Dr. Strange Nam-hee: Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Tent

Upon returning from Korea I began to actively seek out other Koreans in an attempt to better remember the wonderful time I had just had traveling. I soon met Nam-hee, who had come to Canada to study English.

Nam-hee admitted that when he first came to Canada he thought my small city was "very peaceful," but when it came time to spend his first Canadian weekend he found it "very boring." This was not surprising for me as I also find it very boring, but I was a bit disheartened that my new friend would not enjoy himself in Canada. Remembering all the kind people who went out of their way to show me a good time while I was living in Korea, I decided that now would be the perfect opportunity to repay the favour.

I had my doubts, but if there was anything exciting to do in my boring city I decided to dedicate myself to finding it. I was not just searching for Nam-hee though, I felt the experiment would be a positive personal development exercise since I would soon be leaving to a potentially even more boring town and would need to be able to entertain myself.

About this time MandDFM propositioned me to go hiking in the Alberta Rocky Mountains. Thinking this would be the perfect opportunity for Nam-hee to escape all the "peacefulness" I invited him along as well.

While I love hiking, I have generally disliked camping for as long as I can remember (the original a hotel, but [d]evolved into tenting). However, with the self-imposed responsibility of entertaining Nam-hee on my shoulders I found that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. MandDFM hates camping even more than I do, but he got into the spirit by educating Nam-hee and the two other Koreans with us about the various species of wildlife that live in the area.

Whether it is because most East Asian countries have destroyed all of their wildlife or otherwise, it is my experience that in general Asians (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, etc.) are petrified of wildlife. Consequently, this was a necessary cultural exchange for the three Koreans, who surprised both MandDFM and myself with how eager they were to see an "oolf" after the lessons.

Apart from the feelings of pride over our "students'" new found love of nature, the Koreans also provided their own, more tangible benefits during the weekend. Nam-hee's parents are farmers back in Korea, and the country boy proved himself invaluable when it came time to start a fire with wet firewood and keep it going during the rain. Furthermore, have you ever had a feast like the one pictured below while camping before? Eating and sharing food is a cause for celebration in Korea, and Koreans do not let the absence of stove or appropriate utensils get in the way of eating samgyeopsal and kimbab.

In exchange, MandDFM and I attempted to share the "Canadian tradition" of roasting hotdogs and marshmallows with the Koreans. However, in what was perhaps the single funniest/greatest moment in camping history, Nam-hee decided he would combine his joy by combining the meals. From Korea with love, I give you Hot Mallows.

After we returned home, Nam-hee thanked me for giving him such a "wonderful opportunity." I told him that by coming along he also game me a wonderful opportunity to repay the kindness shown to me by other Koreans on my trip.

If you cannot find a Korean to take camping, do the next best thing and make the World a better place by sharing the story of a great experience or potential experience at my new website http://fromthecentre.com.

Episode 38: In Which DFM Sees A Flying DeLorean And Dances On TV For Over 3000 Koreans.

It just so happened that my stay here in Seoul coincided with the 2009 Seoul Motor Show.  MandDFM and I are big fans of motor shows (as regular readers will know) and so he was sure to remind me about this one.  It's not every day you get to see a major International Motor Show, in the second largest urban agglomerate in the World no less.

I had convinced Yoo Sung Bok to come along with me, and he said it was his first time to visit a Motor Show so he was very excited.  Here he tests out an A/C motor for me and later suggested I get one for my new gosiwon since it is always boiling hot in my room.

Sung Bok later admitted that he was really interested in seeing the models and trying to get pictures with them.  It was win-win though, because while I rushed around trying to get the perfect pictures of the cars, I always knew where to find him afterwards (I just had to find the nearest booth with a model).

The best exhibit of the Show by far!  This is a revolutionary new plastic, electric window mechanism and casing that will be on the new Sonata.  A woman working the booth, who spoke quite good English, tried to ask me if I was interested in door technology but I had already responded "YES!!!" before she could finish her question.

Hyundai and KIA dominated this year's Seoul Motor Show.  Together they had about 25% of the display space, and they had the largest number of cars and concept cars (each) of any company there.  It took me over an hour just to explore all of the Hyundai and KIA cars on display.  That's not a complaint, mind you, just an observation.

