Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
Displaying 2,461 To 2,490 Of 4,392 Comments
Burrito-folding with Sam the Cooking Guy: here.
I can’t remember whether I asked this long ago… but is “Gracyn” pronounced “Grace-in” or “Grass-in”?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/May/2021 @ 9:00 pm
Many happy returns to Gracyn!
That burrito looks more like a taco, but it’s all in how you fold the tortilla. You need to show us a video of your tortilla-folding skills! We must see the burrito in its final form!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/May/2021 @ 5:35 pm
Haven’t seen any Jollibees here, but then again, I haven’t been actively checking. Let’s do a quick Google search for “Jollibee Seoul”…
I’m getting mixed messages. There are some videos out there that seem to promote the Jollibee-Korea idea, while other websites seemingly try to answer the question of why there’s no Jollibee in Korea. Yet more sites seem to contend that the well-established Lotteria is, in fact, Korea’s Jollibee. Wikipedia has what appears to be a definitive entry on overseas Jollibee establishments, and it says there’s no Jollibee in Korea. Japan, meanwhile, is making plans to have one or more Jollibee branches soon.
So at a guess, Jollibee hasn’t graced Korean shores yet. But if the company is expanding as aggressively as it seems, I’ll likely see a Jollibee soon.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/May/2021 @ 12:36 pm
Do you have a whole collection of “post” pictures at the ready, or do you take a post picture that is exclusively meant for the blog post where it appears?
15th image down: that Pubic Head’s a naughty one, isn’t he…
The Champ Burger looks pretty good. The fearful, cowardly side of me must ask, though: did it have onions? If yes, can you order one without onions?
Looks to have been a good trail. Good luck with the upcoming Hare-ing. May you lay out much white powder, O King of Cocaine.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/May/2021 @ 4:59 pm
Good rewrite, but tuck your period in for the final “there.”
Yeah, by “unnecessary,” I literally meant “not needed,” the implication being that the extra commas’ presence was incorrect.
A British criticism of US-style punctuation is that it’s less logical. In British thinking, quotation marks are there to convey content, while punctuation conveys tone. Tucking a period or question mark inside the quotes forces the quotes to conflate content and tone. To be honest, I actually agree with the Brits on this count: UK punctuation is more logical. But given the independent evolution of US and UK English, the rules are the rules. If you’re a Yank, and you’re not trying for a pretentious, over-affected, Anglophile delivery, stick to writing like a Yank and don’t be a linguistic Benedict Arnold.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/May/2021 @ 7:32 am
You just don’t wanna read my comma series deeply, do you?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/May/2021 @ 11:54 pm
That full-moon photo shows what I like to call a “unibutt”—a single grand, shapeless buttock hidden under Asian women’s clothing. Unibutts exist in droves here in Seoul, where only the very bravest are motivated to wear tight, crack-revealing clothing. Well-defined butts are hard to find. Not that I’m in any position to critique other people’s asses, of course; I have the greatest, blobbiest unibutt of them all.
Then there’s this:
I have to do a mental checklist whenever I leave the house–phone, vapes, wallet, darts–or else I’ll invariably get halfway down the street and have an, “Oh, shit”, moment. I’m notorious for bad grammar and punctuation, but these days, even shit I know, I get wrong. I’m thinking, “their”, but my brain tells my fingers to type “there”.
Gettin’ British with the punctuation again! Also: there’re a few unnecessary commas in the above snippet (three or four).
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/May/2021 @ 3:38 pm
Masterful analysis by Brian.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/May/2021 @ 10:13 am
Oh, by the way:
“.Me: Oh yeah? Well, your grandpa’s no better either”
You managed four punctuation errors in that little space. This is how I know you’re just trolling.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/May/2021 @ 9:22 pm
Good to know that you know the people living above you. If you do any grilling, you could always be neighborly and invite them down to have some chow with you.
Things I’d like to try from John Kim’s menu:
1. lapu lapu fish & chips
2. chicken parm
3. loaded-meat pizza
4. lamb burger
5. peppercorn-roasted beef tenderloin (lg.)
6. chilitos burritos
7. birria tacos
8. lamb tacos
9. mini bacon-wrap chicken
10. bulgogi with rice
11. ribeye brisket burger
12. Philly cheesesteak
13. French dip
14. chicken Caesar salad
15. Thai beef saladMight take a few days to eat my way through those menu selections. They all sound good, though.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/May/2021 @ 6:22 pm
Rock on.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/May/2021 @ 9:27 pm
Reactions to rewrites:
1. Yes, indeed: if you’re British, then the period should be outside the quotation mark. If you’re a damn Yankee, though, you need to tuck the period inside.
2. Correct! That was too much of a hint. Problem is… I’m not sure you understand the why behind the punctuation. You’ll need to go back and reread post #1 in my comma series. Or just read on: I’ll explain further below.
