Irrational anxieties

Normally, I don’t often state my travel plans, fearing for jinxes or security vulnerabilities involving my home or belongings.  But lack of brog, etc, etc, no worries about anyone reading this until way after the fact.

But I’m going to Korea in a few days, and I’m undoubtedly excited to visit the Motherland, but at the same time I feel a tremendous amount of anxiety and concern for the home I’m leaving behind while I’m on travel.  Some of them are valid things to worry about while I’m away like my outstanding assignments are in good places for my co-workers, the health and well-being of those I care about, the safety of my home and my dog.  Or the perpetually escalating tensions between North and South Korea and the United States’ involvement, leading to some military firepower demonstrations from all sides this fucking week of all times, seem like something to fret a little bit about.

Some are less valid, like that I’m perpetually forgetting something, and no matter if I make lists, check and recheck the things I’m packing, I always feel like I’m forgetting something.  I mean, all I really need is clothes, toiletries, my passport, comfortable footwear, cell phone and my camera, and I should be mostly all set.  But I stare into my suitcase, and I’m 100% convinced that something critical and important is being forgotten, and it’s going to drive me nuts until I’m at the point where it would be too late anyway.

But the most irrational of anxieties I feel, is the feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) of all the things that will inevitably be happening in the States while I’m away.  Like, I’m going to Korea, and visiting the country where my parents are from; I’m going to see all sorts of new and amazing things, historical, cultural and whatnot, and there’s a part of me that’s butthurt because I won’t be able to indulge in television shows like American Horror Story or Luke Cage when they’re fresh and new, and I’ll be two weeks behind when I get the opportunity to indulge.

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Ho hum, another game championship, another Korean win

lol ESPN: Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo wins EVO 2016’s Street Fighter V championship

First off, gaming has come a long way, seeing as how this particular story was broadcast on the front page of ESPN.com.   Not only can you read about the NFL’s collective dick getting sucked, Tom Brady, the New York Yankees and the NBA D-League, you can now occasionally get some articles about video games and video game events, like EVO and the League of Legends World Championships. (but very little about Major League Baseball outside of New York, Los Angeles or Boston)

Ultimately, the headline is not as cavalier as I try to make it sound, because at least as far as the Street Fighter scene is concerned, SF is a franchise that has mostly been dominated by Japan throughout the years.  There are guys all over the world who have made names for themselves, representing the United States, France, South Korea, and other countries, but typically when it comes to the EVO Championships, Japan has typically run the table on the Street Fighter franchise games.

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Of course Korean Jesus is superior

As if there could possibly be any doubt.

In case you’re an infidel, this picture of a statue of Jesus Christ out of Korea emerged on the internet this week, and at least to me, it wasn’t really that much of a revelation that it was not just jacked, but more like JAKKED.

I mean really now, Korea is a great and powerful almighty nation, it’s no surprise that the Christians in the country can only worship and pray to only someone as equally, if not greater than the Korean people, so Jesus looking like he’s one blue orb away from transforming into an Altered Beast doesn’t seem at all that shocking.

It’s also a great sign of respect towards the religion. It really puts into perspective how other countries portray their inferior Jesuses, like how the vast majority of the modern world has Jesus of Nazareth looking like he’s more like Jesus of St. Louis, as in the fact that he’s very much an anglo-looking man from a country where most every male looks like Sayid from Lost. And then we have people from Mexico who really, really like their portrayals of Jesus looking like he’s been beaten to death, drug out of his tomb and beaten some more, as if they knew he was going to resurrect and the Romans tried to get the preemptive strike on his corpse.

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Not mad, just disappointed

Spoiler alert: Chic Fil-A spicy chicken sandwich defeats smarmy weeaboo New York imposter.

I mean, was there any surprise?  Chic Fil-A beating up on a restaurant whose chef basically is quoted saying that he wanted to create the next Chic Fil-A.  Man, sucks to be him to open up a restaurant with a copycat item, only for the originators to move into town, and then start owning up on some bitches like Korean Starcraft players jumping onto American servers.

But speaking of Koreans, the chef who came up with this imposter jobber that failed to best the originals, is this Korean “celebrity chef” guy named David Chang.  Typically, I’m all about rooting for and supporting the Koreans in just about every possible endeavor, and I often times don’t need to know any more than the fact that a person is Korean for me to consciously and unconsciously want to root for them; Koreans are kind of racist like that.

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Musing about WORLDS

I’m never going to deny the fact that ultimately, the impetus for going out to Europe in the first place came about on account of video games, namely the one that I talk about just about every single day, League of Legends. Given the fact that Riot Games made it clear that the annual World Championships would take place in different countries each year, it was a pretty safe bet back in like March that 2015’s WORLDS was very likely going to take place in Europe, considering the previous two WORLDS were in two of the other primary LoL markets of the United States and South Korea. And when it was confirmed that WORLDS would be scattered throughout Europe, it was full speed ahead on making plans not just for attending WORLDS events, but also providing the opportunity to do some European travels.

But yes, for lack of a better term, it all started with WORLDS, and frankly it ended with WORLDS too, since the entire trip was bookended by the WORLDS semifinals in Brussels, with the finals in Berlin.

Everything in between was the sweet gravy of personal travel and new experiences, with the mythical girlfriend.

Anyway, in an attempt to compartmentalize and try to organize my thoughts into neatly organized brog posts, I’m taking an approach of writing about one thing at a time, if I can manage to stick with it; seeing as how WORLDS was what led us to Europe in the first place, I figure there would be no better place to start talking about my Europe trip than talking about WORLDS.

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Photos: League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational

So after a few years of watching LoL streams, the east coast of the United States was finally thrown a bone with an actual League event, with the arrival of the first annual Mid-Season Invitational.  The good news was that it was within reasonable driving distance for me, however the bad news was that it was held in Tallahassee, Florida, and most notably, on Florida State campus.

Florida State blows, but since it would be nice to actually attend and see a notable League event, sacrifices had to be made.

Anyway, as a whole, I thought the event was pretty good.  MSI proved that there are in fact, serious LoL fans on the east coast, and hopefully this will be a promising sign that perhaps more things might come to the east coast; maybe not such a shithole like Tallahassee, and perhaps a place that’s easily accessible by anyone via plane, car or internationally, has facilities to host, as well as an existing culture, like say one of the Collegiate teams, like in, oh, I don’t know, like Atlanta*cough?

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PawN wins the Mid-Season Invitational

I’ll eventually post pictures and share some additional thoughts about MSI at another time, but I wanted to write about this while it is still somewhat fresh on my mind.

Edward Gaming as a team might’ve won the first-ever League of Legends Mid-Seasonal Invitational, but really, the true winner of the whole shebang was their mid-laner, PawN.

I’ll be honest, I’m not really that keen on PawN.  I think he’s kind of petty, arrogant, envious of those more popular than him, and I really dislike the fact that he’s a Korean national who plays for a Chinese team.  All that said, there’s no denying that he’s easily one of the best LoL players in the world, and frankly after MSI, has legitimate claim to being the best mid-laner in the world.

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