Saturday, January 18, 2025
the Saturday meet-up
After all that shit last year, I'm glad I'm alive to participate in this. Our Saturday meet-up is taking place at Charles's apartment Saturday evening. Tom and I have been told to meet there around 6 p.m., so I'm meeting Tom at a nearby subway station a bit before 6 so we can do the short walk to Charles's place together. Tom may be bringing drinks of various sorts; I'm bringing a Middle Eastern-themed salad—a recipe from a vegan I regularly watch on YouTube. I'm also bringing my almond-flour cookies, but neither of these is the reason we're getting together: the highlight of the night are Charles's pizzas and his "whisky gingerbread" cake.
If I recall correctly, Charles perfected his pizza-dough recipe in September of 2022 (when he wrote me a heartfelt "Eureka!" email), and he's already tried it out on a few people, but this will be my first time biting into it. Here's the pic that Charles sent of his triumphant pizza, which looks totally legit:
I look forward to the awesomeness. Oh, here's a pic of the cake (frosting pending):
is it a scam impeachment?
Seen near Maebong Station as I was walking to the Samsung branch on January 14:
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| "Scam impeachment! Arrest Lee Jae-myeong first!" |
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| Something like, "This can't be the country of criminal Lee Jae-myeong!" |
The conservatives are striking back. Personally, I have no sympathy for President Yoon, a conservative. He revealed his authoritarian tendencies and moved too impulsively. He lacks Trump's talent for reading people and for 4-D chess, which is why he's in the current mess. I don't think the impeachment is a scam at all, and I say that while fully aware that the Korean left has long had it in for President Yoon. The left may have started this nonsense, but Yoon overreacted with martial law, and what we're seeing now is the cost of that error.
I need to ask my bank a question
My local bank is Shinhan. I need to ask the staff a question: in renewing my debit card, do I need to bring my passport, or is my alien-registration card (ARC) sufficient? See, I've scheduled Ilyang Logis to come and pick up my passport, along with some other documents, this coming Monday. Ilyang Logis sent me a note saying they'd pick up the package "within two days of the scheduled date," i.e., they'll be by on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. If Shinhan is okay with my not having/using my passport to renew my debit card, then there's no problem. If I have to have my passport because that's the ID I use every time I do an overseas transaction, then I'm going to have a problem. At a guess, not having the passport shouldn't be a big deal since I have my ARC. But we'll find out, I guess.
Kamala's parting words
Yeesh. Headline (NB: this article editorializes and isn't meant to be objective journalism):
We Dodged a Bullet: Kamala Harris Delivers Parting Words to Americans Days Before Trump Inauguration (VIDEO)
Just a few more days of this nightmare.
Kamala Harris on Thursday added her signature to her ceremonial office desk.
“Vice President Harris will mark the final days of the Biden administration by signing her desk drawer in the ceremonial White House office Thursday afternoon, carrying on a tradition that began under former President John F. Kennedy,” The Hill reported.
“The top drawer of the desk has been signed by various users since the 1940s. The first vice president to use, and sign, the desk was former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who served in the No. 2 spot before he was sworn into the Oval Office after Kennedy’s assassination,” the outlet reported.
Harris delivered some parting words to Americans just days before Trump’s inauguration.
“I am fully aware that I am the public face of a lot of our work and so I have the benefit of running into people all over our country who thank me,” Kamala Harris said bragging about lighting the world on fire.
A handful of the Biden-Harris Regime’s accomplishments:
- Disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal that resulted in 13 dead US service members.
- Record 40-year inflation rates.
- Soaring gas prices because of Biden’s anti-energy agenda
- More than 15 million illegal aliens entered the US because of Biden’s open borders.
- Record fentanyl overdoses.
- Supply chain crisis.
- Covid vaccine mandates.