  

KIA and Hyundai also introduced some very neat concept cars (the first time I've had a chance to see a concept car at a Motor Show) including the World's first LPG-hybrid car (the yellow-green one).  The best part about the Hyundai/KIA hybrid cars is that they don't look like a Prius.

Being a big fan of public transport I was ecstatic to see this Hydrogen Fuel Cell powered city bus,  by who else but Hyundai?  Better yet for Hyundai, the line-up to get in on the other side was longer than the bus.

This is a Korean pick-up truck.  These things are everywhere making deliveries, and they get quite annoying when they try to go down narrow back-alleys full of people (which is often).

These guys, with their giant DSLR cameras and zoom lenses, were everywhere.  They looked ridiculous and kept getting in the way of important amateur bloggers, and I'm pretty sure they weren't professionals either since the media day was last week.

There were a lot of models at the show trying to attract attention to the cars, but only two of them were males.  It's especially fitting though that both male models were working the Audi booth.

  

At least I finally got to see my boyhood dream car in the sheet metal: the Audi S8.

I should say this about the models standing by the cars, though.  Many people will object to their presence at the show for religious, sociological, or any number of other reasons, but they were consummate professionals.

I came here on the second last day of the roughly 10 day long Motor Show, but this model still took time to give me a smile and a thumbs up even though she had been standing there in those high heels all day and must have been absolutely exhausted.

My favourite model was this girl who gave me an exclusive.  That's right, you won't find this shot anywhere else!  Look at how happy she is too, and now some pesky labour law is going to prevent her from having "fun" for ten hours a day, ten days straight.  What a shame.

 

The Seoul Motor Show also featured an Automotive History Museum section with such classics as the Model T, whatever the white car is, and...

A flying DeLorean!  (I haven't seen one of those in... thirty years!)

By this time I had taken over 400 pictures and was starting to run out of battery, not to mention we were starting to get tired.  Sung Bok and I decided to leave because Yi Woojin (Sung Bok's friend) had invited me out to a baseball game and we needed to go get something to eat first.   Sung Bok originally had a date with his girlfriend, but figured that since he and his girlfriend had been in a fight recently that gave him a good reason to skip their date and come to the game instead.

While we were waiting for Woojin to meet us, I introduced Sung Bok to the wonderful world of body weight conditioning drills at the park where we stopped to rest.  Soon though, Woojin showed up and it was off to get some snacks to sneak in to the ball park with us.

I admit that I have not been a big baseball fan since the Blue Jays won the World Series (that's not entirely true, I watched every game during their fall from grace from 1994-1996 before I finally got fed up and quit) .  That being said, watching Korean baseball is an amazing experience and I'm now hooked!

Unlike normal baseball, where the fans are left to decide amongst themselves the best time to cheer, Korean baseball requires fans of one team to sit on one side of the stadium, while an equal number of fans from the visiting team occupy the seats on the other (the furthest trip away is only 3 hours on the KTX, so most of the fans come along to support their team on road games).  Each team has its own cheer leader who is an energetic guy with a whistle that stands on the dugout and whoops the fans up in a frenzy, with a well-timed series of unique cheers that everyone seems to know (I think each team has its own unique set of cheers).  There are also some massive Korean drums that are thumped during the cheers to make even more noise.

I soon ran out of battery, so I was not able to take many pictures at the game, but in this picture you can see the dancers who would come out between innings, our cheer leader (in the white, 08 uniform), and the inflatable plastic whacking sticks we received.

The team I was cheering for was called the Woori Heroes.  The team they were playing against were one of the best in the league, from Incheon.  I was told that one of the fans from the Woori team yelled "Incheon rubbish" after another of their numerous home runs, but this statement was rather ironic since the Woori Heroes were originally located in Incheon.  

The Incheon team clobbered the Woori Heroes, but that didn't matter.  Every time our team went up to bat the Woori faithful would rise up to cheer as loudly as possible.  My favourite cheer was "Home Run, Boo-room-ba!"  We would chant this whenever the DH, Cliff Brumbaugh (the Korean language doesn't always have all of the letter combinations/sounds to make Western names), came up to bat.

Originally Sung Bok, Woojin and I were down low, but beyond third base.  It gave us a great view, but put us away from the main cheering section.  That didn't stop me from dancing and cheering and whacking my sticks along with everyone else though, and soon Woojin said I was in the wrong section - everyone around me was sitting down and silent.

