Ban Sidhe

I've moved!

2005-04-14T16:55:00.000+02:00

I've moved to my own domain name. Click here to see the new blog!

Last Blogspot Post.

2005-04-04T10:40:00.000+02:00

I said I'd do it, I posted about nothing but for days because the transition was so painful, it crowded everything out of my brain, and now, i'm ready. More than half of you have left in the process, but it had to be done. I will no longer be posting here. If you still care what I have to say, I'll be there : http://ban-sidhe.com/blog/. In the mean time, I heartily recommend that you go read my brother's goth scifi Philip K Dick style short story. He writes like my dream writer self could only dream of writing. And I love him.

Do Not Adjust Your Television Set...

2005-04-03T13:15:00.000+02:00

We have been experiencing technical difficulties and have been down for several hours.

We apologize to our readers, and are expediting the transition to safe servers. Business as usual will resume forthwith.

Agents of the Space Fiends

2005-04-02T17:37:00.000+02:00

As I toil away, learning the security protocols and scripting languages of the MID secret servers in order to move the priceless content of Ban Sidhe to a secure location, the Agents of the Space Fiends are hard at work. Now that I'm on to how they sap the morale of MetroStoics everywhere by hampering us in our most basic need : commenting, and that I am taking steps to protect our vital interests, they are forced to tip their hand and their treachery against their own species is revealed! They are having "technical difficulties" preventing ftp publishing to remote sites, which just happens to prevent retrieval of Blogger posts for WordPress... but never fear. We shall overcome and soon, all my posts and all your comments will be uploaded here...

Metro-something, Anyway...

2005-04-01T12:38:00.000+02:00

etroStoicism is a hard and narrow path to tread, and it leads to many unexpected turns and opportunities. This morning, as I walked between the glass giants of our business district, the Sun crowning them with tiaras of light, a odd little man spoke to me.

-"You are Mathieu, of Ban Sidhe?", he asked. -"Ye-ess?", I stammered, aghast that the first fan to recognize me should turn out to be such an ugly little runt. -"Of MetroStoic fame?", he insisted, holding out a little card. I glanced at it, and, oddly, it held a hologram of a Glass Spider and my new domain name. -"I am.", I took the card, puzzled that it seemed to be mine. -"I understand you are looking for a job?", he squinted up at me, and I looked away from his oddly deconstructed features. "We are the Metrostoic Institute for Defense, and we think we can offer you a ... prime position that would suit your unique talents." -"Keep talking.", I said, scanning our surroundings for the Old Man's operators, my erstwhile colleagues. -"We are based in Torino, Italy, and we need your assesment on our strategy in the on-going war with the Space Fiends." -"Space Fiends?", I goggled. -"Yes, they've beaten us back to Saturn, but we're finally holding the line. We need some new ideas, and we'd like you to consult for us.", he paused. "Should you like what you see during that mission, we're prepared to integrate you with the full rank of Colonel, and a share of the Institute." -"I'll think about it...", I temporized. -"Don't think too long. Give us your answer on your blog, we monitor it." -"I'll do that." -"Don't call us, we'll call you.", he added, rather unecessarily, and blanked out of existence.

As I walked to the Old Man's Operation offices to hand in my cancelled OM Operator cellphone, I found in my pocket a little disk, the MetroID Primer. I've only gone thru the first section so far, and I'm stuck on the second, but I think I'll enjoy this MetroID job. Colonel Mathieu... I like the sound of that...

