Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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As usual, my driver, Danny, arrived on time and ready to provide transportation.
Is this my first time ever seeing Danny, or have you photographed him before? Seeing Danny feels new to me… or maybe I’m just getting old and senile.
Swan and my helper, Teri, also came along to provide their assistance.
Swan seems to be laughing at a private joke.
As a kid growing up in Southern Cal, Shakey’s was THE place for pizza.
Shakey’s was a fixture from my childhood on the east coast as well. We had one up the street on Route 1, maybe ten minutes’ drive from my neighborhood. As elementary-school kids playing league soccer and tee ball, we’d often go as a group for pizza at the end of a season.
Same with Swan.
She’s looking for work, right? How’s that going?
But the foreigner who had it built got disappeared and his body never found. The house remains vacant to this day.
Is it cursed or something? Are you still thinking of moving there?
I still don’t get how foreigners get to build houses and run businesses if they can’t own anything in the PI.
I went with a grilled chicken leg.
Chicken and taters look great. The veggies look like a humorous afterthought.
And Swan enjoyed some fried chicken wings.
Is that peanut sauce? Yum.
Thanks for the shopping-trip photo essay. Now, I know a bit more about what your Tuesdays are like.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/January/2024 @ 5:51 pm
I love it: “That sentence is perfect… except for the errors.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/January/2024 @ 6:36 am
I’m not sure which is worse–getting your ass kicked but getting it over with or being ground down until you are a wheezing mess.
I prefer the long, shallow uphill to the short, steep uphill. But the mountain you’re on rarely gives you a choice.
Presently, the roads here are only suitable for trikes and motorbikes, once cars and trucks have access all bets are off.
Spot the errors!
I thanked her for allowing us to trespass with a bag of cookies.
I wonder what would have happened had you tried trespassing without a bag of cookies.
Arriving at Tiny Cunt’s place at last!
A harder walk this time, but a good’n, and you added another 3K at the end. In your series of pics, which one was Tiny Cunt? Green shirt and bald head?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/January/2024 @ 9:57 pm
The path that path that lies before us.
If that’s a pun, I’m not getting it.
Swan told me that when I didn’t come back right away from the CR, she assumed I was seeing another girl in the bar.
On one hand, Swan could be seen as oversensitive and too quick to jump to conclusions (which she was in this case). On the other hand, your associations with these girls/women will always be fraught with danger precisely because they’re girls/women—a point I’ve made repeatedly at the risk of sounding prudish. Would you be going through all this effort to feed and entertain the female staff if they weren’t female? I think we both know the answer is no. So trying to deny sexual subtext by saying these associations are “meaningless” does nothing to improve the situation from Swan’s point of view, and because she seems like every other Filipina-in-a-relationship that you’ve described before, she’s super-prone to jealousy. So from my point of view, something has to give: either keep associating with your girls and potentially incur Swan’s wrath, or give up your associations and commit fully to Swan. (You know which alternative I think is healthier.)
All that heaviness aside, I enjoyed the pics of the walk.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/January/2024 @ 5:28 am
To be clear: the sub-JUNCT-ive mood.
sub = under
junct = joininge.g., a conjunction is a joining-together
In French, réfléchir = to think about, reflect on. In the indicative mood, “He reflects” is Il réfléchit. But in the subjunctive “It is necessary that he reflect” (more naturally, “He has to reflect”), this becomes Il faut qu’il réfléchisse. You see how different the verb looks in French. Also true for Spanish and German: the subjunctive mood is very visible. Contrast this with the English “I’m happy that you came to the party!” Technically, you’re looking at the subjunctive mood (“happy that” = emotion), but no change from the regular conjugation is visible.
Did the above put you to sleep?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/January/2024 @ 7:02 am
I’m not sure why this made me think of Kevin Kim.
Technically, she should’ve used the subjunctive mood and said, “I wish I were rich.” The subjunctive is used in cases of strong emotion, necessity, and wishing.
