Seoul Eats

Some Konglish I noticed as I was grading papers. For example, if a student takes online learning as a time to play, he/she would not want to write because he/she will not have the pleasure   to write.   The student meant pressure...I think. For example, if you learn online instead of going to school, then you will loose the ability to play and learn with a lot of other people. 

Skype Phone for Mac YAY! Skype Handset for Macs! Yes! READ MORE: Mac, Skype, VoIP skypemac.jpgAs useful as Skype is, Mac users have been on the short end of the stick when it comes to handsets. That is, until now! IPEVO is coming to the table, showing Mac users that their platform hasn’t been forgotten. The Free-1W looks as nice as anything to come out of Cupertino and comes in either Alpha (opposed to beta) White or Ultimate (opposed to Fantastic) Black. For $30, Mac users really can’t go wrong (not that they have a choice). Skype Handset for Mac Users [eHomeUpgrade]

  It looks like an innocent table, but it turns into a weapon of battling doom! Dan 

  Happy Kwanzhanamas Everyone! Dan 

I question the motives of Santa Claus. Is he the pristine jocose fellow we all adore with cookie crumbs crumbling on his red velvet getup, chimney soot on his white elf stitched gloves, and lactate caked like cheese in his beard or is he something a little more sinister. Every year he carries around “children’s playthings” or “toys” to all the “good” boys and girls, but come on are any of them really deserving of anything. “Good” is such a tepid transient word. I mean he runs around in his fancy suped up turbo sled led by an alcoholic reindeer with a glowing red nose. And it’s obvious the rest of the reindeer gang, you know Dancer and Prancer and Donner and Blitzen, are all coke feigns. How else do you think they go around the whole damn world in one night? You wanna know the truth? I think Santa started out as a cat burglar. You know since he slips into the house in the dead of night while everyone is sleeping with dreams of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Pokemon creat

  I am teaching commands today and playing Truth or Dare. This has been one of my least successful classes because the stress of the class has caused two students to cry. Hmmmm. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to rework it. I think I should just do my shopping class and forget the whole game thing. I don't know today. I'm sick and I'm burned out. I need to go home. Self-esteem level is at an all time low. I need to go back to America. Not to say that returning to America would make my life so much more optimistic. Subconsciously I'm retreating into my cave. Let's just get through today. 

Test again...where did my blog go?

I'm really starting to HATE Blogger!  I mean I wasted a whole week trying to get virtual PC 7 to work on my PC with Picasa2 only to find out that I can't add photos to my blog through Picasa.  Instead I have to add pictures through Hello through Picasa to my blog.  Now today (and this has been my ongoing plight since I started to use Picasa and Hello) is that I can't access my blog on a regular basis.  I'm currently on the search for a new blogging system.  One that is integrated with iphoto and macs more.  I'm also on the search for a new web site design program because .mac is ridiculously priced and actually not that great.  Yes, I'm turning into an internet nerd, but I don't care.  I like to retreat into my little cave. Dan -- Daniel Lee Gray Yeoksam, Seoul, South Korea MSN dnlgray

  My 3rd and 4th graders have a test today. Class is canceled. Yay!!!! I mean I am outraged. I had great lessons planned today in order to infect them with the English Language! 

  Look! Spiderman It is my busy day. I have 3rd grade classes and 2 4th grade classes. I'm doing my puzzles class today. I'm getting the 4th graders to copy a passage off the board and the 3rd graders I'm making them give directions to a blind folded student. The blindfolded student must find the ball. 

  It is time to go look for a new apartment. Wish me luck. Dan 

  I love teaching in Korea. Yeah, the food tends to get boring, the dating scene is elusive, riding the subways is akin to a week's worth of constipation, strange smells smack you like a Al Quada bombshell, oh and shopping in department stores is like running a gauntlet while a myriad of short skirted, aggressive, girls push toothpaste and ketchup like it was crack. If you teach in Korea you can be a rockstar. The only requirements are that you have to be interesting and be able to speech English. 

  Seriously....look at the toliet. I'd be afraid of falling on my ass and pissing all over myself. It's not pretty, but then again, my ass touches the asses of thousands of others when I sit on the porcelain throne. But still...I don't like to fight gravity when I'm taking a dump. Dan 

  So I spend most of my time at school fooling around on the computer instead of making fully engrossing English lesson plans for my wonderfully cool students. Last week I did a class on Harry Potter and a board game- Truth or Dare. I'm finding that it's getting harder to come up with good material. I'm thinking for third graders that I should do a directions class, but I've lost track of which classes I've actually done that exercise with and which ones I haven't. I need to do about 2 more interesting lessons and then I have Christmas week, which is utterly cake, because I'm just going to talk about Christmas stuff and then show Elf. The last week, I figured I could show the rest of Elf or play games the whole time. I like to play games and it's what they seem to respond to. I need to get them interested in something other than Harry Potter though. I guess they also like Naruto too. There is some new kind of toy it looks like a squid or somethi

Did it work? 

