revamping the vlog

As you (should) already know, I'm a blogger. What some of you may not know is that I attempted, for a embarrassingly short while, to keep a vlog as well. I've linked to it a couple of times, but I try to avoid saying too much about it, because it's incomplete and poorly-kept, with overlong and badly-edited videos. It's as underdone as chicken tenders at Chili's. 

Well. 

I'd like to change that. 

I need a decent microphone and some updated video-editing skills. But once I master those, I'm going to revamp that blog of mine. 

How?

Well, since I already cover everything related to travel, cocktails, flying, and writing on this here blog, I'm going to take a different route with my YouTube channel. Oh, of course I'll put up interesting travel videos (should be plenty of those coming from Southeast Asia). Once I move back to the USA, I'll also set up a camera in the kitchen and start making video cocktail reviews instead of just text. (Perhaps once I reach Cocktail Review No. 85 or 90 or 100, whenever that may be.) And when I get back stateside I'll resume my flying career, too: specifically my quest for a single-engine commercial pilot ticket with instrument, floatplane, taildragger, and high-performance ratings. I'm sure that'll make for some interesting video fodder too. I may even need to get a GoPro...

But all that's in the future. For now, while I'm here in Korea, I can definitely do better with the vlog. 

I've been watching a lot of vlogs on YouTube lately (specifically the QiRanger, KWOW, and HowTheWorldWorks), and I love 'em to death. Here are some things that they all do well:

• they supplement their speech with text, music, and hi-def images, artfully edited into the video as a whole
• they talk about pertinent, up-to-date, and interesting subjects
• their bedside manner is engaging and fun, and their speech is practiced, fluent, and clear

I can do all that stuff, easy. Might be a little rough once I first start out, but I'll get into the swing of it. 

So what kind of topics will I talk about, then?

Something that people keep telling me I'm great at discussing in an interesting, meaningful way: history and wordplay. 

Once per week, I'm thinking, I'll do an installment called 5-Minute History, where I'll talk about some obscure and little-known topic that nonetheless had far-reaching consequences on our civilization and society. As the title suggests, these videos will be about five minutes in length. 

On certain days of the week, I'll have shorter and supplementary columns: Slang Saturdays (wherein I discuss the origin of an idiom or colloquialism) and Word Wednesdays (wherein I discuss the etymology, cultural significance, and historical context of English words). In short, I am going to create a whole new world for me and others to play around in online. And maybe learn something along the way. 

Sound boring? It won't be, trust me. 

I'm not sure when all of this will get started. My first order of business is to create a neat channel trailer for this vlog and inform everyone of its revitalization. I need to get familiar with video editing and figure out how to insert music, voice-overs, images, video clips, and so on. But you guys here on the Sententious Vaunter will be the first to know when the new-and-improved Vaunter-vlog starts up. And who knows? This might be a nice segue into the world of radio, something I do on the side that could get me hired one day. 

Stay tuned, vlogsphere. Ex Post Facto is going to get a whole lot sexier. 

Nope, even sexier than that. 

the Pope is coming

I noticed something interesting on the subway TV screens last week: images of Pope Francis interspersed with Korean churches and cathedrals. I didn't think much of it at the time, but a quick Internet check confirmed my suspicions.

The Pope is coming to South Korea. 

People.com

Between August 14 and 16, His Holiness, in his big heavy robes, will flit about this hot, steamy peninsula succoring the victims of the Sewol disaster, conducting Mass at various Korean cathedrals, presiding over the beatification of 124 Korean martyrs, and just generally doing papal things. There will be a parade near Gwanghwamun and (if the article I linked to above is to be believed) over 100 million people will be in attendance. 

I find that a little difficult to believe. This city's population is just over 10 million. I don't see how it could swell by 1000% and not explode. I don't think that many people could physically fit into this town, not even if they flung a bunch of pontoons into the Han River and turned it into a peanut gallery. 

Anyway, Miss H and I return from Hong Kong on the 7th of August, so we'll be here in time to see Francis. If we feel up to battling our way through the teeming throngs, we may try to get a glimpse of the fellow. It'd be cool to say we saw the first New World pope on an official mission of mercy. 

Southeast Asia travel prep

I've made great strides in preparing for my upcoming Southeast Asia tour. I had some free time on Friday, so I took the subway to Anguk Station and climbed a tall, sinister, sweaty hill to the Vietnamese embassy to apply for my visa. I was expecting a grand, colonial-style brick building with curtained windows, armed guards in crisp uniforms, and velvety carpet floors, but what I found was a series of squat little huts with peeling white paint and asthmatic air conditioning. The rusty gate hung half-open and the tiny apron of rough asphalt inside was empty. There wasn't a single Vietnamese person in sight. Behind the desk in Hut B4 was a young, surly, sniffy, trilingual Korean woman just back from lunch, who imperiously asked for my passport and jabbed an application form and a pen at me. I filled it out while the other supplicants, a sharp-dressed harabeoji with his two hyperactive grandchildren and a harassed salarywoman, hovered in the background. Ten minutes later, I had a pink slip in my hand commanding me to bring ₩95,000 to this very hut at 5:00 p.m. on Friday the 27th of June. Boom. Visa applied for. 

I took a cab to Itaewon and the international clinic there to get some immunizations. Dr. Kim, educated in the United States and almost wholly without an accent, gave it to me straight: according to the CDC, I didn't need malaria meds unless I'd be traveling to the uncharted interior of Vietnam or Cambodia. As long as I was sticking to the cities, I'd be fine. After a two-minute discussion, the good doctor directed me to his head nurse, who jabbed me with a 6-month flu shot, a three-year typhoid injection, and a first-time hepatitis A vaccine, which I was instructed to renew in half a year's time. The harridan scribbled three entries into a vaccination card, thrust it at me, took my payment of ₩143,000, and bowed me out of the waiting room. My arm was sore for the rest of the day. I attended a World Cup-themed dinner party in Hyehwa later that rainy evening and raising beer bottles to my lips became an unpleasant chore. 