- Calling millions of Trump supporters “garbage”
- Soaring crime
- Job-destroying tax hikes
- Endless Ukraine-Russia war/giving Ukraine BILLIONS of dollars
- Weaponization of his DOJ/locking up main political opponent
- Woke/gutted military
Now, I hope the Trump administration doesn't spend four years blaming Biden for everything, the way Biden (and the left) spent four years blaming Trump. DOGE, for example, is supposed to disappear in two years, which it had better do no matter the results. A lot of people are watching how Trump and his team will attempt to fix various aspects of a country gone insane. And assuming a JD Vance (or Ramaswamy or Gabbard) presidency after Trump, I hope the repairs continue—and even more smoothly.
Friday, January 17, 2025
vampires watch "Twilight"
This is in Spanish, so if you don't speak it (as I don't), click on the Closed Captions button to turn on the English subtitles.
They don't hold back about Kristen Stewart's acting.
testing aftermath
The hospital visit went well, but the next visit will be split into two visits; while the diabetes and cardiac/stroke clinics have normally scheduled their visits for the same day over the past few years, this time around, I was scheduled for two separate dates: the diabetes clinic will see me again four months from now, in May (5/23), and the cardiac clinic will see me six months from now, in July (7/11).
Numbers I got from the hospital:
BP: 126/66 (confirmed, no mistake)
pulse: 75 (okay, but a bit high)
A1c: 7.2 (ick, and higher than my own estimate of 6.85)
weight: 110 kg (my weighing had me at 109.5)
pulse: 75 (okay, but a bit high)
A1c: 7.2 (ick, and higher than my own estimate of 6.85)
weight: 110 kg (my weighing had me at 109.5)
I can guess that the A1c's being higher had to do with skipped days, when I wasn't measuring myself during my long walk—a walk during which I didn't radically misbehave but did indulge in snacks almost every day. As for weight: the hospital's results were close to mine, but I knew their results would be heavier because I was wearing clothes (you're instructed to remove your shoes before stepping on the automatic scale, which both weighs you and determines your height). It occurs to me that I didn't ask either doc for the hospital's fasting-glucose results; I wanted to see how close I was to 87, this morning's home result. The generic advice I got was to keep losing weight and exercising. I did ask about scanning for more possible blockages around my heart, and the cardiac doc was reluctant to do so. Only my blood pressure was better than my home result: 126/66 is remarkably low but not the lowest I've ever been.
It was then a matter of using the machine to pay my consultation bill and receive my prescription. There's a screen, on that machine, where you can select the pharmacy at which to receive your meds; as usual, I selected Blue Bird (Bluebird?) Pharmacy: Parang-sae Yakguk/파랑새 약국. While I'd taken a cab up to the hospital in the early morning, I simply walked out in the late morning. It was a mostly downhill walk to the pharmacy; I collected my tons of meds (four months' and six months' worth), kept walking to the local Subway sandwich shop, and happily got myself two foot-long subs—a tuna one and a chicken-bacon-avocado one. I got home and washed both down with Diet Cherry Coke, then took a nap.
Oh, yeah, about that QR code: despite my having downloaded the appropriate app, it turns out the new QR code didn't even work. I tried flashing the code at the gate; a computer voice told me something was wrong, but I didn't understand specifically what. A guard was right there; he asked me what I was at the hospital for; I told him "consultation," and he buzzed me in. I asked him whether I might have to do this again next time; he said it depends on the error that comes up. So I guess we'll have to wait four months to see whether I go through this nonsense again. Since the guard was right there, there wasn't any delay, so this wasn't a huge annoyance, but it's frustrating to be told that you need a QR code from your mobile insurance app, then to have it not work. We'll see what happens in four months.
With my consultations done, my prescription meds received, and my sandwiches bought, I waddled home, ate lunch, then took a satisfying nap (I hadn't slept well the night before). I'm about to step out and buy some fresh salad ingredients for tomorrow's get-together. The boss called just before my nap to say he hadn't heard anything from the CEO about when to get out, so his advice was not to bother moving anything out quite yet. That's nice: it means I can either prep the salad tomorrow just before I go since I'll have plenty of time to do so, or I can just take the ingredients with me to Charles's place and make the salad right there, sur place.