• The king sent his guards along with the princess for fear that she be accosted by bandits.
• It is necessary that you be there by five.
• Sally wished she were a porn star.The subjunctive isn’t always that visible in English, but it’s way more visible in languages like French, Spanish, and German.
I hope the chips in that taco salad weren’t overcooked. It looked like unmelted cheese and overcooked chips to me.
Yes, you’re a creature of habit, but with Swan stepping out with you more openly, it seems to me there’s a lot less drama in your life of late. Which is good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/January/2024 @ 7:41 pm
I thought the climb to the ridge on this hike was one of the least difficult I’ve experienced.
For you to say this, your lungs must really be in working order.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/January/2024 @ 7:19 am
The cemetery is monumental.
A parkour athlete with no sense of the sacred might love doing a run through a cemetery like that. Ah, I see it’s a thing.
At least they spelled my name right!
Aljohn? I see no space between “Al” and “John.”
The inflatable island…actually, we saw two of these monstrosities on our beach walk.
Looks like a place to film a reality-TV show.
My shoes at the end of the hike.
See, that’s the thing that gets me—walking with sandy shoes. My feet would be blistered and otherwise irritated.
Those black specks in the mix are bugs.
Do you have a sifter? You could sift the bugs out, then give the mix a little taste (it won’t kill you—promise), and if it seems “off,” you can then chuck it. Otherwise, it’s probably still usable. Any bacteria in the mix will be killed in the baking. 350ºF for around 25-40 minutes (depending on the mix) is enough to kill anything.
A good walk with plenty of changes of scenery. Were the many stairs at the beginning of this walk a boon or a bane?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/January/2024 @ 9:17 pm
Jhone
Okay, that’s fucked. But now, it’s easier to see how you get weird names in the PI like “Bhel” or my friend’s wife’s name of “Sherny.”
Swan joined me for my Thursday Solo (nee couple) hike
The term “née” is the French feminine form of “né,” and it means “born,” past participle of the verb “naître.” (So, the girl’s name “Renée” means “reborn,” and “René” is the masculine.) In English, we use the term to refer to a woman’s original surname, i.e., the name she was born with before she got married and changed her name (for those who still follow that custom, anyway).
Janet Wilson, née Himmler, was happy to have her husband’s surname.
I think you might be better off saying “nay,” as in “no.”
A solo—nay, a couple’s—walk.
re: a bag full of cookies and popsicles
Popsicles? In that heat? Did she store them in a bag of ice or something?
And then I saw God.
Wow, what a gorgeous shot. Is that thanks to smoke or fog/mist?
McDonald’s continues to spread its influence all over town.
Damn. Already appearing as pollution.
It appears I can look forward to more noise in the near future.
That “Soon to rise” on the sign feels almost sinister.
As a former HR professional, this one really resonates.
D’oh! Dangling modifier!
WRONG: As a child, French was difficult.
RIGHT: As a child, I found French difficult.The modifier “As a child” needs something to modify. “French” is not a “child.” By the same token, “this one” is not “a former HR professional.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/January/2024 @ 5:43 pm
All of your walks seem pretty nice, but this one seemed nicer than usual.
Someone said I wonder where that leads?
You’re just doing that to yank my chain.
I see dead people.
I’ve long wondered what’s up with all the icy dead people in a hot country.
The first half of the hike, your photos showed, by implication, that you were ahead of the group. In the latter half, though, you were behind. What happened?
Sorry about the fake smile; she always insists.
I prefer the fake smile to that weird, puffy-lipped thing you do.
All in all, a nice walk. Too bad about the wine. Maybe next time.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/January/2024 @ 6:48 pm
Hamas lost two of its leaders in one day!
Source. The article:
WORLD — Hamas is reeling after losing two of their most cherished leaders on the same day: military commander Saleh al-Arouri, and Harvard President Claudine Gay.
