Cullen on Kultur

These are now a bit old but still good:

I kind of like these

AI might not be good for much yet, but it's not bad when it comes to the ridiculously surreal.

ululate!

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, who gained fame as an early civil-rights leader alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, has passed away at the age of 84 after "a long illness," which may mean complications from PSP, or progressive supranuclear palsy. Jackson's legacy as a firebrand is intact, but his legacy as a man of integrity is debatable given his deep involvement in politics and his race hustling (which Dr. King would not have approved of). I imagine there are many who will say, over the coming days, that Jackson impacted their lives. For me, the man became little more than an unpleasant footnote, a mere shadow of leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X. "You either die a hero [or live long enough] to see yourself become the villain."

That said, RIP.

cookies, distributed

The cookies have been distributed. Some joy has been shared. I doled out two types of cookies to the people I saw: at the downstairs grocery, there were two people, so I gave those cookies out immediately. I asked one lady at the grocery how many staffers there were in total, and she said there were about fifteen. I grimaced and told her I could afford to hand out ten pairs of cookies (one ketoish, one standard American Toll House), so in theory, if some staffers get only one cookie, then fifteen people can receive cookies. I hope those people are happy with whichever cookie they end up with, be it almond flour or Toll House.

almond cookies, stored for the night before placement into plastic sleeves

This morning, I ended up having to bake another batch of Toll House cookies (remember the previous batch?): like an idiot, I had forgotten to add the damn butter last night. The wages of senility. I had warmed/melted the butter in the microwave, then I had combined all the other ingredients to make the cookie dough, and I had somehow forgotten to take the butter out of the microwave to add in. The lack of butter affected the cookies' texture and taste: the cookies, once baked, tasted familiar yet bland, and I recall thinking that the cookie dough, when I'd put it together, looked too sturdy—too much like the almond-flour dough that I've made over and over lately. Later last night, while I was stewing about the cookies' strange taste and texture, something prompted me to open the microwave, and voilà—there in the 'wave was the goddamn butter that I'd forgotten. Fuck. My mind raced through alternative scenarios, and I almost settled on blitzing the baked, butterless cookies up, then adding those crumbs and chunks into a second batch of cookies. The result would have been way more cookies: a superbatch. But in the end, I simply made a second batch of cookies and was extra careful, this time, to include the butter. And this time around, with the butter in place and nothing else forgotten, I had enough dough to make thirty regular Toll House cookies. Softened butter makes all the difference in the dough's texture, and as you see below, I must've been generous with how much butter I'd used: the cookies obviously spread a lot during baking, which was fine by me. My perfect cookie is flat, crunchy around the outside, and soft/gooey at the center. I have no regrets about the recipe or the baking method.

Enough dough, I wrote above. Ah, the perils of pronouncing -ough. 

Farmer Brown's plough churned through the field while he coughed and hawked out a massive loogie. His breath soughed in and out, and his thoughts drifted to last year's drought, which had crimped his budget, meaning he hadn't had the dough to pay all of his bills. This year was going to be rough, too.

my buttery Toll House cookies, not ensleeved yet

The new batch looked distinctly different from the butterless batch (which I still have but will never give out to anyone else). And depending on how many cookies were in any given tray, the cookies came out either a bit lighter or a bit darker in color. Personally, I loved the taste and texture after the cookies had had a chance to cool down a bit.

almond cookies, ensleeved and labeled "almond"

sleeves for the regular Toll House cookies, label "regular" (ilban)

The two ladies at the grocery store seemed happy, and after I had dumped ten pairs of cookies onto the skeleton crew, I went up to the lobby and gave the security guard/concierge enough cookies for him and his staff of four people. More smiles. The concierge was there when I had come by with cake at Christmas.

It'll be a long wait until Chuseok, when I might spread some more culinary happiness again, but there's a good chance I'll have moved by then, assuming I go back to regular work.

blame the fans

something to look forward to

🚨: The most important sky events of this decade is occurring on February 28th. 🌌 ✨

Six planets will align and put on a show of our lifetime. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible to the naked eye from almost anywhere.

Uranus and Neptune will be visible to naked… pic.twitter.com/oBhcwUu8aT

— All day Astronomy (@forallcurious) February 16, 2026

The 28th is a Saturday. Nice.

polite ragebaiting

Beware the thumbnail.

ululate!

Robert Duvall is dead at 95. What an appropriate number since I've missed 95% of Duvall's movies. Here are some that I can list randomly off the top of my head—movies in which he figured as a main character or as an interesting side character:

Let's Get Harry

Apocalypse Now

The Judge

Jack Reacher

The Natural

Sling Blade

The Godfather

The Godfather, Part II

THX-1138 (incredible film)

The Apostle (another incredible film)

I have Secondhand Lions in my queue; I might watch it today in tribute. I also need to see The Great Santini, a movie that was more for my father's generation.

Duvall was a font of acting talent, and he died the way I'd prefer to die: at home, not in a hospital. All of my childhood mainstays are dying off now.

RIP.

Happy Year of the Fire Horse (丙午)!

I would've guessed 火馬 (hwa ma, 화마, fire + horse) as the characters, but it's 丙午 (byeong oh, 병오), a label that's more about the sexagenary cycle.

So it's the year of the Horse (once every 12 years), but more specifically, it's the year of the Fire Horse (once every 60 years). The AI god says this:

The Fire Horse (丙午, Bǐngwǔ) in the Chinese zodiac represents a rare, potent, and 60-year cycle, with the next occurrence running from February 17, 2026, to February 5, 2027. It symbolizes immense energy, independence, passion, and ambition, combining the horse's natural speed with the element of fire.

Key Aspects of the Fire Horse:

Chinese Name: 丙午 (Bǐngwǔ), representing Yang Fire (Bǐng) and the Horse (Wǔ).

Significance: Known for bringing significant change, dramatic transformations, and intense, fast-paced energy.

Cultural View: While viewed as a time for great achievement, it is sometimes considered too intense or volatile in traditional East Asian cultures.