I just got a notification that my Shinhan bank card is also about to expire, so I'll need to visit the bank next week to get a new card. And Ilyang Logis (the courier service) sent a note saying they would pick up my passport documents within two days of the date I'd selected for pickup. Why not just come on the day I'd selected? Well, this is Korea: nothing moves straight from A to B, and Koreans wait until the last minute to inform you that they're pulling the rug out from under your schedule. You just kind of have to go with it.
Righto—off to Shinsegae Food Market. And maybe I'll buy a naughty snack while I'm there. But a small snack, of course. Now that I've found the secret to low blood sugar, I need to keep the blood sugar low, especially if I'm trying to get rid of all my meds.
final numbers
I'll have a new set of numbers when I go to the hospital this morning (weight, BP, pulse, A1c); I might or might not remember to slap them up here. In the meantime, my "final" numbers before today's hospital visit are:
blood sugar: 87 (up from yesterday's 72, but still OK)
BP: 117/74 (OK)
weight: 109.5 kg (need to lose another 20 kg)
estimated A1c: 6.85 (probably higher at the hospital)
pulse-ox: 99
pulse: 72
BP: 117/74 (OK)
weight: 109.5 kg (need to lose another 20 kg)
estimated A1c: 6.85 (probably higher at the hospital)
pulse-ox: 99
pulse: 72
I walked only 5K last night—just some laps around the local park. I wonder whether the shorter walk factored into my higher blood-sugar number this morning. Hm. Still, 87 is well below 100. Things like BP, pulse-ox, and pulse vary literally second by second (making them untrustworthy unless you look at trends), so the best I can say is that my BP has been normal to slightly high over the past few months; my pulse-ox is always in the 96-99 region; and my pulse is almost always in the high-60s to mid-70s region.
Wish me luck!
UPDATE: my urine sample was a fiasco. I don't know why, but I could only pee out a little into the sample cup. You're normally supposed to fill the cup at least halfway, but I barely managed a quarter. I bought a bottle of water, drank it down, waited 25 minutes, and tried again. I was barely able to add a few extra milliliters of urine. Hmph. Anyway, that's all I've got, so that's what I turned in. (There's a urine-sample window in the men's room by the blood-sample area.) I wonder why I'm dry today. Pissed too much last night or this morning? Who knows?
BP: 126/66 (maybe diastolic was 76)
HR: 75
Didn't see what my weight was, but since I had clothes on, it's undoubtedly a kilogram too heavy. UPDATE: 110 kg, with an A1c of 7.2.
Thursday, January 16, 2025
remember his lies
Trump's a liar, right? Remember these lies:
'I was at the top of my class on a full academic scholarship'
'I never talked to my son about his business'
'My son Beau lost his life in Iraq'
'A drunk driver killed my wife & daughter'
'Trump said very fine people on both sides'
'Trump told people to inject bleach'
'Trump said there'd be a bloodbath in America'
'Trump said fallen WWI soldiers were 'suckers & losers'
'The border is secure'
'Bidenomics is working'
'I'm staying in the race'
'I won't pardon my son'
From here.
QR code
I'm going to have to get an impromptu QR code to enter the hospital tomorrow. Well, nutsacks. Today, in place of the usual text message (the one I always see a day before I hit the hospital) that includes a one-time QR code for those of us with appointments, the hospital sent a notification that it's changing its entry rules (oh, and we may be back to masking as well, which sucks). There's supposed to be a QR code on your "mobile insurance card," but I've never been issued such a card, so I need to get a temporary QR code at the front gate like the rest of the proles. Alas for the death of privilege, eh?
