i dream of corea

martin, cissy and I were somehow high school students in Korea, but cissy was of billionare status. whilst we were just chilling out on a beach in Korea, we realised that cissy had some stalker fanboys around who was in love with cissy and her friend whom was nameless but lets call her taeyeon (at this point martin wasnt in the dream)

we decided to move locations as cissy only likes to be bukkaked by people she knows. we get in the car and they approach us and asked cissy if they could come along, i was disapproved but, since they introduced themselves, cissy now officially knows them...so yea.

we are driving to another beach and more fanboys are chasing after what appears to be our carriage pulled by automatic robotic super horses. the two fanboys inside our carriage are naturally sitting next to cissy and i'm sitting next to taeyeon. the fanboys outside soon grab a hold of our carriage and are trying to climb in so i had to defend the carriage from being breached whilst cissy is flirting with the other fanboys, soon enough i succeed but the fanboys next to cissy are so happy and nervous that they vomit all over me, i get pissed off, and to cissy's dismay i throw the other two fanboys out of our carriage and make a turn back to our boarding school so i can go shower.

this is where it got all "asian high school drama".

so i am taking a shower to get all that vomit off me and martin comes in and tells me there seems to be a big group of people waiting outside for me.



a bunch of those dudes walk into the bathhouse and scout around and are speaking to everyone there, one walks up to martin and asks him in korean, if he was korean and if he wanted to beat me up, i chuckled and martin chuckles and says ok but continues showering, one of them looks at me and walks off.

so i walk outside and theres a whole bunch of guys sitting outside waiting for someone, most likely me but i ignore them and approach taeyeon to chat with her. as the conversation is going great, one of the fanboys i threw out of the carriage earlier interrupts my conversation and is like

"YA! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" (all dialogue is in korean too, i miraculously speak and understand korean in my dreams)
"chill buddy, i'm just speaking to my friend"
"why did you throw me out of the carriage? you are stupid!"
"you vommitted on me buddy"
"i will beat you like a drum with all my friends, you do not deserve taeyeon" he whispered to me



i gave turned around whilst they were all staring at me ready to fight, i walked up to taeyeon and kissed her. martin realising that this was a signal, punches about 10 guys in the head whilst i'm fighting the more agile ones in a fashion similar to this:






me being the guy in the black except there were about 20 of them and 2 of us and we actually win the fight

end of dream
(images courtesy of young and dangerous and temptation of the wolf (worst movie ever))

who wants to be a billionare?

Travis "Travie" Mccoy (not so) new song is really starting to shit me. This song not only has no substance but flamboyantly preaches...nothing.

according to the video clip, travis mccoy gives someone a car, a new skateboard and some new spray paint, i dont think you need to be billionare to do any of those things for one, and two, travis is definitley rich enough to do all those things though i doubt he has.

i was sitting at melbourne central, just eating some food before work and theres a group of high school kids sitting next to me, this song comes on and as if the(their) national anthem had come on, they all started singing

"i wanna be a billionare sooooo frickin baad"

i don't think any single one of those kids will ever be on the cover of forbes magazine next to opera and the queen (as far as i know, i don't think they've been on the cover of forbes? could be wrong, not gonna pretend i read forbes regularly)

as far as materialism goes, i think this song is the epitome, but its covered up to make it seem like its got some sort of hipster substance (oxymoron?) when its full of ignorance typical of its target market.

lol

+



=

lol

refs

please fifa, introduce video reviews

technology these days

i want one

smoked

now I don't know if i should present this story as a serious issue or as just a humorous happening.

an acquaintance of mine from work, who shall be known as "pree" recently took up smoking, i'm not sure how old he is but if i had to guess i say hes about 21 or 22.

