Things you may have missed.

It’s cherry blossom season. This is the street I traverse on the way to the bus station at U.S. Army Garrison-Yongsan.

Blossoms and barbed wire, does it get any better than that?

The other day I went to the neighborhood 7-11 to buy some smokes. As is my custom I told the clerk “dongbae Marlboro silver chuseyo”. He pointed at the black pack and I said “anio, silver”. He pointed at the gold pack and I repeated “silver”. I finally had to gesture to where the ones I wanted were. He pulled them from the rack, pointed at the word silver, and proceeded to instruct me in how to pronounce the word “silver”. Apparently, it’s “shil-bah”. Who knew? Still, it was a unique experience having a Korean try and teach me how to properly say an English word.

Speaking of Korean, NPR did a story indicating that Korean language studies are the fastest growing in the USA. Apparently it’s a result of Korean cultural imperialism or something.

I’ve pretty much given up arguing politics with folks.  Why bother when minds seem firmly closed to alternative viewpoints?  Many of my liberal friends seem to utilize comedians (John Stewart, John Oliver and the like) as their primary source for “news” and they seem proud to be spoon fed the talking points du jour.

I do get frustrated with what I consider to be fake issues manufactured to distract the sheeple from the important things going on, both internationally (allowing a nuclear Iran, genocide against Christians) and domestically (lawless politicians, zero job growth). Instead we are besieged with outrage over a mom and pop pizza joint in Indiana that *might* decline to cater a gay wedding if they are ever asked to do so, although no has in fact asked.

So, here’s the deal.  I’m all about freedom.  Gay folk should have exactly the same rights and privileges as any other citizen.  Who you choose to fuck and/or marry is no one else’s business.  And most assuredly not the government’s.  Go ahead and call me a teabagger, but the less the government intrudes in our lives the better off we all will be.  And so I don’t want to be told who I can or cannot marry and I also don’t want to be told who’s goddamn wedding I have to cater.  I believe that’s a perfectly consistent position.

And here’s at least one person who happens to agree.  A gay woman who donated money and apologized to the above referenced pizza parlor for the abuse they have suffered. Why did she do it?

“My girlfriend and I are small business owners, and we think there is a difference between operating in a public market space and then attaching the name of your business to a private event,” she said. “Like, if we were asked to set up at an anti-gay marriage rally, I mean, we would have to decline.”

Precisely.  When did common sense become so uncommon?

In the category of things that matter, why aren’t we having a national conversation about tax reform? Something that might actually grow jobs and make a difference in people’s lives? Tax reform is something the left and right SHOULD agree on. Which I guess is why the corrupt political class doesn’t want us talking about it…

End of rant.  Did I change your mind?  Didn’t think so.

The other night a girl gets on subway wearing this jacket. Not sure whether to be offended or to agree.  It’s all so outrageousing.

Easter Sunday was the second anniversary of my marriage to Jee Yeun. After dinner, I took her to her favorite coffee shop in Myeong-dong, Cafe Coin. It’s a nice enough place, but that beam has a vertical clearance of 6 feet. I’m 6’1″ and I cracked my damn head on it coming in and leaving. And to answer your question, nope it did not knock any sense into me.

Coffee and cheesecake was our dessert…

We had earlier enjoyed a nice dwaegi galbi dinner at our favorite Myeong-dong restaurant.

We didn’t have a selfie stick, so we took simultaneous pictures of ourselves. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time…

Speaking of the wife, here’s a transcript of an actual conversation we had the other night:

Jee Yeun: What are you doing?
Me: Whatever I want.
Jee Yeun: I want to do whatever I want too.
Me: As long as whatever you want to do is what I want you to do, you can!