test 

  Why won't it work? Huh? It should work. Test 

Hermione:  Professor Dumbledore!   Professor Snape gave me an A- in potions! Dumbledore:   Now Hermione, you need to shut up.  Damn bat Avra Cadabra! He isn't evil...like me! Hermione:  But he is working for Voldemort! Dumbledore: Run along girl or I'll turn you into a dung beetle!                 Hermione Leaves Hermione: Professor sure is acting strange.  I'll put on this invisiblity cloak and follow him.                 Professor Dumbledore takes off his mask to reveal, gasp, that he is really Voldemort! Voldemort: Snape!  Cruxio!  Hermione is suspicious!  Cruxio again! Snape: Master...Ow...Sorry....She was bothering me!  Ow. Voldemort: I'll turn you into a dog! POOOF Snape:  Woof.  Woof. ******************* Hermione: Harry, Ron, Professor Dumbledore is really Voldemort! Harry and Ron: Oh, no!  What should we do? Ron: Wait.  I have a plan. ********************* Harry: Professor.  Here is a present from me.  Good-bye! Professor Dum

It didn't work It said my blog is worth $0.00 Let's try it again. My blog is worth $0.00 . How much is your blog worth?

My blog is worth exactly: My blog is worth $0.00 . How much is your blog worth? How's that for an ego boost? Dan

I wish I could simply just write instead of trying to find the best way to do this stuff. For example, I hate the fact that I can never find images when I'm adding photos to blogger. That's why I need virtual PC. I think I've had it, but I couldn't get it work. Well, there's one image, but I can't see it :( I just don't like adding photos by HTML. Alright, let's see if I can add some Ali G: Alright enough of this. I'm going to find a better blogging client unless I can get Picasa2 on my Mac. If only iPhoto had a blogging interface! Dan

Testing Oh, here's a guy from Gyeong Ju. But I can't add a picture of Ali G from my iphoto library. I think I'm going to have to get virtual PC and use Picasa2. I don't understand why it simply won't work. I guess I'm going to spend money on buying Ecto. Forget it. I'm going to work on some papers. Dan

Because Picasa2 doesn't work with iPhoto, I'm trying to find software that I can use to upload my blog my photos. The service I use is blogger and I don't really want to change because I think that I've already placed a year of my life on it. Honestly, I wish I could simply transfer all the information over, but heh, I'm lazy. Maybe I should find a blog service that integrates with Mac more. I'm watching Ali G season one and it just annoys the crap out of me and I'm going to delete it. He's not funny and honestly, he simply annoys the hell out of me. Time to delete. Wait a second... Let's see if I can add a photo. I added it using ecto's iphoto button, but I don't see it.

Samsung Makes Usable, Flexible LCD READ MORE: Flexible , LCD , Laptops Flexible LCDs are pretty important for a few reasons. They can bend without breaking and can withstand some rough treatment now and again without cracking like a frat boy on meth. This prototype by Samsung is only 7 inches across but it supports up to 640x480 resolution in color and should end up in laptops and cellphones down the line. They'll have to up the resolution first, but expect a bendy Powerbook any day now. Samsung claims biggest flexible LCD panel ever [TheInquirer] -- Daniel Lee Gray Yeoksam, Seoul, South Korea MSN dnlgray e-mail: dnlgray@gmail.com homepage: www.homepage.mac.com/happylunatic Read my blogs at www.happylunatic.blogspot.com Sometimes you've just gotta put it all on the line and go for broke in this poker game we call life.

IMGP0957.JPG Originally uploaded by HappyLunatic . Yo, my new podcast is up. In this episode, DEconstructacon comes out and then conks out and I give up on love.

I'm watching Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and I've resolved to give up on love. I don't want to try to find it anymore. I want it to hit me like a Mack Truck without any breaks. The internet is so blah!!! Therefore, I am deleting any embarrassing profile I put on any personal site. Here is one from 2 years ago. I erased it, but I thought you would like to see some desperate seething. Now you can see why I'm single :) Hamlet looking for his Ophelia. To start, I'm not on Prozac. But, I think if Hamlet was on Prozac then he and Ophelia would have had a wonderful loving relationship. I'm a huge Shakespeare fan and I think Hamlet is a masterpiece, but I don't want to be coined as an intellectual know it all, because I'm just as happy watching anime, cooking a great meal, or listening to XPN. I love to learn new things. My last project was to learn how to bake wonderful desserts (I have a margarita cheesecake that'll knock your socks

Adding Album Cover Art to iTunes I had fooled around with doing this once or twice before, but didn't find it intuitive. So to save you the trouble of figuring it for yourself, here's a short tutorial. 1) Open iTunes and select an entire album (using the shift or control key to select multiple songs) and then right click to open the "Get Info" dialog box. 2) Open a browser window with the album cover art you want, and click and drag the image over to iTunes. Hover over the iTunes button in your task bar and the "Multiple Song Information" box will pop open. 3) Now simply release your mouse over the empty Artwork panel and click OK. Then respond “Yes” to “Are you sure you want to change the artwork for multiple items?” question.  