Traits: People born in this year are believed to be independent, charismatic, and adventurous, but potentially impulsive or rebellious.

The 2026 Year of the Fire Horse is regarded as a time to break old patterns and act with confidence.

My dad was born in 1942, which most people would say is the year of the Horse, but Dad was actually born on January 17, which puts him at the end of the previous lunar year—the year of the Metal Snake.

I said "year of the Fire Horse!"

I think this year is going to see some radical changes for me.

If you're not tracking the lunar new year, then Happy Shrove Tuesday (go to confession!) or Happy Mardi Gras! May your Lent be an arduous one.

Iron Chef Dad adventures

Read about Susur Lee here.

"The Fall Guy": review

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt as Colt and Jody

What the hell did I just watch? The online criticism of David Leitch's 2024 "The Fall Guy" was mixed but more positive than negative, so I went in with high hopes but soon realized I should have braced for impact. There may have been an "enthusiasm gap," though, because despite positive reviews from many major critics, the film didn't attract much business from regular audiences and ended up losing around $50 million. "The Fall Guy" is an action-comedy based on the old, 80s-era TV series that had starred Lee Majors. The new movie stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, and Stephanie Hsu (from "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once").

The story focuses on stuntman Colt Seavers (Gosling), who is dating Jody (Blunt), a camerawoman who aspires to be a director. For years, Colt has been the stunt double for pampered-asshole movie star Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson, who gets to do two American accents), and he breaks his back when one stunt goes severely wrong. Feeling like a failure, Colt leaves the business and disappears from Jody's life. Eighteen months pass, and annoying film producer Gail (Waddingham) calls Colt and claims Jody is now directing a movie—her dream project—in which Tom is starring, and she needs a stuntman. Tempted, Colt goes to Australia, where the movie—a science-fiction action picture called "Metalstorm"—is being filmed. It turns out that Gail has manipulated Colt into coming to Oz, not because the crew needs a stuntman, but because she and Tom need a fall guy to take the blame for a fellow stuntman's death (Tom had accidentally killed him during a drunken party). Once Colt realizes the situation he's in, he'll need the help of people like his close friend, stunt coordinator Dan Tucker, to figure out what's really going on.

The main problem with "The Fall Guy," which was billed as a love letter to the stunt community, is that it can't decide which major plot line is the A story. Is it Colt's attempt to mend fences with Jody, who is still furious about Colt's sudden disappearance eighteen months previously? Or is it solving the mystery of who really killed the fellow stunt guy and taking down the guilty parties? I suppose an optimistic interpretation of how the film proceeds is that it takes a "balanced" approach to both plots. I, however, say the movie means well and has some funny moments, but it's a confused, indecisive muddle. The John Wick tetralogy of films, despite its flaws, is a far superior tribute to stuntpeople, and director Leitch (who also directed "Deadpool 2") should have demanded a clearer, more coherent story from writer Drew Pearce. Along with being a mess, the film misses a lot of opportunities to be funnier, smarter, and more heartfelt.

Does "The Fall Guy" do anything right? I think it gets the tone and feel of the original series more or less down pat: in the movie, as with the TV show, it's often hard to tell whether we're supposed to be looking at self-aware stunt work or just plain old action. The film could've leaned a lot harder into the What is real? aspect of the original show. Also, the easy chemistry between Gosling and Blunt keeps their scenes from turning into bland mush, and the friendship between Colt and Dan—who is always challenging Colt to remember certain movie references—is a nice touch. Hannah Waddingham is also easy to hate as the movie's ultimate baddie. But none of this is enough to pull the movie out of the mire.

So in the end, I can't really recommend "The Fall Guy." It's not the worst thing you can watch, and it does feature an uncredited appearance by Jason Momoa, as well as mid-credits cameos by original-show stars Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, both of whom are looking over-surgeried, as is apparently the fate of most American actors who get sucked into the malign Hollywood vortex. I guess we can't all be natty (bodybuilding slang for "natural") like Emma Thompson or Ian McKellen. At the same time, "The Fall Guy" might be fine if you're bored and have a yen for a throwback attempt at the "zany" comedies of yesteryear. I just wasn't in the mood for zany. Haven't been for decades.

succeed! (he said to himself)

another "Avatar" not seen

"Fire in Ass":

effects, effex, FX, VFX

today's bake

I'll be making a batch of my ketoish chocolate-chip cookies later today (gotta buy more butter), then bagging them up for distribution alongside those regular cookies tomorrow. Today is the start of the lunar new-year holiday, but the actual lunar new year's day is tomorrow. Normally, if I had a job, today would be the start of a brief vacation, but as things are, it's just another work day for me. Tomorrow and Wednesday likely will be, too. The irony is to be working this hard for basically no money.

On Wednesday, I'll be making two more batches of ketoish cookies to take to my #3 Ajumma's place. One batch will be chocolate chip; the other batch will be my attempt at oatmeal-raisin. Raisins and oatmeal are both carby, too: raisins are about 80% carbs by weight; oatmeal is about 60-70% carbs (50-60% net carbs thanks to fiber). I hope that that batch of cookies at least tastes tolerable. If it doesn't, I won't take any of them to Ajumma—just the chocolate-chip ones. What are you doing for the lunar new year?

Oh, Henry!

sorry for the bad timing

Putting up a gun video right after a Charlie Kirk video is in poor taste. Sorry. I'm just going in the order of how I'd saved everything to my playlist. I hope that's not too Eichmannesque of an excuse (reference if you don't know who Adolf Eichmann was).

the Kiffness on Charlie Kirk

Compassionate or rabidly political?

cookies

These are normal cookies: wheat flour, real sugar, the works. The ones with the weird corners had spread out into the corners of the small baking trays I use in my small oven. I can slap on about eight cookies per large tray. In my small, square trays, I can barely fit five dollops of dough, and as the cookies bake, they all start to spread into each other.

The recipe claimed it would make four dozen; I made exactly two dozen.