I asked if we could move closer to the main crowd, but I was told I had to go first for it to work.  Apparently if Woojin or Sung Bok went first, they would be told any open seats were already taken, but since I was a foreigner I could just act like I didn't understand and go sit down anyways.  I thought it seemed a bit silly, but I wanted to cheer, so off I went.  With our new seats secured I was able to really get going on my cheering.

I used to be a former professional sports mascot, and so once I got myself dancing and cheering I drew so much attention that my antics earned me 20 seconds on the big screen monitor on the main scoreboard.  Everyone around me recognized me and there were many laughs.  Eventually though I was able to raise the spirits of everyone around me (who, up until this point had been relatively reserved) and soon we were all standing up and cheering.

After the game the president of the Woori fan club came over and he was so impressed with my cheering that he asked me to join his crew.  If I ever come back to Korea I will go to every Korean baseball game I can.  It's probably the best version of something American that the Koreans have modified yet, and I love it.

I enjoyed myself so much at this game that I'm going to another game on the 26th.  Woojin said that the best team in the league were hosting a team from Busan, and that it was sure to be a good match.  More importantly, people from Busan are very intense people, and I was told that they have the best cheering section in the league.  I'll be there sitting in the Busan section on the 26th, losing my voice, come hell or high water.

After the game, Sung Bok marvelled at my energy since I was still going strong and humming the songs and cheers while he was exhausted.  He made a comment on how much benefit my frequent exercising and consequent fitness levels must be for my quality of life.  I have to agree.  (... The More You Know.)

Episode 3: In Which DFM Gets Lost At Night And Almost Winds Up At A Goth Party.

Another early morning, I still haven't adjusted yet.  It's great for talking to friends back in Canada, but not for my ability to be fatigue-free later in the day.

Today I went out rock climbing for the first time since coming to Korea.  Seoul has somewhere in the vicinity of 20 rock climbing gyms, and it is my goal to climb in everyone of them at least once.

First gym up on the list is Astroman.  As you can read on the website, Astroman is the largest indoor gym in downtown Seoul (or so they claim, I haven't been anywhere else to confirm that), and apparently it is the main training centre for the Korean National Climbing team.  I'll find that out on Monday when I go back to climb during the "busy time."

The person working at the gym was named "Yoon," or at least that's how I said his name.  He spoke some English, but I had to get someone else to do some translating for me too.  My translator was a father who had brought his young son and daughter in to climb on the wall.  He spoke very good English and worked for a major advertising company with offices in New York and Beijing.  He gave me an interesting history lesson, claiming that because Shanghai, China had been occupied by so many foreign armies over the centuries it had become a globalized, progressive city, whereas Beijing, China was very conservative because it has remained under Chinese control since its creation.

("Yoon" in his amazingly clean climbing gym - you are provided with slippers to wear around and must leave your shoes outside)

(This is the toilet at Astroman climbing gym.  As far as I can tell you're just supposed to squat over it.  You can't see it, but in Korea nobody flushes their toilet paper either.  You're supposed to throw it in the garbage - you can see the blue bag just peeking around the corner of the wall on the left)

After climbing I set off to find Dongbang Sauna (a Korean bath house).  After an hour of searching around I finally found it hidden in a basement in some side street.  Unfortunately when I got there it was closed (so much for open 24 hours).  I might head back there again one day since it may just have been because I went on a Saturday.

(The steam symbol is the sign for a sauna in Korea, and the words to the right read "Dong-bang [bang means room] 24-"shee" [that must mean 24 hours since "shee-gawn" means hour], and then something about "da-joong" [not sure what that means yet] and the "sa-oo-nah" 2nd basement.)

I found another dalk kabob vendor (update:  I discovered today that this dish is called dakkochi and that I have been misspelling dak, even though the Korean spelling of the word clearly has the letter "l" in it).  This guy was only charging $1.25 and the stand started becoming quite busy.  There were even some police officers who stopped for a kabob.  The vendor was in some back alley with many other vendors (as usual), and taxis, racing motorcycles, and small flatbed trucks the size of a small Ford Ranger would keep you on your toes as they tried to fit into areas that were far too small for them.

