Tastes like chicken?

Last week my watch died on me, so I went on a quest for a crazy cartoon character watch. I found a really awesome Japanese kitty watch for the low price of $5, and I've been really quite pleased with it. Take a look:

Anyhow, in the middle of the night last night I was awakened by the feel of sharp, pointy teeth digging into my wrist. Then I discovered Mia going to town on my watchband like it was the next best thing to the imported Japanese catfood with whole bite-sized shrimp that she gets for dinner.

Thanks a lot, Mia.

Another pet post

UPDATE: The apartment management company has ammended their pet policy to read, "Cat owners must use some form of scratch prevention to avoid damage to the apartment." - Hooray! No more mandated declawing :-)

My friends and fellow cat lovers Linda and Shaggy (who live in San Diego, CA) have recently been informed by their apartment of a new policy requiring all cat owners to have their cats declawed. Refusal to comply can lead to eviction. In case you seem to think that this is perfectly reasonable, allow me to point out that declawing is not the equivalent to mere fingernail removal. It is, in fact, the equivalent to a human being having the tips of his/her fingers removed at the last knuckle. It is an inhumane procedure, which is outlawed in many countries. (For more information on declawing, click here.) Anyhow, Linda has a rather lengthy post on her situation, and her efforts to get the apartment management company to change their policy. Please click here to read. And feel free to email the apartment management company to voice your complaint - I have sent an email to Stanley Cohen [scohen@apmanagement.net] head of property management for the company's San Diego division. I will let you know what, if anything, I receive in reply.

Huge fire at the Jacksonville Humane Society - Please help!

The Jacksonville Humane Society, a wonderful no-kill animal shelter located in Jacksonville, FL suffered a devastating fire on Saturday. You can read about the incident here and make donations here.

It's working!

I was getting ready to put my computer in its bag so I could take it to go get looked at tomorrow. Then I decided to blow in all the vents to see if that might help dislodge cat hair or dirt or something that might be affecting the way it works.... and then I tried the power switch again, and it turned on!!!!!!

No idea how long this will last, but at least it will give me a chance to back up the few things that weren't backed up before.

A very quick post

I'm writing to you from a nearby PC Bang (PC room), which is filled with smoke and middle-aged dudes, smoking and playing computer games. There are also a bunch of kids in here; several are my students. I am also about to pass out because in my hurry to find internet, I came here without eating breakfast. Whoops. As a result, I'm going to keep this short. Gwen, Samson and I went to the nearby city of Gyeong Ju yesterday to check out the spring flowers and to attend the annual Rice Cake and Soju Festival. The flowers were awesome. It turned out that the festival is *next* weekend. We're planning to try again. Anyway, I took a bunch of really fabulous photos, which I have uploaded to flickr. I've only posted one below... Click here to see all of them!

My Laptop Is Dead

And I am so very sad. Why does this keep happening to me? Do I just have terrible laptop karma? I hope the Koreans will be better at fixing my current computer than the Russians were at fixing my previous one. Until I get this remedied, I suppose you'll be hearing less from me :-(

I hope my mom doesn't mind!

They've announced the first of the three themes for JPG Magazine's Issue 11... and it's America. You'd think that being an American and all I'd have tons of photos from which to choose. Unfortunately, given that since the aquisition of my digital camera I've spent very little time in the States, I didn't have too many to choose from. I decided to enter this one that I took of my mom last Fourth of July. It might not be the best shot from a quality-of-photography point of view, but I love it! Click here or on the photograph below to vote. Remember, you have to register for your vote to count. (Also, voting is still open for Issue 10, so you can still vote on Stable in the Sun if you haven't yet, hint, hint.)

Click here to vote!

Want to work where I work?

Want to teach English in Daegu, South Korea?
We're looking to hire a teacher who can start in May.
Click here for all the info!

Breathing Easier

This picture was taken from the same location as the one below, at roughly the same time. It seems that the yellow dust has mostly cleared out. You can even see mountains in the distance! View Juxtaposition.

Invasion of the Yellow Dust

I woke up around noon today, feeling mostly recovered from my head-cold. I looked out the window at the dreary and oddly colored skies and thought we were in for more thunderstorms. Turns out we were in for something much more unpleasant. After all, I like rain. No, the reason for the crazy colored skies was the annual invasion of yellow dust from the Gobi Desert in China/Mongolia. Apparently a "yellow dust alarm" has been issued, whatever that means. You can read more about yellow dust here and here, if you're interested.

This photo was taken from my balcony shortly after 2pm.

During yellow dust attacks, many people wear medical masks (think surgeon or Michael Jackson), and many kids wear cute masks with cartoon characters on them. I went on a quest for a mask this afternoon, and acquired a hot pink on with a cat face. The only problem is that my glasses fog up every time I exhale.