"it still hurts my throat a bit," he says "but i am getting used to it."
"so why exactly did you take it up if it hurts your throat?" i asked
"because i need a girlfriend man, all the smokers have girlfriends, girls think its cool"
"HAHA" i chuckled due to the humour of that statement
"what are you laughing about? its not a joke"
"HAHA" i continued to chuckle as i was still under the impression he was making another obviously ridiculous statement to further his initial humourr.
"its not funny"

At this stage, my mind considered the odds of this guy actually genuinely believing his statement in regards to cigarettes being the reason for female attraction to males.

"so explain your theory," i said in a very worried yet curious tone

his theory is as follows:
he has never had a girlfriend nor has he had much luck with girls relationship wise and sexually. now he attributes this situation to the lack of cigarette addiction on his part. he thinks that it is extremely attractive to the opposite sex when a male walks around with a cigarette in his hands. "it looks cool" as he likes to put it.
to justify this theory, he said surveyed 10 people he knew and discovered that all the ones who don't smoke have never had a girlfriend, and those who do are either in a relationship or are "successful with the ladies" as he likes to put it.
he proceeded to demonstrate this theory was real life examples in the room, he pointed to person A and person B who were both smokers.
"neither of them have a girlfriend..."
"yea but they are both successful with the ladies! they told me!"
"i see, they told you they were successful with the ladies did they?"
"no not exactly, but they tell me stories about their chicks all the time."
"so you think, the reason why they are successful is due to cigarettes...?"
"yes"

our conversation pretty much finished there, i saw him again the next day and someone looking to exploit him due to the tax hike on cigarettes asked him for a smoke, he kindly replied that he has not officially started yet, but he will start buying decks soon.

"let me know when you start buying decks yea?"
"for sure man, for sure," pree said with a confidence in his voice

i think he attracting more cheap guys who can't afford to smoke than he is girls.

Avatar

I've acquired avatar to view at my pleasure but you know, the more i watch this movie, the more i realise something crucial that was overlooked by many people.

there are some very obvious themes to this movie such as colonialism, racism etc. this movie has been praised for dealing with these themes.

however, i feel there are points that need to be critisized. one very outstanding point needs to be considered, an american made this movie. a very rich white american came up with this story and filmed it.

it seems funny to me that Jake Sully (a white male), mastered the arts of the Na'vi, that usually take a whole life time of training and conditioning within a few months. and it's ironic to me, that though there has been only 5 Toruk Makto's throughout the entire history of the Na'vi, Jake Scully was able to capture a Toruk with 3 months of training.

This suggests to me a few things:

The white male is far more superior than any other ethnicity or race.

The Na'vi are stupid and only 5 of them have ever thought about flying higher than a Toruk to capture it.

It is even more ironic that the Na'vi, a culture rich in history and traditions, needed a White Male to lead them to war. Yes, he was a US Marine Corporal, but apparently a US Marine Corporal is better than anyone native to that entire planet.

Jake was able to defeat Tsu'tey, apparently the finest warrior who has trained all his life in the arts of the Na'vi, in hand to hand combat with ease, didn't even need his knife.

Not only did he tiger knee Tsu'tey, he stole his girl too...



James Cameron, instead of debating an issue, subconsciouly reinforced all the negative imperalist stereotypes of Western Culture.

"the last samurai, starring tom cruise, get the hell outta here"

fashion promotion

for those of you who are any interested, i am doing fashion promotion as a subject this year and i decided to start a blog to track my progress

here are my attempts at designing/marketing/being cool:

likeled.blogspot.com

i'll be updating it regularly and i'll probably make the blog more presentable
in the near future

analogies

now i read these when i was in year 11 but i discovered them again last night...enjoy:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

the king of mimis

a friend of my (matt pastor) just released a new movie, its a short film about a japanese girl, check it out yo:

dreams from beyond 2

so i just woke up from some...interesting dreams again.

part1.

so i was working at roymorgan research, except it was at an old secondary school that was converted into a call centre. i also had samuel l jackson as my supervisor. halfway through the shift, samuel l jackson says to me that he is mfckng hungry and he wants me to get him a mfckng whoop.
what is a whoop? i asked him, he was like a mfckng whoop, english mfckr do you speak it? after some pointless ramblings about how hes never heard of a country called what and threatening to shoot me, he explained that a whooper = whooper. he ordered hungry jacks before and ate the chips and drank the tasty beverage but left the burger under the seat because someone came in and he didnt want them to see.

