It was one of those Monday mornings where one wakes up and wonders why it's so dark. You wonder, "Hey, did I wake up early?! Can I get a few more minutes of sleep!?!?!?!" ... but then you look over to the clock and realize, "No, it's just a dark morning."

So the next logical step in your thinking process is "Hey, it's dark. Maybe it'll rain today." But then the part of my brain obsessing over Lee Cheong Ah takes over and the thought of it raining is ignored. Ah, the joys of the male brain.

Fast forward to 6pm. It starts raining. Greeeaaatttt. The logic part of my brain is screaming, "IDIOOOTTTTHHH" while the main part of my brain is still going, "Lee Cheong Ah is SO cute!"

. . .

Um, yeah. But in the same vein as Oliver's excellent post on Dieter, I want to discuss possible "spin-offs" to the whole superhero saga.

I think I am a realist, so I don't want to have superhuman abilites like being able to dodge a speeding bullet, bound over buildings, or have x-ray vision (by the way, Superman is PERV). I would like to be a superhero like Bruce Wayne; basically buy my superhero status.

But I would be far more practical than Batman. Although I am not dissing on Batman (but I hear Bruce Wayne is a PERV), I think that he helps maybe less than 0.00000001% people in Gotham City. So you must be asking yourself, "What superhero does Roy want to be that would be practical?"

My superhero ability would be to give out umbrellas to hapless idiots who forget their umbrellas on days where it is obviously going to rain. I would buy the umbrellas in huge bulk lots (perhaps from CostCo?) after winning the lottery and then go out on days when it would rain ...

It would be a realistic superpower. THE POWER TO GIVE UMBRELLAS OUT!!!!!!! FEARRRR!!

See a poor hot girl in a white t-shirt standing in her building, staring at the sky, willing it to stop raining because she forgot her umbrella? NO PROBLEM! I would come to the rescue; I would walk by and throw her an umbrella. Before she could thank me ... I would run off (kinda like Spiderman [a perv] and Batman always do after saving the day).

How many people do you know have sat inside, trying to "outwait" the weather? Let me give you a hint: THAT NEVER WORKS! I know for a fact that Mother Nature is a vengeful person and can be quite "moody" sometimes (insert subtle PMS joke here ... then prepare oneself for the deluge of "it's not cool to joke about periods" responses).

You see? I would be MORE powerful than Mother Nature; I would allow people to stick it to Mother Nature and walk out in the rain!

My enemy might be the other umbrella man. We compete in giving umbrellas out ... and unlike other superhero/supervillain sagas, our feud would benefit people, not destroy whole worlds (I'm looking at YOU, Silver Surfer. Yes, you. Asshole).

Plus I think I would get mad chicks. I'm sure of this, because superheros always get the hot chicks. Even sissies like Cyclops got Jean Grey at the end.

. . .

But yeah, I got caught outside in the rain today. The first few minutes sucked, but after a while (when you pass the point of "hell, I'm already wet, let's just embrace the rain like P. Diddy loves to do in his music videos) it's kinda cool. I would quote the popular Hillary Duff song here (hint: rhymes with "Come Clean"), but I remind myself that I am old now and I have to be mature.

Wow, this was only supposed to be a short introduction to my post, but I guess it's kind of a long post already. Oh well.

. . .

I love galbi (pork or beef, sauteed Korean style and cooked and served over burning coals). There's a small place by my studio that I love to eat at... it's run by a middle-aged couple and their two daughters (both about my age... RAWR... jk). The couple are the friendliest people I've met so far; they've been so kind to me since my first day here. They sometimes hook me up with a free drink (Coke) ...

The food itself is pretty good; to me, all galbi tastes about the same (tastes: good), but this place has a special lemon-type sauce with their daegeegalbi (pork) that makes it taste SO good. It's a bit pricey to eat by yourself, as you have to order for a minimum of two people (so I end up dropping about $14-$20 everytime I visit). One might think that I would have trouble downing two servings of meat in one sitting, but OmahaSteaks.com and my bank account would tell you different.

The restaurant itself is open-aired (a style not common in the US). It makes a pleasant meal to sit down and watch the cars and people go by while they stare at me downing sick amounts of meat (Takesi Kobayashi, you are my HERO!).