On Lunar New Year's (Tuesday, but the holiday starts tomorrow/Monday), I'll go around to different places in my building, doling out packages of cookies in pairs: one regular cookie and one ketoish, almond-flour cookie (real chocolate chips, but almond flour instead of wheat flour and Truvia instead of regular sugar). The almond-flour cookies will be soft; the regular cookies will be a mix of textures largely because of the omnipresence of chocolate chips.

I bought little, plastic sleeves/envelopes in which to wrap individual cookies; I hope that gives my gifts a sort of bakery-like feel. Koreans are often weirded out by sudden gifts or gestures from strangers, but the places I'll be visiting on Tuesday are staffed by people who all know me. If all goes well, I'll give you all an update.

paintball collisions—the Amurrican version

Remember when I'd slapped up the British Slow Mo Guys video about colliding paintballs? Here come the Yanks with their own trick-shot twist.

8:5, 5:3

Roughly speaking, it's about 8 km for every 5 miles, or 5 km for every 3 miles.

So if someone says he walked 25 miles, you can use the 8:5 ratio—

25 = 5 × 5, so 8 × 5 = 40 km.

If I walk from Yangpyeong Station to Yeoju's intercity bus terminal, that's 33 km.

5 km × 6 = 30 km, so 

3 mi. × 6 = 18 mi.

If I add another 3 km to the above, how many miles am I adding? Well, from the 8:5 ratio above, I can see that 4 km = 2.5 miles, so 3 km is a little less than that. Let's round the figure and say it's about 2 miles. Therefore:

18 + 2 = 20

So 33 km is about 20 miles.

Google says 33 km is 20.5052 miles. I'm off by a half mile (or about a kilometer).

If we use the 5:3 ratio, we get very similar numbers.

5 km = 3 miles

10 km = 6 miles

20 km = 12 miles

30 km = 18 miles

Converting from round-numbered kilometers is easy.

And with the 8:5 ratio, converting from round-numbered miles is easier:

5 mi. = 8 km

10 mi. = 16 km

15 mi. = 24 km

20 mi = 32 km (as we see above, it's closer to 33 km)

Here's why 8:5 and 5:3 are so similar. If I divide 8 by 5, I get exactly 1.6. If I divide 5 by 3, I get 1.667—almost 1.7. These ratios work for very rough calculations, but if your cell phone's calculator has unit conversion, as mine does, just use that for more exact numbers. Failing that, if you have access to Google, just type in "km to mi" or "mi to km" to convert distances. (You can also do this for temperatures: Google "f to c" or "c to f," for example. Google will even convert between units that are not easily convertible, e.g., about how many grams are in 2.25 cups of all-purpose flour? That's taking a volume measurement and coming out with a weight measurement. I Googled "2.25 cups all-purpose flour in g" for the answer.)

Am I preaching to the converted?

and how are your huevos today?

It's the day after Valentine's Day! And how are your huevos doing?

En USA, un tipo le puso picos eléctricos al asiento de sj bicicleta y grabo como los fisuras que querían robarla se electrocutaban los huevos pic.twitter.com/SfXSDiDCdJ

— ElBuni (@therealbuni) February 13, 2026

unasked-for "Dr. Who"

comment seen on YouTube

This will have to appear on Substack as part of my Bad Online English series.

There's stories about William Wallace charging into battle constantly swinging his sword over his head which was nearly 6 feet long.

So Wallace's head was six feet "long"?

Freeeeeedoooooooommmmm!!!!

as I've said...

I've repeatedly said that AI doesn't have to be conscious or intelligent to be dangerous.

From here:

The artificial intelligence model Claude, developed by Anthropic, played an active role in the military operation that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro last month, according to multiple reports citing people familiar with the matter. The revelation marks the first confirmed use of a commercial AI model in a classified Pentagon combat operation and has ignited a behind-the-scenes battle over how far Silicon Valley’s AI safety guardrails should extend into America’s most sensitive military missions.

Rule 34 of the Internet says that, if something exists, there is porn of it. We should develop a Rule 666 based off the David Marcus quote from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," in which Dr. Marcus says, "Scientists have always been pawns of the military."

Rule 666: New technology will be militarized.

Why science fiction matters: because it's a peek into, and a discussion of, the future.

retro Babish (ft. Olivia!)

bad puns even from famous writers

Seen on Instapundit:

the Robo-Rober goes up against Ronaldo

for my Tolkien nerds

that 70s show

thirty in

I'm thirty chapters in with my movie-review book. I just spent hours restocking scheduled posts for the blog; I'm going to work on some more chapters this evening, then spend Sunday tinkering with the code for my Do You Deserve to Vote? app and baking some celebratory new-year's cookies for certain people in my building (as I'd done with chocolate cake this past Christmas). This coming week, Monday through Wednesday, I'll be spending the lunar new-year holiday working on the movie-review book. On Thursday, I'll take a batch of keto chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin cookies to my #3 Ajumma for an after-holiday visit (I don't want to show up when the whole family's there, hence Thursday). Ajumma will get cookies as well as a copy of my homeschooling book. On Friday, I'll have to shelve all of my current efforts and get back to generating content for Substack to last through the end of April. Once that's done, I'll get back to the movie-review book—the first of what I see to be three volumes: 2004-2015, then 2016-2018, then 2019-2025 (that last one might have to be broken up into two or three volumes: my reviews have gotten progressively longer, on average, over the years, and I don't want any single volume to be more than 300-350 pages long).

Having found yet more formatting problems yesterday, I uploaded version 3.0 of the homeschooling-book's manuscript (sorry, Neil, but the second book I sent you from Amazon has defects you'll see pretty quickly). This third version seems to have all of the remaining difficulties ironed out of it... but you never know. The work goes on.

dour Matt versus restaurant decline

pop that tart (that came out wrong)

get down Trek-style

let's start off Valentine's Day with some combat!

I love you thiiiis much!

