Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
Displaying 1,111 To 1,140 Of 4,392 Comments
Amazing how easy the errors are to see the moment someone points out there are errors.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/February/2024 @ 9:34 am
Swan-ta Claus! Spreading joy wherever she goes!
Chicken feet at the Santo Tomas marketplace. I’ll stick with wings.
I accidentally ordered boneless chicken feet once at a Korean resto years ago. The texture was like trying to eat rubber gloves. I value the feet for their collagen, which renders out nicely when you boil them for chicken stock. Aside from that, though… ick.
Swan had a friend coming over to visit in the evening…
Then later:
When I arrived home, Swan was still on the roof with her friends…
So: a “friend” became “friends.” The magical power of multiplication.
I got a message that my pal Erik was on his way, and he arrived just in time to rescue me from a very aggressive gal who was trying to touch me in ways that even I find inappropriate.
You can always get up and move, or you can say something if the lady’s making you uncomfortable.
I love Asia and should I decide on a change of scenery I’d seriously consider Cambodia or Vietnam.
Spot the errors!
re: Buddhist-monk joke
Third time I’ve seen/heard that joke since last week. It’s experiencing a revival. That’s only half of the joke, though—the original joke goes like this:
A Buddhist comes up to a hot-dog vendor and says, “Make me one with everything.” After receiving the hot dog, he asks how much it costs. The vendor says, “Three bucks,” and the Buddhist gives him a ten. The vendor pockets the money and does nothing further. “Hey—where’s my change?” asks the Buddhist. The vendor says, “Change comes from within.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/February/2024 @ 7:46 pm
We can be our own worst critics. You followed your intuition and are probably safer for it, but I do understand the feelings of guilt. Maybe a compromise might be to just sit and rest longer than usual before continuing on, but do keep following your instincts: they’re what keep you safe.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/February/2024 @ 5:12 pm
I’ll be looking forward to a series review. You’re watching the US version, right? Have you seen any of the original UK version, just for comparison’s sake?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/February/2024 @ 9:25 am
Have some lovely, gigantic seafood salads with some sort of mayo-based, creamy dressing (pref. homemade so as to be able to exclude sugar: the bottled stuff is sugary unless it’s oil and vinegar). Very low carb. Feels sinful, but dietary fat doesn’t translate to body fat. Use Old Bay seasoning to accent the seafood. Delicious.
Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis (Riker and Troi in “The Next Generation”) are a hilarious couple. If you watch them in interviews, you’d think they were married to each other, but they each have their own spouses who condone their on-set behavior. They are, per the slang, “work husband” and “work wife.” In interviews, they lovingly interrupt each other (with Marina doing the majority of the interrupting), and they finish each other’s sentences. You almost have to wonder whether anything more happened behind the scenes (nudge-nudge). Whatever the dynamic, the two have always had great chemistry, and it showed in “Picard” Season 3.
Enjoy the final season of “Shameless.” Watch them lungs!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/February/2024 @ 5:50 pm
Apparently, the Lotte World Tower has 123 floors.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/February/2024 @ 10:18 am
Nice photos, and a very different view of Easter Mountain!
The Army hospital on Yongsan Garrison made the diagnosis that my Korean doctor had missed for several months, giving me worthless antibiotics for an “infection.”
So you have your doubts about Korean health care, too, I see. Would you say your health care in the PI has overall been better?
They’re about to build a 100-story building on Yongsan’s property.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/February/2024 @ 6:31 pm
Here’s Dr. Sten Ekberg talking about alcohol, for what it’s worth. The whole video is worth a watch.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/February/2024 @ 1:23 pm
My fasting blood sugar is high. Up from 6.35 to 6.49 (high normal is 5.49)
Fasting blood sugar changes hourly, and the corresponding number can vary from, say, 80-something (good) to 300-something (horrifically bad), with many people averaging about 100-something. That number there, 6.49, is more likely your A1c, a 3-month average and therefore a more reliable number. A reading of 6.49 is pre-diabetic, so you’re becoming insulin-resistant, which isn’t a good thing. We’re all ideally supposed to be insulin-sensitive, i.e., our bodies ought to react quickly to the presence of insulin. Insulin resistance comes from having so much insulin running around your body that your body has gotten used to it. The insulin is there because you’re ingesting too many carbs, and your body is trying to keep your blood sugar down. But after too much time spent this way, your body just kind of gives up and stops responding to insulin. That’s insulin resistance, and the royal road to diabetes. I know this path well.
