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If you’re looking for a quick laugh that involves graphs and fake data, check out GraphJam.

One of the better ones:

Then I recommend watching Redbelt. There’s actually more drama/character development than action scenes, so it might not be your cup of tea if you have posters of Steven Seagal hanging in your room.

It has some unexpected twists and turns, and Chiwetel Ejiofor does a great job as the lead actor (you might remember him as the sword-brandishing enforcer in Serenity).

I’d give it a 4 out of 5 as the ending could’ve had a coda to wrap things up.

And speaking of martial arts, for those looking for some funny kicking and punching, be sure to check out Kung Fu Hustle. It’s by the same guy behind the creative Shaolin Soccer.

If you’ve always wanted to do your own decathlon, here is a funny series of athletic pranks (video) by the always-funny Frenchman, Remi Gaillard.

Is being the default fitness instructor for her older sister in college. Seriously, a couple years ago I was a kinesiology instructor at A&M. One of the students told me her sister (Rebecca Soni) competed on the national swim team and knew Michael Phelps. I didn’t think much of the claim, but now I see she wasn’t joking.

I liked Sixth Sense. I kind of liked Signs, at least until the end. But his other movies are just ridiculous. In fact Lady in the Water didn’t make any sense whatsoever as it was completely anticlimatic.

And unfortunately, his latest — The Happening — doesn’t do much for the audience goer either. It combines the most annoying cliched arguments of intelligent design with the sky-is-falling environmental alarmism that would make Al Gore blush.

So, skip it at both the theater and from the local rental store.

Verdict: 1 out of 5. It helped me keep up with my English speaking skills.

NBC reportedly spent $2 billion on securing the broadcast rights to transmit the 2010 and 2012 Olympic games in the US. They had previously spent $1.5 billion securing similar rights for the 2006 and 2008 games. And video access in every other country was sold off like wireless spectrum to regional broadcasters.

While this is not a new phenomenon (FIFA and many other sport leagues have similar operations), there is a bit of annoying statism involved.

For instance, even with oodles of bandwidth I am still prohibited to stream any Olympic event (including rhythmic gymnastics!) from my high perch in Seoul, legally. Wired put together a list of online sites that allow you to view the games, but alas, South Korea is not party to any of the legal streaming agreements.

And this is one of the problems of IP rights over artificially scarce resources. Because firms like NBC will sue enterprising webmasters that upload or post images or videos of the sporting events, few individuals are willing to risk the squeeze. So even though no one is being harmed, no property destruction is taking place, the threat of lawsuits prevents badminton fans from watching total South Asian domination.

And it’s not just NBC, as both the BBC and CBC will not transmit data to the hermit kingdom.

Last year the same problem cropped up with the Rugby World Cup. The event organizers ruled the broadcast rights with an iron thumb and sent DMCA take-down notices not just to fans, but also credentialed journalists. In fact, organizations like AP and AFP refused to go along with these ruggers and wouldn’t partake in covering the event.

Fortunately I was able to watch most of the matches due to torrent sites, but of course, none of them were live (don’t tell me the score to the Welsh-Scotland game dammit!).

This all ends up bumping into the $1 billion Viacom lawsuit against Google (which owns YouTube) for hosting copyright-infringing materials. To me, the ironic part is that the mega content firms are doing a disservice to themselves, because all of the uploading actually shows how popular a show is. So rather than shooting your fans, you’d think that Viacom could somehow monetize this new technology.

Oh wait, after nearly three years of sitting on their hands, Viacom now has dedicated streaming sites for South Park, the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report — full episodes, full seasons, for free.

Now if only NBC would allow the same thing to take place with SNL overseas (I can’t watch anything on Hulu because it only serves the US).

Again, I’m not expecting or wanting to force NBC to accommodate people like myself, but I do not think it is very savvy (or libertarian) to sue others for providing a service that you won’t. Plus, I’m a blackhole out here: no one is providing online service at all, so a bottom-up provider wouldn’t be eating up competition…

Boo to the DMCA and the new ACTA.

Finally finished wiping away the tears from the opening ceremonies?

To be honest, the only reason I did watch it is because my students are going to bug me about it tomorrow. They’ve been taken in by the nationalism side of things (due to the fact that Ryu Seung Min — a South Korean — won the gold medal in table tennis four years ago).

My question is, did the BOGOC guys have a bet with someone at the IOC to see how many performers they could cram in a 10′ x 10′ square? Scarce on space… and I was hoping for some dancing lions that juggled iron bowls.