3. This was actually a cluster of three sentences, and each sentence had one or more problems. For the first sentence, you wrote:
Sometimes, it’s a personality conflict, and other times I find the lack of situational awareness frustrating.
The comma before the “and” was the crucial addition. The comma after “Sometimes” was more a stylistic matter than a matter of strict grammatical rigor. Normally, the guideline is: put a comma at the end of an introductory phrase (This past September, I got my first pubic hair.). So many people are ignoring this guideline, though, that it’s safe to say it’s falling out of favor. Old-schoolers like me still do it, but every once in a while, even I will neglect the comma.
The problem, though, is that if you decide to follow the comma-after-intro-phrase rule, you have to be consistent about it. That sentence contains a second intro phrase: “and [at] other times.” If you put a comma after “Sometimes,” then you have to put a comma after “other times,” which introduces a second independent clause.
But again, you put in the crucial comma before the “and,” and that matters most.
To spell it out: when you’re separating two independent clauses, you have to use a comma-conjunction to do so. By “conjunction,” I mean a coordinating conjunction like for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so, i.e., the so-called FANBOYS. Instead of the comma-conjunction, it’s also possible to use a semicolon. Using a comma when you actually need a semicolon is called a comma splice. For example: It’s raining out, you’ll need an umbrella. Corrected: It’s raining out; you’ll need an umbrella. Or: It’s raining out, so you’ll need an umbrella.
For your second and third sentences in that snippet, you did indeed put the commas where they needed to be. Woo-hoo!
In many cases, correct comma usage comes down to the ability to define what clauses are, to know a clause when you see one, and to know what type of clause you’re looking at. Again, post #1 of my comma series goes into all that.
So for me, the frustration is this: when I point out, specifically, that there’s an error in a given sentence, you’re often pretty good about making the correction. This makes me wonder why, if you’re aware of what the correct way to write something is, you keep making these mistakes. I know you’ve said that you write according to what sounds good, but to me, that sounds like you haven’t bothered to read my posts on commas at all—or you’ve read them and decided to ignore them. Going by what “sounds good” or “sounds natural” or “seems to flow” is never a good way to approach writing. There are almost always grammatical and mechanical rules to help you figure out how to write a certain locution correctly. Once you learn those rules, it all becomes a matter of habit, and you’re able to listen to a properly authoritative voice in your head that tells you what’s legitimately right or wrong.
Anyway, thanks for being a good sport about all this. Not many folks have a tolerance for the grammatically preachy.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/May/2021 @ 6:01 pm
Guess I should’ve said “problematic locutions” rather than “problematic sentences,” given that selection #3 is actually two sentences. Ah, senility.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/May/2021 @ 2:52 am
Congrats on the unlikely win!
But now, Mr. I’m Working on My Punctuation, it’s time to face the music! I’ll show you three problematic sentences and offer you a hint for solving each problem:
1. When I’m throwing poorly, rather than think about my mechanics, I tell myself to “focus”.
Hint: you’re not British. If you were, this wouldn’t be a problem because it’s perfectly legitimate in British English.
2. Everyone has a chance to draw a good partner, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t.
Hint: look up “comma splice” on my blog. The way I’d solve this, stylistically, is by replacing one comma with a semicolon and adding a conjunction after the other comma. That’s too much of a hint, frankly.
3. Sometimes it’s a personality conflict, other times I find their lack of situational awareness frustrating. Again, my reaction is on me and I don’t fault my partner overtly, it just messes with my head sometimes and throws me off my game.
Hint: three errors in the above, maybe five. The “maybe fourth” error comes right at the beginning; the “maybe fifth” error comes later in the same sentence. These “maybe” errors are more a matter of style than of grammatical rigor.
And I have to ask: was that “I find their lack of situational awareness frustrating” a nod to Darth Vader’s “I find your lack of faith disturbing”?
I could go on, as there are many such errors in this post, but three examples will suffice, methinks. Continue your Jedi training!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/May/2021 @ 8:44 pm
Congrats on the two-dog provision. I wonder if that landlady wants your money more than she cares about the number of pooches. Should desperation be a warning sign? Examine your prospective new place for cracks, drainage problems, tiny insects in dark corners, grit and cobwebs, moldy/funky wallpaper or paint, weird smells emanating from pipes and drains, and the potentially-noisy-neighbor situation.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/April/2021 @ 10:23 pm
“I know you have three openings. There are, however, a few more openings than those, but I can’t fit myself into them. So we’ll have to make do with the three you mentioned.”
I’m not seeing any masks in the final Dick’s photo (does Dick have anything to do with those three openings?). That’s a good sign to me.