Upwardly Mobile Blog

2005-03-31T11:22:00.000+02:00

ack in September 2002, when I started blogging with a little company called Blogger, they were a booming, but still fairly small outfit. A few months later, they were bought by Google, and a few months after that, I stopped blogging when I met the Princess in August 2003. Only to return to it with Ban Sidhe in November 2004, mostly as a diary. Boring stuff. Then something happened. January 2005, Ban Sidhe went on the air. Or rather, I suddenly realized YOU were out there, reading this stuff, and I started to write for you. Because I like the challenge of coming up with something interesting everyday. Because I like the attention, the variety, the emulation, the little strategies and victories and disappointments of this little war we wage for the attentions of ten, twenty, fifty, two hundred people... Because it's fun. Because once you start, you can't stop. Because I'm addicted, ok? I don't want to think about stopping. Don't want to think about how far I'd go for a good post. Don't want to think about how much time blogging takes up in my life. Don't want to think about anything but my next post, and the one after that, and what comments I'm going to get from YOU. Yes, I blog for the comments. I want to meet other MetroStoics, and exchange witty, insightful, slightly detached comments and posts about life, the universe and what color socks to wear. I want a comment counter that goes up as fast as the visit counter. Faster! Ok, I blog for the stats. And much as I love you, Blogger, much as we go back a long way, I'm going to leave you. I'm going to get a domain name, a hoster, install WordPress and pay my 60 bucks a year. Because you're keeping my readers from leaving me deep, cogent mots d'esprit. Because I deserve a favicon, damn it! Because I'm worth it.

"You're Still a Hobby..."

2005-03-30T10:21:00.000+02:00

I'm a slow thinker. Not dumb, not unoriginal, I've even been known to hatch a few good ideas in my time... But sometimes, you have to hit me with a brick to make me see the obvious. Like the fact that I've been working on nothing but being with my Princess for eighteen months. Or the fact that I was taking a risk on a big, soul-less corporation when I should have been taking one on us. Or better still, the fact that I was selling my soul when I could have been offering my heart. After only minimal applications of the brick, last nite I came to my senses and asked the Princess if she would marry me. On Instant Messenger, because, well, that's our song, you know. I'm happy to report that she said yes. But she warned me that until I was her hubby, I was still just a hobby :D Wise girl...

There's No Good Way To Say This...

2005-03-29T13:44:00.000+02:00

... so I didn't ... because men are cowards :

Dancer : whats going on with stephan? Dancer : hes not answering any messages Dancer : we were suppose to see each other on sat and he never called or answered and he still isnt Mathieu : well, he's been pretty depressed lately Mathieu : couldn't get him out of his flat on sunday Mathieu : which medium you using? Mathieu : IM, phone, SMS, email? Dancer : all, everything! Dancer : i tries msn, sms, phone, internet... Mathieu : hummm Mathieu : give him a few days, then Mathieu : he must know you're trying to reach him, but he's really down Dancer : i guess Mathieu : have you heard of the Cave Theory of male mgt? Dancer : no Mathieu : it states that men need to retreat to a little cave and be left alone with no talking or verbalizing for a while, every so often Dancer : oh yeah, hearde of that Mathieu : this is linked to actual scientific evidence of a difference in the way our brains function Dancer : i read that Mathieu : female brains activate both the emotional centers of the reptilian brain AND the higher, linguistic functions of the cortex when they deal with emotions Mathieu : male brains only the reptilian part Mathieu : hence they are less inclined to analyze or talk about their emotions than women Mathieu : he's been hurt badly, he needs to live with his reptilian brain for a while Mathieu : do male bonding stuff like sports, drinking... Dancer : its def not still about C, but he needs to get out, its not gonna do any good. but ill leave him alone, ill stop trying to reach him Mathieu : at least a couple days, yes Mathieu : he knows you were trying to reach him Mathieu : I'm sure he'll call you when he comes out of the cave

The deception works only because Dancer, altho she expresses an interest in Stephan and his well-being, has still not bookmarked his blog, and thus has no way to know what he did this weekend. I'd be even more surprised if she read this. Should I turn out to be wrong, Dancer, know that he should be calling you soon. UPDATE : Dancer has read his blog, and this post. I understand they've talked, but Stephan isn't out of the cave yet... and the only heart-to-heart he's going to have is with his blog. Not fair, certainly, but those are the breaks.