Besides my family and my friends, I miss hockey. It's been almost 2 years since I've seen a game. My whole family would sit down and watch the hockey games with an order of pizza and hot wings on the way. The NHL seems so exciting these days and I'm stuck in a country where archery and badminton and golf are the national past times. I need a puck to the face, an icebath. Give me a hockey stick and the feel of chipped ice turning to dew on my breath. 

First of all, Picasa is amazing. I don't believe how many cool features it has. I think it is more user friendly than iphoto. I really need to get a copy of virtual PC, because Apple doesn't make the best software and neither does Microsoft. I think it is Google. Have you checked out Google Earth? It is utterly mindbending to think that this software exists. I mean I'm in South Korea and I can zero in on my home and see the present changes. I know it's not present present, but I haven't been home in a year and a half, so it is pretty new to me. Oh, and Picasa2? It is SOOOO user friendly. It instantly catalogs everything and it makes it easy to find. I can blog it right away AND it is easy to find. The Google Desktop search is as good as Apple too. Don't get me wrong. I love my Mac OS, but there are little things that utterly drive me nuts. Like the other day, I was trying to get my Logitech 250 USB headset to work. I had it plugged in and I could r

Yeah, but I like the little hook on the end.  (Plus it makes the teacher look like the grim reaper ^. .^)                             On 11/22/05, Dawn wrote:   My first graders at one of my country schools like to test my patience and my will.  Every single time I see them, they speak Korean to me and expect me to reply.  They just do not comprehend that I don't speak Korean.  So they're always asking me if I speak Korean or muttering things like, your hair looks stupid today.  Little brats.    Might I suggest an aluminium baseball bat?  :)   On 11/22/05, Daniel Gray < dnlgray@gmail.com > wrote: A hagwon, whose owner is a friend of mine, invited me.  I am pretty sure it's going to be really nice since he has impeccable tastes.  I almost killed my third graders last class.  I think they broke into a stash of pepero and got themselves all hopped up on sugar before I got in there.   I had to regulate a bit.  Why is that Korean students will only behave when you

A hagwon, whose owner is a friend of mine, invited me.  I am pretty sure it's going to be really nice since he has impeccable tastes.  I almost killed my third graders last class.  I think they broke into a stash of pepero and got themselves all hopped up on sugar before I got in there.   I had to regulate a bit.  Why is that Korean students will only behave when you start yelling at them?  I got all of them to raise their hands up in the air until they all settled down and talked to them about the value of keeping quiet while I am talking. It's cool though, because they don't seem to hold a grudge. I'm thinking if I should invest in a nice lovestick.  A hockey stick might be effective ;)  (just kidding.  I would never hit them, they're too cute :) Well, it's back to class. Dan

Ska gives me the energy to make to work on Monday. The Toasters are kewl, but my favorite Ska band is The Smooths. Thank you Nick Shushas for introducing the world of ska to me. Dan 

> > thanks for the info. > > but in America calling a Korean a gook is like being called a n,,,,,g > I figure that racism is just ignorance, so the naming would have been > unintentional and rather ignorant also. > > thanks again, > > Dan > >

Subject: Philosophy of Go!: Re: Came accross your podcast//The story of how Koreans came be be called "gooks" ... has sent you a link to a weblog:   "gook" means not a person but a country(nation).We use Chinese characters.For example, ??(Korea)= ??, ??(America)= ??,etc. I hope this will help you understand the meaning of gook. Blog: Philosophy of Go! Post: Re: Came accross your podcast//The story of how Koreans came be be called "gooks"

The Appleseed Armored Mechas are some of the best I've ever seen in an anime. The designs are sleep and rather innovative. Dan 

Thanks for listening to my podcast. It's in the experimental stages so I'm glad I didn't get any death threats yet. I've been called a twinkie too and a gook, but I think it's American stupidity that the racial slang for Koreans is "gook." Americans are called Miguks in Korea. And guk means soup and a person. For example a hanguk saram is a Korean person. A taeguk saram is a Thai person and a yong guk saram is an British person. So what I think what happened is that an American person was trying to have a conversation with a Korean and they heard "miguk saram" so they thought that the Korean person was calling himself a guk while he was really calling the American a guk. This could also work vice versa if the American tried to say he was a person, a "Me Guk" or translated "Me a person," so the Koreans thought that Americans were gooks. Don't worry, I've confused myself too. And my blog might state I dislike Korean

Another Pic 

The comic 

This isn't what I expected Chuck Palaniuk to look like at all. He looks like a regular guy, but then again you might have thought that Issac Newton was a normal guy (but normal people don't ten to stick long, thin metal poles in the spot that your eye and nose meet.) Dan 

I just saw Appleseed the movie and it was visually amazing! The story would have been groundbreaking if I hadn't seen a billion other animes like Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell, and played Final Fantasy X. The characters are so, wow! I merely hinted on their personalities though because I think they assume that most viewers have seen the series or read the manga (which I am going to do). Highly recommended. Check it out!