“This is a devastating loss for our organization and the world,” said Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh while throwing a dart at a dartboard with a picture of a Jew on it. “Al-Arouri helped mastermind our glorious murder/rape party of October 7th, 2023. Claudine Gay presided over the preaching of our message Jew-hatred in America’s Ivy League. This is an incalculable loss.”
Ismail Haniyeh then went back to his game of darts while sitting in a jacuzzi and having his shoulders massaged by a high-priced escort from Dubai.
Eyewitnesses confirmed that al-Arouri was blown up by a rocket while innocently meeting with other innocent Hamas officials planning totally innocent and harmless military operations in the West Bank. Sources also verified that Claudine Gay was forced to step down. Both attacks are being blamed on the Jews.
At publishing time, Hamas had put two ‘help wanted” ads in the New York Times to help them fill both positions.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/January/2024 @ 8:24 am
McDonald’s is really catching on, I see!
But they succumbed to a housing boom as subdivisions replaced trees.
How does the joke go?
“They tear the trees down and name the streets after them.”
Treebeard has retired and moved to the suburbs.
Neighborhood Entmoots must be hell for traffic.
It doesn’t get much lower than that.
When I was a kid, my dad took me for a one-day scuba lesson. It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. Up to that point, if I ever tried to swim down more than six feet deep, my ears would be in agony. But when you’re wearing scuba gear, there must be some sort of pressure-related thing that happens because, with the gear on, I could swim down to the bottom of the deep end of the pool: fifteen feet. I remember just sitting there with my instructor, legs crossed, watching the bubbles ascend to the surface. One day, I’ll try scuba diving again. (Now that I’m writing this, I think I’ve told this story on your blog before. Ah, senility.)
…[a]nd then I remembered I still had to go uphill until I reached the arrow on the left.
Hills will do that to you. They fool you into thinking you’re done… then you top one rise and see there’s a whole lotta hill left to do.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/January/2024 @ 6:29 pm
It was also a very hot day, which added to the suffering.
Isn’t pretty much every day a hot day there?
And another from [farther] up the ridgeline.
Interesting contrast between the beautiful scene that dominates the photo and that razor wire cutting across the pic’s bottom.
I wonder if any of my readers get the reference[.]
Shave that Beaver! Or leave it to me.
“Leave It to Beaver” was well into black-and-white reruns when I was a kid. I may have watched some episodes, but I don’t remember any of them.
Well, I’m glad you had a good and relatively safe walk.
Trivia: if you start a sentence with “I wonder,” you’re making a declaration about your mental state, not asking a question.
WRONG: I wonder where my beaver went?
RIGHT: I wonder where my beaver went.You’re basically announcing that you’re currently wondering about X. If you really, really want to use a question mark, you could write
I wonder—where did my beaver go? (or)
I wonder: where did my beaver go?Reference. So you know I’m not crazy.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/January/2024 @ 7:29 pm
You spelled “fireworks” correctly inside the post, so I assume the post title “Fire works” is some sort of pun that I’m not getting.
How do you motivate a fat, lazy bitch? Fire works!
Another nice set of pics, including the sunsets. Also good to see how Swan is now OK with being photographed. I assume her year of mourning is done.
So you normally sleep through the midnight celebration, eh? Interesting.
Good luck with the Kalaklan Ridge. Better that one than the KuKluxKlan Ridge.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/January/2024 @ 3:36 pm
This may be one of the more detailed looks at the My Bitch trail that I’ve seen. Do you always carry around goodies to give away randomly to kids you encounter?
Swan has been joining me for my nighttime activities as well, but advises she’ll be seeking employment in the new year so she is taking advantage of the opportunity to spend time together while she can.
I thought she was already employed by you as a kind of caretaker, no? Is she not satisfied with her income or something? Will she still be a paid caretaker after she finds other work, or are you releasing her? I’m all sorts of confused.
