paul habeeb. blog.

As of late I have taken to staying up to the most dreadful hours of the night, wasting my life away with video games such as Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the block game. While this may seem atypical behaviour for me, I can guarantee you the addictive nature of these games makes up for this case of addiction. The latest game in my arsenal has been Line Rider. It isn’t actually a game, but a toy; however, I like to call it a game as I find I can call up that word more readily than I can say it is a toy. It is more addicting than the block game, simpler and more accessible than Zelda, and therefore has received the brunt of my game-playing time. It is quite tough, though, so watch out.

Outside of playing video games, I’ve been writing two papers and a presentation while simultaneously trying to work on my novel for NaNoWriMo and reading the books I’ve recently acquired [Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, and The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis]. I’ve also read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer in the past two weeks and I recommend them highly to anyone looking for a great book. Currently I am reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, but I am not far enough in to know how I like it.

This Wednesday I see Brand New play at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. I am nowhere near ready for the experience, but I have been preparing myself in every way possible. I shall post a review after it is over.

I’m sitting here, waiting for a mp3 of a friend’s song to finish transferring. I’m being told that there are 31 seconds remaining, but I doubt the accuracy of whatever is counting that. I’ll be happy if it comes in under five minutes. On to the weekend.

Actually I don’t really feel like writing very much about the weekend, so I’ll sum everything up into a few quick points:

• Happy drunks are better than angry drunks
• Prison Break is an amazing television show
• Never, ever watch the movie Phone Booth
• Being the DJ is a lot of fun

I don’t have much to say other than that. NaNoWriMo starts this Wednesday. I’m terribly under prepared for it, but I’ll survive - all I need is 50,000 words. Brand New is on Wednesday, as well. I am definitely looking forward to that.

My life has suddenly been upgraded, and now includes 100% more business! Here’s a taste of the things that now take up my schedule:

• Mafia Murder Mystery on Thursday, October 26, 2006
• Brand New concert on Wednesday, November 1, 2006
• Trip to South Korea from Wednesday, December 13, 2006 to Wenesday, December 27, 2006

Each of these events has come into my life so suddenly that I am quite refreshed by it. I must say, I am quite excited for each of them and I hope that they are all what I hope for them to be.

Also, today I received an email from JPG Magazine about two photographs I submitted to their seventh issue. If you aren’t familiar with the process of photo selection at JPG here is a quick rundown:

• Photographs are uploaded to a theme, such as self-portrait or hometown
• Users vote on the uploaded photos, picking the ones they think most suited for that theme
• The editors of JPG then make the final decisions on the photographs, choosing the ones they enjoy most
• The photographers whose photos appear in the magazine get a free subscription for one year and $100

The first photograph I submitted to the self-portrait category, and I must admit that it was not the best photograph to submit. Naturally, the photo did not receive enough votes to make it into the magazine. The second photo, however, is one of my favourites of all the ones that I have taken. I submitted it to the theme “hometown”. I guess that people thought it was fitting, as it is going to be in the next issue. If you want to check it out, the issue will be hitting stands in mid-November. The photograph is entitled “Power”.

So that thing about this being a Korean culture related blog - forget that. This is still my personal blog and will be forever.

I’ve decided to shift the focus of my blog once again. Now I’ll primarily be posting about Korea with an emphasis on it’s popular culture. I do not consider myself to be an expert on Korean pop culture, but I know of no other blogs that specifically address this topic, so I have decided to take it upon myself to do so. I may still write about my personal life, but most likely only if the topic is Korea-related.

On that note, here’s a link to a funny video of Brian from Fly to the Sky and Tablo of Epik High singing songs in English on the show X맨 (Xman). Brian sings I Can Show You the World and Tablo raps Lose Yourself.
X-Man - Brian and Tablo Renditions of English Songs

It’s been a while since my last post. It skipped the month of September entirely, mainly due to school starting up and my constant working. I’ve been having fun, though.

This upcoming Saturday is the last wedding of the year with Tureskis, so I’m excited to have a break from weddings. I’ll probably be doing a few next year as well, but not as many since I hope to study in Korea in the fall. I’m also still working at the library, but I am considering quitting at the end of winter break. I don’t want to quit before, since I can pick up a lot of shifts during the break and make plenty of extra money to spend on random things.

School has been going pretty well. This week we received our midterm grades, and although only one of my professors posted the grades, I am happy with what I got. Hopefully this week the midterm tests aren’t too difficult. I feel confident about my Korean exam, but I’m not too sure about Internet and the Law and Asian American Cultures. Thankfully Ethics doesn’t have a midterm.

In November I plan on participating in NaNoWriMo, which is a “novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.” I’ve already begun planning my novel, but I don’t want to say anything about it because I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who may read it. November is bound to be full of schoolwork related procrastination. I better not get too behind.

That’s all for this post. I plan on posting more frequently from now on. November may be an exception to this, with the novel and all. Other than that, there should be new material every couple of days or so.

Last weekend some friends and I went to the Korean Film Festival at the ART Theatre downtown. They were only playing one film the night we went, and that film was The Unforgiven. Overall I liked the film, but the cinematography could have definitely used some work. The movie was obviously shot on some sort of digital medium, probably miniDV, so the quality of the picture was okay at best. The lenses used through the film did not provide enough depth of field to blur out the backgrounds, and this made anything going on behind the subject in perfect focus and a perfect distraction. Other than those two gripes the movie was awesome. The acting was right on, and the story was original.

The next day the festival was playing several other movies, including Sympathy for Lady Vengeance and Sad Movie. Unfortunately I did not get to attend them, as work ran later than I expected and went right on to the middle of the last film of the night. Hopefully next year I’ll get to see a lot of movies if I study in Seoul.