Near Sighted

2005-03-28T16:31:00.000+02:00

Blogging is a near-sighted illusion of celebrity. Walking in the streets of Paris, I'm constantly surprised that no-one comes up to me to ask if I'm Mathieu from that blog. Worse, I'm expecting them to ask me if the Count actually exists, or how to pronounce Ban Sidhe or Syvwlch without any need to verify my identity. Since I've recently taken steps to correct my optical near-sightedness, and the blurry faces of strangers are suddenly sharply detailed individuals, I'm now acutely aware of any glances, stares, and frank appraisals that come my way. Seeing as Chaton lives in the gay quarter of Paris, this isn't limited to women, either. Bref, I'm wallowing in egocentricity. Better that than self-pity. Cut to discussion of Bouffon's literally underground film with his number one fan, drinking Singha beer over glass noodle soup at the Mai Thai, served by a genuine Katoi, listening to the soothing liquid sounds of Thai babble from the kitchen... We were speaking in our usual hash of French and East-Coast English of the plans for a visit in Thailand around May and I was trying not to be too obvious stealing glances at a pretty, older brunette one table over, volleying a NYC accent across the table with a (slightly) older woman. Which latter woman suddenly struck up a conversation with us. Busted. Mother visiting daughter and grandkids who live in France, it turned out, and daughter married to a Frenchman and working nearby in a model agency. A wealth of conversational options opened up between recommending our international high school (which she knew of and approved) and name dropping around Greg's brief modeling career (she didn't look impressed at all), and dryed up just as quickly. We wished them a pleasant afternoon, and left the building. Ten steps down the sidewalk it strikes me. I bet she blogs! I bet she knows Coquette or somesuch... and we didn't ask. Flashback to last face-to-face with Step... Yes, definitely need some personal cards with our blog addresses on them. Because I can just see myself handing one over and asking : "Do you Blog?" And someday, somewhere, somebody exclaiming, holding the little bit of stiff paper in both hands : "Oh, you're THAT Mathieu!"

Em(ask)ulation

2005-03-28T12:29:00.001+02:00

brrrrring ... brrrrring ... brrrClick! (heartbeat) "Why hello, Mathieu!" "Hi, Mephisto..." "... so, er, haya these days?" "Hum, well, Meph, that's why I called..." "Yessss?" "... ya know dat job I was so proud to have found widdout yer 'help', at the Old Man's US ops?" "Yeees, I was sooo happy for you!" "Yeah, thx, Meph... Listen, I'm back on that "Job" thing you and the Old Man have going." "Oh? Well, you know we'd luuuuuuv to have you in this operation." "Yes, you've made it clear you love to poach from yer ex-employer's flock." "Now, now, Mathieu, that may be true, but you have ... skills that go unused in that place. We'd have a use for them here, Believe Me." "Here's my price : a green card, office in NYC or nearby NJ, and no working with the Count." "Done, I'll have my legions of undead lawyers draft something and kick off the red tape. When can you start?" "Yesterday." "Hum... Let's say 1st of May. La Fête du Travail, eh?" "Whatever, Meph. I'll be expecting your draft." "Keep your phone on, ducky Mine."

Emulation

2005-03-27T10:48:00.000+02:00

Mathieu : Loved your comment on MetroStoicism... Mathieu : "Blogging is the opium of the bourgoisie!", Step is gonna love it! Le Serpent : he'll be so pissed off for not coming up with it Mathieu : LOL Mathieu : yes, that too Mathieu : but he sublimates that anger so well Mathieu : look at us, now Mathieu : all this emulation between us is creating some mean posting Le Serpent : well he creates emulation, I guess.... but is he up to the challenge? Mathieu : of course, in my pose as the star-crossed lover and tragic hero Mathieu : I'm hard to beat, these days Mathieu : plus I'm ahead in the html wars Le Serpent : yeah man Le Serpent : you just turned Santa Barbara on our asses Mathieu : LOL Le Serpent : that's hard to beat. seeing only women blog. Mathieu : and gays... Mathieu : don't forget the gays Le Serpent : and metrosexual losers Mathieu : LOL Mathieu : ayeeee, a hit, a palpable hit Le Serpent : look at the bright side, who would of thought the orange sweater clad booboo could one day be hit by a scud with "metrosexual" on it?