I may have had a beer or two over my limit and had a misunderstanding (alright, I was a dick) with Swan after we arrived home.
Booze: the cause of so much unnecessary conflict, violence, and general stupidity.
re: Star Trek meme
What struck me about that meme was the Millennium Falcon symbol visible in the lower-left panel—a Falcon with a Vulcan hand gesture inside it, implying a fusion of Star Trek and Star Wars. Interesting.
Let me take this opportunity to wish you a Happy New Year. Best of luck in 2024—an election year for the US that’s guaranteed to be crazy, so prepare yourself and batten down the hatches. There’s a shitstorm coming.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/December/2023 @ 9:08 pm
New project: make nuggets from scratch. Grind up the chicken meat, round up ingredients for breading, make an event of it.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 31/December/2023 @ 8:24 am
Great walk, good company, delicious food, and beautiful pics of the landscape and the sunset. But there’s one lingering mystery:
And after the hike Gary and Ed help me initiate my rooftop table with some beers and chicken nuggets.
Chicken nuggets from… where? Rumor has it that there’s a new McDonald’s. Did the nuggets come from the creepy clown?
Steak looks to be done to a perfect medium-rare. Nice.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/December/2023 @ 11:26 pm
Looks to have been a pleasant walk. I’m glad you’re steadily working on Swan, getting her out there with you. I wonder if she’ll finally give in and become the Hasher she was always meant to be.
Congrats on the new furniture.
My favorite picture from this batch—the one captioned:
“A Fiesta subdivision”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/December/2023 @ 10:00 pm
That’s Grace on my left.
Okay, so to be clear, “my left” means “my left” from the perspective of the “you” inside the photo, and by that reckoning, Swan is on your left. The woman to Swan’s left is also technically on your left (black tee, jeans with holes in the knees)… so is that the woman you’re talking about? I suspect you’re really talking about the woman on your right, i.e., the one wearing sunglasses.
Talking about “left” and “right” in a photo is always dicey. If you want to name someone from the perspective of the person looking at the photo, you can say something like, “She’s the third person from the left.” But the moment you say “my left,” you’re talking from the perspective of the person in the picture.
My driver’s car had low ground clearance
You ride around in a Lambo?
Hoofing it down to the village
Are Aeta villages officially marked on any maps? I ask because the map you show doesn’t show the village. Does the village even have a name?
Just Troy, Gary, and me yesterday for the walk
Troy looks way too young to be retired. What does he do? Or did he retire young because he’s rich? My Kiwi buddy (also named John) has a big brother who retired at 33 after helping to wire the Hong Kong telecom system years ago. Money just rolled in. No idea what he does with his time. If Big Bro is as athletically inclined as my buddy, he probably travels the world looking for mountains to climb and cliffs off of which to go BASE jumping.
It’s not as pretty as a tree, but it’s still an impressive sight.
Impressive, indeed. I’m surprised not to see clothing, or even people, draped over parts of the tower. It’d make a great drying rack, and you’d think the kids would love climbing it even if they shouldn’t.
This is actually one of the jokes in my repertoire. I know I didn’t create the joke, but coming upon it in a visual rendition is really weird.
Just wait’ll you see the meme whose punchline is “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
but I thought of it when Swan told me to “shut up and hug her” this afternoon.
Somehow, I’m reminded of how “Total Recall” ends with Rachel Ticotin’s character saying to Arnold, “Well, kiss me quick before you wake up.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/December/2023 @ 4:52 am
Damn. Let’s try that again, with boldface in the right place this time:
…but it didn’t go down so well.
So who’s the guilty party? Spill it! (No pun intended.)
No wonder poor girls have to find work in the bars.