My first appointment is at 10:10 a.m., which means I need to be at the hospital around 8 a.m. to give a blood sample. It's not going to go well: despite my recent, fantastic blood-sugar numbers, my A1c is a three-month average, which means we have to factor in two-and-three-quarters months' worth of somewhat elevated daily blood sugar. According to the formula I've been using, my A1c ought to be around 6.8, which is high (5.7 or below is ideal). I was 5.9 at my last visit four months ago. But now that I seem to have hit upon the dietary "magic bullet," I think I can get the A1c way down for the next appointment, probably in the spring. Ideally, I want to get off all of my meds, but we'll see what the hospital says. Hospitals tend to (over-)medicate you, but at the same time, there's no denying I've gotten in trouble during those times I've stopped taking meds. But why the trouble?
I may have mentioned this before, but the deeper issue is this: the reason I'm on meds at all is that I lack the self-control to moderate my diet. If I had that self-control, none of this would be necessary. Diabetes expert Dr. Jason Fung confirms that, if you're on meds, you're never getting rid of your problem (see here—specifically, here). The recent fasting, though, shows me that I may finally have arrived at a solution. And I just checked the macros on heavy cream: a 500-ml carton is around 1800 calories, so my smoothie is easily enough to supply me with nutrition for the whole day. I'm still feeling a bit weak, though, probably because my body craves something more solid than smoothies. But again, a 72 blood-sugar reading demonstrates pretty conclusively that the current path I'm on is the path to diabetes reversal. Does Korean medicine accept that diabetes can be reversed? More and more Western doctors have been persuaded (see the above links).
Sure, even after reversal, a person can still backslide, but if you're set on the proper path and cheating only infrequently, you ought to be okay.
UPDATE: calmez-vous. I found the mobile app with the QR code, so we're good.
new contacts: acquired
I went back to Mido today and got my un-ripped contact lens. The old man wasn't there; in his place was a young lady whom I initially mistook for a customer. Both new lenses are in my eyes now; they may need a couple hours to break in, but otherwise, they feel fine, and the prescription is just what I'd asked for. I've been at -4.5 in both eyes for years, and even if my eyes have been worsening all this time, there no noticeable difference in my vision, subjectively speaking, so in what sense could they be worsening?
Well, they say you get farsighted as you age, so there's a brief moment when, if you're myopic, your vision goes from nearsighted to 20/20 before it slides over into presbyopia (as we Presbyterians know, presbuteros/πρεσβύτερος is the Greek for [church] elder; presbys is "old" or "aged," so presbyopia is "old eye").
In any event, I am now be-lensed.
fasting and weakness
I guess today is Day 5 or 6 of my "fast." Fasting blood sugar after waking was 72—another new record. But 72 is getting mighty low, so tomorrow, after I'm done at the hospital, I'm probably going to chow down on some Subway sandwiches, which are carby thanks to the bread but otherwise fairly keto in terms of their fillings. I haven't been to my local Subway in months, but I'd gotten into the habit of telling the teenaged food-prep staff to hold not only the onions but also the lettuce, which they pile on insanely. All the other vegetables are fine. A Subway sandwich is basically a bland, Western salad in bread.
And given that fact—that Subway subs are basically salads—once I start baking keto baguettes from a new recipe I found online, I'm going to order Subway salads from now on (sandwich ingredients but no bread), then put them into my keto baguettes myself with my avocado mayo. That kind of sandwich can be eaten almost with impunity. Just watch the calorie count. And, yes—I can just buy my own sub ingredients instead of going to Subway, but I'd have to buy only a bit at a time because of the freshness/spoilage problem, which is why going to Subway (which I do infrequently, anyway) is the better option.
One more day of "fasting" to go. Smoothie, almond butter, chili crisp, then nada. I'm surprised that I'm not tired of these things yet, nor am I tired of Diet Cherry Coke. But I am, finally, starting to feel a bit weak from the lack of eating. Saturday's get-together with Charles and Tom (pizza! salad! cake! cookies!) will come as a relief.