I have also successfully reserved a four-berth soft sleeper on the SE3, the two-day train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City departing at eleven o'clock on the evening of July 14th. Seat 61 recommended Vietnam Impressive as the best travel agency for booking train tickets, and not without reason. I was very impressed with their fast service and their clear, forthright run-down of timetables and payment information. I'd recommend them to anyone. Their notification request system seems a bit spotty, but less than 24 hours after I sent a follow-up e-mail, I had payment and reservation confirmation in my inbox. My view of Vietnam is going to look like this: 

Reckless Wonder

So...yeah. Flights are reserved, hotels are booked, train tickets will be waiting for me, and everything's go for launch on July 12.

This is gonna be great. 

cocktail review no. 77 - Paleo Margarita

I don't know whether you guys are into the Paleo diet or not, but this is something my mum ran across in one of her cookbooks and forwarded to me when I called to remind my parents what my voice sounds like on Father's Day. We're getting close to the dog days of summer over here in K-Land and the days have turned still, sultry, and moist. Now's the time to start trotting out the cold, refreshing highballs with light-colored liquors, fruity liqueurs, and citrus juices: the Moscow Mule, the Gimlet, the Bullfrog and the Cactus Bite. All are cool and delicious, but they have one major drawback—they're all sickeningly sweet. If you're like me and you're tired of swallowing eight tablespoons of sugar in your Piña Colada, your Zombie, your Tidal Wave, or your Planter's Punch, then get with the program and have a Paleo cocktail. This one. 

•  squeeze the juice from half a lime into the bottom of a rocks glass
•  add 2 shots of tequila and a measure of club soda
•  pour the mixture into cocktail glass and sip it slowly

I'll tell you what my parents told me: do not judge this drink on the first glass. Have one on Friday night and another on Saturday night and then pass judgment. Why? Well, as you may be able to tell from the ingredients, this tipple is tart. Lip-puckeringly, tongue-stingingly, tooth-burningly, uvula-curdlingly sour. There's not an atom of sugar in it. It's kind of like the rickey cocktail, but with a higher proportion of citrus juice and less club soda. Most drinks with lime or lemon juice have some kind of sweet additive to balance the sourness out (like the Sidecar, for example). Not so with this libation. It'll make your scalp crawl. 

But as you nurse your second glass, sitting and sweating on your porch or veranda or balcony and watching the sinking sun and the reddening clouds while the gnats buzz about your ears and the day's oppressive heat begins to abdicate its tyrannical reign, you'll start liking this drink. It's got everything you need: the spicy heat of tequila, the pleasant fizz of club soda, and the nostril-wrinkling nip of lime. Perfect for relaxing after a long day's exertions or swapping war stories with the boys at the cabana. 

Or impressing the discerning Paleolithic woman. 

klutzy May-June weekend

I've never thought of myself as clumsy, but when you factor in my immoderate and lazy behavior, accidents are almost bound to happen. 

I'm happy to announce that there have been no complications from my appendectomy. I'm completely healed. I have some hairline scars on my abdomen and some staple wounds which are still healing up, but apart from that I'm cured. I just need to avoid lifting heavy objects for six weeks.

I still think I'm going to die soon, though.  

I'm talking about last Friday night (May 30), when I was walking home—admittedly under the influence of makgeolli and beer—and stopped by a public restroom near the Yangjae Stream. The stalls were somewhat cramped, which I learned to my cost when I stood up somewhat abruptly and smashed my head against the toilet-paper dispenser. 

Just...don't ask. Please. It happened, all right? That's all you need to know. 

Anyway, my head was somewhat fuzzy (makgeolli or concussion, I don't know) so I didn't really notice that I had hit myself hard enough to draw blood. This precluded me from putting antibiotic ointment on my noggin, and...

...well, sure enough, I came down with a head cold on Saturday, May 31, which prostrated me all through Sunday. Even on this warm, damp, drizzly morning of June 2, I'm not still wholly back together. Infection-induced, no doubt. What a sap I am. 

And speaking of sap, what kind of moron doesn't use hot pads to remove a scalding-hot bowl of oatmeal from the microwave? Me, that's who. The same moron who, early this morning, touched the hottest part of the bowl, dropped the bowl, tried to catch the bowl and stuck both his hands knuckle-deep into said scalding-hot oatmeal. I am now typing on this keyboard with several first-degree burns on my fingers.

I hope there isn't a university-sponsored polo match this weekend, or I'm a goner. 

There isn't too much other news. Miss H and I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past on Thursday evening, and both got a kick out of it. We also got our Hong Kong accommodations booked, so all the hotels 'n' stuff have been taken care of for my big Southeast Asia tour in July and August. (Now I just need to reserve my train tickets.) I had a lovely time with some of my work buddies on Friday night, drinking that aforementioned makgeolli and eating tofu (dubu in Korean) made from cactus in Achasan, near Gwangnaru, where Miss H and I used to live. Then I went to a barbecue in Maebong later that night with one of the dudes I brew with and his buddies, and nearly cracked my skull open in a public restroom around 12:30 a.m. Then I spent the weekend being sick. I'll spend the three days of my workweek (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday) conducting writing assessments. On Thursday evening (which is technically a Friday, as we have a three-day weekend this week) I'll have a drink with Sang-ook, the Korean fellow I shared a ward room with when I got my appendix out a couple of weeks ago. I promise I won't hit my head on anything this time. 

No, really. Honest.