i try to use the elevator but its not working and lucky for me theres a industrial elevator, i head down and i see two guys with assault rifles aiming at me, i was like wo what the hell, whats up. and they thought i was the one thats been causing some disruptions in the city today, i had no idea what they were talking about so i went to find the whoop.

funny enough, i found two burgers, one was a quad-mighty angus pretty much and the other was a quad-bacon whooper, i was hungry too, so i decided i was gonna eat some of the quad-bacon whooper and tell samuel l jackson that thats how i found it. just before i do that, a supervisor on the bottom floor (i cant remember who or what they looked like) screamed out NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. and warned me of the dangers about eating a whoop like that, i said i was hungry but i was only gonna take two bites and give it to samuel l jackson to finish it off. and he was like "oh samuel l jackson? why didnt you say so, carry on"
so i take two bites out of it and almost died, took the burger upstairs, samuel l jackson didnt even realise that there were two bites missing and then....something goes wrong (continue to part 2)

samuel l, the fact that i can understand what you are saying renders your query about my english speaking abilities obsolete.

part 2.

the aliens from district 9 attack. those commando guys earlier were refering to them when they almost shot me. now the rest of the dream was a bit of a blur, now someone i know gets stripped by the aliens, samuel l jackson is no where to be seen so i had to help her out. she just happened to be wearing extremely sexy lingerie underneath her work clothes and i was like yo, thats dope. so we're running for our lives and im fighting off prawns. one prawn latched onto her ...bottoms and ripped them off, so we had to like go into a small shack and ask for the kind villagers for some pants. thats as far as i can remember...

bloody prawns, get off my planet.

stories from abroad

so i haven't really made a blogpost about the humourous and exciting stories that happened overseas when boon and danh came to visit in shanghai and then i subsequently escorted them to korea. Heres one story that i've been telling:


The Dump:

So my mate Chester tells me that hes got some friends at Richys on a friday night and I decided to take Boon and Danh to this balla club. At Richy's, there is no entry fee, the dance floor is like the size of my room so if you want in, you have to book a table. To book a table, you need to spend 2000 AUD on alcohol that night, and thats why it is baller.

Initially we couldn't really get in, because my mate's table was pretty damn full, so we decided to head somewhere else first and come back later when there is less people. (we also bumped into people that we knew....sorta from melbourne this night...weird)

We arrived at this rip off white person bar called Rendevous at Xintiandi, where cocktails were 85 Yuan each (i had the same cocktail somewhere else for 25 Yuan) and decided to just have one cocktail there and move on, Danh got very drunk and generous and shouted us 4 rounds of cocktails. As the night progressed, 2 ladies approached us speaking Chinese and said "hey you guys wanna play together?", i realised the status of these "ladies" fairly quickly and directed them towards boon and said he was our boss for tonight, they broke into english and asked him to by them a drink so they would "play with us" for the rest of the night, boon did not buy them a drink and thus they did not play with him.

After a generous amount of long island icetea, we proceeded back to Richys. This is when the trouble started. Boon and Danh were very drunk and getting drunker. When i checked up on Danh, i thought he was getting pretty into it, chatting to women and playing drinking games. Boon on the other hand, just kept saying that he lost his jacket and camera for about 20 minutes, womenless might i add.

It came to a time eventually when neither of them were in my sight anymore, eventually I became a little worried for their kidneys and decided to look for them. Danh was easy to find, he was in the toilet vomiting in the sink with 10 ignorant people behind him thinking he was just taking a long time to wash his hands. Boon was outside crying (no joke) and vomiting into the gardens at the same time, he did not have his DSLR. I searched for about 30-40 minutes for it in the club and eventually found it under a pile of clothes. There was music, more alcohol and plenty of women...I did not want to leave, Danh and Boon on the other hand were close to death, (Danh did not win a single round of drinking games with that Shanghainese girl).

