I've been busy but.......

Sorry about the hiatus.  Its not like Mr. Oh has NOT been doing anything, but rather I haven't seen too much of him as of late due to my schedule and his schedule not "colluding".  In addition, his younger brother has come to visit.  Mr. Oh #2 seems to be a bit less strange, but only time will tell.
Here's a few things Mr. Oh has done that either completely incomprehensible, have annoyed me, or just plain funny.

About once or twice a week he'll put on a face mask for his skin (like clay or mud or something).  That's fine and all and I think its good that he tries to take care of himself, but the one time I subtly try to take a photo of him wearing it, he catches me and decides to pose.  Observe the pics below.

I don't think Mr. Oh has volume control.  He can be inappropriately loud.  Which is fine because I can be too, although when I tend to avoid such outburst particularly in the morning.  Just this morning, as we were getting to leave the house, I was sitting at my computer checking over somethings when he comes into to my room, says "good morning!", and then proceeds to look at what I'm doing over my shoulder. In other words his head is maybe 6 inches away from my ear (which is uncomfortable position to be in on its own) when for some reason he asks very loudly "What is that?".  I nearly jumped out of my seat.  Other times he'll laugh really loud at something trivial like a sarcastic comment or a mildly comical remark.  He laughs so loud that, although its just me and him in the room, I look around to see if anybody else notices.  When I catch myself realizing what I've just done, I then think 'hopefully I don't get any complaints from upstairs'.  That's how loud he can be.

Mr. Oh can be absolutely ludicrous at times.  He continually asks me the most impossible questions.  For example I can read comics on my Touchpad and when he realized I had some comics, he wanted to read them too.  I also have a small collection of ebooks I read on my kindle.  He then asks for some recommendations which I'm more then happy to do.  As I'm about to think of some books more appropriate for his level of English comprehension, he then changes his request to "what is the best book?".  I ask him if he's looking for something I like.  Nope.  Its the question as it was stated.  Same with the comics.  "What's the best comic?".  I looked at him with exasperation.  I told him it depends on what he likes.  I told him to peruse my collection and whatever he likes he can have.
At times, he'll ask me "why?" questions too.  These I can't even comprehend as to why anybody would ask anybody else these types of questions if they aren't of a personal nature or you're a child.  For example he'll come into my room and ask me what I'm doing.  If its the news I'm reading I'll then tell him about the article I'm reading.  He'll then ask 'why?'.  Why what? Why are people or businesses doing such things to each other?  Why is this happening in the world right now?  Why am I reading this?  I have no idea what he's trying to ask.  Funny thing is I'll bust out the little Korean I know and ask him to re-iterate his question and its still the same: "why?".

With his brother here, could it be possible it can get weirder?

Steve Jobs.....

Today Steve Jobs has passed away.....
Considering how many people have been affected by him, I only find it fitting that I write today to pay my respects to one who has redefined the world we live in.
He was truly a revolutionary.  Not in terms of technology, but of ideas and tech culture.  Who doesn't know of Apple.  Steve Jobs was able to bring Michael Jordan status of the 90s to technology in the 21st century.  Everybody I know covets Apple products and if not for Steve Jobs, nobody would.  Even when I bought my parents their first smartphone (a HTC Panache/MyTouch 4g, which I returned), they looked at it as an iPhone much to my chagrin.
I loved Steve Jobs for what he did, but I also despised him.
I feel like he was a sell out to the open source community by taking OS X and commercializing it.  I also know that it was a double edged sword that Ol' SJ was swinging.  Business and humanist ideals rarely mix, if ever.  Apple, I believe, is a victim of capitalism at its worst.  Their lawsuits against Samsung, iOS 5 similarities to Android, iCloud similarities to Google Cloud....they look at themselves as a company afterall. Not much more to say to that.
Regardless this is how I'll see Steve Jobs.  I believe he fought for a more open technological community.  I believe that, as much as he was pressured to create a profit making machine, he tried his best to make it so that everyone can partake in the wonders of technology.  People outside of Apple look at Apple's ecosystem as closed and narrow.  Its true that it seems like an elitist/hipster circle, but it really isn't.  If my parents can understand it (being old and Korean), then its open to everybody.  The only barrier was cost (i.e. thus a victim of the profit motive). Explaining how to use Windows and the internet to my parents was like trying to explain how subluxation affects general locomotion and neural pathways to my patients (at least those that were interested in listening), in other words, forget about it.  I love that Steve Jobs had the vision to allow those that were behind 20 years in technology to see what I see.  I recently bought both my parents an iPhone4.  I'm excited that I can Skype and video chat with them on my Android or even Facetime with them on my iPod touch.  I'm excited that I can receive Korean SMS from them when they want to tell me something.  All this because Steve Jobs had the balls to fight as hard as he did, similarly against the illness he had, to give everybody the opportunity to see technology the way he did.
Although I'm personally of two minds of Apple, I can see and appreciate what Steve Jobs was trying to do.  What he successfully did.
God Speed Mr. Jobs.
Rest In Peace Mr. Jobs.
We will never forget.