I also know you’re a stubborn old fart who’s not about to cut out the alcohol (the cutting-out of which would really reduce your numbers), so you’re going to have to cut other carbs and do intensive exercise to lower blood sugar. I’m on such a program myself now: strength training in various forms over the next several months, plus the return of distance walking, along with staircase work.
As you develop muscle strength and tone, your basal metabolic rate will go up (muscles need a lot of energy), and this will create a virtuous cycle that lowers your blood sugar. Walking alone won’t be enough: intensive training that gets your heart rate up and gets you breathing hard will be key. Sorry to say it, but walking, with no other exercise, is not a cure for weight loss. If it were, I’d have been skinny long ago.
I’d suggest HIIT training, but I confess I’m kind of afraid of HIIT myself: such training requires insane bursts of activity to bring you to the brink of exhaustion in under a minute or two. The closest I get to HIIT is my staircase work, which is like walking up one big hill, and my training doesn’t follow the HIIT pattern. (HIIT pattern: 20-30 seconds maximum effort, 10 seconds rest; do this for up to 20 or so minutes. Stair work is a continuous grind, unbroken for 10-15 minutes, with 1-minute breaks when I take the elevator back down to B1. So what I do isn’t really HIIT training at all, but it does get the heart and lungs going.)
Anyway, good luck with whatever program you end up following.
Ferme la bouche
Technically, that’s “Shut your mouth,” but if you’re looking for ways to say “Shut up” more naturally, try these:
Tais-toi!
Ta gueule! (gueule = an animals’ mouth)
La ferme!
Ferme-la! (“Shut it!”)
Écrase! (literally, “Break!”—but it means “Shaddap!”)Have fun at the b-day party.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/February/2024 @ 6:26 pm
I’m not that big of an Elvis fan, but that song’s a fairly famous one. It might get canceled, these days, for demanding that the lady put out.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/February/2024 @ 2:07 pm
re: satisficing
A portmanteau of “satisfy” and “suffice.” Fancy way of saying “good enough.” But it’s not Elvis’s verb “to satisfaction”:
A little less conversation, a little more action, please
All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning meSo, that’s what I did after stopping in at Sit-n-Bull for some pecan pie (Swan’s favorite) to take with me.
Using your lady as cover for your own vices, I see!
We had some music playing, and Swan was rocking the rocker (which is why the photo is blurry).
She looks as if she’s being launched off the roof by a Swan-a-pult.
re: that Kirk/David Marcus meme
Poor Merritt Butrick, who played David Marcus in Star Treks II and III. Died of AIDS and toxoplasmosis at age 30, says Wikipedia. Leonard Nimoy wrote about him in one of his autobiographies (I Am Spock, I think).
I’m surprised you didn’t end the post with Elvis.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/February/2024 @ 6:10 pm
It was too early in the day to enjoy a sunset, so I arranged a fire for my guest’s entertainment. (joke lang)
guest’s = one guest
guests’ = more than one guestIs “joke lang” some sort of PI slang for “JK”?
Dr. Jo and hubby Chris joined in the fun.
Didn’t realize how utterly tiny Jo was.
Wine, meat on a stick, and cheesecake is how they roll.
A French person would’ve been like, “What have you done to my civilization?”
The testosterone table.
Who’s the imposing-looking tattooed guy at the far right, with what is either the thickest neck I’ve ever seen or a neck-covering double chin?
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Looks as though the Rite Spot needs a tarp. With the ability to tie it at the bottom so as to avoid flapping in the wind.
I’m going to buy some roll-up bamboo blinds to install before the next gathering.
Ah, okay. Good luck with that as they will probably flap around at least a bit.
All in all, it looks to have been a great party. I’ll never get over that whole sex-segregating thing, but to be fair, I suppose something like it can happen at Western parties, too. The kids certainly get their own table in the West.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/February/2024 @ 3:53 pm
You mentioned getting your blood-work results, but you didn’t share the results! That bad, eh? No worries: mine’ll be worse.
