Factoids about *le* dda

  1. Born in 1967
  2. Married in 1998 in Seoul with, well, my wife.
  3. I live in Bordeaux, France. By choice – which I’ll have come to regret. Now live in Hong Kong. Much better.
  4. I used to live in Seoul – 1994/2004. Which I came to regret – but for point 2.
  5. I’d rather live in Singapore, but life sucks sometimes.
  6. Then again, Singapore doesn’t make wine. Bordeaux does…
  7. Since a company in Bordeaux hired me to sell their wines, from Hong Kong, all is cool!
  8. While in Seoul, I moved eight times. That’s NINE lodgings all told…
  9. Yes, I speak Korean. And English – obviously. And French. And German. And Italian. And Japanese. And can read a few others. Not that I have a serious use for them, but hey! I’m a language geek…
  10. I dream in Korean. Or so says the Missus. I must dream loudly.
  11. I started writing a PhD in late 1993, and stopped after 200 pages in 1998. Not too proud of it.
  12. I’m still one of the few people who know enough about a Korean vernacular script dating from around the 10th Century to brag…
    Not that you’d care.
  13. Currently trying to speak as many or more computer languages than I speak human ones. Making progress…
  14. Currently trying to up the ante by learning a coupla more human languages. Not making much progress here…
  15. I have never been vegetarian, and will never be. Even if I do love my Indian food. But while I can eat – and have – dog meat, rabbit, natto and other a priori unappetizing food, I don’t eat seafood and fish, except for a few items like seaweed.
  16. I’ve eaten Durian. More than once. And love it. They sell it in the Park’n'Shop downstairs. Very cool.
  17. I started programming in 1981. In assembler. Motorola 6800 and 6809; Z80 and 8080 a bit later. Took me a few years to become reasonable. Still, thanks to that, bases 2 and 16 have never really been a challenge.
  18. I am very very bad at maths.
  19. I’m quite good at calculus.
  20. I’m pretty good with financial stuff.
  21. Somehow, the previous three points relate…
  22. I’ve studied phonetics and phonology for fun. And I had fun.
  23. In these classes I’ve listened to languages I’d never heard before, and was asked to make conclusions on them.
  24. The dean of the phonetics lab had us take a course in Physics. The lecturer was a high-school science prof doing his PhD at the lab. We had fun.
  25. I stopped paying attention to classes like Physics and Biology around grade 10.
  26. I can write my name – and yours – in hieroglyphs.
  27. Greeted once a girl I didn’t formally know – friend of a friend – by her name. Her name was written on a hieroglyph dog tag. She was impressed. Geek Power
  28. Not even the Air Force could make me wear a dog tag.
  29. My first email address was a whole bunch of numbers.
  30. My second email address was dbvic@somewhere. They didn’t want me to use dda. Fookers.
  31. I spent all of two weeks in the US. In 1995.
  32. And more recently a few days, in two instalments, at Oranckay’s place, late 2006
  33. I visited Italy around 20 times. Between, like, 1987 and 1993.
  34. While in Rome, we used to stay at the youth hostel situated behind the Foro Italico, up north. We always walked.
  35. I once left a friend at Roma Termini station, leaving for France, telling him See you tomorrow afternoon at Café Richartz, behind Köln’s cathedral.
  36. The longest uninterrupted trip I took in a train – series of trains really – was Amsterdam-Napoli, via Brussels and Köln. Took 26 hours.
  37. Italian trains are slow and always late.
  38. But they suck less than Spanish trains.
  39. Which in turn suck less than British trains.
  40. Then again, there’s Romania…
  41. My longest one-train trip was Paris-Berlin, way back when there was two countries calling themselves Germany.
  42. Then again, I once flew from Seoul to Jo’Burg, via Paris. That’s quite a bit of mileage.
  43. I don’t have a driving license. Never had.
  44. Partially as a result of that, I am a human GPS. Really. I have not only been reading maps for people driving me, but most cities I visited, I walked them up and down.
  45. I’ve worked as a translator, consultant, general manager for two companies, and train conductor, among others. Messieurs Dames, bonjour, contrôle des billets s’il-vous-plaît !
