Announcing the Yahoo Fantasy Football 2008 Whalin Fishers:
QB Peyton Manning WR Marques Colston WR Lee Evans WR Sidney Rice RB Selvin Young RB Leon Washington TE Dallas Clark K Sebastian Janikowski DEF Washington
(BN-RB) Ahman Green (BN-RB) Justin Fargas (BN-QB) Jason Campbell (BN-WR) Antwaan Randle El (BN-TE) Leonard Pope (BN-WR) Arnaz Battle
Ready to run through our league! We have 16 teams in our league, so many great players were swallowed up early. I took a slight gamble and picked Peyton earlier than most would (6th pick). Most others would have picked a running back for the first round or at least Brady over Manning. For many of my picks I chose players I had had in the past: Colston (gave me a huge boost in 2006 as I snagged him from the fa wire just before he exploded), Evans (was terrible last year, but can be explosive), Dallas Clark (I love having the Peyton-Clark one two-punch), Selvin Young, Leon Washington, etc.
Wish me luck. On even years, I do quite well (made playoffs in 2004, 2006) so I expect a good showing. Our league is a riot! It’s made up of very good childhood friends. We get rude, rambunctious, sulky, proud, angry, complimentry, disparaging, downtrodden, elated, etc. And as we wait for each new weekend, we fill the forum with speculation, smack talk, current news events, RPGs, haiku jams, anagrams, updates from life, more smack talk, relentless smack talk, you name it. Oh, and start of the football season corresponding to the beginning of autumn is sweeet!
Have a great day!
Filed under: Korea
Dong dong ju is a traditional Korean alcohol made from rice. It’s rather thick and milky, and has a smooth sour taste. Sound good? On certain occastions, it really hits the spot. Koreans especially like dong dong ju on rainy days and with pajeon (fried pancake).
On rainy last night, two coworkers and myself went out for dong dong ju and pajeon. It was a great way to cap off a long week and a block of late evening classes.
Dong dong ju with crushed pine-shoot.
Rob (from roboseyo)
Seito, a teacher from Japan
and myself
Good atmosphere. Good company.
Dong dong ju is typically a happy buzz too. It raises spirits and humor.
Filed under: sketches
I should have known better then to engage in an MSN messenger sketch-off with my gf.
First she was nice:
But she quickly threw down the gauntlet, mocking my propensity to worry:
After that, she got downright rude:
I ain’t that fat! But the last picture takes the cake:
There’s actually a story behind this last picture. It was a month or so ago and I was having a midnight beer in my boxers (no shirt) before bed. Completely unexpectedly, I got a knock on my apartment door and answered as I was. I guess it wasn’t the most romantic way to greet a surprise visit from her. She blamed me for ‘breaking a girl’s fantasy’. Ah well…
Filed under: Korea
The above picture is a nice, cozy restaurant on the first floor of my old apartment building. This is their menu:
“Three fold flesh which is with a large tree.” (Update: No! “Three fold flesh” is not referring to my ever-growing beer belly as some certain, unnamed parties have suggested elsewhere 
)
“Distance flesh”
( ?) … your guess is as good as mine
“Bean bean-curd refuse pot stew”
“Mackerel/Saury/Hairtail Afforestation“
And for dessert?
Filed under: Korea
The next pair of pants I buy are definitely gonna be black. Over the span of two days, I’ve ruined two pairs of Khakis with stains. One was from some thick red sauce on my chicken shish kabob. The other is a mysterious black stain which probably occurred when I squeezed between two parked cars walking back to my apartment. Grumble grumble.
It’s a trip walking around this city at times. Everything is so densely packed in my neighborhood. Just walking on the sidewalk is the equivalent of driving a car on I-465 during rush hour. And every aspect of vehicular traffic has its pedestrian counterpart: fast and slow “cars”, weaving in and out of lanes, areas of congestion, flat-out traffic jams, drunk drivers, crashes, fender benders, u-turns, caravans, dirty-ass exhaust spewing cars (inconsiderate smokers leaving behind streams of cigarette smoke), pedestrian-rage, etc. The most annoying one is when three or more people walk side-by-side lollygagging around; dawdling at .2 miles per hour blocking the entire sidewalk, looking and pointing every which way (but yet are completely oblivious to the fact that other sentient beings are trying to get by). In such a situation, one is faced with two options: run onto the street and around them, or break through.