Aside from the two bright yellow back-flip artists (man they had to be dizzy), the only brief segment I kind of liked was the kung fu exhibition. That is more martial arts than I’m used to seeing.

Okay, not totally true. But in all of my travels I’ve seen very little to justify the stereotype that everyone knows karate or some such. In fact, I have only seen one fight, ever, here. It was after 4 am in Hongdae (outside of clubs NB and Harlem). Two Korean guys were very drunk and kept trying to do round-house kicks against the other. They quit after they bloodied themselves a bit.

Oh, and of course you see people doing slow-motion stuff but as we’ve seen in the past, that doesn’t help in a real fight.

Speaking of which, many Koreans and Chinese have asked me if I studied any martial arts and assume that many young Western men do. Why? Because they see movies with Chuck Norris, Keanu Reeves, Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme. So comically, they fear that I will open up a can of MMA.

A quick refresher:

Tae Kwan Do is Korean
Judo is Japanese
Karate is Okinawan (neither pure Japanese or Chinese), a la Mr. Miyagi

I’d show you the image but you might upchuck: the yellow Mankini. It is kind of SFW.

Though I do have to say, Borat was a hilarious movie.

You know how weird it was to hear the name Stone Cold Steve Austin from one of my kids?

Today one of my Korean co-teachers said she had watched the old school cartoon: Fat Albert (you know, from Cosby’s Kids).

I honestly do not see how that was allowed to be exported from the US. Thus, I’m bracing myself for the moment in which a local tells me they are big fans of Milli Vanilli.

Zeus help us.

Yea, it is definitely worth the hype. By far one of the best written stories. Lots of twists and turns. Very fast paced and the action sequences are actually more believable (considering it is based on a comic book) than other action flicks like Die Hard.

I hadn’t seen the first one since I saw it in the theater several years back, so I watched Begins just before watching the Dark Night.

As a result, the one thing that disappointed me was replacing Rachel (Katie Holmes) with a new actress. The new one wasn’t bad, but it’d be like replacing April O’Neal mid-stream. Heretical!

The script was very witty and actually provided a good aura of mystery throughout its entire duration. Heath Ledger was fantastic, so much more engaging than Jack Nicholson’s portrayal two decades ago. And Aaron Eckhart also provided a pretty good performance, although I didn’t really buy his “attitude” later on (he was fantastic in Thank You For Smoking).

Thus, in retrospect, the Tim Burton films were awful in comparison. What was that guy thinking?

Note to self: when I get a butler, they must act and talk like Michael Caine, at all times.

Verdict: 5 out of 5. Watch this one in the theaters.

Memories of Forrest Gump and Ping Pong diplomacy: an Aussie visits Beijing’s favorite past-time (video).

Four quick movie reviews:

Do not bother downloading the new Speed Racer. The whole thing felt like it was written and designed by a group of nine-year old’s that were high on pixie sticks. What were the brothers thinking? Verdict: 2 out of 5

Under no condition should you think about watching the straight-to-DVD sequel to War Games. The latest one - the Dead Code - is beyond awful. I took one for the team, the nerd team because… holy cow was the script terrible. If you thought that computer jargon and capabilities in movies like Swordfish or Firewall were retarded, you’ll be amazed at what the old WOPR can do. On second thought, watch it and look at the cool new supercomputer — because it is so incredibly realistic in all its naked PCB glory. Verdict: .75 out of 5

And while the action and special effects were cool, the plot of Wanted was hilariously dumb. A magical loom? Good god maybe all of the supernatural plot devices have finally all been used up. Verdict: 2.5 out of 5

Lastly, Hancock. Decent story, good action, not too much sappy romance. A bit better than My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I’d say it is one of Will Smith’s better films (primarily because it suits his strong side as a goofy/witty rapper). Plus it is not very long, so you can get back to watching reruns of a very funny show: Arrested Development (which stars Jason Bateman, the supporting actor from Hancock). Verdict: 3 out of 5

So I had a chance to visit Fukuoka yesterday. It’s a nice-sized city on the west side of Japan (just south of Busan). I wandered throughout the extremely clean and orderly boulevards for a good six or so hours (and have a super sexy sunburn as a result).

While I’ve been to downtown Tokyo very briefly at night, this was the first time I’ve been to any of the main islands during the day — and boy they aren’t kidding when they say Japan is highly industrialized.