Food looks good. I hope the party went well.
Swan made this cherry cheesecake.
Nice cheesecake, but rotate the image 90 degrees left! You can do that on your phone before uploading to your blog.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/February/2024 @ 2:27 pm
Sorry about the scheduled brownout. You guys and California, man.
Sorry, too, for no comments until now. I was away all day, tripping down to Daegu just to have an awesome meal.
How many of these outages happen per year?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/February/2024 @ 2:27 am
Six more chairs for the Rite Spot On The Roof
Aha! Those are the chairs that feature in all those YouTube videos of people falling over as their deck chairs collapse! Have fun! (True, in most cases, the chairs don’t collapse on their own. As you see in this video, they usually have a little percussive help,)
Inday joined us on the rooftop with her mother and daughter.
Geraldine, Inday… she’s like a spy with aliases.
Ya done good, Mr. Sun.
That’d look good on a gravestone.
re: hors d’oeuvre
Known as “whoreses doovers” in my childhood household or “horse’s ovaries” to the unwashed masses.
Hors = outside (of)
d’oeuvre = of a work (of art, etc.)An hors d’oeuvre is a smaller dish that is “outside of the main work,” i.e., “le plat principal,” or the main course. In the States, we use it to mean “appetizer,” but the French often say “amuse-bouche” (“amuse-the-mouth,” something to titillate) when they mean an appetizer. And what we call an “entrée” (main course) the French, as said above, call “le plat principal,” i.e., literally “the main dish.” The French, when eating traditionally, use “entrée” to refer to the dish before the main course (but after the appetizer? unsure). One site labels the phases of a French meal thus:
1. Un apéritif
2. Un hors d’oeuvre ou une entrée
3. Un plat principal (avec de la viande, du poisson et des légumes)
4. Une salade
5. Du fromage
6. (peut-être) un dessert
7. Un café (un express)1. an aperitif (pre-meal drink)
2. hors d’oeuvre (so maybe the same as “entrée” and “amuse-bouche”)
3. main course (with meat, fish, and vegetables)
4. salad
5. cheese
6. (maybe) dessert
7. coffee (espresso)re: “I know my way around a dildo.”
And the guy said that, eh? Fascinating, Captain.
I’m not sure when or how I’ll blog, but I’ll do my best to post some form of update.
Good time to learn how to blog from your phooooonnnnnnne…
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/February/2024 @ 6:17 pm
re: your helper “Geraldine”
Didn’t she go by a different name in an earlier post? How many names does she have?
“Geraldine” makes me think of Flip Wilson.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/February/2024 @ 11:09 am
Yeesh, that looked steep. I imagine doing that in the rain is well nigh impossible. Or are there crazies in your group who wouldn’t care?
A [blue-sky] day.
Best photo of the bunch.
I went down on this Surfer Dude sub sandwich.
The sandwich also looks good. Be sure to “go down on” it in private, though. Little kids don’t need to see that shit.
Onward to even steeper trails!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/February/2024 @ 6:07 pm
Too bad he’s not one of those gay conservatives, the way Andrew Sullivan used to be before he contracted TDS.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/January/2024 @ 5:45 pm
Kev, I thought it was everything AFTER the “but” being bullshit.
The classic example is, “I’m not a racist, but… (+ racist remark)”
Other examples:
I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but…
I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but…
It’s not that I don’t trust your leadership, but…
Not to quibble, but… (+ quibble)Etc., etc.
Insincere stuff first, [but] what you’re really trying to say second.
See here. We’re all guilty of it.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/January/2024 @ 5:31 pm
I’m not going to quibble with you on what constitutes archaic, but the 90s were in the last century, after all.
As the saying goes, everything before the word “but” is horseshit.
Congrats on your one Google result! Amazing how that works.
I hope the blood panel comes back fairly quickly. At my local doctor’s office, they used to pretend I’d need to come back a couple days later for the results, but lately, they’ve dropped that pretense. They’ve got a machine that does the blood work and spits out the results right then and there. They’ve always had that machine.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/January/2024 @ 9:48 am
The high life
Looks good! I assume those are baby-back ribs.
We are not in Madison County anymore. (Does anyone get that archaic reference?)
