::A Geek in Korea::

We made good on our promised to visit the relatives not once, but twice in the last twenty-four hours. My wife had told her mom we’d come over to visit yesterday for dinner. We arrived to find her father and brother sick and sleeping. We ate some delicious galbijim (steamed spare ribs), then had to bow out early because everyone was under the weather.

My father-in-law, and brother-in-law got sent to Grandma’s house for the holiday. I’m not sure if they wanted to go or not, but considering that Lunar New Year consists of nothing but sloth and overeating for Korean men, they’d be fools to turn down the chance to be spoiled at the relatives.

My Mother-in-law, on the other hand would work her fingers to the bone to serve them all the food they need, as well as the food for the ancestral ceremonies, so she wisely decided to stay home. Her sister also claimed to be too busy to visit Grandma, with a sick husband at home. We didn’t get a chance to visit them this year.

We went over to my mother-in-law’s house today when she was alone for lunch. As always, I sat around while the ladies worked. My wife did an hour or more of dishes as they prepared food. I’m not allowed to do anything to help, so I brought my Nintendo DS and mp3 player for entertainment. They don’t mind.

After getting stuffed full of food, we played a game of GOPS with my mother-in-law. Like everyone we’ve introduced to the game, she liked it. She had never played a game with poker cards before, so we had to explain the “Jack Queen King” order. That’s pretty common in Korea, as people think a deck of cards is only for gambling, not casual fun.

After the card game, they told me to go take a nap while they talked. No argument here. I went and slept for a few hours. When I woke up, my wife and mother-in-law were also taking a nap, the sun was down, and we needed to get home to feed the dog. We got another meal, as my mother-in-law has a compulsive need to stuff me full of food when I visit. Pacheon (Pancakes with leeks and squid) is another one of my favorites. Went we were completely full, we got sent home.

Yoshi has been trying to get our attention all evening since we returned after being ignored all day. We’ve invited some cousins over to hang out with us tomorrow, but we don’t know if they’ll show. If they don’t, I’ll spend some more time with Super Mario Galaxy. Not a problem in the world at the moment.

I listened to Starship Sofa’s podcast while sitting around during the Lunar New Year holiday. Right now I’m listening to my second episode, and while I like that this has some Hugo Award winning and nominated authors, I don’t know if I like this podcast yet.

The host has a thick Scottish accent, but thankfully doesn’t do the readings of the short fiction. In fact, I don’t know why there is even a host on the podcast at all. A plug for feedback and a drop of a name or two seems to be his only function. I don’t listen to their “round table talk out SF” episodes, only the stories, so maybe he is more involved than I know. It’s also a bi-weekly podcast, and that’s slow. I’ll keep it in queue, but it better deliver quality if it’s that infrequent.

One of the reasons I LOVE Escape Pod is that they have a lot of variety in their story choices and get a lot of new authors too. It’s weekly, but still brings consistent quality. I also like the commentary of Steve Eley about the way they choose stories. There is the annoyance of hearing them ask for donations, but they release their podcasts with a Creative Commons license. That’s pure awesome. Escape Pod is also better polished and seems to have a philosophy of general coolness I can get behind. It’s one of my highlights of the week when I get a chance to listen to it.

Anyway, it’s not like listening to one podcast means that I’m not allowed to listen to the other. The more the merrier when it comes to good Science Fiction short literature is what I’ll say.