Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Korenglish #1

For those of you who don't know what korenglish is you can check this out. Basically it is when the Koreans want to translate something but get it wrong. I only have a few pictures of them today.

100_0721

What exactly happens when you get towered?

DSC00185

I bet that took a while to do.

SS100058[1]

This is more just a funny sign then anything else.

Well, I though I had more signs then that but I was mistaken. I am always on the lookout for signs like this so hopefully there will be more to come.

Monday, August 11, 2008

So Many Pictures

100_1173

I was just sorting through all my pictures and realized that I have taken a ton of them. There is so many of them that I want to post I might be doing some posts of just pictures. I don't know yet though.

I tried to get some pictures of the monsoon rains but they did not turn out and it just looks foggy so I will not post those. However I recently to a trip to Yongson which is a army post in the middle of Seoul. I have gone there quite a bit to buy things or just to get away from camp eagle. This was the first time I left the post and went out into Seoul however.

100_1016 A fake crossing guard. He moved as we were passing and scared us.

100_1032 Man sleeping in tunnel.

100_1039 E-mart - a HUGE store filled with nothing but electronics.

100_1041 1 floor of nothing but camera's

100_1020100_1021  100_1022 Next floor - nothing but cell phones

100_1042 100_1043

Home appliances. This fridge had a display on the front with all sorts of fancy settings.

100_1067 100_1068 100_1069 This is the view from the roof of the building, which used to be a sports stadium.

100_1086 100_1087 And these are the stairs leading into the store. The car is a painting for a car dealer and the other is flights of stairs with fountains under them but the water ends when the stairs ends and starts again when the stairs star. It's really hard to explain but it was a cool effect.

Stay tuned for more on my most recent trip to Yongsan, Life in the armament shop, and even a few Korenglish pictures.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

A Lot to Cover

Instead of doing lots of little posts about stuff I want to post about, I am going to to a somewhat large post today. My first topic shall be my companies field trip.

On July 25th, My entire company was planning to go to Everland amusement park. But since it is the middle of monsoon season it was raining. Imagine that. So instead we went to the Coex Mall. This mall is enormous. It has it's own theater and 4 hotels attached to it. We stayed there from about 1:30 PM to 7:00 PM which was more then enough time for most everybody. I took some pictures there but most of them didn't turn out very well.

100_0980

These are both pictures of buildings outside the mall.

100_0981

The second thing I have to discuss is the stupidity of getting drunk. Sunday night at 1:30 am, our entire battalion was called to formation. We didn't have a clue what was going on but we figured that we were going to get in some trouble because somebody did something stupid. We were practicing the military formation of hurry up and wait for roughly a half hour before our commander called us to attention and told us to gather on him. He proceeded to tell us that someone got too drunk at the bar on post and when someone tried to help him out and back to his room he got angry. The drunk soldier hit the bartender and pushed an MP, which is considered assault, which is a minimum sentence of 3 years, then he fled the scene. Our commander just wanted us to be aware of what happened instead of hearing all sorts of rumors. Either way I was none to pleased to get up to hear about how bad one guy screwed up because of alcohol.

You may have heard that President Bush recently visited the ROK. One of the guys in my shop was able to go and see him speak at U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Yongsan, which is one of the biggest posts nearby and a place where visit frequently to buy anything. I was looking at pictures of Bush's visit on yahoo news and saw this one.

 capt_8c0027d77a1b41efae89cb9267f88f2c_bush_asia_kogh126

See the guy in acu's in the lower left side with the black hair and big smile. That is the guy from my shop. He shook the president's hand and talked with him for a moment. We all thought it was cool that his picture was on yahoo.

The last thing I have is a picture of more gear that I got today.

100_1144 

You may remember the last post I made about joining the infantry, well I have just received more gear. This is extreme cold weather gear and acu ammo, grenade, and random carrying pouches. All together this is 30 pieces of new equipment.

That's all for now. A few more posts and I should be all caught up. Have a wonderful day.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Any PC, Any Coordinates, Any Time. Yeah Right.

images I will apologize to anyone who may work at geek squad or know someone who works there in advance for this post.

This story begins roughly two weeks ago when my computer decided that it would be a good idea to spontaneously combust. Nothing I tried to do fixed the problem. After a week of no computer the reboot and system recovery discs that I got when I bought my laptop came in the mail from home. I didn't hold out very high hopes of them working but I figured it was worth a try. Needless to say they didn't do a thing.

Along with those discs came a folder from geek squad that had a fancy little card with their number and motto: "any pc, any brand, any coordinates, any time." Ok, I could give them a call. I knew that they wouldn't be able to do anything to help me, but maybe they could give me an idea of what caused my computer to go on strike.

So I pick up the phone and of course get an automated service. After going on a great expedition through a jungle of menu's (which took roughly 15 minutes)I finally got connected to a person.

"Hello. Welcome to the geek squad mission control center. This is agent so-and-so. How can I assist you today?"

Wow. How do I respond to that. Live long and prosper. I don't really know. Just because you work for a place called geek squad doesn't mean you have to be a geek there buddy.

Anyway, I tell him the problem and ask if he has any idea what may be causing it. His response - "Have you tried pressing control, alt, delete or the escape button?"

So that's the infinite wisdom of the geek. If all else fails use esc. Yeah thanks buddy. I'll get right on that. No I didn't say any of that although I really wanted to. Instead I replied with a simple yes.

He then proceeded to ask me my name phone number and address. I told him I was currently stationed overseas in Korea so he asks for my U.S. home address, which I give him. Then he asked if he could send an agent to my home to take a look at the computer.

Where you not just paying attention or do you plan on sending an agent over here? I did reiterate the fact that I was indeed stationed in South Korea as in the country and not the new 51st state of Korea.

Agent Geek then says he will not be able to help me anymore over the phone.  Ok Have a nice day then, and I hung up after a great half hour conversation.

I was extremely worked up after this. That was a half hour that would have been better spent banging my head against the wall. I could have gotten the same information out of the wall.

Needless to say it will be quite a while before I call geek squad again. And if agent ctrl, alt, delete is reading this, move out of your parents house and get a real job where you can respect yourself.

Monday, August 4, 2008

I'm Back!!!

 homer-woohoo Well, I am back from my long and very unwanted blogging vacation. I was none too pleased when my computer took a nosedive on me. I ended up buying a new one. A Sony Vaio to be precise. Although it is not the same as my old Gateway it has many nice features.

Anyway. I know I have so much to tell you all, but I can only remember a few things. Things like my hatred for the geek squad, going to the range, a trip into Seoul, and even a formation at 2:00am. Good times. But unfortunately I have some other stuff I have to do, so this is all you, my faithful readers, get for now. I just wanted to let you know I am back. Yay!