The One With Aldacron

The Teabagger Mentality

2010-03-21T05:29:15Z

Were I J. Jonah Jameson, I might have titled this post “The Teabagger Menace”. Despite the fact that they claim to be, and are claimed to be, average Americans, these people are proving to be batshit crazy. They’ve been making ridiculous comments and holding up ridiculous signs since the beginning of their “movement”, but now they’re going too far.

This week, with the health care vote drawing near, the Teabaggers have been showing their true colors. On Tuesday, outside the offices of Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy in Columbus, OH, they were out in force to protest health reform. As exchanges with pro-health reformers got heated, some Teabaggers went so far as to mock a man with Parkinson’s disease. One Teabagger told the man, “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town,” in a tone of voice normally reserved for children. Another angrily threw money at the guy, while screaming things like, “No more handouts!” He was also holding a sign that read, “I Am AFP”, AFP being Americans for Prosperity.

AFP is a supposed grassroots organization that campaigns against health care reform. AFP President Tim Phillips was a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews, where Matthews asked him his thoughts on the behavior of the people at the Columbus rally. Phillips described it as “terrible”, “reprehensible”, and essentially against the “spirit” of the AFP’s position of protest. He was quick to point out that it was only a minority of protesters who were heckling the man with Parkinson’s, putting up a defense of the Teabaggers and their movement. He claimed the majority are civil and respectful.

Fast forward to Saturday. Teabaggers swarmed to Capitol Hill for another rally in a last-ditch effort to kill health reform. This rally was promoted by actor Jon Voight with a Call to Arms, where he declared,

Speaker Pelosi will stop at nothing to fulfill her corrupt conquests. She will bring all of the corrupt ACORN liars to try to bully all the Democrats that may be having pangs of guilt knowing quite surely what their votes can and will do. If they’re bullied into saying “yes,” it will destroy America.

Health care reform will destroy America, he says. So the Teabaggers packed up and went to the Capitol, where once again they proved that they are so not civil or respectful.

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a ‘ni–er.’ And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a “faggot,” as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president’s speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

“I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus,” [said Clyburn.]

Add to that behavior the following sign which was spotted at the rally:

Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can.

So not only are they spitting on Senators and whipping out the n-word, they are also threatening gun violence.

I don’t care how often anyone claims these people are just normal Americans, or that only a minority of them are nutjobs. The fact remains that they are actively protesting an attempt to make sure Americans don’t have to live without health insurance, a bill that will provide health insurance to millions of Americans who don’t have it and, most importantly, will save lives. That fact alone tells me that they are already operating with a significant mental deficit. They’ve been swept up by Republican misinformation and lies and clearly don’t understand what they are protesting against. It’s been claimed that many of them are protesting simply out of a hatred of government, or because we have a black president. But whatever their reasons for being out there, they have shown time and again that they are loons. Now, they are dangerously close to crossing a line that no one should want them to cross.

I’ve seen several comparisons of this week’s protests to those of the 60s when the rednecks were out against Civil Rights reform. And that, it seems, is an apt comparison as these people are behaving like a bunch of ignorant rednecks. Here’s hoping that if the bill does pass this weekend, we won’t see any redneck rampages next week.

Sick

2010-03-11T10:52:23Z

I had wanted to get some work done on the computer today, but a nasty cold has gotten worse and pretty much knocked me down. On top of that the wonderfully potent Korean medicine I started taking last night has pretty much knocked me out.

I did have one class today and managed to slog through an hour in the gym. Since then, the past few hours have been a combination of snoozing and reading. Here’s hoping the next couple of doses clear me up. This is one seriously wracking cough that keeps coming and going.

When iTunes Chokes

2010-03-09T13:40:06Z

I’ve imported a lot of CDs with iTunes over the last few years. It usually goes well, but now and again something will get screwed. Sometimes I’ll wind up with a file that’s got several minutes of dead space on the end. Or, worse, iTunes will hang during the import process, freezing the system and forcing me to reboot. The latter happened to me today on a new CD I picked up.