Michael Jai White on striking with power
White is basically describing the theory behind a taekwondo punch.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
one annoyance
When my renewed passport comes, I will have a new passport number. This unfortunately means I have to acquire a new PCC (customs-clearance) code, which is relevant to, for example, anything I purchase internationally from Coupang, iHerb, or Amazon.
Balls. I hate extra paperwork.
in case you didn't hear
The South Korean president, Yoon (or Yun) Suk-yeol, has been arrested.
South Korean President Arrested Over Martial Law Declaration
President Yoon said he regards the investigation as illegal, and that he allowed himself to be arrested to avoid a violent incident.
President Yoon said he regards the investigation as illegal, and that he allowed himself to be arrested to avoid a violent incident.
South Korean investigators on Wednesday arrested President Yoon Suk Yeol—who is currently suspended from office—over his short-lived martial law declaration last month.
Local media reported that a convoy of vehicles was seen departing the presidential residence, which is believed to be transporting Yoon to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) headquarters for questioning.
Authorities said that about 3,000 police officers were deployed to support the execution of the warrant and to secure Yoon’s compound, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The CIO said the process went smoothly and “no physical clashes” occurred when investigators executed the warrant to detain Yoon, unlike the previous attempt when Yoon’s security team barricaded the presidential residence to prevent investigators and police officers from entering.
“Unlike during the first attempt, there were no personnel or Presidential Security Service staff actively resisting the execution,” a CIO official told Yonhap.
The arrest was made after the CIO secured a second arrest warrant for Yoon last week. The CIO now has up to 48 hours to hold Yoon, who is facing charges of leading an insurrection.
In a statement posted on Facebook following his detention, Yoon defended his martial law declaration and reiterated that it was intended to protect the country’s “liberal democracy and constitutional order.”
“Martial law is not a crime. Martial law is an exercise of presidential authority to overcome a national crisis,” Yoon stated in a lengthy post accompanied by a photo of his handwritten letter addressed to the public.
In a pre-recorded video message on Wednesday, Yoon spoke about why he had opted to appear before the CIO.
“To prevent an unfortunate and violent incident, I decided to appear before the CIO even though I believe the investigation is illegal,” he was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
Yoon, who was previously South Korea’s chief prosecutor, has been suspended from official duties since the opposition-led National Assembly voted to impeach him on Dec. 14.
Yoon’s lawyers have previously filed complaints with public prosecutors against the CIO, claiming the execution of the warrant was illegitimate.
They also filed complaints against the country’s acting national police chief, the acting defense minister, and two Seoul police officials for allegedly ignoring the PSS’s request to provide additional forces to block Yoon’s detention attempt.
It's behind a paywall, bit if you're subscribed to the Epoch Times, read the rest.
passort renewal: almost done with my part
I've filled out the DS-82 form; I have passport photos (I need submit only one); I've now paid the $130 passport-renewal-processing fee, and I've printed out my payment receipt, which must be included in my package, along with my passport itself. Next step: in Korea, the only way to submit a package is via the Ilyang Logis courier, so I guess I need to arrange that. Luckily, the State Department offers a link to the Ilyang site.
And once my passport is away, it's all in God's tentacles.
(Why does He have to have hands?)
UPDATE: I tried reserving Ilyang Logis online, and per Murphy's Law, of course there was an error. I tried again with my VPN off, and there was still an error. So I'll call the place tomorrow during business hours, and a courier will come by to take my package on Monday, which is the day I want it done. That'll give me time to find or buy a proper envelope.
UPDATE 2: scratch that. I tried online again, and it worked. A courier will come by on the 20th. The gods are with me for once.
compare!