Rainy conditions are by far the worse. The normal pedestrian traffic annoyances are severely compounded by the fact that everybody is wielding a large umbrella (and most people are shorter than you). The entrances to subway stations and stores are invariably blocked by groups of people chatting away while the 100s of others lined up behind them are squeezing through one at a time. Grumble grumble! Besides that (and a few other things), I love the city.
Have a nice day 
Filed under: sketches
What do you think? Do I make a good Manga samurai?
Here’s my girl:
Here’s our friend:
[sketches courtesy of my talented gf]
Filed under: Korea
Had a pleasant Saturday brunch with my girlfriend at a restaurant we enjoy. Good food, nice price, and a beautiful terrace right next to the Cheonggye stream. As we were finishing up, a light mid-summer rain came over the neighborhood. We didn’t have an umbrella but the rain wasn’t severe enough to cause much discomfort. So we started walking home. During the way, a middle-aged man (ajoshe) approached us and started barking questions to my girlfriend. With my very limited Korean ability I could pick out a few words and I wondered why he was shouting “Korean” “foreigner” “university” etc. Not enjoying the rain or the vibe, I pulled on my girlfriends hand and we started walking away. He yelled a few more things then muttered away. Wisely, my girlfriend waited until he was out of sight before she would answer my question as to what he was going on about. Evidently he was yelling at her for dating a foreigner, telling her she should be ashamed of herself, and he even called her a whore.
Ah, yes indeed. The wondrous magic of a miserable Ajoshe encounter.
I love my girlfriend even more now. She handled the situation perfectly: evaded his questions, asked him why he was being like this, and kept me in the dark long enough to save both me from being in jail at the moment and him from having a broken jaw. She was wise and mature in the face of a miserable ajoshe encounter. As the old expression goes: “shit happens”. This particular case manifested in the worthless words of an embittered, old man. I’m thankful to her for being a good spirit and a wise woman. We talked afterwards about the situation, and if anything, it reinforced the fact that we love each other. So sorry poor Ajoshe.
Sorry to complain. I know racism and ignorance can be found in all countries. An immature reaction would be to rant about Korea. I won’t do so. Five minutes later we passed by three old ajummas in an alleyway and they smiled warmly and greeted us. I love Korea and I have many good friends here. And the same thing could have easily happened in the US with some fool yelling “Go back to China” or some other noise. If anything, this experience gives me an opportunity to reflect on my inner state and the the call of a Christ-follower. I have a long, long way to go. Things could have gotten ugly. But I hope from now on when I think of this incident I can cultivate forgiveness, perspective, and compassion.
Anyway, thanks for reading this rant. I promise a few, more substantive posts are on their way. God bless.
Filed under: Weblog Related
[Edit: Good pilgrims of the Nobel Path, kindly join a humble search for 'God' here, here, here]
As many new bloggers may confess, once things get up and running, it becomes a small obsession of ours to click on ‘blog-stats’ and see how many people are checking in and how they got here. I’ve gotten a few clicks out of google searches for “Scott Fisher Spirituality” and ”Kim Kwang Suk”. But the vast majority of random visits come from people seeking Buddha: “Buddha and daughters of Mara” ”Buddha’s temptations pride” “Buddha sketch” ”Deep soul pain” etc. All of this stems from a small picture I link to in this post, specifically this one.
Sorry , good pilgrims of the noble path, all you got was some dude in Korea writing nonsense to his family and friends. But come warm your feet by this humble fire nonetheless if you’re of good-heart and you will. To honor your visit, I give you a picture and a video I took of the Lantern festival in Seoul commemorating Buddha’s birthday.
Filed under: Korea
I found this video on my friend’s site, Roboseyo. And, gosh darn it, it’s just too classic to not to echo here. I think those of us who are Korean or have spent some time in Korea can appreciate this situation the most. Those of us who are unacquainted with ‘the Korean ajumma’, you can get a general idea here or here. An encounter with a determined ajumma is not for the faint of heart. Ajumma WILL get from point A to point B, regardless anything in-between. Full stop. In Korean wisdom, Korea has three sexes: male, female, and ajumma. And if it were possible to recruit a subway-ajumma for my fantasy football RB (running back) position, I would probably take one over Ladainian Tomlinson. Don’t believe me? Behold Ajumma in all her glory (around the 43 second mark):
