Okay... So?

Manohla Dargis of the New York Times on Eugene Jarecki's

"Why We Fight":

"In Mr. Jarecki's formulation, successive American governments have waged wars and conducted secret military operations for profit, and then sold these campaigns to us as necessary, even righteous. The idea is that because the public buys the lies, it also buys the wars. Too bad this doesn't explain why people buy lies, including the obvious ones. There's something comforting in the idea that our mistakes can be pinned on presidents, propaganda and Halliburton, perhaps because then it seems as if we didn't have anything to do with them."

Sue me

Ok fine. I got an iPod. Like every other wannabe greenwich village hipster.

Just like all of you told me I would, I got an iPod. Fine. I don't care.

It's not my fault it's so shiny and purrrrty.

More later.

Because I'm not busy enough.

This is what needs to happen, right now:

First of all, I need to be in Magog, Canada or Ithaca. I need to get up late, just a tad bit hung over, and have a bagel sandwich dripping with cheese and egg and sausage patty, along with a couple of mugs of coffee.

I need to throw on some clothes that hopefully don't stink too savagely of nicotine, cologne, spilled wine/vodka, and marijuana.

I need to drive over to a decent grocery store with Lauro, but not before smoking a couple of cigarettes on the way to the car.

Then, we need to pick out some food. A shitload of bottled water, some chips and guacamole, maybe a largish wedge of brie or camembert. Then the ingredients for dinner. Capers, olives, olive oil, fresh herbs, pasta, tomatoes, creme fraiche, a couple of cloves of garlic, onions, parmesan, butter, a pack of little shrimp, salad greens, then a couple of fish steaks, something easy to cook like swordfish or salmon. Ooh, don't forget the portabella mushrooms.

Afterwards, I need to wake Andy up, feed him some coffee, and walk to the liquor store with him and Lauro so we can choose some wine and pick up a few six packs.

Then I need to marinade the fish. Chop up the herbs, toss 'em together. Rub a couple of drops of olive oil on the fish and slather them with the chopped herbs, mush mush rub rub. Like so. Dash of salt. Like so. Dash of pepper, grind grind. Like so.

Then I need to relax, pour myself some more coffee or maybe a beer if the hangover's almost gone, eat chips, and watch CNN or C-span or reruns of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Maybe doze off for a half hour.

Then I need to take a really long shower, shave, get properly dressed, and start to cook.
First I need to get the pasta sauce started, although Andy has gotten really good at this, and Lauro can whip up an awesome one with olive oil and cheese in like 2 seconds flat. Heat some olive oil, toss in some diced garlic and toast it. Toss in the tomatoes, sans skin and watery glunk. Open a bottle of the cheaper wine. Splash a bit into the sauce, and we've got drinks for the kitchen. Boil beer. Toss in some salt and cook the shrimp for like two seconds. Drain and cool so they can be put in the pasta sauce later.

Look at Andy, beer in one hand, stirring the pasta sauce with the other, concentrating on CNN or the New York Times or a book. Look at Lauro, making salad dressing, or mixing drinks, or getting places ready at the table. Sigh... the boys look like A&F models.

OK. Now the fish, the entree, the main dish. Has it marinaded nicely? Awesome. Set the oven to anywhere between 450 and broil. Mash up a couple of crackers or dry leftover baguette slices. Drop a little more olive oil on the steaks and roll 'em around on the crumbs. Great. Melt a fucking gallon of butter in a big saucepan and let it boil. When it looks pretty hot, drop in the steaks with some leftover herbs and fry them for like 10 seconds. Just enough so the outsides cook up a little, but not so much that the insides get dry. Then I'm going to pop them in the oven and let them sit a bit so the insides get cooked a little.

Fish in the oven. Good. Andy's pasta sauce starting to look pretty good. Let's add the shrimp now. Lauro's cooked the pasta to perfection as usual. I can never cook pasta like that. The salad dressing's yummy too.

OK, last one. Clean the portabellas. With a KNIFE. I hate it when people clean their mushrooms under water, they're like sponges and turn into a fucking mess. Heat some olive oil. Add some minced garlic and toast a bit. Throw in the mushrooms and cook 'em for a couple of seconds, only enough so they can't be called raw.

Alright. Fish out of the oven. Salad in a bowl. Pasta in a bowl. Portabellas on a plate. Table is set. The nicer wine's been opened and breathing for a bit. Great. Sparkling water.

I'm ready. Andy's ready. Lauro's ready. Friends have arrived. More booze. Excellent.

Dinner.

More wine. Maybe some of that brie.

OK, everyone's stuffed so now we need to throw all the junk into the sink and lay back on the couch and relax a bit. Drink a bit. Listen to Oakenfold or Outkast or Basement Jaxx a bit.

10 pm. A bit drunk. Maybe a little more than just a bit drunk.

Time for the bars.

This is what needs to happen.

More later.

R.I.P. Arrested Development

"G.O.B. get rid of the Sea Ward."
"I'm not leaving until I've had my say."
...awkward silence...

Go figure Fox is going to cancel the best sitcom since, well, ever (although to be perfectly honest, I'm sort of surprised they ever picked up something so clever in the first place).

I know a million people have written a million posts about how stupid American TV is getting, but it really is rather bleak, isn't it? Just a few years ago, we had the early seasons of Frasier, ER (before Dr. Greene left), The X-files, and Seinfeld. Remember? We actually used to look forward to watching our shows.

Now check out the Nielson ratings for the week of January 23rd through 29th, this year:

1. American Idol - Tuesday
2. American Idol - Wednesday
3. CSI
4. Without a Trace
5. CSI: Miami
6. Dancing With the Stars
7. Lost
8. Grey's Anatomy
9. Two and a Half Men
10. NCIS

There's nothing to watch except for BBC specials on PBS. Even my Gilmore Girls have gone downhill (Get your act together, Palladinos. Rory has been dicking around with the wrong crowd for too fucking long).

Now Fox has gone and killed off the Bluths, the most perfectly dysfunctional family since Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying."

Pretty soon all we'll have to keep us laughing is DVD box sets of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."
Pathetic.

More later.

Back.

It finally hit me that being completely buried in patent surveys and numerical models of hydrogen storage systems can't possibly be good for my health. Therefore, I've decided to restart this blog, which hopefully will be less of the narcissistic exhibitionist crap it was before, and more like an online equivalent of barfing up all the crap that makes you sick after you've been mixing too many drinks and eating too much cold pizza with your buddies. Except that the vomit will obviously come from my brain, rather than my stomach.

Some things that have changed: I've graduated (almost. the actual ceremony isn't until later this month), and I've started working in a lab here at SNU. This means that my escape from the urban hell known as Seoul will have to be postponed a bit, but it also means that I'll be able to do some sort of scientific research instead of the customary stint in the Korean army.

Some things that are still the same (in no particular order): I'm still stuck at Seoul National University. I still hate living in Korea. People still think I'm sort of gay. I still hate Bush. I still love getting wasted with good friends. I'm still a sentimental idiot. I still think that someone will read this damn blog aside from the occasional passer-by who feels compelled to inform me about the cheapest sofas available anywhere. I still love to cook and eat and learn about food.

I know I have a tendency to start things and dig myself a hole too big to fill (like the 80+pages of the 'novel' I'm 'working on,' which have been undisturbed for even longer than this blog). So we'll see if I can make this page any different.

More later.