In the cab ride home, Boon started crying about how no one appreciates him, Danh was trying to calm him down. When we arrived at the apartment, Boon was still crying about how no one appreciates him, I eventually pulled out a picture of Sunny and said "BOON! LOOK AT THIS FACE! DO YOU WANT HER TO BE SAD BECAUSE OF YOU? SHE WANTS YOU TO STOP CRYING AND GO TO SLEEP" and not suprisingly he did...

but wait a second...where is Danh? Perhaps he fell asleep in one of the two bedrooms? nope, i opened the toilet door and there he was: pants down, fresh from a number 2, passed out and feet soaked in his own vomit.

"Danh", i said "what are you doing? wipe your arse and go to bed!"
"I Can't..." he replied slowly "just leave me"
"Danh, you are sitting on a toilet, there is vomit on your foot, your faeces is in that bowl and probably on your arse, you can not stay here!"

I took some toilet paper and put it in his hand

"Close the door..." Danh mumbled

I closed the door and waited for about 5 minutes with no response. I opened the door again, he had passed out in his attempt to wipe his arse and dropped the toilet paper in his vomit. I grab the toilet paper, making sure i did not touch the corners soaked in stomache acid and put it back in his hand. (Now this exchange actually went on for a few cycles, but for progressions sake i'll move it along.)

I reiterated that he was in a lavatory and could not spend the rest of the night in there. Eventually i closed the door and i heard a flush, that was good, he came out and i realised he only had one sock on. Passed out immediately on the inflatable mattress. I walked into the toilet and discovered one of his socks inside the bowl, clogging the toilet, i removed the sock carefully, making sure i only made contact with the dry part and threw it in the bath tub and hosed it down. I mopped up the vomit and finally went to sleep, the next morning Chester told me how they clubbed more and went to Karaoke and all sorts of crazys...damn you Danh and Boon!

here is a video of Danh the next morning (sorry Danh, haha)

racist

so what is stating a fact and what is racism?

i am asian. fact

but lets say i said, asians all have black hair... is that a fact? or is that racism?
maybe there are asians with different hair colours? but its accepted as fact

now you could say that its only racist if its offensive or harmful

now if i said asians are all good at maths which probably isn't a fact. but is it racism? its not offensive...or harmful, its potentially untrue, just like hair colour.


anyway, we had a very elaborate discussion of race and the concept of asia during my "modern asia tute", quite interesting, but i think the funniest/worst thing i ever heard during the tute was when a rich white girl said (after much discussion of indian students and having concluded that many of the attacks probably were not racially motivated, they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time):

"i don't want to sound racist or anything, i'm not racist, but i think the indian students bring it on themselves"

i think she was just lucky there wasn't any people of indian decent in the class haha.

what is more scary? being a racist? or being racist and not realising?

kaist poster boy

pretty soon, every korean mum who wishes their kids to attend kaist will be wondering who that handsome slightly blurred guy in their kaist poster is.



damn you lucas, you know the only reason they used this photo is coz you're white! haha

happy birthday!

金泰妍, 生日祝賀합니다!

my key?

I, unlike most Melbourne commuters was joyfully looking forward to the statewide adoption of the new myki system. It is very similar to what I have become accustomed to in China and Korea. Leave the card in a wallet/bag, scan when you get on, scan when you get off. No more cheap frail paper tickets. I was even more happy to hear that you can buy passes that exceed a monthly, which meant I did not have to buy a new ticket every month.

One of the first things I did when I got back from overseas was sign up for a free myki card. One of the first problems I realised was that my concession Myki will be useless by next year because I won't qualify for concession status, I thought maybe they might work out some system where they could send me a full-fare card for free, no problem.

