Category Culture
Geekery of the Day
The New York Yankees are very rich. They have the highest payroll among all North American sports teams, their revenues are likely in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars per year. They spend five times as much as playoff teams like the Oakland Athletics or Tampa Bay Rays and yet they aren’t very good. […]
Don’t Be a Wimp, Writer’s Edition
This is part two in a two part series on writing. To visit the first, please click here. When I listen to struggling writers – writers who never finish the book, never get the article published, give up after 14 pages – they always seem to mention problems with inspiration. “I just don’t have any […]
Writers’ Groups
This is part one of a two part writing series. Please click here if you’d like to see the second. I’ve taken part in two distinct types of literary community. In the first, people come together, usually at an establishment specializing in $8 variations on Folgers pre-mix, and exchange opinions on each others’ masterpieces. In […]
An Open Letter to Peter Schiff
Dear Peter, I just wanted to say first of all that I’m a massive fan of yours. I’m not sure if it’s your paranoid tone, the way your face undulates like a stormy sea as you speak or if it’s simply because you’ve decided that, instead of the innocuous “Pete” appellation commonly adopted by those […]
When to Politely Tell Your Superiors to Go Get Bent
Unless you’re born really rich, you will probably spend the majority of your life trying attain more status and more power. Neither of these goals are bad, regardless of how much the high status and powerful people of the world morally disapprove when you attempt to overtake them. Indeed, you literally cannot matter without power. […]
토마 연설
토마 연설 여기서 저의 토마 스피치 있습니다. 즐겨 많이 드세요. 문법 많이 틀어서 최송합니다. 이런 각본은 원래 상태로 보여주실 거예요. 영어로 쓴 각본은 좀 달아요. 차이 점은 저의 초급 한국어는 때문입니다. “안녕하시기 바랍니다. 제 말씀을 잘 들어주시면 감사하겠습니다. 스피치 시작하기 전에, 아주 중요한 질문을 하고 싶습니다 – 너의 정체는 뭐에요? 다른 방법으로 물어보면, 누구세요? 깊게 […]
The Speech Contest
I had been avoiding giving speeches at the Mokwon University chapter of Toastmasters, mostly because the speeches are in English, the members are almost entirely Korean and the entire thought of competing with them just struck me as incredibly unfair. There was also the part about me not wanting to write or memorize a […]
The Completely Practical Value of Imagination
In addition to writing this blog, playing with distastefully modified cars and mystifying Koreans with my awesome hanguel skills, I am a graduate student in Paichai University‘s second language acquisition (TESOL) department. As part of my studies, I’ve been collaborating with one of my professors on a scientific paper investigating motivation in language learning. This […]
The Aliens Among Us
Six illegal immigrants sat inside, concealed behind a vaguely grandmotherly veil of lace curtains and potted plants. Naomi McNotHerRealName, 28 when I met her, lives in the two-bedroom house with a small green lawn in east Reno. It’s a throwback to the late ‘70s when the idea of a yellow house with green trim still […]
Excerpt from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
‘Alls I’m – or think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good it happened: no way. But did you ever read Victor Frankl? Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning? It’s a great, great book. Frankl was in a camp in the Holocaust and the book comes out […]
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