Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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Well, Merry Christmas to you all as well! Smiles all around.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/December/2020 @ 7:48 pm
Quite an adventure! Glad you came out of that alive. Are you looking forward to doing another like that? Is there any way to know, in advance, what sort of trail you’re going to embark upon, or are these sorts of walks always a crap shoot?
So what kind of tree is that huge one? I was tempted to say “banyan,” but of the many banyan-tree photos I looked at, only one or two seemed to have the distinctive curtain-shaped roots seen in your pictures. The rest of the banyans looked more like twisted oaks on LSD, but with root-like systems dangling off their branches and plunging into the ground. Spooky. (See here.)
Could it be a Dao tree? Wikipedia calls the roots “buttress”-shaped. That makes sense.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 22/December/2020 @ 12:23 am
I hope the Hash goes well for everyone. This is the candy run, yes? Then I hope much candy gets distributed to a bunch of happy kids.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/December/2020 @ 11:05 pm
Living, learning, looking back
Interesting meditation on the counterfactuals. Indeed, the longer you’re alive, the narrower your horizon of possibilities becomes. A wide, non-specific future ultimately narrows to one possible outcome. I think about that fact in terms of my own eventual demise: in the end, I’m going to die a certain way, from certain causes, in a certain place, and at a certain time. All of that is nebulous right now, but as time marches on, the future slowly resolves itself into clarity. It’s like the collapsing wave function with Schrödinger’s cat: at first, the cat is both alive and dead, but when you peek into the box, the cloud of possibilities suddenly crystallizes into one specific outcome. Enjoy the nebulousness of your future while you can! As for living without regrets, well… I think the best I can manage is to live with a minimum of regrets. My suspicion is that people who say “I regret nothing” are lying.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/December/2020 @ 9:20 am
What an awesome new format you’ve found for blogging! I thoroughly enjoyed this 10K-step-chunk tour! Keep ’em coming!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 17/December/2020 @ 6:48 pm
See? My memory is indeed draining away. Cosby’s actual quote:
“Don’t worry about senility. When it hits you, you won’t know it.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/December/2020 @ 11:54 pm
Good thing you’ve got a blog to store a lot of those memories for you. I feel similarly, especially re: distance walking. I’m glad I blogged those trips, taking pictures and writing notes, because I inevitably forget the little details, and those blogs help spark forgotten recollections. The blogs aren’t so much for posterity as they are an investment against my inevitable senility. Of course, one day, we’ll all be too senile to remember even our own names. But as the now-infamous Bill Cosby used to say: “Don’t worry about senility. When it happens, you won’t know.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/December/2020 @ 9:51 pm
Is Black and Dick Her part black? The nappy hair and facial bone structure would seem to say yes. What’s the history of people of African (or aboriginal) stock in the Philippines? How do such people normally fare in Filipino society?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/December/2020 @ 6:17 pm
In that photo of the cakes, what are those rainbow-colored puff balls way off to the left? And how do Filipino cakes compare to American ones? As you know, Korean cakes tend to lack sugar, eggs, and butter, making them dry and tasteless.
With your income, you could easily be living as large as this guy. Why not upgrade to a much bigger domicile? Would the upkeep be more trouble than it’s worth?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/December/2020 @ 12:52 pm
Good luck at the birthday party!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 13/December/2020 @ 3:47 pm
That looks to have been quite arduous.
Take care o’ them lungs!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/December/2020 @ 5:13 pm
Interesting how the cornbread looks pale in the first photo and richly golden in the next. What sorcery is this?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/December/2020 @ 7:11 am
The awful puns make my eyes bleed, but the photos are lovely as always. Looks to have been a great little hike!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/December/2020 @ 1:53 am
Congrats on the darts victory. These often seem to play out like the final bouts in the “Rocky” series of movies (Rocky II, III, IV, and V, anyway): Rocky gets his ass pounded for two-thirds of the fight, then he suddenly finds himself and fights his way back to a decisive win. I guess there’s something motivating about being in the losers’ bracket.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 09/December/2020 @ 6:12 pm
Quite an adventure! At least everyone took the confusion well enough. I think I’d have been a bit pissed off. You all handled the situation better than I would have.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/December/2020 @ 6:42 pm
Well, to make sure we’re on the same page: when I recommend deeply browning, I’m saying “brown until crispy.” You don’t want to do that to all your beef because that would dry the meat out. And don’t worry about crunchy chili: crispy beef won’t stay crispy one you slow-cook it for a long time, but the Maillard-induced umami will permeate the chili.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/December/2020 @ 6:33 am
If the onions were finely minced and thoroughly cooked, it’s not a problem. I’m more a hater of big, chunky pieces of onion, such as those found on hamburgers and pizza. Someone might protest that the sliced onions on pizza aren’t “chunky,” but I beg to differ. If it ain’t finely minced, it’s chunky in my book—at least when it comes to onions.