I crossed a busy street - made even more crowded by the fact that taxi drivers were up to their usual tricks and getting stuck in the middle of intersections because they ran a red light and clogging the crosswalk - and went to Richemont bakery.  Everything was rather expensive here, but I did find a very rich slice of cheese cake for $3.25 and a mango popsicle for less than a dollar.

(This place seems like a tourist attraction since I saw more white people in here than I have at any other store at one time.  I probably shouldn't be surprised though, since I only found out about it from reading the Lonely Planet Korea travel guide MandDFM gave me.)

After this I decided that it was time to head back home since it was 9:30 at night and I did not want to be out too late, since the subway stops running at midnight, and I was quite tired by this time from the lack of sleep and vigorous climbing.

I ran in to a big problem though: I had completely disoriented myself.  It was dark out now and every street was aglow in bright neon light.  I walked down many wrong streets for half an hour, but they were quite a spectacle.  I saw a man in a pink sweater (young, hip Korean men love their pink sweaters for some reason) trying to sell mobile phones by singing karaoke, and I was asked to come to a Korean goth party by a brave Korean in broken English (brave since I can't imagine the goth culture being a widely accepted one here).  I was not in the mood to party at the moment (nor was I suitably attired), but I appreciated the effort so I tried to respond with the only Korean I knew ("thank you... good bye.")

I entered a tunnel that I thought was a subway tunnel, but turned out to just be an underground passageway to the other side of the street.  Inside the tunnel was some of the most impressive graffiti I had seen in a while, and it was well lit.  On the other side I finally found a building I recognized and was eventually able to make my way back to Hongik University Station and get home (I still haven't mastered the pronunciation of this name, but it sounds something like "honky," but with a "g" instead of a "k").

(Just some of the graffiti in the underground street crossing tunnel.)

Episode 1: In Which DFM Explores A World Only Hundreds Of Thousands Of Canadians Have Explored Before, But Perhaps Does It In A Unique Way

Welcome to the first blog post of a roughly 63 part series here on The Kindergarten Cop called "The Korean Cop: DFM goes to Korea."  For the next 60 some-odd days I will be living in Korea and will upload detailed reports of my experience to this site for your "make enjoyment time pleasure with read excitement."  Let's begin.

On Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 I phoned a taxi company to book a cab for the following morning at 8:00 AM.  I was diligent in setting my alarm, but not in getting to sleep on time.  Excitement kept me up (as did studying the hangeul - Korean alphabet) and as a result my weak wrist watch alarm did not wake me up.  A friend with whom I was staying did wake me up though, and I was lucky that he did because at that time it was 7:40 AM.  I rushed myself out of bed, washed my face, ate my breakfast and packed my bags all in a record 15 minutes.  However, in the rush I did not actually pack my towel which I had "thoughtfully" left in the washroom for my anticipated 6:30 AM shower.

By 7:55 I was at the front door waiting for the taxi.  However, there had been a mix up at the dispatch center and the operator had entered the wrong address for me.  So, at 8:15 AM I started to get worried and phoned the cab company to straighten things out.  A cab finally did arrive at 8:35 and rushed me to the airport.

Things started out with a quick flight to the Vancouver airport.  The trip would have been fine except the loudest, most annoying woman I've heard in at least a week (which is a long time not to hear a loud, annoying woman) just had to be sitting behind me.  It wouldn't have matteredwhere she was sitting though, because I heard other people talk about her afterwards and they had been sitting nowhere near her.  "WOW, NO SNOW IN VANCOUVER!  WOW! A BABY!  WOW! MY SEATBELT CLICKS!!"  All trip long she just couldn't shut up (I added the "wows," but the grating on your nerves was all her).  The only thing that kept me sane was the fact that Air Canada had wisely included an episode of the best show in the world, Top Gear, in its in flight entertainment package.  So, I plugged in my earphones and cranked up the sweet sounds of Jeremy Clarkson offending just about everybody and let the stress die away.  (see: The Tall One, The Short One, and The Other One)

In Vancouver I met up with a Korean in the airport named Choi Young Tae (Choi is pronounced "Chway" in Korea).  We talked for a while until I remembered that I needed to get some over-priced Canadiana trinkets from the Duty Free shop as gifts for any Korean friends I might meet along the way (every Korean person I've befriended in Canada has given me a gift, so I thought I'd return the favour).