What a Freudian post, eh? Dick, three openings, and faceless virgins.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/April/2021 @ 7:39 pm
Big decision, and yeah, your landlord is stupid. If you’ve been overpaying this entire time, then he’s probably already got the $2000 he needs to make his repairs. He can’t claim empty pockets after fleecing someone for years.
Have you thought about switching from renting to buying (through a Filipino acquaintance, I imagine)?
Good luck with the move, and with the new neighbors. I hope to see pics of the interior once you’ve settled in and gotten the new place the way you like it.
As for the Namsan pic of me… yeah, keep gloating. Revenge will be mine one day. I’ll pull a Biden and challenge you to a pushup contest.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/April/2021 @ 9:37 pm
Lovely pics as per usual. And the ladies seemed overall cuter than usual, too. I noticed you did the gentlemanly thing and didn’t go for a “bite down on the wiener” joke for that one photo.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/April/2021 @ 6:13 pm
Glad to know the meat worked out. Even if the rub floated off the beef, it was still in the water during the slow cook, so it would have added some flavor, anyway.
You still on good terms with “mama”?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/April/2021 @ 5:47 pm
Congrats to Cristy on her victory, and congrats to you on making it to #2.
I didn’t know you could put a rub on meat that’s going into the slow-cooker. Won’t the rub simply float off in the water? Normally, rubs are for meat that you bake, roast, or barbecue. Anyway, good luck with that. I hope it tastes good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/April/2021 @ 6:17 pm
Interesting perspective. Sounds like a lot of simmering hostility out there.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/April/2021 @ 10:09 am
Sorry to read about all the dick-waving authorities impeding your walk. Bunch of fucking cunts.
Singles League playoffs—this is the big one, right? Good luck!
Ribeye looks good. Nicely cooked on the outside, hopefully still medium-rare and juicy on the inside.
“It also appears that I’d be the only foreigner living here. Not ready for that adventure!”
Do you have to live in a community of expats? If yes… why? Hell, living among Filipinos might finally motivate you to learn some of the local language—enough to speak in actual sentences instead of tossing around random words and phrases. Here’s some Tagalog homework for you. Learn:
1. the days of the week
2. the months of the year
3. numbers from 0 to 1,000,000
4. the verbs that are basic in any language: to be, to go, to have, to want, to need, to give, to take, to find, to be able to (can), to have to (must), to wait, to sleep, to wake up, to eat, to drink, to poop, to piss, to talk, to yell/shout, to ask, etc.
5. the nouns and prepositions that most often go with the above verbs
6. the adjectives that typically go with those nouns, including adjectives like bad, good, cheap, expensive, sweet, tasty, sour, etc.
7. basic adverbs like fast, slowly, very, really, late, early, etc.*
8. basic “direction” words like left, right, up, down, north, south, east, westAdd a few hundred useful words and expressions to your vocabulary and see how much your life among the natives improves.
__________
*The words “late” and “early” can be both adjectives and adverbs. If I say, “You’re late” or “You’re early,” then “late” and “early” are adjectives. If I say, “You arrived late” or “You arrived early,” then those words are adverbs. Same with a word like “fast.” If I say, “She’s pretty damn fast,” then “fast” is an adjective meaning “quick.” But “She runs fast” means that “fast” is an adverb meaning “quickly.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/April/2021 @ 6:53 pm
And I saw that, despite trying to hit the “shift” key on my cell phone while I was typing the above comment, the personal pronoun “I” ended up being lower-case, anyway. Alas.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/April/2021 @ 2:51 pm
Well, given my own sense of humor, i thought your title referred to toilet logs.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/April/2021 @ 2:21 pm
Congrats to Alan on his “hwan-gap” (i.e., five times around the twelve-year zodiac cycle). His woman’s a cutie! (Wife? Girlfriend?)
Again, I have to wonder: how does a foreign gringo end up managing his own place if he can’t even legally own property? Filipino/a partner?
Congrats to you, as well, on the occasion of your latest darts victory! Maybe I was wrong about the consistency thing.
Given your lord-of-the-Sith levels of proficiency, have you ever thought about making a humorous video starring you as some kind of unerring darts ninja, always nailing enemies precisely in the middle of the forehead, scoring bullseyes with no effort at all?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/April/2021 @ 8:33 pm
Understood. NB: it would only be a 2- kilometer run, not a 2-miler.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/April/2021 @ 11:30 am
John,
re: commas, eh?