As with most of these compilations, the situation shown in the above thumbnail isn't in the video. If you want trustworthy thumbnails, watch Ozzyman videos.

when you gotta go, you gotta go

Ephesians 6:11-18

AI and consciousness

Dr. V tackles the question of AI and consciousness, primarily through a Platonic-Kantian-Husserlian lens. He emphasizes the unity of consciousness—a unitary substrate that holds all past sensory phenomena together such that we are able to perceive things like melodies (which are not merely series of successive notes, chords, etc., but those things in their entirety), and he doesn't see how AI, at least in its current form, possesses that unity.

Suppose my mental state passes from one that is pleasurable to one that is painful. Observing a beautiful Arizona sunset, my reverie is suddenly broken by the piercing noise of a smoke detector. Not only is the painful state painful, the transition from the pleasurable state to the painful one is itself painful. The fact that the transition is painful shows that it is directly perceived. It is not as if there is merely a succession of consciousnesses (conscious states), one pleasurable the other painful; there is in addition a consciousness of their succession. A succession of consciousnesses need not amount to a consciousness of succession.

In the example given, there is a consciousness of succession. For there is a consciousness of the transition from the pleasant state to the painful state, a consciousness that embraces both of the states, and so cannot be reductively analyzed into them. A consciousness of their succession is a consciousness of their succession in one subject, in one unity of consciousness. It is a consciousness of the numerical identity of the self through the transition from the pleasurable state to the painful one. Passing from a pleasurable state to a painful one, there is not only an awareness of a pleasant state followed by an awareness of a painful one, but also an awareness that the one who was in a pleasurable state is strictly and numerically the same as the one who is now in a painful state. This sameness is phenomenologically given, although our access to this phenomenon is easily blocked by inappropriate models taken from the physical world. Without the consciousness of sameness, there would be no consciousness of transition.

[ ... ]

May we conclude from the phenomenology of the situation that there is a simple, immaterial, meta-physical substance that each one of us is and that is the ontological support of the phenomenologically given unity of consciousness? Maybe not! This is a further step that needs to be carefully considered. The further step takes us from the phenomenologically given unity of consciousness to an underlying immaterial soul substance which is the ‘seat’ of consciousness and the ultimate subject of consciousness. I don’t rule this move out, but I also don’t rule it in. I don’t need to take the further step for my present purpose, which is merely to show that a computing machine, no matter how complex or how fast its processing, cannot be conscious. This is because no material system can be conscious.

Another example is provided by the hearing of a melody. To hear the melody Do-Re-Mi, it does not suffice that there be a hearing of Do, followed by a hearing of Re, followed by a hearing of Mi. For those three acts of hearing could occur in that sequence in three distinct subjects, in which case they would not add up to the hearing of a melody. (Tom, Dick, and Harry can divide up the task of loading a truck, but not the ‘task’ of hearing a melody, or that of understanding a sentence.) But now suppose the acts of hearing occur in the same subject, but that this subject is not a unitary and self-same individual but just the bundle of these three acts, call them A1, A2, and A3. When A1 ceases, A2 begins, and when A2 ceases, A3 begins: they do not overlap. In which act is the hearing of the melody? A3 is the only likely candidate, but surely it cannot be a hearing of the melody.

This is because the awareness of a melody involves the awareness of the (musical not temporal) intervals between the notes, and to apprehend these intervals there must be a retention (to use Husserl’s term) in the present act A3 of the past acts A2 and A1. Without this phenomenological presence of the past acts in the present act, there would be no awareness in the present of the melody. This implies that the self cannot be a mere bundle of perceptions externally related to each other, but must be a peculiarly intimate unity of perceptions in which the present perception A3 includes the immediately past ones A2 and A1 as temporally past but also as phenomenologically present in the mode of retention. The fact that we hear melodies thus shows that there must be a self-same and unitary self through the period of time between the onset of the melody and its completion. This unitary self is neither identical to the sum or collection of A1, A2, and A3, nor is it identical to something wholly distinct from them. Nor of course is it identical to any one of them or any two of them. This unitary self is co-given whenever one hears a melody. (This seems to imply that all consciousness is at least implicitly self-consciousness. This is a topic for a later post.)

What I find interesting is how Dr. V makes his argument without ever once using the word memory. But has Dr. V inadvertently made an argument for how the tune-identifying app Shazam works? Most apps these days can handle chronologically sequential data, like musical notes (or medical data, or economic trends), and find patterns in that chronological sequence. Granted, Shazam isn't conscious of anything and therefore has no unity of consciousness, but it is nevertheless capable of identifying many tunes after only a few notes of music. 

A philosopher of mind named John Searle (1932-2025) once made an argument now known as "the Chinese room." Searle's point was to show how consciousness can be simulated without actually being there. In this scenario, you've got a Chinese-knowledgeable person who comes up to a closed room. He writes a question or statement on a piece of paper and slips it under the room's door. What he doesn't know is that, inside the room, there's a guy who doesn't know any Chinese, but who has a rulebook or program that shows the responses to the patterns of the Chinese characters slipped under the door. The guy inside the room finds the appropriate pattern for the response, then outputs that response. From the perspective of the guy outside the room, it seems that "the room" is conscious and has successfully communicated with him, but we observers know that "the room" (i.e., the guy in that room) has no knowledge of Chinese.

This thought experiment, Searle and Searlians contend, shows that consciousness can be simulated without actually being consciousness. But there are at least two responses to this: (1) What if the Chinese room proves too much? What if it proves that we ourselves aren't conscious at all but merely "zombies" that process reality in a way that we label "consciousness"?* And (2) Going in a completely different direction: Couldn't it be that the Chinese-room scenario is indirectly harboring consciousness in the form of the rulebook for Chinese? Some conscious minds had to create the rulebook, right? So consciousness was at least indirectly involved in the outside man's interaction with the inside man.

