the wild side of life in Seoul

An older man, possibly drunk, flew into a rage when asked to put on a face mask while he was on a subway. The resulting fight is both comical and sad:

Courtesy of ROK Drop.

Ave, Charles!

My buddy Charles celebrates a milestone of his own.

Trump supporter gunned down; murderer apparently found

Tim Pool, who has been prophesying civil war for months, if not years, now says that it seems the time for talking is past:

I grudgingly agree that the US is moving inevitably from a cold civil war to a hot one. I don't think we'll see the civil war anywhere in the sparsely populated countryside, but it's definitely coming for the suburbs as a function of what's been happening in major Democrat-run cities. If you're in a red state and live near red-dominated big cities, you're probably going to be okay. If not... well, arm up and start practicing. You owe it to your loved ones to do so.

The person who executed the Trump supporter may have been found... by 4chan:

me 51 toodaie

A tasteful pic of candles and cake:

And then there's yours truly:

Older, but no wiser. Certainly no wiser than last year, although I think my 51-year-old self would have something to say to my college-aged self: Get out there and take advantage of all that your lovely campus has to offer! Do more than just hang around in your apartment! Apply yourself more to your studies! Listen to, and talk with, your professors! Learn to budget your time and your finances! Figure this shit out early instead of allowing yourself to become not the sum of all your choices, but the the sum of all your mistakes. Wise up, get off your ass, live life, and for God's sakes, ACHIEVE something!

more evidence of a coming Trump victory

Here's Tim Pool on the latest data supporting a Trump victory:

I've seen people refer to a "margin of fraud," i.e., a vote-numbers hurdle that must be overcome for Trump to clinch a decisive and inarguable victory. Fraud is on everyone's mind at this point, with both sides convinced the other side will definitely be cheating. It's enough to make one wonder whether this will be the last election in which anyone places any trust in the electoral system. That lack of trust is not a good sign for the nation as a whole.

Thought experiment: let's say Trump does indeed win. He'll be a lame duck for four years, but he'll also be in a position to say, "I just don't give a fuck." Is this going to be the moment when the mask comes off and Trump starts cracking down on all the current strife—not just in terms of rioting and looting, but also in terms of everything else of an anti-Trump nature, i.e., lying journalism, deep-state activity, academic leftism, and all the rest?

If Trump's presidency has revealed anything, it's how deep the rot in American culture goes, especially with so many institutions having been taken over by the left, with its nihilistic roots in Marx, Nietzsche, and postmodernism. There's so much that needs to be fixed, and a vast swamp that must be drained; this is a project that will span several presidential terms, and even while the cleanup operation is going on, there's a good chance the right might get infected by the very rot it's trying to burn out—if it hasn't already been infected.

The future is, if nothing else, going to be very interesting.

unfunny Jim Gaffigan goes on a rant

I'm not a fan of standup comedian Jim Gaffigan and his utterly bland, flaccid, milquetoast-y sense of humor, so given my already-negative view of him, it came as no surprise to find out the man is a virulent, TDS-ridden hater of the current administration. Here's Canadian lawyer/vlogger Viva Frei (David Freiheit), analyzing a recent rant by Gaffigan:

wow! Star Wars, but "War Pigs"-style

One of the most muscular edits of Star Wars footage I've ever seen:

Sit back and enjoy.

a quiet birthday party

I visited my #3 Ajumma tonight because she had asked me over in order to throw me a quiet birthday party. I think she has long felt a lot of sympathy since my mother passed away, and she doubtless feels a bit lonely since her husband, my #3 Ajeossi, passed away from liver cancer in January of 2019. So I went over to her place, and her eldest son—my cousin Gi-yeol—was there with his young son. Gi-yeol is a professional singer. Like my brother Sean, he performs at prestigious venues with prestigious groups, and he also does plenty of tutoring on the side. A musician's life is never easy. Gi-yeol named his firstborn something like "Ayn" (pronounce it like the German "ein," i.e., "ah-een"). You'll see a few pics of him below.