Slightly Used

2005-03-27T03:53:00.000+02:00

Saturday dawned sunny and warm again, and I was all set to load up the iPod with some music, and mope in a park pretending to read a book, when Chaton suggested we drive to the Normandy coast to soak up the rays on the pebble beaches at the feet of the famous cliffs of Etretat. Sun played hide and seek on the road, but burst over the Normandy bridge to fill the humming Lexus with golden warmth thru the open sunroof and stuck with us the last few miles to shine upon the beaches. We shot pictures of each other, of the sea, the sun, the cliffs, drank latte and hot chocolate when the wind blew in and made phone calls. I have so many friends to call about the apocalypse. To laugh and lie and wear a red shirt so the troups can't see me bleed and oh, I'm sure I'll find something and it's only a temporary setback and we just need to wait and be patient and sure we're patient, the Princess and I, when all I want to do is scream at the gulls in the sky that I have had my fill of waiting, that I want to kill someone in HR. I'm lost at sea. Ok, wine and cheese party, and let's invite the Kat, she always has great Rieslings, and oh, can I call you back? I need to call the Count and see if he's in the market for a slightly used soul. Cheap. One (1) Green Card.

What a Difference a Day Makes...

2005-03-26T10:07:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the sun was shining on Paris and Step was skipping class to walk around Paris with me. We had plans, and the patience to wait them for them to bear fruit. Not that we happy about the situation, or free from boredom, but there was a sense that we were going where we wanted to be, no matter how slowly. Soon, we were going to break out onto a new plateau of happiness and fulfilment for a price slightly less than our souls. What better deal than that? We visited a photography museum, and the fact that I wasn't a photographer didn't rankle, because I had something in return for selling out my artistic side. A career. A Princess. Had time to grab pictures of cute asian boys for Greg because there's little I can do from here to make him happy where he is. Had time to admire the tatoo on a Yakuza portrait, and call up Chaton to see if he'd join us before the exhibits closed for the day, and off we were to another museum, to see psykedelic posters from LA&SF. Frankly, we were a little tired by then, but it was a good feeling... They had videos playing, and it was a little like bumming at home, but with less guilt, and no b33r. Not that we didn't feel the lack of direction and purpose in our lives, made plain in the long hours, and days, we'd spent together lately, on-line or off. We decided to go for a last drink before we split up, and the sky was a deep, serene blue. No thunder, no boiling clouds, no rain of blood or tears. No sign of the Apocalypse.

PS :

Ashes in My Mouth

2005-03-25T22:57:00.000+01:00

I have lost my job in the US, before I even started it, and lost my chance to be with my Princess in the foreseeable future. Words fail me, and those already uttered are like ashes in my mouth, coming back to haunt me. Excuse me while I go do something stupid.

The Ascetics of Metropolitan Stoicism

2005-03-25T10:45:00.000+01:00

MetroStoics practice the ancient arts of the Askesis via blogging. As in buddhism, these spiritual exercises kept the Ancients free of pain and suffering by teaching them not to be ruled by emotions or desire. MetroStoics blog to be free of pain. To be free of pain, one must be free of desire. MetroStoics do not desire hits or links, but only to practice the Askesis within the bLogos, the animating principle of the Blogosphere. The MetroStoic Askesis include Socratic dialogue via commenting, regular contemplation of philosophical questions such as the nature of jobs and boredom, attention to the present moment in the search for posting material, daily reflections on the problems and solutions of life. The aim of MetroStoics is not to extinguish emotions, but to live in accordance with the four cardinal virtues of Wit, Fearless Self-Exposure, Openmindedness, and Restraint, so as not to be ruled by emotions. MetroStoics believe that all bloggers are manifestations of the bLogos, and that external differences such as TTLB rank, number of hits or links, or slickness of template are of no importance in the relationships between bloggers. Only witty and fearless self-exposure, and openminded and restrained commenting, are of importance between MetroStoics, and with the remainder of the bLogos. Poor sods. Who wants 5,000 hits a day, anyway?

