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So far, secretly following the life of my new cell phone stalkee via his credit card purchases has been extremely boring. Let's call him KJ (since those are his initials). So far he's only made two purchases, both apparently a pack of cigarettes. One Tuesday night, one again Friday night. That's all. He must be a very light smoker, or he also pays in cash sometimes.

Made a surprisingly delicious burrito today. Beans, spiced tomatoes, and taco seasoning the The Stumbling Mom mailed to me last year. I used some Australian ground beef, and Korean ham (well, it's a ham-like product).

Compared to a Korean, I go through my rice very slowly. So slowly, in fact, I can't remember the last time I bought a bag. Today as I was making the burrito, I realized that I had only a handful of rice left. But, I remembered that I had a bag of yellow rice brought over from America. So not knowing exactly what I was doing, I added the yellow rice to the handful of white rice in the rice cooker and turned it on. It came out great. So let's add Indian yellow rice to my international burrito. Top it off with sour cream from Denmark, and I'm all set. Burp......

(I'm really not looking forward to carrying the 10kg bag of rice from the store next trip)

UPDATE: The last time I made a burito, for some reason it was much better the second day as left-overs. Not so with this burrito. I think the problem is that yellow rice doesn't keep in the rice cooker like white rice. It looked slightly bad today when I made another burrito, and my stomach hurt for a couple hours after eating it. Finally I've made the connection that you shouldn't leave yellow rice in the cooker.

There was an interesting display outside the office this afternoon. The whole sidewalk was lined with cages of birds (and even one cage with rabbits).



Apparently they were brought to the neighborhood by the bird truck:



Here are some of the feathery fellows:

In Korea, cell phones have their own area code(s). In the past, each major cell phone company had a unique area code, say 010, 011, 016, 017, etc. However, recently the government is transitioning ALL cell phones to the 010 area code, as part of the number portability plan (similar to what we have in the USA, where you can move your number between different carriers). When someone buys a new phone or service, and has an non-010 area code, they change that person's number to be in the 010 area code.

So for example, say I had the phone number 017-123-4567. When getting a new phone, they would try to assign a new number as close as possible. I might get something like this: 010-9123-4567. So, suppose you sent me a text message using my old number. For some period of time (say a month?) the text message would be routed to my new number, and you would receive a text message showing my new number. (Bear with me, there IS a point to all this....)

A few days ago, I received a text message that appeared to be a change of number message. The odd thing was I didn't know him! He wasn't in my phone's address book, and I didn't remember anyone with his name. I was about to send a reply message asking who he was, when I realized the message hid the complete phone number: something like 010-1234-****. Well, I just ignored it.

There is another service here in Korea, using cell phone text messages. When you use your credit card, you receive a text message within a few minutes from the credit card company, showing the name of the vendor and the amount of your purchase! It's a pretty cool feature, and allows you to know almost immediately if your card is stolen and someone tries to run up a bill. And I don't think there's any charge for this service, either. (No, I don't have it myself, although I do get a text message from the bank when a deposit is made).

Last night, I received another text message with this fellow's name. Turns out it was one of these credit card purchase notices - looks like he bought a package of cigarettes with his credit card last night. Apparently he has accidentally registered my cell phone number with his credit card company, and I'll be receiving notices whenever he makes a purchase! Furthermore, my Korean teacher told me this happened with her son's phone before. She called the credit card company, and they had no method to correct this type of mistake! It only stopped when her son's phone number was changed. At least I will be amused following the purchase of a complete stranger.

Twice today I missed out on good photo ops. I gotta carry my camera with me everywhere I go. First, I saw one of these viola or cello players carrying her instrument in a hard case on her back, like a backpack. I didn't want to be too obvious about taking her picture, so i walked on past her for about 30 yards. She was busy typing a text message, so I figured I had the time. When I turned around to take discretely take her photo with my cell phone, she was nowhere to be found! I have no idea where she could have gone - especially with such a huge instrument on her back.

On the way home in a taxi, we came upon an accident between a cement truck and a miniature motor scooter (not much bigger than a skate board). Amazingly the scooter was still in one piece, but there was no sign of the rider. I believe he must have been on the way to the hospital, and the police were interviewing witnesses. A cement mixer and a scooter - it doesn't get any more unfair than that.

Trevor and MY are finally ready to open the new Beer O'Clock. This time they have a partner in crime, Clark. This one is located in Shinchon, on the second floor corner, with lots of windows and a terrace. My job was to install the video and sound systems, and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I'm getting too old for this work, I think. Crawling on the floor, balancing on ladders, and lifting heavy boxes is not as fun as it used to be 10 years ago! The real shocker was when I had my head up in the corner of the ceiling trying to hook up the speaker wire, and I realized the wire and my tools were all blurry! When you need reading glasses with your head in the ceiling, I think that's a sign...

Here are the technical details. A Yamaha 300 watt power mixer. Microphones are available for announcements and any game nights (I remember Pictionary night being particularly fun). The speakers are from Boston Audio, mounted one in each corner of the room. There are three large screen HDTV television / monitors are mounted around the bar. Two of them are 42 inch PDP displays, and one is a 32 inch LCD screen.


This is the mixer and the computer:



Here is the wiring closet:



And the four speakers:

Well, I was first introduced to the concept of a number in a name from listening to my Dad's Tom Lehrer records. The introduction to one song went something like this:

I am reminded at this point of a fellow I used to know who's name was Henry, only to give you an idea of what an individualist he was he spelt it HEN3RY. The 3 was silent, you see.

Then I barely remember an interior design store back in the USA that was called Decor8.

In Korea, I continued to encounter this phenomena. Beginning with the singer and dance sensation "Se7en" (his official American website here).

Then we had an office supply store mysteriously called "5ffice". Mysterious, that is, until one day it finally dawned on my thick head that the number 5 in Korean is pronounced "OH", thus giving you OH-FFICE. NOW I get it. I believe this chain has been bought up by Office Depot, however the 5ffice website seems to be still active.

Now we have a singing group 8eight.

So, I have examples using 3, 5, 7 and 8. I guess I need to search for names using 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9. How about S2mbler?