Sariel’s blog
Jun 26 2007
New comment on your post #532 “Korea 13 – Only a pawn in their game”
Author : Smolder
Comment:
Why did the Chinese eventually withdraw from Korea? Surely their huge numbers would have eventually triumphed?
Jun 26 2007
Why did the Chinese eventually withdraw from Korea? Surely their huge numbers would have eventually triumphed?
Jun 21 2007
New comment on your post #537 “Korea 15 – Its over, it can not be over, but it is over.”
Author : Sariel Har-Peled
Comment:
Respectively: (i) Indeed, why not? And (ii) The world is not enough.
Jun 21 2007
Respectively: (i) Indeed, why not? And (ii) The world is not enough.
Jun 21 2007
So, after flying to Hong Kong (via Taipei), and then to SFO (12 hours flight), I made it to the bay area.
You know the sinking feeling when you get the US immigration documents you have to fill and realizing you have no pen, while you are sitting in the most inconvenient place to get to your backpack. Well, this time, interestingly, there was a pen stuck in the back of the encasement of the small LCD screen in the seat in front of me. After 10 minutes of struggling, I got it out and used it to fill the forms.
But the main attraction of the flight were the movies. Here is the summary of the movie “The letters of Iwo Jima”:
The movie starts with a bunch of Japanese speaking Aramaic preparing to defend the island of Iwo from the invasion of the white barbarians (called Jima). In the background one can see Jesus dancing Polka on the cross. The manipulative mother of the Japanese soldiers is trying (in the same time) to get their older daughter to marry anybody that is not named Johnny. In a parallel thread, a messenger drive around on a motorcycle made out of fire (he must be getting a horrible millage on this thing) trying to explain to anybody that would listen that he is not Johnny. If the story was not hard enough to follow as it is, in another thread, Simba (you remember Simba, right?) has a Hamletian moment when a cloud tells him not to forget him. Anyway, with Simba on their right flank and not Johnny on the left, the Japanese successfully defend Iwo from the invasion of the devilish white barbarians. The movie ends on a happy note with a spectacular show of fireworks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Overall, it was a typical Hollywood movie with a happy ending but not much sense. But what would you expect…
Jun 20 2007
New comment on your post #537 “Korea 15 – Its over, it can not be over, but it is over.”
Author : Rafi
Comment:
> Now its time to start a new plan… Suggestions are welcome…
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world !
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112123/quotes
Rafi.
Jun 20 2007
> Now its time to start a new plan… Suggestions are welcome…
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world !
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112123/quotes
Rafi.
Jun 19 2007
New comment on your post #537 “Korea 15 – Its over, it can not be over, but it is over.”
Author : Shripad
Comment:
I’m sure you contributed to more than a 5% increase in the number of papers coming out of these countries in the last 8 months. 
P.S. Why SF? On the other hand, why not?
Jun 19 2007
I’m sure you contributed to more than a 5% increase in the number of papers coming out of these countries in the last 8 months. !
P.S. Why SF? On the other hand, why not?
Jun 19 2007
I spent the last four days in vacation in Jeju with Otfried and his clan. The island is amazingly beautiful, and I had a huge amount of fun.
I am currently sitting in an internet care in Seoul. Tomorrow morning I am flying to SF (via Hong Kong – go figure). I was in Korea for almost 3 months, and I had a blast of a time. I would definitely come back here again. I realized that I spent 8 months of my sabbatical in countries that consider 5% yearly growth in the economy to be slow. It would be interesting to return to Old America, with its insane politics, dellusanary self importance, and (at most) 3% of growth every year.
I am going to be in SF for 10 days now…
The sabbatical is almost over. I made serious progress on my class notes, but I would probably have to work on it for another year before it would be ready. Overall, it went reasonably close to THE PLAN. Now its time to start a new plan… Suggestions are welcome…
(And sorry for typos and so on – all being done in an internet cafe with limited time.)