The CD was released back in ‘97, so in physical terms it’s not exactly all that new. The first two songs imported fine, but iTunes got stuck on the third one. I tried a Ctrl-Alt-Delete to bring up the Windows Task Manager so that I could kill the process, but unfortunately it never appeared. The system was locked up. So I rebooted and tried again, starting from the fourth song. Once again, choke, freeze, reboot. I decided to take a different approach.

I opened up Windows Media Player and configured it to rip CD tracks to MP3 format. Then I started ripping. WMP, too, choked. Fortunately, it only locked the system temporarily and I was eventually able to kill it. So I gave up that approach and took a few deep breaths to avoid the fit of tech rage that was threatening to bubble up. With a clear head, I googled “CD ripper”.

One of the first results was a a freeware app recommended by CNet, called Free CD Ripper. I decided to give it a shot. The download is small and it’s a quick install, so I had it up and running in short order.

The interface is primitive. I had to input the info for each track manually (song title, group name, CD name, etc…). But once it got going, it did the job admirably. The tracks that caused iTunes and WMP so much trouble caused no problems at all with this little utility. Unfortunately, it did hang on two songs. But the great news is that it didn’t cause any system freeze. In fact, the app itself didn’t even freeze. I was able to click the cancel button and it just aborted. Both times, I unchecked the problem tracks, as well as the previously imported tracks, in the import list and started up again. So where both iTunes and WMP failed to deliver, Free CD Player got all but two of the tracks ripped, almost without causing any headaches. The only downside is that none of the album/artist info was saved along with the tracks. So when I imported all of the songs into iTunes I again had to go through and enter it all manually. So next time I use Free CD Ripper, I’ll just enter the track names and ignore the rest of the fields.

So if you are having trouble ripping CD tracks with iTunes or WMP, give Free CD Ripper a try and see if that gets you further along.

Class Loss

2010-03-06T22:55:06Z

When I used to teach English at institutes here in Korea, I generally was allowed only one week of vacation in a year. The worst part was that there was no choice as to when I could take it. The school would shut down for a week in the summer and all employees were then considered to be on vacation. So when I went freelance, one of the things I was looking forward to was the freedom to take my vacations as I please. In reality, it doesn’t quite work that way.

Taking a two- or three-day trip now and again isn’t an issue. But anything longer can become problematic. I have a set of what I consider core classes that I have been teaching for a year or more (I’ve been teaching members of one particular family for around 8 years). I have great relationships with the people involved in those classes, so if I tell them I plan to take two or three weeks to visit my hometown, they have no problem with it. My agent is cool about it too, as are the class members I have through him (whom I’ve been teaching now for over three years). The problem arises with the other classes.

At any given time, I’ll have one or more classes which are relatively new. While I may be on good terms with the people involved, it takes time to establish a strong relationship. Especially so when the people managing the class aren’t the students (as in the case of parents). If I take off for two or three weeks, there’s a risk of losing these classes. My job performance is irrelevant. They haven’t been with me long enough to feel any sense of loyalty toward me. If something interesting comes up while I’m gone, my class is expendable.

True, classes cancel now and again even while I’m not away. I’ve posted before how my schedule goes through cycles. But it’s a given that any time I take an extended vacation, I can expect to lose one or more classes upon my return. This is based on experience. And last month’s trip to the States was no exception.

I returned to Korea last Wednesday. By Friday, I had lost three classes. One I had started teaching in January and was supposed to continue until April. They didn’t bother to inform me that the class was canceled. I had to hear it from the housekeeper when I showed up at their door Friday morning. No big deal, since it was a temporary class anyway. I was asked to take a “break” with two other classes (one I’d been teaching for around five months and the other for four). Usually that means I’ll never hear from them again. I won’t hold my breath, anyway.

In all, my monthly income is down by around $1000 USD. That bites, as it means I have to curb my spending a good deal in order to meet my monthly savings target. New classes always come along eventually, but deciding whether and when to take a trip to the States is never easy.

Large vs. Large

2010-03-05T05:54:48Z

Every time that I go back to the States, I’m often amazed by the amount of food served at some restaurants. On this last trip, the wife and I visited a BBQ place for lunch. They gave us so much that we ate it for dinner also and were stuffed after both meals. We took my mother to a Korean restaurant. The servings there were double the size we would have expected in Korea. No wonder so many Americans are overweight.