I got my professionally done passport photos today. But first, let's review some previous photos. First is my current passport's photo from 2015:
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| This passport expires in October of this year. |
Next up is the photo I recently and unprofessionally took in a subway photo booth (photo window was low, so I'm leaning forward). Compared to today's photo (see next image), this makes me look like a criminal:
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| thug |
And lastly, here's a scan of today's professionally done photo, taken at the lobby-level photo studio in my building, which is run by a chirpy, giggly girl who spoke mostly in Korean to me except for one bizarre moment when she switched totally over to English (which she spoke slowly but well), then started in Korean again:
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| when a pro does the work |
When I scanned the photo, it was slightly angled, so I auto-rotated it in Photoshop and trimmed the edges a bit, but it's still almost the 51 mm × 51 mm (2" × 2") required by the US Department of State (not that scale matters once you factor in dpi and display size).
My scanner's screen had some schmutz on it, around my nose and on my shirt, so I had to use the Photoshop "bandage" tool to "heal" the photo (i.e., erase a foreign object by interpolating and averaging out colors from all sides) and erase the dandruff-looking nastiness. I think the pic cleaned up okay. I at least seem to have lost weight since 2015. But there's no hiding the old, baggy eyes. The eye bags are going to occupy half my face by the time I'm 70 (if I live that long). Life's been rough, even for those of us who keep to ourselves, live quietly, and try to mind our own business (except maybe in terms of what we blog about).
trashing academe and academics
I'm largely in this camp, and if you've followed my writing over the years, you've seen posts of mine that more or less make this same point: most social ills today emanate from the tainted, twisted tree of academe, mainly thanks to postmodernism, which stands at the root of the problem. But the way Michael Malice makes his point about academe in an interview with John Stossel is nothing short of brutal. I've cued up the relevant clip below; if you want to watch the full video from the beginning, click here. (Credit: John from Daejeon, who just sent this to me.)
Personally, I'm convinced there are still some good eggs on campuses, but not enough to convince me to join their ranks.
maybe plants are trying to kill you
Does the carnivore diet work? This video is a big yes, but at the expense of vegetarianism.
while the weather is still cold
I'm feeling the urge to do a crazy walk, i.e., the 60K walk I do once yearly, from my place, past Hanam City, and all the way to Yangpyeong. I should get some practice walks under my belt, then do this before the rains return. Speaking of precipitation, they're forecasting snow for tomorrow morning, but the daytime temps are going to be almost warm, with a high of 5ºC (or 41ºF, which is just jacket weather for me).
The crazy walk is normally a trek I do in either January or February, when the cold makes such a long distance bearable for me. January and early February are "dead of winter" times, but late February to the first half of March is preparation for spring. Can't wait too long.
If I have nothing else to do this spring, maybe I should take a long walk, especially if I'm rethinking my plans to go abroad to visit friends and family this year.* Or I could leave the walk to fall as per usual. Spring is beautiful, but it does get hot as we move into summer, which is why fall is normally preferable to me.
__________
*I might still hit the States to renew my driver's license, but Charles had an interesting suggestion about that that I might want to look into.
blood sugar stabilizing
Blood sugar—daily fasting glucose—in January:
January 1 started a bit high, kind of reflecting where I was in November and December. I guess those last few days of not-quite-fasting are paying off, although I see that January 6 is also a bit of a dip.* By "not-quite-fasting," I mean: smoothie in the morning or early afternoon (I recently moved back to SlimFast), then nothing the rest of the day except for random spoonfuls of almond butter and chili crunch/crisp/whatever. Oh, and diet drinks, usually Diet Cherry Coke. I make my smoothies with heavy cream and low-fat milk, the combination of which is basically half-and-half. The little hits of almond butter throughout the day also break whatever fast I might be attempting, so there's no ketosis, no autophagy going on. But aside from the smoothies' massive calorie hit in the morning, I'm not taking in more than 100-150 calories per hit of almond butter and/or chili crisp, and little more than 1000 calories per day. I also think the spiciness of the chili crisp (which isn't really that spicy) temporarily drives up my metabolism, which also lowers my blood sugar. Walking at night also helps even though I skipped Monday night. I did walk last night, though (9K again), and I'll be walking tonight and tomorrow night as well before hitting the hospital on Friday morning. Exercise definitely helps to lower blood sugar. I'd normally do a much longer walk over the weekend, but this is move-out weekend at the office, so I'll save the big stuff for next week.