Aside from the warehouse district (which I also meandered aimlessly through), the entire core is cleaner than downtown Seoul, Taipei or Kaohsiung (the big cities I’ve lived in thus far). Everyone was well-dressed, air-pollution was non-existent, and they all drove on the wrong side of the road!

Food prices were about par with Dallas or Seoul (Taiwan is by far the cheapest I’ve been to yet).

All the young women, if they weren’t dressed up in business suits wore impossibly small micro skirts. No complaints there.

It was kind of funny to see a line of men and women standing in front of a large magazine rack at 7-11. Apparently what you see in movies and cartoons is actually common-place: you find a book, pop in your headphones and just read standing up… in public.

I noticed less English in both advertisements and public transportation, but this could just be a result of distractions, like the young nurses that wore skin-tight clothing… as they road bicycles. Speaking of which, while all of the cars and buses on the road were modern vehicles, there were a large number of old school cruiser bicycles in use (not crazily zooming around like you see in videos from China).

And everyone walked with a different, more sophisticated air of confidence. I attribute this to the fact that Japan as a whole has pretty much been at the forefront of economic and cultural development for the past century. Conversely in Taiwan and Korea less than a generation ago most people still lived in a rural farm, and thus are still adjusting to a higher standard of living — and not walking around in pajamas (seriously, I’m not trying to make fun of “poorer” people, but some of the gitups are pretty funny to see).

This was taken right before sunset. Apparently the guy was a local man that liked to play for an hour or so each day on the park situated in the middle of the lake (Ohori Park). He even had a mini-amp connected to his guitar. I have no idea what the name of the song was, despite recording it, because the microphone on the camera didn’t work : (

There was a canal that cut the central business core into two areas.

If you’ve seen the film Lost in Translation, one of the more interesting aspects to global advertising is that you can find a famous celebrity on just about any product imaginable. One has to wonder if the star has any idea where their face is appearing on. Take for instance this beer vending machine that has the mug of ol’ Tommy Lee Jones on it. Sexy.

Obligatory Hello Kitty signage. I’ll be honest, despite the stereotypes, I didn’t feel inundated with ads for our friendly pink ambassador.

The other day, one of my kids asked me if I knew who Stone Cold Steve Austin was.

It’s great to know that he is an ambassador for American culture.

The kid also loves Hyundai, in part because his dad works there as an engineer. He was visibly disappointed when I told him that the Toyota Camry was the best selling vehicle in North America. Followed by the Accord, Civic and Corolla. Damn those Japs!

… at least in recreating the first 3 episodes (those were so bad).

It’d have been funnier to read about how Doug Bass climbed into his Toyota Prius, spurs and all.

And I honestly didn’t meet real cowboys until I was in college — those are some good stories.

Radio interviews and podcasts you may be interested in:

Scott Horton talks to Mark Thornton
Lew Rockwell’s first podcast
Lew Rockwell talks with Joseph Salerno
Joseph Salerno interviewed at CSPAN

If you’re interested, I’ve written a couple pieces in the past week or so.

One discusses free-trade agreements and Korea.

The newest one discusses the peaceful rise of China.

And you may also be interested in the “shared” posts in Google Reader. So find me on that.

Also, a shout out to Eric Garris, who fixed a number of little errors in the China piece. It’s the damndest thing, apparently I saved two different copies (a normal one, and a bad ass one) and sent LRC the normal one. It was missing a number of little corrections I’ve made that for whatever reason, never made it into the final draft.

For instance, if you read the Chinese piece, my two versions have two completely different footnotes for number 9. Here is a good nugget that never made the published copy because of my tomfoolery:

According to a recent story by the Associated Press: 130,000 PLA troops “repaired more than 14,600 kilometers, or 9,100 miles, of roads, installed 220,000 shelters and relocated more than 1.4 million people” over the course of two months.

Anyways, the moral of the story is that while it is good to store and backup copies in various places, be sure to title them differently to properly distinguish them.

Note: agh, even one more recent note didn’t make it: China & Russia recently signed a border agreement. How’s that for peacefully handling disputes?

It was one of the better sitcoms around — Joey was great. Actually all of them had great chemistry, just like That 70’s Show.

Speaking of which, here is a memorable episode (I even remember where I was when I first saw it: sitting on a couch in front of the TV). Note that it is remixed with the cartoon Superfriends:

Via Bob Murphy.

Seriously, In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro grips you with furry claws and doesn’t let go.