In fact, we'll start off with a shot of Ayn (not sure of the romanization; I'm basing it off Ayn Rand), who is developing a bigger-than-life performer's personality like his dad's:

And here's my cousin Gi-yeol:

A wide shot of the meal as it was being assembled:

Gotta get that "V" sign in there, or as Biden might say, you ain't Korean:

It went whenever I did go... until it ended up on a plate:

Myeolchi bokgeum (anchovies):

The star of the evening—bulgogi:

The traditional birthday soup is miyeok-guk, i.e., seaweed soup:

Since I'm unmarried, I guess some chonggak-kimchi is appropriate (chonggak = bachelor):

Little galettes of meat and egg:

Japchae:

After almost sixteen years here, I still don't know the name of this dish:

And here is #3 Ajumma, painter extraordinaire, who almost managed to avoid scolding me for my weight tonight until she made a silly remark about my hefty man-boob while she was forcibly stuffing W100,000 in cash into my shirt's breast pocket:

The Paris Baguette chocolate cake, which Ayn loved:

The ritual candle-stabbing of the cake:

A cool shot of the cake in shadow when the lights were turned off:

Happy Birthday!

Turning 51 isn't anything special. It's not even a prime-number birthday. I think I have to wait for 53 to celebrate my "primacy." After that, I think the next prime-number birthday is—what—59? I'd note that 61 is the next prime after 59, but I'll consider myself lucky if I make it past 60. With my history, in which both sides of my family have trouble making it beyond 60, it's best to think of this as, quite possibly, my final decade of life before I either cark it or go radically downhill thanks to a constellation of bad habits.

Don't worry: I say this with more amusement than gloom as I stare into the yawning gulf of my own nonexistence. I don't fear death at all (although, like a lot of people, I fear certain ways of dying): death is either going to be a great blankness that I won't even experience or, quite possibly, the next great adventure, and I'm already reconciled with either outcome.

I suppose the one outcome that would bother me would be reincarnation: I can say with assurance that, after living this life, I'll have absolutely no desire to live this life again, re-suffering all the bumps, scrapes, fears, and anxieties of childhood, relearning all the hard-earned lessons learned in my previous life, etc. No, thanks. Once around the samsaric circle is enough, and it's easy to see why Indian religions believe in samsara yet generally fear and loathe it: Indians don't want to be recycled, either. Better to strive for blessed release, for moksha—liberation from the wheel of samsara.

Oh, and as for the prospect of hell: that would bother me if I believed in it.

"the Iron Range": your new political term of the day

Tim Pool, in the past couple of videos, has been flinging around the term "Iron Range," a reference to a geographical area with a certain voting bloc. The Iron Range has become significant as a bellwether for how the November election is going to go. Composed largely of working-class unionists, the Iron Range voters have been vocal, since the advent of the riots, about voting for Trump. In the video below, Tim Pool goes into some detail over who these Iron Range folks are, where they've traditionally stood, and where they stand now. I see parallels with the so-called "Rust Belt Revolution" of 2016, in which working people in the Rust Belt concluded that the Democrats had done little to nothing for them over the years, so it was time to try something new, i.e., opt for Trump. In terms of racial strife and division, something like this revolution is also happening: Trump's support in the black communities is around 36%, which is astronomically high for a Republican. A sea change in thought is happening as more and more people become disenchanted with liberals, the left, and the Democrats. And in places like Wisconsin, the Iron Range is now activated and may do some serious damage to Joe Biden's electoral prospects.

An even deeper dive into the Iron Range is here:

Ted Wheeler, mayor of Portland, gets dick-slapped by karma

After all the effort that cowardly mayor Ted Wheeler had put into sucking the collective dick of the rioters in Portland, the rioters paid back his groveling by swarming his apartment building and making demands, thereby slapping Wheeler wetly in the face with the very dick he had just been sucking:

Charlie's farewell to the king

Charlie at Emergency Awesome has put up a fine tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman:

the latest PowerLine memes

ululate!