I got on the plane and had my first realization that I was heading to a different world.  The first woman I sat down by didn't understand any English.  I thought, "DFM, you're not in Kansas anymore buddy."  Then another woman stole my seat when I stood up, and I was about to say something until I noticed that I had actualy been in the wrong row.  I moved back a seat and met Woo Seong-Bum (Jeff).  Jeff had studied English in Calgary and we were able to share many stories of life in Alberta.  Jeff also helped me shore up my Korean reading skills a bit which was greatly appreciated.  I'm not a pro, I'm not even good, but I can read about half the symbols now if I have enough time, and that's usually enough to figure out the names of subway stations, etc.  Unfortunately, even though I can read the words doesn't mean I understand them.  I have a very limited vocabulary which I will immediately start improving.

There was a funny story with Jeff.  I asked him how my accent was and he said I sounded Japanese.  I responded "oh great, that's doubly bad.  Now I'm not only a drug-using pedophile, but I'm a drug-using pedophile who wants to take over your country.  Old Korean men are going to love me!"  Jeff laughed quite hard at that one.

I was also told that the Internet here is lightning fast.  But so far I'm not noticing anything spectacular.  Files download on my computer faster than they would in Alberta, but not as fast as the guy living next door to me (his Internet is 1 000 times faster on any given day: 1 GB/s vs. 1MB/s on a good day for me).

On the plane I was given a form to fill out for immigration purposes.  Unlike many nations where you declare which items you are bringing into the country, etc, in Korea they give you a simple yes/no questionnaire.  Actual examples of questions from the questionnaire include "are you bringing radioactive weapons into the country?"  Or, "are you bringing child pornography into the country?" (I made sure to point that one out to Jeff to emphasize my earlier point.)  At the end of it all I had to sign on a line under the statement "I agree that I have made a truthful and correct statement."  I admit that it seems like a less-than-perfect security system, but it sure makes it easier for the travelers.  America take note:  I did not have to show my passport 3 times in a row before leaving Customs/Immigration.  Nor was I subjected to any other degrading security checks like having a drug dog check my bag twice while some angry woman yelled at me (I saw it happen to a man in Minneapolis, of course the dog didn't find anything because these checks are mostly for show anyways).  I handed over my form with its "truthful and correct statement," had my passport stamped without annoying questions about my purpose for entering the country (I had already written it down on the form), and was sent off to terrorize the country and rape its women.

A quick note about the movies on the flight.  I swear Air Canada pick the worst Hollywood movies it can find to show.  I happened to watch The Day The Earth Stood Still (the new version).  If you haven't seen it, don't bother, but if you have seen it then you'll know that Keeanu Reeves plays an unemotional alien sent to Earth in human form to warn humans that they need to change their ways or face destruction.  Would you believe that Reeves is such a bad actor that he managed to mess up a mono-emoting character?  Unbelievable!  To be fair, I did get to watch The Secret Lives of Bees, with Queen Latifah, and that film is superb.

After passing through immigration I needed to catch a bus from the airport into the city.  I had no idea how to get my ticket (I was just going to walk on the bus), but Choi Young-Tae from the Vancouver airport showed me where the ticket booth was and helped me buy the appropriate ticket and find the appropriate stop/bus.

The "limousine bus"was amazing.  It had leather, first class wide seats that fully reclined and had their own ottoman (like a La-Z-Boy) and miles of leg room, and a flat screen TV at the front.  The driver was amazing and could weave in and out of three lanes of traffic like he was driving a scooter instead of a coach liner, but he did not speak any English and so I was lucky to have an English speaking Korean sitting near me who translated for me and helped me get to the proper subway station.

The subway stations in Seoul are also amazing.  They're wide, clean, and quite an adventure to find your way to the right platform and get on the right train.  One thing about Seoul that I noticed right away (besides the notable absence of an old urine smell) is that anyone will try to sell you anything at any time.  There was actually a man squatting down on the floor trying to sell a collection of DVDs to passer-byes.

After exiting the right station at the right exit, I had to walk over to Indigo Restaurant (a Korean owned "hip" cafe that tries to recreate a Western atmosphere by playing a collection of Oldies and '80s pop songs while employing hipster Korean males who wear girls' clothes (so, the same as North American hipsters essentially).  I actually quite enjoyed the restaurant even if $4.00 for a slice of carrot cake did seem a bit steep and the owners were very nice and kept me company by talking to me until my landlords came (by this time I was glad to have some English conversation again).  Actually, both the prices and the atmosphere reminded me of the cafe MandDFM and I used to frequent when I was in Canada (see: The Coffee Shop Story).

