magnetonic

saturday is lunar new year's day.

in celebration of this annual event, i'm holding an Almost-Full Moon Party.

you are all invited. however, i fear none of you will show up.

i've also created a new drink. tentative names are: 'the fizz bang', 'the fizzy korean', for 'the fuzzy nipple'.

ingredients: lots of ice in a rock glass; a wollop of Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin; top up with Lotte Chilsung Cider (which is a light carbonated drink which is perhaps like sprite, and just a smidgen like ginger ale).

cheers!

Posted by f r e d at 8:01 PM in technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

that 'The Sopranos' season two is pretty much entirely unwatchable. i've tried four of six discs and none of them work on my computer.

i'm quite upset.

Posted by f r e d at 12:43 AM in technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

i just got back from the movie theatre, after not seeing the Two Towers yet again.

the week i got back from vacation i went with two friends to see it that friday. it was sold out, so we watched harry potter instead. we went the next day again, but forgetting to reserve tickets the night before, and it was sold out again. we tried to reserve for the next day, but only front row seats were left. so we opted out.

on saturday, a friend of ours was going to be at the theatre, so she kindly offered to pick us up some tickets for today. we were really happy and were all pretty excited that we would finally be able to see the movie.

just before we go in, i ask my friend who is holding the tickets, 'are you sure it's the right date and time?' the date and time are right, looking at the tickets. we go in, and the ticket guy says, 'it's just to your left,' which is screen 1. the ticket says screen 1, but LOTR is clearly screen 3, as i look around. i look again at the ticket, and it does not say '반지의 제왕' (Lord of the Rings), but the title of some other random Korean movie which is the one showing on screen 1. we get our money back, since the LOTR is of course sold-out on a sunday afternoon.

we curse a bit, in the direction of our friend who got us the tickets. it's the fourth time now.

then we try to see 'Catch Me if You Can', which is showing about an hour and a half later, but as we get to the front of the line, it sells out.

but now we have tickets for tomorrow, at 8:05. barring any earthquakes, typhoons, car accidents, cats eating tickets, we should be able to finally see the damn thing.

Posted by f r e d at 5:42 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (0)

my webhost is migrating magnetonic.org to another server. it is scheduled for 22 January, 15:00 pacific time.

therefore, magnetonic may be down for a while, perhaps for 24 hours.

please do not panic.

Posted by f r e d at 9:10 PM in technology | Permalink | Comments (1)

i went snowboarding on saturday, to a place called 무주 (moojoo). the snow was crap: at the top of the mountain it was chunky and hard, and as you got towards the bottom, it thinned out and there were ice patches all over the place. underneath the thin layer of snow was really really hard packed snow, hard enough to be essentially ice. i bailed a couple of times because of this, and also collided with some guy.

on top of that, my rental board was stolen and i had to pay W100,000, about CA$125.

i'm sore today, but at least i finally got to try 닭도리탕 (dakdoritang, spicy chicken stuff), since my friend felt sorry for me and so bought me dinner. and i drank lots of 소주 (soju, a cheap korean liquor, like vodka) to try to forget about it and also ease my aching body, but it worked only as long as the alcohol lasted. doesn't it always.

Posted by f r e d at 10:30 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (0)

so i sent her to the vet to get spayed.

it's costing me almost CA$300.

for some reason, they asked me to wait until the doctor came. then he told me that he was going to give her the anaesthesia. one of them really hurt and she freaked out. she passed out in a few minutes.

it was really weird. she was breathing and all, but she looked dead. she wouldn't respond to anything. the worst of it was that her eyes wouldn't close. her pupils were fully dialated, and when i touched her antenna-whiskers, she didn't flinch.

i wish i hadn't seen that whole part.

anyway, i pick her up on sunday. for some reason, their usual procedure is to have anti-infection treatment for four days after. it's easiest for me to just leave here there and have them do it. which is why it's costing so much.

Posted by f r e d at 11:24 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (6)

here are two pictures of things that i bought on my trip. since they are unrelated to anything i'm putting on the main trip site, i'll include them here.

aren't these the coolest boots you've ever seen?

i know kung fu and jeet kung do, now that i have this watch.

the former cost me about CA$144, and the latter about CA$4. good buys, if you ask me.

also in unrelated news, i'm getting really frustrated with the whole cat peeing on my bed thing. i still don't get it. the litter i'm using now is a lot better, and it doesn't stink so much if i don't change it. yet she still finds it necessary to urinate on my comforter and thus my bed every once in a while. i'm tempted to throw her out sometimes. is that so wrong?

Posted by f r e d at 11:09 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (3)

my first batch of HK/Shanghai pictures is up. you can see them here.

i went to seoul this weekend. sue was supposed to have her first public performance as a dj. the event, which was held outside on the patio of a gallery/cafe/bookstore in 홍대 (hongdae, the area around hongik university, which is one of the cooler parts of seoul), was shut down by the police, acting on coomplaints from the neighbours, just before she was to go on. so we went to a small jazz bar (only that they played jazz music, not live) with some of sue's friends and their friends. then we went to club tool, which was ok but played pretty sucky music.

the highlights of seoul were: a) eating 갈비탕 (kalbi tang, beef rib soup) in a restaurant which is famous for it, b) later that evening eating 감자탕 (gamja tang, potato soup) in a restaurant that is famous for it, c) going to 용산 (yongsan, a place that has the most computers, electronics and accessories i have ever seen in my life) and buying the tv-out adapter for my ibook so that i can now watch my 45+ dvds on my tv, and d) finally buying an english-korean korean-english dictionary.

the lowlights were: a) almost missing all the buses that go to daejeon saturday night (i took probably the last bus to daejeon, which took me to downtown daejeon, which turned out to be a W6000 cab ride, as opposed to a W1900 cab ride from the bus stop close to my house), b) walking around 용산 for three or four hours trying to buy a laptop for sue (she settled on the LG IBM Xnote, but no one had them in stock), and c) not buying a learning-korean-for-foreigners book.

Posted by f r e d at 12:26 AM in grind | Permalink | Comments (3)

on an unrelated note, i'm hooked on The Sopranos. i've just finished watching the first two episodes, and i'm about to watch the third.

only 22 more to go.

Posted by f r e d at 8:50 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (0)

would you like to take a gander?

Posted by f r e d at 8:41 PM in grind | Permalink | Comments (2)

so the two towers was sold-out all weekend. we went three times to try to get tickets until we remembered that we could have reserved in advance. the weekends are terrible here for movies. and there's really only one good theatre close to us.

in any case i saw harry potter. it was entertaining. probably better than the first. but since it is basically a children's movie, it bothered me quite a bit, particularly in the having-to-explain-what-would-be-better-left-subltly-unsaid department. for example the villian says, "even though the bird has blinded the snake, he can still hear you!" just after you see a sillhouette of the phoenix pecking out the snakes eyes.

other than that, and the not-so-good acting, it was fine.

i also watched the first of my 45 dvds: real genius.

it stars val kilmer as a star physics (specifically, laser optics) student. it's beautifully 80s. when a new star 15 year-old physics student arrives to join the research group, kilmer decides to move back into the dorm. he's so smart, he doesn't study or go to class. antics ensue. when he and the kid discover that the 5 MW laser they are building for their supervisor is actually for a weapon which could vapourise a human target from space, more antics ensue.

i urge all of my geek readers to do as i did and go to china and buy this dvd for $1.50. barring that, go rent it. now.

Posted by f r e d at 11:51 PM in ruminations | Permalink | Comments (1)