Unbelievable. Actor Chadwick Boseman, who played the protagonist T'Challa in "Black Panther," died this past Friday of complications from colon cancer. Boseman starred in 2017's "Marshall," about the life of Thurgood Marshall, as well as in 2013's "42" in the role of Jackie Robinson, alongside Harrison Ford. Boseman was only 43 years old, and he didn't talk publicly about his cancer, which is why those of us wondering what was taking so long with the "Black Panther" sequel had been in the dark all this time. Now we know why.

RIP, Mr. Boseman. You deserved better than to be so ill-served by Mother Nature.

surreal and hilarious because opaque

Japanese humor, sketch 1:

According to a comment by someone conversant in Japanese, the conductor is on the phone, arguing with the wife he's going to divorce. When the Shiba flips the lever, the conductor switches to the microphone and blandly announces the station's name. Several puns are involved, as well as culturally specific humor. At the end, the conductor apologizes to the dog and explains he's arguing with his wife.

Japanese humor, sketch 2:


In the above video, the student is talking to his samurai master, the Shiba Inu who trained him. The student wants to strike the master down but proclaims he cannot because the master projects an aura, as if he can see behind himself. The student, unable to deliver the killing blow, picks his master up. The master's head flops backward, and the student cries, "So that's how you see me?"

It's all very surreal.

Styx compares Trump's and Biden's acceptance speeches

another salvo from Styx

Rand Paul and his wife got attacked by a mob. The man can't catch a break:

If Trump's going to lie, anyway, why bother debating? (say the Dems)


It's all just a cover for Biden's drooling senility. I'm really surprised the Dems aren't working 24/7 to find a replacement for Biden. Are they really going to pull this "Weekend at Bernie's" shit? Incredible.

Very interesting to hear the Dems suddenly acknowledge that violence is indeed occurring. But the Dems have a problem pinpointing the source of that violence.

another salvo from Tim Pool

As the election draws nigh, there's more and more to talk about.

I'm beginning to think that, whatever shenanigans the Dems try to pull, the vote margin in favor of Trump this time is going to be so wide that it'll compensate for any cheating by the Dems. The Dems will, unsurprisingly, say it's the GOP that's cheating, but as usual, the evidence will all point leftward. With the Dems, it's all about projection.

And this one is pretty damn funny:

survived the outage, but it was frustrating

The temporary power outage in our building was scheduled to begin at 11:50 p.m. Friday night. It began at 12:05 a.m. Saturday morning. I dutifully shut off my A/C and my computer at around 11:45, relying on my cell phone, my GlocalMe portable Wi-Fi hot spot, and my rather wimpy portable power pack to keep me through the night. The outage was supposed to last until 7 a.m., and the moment my A/C shut off, my apartment began heating up. I was toying with the idea of taking a long walk out to the Jamshil Bridge and back, but such a walk would last no more than four hours, so I didn't want to go too early, then come back and suffer for several hours in a hot, humid apartment. So I waited, watching YouTube videos in my queue, all the while getting hotter and sweatier. I ran some cold water over a paper towel and wiped myself down several times, allowing the moisture to evaporate like sweat, cooling me off at least a little. I lay in bed as still as possible, conserving energy and trying my best not to heat myself up through movement.

By 2:45 a.m., I'd had enough. Using my phone's "lamp" setting, I illuminated my domicile, scrounged around for my clothes, then dressed up to go for a trek out to the Jamshil Bridge. Outside my apartment, the hallway lights were still on, albeit slightly dimmer than usual, and the elevators were still in operation (as per the announcement I had translated). I hit "1" and went down to the lobby level. I had checked the weather before leaving the building, and I saw that it was in the high 70s Fahrenheit (about 26℃), with winds at only 1 mph. Ugh. I hate walking in hot, humid, still air. It's suffocating.

The night was indeed hot, humid, and still. Every once in a while, a grudging breeze puffed past my face, but it was nothing sustained. (When a decent breeze did come by, I would thank the wind gods.) Despite it being nearly 3 a.m., plenty of night-owl bikers and old people were out and about, cranking or shambling away on their wheels or their feet. I lumbered heavily along, bandanna wrapped tightly around my large skull, my right hand covered in a fingertip-less biker's glove to protect my palm from abrasion as I swung my trekking pole like an old man's cane. My feet grumbled from various aches and pains, but I largely ignored them. Maybe three or four scattered, misty drops of precipitation hit my face, but as I noticed on my way back from the Jamshil Bridge's U-turn point, it never actually rained.

