Heya, folks.
I will be on a longish business trip from 1/29 to 2/2, so updates will be sporatic at best. I will have net access, but I’m not sure how exhausted I will be when I get back to my hotel room.
Take care, all.
One of my hobbies is cooking. I’m not very good at it, though I do hope to get better at it.
I’m very fond of cooking for several reasons. The biggest reason is that I like to feed my friends. I enjoy hearing them dig into a dish that I’ve worked on. I like knowing that I’ve created something that brings a bit of joy to the people I care about. And with luck, it actually tastes good.
Another reason that I like cooking is that I like working with my hands. Normally I dislike my hands and my work area being messy, but with food I don’t mind it at all (with the possible exception of some types of offal). But it feels good knowing that the various bowls and plates of raw ingredients that are sitting on my kitchen counter are going to end up as a finished dish.
The final reason is possibly the most obvious - I like to eat. So I tend to create dishes that I would want to eat myself. This leads me to make a lot of pasta sauces, stews, and meat dishes. (Sorry, vegetarians) So far, I’ve yet to get any complaints, although that may be because my friends are too kind to tell me that my cooking is bad.
I’m willing to try just about any recipe, though I’ve had bad luck when it comes to baked goods and desserts. That hasn’t really stopped me from trying to make them, but the results are often thrown away before anyone else can sample how bad they’ve come out.
I have lived in Japan twice in my life (the first time for a year, and the second time for two), and both times I spent most of the time mainly in the area I was living (Chiba and Yokohama) and in Tokyo.
I did do a little sightseeing, but for the most part, I didn’t travel much. I actually am not big into sightseeing and such. There are a few reasons for this.
One is that I live in Maryland, just a short distance from Washington, D.C. So when most people visit me from out of town, they’ve wanted to (understandably) spend time there. Thus, I’ve seen the Smithsonian and most of the local monuments more times than I can remember. I don’t dislike them, but I don’t go out of my way to see sights of any kind because of it.
This applies to Japan, too. I’ve seen a lot of temples and shrines. A lot. Especially Senoji Temple in Asakusa. (Which is kind of tourist trap-y, but still cool) I do think that temples and shrines are impressive places to visit, but I’ve had my fill of them for now.
There ARE some places left that I’d like to do some sightseeing in - London, for example. But for the most part, I generally travel to see my friends. I am perfectly content to spend time at my friends’ local haunts, talking and enjoying their company.
I went to watch my friend Jimmy perform tonight at a semi-local comedy club, and had a blast.
Whenever I’m asked what my favorite genre of movie/tv show/etc. is, I always respond with ‘comedy’.
I love to laugh, despite it sometimes being painful (I have been known to laugh so long and loud that I’ve nearly suffocated to death) to me. I love hearing jokes and funny stories. Most of the time, for background noise, I’ll have a comedy show or movie of some sort on. (Recently it’s been An Evening With Kevin Smith 2)
I personally don’t think I’m a funny person, yet people often laugh at the things that I say. I hope that they’re laughing with me, and not at me, but I have the feeling it’s more the former than the latter.
Sometimes people tell me I should give stand-up comedy a go, and I’ve toyed with the idea. But I don’t think that I have the right timing for it. Maybe some day I’ll try an amateur night or something, but for now, I’ll leave the comedy to the pros.
If there is one thing I can say about myself, in regards to clothing, is that I’ve got very little fashion sense.
I know that I look better in dark clothes (thanks to a friend). I know that I look better in loose clothes (thanks to my being overweight). I know that I look good in a suit. Thankfully.
But in general, my clothing options, these days run as follows:
Work - dress shirt, Dockers pants, dress shoes, necktie
Home - same pants, but now with a Polo t-shirt (with the essential front pocket)
As you can see, it’s pretty bland. I’ve toyed with the idea of buying new clothes and such, but as of right now, I’ve not the time, really.
But I do think that I can be ‘prettied up’, as it were. The question is just how.
I am an only child. But I have a lot of brothers and sisters.
This is because of two things - one, the way my family (a fairly traditional Korean one) works, and my habit of ‘adopting’ friends.
I’ll talk about the family thing first.
In Korean culture, much like many others, you refer to your cousins (and often your close friends) as ‘big brother’ or ‘big sister’. Why this is, exactly, I couldn’t say. It just is. So at family gatherings, I have a lot of ‘hyungahs’ (big brothers) and ‘noonahs’ (big sisters) as well as younger siblings (who I just call by their name).
Thus, I have a fairly large group of ’siblings’ as is. (At current count, I have six cousins on my mother’s side of the family, and fourteen on my father’s side, not counting second cousins and the like)
As for ‘adopting’ friends, some people just click with me. Others have been friends for so long, it feels like we’re family. These are the people that I call ‘little sis’ or ‘bro’ or what have you. I don’t have nearly as many of these ’siblings’, but they’re out there, and they count as family to me.
Most of the time, I don’t even realize I’ve stopped calling a friend by their name and by a sibling term until they point it out.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll have a ‘family’ with more than one hundred people in it by the time I pass on.
One of the games I have always been fond of is pool/billards. I’m not very good at it, but I like it a lot. It’s a lot of fun, it’s something I can do with friends, and it involves both mental acuity and some physical skill.