I was at Indigo Restaurant to meet my landlords who would then take me to the place I had rented.  When they came though, they told me that there had been a mix-up and my place had been given away to someone else.  Things turned out alright fortunately, as they let me stay at their place for the night and then took me to a cheaper, more convenient place the next morning.

When I got back to their place it struck me at just how much a premium space is.  I'm sure that if you have the money you can get large homes, but let's just say that for the majority of Koreans the term "living room" is a foreign phrase.

When I was finally able to take a real shower (my first in two days), I then noticed that I had forgotten to pack a towel.  My landlord let me borrow one of her towels though, so again it worked out alright.  However, you can see from the picture that Koreans have a much different definition of bath towel than do North Americans or even Europeans.

(That is a sub-standard sized pillow on top of a Korean bath towel.  The left edges in the picture are lined up even with each other.  Notice that while the towel is perhaps 5 inches longer than the pillow, it is much more narrow.  Let's just say, "don't forget your house coat" when going for a shower in Korea, because you definitely aren't going to be leaving a lot to the imagination if you try to wrap that around your waist.)

(This is a Korean shower.  The basin of the tub is perhaps 4 feet long and there are no shower curtains, so the water just sprays out and "drains," or more accurately evaporates, from the floor by the hole in the center of the room.  Everyone wears beach sandals to the bathroom here because the floors are always wet.)

I went to bed that night on the first real bed I'd seen in a week (I'd been sleeping on the floor at MandDFM and his roommate's place for five days before my flight), and woke up at 4:30 AM ready to take on the Asian Tiger of South Korea.  

Well, that was day one, keep tuned for more updates from The Korean Cop.  Tune in next time for a story about the Russian Mafia's presence in my neighbourhood.

DFM Opens Doors At The Edmonton Motorshow

Every year for the last four years MandDFM and I have gone to the Edmonton Motorshow to see the new cars.  While MandDFM prefers to consider the car as a whole when passing judgement, I concentrate on only one aspect of a car when deciding whether or not it is good:  

how well the doors feel to open and close.

The door handle is the first thing I touch to get into my car and the last thing I touch when I leave.  If I'm going to spend XX Thousands of dollars on a new car, I don't want to be annoyed every time I open the door.  To be certain, I'm also concerned with the experience of driving the car or being a passenger, but since it's hard to test the handling or braking dynamics of a parked car whose battery has been disconnected I'm left with the doors.

Without a doubt, the best doors at the Motorshow for at least the last three years have been found on those cars made by Hyundai (I did not extensively test the doors at the first Motorshow I attended).  But it's not just the door handles that Hyundai does well, the entire door is treated as a piece of art by Hyundai's designers, and it is that sort of attention to detail that makes Hyundai one of the leading automobile manufacturers in the World today.

Until today, the Hyundai Elantra has had the World's best door ergonomics.  While I still maintain that the Elantra is King, a contender to the crown has recently emerged - the Nissan Cube.  While opening and closing the doors on the Cube may not have the Crystal Pepsi-like perfection of the Elantra (yes, I was a fan of Crystal Pepsi), Nissan has finally answered my prayers and taken the engineering of car door handles into the 21st Century.

Rather than having an awkward-to-pull tab, as most vehicles do, the Nissan Cube employs a simple yet ingenious loop.  To open the door on a Cube simply slip two fingers into the perfectly positioned loop, curl and tug.  That's it.  No having your fingers slip off the negatively sloped handles of depressingly too many cars I tested, or having your knuckles smashed into the hard plastic ridge above the miniscule door handle (I'm looking at you Volvo).  Instead, the Cube passenger is treated to the door opening equivalent of a day at the spa.

Yes, the verdict is in, with it's gargantuan cabin/headspace and World-leading door handle design, the Nissan Cube was DFM's pick for Car of the Show this year at the 2009 Edmonton Motorshow.  Make sure you check out its door handles at a dealer near you.  Tell them DFM sent you.

(The remarkable door handles of the Nissan Cube.)