In a city of eleven million people, odds are that a lot of them—hundreds, if not thousands—will be walking the Han River bike path on a summer night (those odds go way down when the weather starts getting colder). I hadn't brought along any water, and I regretted that decision, but as I approached the Jamshil Bridge, I saw some water fountains and stopped by them to slake my thirst. It was a sweaty walk, and my mouth ended up feeling dry despite the water fountains' help. I know myself well enough, though, to know I can brute-force my way through certain kinds of discomfort. The prospect of real, honest-to-God dehydration is fairly remote, even for a sweaty guy like me, because I retain so much damn water that I'd have to be near death before I ran out of sweat. When I do the hike to Busan in a few weeks, the average temperature will be cooler (or at least, less warm), so I won't need much water as I march.

I was pretty pooped by the time I reached my neighborhood; I limped into a convenience store, bought drinks, walked across the street to the outer border of the park that sits by my apartment building, sat on a bench, and guzzled some fluids before getting tiredly to my feet and trudging the rest of the way to my apartment. By the time I got there, it was around 6:45 a.m. I had been gambling that, like last year, the repairs would have been completed an hour early, so I'd be able to stumble into my apartment and take for granted that I could benefit from my fan and my A/C.

Ha ha—what a fool I was! When I entered my place and stripped off my disgusting, sweat-soaked clothes and bandanna, I immediately noted that the power was out. A few minutes later, a bit after 7 a.m., an announcement in Korean came over my PA system (yes: my power was out, but the fucking PA system was still on line), saying that the repair work would need to go on for another hour. As per the rules of Korean politeness, the message ended with what could be literally translated as, "We give you inconvenience, so we're sorry" ("불편을 드려서 죄송합니다"), the Korean equivalent of "Sorry for the inconvenience." I sank back into my bed, resigned to endure the heat for another hour. Then, around 7:30 a.m., a second announcement came through: the repair crews would need yet another hour. I wasn't sure whether this meant "another hour after the first announced hour had expired," or "another hour, starting from right now." It ended up being the former, and the power came back on almost exactly at 9 a.m. I had endured a bit more than two hours inside my apartment, which had transformed from a little heaven to a little hell once the power had gone out.

When the power came back on, I was in a bit of a vengeful mood so, wanting to make up for lost time, I shamelessly cranked my A/C down two degrees cooler than I normally keep it (i.e., from 22 to 20℃). I blasted both of my electric fans (one small, one medium-sized), aiming them both at my bed, and then I tried to sleep. Alas, sleep didn't come easily, and I drifted in and out of consciousness. The end result was that I'd wake up, feel too tired to get out of bed, then lapse back into an uneasy slumber. Lather, rinse, repeat. This went on for several hours, and I didn't drag myself out of bed until midafternoon.

What a pain in the ass, and there's another power outage scheduled for next week. I think I might just find a motel and spend the night there, basking in the motel's air conditioning.

yesterday's lunch

Some shots of yesterday's lunch:

it happens tonight

Our building's first of two scheduled power outages will occur tonight, running from about midnight to about 7 a.m. If it's like last year, the outages will end earlier than expected. I'm not sure what to do with myself; I'm thinking of taking a long nighttime walk so as to be out of the apartment when the electricity shuts down and everything starts heating up. I had toyed with the idea of walking out to Hanam City after midnight, but I probably won't do a long walk like that until after the first week of September when, in theory, nighttime temperatures might finally start to drop and become more autumnal.

My #3 Ajumma wants to see me for my birthday, which is actually on Monday the 31st, but she's aware that I have to work that day, so she and I will be meeting on Sunday. Turning 51 isn't quite the milestone that turning 50 is, so I'm not looking forward to any fanfare. I did, however, receive a nice gift today: my coworker's wife, the professional chef, made a very delicious dakdoritang for us all, and just for me, she also crafted a red-velvet cake, which was easily as delicious as the chicken stew.