Surely, there are programs to help the poor gain access to college. In fact, a bit of research shows a mixed situation: programs do exist, some of them government sponsored. But at the same time, the World Bank puts out the statistic that 9 out of 10 Filipino kids can’t read even simple text. I haven’t examined the problem in any depth, so from my superficial perspective, this could mean anything from a piss-poor educational system to a culture that simply doesn’t send its kids to school. It’s weird because Filipino expats are fairly respected in Korea for being hard workers who catch on to the Korean language a lot faster than the white folks do.
I tend to think education is the answer to a lot of problems, but in looking at Korea’s situation, I know that education also brings its own problems, e.g., a neurotic avoidance of marrying and making families because education sets you on a years-long path to achieve a distant goal that having a family would interrupt. I suspect that one reason for Korea’s current, scary demographic crisis is precisely that society here is overeducated and thus prone to overthinking everything. Overthinking leads to less breeding.
Somewhere between the extremes of the PI and the ROK, there has to be some sort of happy medium. In the meantime, I think this means Filipinos need to get educated—and well. Lack of education leads to poor life-choices based on the false perception that one has no options. It’s a self-inflicted wound.
There she is! This is a beach bar that I very rarely visit for some reason.
Young gringo guy on the extreme left, wearing a white cap and staring at you suspiciously for some reason. Maybe you represent competition.
A surprisingly large crowd of foreigners were hanging out on the beach seats.
Same gringo, hat off, now on the right of the picture and staring at his phone. Can’t help but notice his bald spot, like the beginnings of a monk’s tonsure.
…a bit of rainbow pointing to the pot of gold atop Kalaklan Ridge.
Nice shot, beautifully balanced by the distant dog’s asshole.
Well, pretty good at least.
I like the contrast between the “Great!” on the wall and the piles of bags. Is that garbage or something else? It’s looks too suspiciously neat to be garbage.
…but Swan says I was a little drunk. I don’t remember.
One of the bad things about getting drunk, aside from the heightened potential to make stupid decisions, is the not-remembering. How can you say you enjoyed yourself when you can’t even remember the event?
re: food festival
I’d be all over that for sure. But with a soda. Arguably just as bad for you.
Have fun with your… feeding. I still think “feeding” sounds a bit ghoulish, as if you’re nourishing vampires.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/December/2023 @ 8:14 pm
Candy is dandy and liquor is quicker
Looks to have been a successful candy run and grilled dinner. Santa knew to dress for the weather. Wise.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/December/2023 @ 9:32 pm
Merry Christmas. Good job re: spreading Christmas cheer with your candy runs and your various charities.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/December/2023 @ 2:00 pm
I enjoyed the walk pics. No breathing problems since the operation, I gather?
The bloob cheesecake looks good!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/December/2023 @ 3:50 pm
Just another town along the road
I watched the Bob Saget clip. Funny. But is “Ming Hang” a typically Pinay name? Most of the women in your neighborhood seem to have either normal-sounding Western names or bizarrely twisted Western names. Or are those just nicknames?
re: fish-market lady’s knowing you
I guess word gets around in a small town.
You can’t ask for much more than a nice walk and good company.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/December/2023 @ 7:02 pm
And I didn’t forget your Star Wars pun
Didn’t see no Star Wars.
So, beers were drank
And songs were… sang?
(After the “were,” it should be a participle, not the simple past.)
Apparently, Aine had asked to “borrow” some money, and Swan had consented to accommodate some, but not all, of the request. What Swan does with her money is none of my business, but we both know it is unlikely ever to be repaid.
If Swan wants an “I’m Not Your Goddamn ATM” tee, she can buy one in her size at my tee store.
End-to-end on the green line is 14K. I’ve walked probably 8K of that trail.
With your revitalized nose/lungs, maybe it’s time to take a day to walk the whole trail! Bring a lot of fluids with you.
Thomas Vandal looked too young to pass away so early.
re: Adam/Eve meme
More teeny-peenie information here.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/December/2023 @ 6:21 pm
I enjoyed the tree shots, and congrats on winning the darts match 11-2. Are you going to start practicing at home again? And will home practice be with or without aiming fluid?