No feelings of hypoglycemia (which I've felt before), and a blood-sugar reading of 79, which I got this morning, might be my lowest ever. Of course, your glucose reading fluctuates throughout the day, e.g., right after a smoothie, so take all of the above numbers with a grain of salt. They're readings from right after I get up every day. I really need to strap on my continuous glucose monitor and set up the app on my phone to get a better idea of how my day really goes. SlimFast has sugar in it, so I can imagine a temporary spike up to 150 that goes down over the next few hours, bottoming out by next morning.
I need to stock up on more almond butter, come to think of it.
ADDENDUM: I hit "send" for this post and forgot to talk about the thing I really wanted to talk about: another possible reason for the radical dip in blood-sugar numbers over the past week could be the timing of my major hit of "food." While what I'm doing isn't true OMAD (one meal a day), it's close, and by taking in my nutrition in the late morning or early afternoon, I'm allowing my body to more or less rest for the remaining day, until the following meal the next morning/early afternoon. So I'm thinking that the hardcore Buddhist monks who follow the Indian Vinaya practice of not eating after noon may be on to something. Korean monks don't necessarily follow this practice; at least, not all of them do. When I was at Haein-sa in 2000, I ate afternoon meals with other monks in their refectory. I'm left to wonder whether I should just adopt that discipline and stick to low-cal meals like salads (except for a monthly cheat). After my hospital visit (which I expect not to go too well since my blood sugar was elevated for a lot of the past four months), I'll try a 30-day experiment of eating before noon. As for whether I'll continue the chili-crisp/almond-butter thing later in the day... we'll see. I doubt I have the willpower to quit. Going 18 hours without food, every single day, is hard (but it might be necessary for autophagy). If, however, I can swap out SlimFast for salads or something keto-ish, that would be a welcome change.
__________
*For normies, any reading under 100 is great; 80-ish is ideal; below that starts to get dangerous. Over 120 is also no bueno, but for diabetics, 150-ish is cause for meek celebration, so for a diabetic to be around 80-ish is great, if temporary, news.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
passport-renewal rigamarole
Things to send in to the Seoul-based US Embassy to renew a passport:
• current passport
• acceptable passport photo
• a filled-out DS-82 form
• $130 payment (yikes), paid via card or money order
• acceptable passport photo
• a filled-out DS-82 form
• $130 payment (yikes), paid via card or money order
I have my current passport, and while I thought I'd gotten passable passport photos from one of those little photo booths you find in subway stations, this site says the Korean standards are different from the US standards. Specifically, US-passport photos have to be square, 2" × 2" or 51 mm × 51 mm, not rectangular as with the Korean standard. Luckily, there's a photo studio in my building, so I'll pop down there tomorrow and have a proper US-standard photo (more likely photos) taken.
In other news: still no word about whether our team can work another six months. I guess we're waiting for the CEO to, uh, get better. I dropped off some bubble wrap at the office, took care of bank and contact-lens stuff, and I'll be lugging over my cardboard boxes on Saturday morning (I have a get-together Saturday evening, so I need to be back at my place for final food prep). Sunday will be devoted to carting my boxes back to my place, with help from the boss and his SUV. One way or another, we're outta that office.
phone "repair"
I took my phone to the local Samsung place to get it repaired. The damage was mostly to the plastic slip cover that's stuck to the surface of the screen, but there's just a teeny, tiny bit of damage to the screen itself, causing a minuscule point of discoloration. The repairman said he would just change the slip cover (for a cool W14,000, which I guess includes labor), and that the screen itself was still functional. So on the good side, I've avoided the over $100 charge to have the screen replaced (this happened once before, when I fell during a walk and injured myself), but on the bad side, the tiny discoloration might prove annoying, so I might have to go back and see about getting the screen replaced. Of course, I see teens and twentysomethings with cracked screens all the time, so maybe there's a societal expectation that I shouldn't be bothered by the tiny amount of damage. Anyway, the phone's screen looks cleaner, at least. I suppose it's been "repaired."
the new contact lens came to me damaged
I didn't bother to try my new contact lenses (the ones I picked up yesterday) until today, and I immediately saw my right lens was ripped. I'll be asking for a free exchange, and I'll definitely never be using that old man ever again for lenses. Or for anything else.