I'm back in the office tomorrow, alas: I have many cartoons to draw for the textbooks we continue to make, and I'd like to get half of them done tomorrow. In other news: I now have dates for my hike to Busan: September 26 to October 26. We'll be pulling the wool over the HR department's eyes again: I'll be submitting a vacation-request form that shows only two weeks' worth of vacation on it, but as you can see, the actual vacation will be a full month. I'll be taking advantage of two national holidays occurring somewhere between the end of September and the first ten days of October: there's Chuseok, and then there's Hangeul Day (which celebrates the creation of the Korean alphabet). Those holidays, plus the two weeks' paid vacation, will fill up about three weeks of my month off. The remaining days will be covered by my comp hours, of which I have over 50, now. I'm not sure how I feel about leaving for my walk earlier than I did last year; readers of my Kevin's Walk 3 blog will recall how much I bellyached about how warm the walk was, especially during the first half. It'll be even warmer this year, given my earlier start. But this can't be helped: if I start later in October—say, around October 15—I'll lose the advantage of using those national holidays for my vacation. It is what it is, I guess.

More on walk prep later.

CNN mocked for "fiery but mostly peaceful" lie

Kenosha, Wisconsin, is in flames because police shot a black man several times in the back. The man, Jacob Blake, was reaching into his SUV for a knife when police shot him after having repeatedly ordered him to stand down. The Photoshopped parodies of CNN's lying coverage of the ensuing riots were quick and brutal.

Here's the original image that set off the parodies:

And here are two of the parodies:

The left's claim is that Jacob Blake is an innocent man shot in cold blood (he's still alive, by the way, despite about seven rounds in the back). Blake is nothing of the sort. Police confirmed that he was reaching for a knife, and the man who filmed the incident even confirmed that officers were shouting, "Drop the knife!" at Blake when he ducked into his vehicle. See more about the real Jacob Blake here. The man is a piece of... work.

what exactly is Trump's second-term agenda?

Adam Crigler, who left Tim Pool's Timcast to form his own carbon copy called Adamcast, has the scoop:

California: putting it politely...

Paul Joseph Watson would make no bones about the situation and call California "a shithole." Tim Pool pulls his punches, by comparison, and he calls California "a failed state." Both assessments ring true.

And while Biden got no post-convention bump in his poll numbers, Trump is already experiencing a bump:

belated ululate!

Until I read Steve Honeywell's review of "Pelle the Conqueror," I had no idea that actor Max von Sydow had died earlier this year, on March 8, at the ripe old age of 90. The man had a storied career, and for me, he seemed to have the bizarre property of not aging. My first encounter with von Sydow was in "The Exorcist," in which he played a very old priest who fights a demon he has encountered before. This may be part of the reason why I think of von Sydow as not aging: he looked old when I first saw him on screen in the 1970s, then he aged into that elder image of himself.

Von Sydow starred in movies ranging from "The Exorcist" to "The Seventh Seal" to "Minority Report" to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." His roles tended to depict people imbued with a certain dignity and gravitas. He spoke seven or eight languages, among them: his native Swedish, English, and French (which he spoke fluently—or close to fluently—in several French-language film roles; here's a French-language interview he once did around 2013). He was a French citizen, in fact, and spent his latter years in Provence, where he died. Von Sydow was married twice and has four sons.

I'm remiss: I really need to watch more films from von Sydow's filmography. He was a great actor, one worthy of deep appreciation. RIP.

John Mac has a barfday

John McCrarey turns 65 today. Go visit his blog and leave him a Harpy Barfday message.

election commentary: a threefer

"They say that if you don't see color, you're racist. I hate that."

Democrats are abandoning the party, and rioters are assaulting a 70-year-old man who simply wants to defend his business. Meanwhile, Maximo Alvarez speaks touchingly at the Republican National Convention, holding back his own tears as he expresses his love for the United States and his fervent hope that we not go down the leftist path:



The media love to say, regarding Trump, that "the walls are closing in." As usual, this is mendacious projection, and the Dems are in for an epic reaming:

yet another #WalkAway hero: Billy Prempeh

The man's parents are Ghanaian; they move to the States; Billy joins the US Air Force, ends up disobeying orders he finds unethical, leaves the military, leaves the Obamaite Democrat party, and has now #WalkedAway. Here's his story. (Tim Pool obviously loves this guy.)

