Sweet Pickles

Feeling sad for South Korea

From the NYTimes article South Koreans Express Fatigue With a Recalcitrant North:

“We sent them food, fertilizer, factories, more than we give our own poor people,” said the South Korean, Lee Soon-hwan, a 30-year-old office worker. “And all they pay us back with is this nuclear test.”

Wow.  This quote really struck me.  Part of me feels like "Duh!  Now will you quit diddling around with Pollyanna crap like the 'Sunshine Policy' and get real (e.g., Washington's and Tokyo's Proliferation Security Initiative)?"  But the part of me that knows South Koreans' yearning for reunification can read the underlying poignancy of the quote.  Sometimes I wonder if the world wouldn't be better off in the long run if the South would just launch a full-scale invasion and get it over with.  Either way, I think that 30-year-old office worker should be the next president of South Korea.

Where does he find this stuff?

Brad Bagby just emailed me this website:  Old Jews Telling Jokes.  It's exactly what the title says it is.  Now, most of you probably already know how Sweet Pickles ain't down with jokes.  He is, however, down with old Jews. 

A little sweetness to start your day!

How's this for a pick-me-up?  Enjoy!

Download Yesterday(final)

JustJess & B-Hale tied the knot!

While vacationing down in Central America (they're anthropologists), one of O-Town's coolest couples got hitched!  Mazal tov and welcome back, friends! 

What ever happened to...

Jasmine Guy?  Wherever she's been laying low, I sure as hell hope she's still be performing her 1990 hit single "Try Me."  That song was my JAM... and I'm mad that I still can't buy it in MP3 form or find a quality version of the full video.  Sounds to me like a colossal failure to recognize on the part of the entertainment industry.  Sweet Pickles needs more Jasmine Guy and less Smiley Ray Cyrus.

Depressing Sunday

MTV has been playing Star Wars (how 'bout them special effects?), the entirety of which I just watched because I have been in bed depressed about the weather all day.  It looks like The Empire Strikes Back might be coming on next.  I figure, why not?  Watching it won't involve going outside.  Only prob is that, where I live, rain = no electricity.  So, instead of living a life like all the lucky people who live on dry land, I might not even get to watch crappy television but just sit here in the dark twiddling my thumbs as the moss grows, for the twenty-somethingth day in a row.  God, I miss the drought.

Sweet Pickles' good deed for the day.

On Facebook, I saw that one of my international students had done that "What's your Japanese name" generator, which appears to 'Nipponify' your name by syllabizing it according to the phonemic index of Japanese.  The first syllables of his name had been transliterated as "hen-tai" (which, in Japanese, is also a slang compound-word meaning "sexually perverted").  Though purely coincidental (albeit hilarious), it wasn't long before this not-Japanese student's new Japanese name had attracted the notice of his Japanese (and some American) friends.  I felt compelled to send him a message with a Wikipedia link explaining the meaning of hentai.  To which he responded:

DEAR SWEET PICKLES,
REALLY MAN....????
ohhhh i'm gonna delete for sure!
thanks sweet pickles...i appreciated.

Do you remember?

I can't recall exactly the name of the program, but I think it was something like "Scholastic Reader."  The one where you used to could order little books in elementary school?  Your teacher would distribute the cheap-paper 'catalogs' in class, and you'd take it home, and your mom would send back a check with your completed order-form.  Then you'd have to wait an agonizing eternity (probably 2 weeks, but it seemed like decades) for the shipments to arrive at your school.  On the day the catalogs were disbursed, I'd hem and haw over which books to choose, because I knew that Mama Pickles would let me get whatever the minimum order was to get the free poster of kittens in a basket.  I recall always opting for the latest Frog and Toad book as one of my selections, because they came with a 45 record (proto-audiobooks?), and of course, the latest Sweet Pickles book (natch).  On those days when I came into the classroom and could see the boxes sitting on the teacher's desk, I'd wet myself and be unable to concentrate on anything else until the end of the day when I could finally get my hands on my kittens poster. 

My new voice-idol might be Will Lyman.

I've been watching the Frontline documentary Inside the Meltdown on PBS, and thinking to myself how great the Frontline narrator's voice is.  Turns out, it's some dude named Will Lyman, whom I'd like to record my outgoing message on my answering-machine at home and my voicemail at the office.  Just to mix it up for a little contrast, wouldn't it be awesome if Frontline had guest-narrators like Fran Drescher or Rosie Perez every once in a while?  Anyhoo, Will's voice is giving my voice-idol James Mason a serious run for the money. 

Big Daddy is now a daddy!

Like D-Hug, I also seem to have multiple friends having babies (mostly daughters) recently.  The latest special delivery from the stork comes to an old PIC (partner-in-crime) of mine from my waterpark days.  For years, this friend's nickname has been "Big Daddy," and now he's actually somebody's real daddy.  This is the guy who, during a staff meeting, once said to me "Oh man, look at this mosquito bite," and when I glanced to where he was pointing between his legs, had his huevos hanging out the bottom of his shorts (intentionally).  This became a running gag among our friends for months, but Sweet Pickles never fell for it again.  I can't wait until his daughter is old enough for me to share that story (and many others) about father.  Congratulations, Big Daddy!