One month of the worm's eye view of the Olympics podcast. Next week is our last week before the real deal gets started. This week: Nation houses, local transportation, and why we have (or haven'tt) bought tickets.

https://soundcloud.com/85camerata/5th-special-korean-liquor-ddeokboki-n-twigim

What I expect, however, is to have to follow the advice Westley gave to Inigo Montoya when he said, "Get used to disappointment."

(Hands in rare prayer position): Please don't say anything dumb about NK...please don't say anything dumb about NK...please don't say anuthing dumb about NK...

In other news, we'll be doing our fifth podcast -- with only one left to go before the Olympics start here where I live. Buses everywhere. Odd-even driving days to start soon.

I'm contemplating getting two weeks worth of groceries and just staying at home.

"When you have a mountain, you don't build a wall."

https://youtu.be/g7A_hOda5uc

Tipple & Squid: Worm's eye view of a South Korean Olympic venue: week 3: Local Makkeolli and Jeon, North Korean Spice Girls headed to our locale.

Listen if you've a mind to: https://soundcloud.com/85camerata/3rd

Just as a note: having grown up in the heartland with Jack and Diane, I can say with a very high degree of certainty that there are plenty of folks in those areas who have been waiting for a president willing to call a shithole country a shithole country.

I don't think it makes them right, which is part of why I moved away pretty much as soon as I was legally able, but it is a political reality. As odious as I think it is, it provides zero political traction.

This legit hurts: https://vimeo.com/249694026

Stable genius.

...and on that note, I think I'm in the mood for some reggae: https://youtu.be/FHAbj1pIT4g

It's waaay too early to really know what the fallout of this most recent book is, but with the carousel of personalities dominating the headlines in recent months, a whole lot of them for falling out of political favor, all's I can think is that the UK characterization of politics, and indeed ascendance in any hierarchy, as "climbing the greasy pole", has rarely, if ever, been a more apt description of the process.

hashtag Gorilla channel

If this were not reality, it would either be hailed as the most brilliant political satire ever produced, or be panned for going waaaaay too far past the point of believability.

I think it's time to cue up "The Thick of It" again and comb it for spoilers.

Although that's not actually what I was looking for. What I had in mind is that special status you get when you get a specific name: Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, Sloppy Steve, that sort of thing.

I guess this is, in fact, a thing: http://time.com/3966291/donald-trump-insult-generator/

Is there a Trump insult generator? Is that a thing yet?

(asking for a friend...)

Bannon? Never heard of him. Basically a coffee boy.

Doesn't seem advisable, in these times of ours, to refer to being in one of the host cities of the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics as being "at ground zero", but we are here, watching the changes. Here's the first of what we hope is a year long chronicle of the meeting of a small city and the Olympics. Deeply unofficial, worm's eye view. Feedback appreciated!

https://soundcloud.com/85camerata/tipplesquid

I don't even bother sharing CNN stories these days: I don't think they're particularly biased, though I do think they tend toward fluff in an effort to entertain more than inform, but a whole lot of my friends on other platforms (on "both sides" of the spectrum) feel differently. So, I usually search out the story elsewhere.

That said, the process this article describes is fascinating: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/alabama-senate-election/index.html

I'm happy, but it's still a damned low bar to be clearing. I'm pretty sure democracy was meant to result in something a bit better than avoiding the election of a likely pedophile by a couple of percentage points.

Never mind. Let's look to how it was done, and how we can do it in a whole lot of other places.

Zappa/Beefheart: The Torture Never Stops

https://youtu.be/tMoBLZrkHio