisit of Vietnam when the time comes.
I’ve had beondaegi before. It wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t good, either. The bald villain Schwab might say You must eat zee bugz, but I think I’ll give them a pass despite their elevated protein content.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/August/2025 @ 6:29 pm
«« Back To Stats PageMaybe, Rolling Stones-style, we GET what we NEED.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/August/2025 @ 3:46 pm