The Bicycle Thief

May God damn this person.

I bought a new bike a few weeks ago, for the usual reasons: it gets me around quicker, and it's a kind of exercise I actually enjoy (more or less). I used it everyday, and was really getting a kick out of it.

Two weeks in, I come home from a weekend away to find that the lock fastening my bike to the communal rail has been smashed by some sort of blunt implement, wielded no doubt by one who could be similarly described.

Well, after a few days I got myself a hacksaw and did away with that problem.

Which brings us to today. I rode my bike to work like I always do, secured it to a tree in front of the building like I always do, and left it alone for a few hours. When I came down 3-4 hours later for a smoke break, lo and behold!, the bike was gone and the (new) bike lock was open and lying in the street like a vagrant.

I know this sort of shit goes down everyday back home, but I thought here in Korea, land of smiles (well, close enough), land of the honest adjumma who'll clean your apartment and leave the stack of man-wons untouched I wouldn't have to deal with the sphincter crusts of humanity who are bicycle thieves.

Lesson learned.

Who are these fucktards who are having trouble with digital TV?

Meet Dennis Cuddy. He bought his converter antenna like a dutiful little soul. He set everything up for the big day, or so he thought. But, as it turns out, he can't get ABC or PBS nowadays.

The article tries to point out that it's not his fault, the local ABC affiliate needs some kind of power booster or something. But, Mr. Cuddy, it is your fault. Get fucking cable. Catch up with the rest of the world. Stop living in the 1950s. Then you won't have to miss a minute of "Regis & Kelly."

Matthew Brady I'm Not

It was at a distressingly recent moment in my past that I realized that despite being able to appreciate what makes for a good photograph, I am unable to reproduce those qualities in my own picture-taking. Nevertheless, I want to pass along some photos I recently shot in and around my neighborhood.

Not because they are any good, of course, but just because I realized the other day while formatting the memory card in my camera that during all my time in China I took only a half a dozen photos, none of them publishable. I don't mean to imply any sort of lurid goings-on. The Chinese photos in question were just of the typical insipid quality one finds in the photo albums of the perpetually bored: photos of shoe-less feet, spilled beer, roving cockroaches, etc. etc.

Anyway, without further introduction, some photos of my current neighborhood:

The view from my apartment-


My mostly obscured apartment building -

Bupyeong Gu Office -

The building with my hagwon, on the 6th floor (CIS) -

My Favorite Scenes in Film, the Top 5

#5

Despite what rottentomatoes.com has to say, this is still the best Star Trek film, and this is the best moment in it:


#4

Like the Star Wars franchise, there are so many moments to pick from in the Godfather films. But this scene really is the turning point, and it was beautifully written/shot/choreographed/acted.


#3

Eyes Wide Shut is one of those movies you either love or hate, and I fall in with the former, of course. I have a little bit of an obsession with secret societies, and that's partly why I enjoy this scene so much. But I also think it's exceptional because it, like the movie that envelops it, and to go a bit grandiose - like life, is imperfect, unfulfilled, and never fully understood. Kubrick's last flick was his best, enjoy:


#2
No one, and I mean no one (here's lookin' at you, Tarantino) uses music to supplement the story better than Martin Scorcese. Likewise no one gives us better biopics of American capitalist/criminals, our heroic villains, our latter day Gatsbys. The best scene in his best film:


#1
Casablanca may not always be considered a great film. Myopic movie-watchers of the future may frown on the moral certitudes it presents, its stereotypes and caricatures...they may even call it propaganda. But has the cause of the people and of liberty ever been better rendered in film? If it has, I haven't seen it. By far my all time favorite cinematic scene:

My Favorite Scenes in Film

I waste a lot of time on youtube, so I took a little time nosing around to see which of my favorite film scenes I could find. I couldn't find everything, but here are some of them. #s 10-6

#10

Number 10 and I'm already cheating. Two scenes follow, actually, in part because I couldn't find the exact scene from this director I was looking for (the sisters' lunch scene from Hannah and Her Sisters). But these will certainly suffice:

The "d'jew?" scene from Annie Hall:


And the opening of Manhattan:


#9

This is from a movie called "Funny Games," which is one of those films you can't really recommend because it is so intense and so disturbing that to do so makes you seem like a weirdo in the recommendee's eyes. But I saw this flick last year and it rocked me to the core, especially this scene:


#8

It's hard to choose a scene from the Star Wars saga, because in the original trilogy there are so many classic moments. But I think Luke and Vader's final confrontation, despite the weaknesses of Return of the Jedi, is still the highlight of the entire series:


#7

I was lucky the first time I saw Rear Window, in that I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen and brought nothing with me to the viewing experience beforehand. For many first-time viewers nowadays, that may not be the case. Nonetheless, the climactic scene is still great:


#6

If you ask someone who's seen it, they'll probably tell you Heat is a great film. Then why the **** doesn't it get more credit? It seems to be the great film that everyone forgets to mention. The heist scene in it is the best of its kind, and one of the best scenes in film IMO:


1-5 to come later.

The English Empire

This article explains why I will always have a job. Well, unless, non-native speakers in countries like Korea learn the language well enough that they could speak it to their students...haha, like that would ever happen.

I also dig the spelling mistake in the pic from China, there...it's supposed to say "One World One Dream." Yup, that about sums the whole thing up.