Fashion

Mr. Oh can come across as being somewhat vain.  Not like vanity smurf vain, but someone who makes occasional judgments of things because it isn't aesthetically pleasing.  In other words, beauty is very important to him.
This morning, Mr. Oh was getting ready to go to school (ESL, which unfortunately he seems to have regressed in his skills with the language) when I heard him exclaim "Shit! Jameson".  What he means by that I have no idea.  I imagine he was attempting to get my attention.  Anyways, I respond and ask him to come into my room to find out what was stressing him out.
Let me describe Mr. Oh first as some context may be needed to understand the nature of his "misadventure".  Mr. Oh used to be a body builder. He's around 6' if I had to guess with a broad shouldered build.  He's definitely more fit then me.  He is well proportioned except for that of his head, which being Korean, is humongous (similar to mine).
I've seen Mr. Oh dress up before and everything he wears seems to be a tiny bit too tight for him to wear.  I think he's going for a European look, which unfortunately with his build cannot be pulled off. Rather he looks like a kid who has grown out of his clothes.  This look none so more then today.  He rushes into my room as I have a full length mirror wearing khakis which seem a little too tight, a blue striped button up shirt which seemed fine, and a navy blue blazer which he was busting out of.
Thinking about his whole outfit now, he looked like he was wearing hand-me downs from a boarding school. What was distressing him was that he realized somewhat that the blazer was too small, but rather then attribute it to small clothes, he attributes the smallness of the jacket to his growth in size.  Regardless, it looked small.  What he needed was regular length, but was wearing a short.  His butt was only half covered, if at that, out of the bottom of the jacket.  The shoulders were rounding out of the jacket because of his width and the front of the jacket where he buttoned it up was so tight that the buttons looked distressed.  I proceeded to explain to him the short-comings of the jacket in which he then responds that I don't know anything about style or fashion and that he was going for an "asian" look.  Mr. Oh is asian, but he is an atypically large asian.  Not large as in fat, but in muscularity and height.  I think what added to the "smallness" of his clothes are also his pants.  They seemed unusually tight.  I think its because of his large thighs from pumping iron.

I know nothing of fashion, but I think I have some sense of style.  I understand what I can pull off and look good in and what I can't wear, otherwise risking looking like well......Mr. Oh.
Regardless, off Mr. Oh went for higher learning in clothes that didn't fit.

What he was going for:

What he kinda reminded me of:

(man I love Chris Farley!)

Random things Mr. Oh did this past weekend

I like Mr. Oh.
Particularly his behaviour.
He also comes up with some crazy ideas!
He comes to me after he finishes work (he works until 11pm daily, with one day off and usually doesn't get home until 12) and proposes an idea to me about a method of connecting businesses with potential employees.  Generally speaking, I try to encourage him in some of his ideas.  Most of them make sense with little risk overall, but as a result, they're also not millionaire making ideas.  This one though is a little tough to encourage as it deals mostly with innocent but illegal activity (if that's even possible).  Without revealing too much, when he told me the idea, I tell him that he is proposing something potentially illegal and can affect many businesses and lives.  He responds in silence and with a look which can only be described as enlightened consternation (today is oxymoron day!).  It never occurred that the premise of the idea is illegal in nature.