Your box of banana-marshmallow choco pies has Arabic on it. Careful, or the ladies might eat them and turn into ululating jihadis.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/December/2023 @ 6:41 pm
So, I guess “research” just means going out and doing the hike to see what’s there. No contour maps or cell-phone apps. Intellesting.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/December/2023 @ 1:52 pm
Speaking of which, I visited the BPI bank branch where the ATM didn’t dispense any money, but my US bank account had the funds withdrawn. I assumed it would be an easy fix (just show me the money), but it doesn’t work that way. There was “complaint form” paperwork to complete and an investigation to be conducted, and if my complaint is validated, the money will be returned to my account “in two weeks.” Ironically, I had an uncle who was a bank robber. Never expected the bank to rob me, though.
Hence my earlier trepidation upon hearing the initial news. When a bank tells you you’ve withdrawn money, but you have no money in your hand, that’s always a bad thing—pretty close to a nightmare scenario for me.
That would be us.
Yay! No puffy/pursed lips! Just a sincere smile.
That’s Kalaklan Ridge in the background. Now that I can breathe again, I’ll need to climb that sucker one day soon.
Do you know whether that entire ridge is walkable? And how does one research that sort of question?
The drunks got this gal drunk before they departed, and she wound up dancing on the bar. I’m glad she didn’t fall off.
Not sure I’d want to rest my arms on a foot-trodden bar. Yeesh.
You can only piss in the CR on the floating bar. I shit you not.
So if it’s an emergency, and you’ve got to do Number 2, you… what? Hop over the side and do it directly in the ocean in honor of the sea gods? Come to think of it, if you were worried about pushing out “floaters,” you could probably swim directly under the bar, and no one would be the wiser.
Maybe I’ll have time to find a better joke for tomorrow…
A “Star Trek III” joke, no less… except Chekov is infamous for not being able to pronounce his “V”s. This never made sense, of course, since Russians have names like Viktor and Vladimir (and the name “Chekov” itself ends with a “V” sound); they can pronounce the “V” sound just fine. But actor Walter Koenig, who played Chekov, said he modeled his pronunciation after that of a Lithuanian relative. Curiouser and curiouser.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/December/2023 @ 7:48 pm
I think you’re becoming a master of sunset shots.
Happy Birthday to Scott! He’s been a recurrent character on your blog since forever. His ankle is still holding up, I gather?
Sad to see that photo with all the trash. I wonder what the secret is to motivate people to pick up after themselves. As with most things, I imagine it’s money: invent a Mr. Fusion device that converts matter directly into energy, then pay people for feeding the machine their trash. I bet you’d see dirty places and clogged rivers get cleared up in the blink of an eye.
Grounded at the abandoned M&M Resort.
Another Stephen King horror story waiting to happen.
Sixty pesos to put a smile on a face is a bargain!
She’s a little cutie. Please don’t grow up to become an impoverished, uneducated mother of four working in a damn bar.
As always, a great walk with a good variety of sights and terrain.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 19/December/2023 @ 8:20 pm
«« Back To Stats Page4000 steps: a rare moment of light traffic on the highway
That’s a narrow shoulder on the left. I’m sure that, like most Americans, you learned to always walk on the left side, facing traffic, but in this case, with the opposite shoulder being so much wider, wouldn’t it be safer on the right?
7000 steps: feeling grave
Look at all the litter. I’d be tempted to come back with a huge garbage bag and pick all of that up. Show the dead some respect. I know: the litter would just be back the next day.
It seems BPI withdrew my funds and then didn’t dispense any money to me. Hopefully, they will self-correct the error; otherwise, I’ll visit the branch tomorrow.
I’d call that a serious problem, but you don’t seem too stressed. Does this happen a lot?
Welcome aboard!
Nice sunset pic.
Great walk, all in all.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/December/2023 @ 4:08 pm