Friday, January 26, 2007
Welcome Home Meow Bleaarghh
Got home from Korea on Wednesday to find that the cat had vomited in the middle of the living room floor. And slightly to the right of the living room floor. And slightly to the left of the middle of the living room floor. Then after the next night she vomited in the middle of the hallway. And slightly towards the end of the hallway. We now have nice stains. Never in my life have I been able to succesfully remove stains from carpets despite using stain remover products exactly as the label suggests.
I am planning on drinking a whole heap of booze and vomiting on the cat in the coming weeks. Mind you, she's a tortuise shell so we'll hardly notice.
Word on the street (OK radio sport) is that Nathan Astle is going to announce his retirement today. For all the guys faults and his shit house form lately he has been our best ODI batsman in the last decade. That maybe doesn't say much for our batting. In fact New Zealand has not produced a truly world class batsman since Mark Richardson (in tests) and Martin Crowe (in both forms). Stephen Fleming has been talked up by the opposition quite regularly but that is because he was capable of big things and was the best of a bad lot (in tests), but lets face it, he is the most shit best batsman in world cricket.
Korea
Hasn't changed much since I was last there (precisely two years ago). The music is if anything more crap than before. Only a handful of the dozen or so groups I liked have done anything in that time. Leessang put out a disappointing album, Jaurim did a cover album of western songs which on first listen wasn't up to much. Pia have put out a good debut full length album. About fucking time. They kept playing the same 5 songs at concerts for years. Most other groups I liked seemed to have fallen off the radar. Seo Tae Ji has done jack.
I saw (and bought) a Korean movie called Gwae Mul (The Host) about a monster which lives in the Han River in central Seoul. The monster supposedly was the result of an American mortician ordering his Korean assistant to pour hundreds of old bottles of formaldehyde down the sink and into the river (based on an actual incident from 2000 which you can read more about in the link above under "Political Side" where North Korea gave it mad props for its anti-America stance). The monster was drawn up and initially modelled by a Korean artist who went to Weta in Wellington where they built a larger scale model and brought it to life. 'Richard' from Weta said they were too busy at the time with King Kong and Narnia to do much though. I think they were advising quite a bit. Then I think most of the animation was done in the US. Anyway, it became the highest grossing South Korean film of all time. It might well be in the video stores in NZ now, or at some stage in the near future.
Old Boy is still the best Korean film I have seen. If you only ever see one Korean film make sure you watch that one. It will probably persuade you to watch more. Bit of trivia from Old Boy, the final scene of snowy landscape was filmed in NZ.
We also saw the third Park Chan-wook "vengeance trilogy" film, consisting of 2002's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy in 2003, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in 2005. It's decent enough.
Anyang (the city where I lived for three years and stayed for the three weeks I was back in Korea) is still ticking along (a million miles an hour). If you click on that link you can see a building they gave up working on years ago. It's been like that since I went to Anyang. Took me a while to realise that it was probably being built around the time of the Asian economic crisis when Korea was hit pretty damn hard. It seems that nobody is taking responsibility for its completion or removal which is a shame because its the first thing you see when you walk out of the rather grand (by New Zealand standards) Anyang Station.
My wife wants to use the computer and I'm buggered so maybe more later or maybe not.
Jal Ga
PS I see what people have meant about the weather with overcast skies and now rain forecast for the next 5 days. The highs are skimming across above the country while the lows are continuing to drift up. Not a hell of a lot of rain though. 34 mm in the 26 days of January so far is a little less than half what January usually brings. Be nice to get the sun right out though.
I am planning on drinking a whole heap of booze and vomiting on the cat in the coming weeks. Mind you, she's a tortuise shell so we'll hardly notice.
Word on the street (OK radio sport) is that Nathan Astle is going to announce his retirement today. For all the guys faults and his shit house form lately he has been our best ODI batsman in the last decade. That maybe doesn't say much for our batting. In fact New Zealand has not produced a truly world class batsman since Mark Richardson (in tests) and Martin Crowe (in both forms). Stephen Fleming has been talked up by the opposition quite regularly but that is because he was capable of big things and was the best of a bad lot (in tests), but lets face it, he is the most shit best batsman in world cricket.
Korea
Hasn't changed much since I was last there (precisely two years ago). The music is if anything more crap than before. Only a handful of the dozen or so groups I liked have done anything in that time. Leessang put out a disappointing album, Jaurim did a cover album of western songs which on first listen wasn't up to much. Pia have put out a good debut full length album. About fucking time. They kept playing the same 5 songs at concerts for years. Most other groups I liked seemed to have fallen off the radar. Seo Tae Ji has done jack.
I saw (and bought) a Korean movie called Gwae Mul (The Host) about a monster which lives in the Han River in central Seoul. The monster supposedly was the result of an American mortician ordering his Korean assistant to pour hundreds of old bottles of formaldehyde down the sink and into the river (based on an actual incident from 2000 which you can read more about in the link above under "Political Side" where North Korea gave it mad props for its anti-America stance). The monster was drawn up and initially modelled by a Korean artist who went to Weta in Wellington where they built a larger scale model and brought it to life. 'Richard' from Weta said they were too busy at the time with King Kong and Narnia to do much though. I think they were advising quite a bit. Then I think most of the animation was done in the US. Anyway, it became the highest grossing South Korean film of all time. It might well be in the video stores in NZ now, or at some stage in the near future.
Old Boy is still the best Korean film I have seen. If you only ever see one Korean film make sure you watch that one. It will probably persuade you to watch more. Bit of trivia from Old Boy, the final scene of snowy landscape was filmed in NZ.
We also saw the third Park Chan-wook "vengeance trilogy" film, consisting of 2002's Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy in 2003, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance in 2005. It's decent enough.
Anyang (the city where I lived for three years and stayed for the three weeks I was back in Korea) is still ticking along (a million miles an hour). If you click on that link you can see a building they gave up working on years ago. It's been like that since I went to Anyang. Took me a while to realise that it was probably being built around the time of the Asian economic crisis when Korea was hit pretty damn hard. It seems that nobody is taking responsibility for its completion or removal which is a shame because its the first thing you see when you walk out of the rather grand (by New Zealand standards) Anyang Station.
My wife wants to use the computer and I'm buggered so maybe more later or maybe not.
Jal Ga
PS I see what people have meant about the weather with overcast skies and now rain forecast for the next 5 days. The highs are skimming across above the country while the lows are continuing to drift up. Not a hell of a lot of rain though. 34 mm in the 26 days of January so far is a little less than half what January usually brings. Be nice to get the sun right out though.
Comments:
Not a sign of it. My neighbour did make a citizens arrest though of a couple of people who were snooping around our place and trying to pinch his lawn mower. Him and the guy next to him chased them and beat them up (our neighbour has done this before).
You aren't 14 are you?
You aren't 14 are you?
I would like to complain about the cars racing up and down local streets (including ours) every fucking Friday and Saturday night. All night. Plus other times at random intervals.
They have those transmissions that make the "whoosh" noise each time the little fuckers change gear.
And when it's summer you often have a window or two open so there's no escaping the noise.
They have those transmissions that make the "whoosh" noise each time the little fuckers change gear.
And when it's summer you often have a window or two open so there's no escaping the noise.
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