I have to make this

Behold: the Meat Tornado!

Only problem is: I don't know whether I have the facilities to do this. I might need to buy a second electric burner (I haven't used my kitchenette's gas burners in months because they went bad long ago). I have a griddle that can hold a giant tortilla, but even with the griddle, this will be a chore... or the most awesome thing ever.

on Instapundit, via Facebook

Saw this on Instapundit, which Glenn Reynolds says someone saw on Facebook:

This is the sort of shit that really ought not to matter, but since the racist left is always making a big deal about race-race-race, we may as well hold them to their own guilt-trip-inducing standard. Right? And while we're at it:

Yes, it's psychologizing, which I've railed against. And yet here I am, grinning a feral grin because I suspect there's more than a little truth in that claim.

it's official: Tim Pool takes a stand

As Tim Pool himself notes, people jokingly or scornfully refer to him as a "milquetoast fence-sitter" for his inability to take a clear stand on the matter of voting for Donald Trump. Pool has tried for a long time to cultivate the image of someone who values truth and facts, but who also tries to be fair-minded and balanced in his opinions. But anyone who has followed Pool for a while knows that, little by little over the past few months, the self-identifying liberal has been leaning more and more Trumpward. In the video below, Pool has finally reached the tipping point and is now officially declaring his intention to vote for Trump.

I have to say: this video practically had me cheering at points—not because Tim had finally declared himself (I think most of us knew this day would come, so it's not that surprising), but because of the values that he finally expressed as he read aloud from Trump's proposed second-term agenda, most of which Pool agrees with. Pool and I agree that terms limits for Congress are a huge item: I don't know Trump's details, but I'd say that a maximum of two terms should be enforced for both houses of Congress. Allowing politicians to become career politicians is utterly unhealthy for the country, not to mention unhealthy for each respective party. This is how swamps and deep states are created. The crusty layer of older members of Congress who cling to the Capitol like disgusting, desperate barnacles needs to be dispensed with as soon as possible. As Pool notes, it'll be hard to get Congress to sign off on such a self-limitation, but maybe there's some clever way for this to happen.

Pool says that, overall, he heartily agrees with Trump's second-term agenda (watch the video to learn about the rest of it), which is a hell of a lot better and more substantive than anything to come out of Biden's camp. Biden, to the extent that he's still conscious, has become a slave of the far left, and since it's likely he won't survive his first theoretical term in office, we're essentially staring down the twin barrels of a Kamala Harris presidency, which would be a nightmare. My congratulations to Tim Pool on finally achieving clarity. I can tell he still wants to hedge and hesitate, but over the next several weeks, he'll start to feel firmer about his decision to out himself as, finally, a Trump supporter.

(Nice comma splice in your thumbnail, Tim!)

the #WalkAway stories keep on coming

This may be the best public service I've done on this blog: informing my audience about the plethora of folks, mostly black, who are now part of the #WalkAway movement, leaving the liberals, the left, and the Democrats en masse. The leavers don't all become Republicans or conservatives, but they all utterly repudiate the slave-owner ideology of the Dem-left side of the aisle, which prefers to keep them in mental chains. This is why black members of #WalkAway refer to their own movement as "walking away from the plantation." This is a kind of self-liberation for them, and God bless 'em for it.

Here are two more #WalkAway stories:

These stories are always encouraging to hear. I hope this continues.

ADDENDUM: here's another really good one:


The video's title may seem misleading at first, but keep listening, and you'll be rewarded.

by no means accurate, but still hilarious

If this really summed up the peninsular situation, we'd all be a lot less tense:

two via Bill

"The Democrats absolutely have no intention of winning."