Well, the Eastwood/Streep film based on the book came out in 1995, and the book came out in 1992, neither of which I’d call “archaic” (the 90s feel like yesterday to me), but I’m guessing it’s based on an even more ancient reference: Dorothy’s “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” from the 1939 “The Wizard of Oz.” Damn, that’s the start of World War II in Europe!
A search of the exact quote “We are not in Madison County anymore” turns up zero results, so I guess we’re just supposed to make the connection between the bridge in the photo and the name “Madison County.” In that context, “archaic” is a bit misleading.
Let the suffering begin! Those steps were tortuous
Because you said “suffering,” I’m tempted to think you meant torTURous (evoking torture), but you then wrote, “…largely because they were unevenly spaced and of inconsistent height, making it hard to find any rhythm.” TorTUous, which is what you wrote, means “twisting and turning and crooked,” so that could conceivably work in this context. (Tortuous comes from the same Latin root [tortus] as the French tordu, i.e., “twisted.”) So—you’re in the clear!
Am curious to hear about the Dr. Jo visit.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/January/2024 @ 7:11 pm
Yeah, I had to pee yet again. Not sure what’s up with that.
Diabetics pee more often than usual. How’s your blood sugar?
She told me she’d like to try to climb it with me soon.
Sounds as though you have a convert.
We’ll make this a weekly event.
Will this become an established routine, like a paper route? Should people be expecting you on certain days, at certain times? Have you thought about helping Swan make a bunch of little homemade dishes to distribute to the folks instead of the usual candy and cookies?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/January/2024 @ 6:31 pm
I managed to cover most of the subdivision on my walkabout.
Missed a spot! Haw haw.
Should have spun the plate around and gotten a better shot of the burger.
“Hawaiian” burger! Looks good.
I miss those shoestring mushrooms that were prevalent in Korea, but other than that, it was close to perfect.
Korean food also looks good. The mushrooms you’re talking about are probably paengi-beoseot/팽이 버섯, known in the States by the Japanese name enoki.
re: Scuzz Twittly
Maybe it’s country music; maybe it’s a parody of country (“cuntry”) music, but it’s funny, and I’ll be passing this along to my buddy Tom, who loves the raunchy stuff even more than I do.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/January/2024 @ 5:58 pm
Now, that looks like my kinda walk!
I’m coming, I’m coming!
I’m trying to understand why you’re walking in the rocky part and not over to your right, where the road is smoother.
When we came upon these trikes, I was all-in for riding the 2K left to go to the highway. I was outvoted.
I know the feeling: at the beginning of a walk, 2K or 5K is nothing. But at the end, when you’ve run out of gas, and you’ve got another couple K to go, those distances can feel like forever. That said, it’s only 2K, so I’d have voted for walking, too.
Arriving at Mad Willie’s, our lunchtime destination.
Speakers of the King’s English will read “Mad Willie” as “Crazy Penis.”
I caught an aircon bus back to Barretto.
The term “aircon bus” is evocative. I guess this distinguishes them from regular buses with no A/C…? There are A/C-less shuttle buses in Seoul, even these days. They have hand fans hanging off the inner walls… for passenger “convenience.”
re: “gynocologist”
Love that spelling.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/January/2024 @ 4:50 pm
The sun went down…
Looks like a volcano in the distance.
…she served me this delicious bowl of bulgogi.
Looks legit, and there’s no rice, so I guess you’re going carnivore.
Enjoying the gathering darkness.
Anyway, I enjoyed my stay-at-home night, and I will make some room for more in the future. It was a very nice change of pace, that’s for sure.
You’re working on Swan, who’s walking with you more and more; she’s working on you, and you’re slowly becoming less a creature of the bars and bar girls. This is good. One day, we can hope, you’ll meet in the middle.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/January/2024 @ 7:12 pm
My lifestyle seems to be transitioning to something more domestic, don’t you think?
Yeah! I’ve noticed that 6:30 a.m. comments on my blog are now rare. You’re switching to a later schedule.
I’m a big fan of Linda Ronstadt.
Her name is a clue to her history.