If we follow argument (1), well, that's the Shazam argument. You don't need consciousness or a unity of consciousness to process auditory data and find patterns. If Shazam can do that without being conscious, why should our ability to perceive melody be seen as proof of consciousness? If we follow argument (2), we see a reflection of the sticky situation we're in today, which mirrors the rebuttal to Searle's Chinese room: consciousness has already been smuggled into the scenario. People can say with assurance that "AI isn't conscious" (a statement I agree with), but in truth, it's people's consciousnesses that are helping to form AI. Consciousness factors into everything as we inevitably assume the godlike role of creating things (eventually, beings?) in our own image and likeness. We ourselves can do parkour-style standing backflips. We now have robots that can do the same, and they can recover from the flip with an inbuilt "sense" of balance. Robots can cook, clean, etc., and soon, they'll be able to do all of the physical labor that we can do, just better because the robots will be faster, stronger, and unable to experience fatigue, frustration, and anger. (The extent to which we can "program emotion" is an interesting question for a different discussion.)

So—is AI conscious? Not yet, and probably not for a long time. But we are using consciousness to build aspects of consciousness into the machines we're creating: balance, dexterity, pattern-recognition, reactions to changing environments—these are all features of consciousness. It won't be long, I fear, before the answer to the question Is it conscious? will no longer be a simple yes or no.

* * *

As an unrelated side note, did you see the grammar error here?

Passing from a pleasurable state to a painful one, there is not only an awareness of a pleasant state followed by an awareness of a painful one, but also an awareness that the one who was in a pleasurable state is strictly and numerically the same as the one who is now in a painful state.

__________

*The pro-consciousness response to this is that I have access to my own consciousness, which is proof enough to me that I am a conscious being. That may be sufficient for the philosophers who take first-person subjective insights to be evidential or probative, but if we're talking about scientific standards of proof, well, that sort of proof only holds weight in a third-person objective context. And unfortunately for you (and me), your consciousness is directly available only to you. So, what's been proved, objectively speaking?

don't walk like a victim

From what I gather, it comes down to looking alertly purposeful.

more lawn ASMR

Are you as satisfied as I am to watch this lawn get brought under control? To watch the, uh... bushes get trimmed?

tentative Geumgang Trail walk schedule

GEUMGANG WALK SCHEDULE

1. Day 0 (3/15): Train to 신탄진역 (대전), walk to motel.
2. Day 1 (3/16): Cab the next morning to 금강자전거길 기점 (대청댐 인근).
3. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to 세종보 인증센터, 37 km.
4. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to & stay at 커플링 모텔, 2.8 km.
5. Day 2 (3/17): Walk from 커플링 모텔 to 공주보 인증센터, 21 km.
6. Day 2 (3/17): Walk to & stay at 금강온천 모텔, 1.6 km.
7. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to 백제보 인증센터, 25 km.
8. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to 부여전통한옥 펜션, 2.5 km.
9. Day 4 (3/19): Walk to 익산성당포구 인증센터, 34 km.
10. Day 4 (3/19): Camp at the campground, open or not.
11. Day 5 (3/20): Walk to 금강하굿둑 인증센터, 24 km.
12. Day 5 (3/20): END. Take train from 군산역 to Seoul.

In more English:

GEUMGANG WALK SCHEDULE

1. Day 0 (3/15): Train to Shintanjin Station (Daejeon), walk to motel.
2. Day 1 (3/16): Cab next morning to Geumgang Path Start Point (near Daecheong Dam).
3. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to Sejong Dam Certification Center, 37 km.
4. Day 1 (3/16): Walk to & stay at Coupling Motel, 2.8 km. (sic)
5. Day 2 (3/17): Walk from Coupling Motel to Gongju Dam Cert Center, 21 km.
6. Day 2 (3/17): Walk to & stay at Geumgang Hot Springs Motel, 1.6 km.
7. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to Baekche Dam Certification Center, 25 km.
8. Day 3 (3/18): Walk to Buyeo Traditional Hanok Pension, 2.5 km.
9. Day 4 (3/19): Walk to Iksan Seongdanpogu Certification Center, 34 km.
10. Day 4 (3/19): Camp at the campground, open or not.
11. Day 5 (3/20): Walk to Geumgang Estuary Barrage Certification Center, 24 km.
12. Day 5 (3/20): END. Take train from Gunsan Station to Seoul.

There are still some details to iron out. This doesn't look to be a convenient trail for walkers: there are huge segments at the beginning and near the end, and I won't be doing any rest days. I'll be trusting that my feet can't be that torn up after only five days' walking.

I did end up designing a modest tee shirt. Click the tee image on my sidebar to go see it and maybe buy one. I've bought one of each design for myself: a front-and-back design and a front-only design (to wear while walking).

Adam does food

Gordon Ramsay vs. the world

I wasn't there for the moment when Gordon Ramsay utterly screwed the pooch by totally fucking up a simple grilled-cheese sandwich (I have, however, since seen the highlights). But this series of match-ups, pitting Gordon against a variety of experts, is pretty interesting.

another "uncleanable" one

the crunch is coming

With a possible walk on the schedule for March, and with the end of February on the horizon, it'll soon be time for me to start generating more Substack content. This time around, I need to make enough material to get me through April. I'll stop working on my movie-review book on February 20 and start working on Substack material. I think I have a system now: churn out the easy content first (Bad Online English, creative writing, crosswords and word finds), then do the longer content in smaller chunks. Once I get all of that done, I can go back to my book projects and drag out my video equipment to start making videos through most of April. Come the end of April, though, and the crunch will start all over again. This is samsara, the painful wheel of existence. I enjoy what I do, but it's a slog.

upping the reps (and other news)

I've been doing an abbreviated form of my workout since getting back from the walk last November. Despite my resistance-band workouts en route, I got weaker during the three weeks that I was out walking, and when I got back, I took a couple weeks off from doing anything, which was undoubtedly the wrong move, but it's the sort of move to expect from a naturally lazy person. So to simplify my life, I've been doing the exact same exercises I had printed out for myself before last year's walk, but I've been doing only a single set of each exercise. If the exercise involves reps, then I've been doing only ten reps. Today, though, I decided to bump all of my "repped" exercises up to fifteen reps (except for my 10-kilogram lateral raises, which went up from five to eight, roughly in line with a 50% increase in reps).