The biggest surprise came when I ordered a large smoothie at Smoothie King. In Korea, a large at Smoothie King is roughly 20 ozs., the same size as a small in the US, where a large is 40. I like me some smoothies, but that was just way too much. I made the same mistake at Dairy Queen one day when I ordered a large malt. Never again. Americans really need to wake up. Quantity is just as important as quality when it comes to food, and Americans are eating too much.

I took a shot of the Korean Smoothie King cups this morning. Unfortunately, I have no pics from the US for comparison.

Taco Bell in Korea

2010-03-05T02:14:49Z

I knew of two Taco Bell locations in Seoul in the early 90s, but they were gone by ‘94. I guess Korea wasn’t ready for it.
In ‘99, a Taco Bell opened up on the main US army base in Seoul about a month before I quit the part-time job that gave me base access. So the only way for me to get it was to ask someone who could go on base, which is something I don’t like to do.
These days there are several Mexican restaurants in Seoul (Tex-Mex, or Ko-Mex). Looks like Taco Bell is ready to try again. I saw this in Itaewon today:

Back Home

2010-03-04T03:29:56Z

The wife and I got back from the States yesterday evening. We had a great time and wish we could have stayed longer. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to make any time to see some old friends and their families. We’re planning another trip, though, either around Christmas this year or some time next year, so I’ll get in touch with them then.

Adjusting to my routine is going to be awkward. Not to mention going back to my regular diet. We ate three big meals nearly everyday we were there. Lots of cardio on my schedule now to help get over the side effects of that!

I’ll be posting a bit about the trip over the coming days.

Off to the States

2010-02-12T19:28:03Z

In just a few hours, my wife and I will be boarding a plane to Atlanta to visit my family and friends. The last time I went was four years ago. This will be my wife’s first trip. We’ll be returning in the first week of March. Though I could do without the 13+ hour flight, I’m looking forward to the rest.

My iPhone?

2010-02-08T21:13:38Z

I have a shiny, new iPhone sitting on my desk, still cradled in its box. A complimentary case is parked right next to it, package unopened. The reason being that I don’t yet know if I get to keep it.

After all of the rumors, confusion, and misinformation around about foreigners buying iPhones in Korea (some of which I wrote about here), it turned out that my particular problem was quite simple. After having been told, I thought, by one shop that KT was in the middle of upgrading their system and no foreigners would be able to buy a new iPhone until Feb. 1st, I read on a blog post somewhere that a guy had just gotten one early in the last week of January. He also went on to mention that the policy had apparently changed again. As an F-4 visa holder, he was supposed to have been eligible for the 24-month payment plan, but found he was forced to pay for the whole thing up front, thereby losing the subsidy. He hinted that this was true for all F-series visa holders (and I can’t, unfortunately, find the post now to link to it). A bit miffed, I stopped at a different shop later that day en route to one of my classes to inquire.

The first thing I wanted to know was whether or not foreigners could, at that time, buy an iPhone. When that was answered in the affirmative, I then wanted to know if I was eligible for the 24-month plan. That came back in the negative. I asked if this was a new policy of KT, that all foreigners were required to pay upfront, regardless of visa status. The clerk had no idea, but gave me a KT customer support number to call and find out. Not trusting my Korean enough to discuss a topic like this over the phone, I handed the number off to my brother-in-law when I got home that evening.

After running around in circles for several minutes with the customer service rep, he was referred to an insurance company. That was a bit of a surprise. It turns out that every time someone signs up for a 24-month plan with any telecom in Korea, that plan is insured. I don’t know the details of the insurance, or which company it is. Furthermore, there are limits on how many simultaneous active payment plans any individual can have. For Koreans, this is three or four. For foreigners, it’s two. If you are at the limit, you have to pay the full amount upfront for any cell phone service plan you want to purchase. Only after you have paid off one of the 24-month plans can you sign up for another.