When I was growing up, one of the few things I can remember doing with my father when he had time-off was to go to a local billiards hall and play pool. We’d spend three or four hours there, talking, playing pool, and eating instant ramen. He taught me the basics of pool, then proceeded to kick my butt at it. I did get better, thankfully. We did this for a while, until I hit college. Then I just didn’t have the time, so it kind of died off.
I’ll be hitting a local pool hall with some friends to celebrate my birthday, and hopefully my pool skills haven’t gone completely to crap. I did play a couple of games last October, but I spent most of the time knocking off the rust. I’m looking forward to it, though, because I’m looking forward to playing with my friends, and because pool always makes me feel good.
I need to play golf with my Dad some time soon. If I’m lucky, his skill will rub off on me - he’s REALLY good. We used to have tons of trophies that he won at amateur tournaments.
The problem is… I used to hate golf. But that’s a story for another time.
I love snow.
I love snow a lot.
My favorite Japanese word is 雪 (yuki), which means ’snow’. Same goes for my favorite Korean word, ‘nuhn’.
For some reason, I’ve always associated snow with good times and with being happy. Part of it might be because of how much fun I had on snow days when I was in elementary school. Part of it might be because I just like the way fresh snow looks on the ground and on buildings. I’m not one hundred percent sure.
But I really do love snow. When I hear that snow is on the way, I may complain (’bah, driving will suck’, etc.), but inside I’m thinking, “Yay! Snow! YAY SNOW!”
On the other hand, I hate rain. Hate it a lot. It always depresses me. Almost every time something really bad has happened to me, it’s been raining. And it makes most drivers in my area really stupid. It feels like they look up, see the rain, and go, “Oh my God, it’s raining, now I have to completely forget how to drive!”
I understand that rain is important, that it’s essential to the survival of our world. This is why I always yell at it in the same way: “Damn you, live giving water that falls from the sky.”
Okay. Two in a row because I completely forgot to post yesterday. This is backdated, as usual.
I have been playing World of Warcraft since the second closed beta. I’ve always like online multiplayer games, but WoW really has been a lot of fun for me. However, I’m not going to talk about WoW specifically today.
I’m going to talk about MMOs in general, the ones I’v played, and why I like them so much.
I started playing online games in college. My friend, L, told me about MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons), and a week later, I was hooked. I played them in all of my spare time, and sometimes in my not-so-spare time. There was something about knowing that the other characters were being controlled by other people. (I’d already messed around with IRC, so the idea that there were people online to talk to wasn’t knew, but actually playing a game with them was)
After half a year or so, I forced myself to stop so I could concentrate on studying and my job. But every once in a while, I would think, “Man, I miss playing on (name of a MUD that I don’t remember anymore).”
A couple of years after I started college, Everquest came out. Needless to say, I bought it, installed it, and played it for a while.
Since then, I’ve played Asheron’s Call, Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, and a slew of others. I’m currently in a couple of beta tests, too. Why?
One reason is that I love to play new games. I like trying out new systems, seeing how companies do with variations on the same theme (thus all the MMOs), and seeing how far graphics are being pushed. I like participating with a group of like minded people (the beta testers I’ve met are, in general, fairly cool people), chatting with them, and finding out how to best play the class that I’ve chosen.
I like the idea that I can roll along by myself, soloing my way through a slew of quests, but that I can also group up with a bunch of other players and work with them to achieve a goal. And I like being able to ‘dress up’ my avatar in neat armor and clothes that I earn through quests and by defeating enemies.
Those are the reasons I can currently think of as to why I like MMOs. There are a lot of things I think need to be changed/fixed, but that’ll wait for another time.
My friend, S, asked me to talk about cars, and why I like them so much.
So I will. (If anyone has something they’d like for me to write about, let me know. There are some things I’m trying to avoid, like current events, but in general, anything is game. I’m also trying to keep things PG-13 when I can.)
I like cars a lot. While I’m not the most knowledgable about them, I am an enthusiast. I love driving, I love cars, and I love talking about them (within my admittedly non-expert range).
I have owned three cars in my life thus far.
The first was a metallic blue Chevrolet Corsica LT. The running joke was that it only had half the calories of a regular Corsica. I had Rebecca from 1992 to 1996. I moved to Japan for a year in 1996, and that’s when my father gave ‘Becca to one of my cousins.
My second car was a metallic green Toyota Camry. Myndi was a fair bit bigger than Rebecca, and not nearly as fast. But man, she was nigh-indestructable. I had Myndi from 1997 to 2000, when I moved back to Japan again. Myndi is currently being driven by one of my cousins as well.
Finally, my current car, Alys, is a Subaru Impreza WRX. She’s also metallic blue, and to date, my favorite car of them all. She moves quickly, handles like a dream, and is quite comfortable to ride in (unless you’re a giant, like my friend Leo…).
Why do I like cars so much? Part of it is the idea that I’m in my own little world. Inside the car, it’s me, the car, and whoever else is there. No one else.
I also like going fast. I’m not necessarily a speed demon, but I do like to hoof it once in a while. Also, unlike a lot of ‘fast drivers’, I stay in control. If things are looking bad, I safely slow down. I do not want to be a smear on the road.
Another thing is that I like how cars look. I can enjoy looking at a well designed car. I like smooth lines, graceful curves (man, sounds like I’m talking about a woman, doesn’t it?), and complementary accessories (spoiler, etc.). A lot of the blocky cars (I’m talking to you, Hummer series!) really don’t appeal to me.
Next time, I’ll talk about some interesting stories involving me and my cars. Only one story actually involves an accident.