my new pet

I'll be acquiring a new pet TV today—a 44-inch HDTV that's a few years old but still healthy, all for the low, low price of W150,000. I leave my place in about an hour to make the 45-minute subway trip down to Bundang (didn't they use to write the name as "Puntang"?), where my now-ex-coworker lives—at least until Monday, which is when he departs for the States.

After that, I have nothing much to do, this weekend, except putter around my place. Ligament had given me an e-coupon to pick up a free half-dozen doughnuts from Krispy Kreme, so I might go hunt those lovely little bastards down. I might also start walking again; that's something I haven't done for a month or so, ever since my foot pain had started. The pain's gone now; I don't think it was a fallen arch because, if it had been, the arch would have stayed fallen and would still be painful.

Aside from those minor agenda items, there's little else for me to do but think about e-publishing projects and maybe do a bit of drawing—something I haven't done in a while.

Next weekend, I'm going to a get-together at my buddy Charles's palatial residence by Seoul National University's campus. I'll be bringing the choucroute alsacienne; Charles will be doing a fish stew plus his famous homemade bread; friends Tom and Patrick will be handling drinks and dessert. A good time will be had by all.

As for the TV: it's useless until I buy certain accessories, as I'm not planning to hook it up to see regular broadcast television. In Korea, as in the States, TV is over 90% shit, and I have no desire to watch it. What I want to do, instead, is (1) buy a Roku (which I may need to use in conjunction with a VPN if I intend to watch Amazon.com videos; (2) buy a video-game console so I can drown my sorrows in Halo, the only game I'll ever need; and (3) get a DVD/Blu-ray player so I can watch videos from my own stash. About that last point: I have a DVD/Blu-ray player in the States; it's buried under a mound of my stuff—along with my DVDs and Blu-ray discs—in public storage near Warrenton, Virginia. I really don't want to buy a player here, where electronics are twice as expensive as they are in the US, but then again, I don't want to get my own player if the price for that errand is a round-trip plane ticket. So I may end up having to double up: I may have to buy a second DVD/Blu-ray player right here.

Once that entertainment system is set up, though, life will be that much better. But those purchases won't happen this month. In the meantime, the TV will just sit in my place like a sentinel, waiting for its marching orders. My new pet.


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