Your Handy Genre K-Drama Guide Continues!

All Free Of Charge

Although it would be nice if one or two Comments appeared.  

     Here an aside.  Yes, already!  I have noticed a few K-Drama descriptions using the term "Joseon" to indicate a particular time period and wondered exactly when this was.  Conrad guessed Late Medieval to Late Renaissance?  Of course I resorted to Google, and what do you know - started 1392 and only ended in 1897.  Art!

     There you go, comparative fashion for you.  The thing is, Korean history is complicated, being intertwined with their more powerful neighbours China and Japan, not to mention resisting Western encroachment.  I did discover why Korean men wore those big pointy hats - Art!

     To allow sufficient room for their man-bun.  Comfort and utility, doncha know.

     ANYWAY back to K-drama.

"Missing: The Other Side": Again with the Korean ghosts.  This one follows a protagonist who stumbles across a village in the hills that nobody else, apart from a grumpy old man, can see.  It is populted by the spirits of those whose body has never been found, and until their remains turn up in the real world, they stay there.  Our hero can see the village because, unknown to him, his mother is one of the spirits.  A second season is due, hurrah!  Art?

"Taxi Driver":  I always feel I need to add 'NOT the film' here.  This one concerns a secret organisation that can arrange to carry out justified revenge for injured parties.  They have a benevolent owner, a computer whiz, two genius technicians and Kim Do-Gi, moonlighting taxi driver and martial arts expert.  There's also a secret underground base straight out of "Thunderbirds".  And a second season is due, hurrah!  Art?

"Tomorrow":  More of ghosts!  In this series you have the Holy Fool (Choi), who joins the organisation that runs the afterlife.  The twist being that the afterlife is run as would a Korean international organisation, with him being employed alongside the Grim Reapers of the Crisis Management Team, who act to prevent suicides.  Art!

Featuring the rather delicious Kim Hee-Sun

"Hotel Del Luna":  More with the ghosts!  This hotel, previously known as "Guest House of the Moon" has a unique clientele: ghosts.  They are the spirits of those with unfinished or unresolved business, who stay at the hotel until ready to move on.  Jang, the owner of the hotel, is bound to it for her sins committed over a thousand years ago.  The only human present is the general manager, who carries out any needed interactions with the real world; in this case, Gu.  Art!

     It was one of the biggest television successes ever in Korea, but props to the studio, they made it three years ago and there's no mention of another season.  However, it has been made into a musical and you can bet your thongs* that Hollywood will come sniffing around sooner or later ...

"Alice": More of time travel!  This time around it involves the Korean police, as our protagonist is a detective with alexythimia (look it up), who gets involved with Professor Joon, played by the ubiquitous Kim Hee-Sun.  She's a professor working on Big Sciency Stuff, whose team keep getting murdered.  She's also the spitting image of his murdered mum.  The "Alice" of the title is actually an agency, not a person, which regulates time travel.  And then there's the 'Master', who may also be an organisation, using time travel illegally.  Art!

     The thing is, the Sorks create a metric ton of television programs, so by the time I've finished watching one series, they've created another one.  First world problems, hmmm?

If You  Want To Over-Engineer It, Give It To The Teutons

Yes, it might well turn out to be a feat of technical competence but it will also be horribly complicated, costly and difficult to mass-produce.

     This came up in a Quora thread about the British Universal Carrier of Second Unpleasantness vintage.  The equivalent of a three-ton Jeep on tracks.  Art!

A Carrier, and the incomparable David Fletcher

     It was robust, reliable and simple to manufacture.  Got that?

     Then another poster compared it with the Sdkfz 2, which you might know as the 'Kettenkrad'.  Art!

     It gets called a 'half-track' but as you can see 'three-quarters track' is closer to the mark.  Intended for use by paratroops, it was compact enough to fit inside a Ju52 transport plane, and could tow a small trailer.  Compact it might be, it still weighed one and a half tons.  And, of course it had the complicated overlapping road wheels that made maintenance or repair a severe pain in the bottom.  That Quoran poster put up a picture that I've also tracked (no pun intended) down.  Art!

     These are the components for a SINGLE track link on the Sdkfz 2, all 30 of them.  He calculated that there were well over 2,000 component parts just for the tracks on this vehicle, and all needed to be assembled by hand.  Imagine being the poor sweaty mechanic who had to maintain a stable of these!

"The Sea Of Sand"

Things are going badly for Hom. Sap. at the moment.

"That Bedford," whispered Roger.  "I've got the keys for it."  Before climbing in, he sent them to scrounge in the other trucks.  Pickings were poor: two canteens of water, a four gallon flimsy nearly full of petrol, a tin of stew and two tins of sardines in oil.

     "We could make soup," joked Sarah, climbing in the cab beside Roger.  "I know, I know.  But I can guide you to cover."

     Nobody tried to stop them leaving the depot.  Sarah assumed the Italians were too busy dealing with the approaching aliens than half a dozen unarmed prisoners.  Unexpectedly, she found herself hoping the Italians survived.  Yes, they were the enemy, had taken her prisoner and gagged her, and practically undressed her with their eyes, but they were still human beings.

Fourteen: The Battle Lost

Dominione stood on the bonnet of his Sahariana, on top of the spare tyre, peering down the beaten path.  Yes, there sat one of the sinister - that word sprang to mind, "sinister" - black vehicles.  The depot blocked the rest from view.

     That chapter title telegraphs what's going to happen, I'm afraid.

The Biter Bit

A short cautionary tale from Youtube's Reddit about Malicious Compliance.  The Original Poster was a teacher at a South Canadian high school, with an awesome principal who respected her (and the other teachers) and interfered as little as possible.  OP also held down a second job at a fast-food restaurant to make more money and ends meet.  Art!

CAUTION!  Not a fast-food restaurant

     As seems inevitable with good management, the principal was poached by a bigger school, and took the new principal-to-be on a tour of classrooms and teachers.  When introduced to OP, he growled "Second jobs don't cut it.  Fix it, pronto."

     So she resigned her teaching post.

     He didn't see that coming.  Nor did he see the other six teachers with second jobs also resigning.  OP promptly got a job with old principal's help in his new district with much better pay and conditions.

     Surprise! Principal Bottomhole was gone by the next academic year.

Finally -

Conrad strongly suspects that if he takes his usual Sunday afternoon constitutional stroll into Lesser Sodom this afternoon that he'll have to wear shoes.  The blue skies have been utterly occluded by ranks of clouds the colour of dirty dishwater, which also seems to be what they're depositing on the landscape.  Motley!  Put on a track by Wet Wet Wet!

*  Ocker slang for the humble flip-flop.