Handful

Found here.

Air Cannon

This doesn't prove that he ought to be re-elected...but it should.

ConvEx

I mentioned a while back that I was disappointed to have lost contact with a few people with whom I'd spoken in French, over Skype. These were people I'd met on the Forvo site - one in Switzerland, and one in southern France. I liked talking to them, both because they were interesting and because, well, I don't have a lot of people with whom I can speak French. Conversation's important. I still miss talking with them, and hope they surface again, but I've stopped trying to get in touch. You can only ping somebody so many times before you could be classified as a stalker, and nobody wants that.

But I've found a decent alternative for conversations, and so far it's been working out.

The site is called Conversation Exchange, and it's specifically aimed at people with language profiles like mine -- fluent in one language, studying another (or in some cases, two or three). Last week I got conversation requests from two people, and I've sent a couple out as well. As a result, I've had one lengthy Skype conversation and about 20 email notes with a woman who lives in Paris, a native French speaker who wants to improve her English. We talk or write in English sometimes, and I help her with minor errors, and we talk or write in French, and she does the reverse. As for what shall we talk about, the site has a long list of suggestions. In our case, we talked about driving in Paris versus driving in Boston, about politics, about recipes, and - as you might suspect - about learning another language.

I'm delighted.

Oh, Sorry!

Found here.

Musicality

Bin Wha?

A fascinating little article about the vagaries of Arabic names....

Olive Garden Expedition

Pour quoi? Parce que....

Aujourd'hui est le anniversaire de ma fille.

Felicitations!

Musicians

One Reason

...why I don't watch much TV.

Found here.

Frenching

I'm a little bemused, which is my trying-to-be-nice way of saying that I'm simultaneously a little pissed and a little dejected. I realized last night that over the past six months, I've lost contact with three different people with whom I spoke French -- one person in Switzerland, one just north of Paris, and one down by Marseilles. Just - gone. Send them the occasional note, nothing. This makes me sad. I'm about 90 percent sure it isn't me -- I've slowly come to understand that the world does not, in fact, revolve completely around me - but still, I wonder. And I'm bemused, either way.

Flix

Watched Cowboys and Aliens tonight. Surprisingly good.

Fail Compilation

I think it interesting that the only time anyone expresses dismay in this compilation is when it's a woman making the comment. Guys, when they say anything at all, usually just laugh furiously.

EDS

EDS never was this captivating. But in its glory days, it wasn't half bad, and I miss it.

Fascinating

You can now get your own R/C Model of a Predator drone. I wouldn't, of course. At least, not until it had the missile-firing option.

Found here.

Mento

My mento didn't show up for a session today. The school didn't know why -- the family didn't call in, and they didn't respond to an email that's sent out when the kid's not there, without explanation. Same thing yesterday.

On the other hand, I found out that they did start the process of doing a psychological evaluation on him, since he's obviously smart enough. And as part of that, he told his mother that meeting with a psychologist would be ok with him as long as it wasn't in ninth period -- because that is when he meets with his mentor.

Wow.

Scrounging

Making the first pass through my mother's living room, separating things into Immediately toss, Probably toss, religious materials, photographs. Lots of stuff to go. Haven't found any winning lottery tickets yet.

Don't feel like but this is her stuff! too much. A little, yeah.

Freakin' Awesome

Parable

I've heard this before. I can't believe it would work. But I want to believe that it would. Like a comedian I heard the other night said, if all of these countries are in debt to each other, why don't they just write off the bills and sleep well?

It is a slow day in a small Irish town. The rain is misting and the streets are deserted.

Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and having a hard time making ends meet, let alone climbing out of debt.

On this particular day a rich German drives into the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him the keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.

The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the feed co-op.

The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub.

The publican slips the money to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has fallen on hard times and had to offer her services on credit.

The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.

The hotel proprietor puts the €100 note back on the counter.

At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the €100 note, pockets the money, and leaves town.

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking forward to a brighter future.

And that, gentle reader, is how a successful bailout works.

Ok, I guess.

Found here.

Sticky

The other day, I saw a photograph on our French friend's Facebook page. She and three other girls were grinning into the camera, and each was wearing lipstick. I had forgotten how nice lipstick can look on a woman. Which then startled me. When did this kid become a woman? Okay, she's French, yadda yadda -- but a woman? Um, yeah. A cute, funny, interesting young French woman.

That makes me feel old. In my mind, she's just a kid!