The next day, my friends and I come home from a night out (links to the restaurant and band at the end of the post, which I highly recommend the readers check out).  He's home already and he hears us come in.  He comes out to say Hi and then goes back into his room.  The door to his room is open and he begins to turn up the song "Lean on me" and at which point he begins to sing along the chorus really loudly.  Now this is strange in itself, but what adds humor to it is the broken tone and heavy Korean accent in which he sings it.  Immediately after the chorus, both the music and Mr. Oh go silent.

He eats a cupcake from a pack of hand selected gourmet cupcakes I bought for my girlfriend.  I didn't specifically tell him he couldn't eat them, but I did state very specifically that they were for her.  I couldn't get really upset about it.  Its Mr. Oh afterall.

Mr. Oh is a very nice fellow.  My laundry was in the drier and when completed.  He proceeds to take it out and rather then putting it in my room as I asked him to, he puts it in his.  I didn't understand that one too much.

Anyways, that's some of the things that went down this weekend with Mr. Oh.

Restaurant: Barque Smokehouse-excellent gourmet BBQ house
Band: Badbadnotgood-Chillout Electric Jazz

Engrish?

I can understand the difficulties of learning english.
Although I can speak it as naturally as anybody born here, someone that has to learn it from scratch can be incredibly difficult.  I've seen this first hand with my parents and extended family that have immigrated here.

Mr. Oh is preparing to write a TOEFL exam.
If nobody reading this has ever taken a TOEFL exam, let me tell right now, its hard!
It requires deep knowledge of english grammar.  I've looked at and attempted to help some people taking the exam with as much success as I had in high school english. In other words, very little.
Mr. Oh has asked for my help on occasion and I was happy to help him with some of the assignments or record some readings so that he may better understand the language and help him succeed in his English as a Second Language studies.  I've read some of his writings too which, aside from some technical and the obvious grammatical errors, were written in a satisfactory manner.
So onto what happened.
This morning I found Mr. Oh slept on the couch.  This is very unusual as I've never really seen him watch TV, let alone sit on the couch in the living room.
Today, Mr. Oh texts me this:

I think I get the gist of what he's trying to say.  I think....

Oh Mr. Oh......

Cereal box

I really don't know what to say about this one.
The the thing that's more odd is that, rather then find the bag of cereal in the box torn open with the same fervor, rather its cut neatly with scissors.
Oh Mr. Oh.....

Making toast

Let me preface this with Mr. Oh's inital surprise that a toaster oven can make toast.  When he was wondering how I can eat toast in the morning, I pointed to the toaster oven and told him, in the most non-condescending way possible, that the toaster oven can make toast.  Now, I can understand if you've never used a toaster oven, not every home has one. But it wasn't so much if he never used one as to how he went about making toast with it.
The buttons aren't clearly labelled with words, but rather pictures which I think were common sense pictures. 
Still, perhaps some confusion can take place.
This is how it went down:
I'm getting ready to go to work in the morning and as I'm getting changed I hear strange sounds coming from outside my room.  At this point I had no idea that Mr. Oh was up as I was in the shower. Regardless, I proceeded to find out what was going on.
I see Mr. Oh attempting to remove a plate from the toaster oven with his bare hands with little success.
I walk over to see that he put 2 pieces of bread on the plate.  At this point, I had to stop him as he kept on trying to remove the plate from the toaster oven still with his bare hands.  Looking at him in disbelief I grab a dish towel to remove the plate.  The plate was HOT.
After removing the plate from the oven, I asked him what he was doing or at least attempting to do.  He explains to me he wanted toast. OK, fine.  I then look at the settings. The toaster oven was set to bake and he set it up at 400 F.  Thereafter, I show him the pictures on the toaster oven.  He immediately recognizes the toast picture.  Why he didn't recognize it earlier was beyond me.
Ok, so he made a simple mistake, but here's the kicker.  I grabbed another plate to put the untoasted bread on and on the bottom side of the toast (face down on the plate), the bread was buttered.
Once again, baffled, I asked him why the bread was buttered before.  He replied that he wanted buttered toast.  I then asked him, if ever he buttered the bread before putting it into a toaster or otherwise.  He replies no. Following that I asked him what made him think that he should butter the bread before putting it into the toaster oven.  He says "I don't know".  I didn't have an answer either.
Oh Mr. Oh......