Linda = Spanish for “beautiful”
Ronstadt = German for “(something) city”—not sure about “Ron”; some info hereWikipedia says this about her family history:
Ronstadt’s father came from a pioneering Arizona ranching family and was of Mexican descent with a German male ancestor. The family’s influence on and contributions to Arizona’s history, including wagon making, commerce, pharmacies, and music, are documented in the library of the University of Arizona. Her great-grandfather, the engineer Friedrich August Ronstadt (who went by Federico Augusto Ronstadt), immigrated first to Sonora, Mexico, and later to the Southwest (then a part of Mexico) in the 1840s from Hanover, Germany. He married a Mexican citizen and eventually settled in Tucson. In 1991, the City of Tucson opened its central transit terminal on March 16 and dedicated it to Linda’s grandfather, Federico José María Ronstadt, a local pioneer businessman; he was a wagon maker whose early contribution to the city’s mobility included six mule-drawn streetcars, delivered in 1903–04.
Ronstadt’s mother Ruth Mary, of German, English, and Dutch ancestry, was raised in Flint, Michigan. Ruth Mary’s father, Lloyd Groff Copeman, a prolific inventor and holder of nearly 700 patents, invented an early form of the electric toaster, many refrigerator devices, the grease gun, the first electric stove, and an early form of the microwave oven. His flexible rubber ice cube tray earned him millions of dollars in royalties.
What a family, eh? Damn. Buncha’ taco-eatin’ Germans! And Linda herself, back in her heyday, looked fetchingly Black Irish. She’s 77 now.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/January/2024 @ 5:52 pm
Yep, these lungs have dealt with a decade of pot smoking, twenty years of cigarettes, and a lifetime of smog.
You’d think that the current cells in your lungs would all be new ones by now. I don’t know how a history of smoking gets passed along from generation to generation among cells.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/January/2024 @ 3:20 pm
Not sure what a “Begian” might be.
By now, you’ve doubtless guessed “Belgian.”
Today, I’m back at 95, which is pretty much normal for me. Weird.
Ever done one of those old-school Vicks Vapo-Rub showers? You smear that strong-smelling Vapo-Rub on your chest, then step in and take a long, steaming shower as you breathe in the medicinal vapors. This supposedly loosens up the phlegm in your lungs, making it easier to spit out. You want to see big, dark, globby chunks of phlegm, not the healthier, light-yellow stuff. The dark color indicates the mucus has done its job, i.e., catching germs, and now, it’s ready for ejection. If you’re still feeling phlegmy, but nothing is coming out in the shower, maybe give your docs a visit.
It was below zero, but the call of duty to drink beer was not to be denied.
Bizarrely pursed lips on full display!
It’s currently below zero (Celsius) here in Seoul. No lip-pursing, but I’m seriously consider wearing foot-warmers to bed. I never wear anything on my feet when I’m in bed, so you know it must be cold.
Good luck with the lungs. If ever there were organs that I wish could be easily replaced, it’d be the heart and lungs. In the meantime, there’s cardio.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/January/2024 @ 6:11 pm
A good, satisfying walk along the ridge, and Swan still doesn’t want to join the Hash, eh? Well, no need to push her.
With my sense of balance all shot since the stroke, I wonder how I’d do on that rickety bridge.
Steak looks good, but my eye keeps being drawn back to that slice of toast.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/January/2024 @ 5:45 pm
«« Back To Stats PageFor those who use Photoshop, the following ought to be simple to follow:
I found a dragon image online, one with a white background. I copied and pasted the image as a second layer onto your photograph, then used the magic-wand tool to eliminate the white background. The dragon was originally red-colored, so I desaturated it to make it gray—more appropriate for that sky. I then had to decide where to place the dragon for maximum effect. The original image had a lot of sharp detail, but I risked losing it to make the dragon appear to be in motion, thinking that a moving animal would look livelier than a still image just floating there. So I used two blur tools: Gaussian blur to soften the dragon and make it more integrated with the background; and motion blur, set to vertical, to make the dragon appear to have been caught in mid-flight. Then, it was just a matter of fusing the two layers (dragon layer + your photo’s layer), et voilà.
It was a treat to learn that someone had asked whether the pic was real. I’m a 101-level Photoshopper, even after all these years, so that was motivation to keep going and get better.
Thanks for the shout-out.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/January/2024 @ 5:00 pm