The day came when I finally had to use my Myki, I realised that I had no cash in my wallet, but then I remembered I could charge the card on the internet, so far so good, very convenient. I logged on, charged 10 dollars and clicked ok and thats when the second problem came up "please allow 24 hours for top ups to go through"... that should have been shown before i pressed ok, I potentially just wasted 10 bucks, but I thought it probably would go through and it says 24 hours just in case. But as a plan B, I asked my mum for some change. And I was quite right to do so, when I scanned the card it had "0 balance".

All those negatives can be mitigated with experience and planning ahead, but just a few days ago, I heard somewhere that Myki can not be used on trams and buses. Now this got me boiled up, apparently I am expected to purchase another ticket if I want to ride a connecting bus or a tram, that is just bloody ridiculous. I go to uni in the city with buildings all over the cbd and now they tell me i can't use this on the tram...

The bottom line is, this system would have been great if they pulled it off correctly, frankly I regret having jumped on Myki so early but lucky for me I had only purchased a 31 day pass, i shall be returning to metcards until they can pull myki off correctly.

Just to give you a perspective of some other countries.

Shanghai Public Transport Card:

I think it averages 50 cents Australian a trip, one of the fastest growing networks in the world and definitely one of the most used. I've only ever caught one metro that was about 2 minutes late. Metros come every 2-3 minutes during peak time and 4 -5 minutes at other times. You can also use the transport card in taxis.

(just another day in people's square station (so many people and yet...rarely any delays))

Hong Kong Octopus Card:

Now i can't remember how much it cost average a trip, but it definitely was not alot. You can use them on all forms of public transports, including ferrys. Similar to Shanghai in terms of scanning on and off, but you can also use the card to make small purchases at corner stores and fast food outlets like Macdonalds, I'm also aware that you are able to use it to pay for parking in certain areas. I think 3-4 million people use the metro every day, the same company that runs this system, currently runs ours. (the metro system, not the ticketing)

(parking made easy)

Seoul T-Money Card:

Not only could you get them in different colors and patterns, you could also get them in different shapes and objects. My "card" was a phone dangler and pretty much just scanned my phone every time I used the metro. 50 AUD lasted me a good month, keeping in mind that I made multiple trips back and forth a day, as opposed to a 85 Zone1-2 monthly in Melbourne. Also one of the most used. You can also use it to buy things from participating convenience stores, vending machines inside the station usually accepts T-money and like the other cities you can use these in taxis too. And I also think theres a push to get it running nation wide as I noticed some taxis in daejeon also accepted T-money, but not the metros.

dangles

In these cities, a car was pretty much only needed when the metro stopped running after midnight, even then taxis were affordable and i could use my card in there too.

Myki...fail (so far)

my question is why did we spend billions of dollars developing this fail of a system, when we probably could have bought one of these very well developed and proven systems for alot less?
And how are hongkong (approx 7 million population), shanghai (approx 20 million) and seoul (approx 10 million) able to maintain such a good system and keep metros running every few minutes without delays, when melbourne which only has around 4 million population can't do it?

philaharmonics

i vaguely heard something about this, but for all you who don't/didn't know, back in 2008 the New York Phillaharmonic orchestra did a show in Pyongyang that was broadcasted world wide. today i saw the documentary of their experience on sbs. Me, i have a huge interest in North Korea and would like to visit some day and have seen sooooooooo many documentaries on the country (recommend me one if you know any) and well the documentary about their performance was really inspiring. i hope you all have the time/gather the amount of effort to see it, here is a video of their encore performance of "arirang"



just beautiful given the context of performance

Sandara

i'm sorry but this picture has got to be the cutest thing i have ever seen. god damn



she broke her trophy and shes crying...god damn

dreams from beyond

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

employment

so i've had some friends who have graduated recently who are getting paid pretty good, now im 90% sure i want to work in Shanghai after i graduate, or maybe even Hong Kong and Seoul (unlikely because i can't speak korean...(yet))

looking forward to my last year of university, my electives are all pretty interesting:

fashion promotion
modern asia
mass media in asia
introduction to public relations
client relationship management


anyway...updated flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ji_ken/