Metropolitan Stoicism or Living Out of a Digital Barrel

2005-03-24T17:27:00.000+01:00

I'm ready to go. I've turned in the company car, I've turned in the keys to my appartment, I'm living out of a suitcase, sleeping on the floor of Chaton's place, and I'm slowly divesting myself of all the useless trappings of modern life that weigh us down. I'm ready for rebirth in the land of the free and the home of the brave... and bored out of my skull. I spend my days either connected to chat and blog, or going from one connected place to another by subway, listening to MP3s of American radio shows on my trusty iPod. Metropolitan Stoicism is born. All you need is a place to sleep, an iPod, and some way to blog about it. And when the next great conqueror comes to you in your digital barrel, looking for wisdom and the One True Way to happiness and fulfilment... just ask him to step aside, he's in the way of your WiFi beams.

I Know What You Did Last Night

2005-03-23T15:49:00.000+01:00

Chaton, Yours Truly, and Step...

Step has a good recap of last nite's activities, and Chaton has finally blogged about his blog and about himself. This makes him a REAL blogger in my book. None of this political, philosophical bullcrap here. I'm going to play hooky with Step and go visit the Centre National de la Photographie. See y'all later. UPDATE : I went to Step's pad and we spent the rest of the afternoon swigging b33r while redoing the template of his blog. As you've probably noticed, that has spurred me to finally fix some glaring issues with my own. No museum, just ordered pizza, invited Chaton, and had another evening that proved our total lack of social life and the utter boredom of our lives... We split up at 10pm, feeling like we'd stayed up until 2am. :P

Down for the Count...

2005-03-22T15:01:00.000+01:00

The Count would fly in from NYC for a week at a time and stay on East Coast Time. We'd work after nightfall in his suites, always in the best Parisian hotels, and around one or two AM, he'd call down for the limo, and we'd go eat fashionably overdesigned dinners in restaurants you couldn't see from the street, filled with cokefiend-thin models and older men in pitchblack shades and pimp threads. After intricate desserts, I'd ride the limo back to suburbia while the Count worked deeper into the night. Over the next six months, I watched the Count mesmerize CEOs, politicians and accountants with his aura of old New York investement banker money, stratospheric name dropping and a nitroglycerine temper that toed the line into contempt but somehow always stayed just this side of simple impatience for the opportunities awasting. They promised him millions, they offered to work for free, they went on national television to pledge their eternal souls to him and his vision. He, in turn, promised them incredible earning ratios, on-the-ground-floor investment opportunities, solutions to societal issues costing billions upon billions and more importantly, votes. All based on the spreadsheets I made for him in the deep of the night. He promised me shares of the company, four times my current salary, a green card, a corner office in Manhattan, the kingdoms of the earth. It all came crashing down eventually, and the Count has moved on to the next great con, still living in style waiting for the Big One, the break into billionairehood. We stood in his unpaid suite, window open upon the Place de la Concorde slick with rain and empty of any traffic, before he flapped his cape to fly back into the night.

The Count...

I could have flown out that window with him, become like him, living in a parallel world of power, money, lies and solitude, and started my own search for someone to bring to the Dark Side... but he left empty-handed, bloated with misery and without the true sustenance of any vampire : their victim's desire to be like them, that reflection in the other's eyes that mirrors refuse them. Because they can't stand the sight of themselves.

Contact...

2005-03-22T02:06:00.000+01:00

Looooong day, boring post. Got up at seven, drove up to Paris, had just enough time to have two pairs of glasses made before a meeting with my french soon-to-be-ex-boss, and followed with a night of roleplaying at Chaton's, and a nitecap of three white russians at the Lizard Lounge just downstairs... around 1am. Where Alexis proceeded to tell me, over a diet coke, of her ambitions in the space programs.