You can start by adding a vocative comma to your “Goodbye, Buday” post title. I didn’t want to say anything at the time, given the tragic nature of the situation, but yeah… you left out the vocative comma, my friend. What’s bizarre is that you usually don’t make that particular mistake. Inconsistency is your bugbear, it seems, whether in darts or in punctuation!
re: self-improvement
I think the goals we set would need to be empirically verifiable—i.e., filmable. They’d also have to be predicated on an actual desire to change. If you’re telling me, in your response above, that you’re unwilling/unable to change at this point in your life, then there’s no point in making any sort of self-improvement pact. I’ll just have to go it alone. For what it’s worth, I was planning to set up a modest series of “sub-goals,” with the intention of achieving them all by the end of the year. Failure to achieve even one sub-goal would mean failure to achieve the larger goal. A stark standard, but a motivating one.
Those modest goals:
1. Be able to do 30 legitimate pushups by December 31.
2. Be able to do a single pullup, from full hang to full flex, by 12/31.*
3. Lose 15 kg by 12/31.
4. Be able to plank for 2 minutes straight by 12/31.
5. Be able to do 60 abdominal crunches, 3 styles, by 12/31.
6. Be able to jump rope for 5 minutes straight, no stopping, by 12/31.
7. Be able to run 2 km, no stopping, by 12/31.What goals would I imagine for you? Not that it’s my place to set your goals, but if I were to let my imagination run wild…
Be in a meaningful, monogamous relationship with the same woman for at least four months, from the beginning of September (at the latest) to the end of December. Criteria for the relationship: (1) no major verbal spats in which shouting is involved [i.e., conflicts are managed maturely], (2) no making or hearing accusations of selfishness or inconsiderateness, (3) no forgetting of special occasions like birthdays or whatever, (4) no confessions of boredom by either party, and (5) no cheating by either party.
What would be the proof that the relationship was strong? That’s a tough one. How do you objectively prove a subjective thing? The best I can come up with is the monthly upload of a video showing the two of you blissfully together, maybe with the lady sitting in your lap and voluntarily giving you an adoring smooch. If she’s pissed off with you, and/or if the relationship is on the rocks, there’s no way she’ll consent to the above scenario, and that’d be proof enough that something’s wrong. Does anyone else have a better idea, or does all of this seem as stupid as a reality-TV episode?
Anyway, it doesn’t sound as if you’re into this project, so I’ll write no more about it.
__________*When I was a college junior living in Switzerland, I got more into athletics than I’d ever done in the past, and one of the things I concentrated on was pullups. (A low-hanging set of pipes in the basement of my Swiss host family’s house served as my pullup bar.)
By the time my year in Switzerland was over, I had gone from doing zero pullups to doing seven straight. Not a huge achievement by gym-rat standards, but a world of difference for me, and I had the flared-out back muscles (a.k.a., lats—latissimus dorsi) to prove it. Those were the days (loudly slaps Santa gut).» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/April/2021 @ 6:31 pm
Yikes—in that photo of the three girls celebrating their birthday, there’s a dude behind the girls who appears to have a “leaking pussy.” Once seen, it cannot be un-seen.
Snoopy and Charlie Brown need to work on their capitalization. But the sentiment is nice. Live day by day, die once.
“I mean, I enjoy being In Joy, and the sex is much better than it would be with a stranger/prostitute…”
Dude—don’t kid yourself. It’s transactional; she’s a prostitute, even if the trade is more in favors than in money. Hence the empty feeling. There’s no heart involved when it’s just business. As you know.
“Longing for something I lack the courage to pursue is a whole other level of fucked up.”
Possible solution: target those aspects of yourself that are sabotaging meaningful relationships, get rid of them, and then try for love. But, like mastering commas, this takes actual work, and I get the feeling you don’t want to work at this. You like things too much as they are. It’s a lot like me and weight loss: I talk-talk-talk about diet and exercise, but I end up in the same old rut because I’m fucking lazy, spiritually speaking—too content to remain where I am. Changing one’s life, uprooting bad habits and replacing them with good habits, is an uphill battle that is, to be honest, more arduous than any physical climb up a physical hill. I’d rather climb a steep hill once in a while than fundamentally rearrange my life, and that’s the cold, honest truth.
So I’m definitely not saying any of this from a position of superiority; in terms of psyche or spirit, I’m swimming in the shit right alongside you, and for many of the same reasons. Our particular cases may be different in the details, but they’re similar in their themes.
Maybe you and I should make a self-improvement pact—set some clear, realistic short-term goals, then vow to meet those goals by the end of this year. I’ll get back to you on this if you’re interested.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/April/2021 @ 11:13 pm
Good luck this Saturday. Meanwhile, congratulations to my namesake on his well-deserved win.
Those meatballs look good, but not very ball-y.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 19/April/2021 @ 7:57 pm
«« Back To Stats PageBrownies look perfect, crusty top and all. Brown knees also look good… were the girls too shy to show their faces?
I enjoy your sunset shots whenever they appear. Are they a metaphor?
Hans the Minion looks about as obliviously cheerful and frustratingly irrepressible as the Hans I’d written about.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 18/April/2021 @ 4:32 pm