Eureka! I finally understood my problem. Back in August, I lost my Samsung Haptic 2 cell phone and bought a new Samsung Amoled. Both were on 24-month plans, and I’d only had the Haptic 2 for just over 8 months when I lost it. So I was unable to sign up for a 24-month iPhone plan because I was already paying for two plans, the maximum for a foreigner. Given that the iPhone plan I wanted (called the iPremium, which includes 800 minutes of phone time, 300 text messages, and 3GB of data transfer) is quite pricey, one of the two plans needed to be paid off. Given that there was only 300,000 won (just under $300US) remaining on the Haptic 2, over 400,000 won less than the Amoled, it was a no-brainer.

So, today, I had a little time between exercise with the trainer and my scaling appointment with a local dentist. So I headed on over to a cell phone agent I’d dealt with a few times before. He’s one of the multi-telecom agents that works with SK, KT, and LG. I explained the situation, paid off my Haptic (which was with SK), did all the necessary paperwork to sign up with with KT (exclusive iPhone dealer) and transfer my phone number from my Amoled (also with SK). Then I paid the 30,000 won service fee all new telecom customers have to pay (if I later get another phone with KT, I won’t need to pay that fee), and all was ready to go. The agent said it would take a while to process, as KT was pretty overloaded these days. So he put everything in a bag and asked me to give him a call later to see if everything was set up. At that point, I’d be able to hook up with iTunes and start making phone calls.

Two hours later, after I had left the dentist’s office and was on my way to teach my evening class, I was still getting messages and phone calls on my Amoled. Not a good sign. Two hours later still, the Amoled was still working. On my way home, I dropped by the shop to find out what was going on. For whatever reason (time of month, normal procedure, or whatnot), the payment I made on the old Haptic 2 hadn’t yet registered with the insurance database. So I was still precluded from signing up for the 24-month plan. The agent had called around and learned that all should be well tomorrow. So, he would try to get me in the system again and I should give a call to find out if all went well.

At this moment, it’s just after 6 am the next day (I am such a slow typist, I’ve been working on this post for over 20 minutes). The iPhone is sitting there, powered off, beckoning me. Will it still be in my possession at the end of the day? Will it be functioning? I really don’t know. My fingers are crossed, but I’m not counting on it. I’m really expecting that there will be another hitch and that I’ll have to wait longer. I should find out in about six or seven hours, before or after I hit the gym. Wish me luck

Moron of the Week #10

2010-01-31T07:40:48Z

I started the Moron of the Week series nearly three years ago, but unfortunately didn’t keep up with it. It’s been nearly two years since the last one and, in that time, I’ve considered reviving it. After this past week, I realize now is a perfect time. I hope I can keep up with it this time. We’ll see.

This time around, it’s a collective award, going to a group of people for a particularly moronic event in California, of all places. The mental faculties of one elementary school student’s parent, apparently already in a feeble state, overloaded when said student discovered the compound noun oral sex in Merriam Webster’s 10th Edition dictionary. The parent, most likely imagining the child was now in danger of suffering a horrific destiny (like becoming a homosexual pedophile, or worse, a liberal), lodged a complaint with the Menifee Union School District. Officials there promptly banned the book from all schools in their district.

The Moron of the Week is not the parent, despite the objection to a child being exposed to reality a dictionary definition. The real morons here are the officials of the Menifee Union School District. These people are supposed to be in charge of ensuring children get a solid education. If they start censoring books based upon the complaints of parents, you can’t help but lose confidence in their competency. Fortunately, not all parents in the school district agree with the decision.

“Censorship in the schools, really? Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school library will be the Bert and Ernie dictionary,” said Emanuel Chavez, the parent of second- and sixth-grade students. “If the kids are exposed to it, it’s up to the parents to explain it to them at their level.”

Don’t get too happy about Mr. Chavez’s reasoned response, though. As long as the reasonable people aren’t the ones in authority, this sort of stupidity is bound to happen again and again. Consider the words of school board member and elementary school teacher Randy Freeman:

…it’s “a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern.”

He’s concerned about students looking up words in the dictionary. And he’s an elementary school teacher. Think about that.

So, congratulations to the Menifee Union School District. Despite fierce competition from Culpeper County Public Schools in Virginia, who pulled the Diary of Anne Frank because of an inquisitive passage about her vagina, you are officially, and collectively, Moron of the Week #10. After all, banning a dictionary is quite a few degrees more moronic than banning a literary work.