  46. I have clocked more than a quarter million kilometers in trains, privately and professionally.
  47. For 8 months, I had a daily 500-mile/800-km train commute.
  48. During the interview for a job with a Dutch company – which I got – I was told, very seriously, the following joke:
    Dude: Did you know Scotland was founded by former Dutch people?
    Me: ?!??!?
    Dude: Ja. People we kicked out. They spent too much.
    I shit you not…
  49. Dutch people have the most ridiculous names ever.
  50. I currently import & export wines and write code. Code that doesn’t sell rots. Wine that doesn’t sell can be drunk. Check.
  51. I have had a nasty bout of acute pancreatitis. Consequence 1: my pancreas is damaged, no much insulin is produced. Hello type 2 diabetes! Consequence 2: my pancreas doesn’t like alcohol anymore… I still sell wine.
  52. The Missus and I watched most ‘’24′’ seasons in two sittings each. And season 3, I think, in one.
  53. After our second sitting for 24/Day 5, we watched two full-length movies.
  54. While in Seoul, the owner of the video cassette rental shop we patronized often told us Not this one. You’ve rented it before. Twice actually.
  55. Koreans say they eat very spicy food. My wife complains about my food being too spicy. Heh.
  56. I’ve had Chingis Khan vodka and survived.
  57. I can write Cingis Qa’an both in the Cyrillic and Uighur-Mongol scripts.
  58. I’ve been in a room where the thermometer displayed 110° and it wasn’t Fahrenheit.
  59. I’ve only been south of the equator once. But when I do something, I do it properly. That time, I crossed all the way down to South Africa.
  60. Update: I have been recently to Jakarta. And regretted it.
  61. Update: I have been again to Jakarta. Wasn’t particularly better than last time.
  62. South African wines are better than many French would have you think. OTOH, not as good as the good people of RSA would have you think, too.
  63. Then again, there’s Chilean wine…
  64. And Armenian and Chinese, er, wine..?
  65. I once wrote an address book for my trusted Goupil 3, and started entering names, addresses and phone numbers from memory. I never used the app…
  66. My current address book has way too much data for me to memorize its content… But I still remember phone numbers from the past, back when you needed to memorize only 6 digits… 79 22 97
  67. I’ve been 20 times in Napoli’s open-air market, and they never managed to steal anything from me :-)
  68. Once, in Firenze, a local dude, who spoke perfect English, spoke to me in Italian. He tought I was Venetian. The red hair I guess.
  69. I am bald, now, so no more being mistaken for a Venetian…
  70. I was never taken for a local in Korea, while my Korean is close to native, and my Italian not.
  71. I’ve been asked for bribes, as plainly as, I dunno, Our team is going for dinner this Friday, we’ll send you the bill.
  72. Yes, by Koreans.
  73. No, I didn’t give.
  74. Yes, they threatened to buy from someone else.
  75. As a result, our gross margin doubled.
  76. I shook President Chirac’s hand. Dinna peed me pants, or anything. Yowza.
  77. I sat once next to Monica Bellucci in an airport lounge. She didn’t shake my hand, and I managed the no-pee-pee trick. Again. Yowza.
  78. I voted once. For Mitterrand, to boot. Please, forgive me.
  79. And recently twice again. For Sarkozy, and for his party in the general elections. First time in 26 years. I’ll wait a bit more until next time I suppose.
  80. I declined a couple of times to go to the Blue House. No particular reason. Just don’t like formal affairs.
  81. I went once to the Opera in biker’s attire. In Budapest, Hungary. Das Rheingold, Wagner. Was nice.
  82. I also saw Mrs Butterfly there, sans the biker’s attire.
  83. And for the record, I own Boss, Armani and custom-tailor suits. And enough neckties to tie The Hulk down. So what?
  84. Trabants suck, especially on steep hills.
  85. Buda is basically a large hill. Sucks. At least in a Trabi.
  86. I’ve probably eaten way too much Napolitan frittata. No regrets though.
  87. We are moving have moved to Hong Kong. Which is not yet Singapore, but we’re working on it…
  88. I didn’t know until recently that Hakka cuisine included dog meat. I do now…
  89. You’re probably bored, or aghast, or both, by now.