I think the Dems do, however, intend to cheat and to claim that the election is invalid. As all the pundits are saying these days, we will not know the election results the night of November 3rd—or for weeks after. Expect lawsuit after lawsuit, and plenty of confusion. Expect recounts, and possibly even re-votes. Unless someone lays down the law beforehand and says all voting will only be in-person voting done on paper ballots after ID verification, no one will trust the election results. Peaceful transfers of power are among the most important indicators of a country's health. I think America is pretty close to failing that metric. I expect explosive violence in the form of rioting, and there may be conservative elements who will finally have had enough, and who will respond to this violence with the sort of violence that results in a definitive victory. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to this, but with the left loudly, constantly, stupidly pushing its twisted agenda, enough may soon be enough.

Tim Pool's video, below, focuses on Sleepy Joe's plagiarism (including self-plagiarism as he recycles old speeches), but Pool starts off with the sentiment that, from his perch, it looks as though the Dems have given up. Victory by cheating is now the only victory possible for a party that has exhausted all its options after making a long, long series of stupid decisions, all while remaining unmoored from reality. Poor bastards.

"The Return of the King": Pitch Meeting

I've sung the praises of un-PC comedian Ryan Long, but let's not forget fellow Canuck Ryan George (the other funny Ryan) and his Pitch Meeting series on YouTube. I saw his recent sendups of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "The Two Towers," and now we have his satire of "The Return of the King":

wind map of approaching typhoon

Type "global wind map" into Google, then click on the topmost link of the search results. This takes you to the website called earth.nullschool.net, where you can see real-time wind patterns all over the globe. It's a fascinating website, and right now, it's proving to be a useful way to visualize the coming storm, Typhoon Bavi, headed right up the pipe to Korea.

Here's a screen capture of how things look right now, but I highly recommend that you visit the website itself because the wind patterns are animated there, and the whole planet looks spookily like a living organism that breathes in many directions.

footsies

My right foot has been slightly swollen since February, but for the past few months, it had seemed as if it had begun to settle down, albeit only slightly. Now that I've started distance walking again, though, the foot has swollen back up—not to the point where it was in February, but to a point where the skin feels tight. I also have a nice little ache in my right foot; it started last week, and it's been with me ever since. Yesterday's walk intensified the ache a bit, so I'll be watching (feeling) its progress over time, but ever since I took my orthotic insoles out of my size 12s and put them into my size 13s, life has improved.

So there are several factors I'm keeping track of: the tightness of my shoes, the pressure of my socks on my toes (I try to leave some toe room in my socks before I put my shoes on, but the socks creep backward toward my heel as I walk, becoming tight over my toes), the general swelling of my right foot, and a few other, minor things. I'm trying to lose a few kilos before the walk begins; the lessened pressure might help with some of these problems. For the moment, I'm optimistic that I'll still be able to walk come October, although I admit it's a bit disturbing to have to check my readiness.

a repost of a comment

A comment in response to an Instapundit post lamenting the departure of restaurants and other businesses from big cities because of the lack of police protection during all these retarded riots in places like Portland, Seattle, and Chicago:

Woe betide the city in which the breasts of injustice sag as low as the buttocks of perfidy—an unholy convergence prevented only by the heroically straining bra of law enforcement.

Oh, and my most-upvoted comment (14 upvotes) was this one:

When asked about this latest example of plagiarism, Biden reportedly exploded that he had never had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky; that he had never once doped during the Tour de France; and that he was not a crook.

Sunday's walk

Met up with my buddy JW for a walk out to the Jamshil Bridge and back. JW lives in Samseong-dong, and I live in Gaepo-dong, so we elected to walk from our respective residences and meet near the confluence of the Tan Creek and the Han River, right where the drive-in movie theaters are. I left for our 7 p.m. meet-up a little after 6; JW left his place around 6:20. He had bought a new pair of running shoes, so he ran to our meeting point and got there early. I lumbered up to the spot about five minutes late thanks to a bit of a miscalculation in terms of step count and walking speed.

There were plenty of people on the path; JW marveled at how crowded it was. I'd say about 60 to 70 percent of the walkers and bikers were masked up; South Korea is freaking out because of a sudden spike in coronavirus cases over the past couple of weeks, so everyone was walking around with a slightly chastened air. I was resolutely unmasked; wearing a mask while outside for a long walk is irrational to me.