There's something so fun about watching other people eat at these galbi-jeeps (galbi houses) ... there's really no equivalent to this type of restaurant in the US (and those that do exist, as far as I can see, are more restaurants than "social" gathering places like these places). One can learn a lot about a culture by the way people interact, eat, and drink (alcohol) in a dinner setting. There's something so comforting in watching people, both pretty girls and ugly guys ... middle-management drones and low-wage workers get together for the ritual of eating grilled meat, KNOWING they're going to have a nasty aftersmell afterwards.

[And the guy who hauls around traditional organic Korean liquor just went past the restaurant. He hauls around this big cart of liquor daily around the city, ringing his bell. He is quite a character; he always seems a bit too happy to meet people, which leads me to believe he's been partaking in his own liquor far too often... Joseph (co-worker) says he sells the best stuff in the city...]

Galbi goes well with soju (I'm told, as I'm not a drinker ... I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've "gone out drinking," and all these things happened in Korea since the whole culture is alcohol-driven). Soju is "the" Korean drink. In essence, it's watered-down vodka. But, it tastes like rubbing alcohol. Again, I've never tasted rubbing alcohol, but it's EXACTLY the way I imagine rubbing alcohol tastes.

[Aside: One time while I was cramming for a chemistry exam with Paul, George, and some other people, Paul mentioned that drinking wood alcohol (pure) will blind you. There was some silence, and then George says, "Damnit, you shouldn't have told me. Now I'm going to be thinking about that everytime I'm doing an experiment with it ... it's going to make me want to drink it!" Paul just replies, "I know" then gives him this smile.]

In Korea, there's a whole hierarchical system of respect when drinking. You can NEVER pour your own drink, and if you are of a "lower" social status (not in the Communist "overthrow the aristocrats" status way, but like the "your grandfather deserves your respect" status), you MUST accept the drink with TWO hands. By implication (since Korea is a paternally-driven society) that all women must accept drinks with both hands from their male counterparts.

It's fun to watch a group of guys sit back, eat some meat, and drink some soju. Probably one of the redeeming masculine activities that Korea has to offer ... but it's still far offset by the Korean manbag obsession (GOOD GOD ... BURBERRY MANBAGS?!?!??!).

[For those of you NOT in the know, 'manbags' are 'handbags' for men. Not to be confused with 'messenger bags,' these are HANDBAGS. There is no MISTAKING them. What the HELL guys have to carry to require a MANBAG is beyond me. Maybe they keep their balls in their (::input rimshot::)]

In any case, all galbi comes with ggigae, which is a hot and spicy soup with some tofu, vegetables, and some clams (well, the place I eat at). There apparently is a lady who prepares the ggigae, because the owner always bellows, "Ahjumma (lady), one ggigae please!"

[There's a horrible Korean-American joke ... Will Smith enters a Korean restaurant with his friend and they both sit down to order. The Korean friend orders something and then goes to the bathroom. The waiter comes and takes the order from Will. When the Korean friend returns, he asks Will, "What did you order?" Will replies, "I got whatever you got, but I got ggigae with it." (Let the joke sink in ... yes ... yes ... it's the stupidest reference to "Getting Jiggy with It" EVER). (Ok, let it sink it. Ok, let's move on. Enough emotional and mental damage has been done with that aside)]

So this ggigae lady ... is there a job where your sole purpose is to provide the ggigae for the galbi? Are there like ... freelancer ggigae people out there, who go from place to place trying to pay their rent by making ggigae? Do they go into a restaurant and does the owner sit down and the ggigae lady carefully perfects her creation and offers it to the owner, who takes a sip and goes "Hmm..." and depending on the length of the "hmm" the ggigae lady must figure out if she's been hired or fired? Does anyone wonder about these things except me? I feel that these are questions that MUST be answered!

Hmm, so anyways I've developed an affinity for tofu. Not entirely sure why, but I think eating a lot of it in Korea (which has GREAT tofu) has something to do with it. But unlike the times when I use self-delusion to trick myself into thinking that "sure, it's ok to eat a lot of McDonalds ... it's healthy ... your Big Mac has LETTUCE in it!" or "steak is GOOD for you! Get the extra large combo from OmahaSteaks.com," eating a lot of tofu really is healthy for me. So that's a good thing. At least I won't keel over and die at age 28 from a heart attack because of bad eating habits ... no, my sedentary computer lifestyle will kill me then! Muhahahaha. Take THAT, health nuts!

My stint in Korea ends this Friday, so expect a bunch of middle-of-the-road realizations about life.