::A Geek in Korea::

I was listening to a Jordan Jesse Go! episode where Jordan Morris was talking about what he did on a typical day after work. He talked about watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Google Video, playing his advanced copy of Super Smash Brothers (I’m waiting for mine to be delivered!) and watching Futurama.

This is basically what I do to spend my free time too. It’s UNCANNY and a little unnerving to think someone spends their time the exact same way I do most days. The one thing he mentioned he’s made and effort to check out when he has the chance is The Venture Brothers. I had never seen the show before, but on the strength of his recommendation, I decided to check it out.

I’ve only watched a few episodes of The Venture Brothers so far, but I know I’ll be watching it from start to finish already. It’s great. It’s funny and it has a great sense of humor about itself. It could be that I’ve seen a lot of Johnny Quest, so I appreciate what they are doing with the show. There are a lot of jokes I’m catching up on that I’ve seen on the Internet that must have originated on this show.

I’ve been watching two episodes a day now, and I’ve enjoyed them all. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for an adult, funny, but not serious sort of show. It’s very “Adult Swim”. It’s violent without being too graphic, comically sexual, and very funny. The animation looks great too! I was skeptical going in that it wouldn’t be my style, but Jordan has good taste.

Thanks JJ go!

As a former college Subway employee, the current Pseudopod horror podcast entitled “It’s Easy to Make a Sandwich” had me chuckling in a far too disturbing way. This wasn’t straight horror, but more of a messed up nihilistic revenge fantasy.

The idea about the disconnect the hands sometimes make from the brain when working in low wage jobs is completely true. I could have made a sandwich in my sleep after a few months at that job. The lifers, the daydreams, the contemplations of the different customers, the tuna stink…all of it seemed way too close to home.

The only poisoning we ever did was unwittingly selling bad crab salad a few times. Honest.

A long time ago, after I started reading Boing Boing, I delved into Cory Doctorow’s personal website craphound to listen to a few podcasts. Actually, I treated his older material like audiobooks, as they were released before I ever knew about them, and I simply used a podcast aggregation too to organize and download all the material easily. That was one of the things that got me started listening to podcasts a few years ago.

Things were going well for a while, but then he started reading “The Hacker Crackdown“. While this is an important book for real life hackers and the culture of hacking, I quickly grew bored with this material. This I tolerated for a few weeks, until finally I gave up caring about the minutiae of the different cracking rings and the dated terminology. I went off to discover different podcasts, which is ultimately for the best.

Low and behold, 30 weeks later, Craphound.com is back in my podcasting queue once again as there is a new science fiction novella being read week by week. This story, True Names, is about Post-Singularity Entities fighting for all the available computational cycles left before the Entropic death of the universe. In other words, really interesting speculative science fiction just like I used to enjoy.

A lot of Cory Doctorow’s speculative short fiction is Post-Singularity, Cyberpunk sort of stuff. I can take my Science Fiction is a lot of different flavors, but this story still feels somewhat fresh for me. If you want most Post-Singular podcasts from the same author, try this, or this (with mechs!). As long as Cory Doctorow’s pumping out the Creative Commons stories, I’ll probably be around to listen to them.

Korean Class 101 fills a dual role for me. It’s an interesting podcast, so I enjoy listening to it, and it’s also a great way to study Korean. I’m not a paying member of their service, and I’m not getting paid to plug this podcast, but anyone with an mp3 player and a desire to study Korean should check out this site.

Keith and Seul, the hosts of the show, introduce the topic and context for the podcast. Usually there is a set of characters we are introduced to over the course of the conversations, and they remind listeners what the story has been about so far. After the topic has been introduced, they begin the dialog.

The dialog is done in Korean. There are different difficulty levels. The beginning level is basic Korean that is survival level “WOW! I remember when I didn’t know this! How did I survive here?” sorts of things. The intermediate level is harder stuff that can introduce more advanced grammar and slightly longer dialogs. The advanced stuff is a Korean audio blog that is a lot more challenging.

After the first dialog, they slow down and read line by line. You can get a better grasp on the syllables spoken to help with pronunciation. The third reading is Korean, followed by an English translation word for word.

After they finish the dialog, they chat a little about the topic. The basic chat is done entirely in English, while the Intermediate chat is 50% English and Korean. Advanced is entirely in Korean. They break down the vocabulary word by word. They tell the dictionary form, the politeness rules, and how to conjugate the words found in the dialog.

Once they explain all the vocabulary, they move into grammar. I find this extremely helpful. I know 90-95% of the vocabulary for every basic and intermediate lessons, but I don’t know what the root words are, or why they are conjugated in any particular way to form sentences. They give examples of words in different sentences. I usually am always able to translate them to myself the first time I hear them, but when I’m walking my dog or waiting for a subway I can repeat things to myself to improve.

Keith and Seul also explain the CONTEXT in which certain words are used. A lot of the silliness I get into with Korean is that I’m around female Korean coworkers and my wife more than another other speakers. Learning which words are used by a guy, or how they’d react differently to a situation helps me become a more natural speaker and also lets me fit in.

Even though the basic and intermediate dialogs aren’t extremely difficult, they keep my interest because they are presented as a cohesive story, and the commentary on the different situations by the hosts is funny and charming. The chemistry between the two hosts also makes for a funny podcast.

The advanced podcast is beyond my level at the moment. I can only listen to it, and I’m not good enough to catch everything the first time. If I wanted to study using their advanced audio blog, I’d need to subscribe and pay to get their scripts and higher level help. I need more grammar practice and a bigger vocabulary.

Right now I’m getting around twenty to thirty minutes of Korean practice a day because of their free feeds! Their beginner and intermediate programs are great for people living in Korea that want to practice and live more comfortably. It’s incredibly awesome that this is a FREE service that does such a great job teaching the basics needed for survival, or review of basics to improve skills.

I’d recommend this podcast to anyone interested in the Korean language that wants to study using conversational dialogs. A lot of foreigners I know could use this podcast to get better at their job, getting around town, or with a Korean boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s improved my conversation skills with my Korean wife too.