M and DFM's Excellent Adventure

For the past number of years I have been hanging out with my friend M so often that when we come into places people always yell, "hey, it's M and DFM!" Unfortunately, some people mishear this greeting as "hey, it's MandDFM!" This can cause problems when people think M's name is MandDFM. For example, there was one particular occasion when M walked into a room first and I followed a few seconds afterwards. The greeting we received from the well meaning host was, "hey, it's MandDFM... and DFM!"

Well M and DFM were at it again this weekend. Determined to "seize the day," we embarked on a wild safari of Biblical proportions. The temperatures were approaching "minus 5 billion degrees," but we had been working on our personal discipline and easily toughed it out. Even though we were both eaten dozens of times each by the ferocious beasts, M and I still managed to miraculously survive with the evidence of our daring escapade intact. For your amazement, I have included some of the more spectacular moments from the trip. [Caution: Do not read this before you go to bed. You will get nightmares.]



Our journey actually started the day before, 2 274 miles away in the Gobi Desert. Since we had the time, M and I decided to split this hike into two days. Upon arriving at the West Pole, we were immediately eaten by the giant Guinea Pig King who had a number of kangaroos for servants.



After this rather inhospitable welcome the Guinea Pig King placed us in cages while the other inhabitants of the West Pole tried to feed us pop corn and bread crumbs, before eating us.



Our first visitor was the dreaded man-eating Snowy Owl. He turned his head all the way around twice before eating us in 2 bites.



Next came the fearsome man-eating White Wolf. This guy here not only ate M and I, but he ate our unborn children too. You can see the blood lust in its eyes.



This Takin was featured in Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are. He actually did not eat us though, because he was too busy using the hay to clean out the bones and raw meat from his last meal of four school children. Interestingly, this Takin has been said to be the inspiration for the Golden Fleece.



Similar to a snake, the man-eating Bactrian Camel cannot chew its human meal. Rather, it unhinges its lower jaw and swallows its prey whole. Interestingly enough, very few people know that this is how camels eat. Here, the humps you see are actually the outline of two unfortunate young women. They are slowly being digested alive by the digestive acids in the camel's stomach.

After M and I were turned into camel feces, we were flushed into an underground water world. But before we had a chance to drown, we were eaten twice each by the Ravenous Red Toad.



The Red Toad carried us to the other side of the world and spat us out on the gorgeous plains of the East Pole.



The first inhabitant we met was the menacing man-eating Buffalo. Wizened by our experiences at the West Pole, M and I pulled out a red cape and were able to have the Buffalo narrowly miss gorging us with its poisonous horns.



We again ran across some man-eating Wolves, but they had gone cannibal from not feeding on human flesh for too long. M and I took advantage of the distracted killing machines and moved on quietly.

Surrounded by so much danger, M and I decided it was time to learn how to defend ourselves. We observed the locals in their natural environment and were able to eventually agree upon the ultimate fighting weapon:



With our newly perfected martial skills, we easily chopped our way through the remaining threats until we found our ticket out of there.



We chased this murderous Mountain Goat up the rocky embankment and eventually trapped it at the top of the cliff. Defeated, the mountain goat was bound by ancient law to transfer us to any place we wished. We grabbed hold of its horns and were teleported back home. It was a good thing too, because we hadn't eaten in a while.

The Coffee Shop Story: Adventures In Naivete

My friend, M, and I decide to step into a small, high-end, specialty coffee shop for some tea and pastries. While standing at the counter a homeless person asks me if I can "spare any change?" I do not, in fact, have any money to spare (my friend was buying my meal for me which makes the story even more funny), so I told said homeless person that I would give him half of my scone.

After ordering, M and I sit down at one of the tables on the fashionable, yet rather uncomfortable, chairs. The homeless person sits at an adjacent table by himself and calmly ponders one of life's many mysteries (at least I assume that's what he was doing). I begin to admire how charming the homeless person looks, when the owner comes over and tells the homeless person that he has to leave. I interrupt the owner and inform him that the homeless person is my guest, and that he is waiting for the half-a-scone that I promised him. The owner tells me that he will box it up, and sure enough he gives the homeless person half of the scone and sends him on his way. Meanwhile, M can barely contain himself from spraying London Fog out of his nose and all over the establishment. And that's why I would probably be the worst business man ever.

In retrospect, this story would probably have been funnier if you had been there.