Contact

She makes me think of the heroine in a Carl Sagan or Arthur C. Clarke novel, geeky, smart, and focused yet ready to have fun... She's currently in France to study dancing for the humanities portion of her degree, because she's ahead of the academic requirements for an aerospace engineering sheepskin. Hangs out with Robyn, the Harp player in the gang, and talks with her hands and eyerolls a lot, while turning down alcohol because of heredity. Laughs like a fifteen year old prom queen :D There's no attraction for me there, but her enthusiasm for manned planetary exploration and engineering subjects strikes a chord with the geek in me, and I wish her much luck getting onto a NASA program and taking mankind to the Stars, or at least the Planets. Anywhere away from this tired, dirty, doomed old basket where we're still keeping all our eggs. May her life outstrip the best the Old Masters ever wrote. For all our sakes.

Mom IS Blogging...

2005-03-21T07:41:00.000+01:00

... in French, at La Dépêche des Cordeliers. Feel free to comment in English, but the first one who's mean to my Mommy, I'm hunting you down :D On another note, I'm driving up to Paris today, so it's going to be another looooong day for you long-suffering readers out there... See y'all tonite!

Walk Down Memory Lane's Sidewalk...

2005-03-20T22:44:00.000+01:00

When I was a few years old, and my brother a brand new threat to my hegemony, summer visits to Grandmère d'Albi were always a treat, because of the bevy of older ladies ready to lavish affection and treats on me. Diana was one of those, about a decade younger than GrandMother, and mother of one of Mom's childhood friends. She would bicycle down to our big house where she'd rented a room with her husband decades ago, early in the morning, and bring the croissants, brioches and pains au chocolat without which French petits déjeuners are just slices of bread dipped in café au lait. She was always joyful, smiling and kind, very sharply dressed, blond and too beautiful to be pretty. A kind of fairy godmother of summer breakfasts with a smoky contralto laugh and an attention to what you liked, wanted, or cared about. What kid could fail to love her? Today was her 88th birthday, and her mind and body are still sharp. Both she and I were happy that I could attend the lunch-party along with my parents before leaving the country.

I don't remember when I learned that she had been a working girl. Perhaps I've always known it, and that one of the things about my grandparents that my mother is most proud of, is their acceptance of Diana, her husband (an honest working man I remember as a hulking bear, with a laugh like a rockslide) and their little daughter. From all accounts, Diana was a loving, nurturing mother, and my grandmother trusted her with her own daughter, and has treated her as a valuable friend up to this day. She hung up the stilleto heels years later when French law outlawed the trade and continuing meant a prison term and losing her daughter. Because, you see, she'd already lost her firstborn in the divorce from her first, wife-beating husband. The divorce that had stranded her in Paris without a job just after the war... too beautiful to be pretty. Perhaps it takes a fallen angel to fully appreciate how precious basic human love and kindness is, and the best of them shed that surprised, joyous yet calm strength like heat from a chimneyfire on a sweet October evening. I'm priviledged to have had grandparents who judged her by her worth, and to have a mother who grew up, in part, basking in that glow. I'm priviledged to have felt it myself, those long gone summer mornings sitting at the kitchen table amidst the babble of adult voices, munching on a croissant while the Angel spoke to me, to ME! and no one else.

M&M Story...

2005-03-19T15:41:00.000+01:00

Now that the Princess and I are safely out of Paraguay, I can admit to a massive case of contraband... We did not declare the kilos of M&Ms that we were bringing into the country for the wedding. One whole suitcaseful lugged around by Yours Truly as carry-on cuz those things are delicated little phuckers.

Contraband M&Ms...

We brought white, orange and yellow M&Ms plus some specially printed yellow ones, with the names of the bride and groom. Because you can buy any colour you want, or pre-printed stuff for any occasion, and have them print anything you like on them.

Well, not ANYTHING you want...

That's a lot of chocolate... Enough for a quarter cup per guest, or 75 cups of the stuff...plus a safety margin. Because, again, these things chip like glass on impact, including against each other. So when you pour and mix them, you have to be very delicate...