UPDATE: the guy says he'll text me when the new lens comes in. He didn't even look at the lens damage. I'll give him points for his trust.
Monday, January 13, 2025
Bannon vs. Musk
“I Made It My Personal Thing To Take This Guy Down”: Bannon Vows To Keep Musk out of White House
Steve Bannon has warned that he will do everything in his power to keep Elon Musk out of the White House, as the fallout from the H-1B debate over Christmas continues to spread.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon said, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“He will not have a blue pass to the White House[;] he will not have full access to the White House[;] he will be like any other person.”
“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon continued. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”
The newspaper notes that the “center of the clash” between Bannon and Musk is the issue of H-1B visas, but also Musk’s role in the incoming Trump administration.
“The problem is that the techno-feudal lords use them [H-1B visas] to their advantage[,] and people are furious,” Bannon says.
“76% of engineers in Silicon Valley are not Americans. It’s a central part of taking back our economy. They are the best jobs, and blacks and Hispanics do not have access to them.”
Bannon said that he had been a supporter of Musk when he made a donation of $250 million to support Trump’s election campaign, but the H-1B debate had made him realise Musk cannot be allowed to pursue his vision of “techno-feudalism.”
Well, well, well.
I'm not a fan of Steve Bannon, and while I'm firmly a Musk skeptic, I don't have nearly this much animosity against him.
the Q-tip
Trivia: a cotton swab or pad is called la ouate in French (pronounced "waht"). So a Q-tip is called a un bâton/bâtonnet ouaté, i.e., a "cottoned stick/sticklet."
trustworthiness
Remembering those bygone days when you could turn to Twitter for fast and trustworthy information on a rapidly developing story like:
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) January 11, 2025
- The reseviors were all full
- Hunter's laptop
- Covington Catholic
- White supremacist at Youngkin rally
- Border Control whips
- Jussie… https://t.co/t3zsVB6cwf
Pardon the goofy typos.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
job-status update
Tomorrow is Monday. I have to visit the building where I work/worked tomorrow to pick up a new set of contact lenses (and that'll be the last time I visit a glasses/contacts shop run by a "sus" old man). I also promised my Korean coworker that I'd stop by our office to visit him. With his contract that lasts until June, he'll be working by himself since my boss and I both no longer have a reason to come in to the office (but more on that in a bit).
The boss called me a bit after noon today to say that he didn't get to talk with the CEO, but he did talk with one of the CEO's underlings from HR. The CEO, said the underling, was indisposed with the flu (convenient), so whatever the boss had to say could be said to the underling. The boss replied that he wanted to speak with the CEO directly, but he did end up saying a thing or two to the underling, anyway.
Upshot: according to the underling, even if we get a new contract for six months, we can no longer work in our office in Daechi-dong. The boss said fine, and that we could work from home (I wince as I imagine all the phone calling* going back and forth). Six months of that, then done. So this week, it's likely I'll be going to the office to box my shit up, then on the weekend (because the boss, who has his pride, doesn't want to be seen moving out), we'll use the boss's newly repaired SUV to transport everything to our respective residences.
Of course, we still don't know whether we'll secure a six-month contract. I imagine the boss will meet with the CEO... soon. I'd like to say this week, but who knows with that man? He's a flake who makes decisions only at the last second, and he ignores communications that are sent to him. Whatever. This will all soon be over.
__________
*Or Zooming.
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