this week i

viewed from the backseat of an early evening cab.

refocused.  notice the dashboard korean soap opera.  not dangerous at all.

made friends in seoul..

they took me to dinner

 ..paid my lodging for the night.

over the top.  a bath and, separately, a shower?  nobody needs this.

got a fresh start.

knocked out a few more data tables.

set up for my sermon.

presented - with a translator - for the folks who converted twotorials into koreanfull lecture here, camera angled like the mitt romney 47% tape.

 trained back to busan.

fall in love once in a while.  and learned r from the guy on the right.  god damn, i chose graduate school well.

donated $2,000 to girard college.  so now i'm broke.

read game change, a summary of the most exciting year of our political lives.

after enduring an unceasing monologue by senator joe biden during a committee hearing, obama passed a note to gibbs that read, "shoot me now"

black jesus

dick morris..was caught up in a toe-sucking scandal with a prostitute

you can't have three presidents in the white house, obama told some friends at a dinner in new york


this week i

updated my monetdb post with new quotes, a kubrick reference, oh and better statistical programming.

hopped the high speed rail.. seoul.

blended in..

 ..for a while.

quote miguel, "do you know how fucked up india would be if there were flying cars?"

biked on the han.


played impromptu bumper boats..

 ..even more fun when your opponents don't realize bumper boats was an option.  because it's not.  which is why we said, "sorry"

invented the xapply function with naveen.

xapply = function( ... ) paste0( sample( letters , 1 ) , "apply" ) , list( ... ) )

toured old temples..

..more modern insanities not far away.

saw, did all the usual stuff, too..

consensual photo bombs

portuguese embassies, bowling

unsleepable benches - anti-homeless.  yes, she's probably irritated about that as well.

lollipop bouquets

angry christians

confirmed non-vampire angry christians

miscellaneous pig snouts

coffee mug equivalents

dent prevention failures

buildings as typical as days ending in y

excuse me sir, can i take your picture with this camera right here? / i want to demonstrate to my friends back home that some people in korea wear glasses frames without any lenses in them because they think it looks cool. / oh you don't speak english very well? / *snap* / well thank you anyway, it's alright, i will just ask somebody else then.

am not the only one.

can't tell if it's weirder that an elderly caucasian couple would say something in korean or that they talk out of their belly buttons.

held a stupid-face competition, miguel the only contestant.

popped polaroids.

measure wealth on a scale of adventure.


this week i

secured our helmets.

beat the evening rush.  see the lights in the buildings?  those folks did too.

climbed center-city mountains.

don't usually like bob dylan, but don't usually hang my hat in the de facto island nation of south korea either.

cooked up some barbeque, circumscribed by eggs.

learned mapply.  you should too.

x = list( a = 1:4 , b = 1:6 )
y = list( a = 5:8 , b = 7:12 )
some.function = function( u , v ){ u + v }
mapply( some.function , x , y )

makeshift funneled.

embraced it.  goal of the culture: sensory overload. best to not question.  oh, and..

order.  it's orderly here

unless you're edible.  then it's quite deadly.


subway book vending machines.  perhaps more shockingly: subway book vending machine patrons.

four-eyed men

..and my first shabu-shabu.

worked another week.  right over there.

snuck into moonlit temples..

..apparently that's not jesus.  i thought it was jesus.

rallied troops, played games from foreign lands.

think life can be like that.  in fact, i'm sure of it.