Since I'm so busy with other stuff, this one-set workout lets me get through a gauntlet of exercises in about 20-25 minutes. I realize it's at the expense of more rapid gains, but it's nice to know that I can keep stacking the reps on periodically, and these modest sets can eventually become supersets while still taking no longer than 30-35 minutes to do.

In other news: today and again this weekend, I'm baking (not eating) cookies to distribute for Lunar New Year, which is on the 17th this year, meaning the holiday runs from Monday to Wednesday. I might do a rare thing and pay my #3 Ajumma a visit tomorrow, a small batch of almond-flour cookies in hand. Ajumma's in her 80s now. She occasionally texts to ask when I'm going to come over, but those texts have been getting rarer lately.

As for this year's long walk... yeah, I might do the Geumgang route, which at a mere 146 km is short. Depending on how I divvy up the route segments, it should take about a week. And being a week-long walk, I don't think I'll need any rest days. Which leaves me to wonder: if the walk is under 150 km, is it even worth my while to make a tee shirt? Hm. Much to ponder, and only a month to do so. If I were to shift this walk to the fall, though, I'd have more time to plan. The only problem is that, if I go back to university work, I'm not going to have time for a fall walk. But we'll see. Always in motion is the future.

they spent how much?

"you can have anything you wan' / at Andy's ol' restaurant"

shirtses!

The walk tees that I'd ordered from Spring weeks ago (January 24) have finally arrived. See below. The tee on the left has no image on the back; this is the shirt I would have worn on my walk last year had there not been a massive, months-long fuckup that prevented me from getting my order, which I had made at least a month in advance of the walk. (No rear image = safe for backpacks.) The shirt on the right has, as you see, an image on the back; this shirt is meant for everyday activity, not for long hikes with a backpack.

This year, I'm trying to decide whether to walk in the spring or in the fall. Assuming I have to get back to the life of a prole come fall, it's probably better for me to walk in the spring—maybe from about mid-March. That's next month. I haven't done a springtime walk across South Korea since my first long walk in 2017. Depending on the state of my funds, there's a chance I might also just do the Geumgang trail this year. That trail, not even 150 km long, is even shorter than the Nakdong River trail (officially 385 km); walking the Geumgang might take about a week at a leisurely pace. Stay tuned as I cogitate more.

"prison hooch"

What's the point of having wine tasters?

AI cats... mit Händen

I wish I were this creative

“Why are you taking so long in the shower”

Me:
pic.twitter.com/NJQ3aY5nr9

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) February 11, 2026

someone who speaks my language

We interrupt this regularly scheduled YouTube video-embedding to bring you... more video-embedding! But what's interesting about this guy's commentary is how similar it is to my own, to the point where I have to say in my own defense that I did not see this video before watching "Nosferatu" and writing my own review. I watched this gent's video below only a few minutes ago. Incredible. Almost point for point in some areas, but with a richer evocation of religious imagery. I feel weirdly vindicated.

So I looked up the guy's Substack (he has links to his other online presences on his YouTube page), and sure enough—he seems to have a background in theology. So I'd say that 90% of what he says in the video is content I've heard (or said myself) before. Wow. A religion bro. Most people's eyes just glaze over when I start talking about what interests me.

Of course, I've been out of the religious-studies game for decades (and religious studies is not the same as theology), so I doubt a conversation with this guy would be fruitful. If anything, my brain would end up overtaxed. I've been away from the wellspring for too long.

but can you make them into skull-shaped danju?

let's play musical cats

art and games

"Nosferatu": review

L to R: the shadow of Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen "(Lily-Rose Depp)

"Nosferatu" is a 2024 Robert Eggers film that is a remake of the 1922 silent movie "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror." The film stars Lily-Rose Depp (Johnny Depp's daughter), Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok the Nosferatu. As you see by my use of the article "the," this movie treats Nosferatu as a title (like the Christ or the Buddha instead of just Christ and Buddha, which are not surnames). The 1922 silent movie is itself based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, a story published in 1897. A bit like the Batman movies and their many remakes, "Nosferatu" is another take on what is by now a very old story.

We begin in the city of Wisburg, Germany. Young Ellen (Depp), feeling lonely, calls out into the night for companionship. Her innocent, open heart invites the evil presence of the Nosferatu, known to most mortals as Count Orlok (Skarsgård). Orlok's visitations at first give Ellen a sense of pleasure and even ecstasy, but these feelings gradually give way to pain, distress, and terror as Orlok—spiritually—has his savage way with the girl. Later in life and still a young woman, Ellen marries the handsome Thomas "Tom" Hutter (Hoult), who has just gotten a job at a real-estate firm where he is to work under Mr. Knock (McBurney), and the very first assignment is for Tom to travel to the far-off country of Transylvania to allow Count Orlok to sign a deed for a property in Germany where Orlok claims he plans to retire. Ellen, who had suffered horrible night terrors before marrying Tom, feels a sense of foreboding as Tom prepares to go to Transylvania. Tom is chipper and reassuring, promising a safe return and having no idea what's in store for him. He puts Ellen with his friend Friedrich Harding (Taylor-Johnson), his wife Anna (Corrin), and their two daughters. Tom travels to the Carpathians, arriving at the forbidding fortress-castle of Count Orlok. Everything from here on in becomes creepy and surreal as Tom meets the huge, imposing, gravel-voiced Orlok. As the atmosphere of dread rises to a fever pitch, Tom wakes up to find his chest covered in bite marks, and he discovers his host, who only ever appears at night, is not of this world. Back in Germany, Ellen begins suffering even worse night terrors than before her marriage, and just as a plague is hitting the city, the local doctor calls in the help of a former mentor, Herr Doktor Albin Eberhart von Franz (Dafoe), who had departed from science to study the occult.