For more depth of flavor, cook your chili with beer and add chipotle (smoked jalapeño) flakes. Also, try deeply browning about a third of your beef before you add the rest of the chili ingredients. Browning produces the Maillard reaction, which is similar to caramelization, but with both protein and sugar, not just sugar alone. The Maillard reaction adds umami (depth of flavor, savoriness) to food, not to mention texture.
That said, I bet your chili was fine, especially if it sold out so fast.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/December/2020 @ 5:40 am
Gotta say, the house with the “million-dollar view” has frustratingly small windows facing away from the water. Is that because there’s nothing worthwhile to look at in that direction? “Neighbors? Who wants to see them? Fuck ’em!”
Chili’s lookin’ damn good.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/December/2020 @ 7:43 pm
Well, here’s hoping the rest of your Sunday is good to you, and here’s hoping the same about the coming week.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 06/December/2020 @ 5:05 pm
The Lord works in mysterious ways
I like the AA Milne quote. Glad you avoided the Venus fly trap of fundamentalist religion. At the beginning, I was sure this was going to turn into another sordid sex story, so for me at least, the ending was a bit of a twist. Heh.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/December/2020 @ 6:26 pm
Well, 9-7 is pretty close. Sorry to hear about the loss, but there’s always next time. That “9” is written like a lower-case “G,” which is how the French write their “9”s. Was the scorekeeper of European extraction, or is that also how Filipinos write a “9”?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/December/2020 @ 10:59 pm
Good luck with today’s match. May your consistency remain consistent.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/December/2020 @ 6:42 pm
Saw that Santa photo and thought of the new Mel Gibson movie, “Fatman,” which is a black comedy about a rich kid who gets a lump of coal for Christmas and sends an assassin to kill Santa. The movie looks stupid, but I kinda’ wanna see it. It’s on my iTunes wish list.
So your housekeepers have Christmased up your house without even asking you? If so, I understand your dogs’ confusion.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/December/2020 @ 2:45 pm
Sorry to read about the injury, but it sounds as though it was an adventure. Great photos as always, no matter who took them.
I like skippity-skipping down rocky slopes when I know they’re not slippery; I can go pretty fast in such situations. In Skyline Drive, near where I used to live, the Dark Hollow Falls walk is about fifteen or twenty minutes going downhill, and I usually skip/jog down, passing tons of weekend-warrior tourists as I go. Going back up, of course, is another matter entirely, and the more athletic folks usually kick my ass on the way up. Then again, when I’m on a tear, I can ascend faster than most tourists. Only the true athletes can beat me.
May you heal quickly and be right back out on the trail!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/December/2020 @ 6:23 pm
Good luck with the Hash and the grass. Be careful!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/November/2020 @ 1:11 pm
Yeah—”I’ll be fine… just gimme a sec” might be an interesting choice for a tombstone.
Good luck at the Lagoon tourney.
Those “Not Fall in Love Again” meds were manufactured by Gollum, I see: note how it says “30 capsulses.” Thirty capsulses, Precious!
The Filipinas might not have gotten the stork/swallow humor, but it gave me a chuckle.
May all your future throws be consistent. Consistently good, I mean.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/November/2020 @ 2:58 pm
As Bruce Wayne says at the end of Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns: “This will be a good life. Good enough.”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 28/November/2020 @ 5:43 pm
Great-looking feast! The turkey looked quite good.
And for what it’s worth, since you’re always commenting about your beer belly: it appears, from the above photos, that the belly has rather significantly slimmed down, so whatever you’re doing seems to be working. Enjoy that Turkey Day feast, then get back on your program!
Thanks for the pics and the commentary.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/November/2020 @ 6:42 pm
“I hope you lose your darts more ofter”
Am trying to figure out if that’s a typo or just a quirky Filipino twist on English. “Ofter” sounds charmingly foreign.
“And don’t worry, this is purely transactional in nature!”
Precisely why I worry.
As for your blender… I had bad vibes the moment you mentioned it last time because I could see it was a ripoff of a popular blender in the States called a Ninja. I’d recommend just buying the Ninja via Amazon. Spend the money. For appliances, the real thing is always better than the off-brand knockoff. I found that out when I was shopping for a food processor: I bought a shitty Korean device first, and when that started smoking, I went for a standard Cuisinart via Amazon. Have been satisfied ever since, and I consider the purchase of a high-quality item to be an investment that is, ultimately, cheaper than buying the shit version of the product.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving! May today’s event go well. I hope to see more food pics and no pics of people trying to stab each other with meat-carving knives.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/November/2020 @ 2:50 pm
«« Back To Stats PageMost excellent. Too bad about the poor trail markings, but at least the trail as a whole wasn’t that awful. Beware the barbed wire!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/November/2020 @ 6:30 pm