JW was charmed by the nighttime scenery as we approached Jamshil Bridge; he took out his cell phone and started taking pictures to make his family envy him; I was inspired to take out my own cell phone and take two shots, which you see below:

That's JW below, almost in the center of the photo (dude standing on the left, not the right):

Kamala Harris falls for an old prank

Pool is careful to note that we don't know when the prank occurred—before Kamala Harris was officially picked for VP or after. Pool also notes that Harris looks bad either way: she's on audio accepting damning information about her opponent from foreign sources. Not very patriotic, Kamala! And worse than anything Trump and his team have been accused of.

a professional lock-picker gets challenged

The results of this challenge are hilarious:

whips and chains? oh, you cad! but how about a chain-whip?

Yikes:

This needs to be tested on the sort of ballistics-gel dummy they use on "Fight Science"—one with bone and organ analogues to give us a slightly more realistic idea of the damage such a weapon could cause.

Tim re: Rose, Tucker re: shitholes

Here's Tim Pool's commentary on Rose McGowan's very angry tweet (remember?):

Tim now seems more comfortable talking about his intention to vote for Trump, but here, he also defends the rights of those who wish to walk away from left-Dem politics without necessarily becoming conservative or explicitly Republican. I agree.

I don't normally watch anything involving Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson, but in the video below, he dismantles the hypocritical rhetoric that came out of the Democrat National Convention, and he eventually focuses directly on the issue of what has happened to big cities that have long been under Democrat management:


And once again, here's Kim Klacik (remember her?):

swell. marvelous.

Another typhoon is headed toward the Korean peninsula.

Typhoon Bavi, formed off the east coast of Taiwan, is expected to hit the Korean Peninsula on Thursday, the national weather agency said Saturday.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said the season’s 8th tropical storm is moving northwest towards the peninsula at a speed of 28 kilometers per hour and forecast to make landfall on Thursday after passing through the southern island of Jeju.

I'm going to guess that the typhoon will expend much of its energy as it rakes past Japan's tail and over Jeju Island. Here in Seoul, we might get more angry rains, but little else. Or so I'm betting. Historically, typhoons approach Korea from somewhere south. In many cases, Japan acts as an enormous baffle that greatly weakens any system heading for Korea from the southeast. But even storms that manage not to hit Japan rarely do much damage to Seoul: it's the southern part of South Korea that, more often than not, suffers the most. I'll be watching la météo for the next few days, but I can't say I'm too worried.

and one more #WalkAway story

The #WalkAway movement isn't just for gay folks like Brandon Straka or for black folks like [the several dozen names I have collected in my #WalkAway/Black Conservatives playlist on YouTube]. It's for the normies, too.

Just try to ignore and/or forgive the incessant lip-smacking noises he makes.

#WalkAway stories

Brandon Straka (whose surname is apparently supposed to be pronounced "strahk") is the founder of the #WalkAway movement. What "walking away" means depends on the walker. For people like Brandon, walking away meant leaving the Democrat party and eventually becoming a Trump supporter. Keri Smith thinks of herself as a "classical" liberal, but she also walked away from the lib-Dem side of the aisle to become a Trump supporter. For many black folks, walking away has been linked to the powerful metaphor of "the plantation," i.e., the mental slavery associated with marching in lockstep with the liberal-leftist-Democratic machine. Walking away from that is like leaving the plantation, leaving mental slavery. Below is the young, smart, self-possessed Sidni Standard (I'm pretty sure that's her online moniker, not her real name), talking about her own #WalkAway experience. It's worth a listen:

And here's the man himself, Brandon Straka, sitting down with Tim Pool:


Many on the left are trying to paint the #WalkAway movement as little more than a rabble or a myth—something insignificant. This is just more evidence of the left's detachment from reality. The movement is huge, and it's only gaining momentum. Ignore it at your peril.

PJW on NYC

Time for another "shithole" video by Paul Joseph Watson. His target this time: New York City.

De Blasio and Cuomo really are off in a fantasy world, aren't they.

more PowerLine Pictures of the Week