The rest of the story is about Tom's escape from Orlok's castle, Orlok's arrival in Wisburg by boat; what Orlok does (or threatens to do) to Tom, Ellen, and Friedrich's family; and von Franz's discovery of the way to combat Orlok's evil. One theme of the movie is about how science fails in the face of pure evil, a theme also touched on in both the novel The Exorcist and the movie "The Exorcist." Being unfamiliar with the 1922 movie, I was unprepared for the final solution to the Orlok problem, and my understanding is that Eggers's 2024 film hews fairly closely to the plot of the 1922 movie, albeit with a bit more sex and gore along the way. I won't spoil this movie's conclusion, but I can tell you that it does not involve a beheading or a stake through the heart.

I've seen two of Robert Eggers's previous movies: "The Lighthouse" and "The Northman." Eggers is an impressive director in terms of how he manages his actors and how he manages lighting and cinematography. There are certain directors, like Denis Villeneuve, whose very names can inspire trust and confidence. Even when they produce flawed movies, those movies remain eminently watchable. Eggers, like Villeneuve, has earned my trust, so I knew going in that this was going to be a good experience, and it was. "Nosferatu" is a visual treat, with many of the special effects being reminiscent of what Francis Ford Coppola had done in his 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Parts of Eggers's film are so lacking in color saturation that certain sequences—especially the evening and nighttime scenes—feel almost black and white. Even the daytime scenes, despite their color, feel as if some evil force is leaching away the world's chromatic beauty. The period dialogue is also of note: the characters are supposed to be German (except for Orlok, who is presumably Romanian/Transylvanian and the speaker of an ancient language that often reminded me of the Black Speech of Mordor), but the dialogue is in stylized, slightly archaic English. I can't say how well Bill Skarsgård did at speaking in Romanian or ancient-ese, but when Count Orlok spoke in English, it was with a heavy and sinister Eastern European accent. I'll also comment that the film could have been much more exploitative of women than it was: while there are instances of female nudity in the film, there are also plenty of nightgown scenes in which backlighting would have revealed the silhouette of a naked female form, but this was tastefully avoided. When there is nudity, it's always in the service of vulnerability, a way of portraying purity in the face of a predator.

Lily-Rose Depp is excellent as the beleaguered Ellen, hypnotized and even possessed by Orlok from afar (she looks a lot like her mom, Vanessa Paradis). Her role demands that she cry frequently and that she moan sensually; her possession/night-terror scenes are also unsettling—and all without special effects. Nicholas Hoult finds himself once again in a role where he plays a quivering mouse of a man, but his portrayal of sheer terror in the presence of Orlok is a performance for the ages. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma Corrin are solid as the skeptical couple who don't understand what's happening to poor Ellen (nicknamed "Leni," by the way). Simon McBurney, as Knock, is excellent as this movie's version of Renfield: as Tom's boss, he's the one who sends fresh meat to the Nosferatu. Ralph Ineson is authoritative as the doctor who calls on his old mentor to solve the unsolvable problem of Ellen's condition, and Willem Dafoe, when he finally appears, is magnificent as Doktor von Franz, this story's Van Helsing. And standing above them all is Bill Skarsgård as Orlok the Nosferatu, completely unrecognizable in his heavy, leprous makeup, but utterly owning the character of Orlok through his unearthly voice and accent. I thought this role was a much better fit for Skarsgård than the ridiculous Pennywise from "It" (see here and here). Skarsgård may have flubbed his French-speaking role in "John Wick: Chapter 4," but he's a convincingly menacing Transylvanian in this movie.

After "Heretic" and "Abigail," this is my third horror movie in a row to feature people who get lured into a domicile whose owner is evil. And as in "Heretic," Nicholas Hoult's character is drawn further into the domicile by his own politeness and inability to say no. By the time he co-signs what he thinks is the contract for Orlok's new property in Germany, Tom barely has a will of his own. In truth, the contract he's just signed—written in Orlok's original, ancient tongue—nullifies his marriage to Ellen and gives her over to Orlok, who must nevertheless not take possession of her until she accepts the situation of her own free will.

If I had a problem with the movie, it's the same one I have with so many depictions of vampires: vampires always seem capable of sudden and confusing teleportation, but only in limited spaces, like a mansion or a room. Why does Orlok need a boat to reach Germany? Why not just teleport to Ellen instead of doing the vampiric version of the Jedi Force-projection we saw in "The Last Jedi"? Aside from that, I was willing to suspend my disbelief about Orlok's other capabilities. To his credit, Orlok at least never morphed into a bat or a werewolf.

In all, "Nosferatu" wasn't a scary film, but it did build suspense well and had some rather vivid visuals. The acting was superb all around, and the Nosferatu was portrayed as a feral, hungry, implacable evil wearing only the trappings of civilization—just enough to lure people into his lair. Because of the way the story ends, I suppose this could be considered a "sad" story, but not because we discover some poignant fact about the vampire's origins or motivations. If the movie teaches any lessons, it's that science can't explain everything, that real evil does exist, and that in times of crisis, innocent people die.

preggers

Vader versus Yoda

AI slop is the way of the future. But it occurs to me that checking on its progress is probably not a bad thing. We will soon have entirely AI-made movies. They'll still require a human hand, but they'll be 90% AI-powered. AI is still not very good with creating action where things actually happen from scene to scene, but it's getting better.

past writing (cringe)

Reading blog posts from more than two decades ago (my first movie-review book compiles reviews from 2004 to 2015; I'm currently at around 2006) is an exercise in cringeworthiness (or as the kids say these days: an exercise in cringe). Not that my prose has gotten much better over the years, but damn—I was a callow, superficial writer. 

And back then, in the early 2000s, I was right around the age Stephen R. Donaldson was in the 1970s when he wrote his first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. True: if you go back and read Donaldson from that era (his early thirties), he too betrays all the signs of being a young writer, but his writing was still leaps and bounds above my own in quality and depth. I'm older now, though, and I can see Donaldson's flaws a lot more clearly (including embarrassing gaffes on the merely technical level—e.g., the man has no idea how to use semicolons). More trivia: Stephen King was around the same age when he wrote The Stand. What was I doing with my life?

Unfortunately, the clarity and wisdom of age bring with them the pain and shame of critically evaluating my own long-ago prose. And it's awful. I admit I'm making a few changes, here and there, to my old reviews for this new collection, but I'm also leaving the overall style and tone of my early crap as it is, so most of the problems with my early writing will be out there for everyone to see. I have a sinking feeling that, for people who buy this first book in the series, the first half of the book is going to be a slog through some very immature, undeveloped prose. A lot of the mistakes that I, as a latter-day proofreader, have accused others of making are found smack-dab in my own prose from that era. So I add my commas and change my wording here and there; I use italics instead of quotation marks; I make other stylistic tweaks as needed. But the era of writing that I'm currently working on, covering the early 2000s, is pretty rough, and even with retroactive cosmetic surgery, the prose still looks laughably coarse. When I write this book's foreword, I'll be sure to beg the reader's forgiveness for the slog they've signed up for. And I promise the next two or three books will be better.

Of course, with this being a compilation of reviews, there's no reason why a person should read the whole thing linearly from end to end. But even for people who tackle the book's chapters in random order, it's still going to be a jarring, bumpy ride. The next two books, though, will be a lot better. In fact, by the end of this first collection (2015), it's fair to say that my prose has smoothed out a lot because I've found my rhythm as a reviewer.

My reviews have also grown longer over time, but you can always tell how much or how little a film interested or provoked me by how relatively long or short my review is. If a movie or book gets a one- or two-paragraph review, it probably wasn't worth my time and attention, which means I don't think it'll be worth yours. If I write an encyclopedia, go see it or read it.

More on all of this as I go. What's in the compilation so far:

1. Kill Bill: Volume 2
2. Wrestling with S. Mark Heim (book review)
3. Million Dollar Baby
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Batman Begins
6. Sin City
7. War of the Worlds (2005, Spielberg/Cruise)
8. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince (book review)
9. Bubba Ho-Tep
10. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
11. The View from Mars Hill (book review)
12. Jesus Camp

Only 108 more reviews to go for this book, taking me through 2015. The plan is to make this an ebook first, then to create a print-on-demand paperback that will include little illustrations (done by me, not AI) for every chapter. The paperback will be much more expensive, so the illustrations will be there to make the book more worth your while.

stromboli

Only for cheat days.

haven't seen these in a while

Memes! But not political.

how they fought

no more hostages for you

Give the gift of lead.

"Frankenstein" by Honest Trailers

I reviewed the movie here.

visiting the "Chef" truck

I reviewed the movie "Chef" years ago here.

Ave, Charles!

Charles gets it done. And he ends his piece (final sentence) with a funny mixed metaphor. I also understand a bit how he feels, for I too have used plate-spinning imagery.

Let me elaborate on that: Striving for perfection itself is not a weakness, but being unable to perform mental triage—that is, deciding when and where you should spend your limited time and energy—is a weakness, I think. At least, it sure does make life a lot harder. I sometimes find myself wishing I could care just a little less about some things. I’ve got plenty of other projects that I had to put on the back burner, and I probably could have kept those going on the side if I had been capable of not devoting myself entirely to these classes. Now, though, I find myself in the position of having to shift gears and try to get back into a project that has had about two months to cool off.

Then again... maybe I wouldn’t have been able to keep all those plates spinning at once. I think a corollary of my inability to not give my current project everything I’ve got is the inability to shift back and forth between projects. I tend to pour all my time and energy into a project until it is done or something else more urgent comes up. I’ve tried dividing up my attention between projects, spending a couple hours on one project and then switching to another project for a couple of hours, and it hasn’t really worked out too great. I think I tried it because I had read somewhere that it was an efficient way to work or a good way to avoid getting into a rut or something like that, but I don’t think my brain works that way. It takes me a while to get warmed up and really get into an efficient flow, so if I am constantly switching projects, I feel a lot less efficient than I might otherwise be. I suppose that’s a long-winded way of saying that I’m kind of crap at multi-tasking.

Yup, I definitely know the feeling.

who killed "The Acolyte"?

what's happening outside of my hole?

I heard there was a Super Bowl. And the Seahawks beat the Patriots. Not that I care about either woke New England or woke Seattle (which was still beautiful when I was there in 2008). Not that I follow football (haven't followed in decades, not since college). Not that my home team even exists anymore: the beloved Redskins became the Commanders.

Oh, and I heard there's this other thing that's been going on since February 6: the Olympics. In Milan. Or "Milano Cortina," as they're calling it (apparently short for "Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo"). Considering how politicized the Olympics have always been, and considering the US team has a lot of young members who are not proud to represent the States, what's my motivation to watch that?

So, it seems to me that nothing, really, is happening outside my hole.

better

It needs a more-than-superficial flip-through, but when I looked through my second Amazon hard copy of the 2026 edition of Think Like a Teacher, I saw that it at least superficially looked better. I'll give the book a closer scan soon, and if I see any further problems, I'll correct them and talk about them here.

Here's the most bothersome problem, which I somehow hadn't caught before initially uploading. Below, you see page 9 of the Korean-language half of the book. Note how it seems as if the chapter ends with that final paragraph. Then go down to the photo of page 10.

Did the chapter end? Click image to make clearer.

Oho! See how page 10 is the actual ending for the chapter.

Hmmm. There's more to the chapter here. Click image to make clearer.

Below, you see the second try after editing. Note how page 9's text now goes down to the bottom, so you know right away that this isn't the end of the chapter.

Click image to make clearer.

And when you flip to page 10 of the newly edited manuscript:

Click image to make clearer.

When it comes to text formatting, every change you make has implications for other pages. Most often, these implications ripple forward, but they do ripple backward, too, which is what I think happened in this case: I'd been making adjustments to the text toward the end of the document, but one or more of those adjustments caused a backwards-rippling effect that made page 9 look like a chapter-ending text. I fixed the problem, then checked forwards and backwards to make sure all was kosher before re-uploading the manuscript PDF.

With the movie-review book I'm working on now, there's nothing but English, so format-checking ought to be easier. We'll see. Thinking ought to be easier can be a trap leading to the appearance of yet more stupid mistakes. More on that as it happens.