Pouring M&Ms...

We mixed the various colours in precise ratios, sorted out the chipped and broken ones, but didn't actually eat that many because the chocolate smell got pretty intense in the room...

Mixing the M&Ms...

We had to do it in two batches, cuz there were no bowls big enough for the entire lot in the Princess Family Palace. The Queen Mother folded the little boxes, the Princess mixed the colours, and I courageously took it upon myself to take pictures, disregarding any danger to life or limb. But we hit a snag. We didn't have enough to fill 300 boxes, so we needed filler material.

Buying the Tulle...

Quick trip to the market to buy some 20 feet of white Tulle cloth (from little French town Tulle), and add to the chore the task of cutting 300 little rectangles of the stuff, and folding it prettily into the boxes before pouring a quarter cup into each box, and sealing it with a monogrammed sticker.

The Finished Product...

It was worth it, tho, as the little boxes were a hit, both as decoration on the tables, and as a party favour to bring back to the kids or grandkids... Another Bright Idea from the Princess!

JUSTice for All... and the Pursuit of Happiness

2005-03-19T13:04:00.000+01:00

I like visiting my parents, I really do. I JUST can't stay very long cuz they work me like a ploughhorse. Yesterday was mom's turn, and she hogged me all day. Dad was not too happy about that, but he was JUST outranked. So after a visit to cousin #803.32-C in the hospital (he's JUST about to have triplets, long story), we went shopping. In, like, 8 different gardening and hardware stores to find JUST the right pots for the climbing clematites, and JUST the right dirt, and JUST the right sand & gravel, oh, and, JUST the right hardware to put up the hammock... wait, turn around, we JUST missed JUST the store I wanted to go to! I JUST barely managed to sneak in a quick side-trip to a bed&matress store, to make sure that the man who'd tried to sell us a $17,000 swedish matress in NJ was, indeed, JUST as full of horse manure as his wares were full of horse hair. The French still sleep on articulated lat-frame beds with JUST a thin matress over the lats, the whole thing nice and hard ... all this for JUST a fraction of the price. JUST as I'd told him. Drove Mom JUST in time to install Dad's new hammock. He's forgiven me for spending all that time with Mom, and will JUST have me do his list today...

The Sleeper Must Awaken...

Doesn't he JUST look adorable?

B-sides... Pun Intended.

2005-03-18T11:29:00.000+01:00

Guess Who got To Do All That Lacing? Swing It, Sister! Thank God for Colour TV :D Bleu Blanc Rouge, Now That's 'La France'! Red, Blue and White... Isn't That Russia?

Ok, so perhaps I am a little obsessed with B(ack)-sides... but duncha just love the colours?

Gifts, GISBEs and Goatees...

2005-03-17T23:40:00.000+01:00

Well, this morning I woke up, and instead of driving the car to the dealer and handing it in, and spending the weekend in Paris with Step and Chaton, I was suddenly overcome with the deep angst of the migratory bird in forced rest... I felt trapped, the walls were closing in, and all the little things coagulated into a vast mass of insurmountable blah. Nothing for it, time to run. Hit the Road, Jack. Hopped in the car and drove seven hours to Albi. Guess you won't get a post on French sleeper trains afterall :) Felt immensely better, called friends, family, associates and the Princess about eight times (counting dropped calls), took in the sight of Spring erupting all over France, and got to the Parent's Place in plenty of time for some DIY with Dad, and sharpening Mom's garden shears... What will they do without me? :) Handed out their presents from Paraguay, namely :

Dad in a Sling...

A handmade string hammock for Dad... No, he didn't mistake it for a poncho, but we need to buy some hardware to put it up. Update tomorrow. Note his new goatee, which looks really good on him. If it doesn't, trust me, the pic must be bad.

Mom's New Badge of Appreciation...

A gold bracelet for Mom... Idea, much insistence, and solid bargaining to secure item, from the Princess... and she accuses ME of being a chupa medias with the Queen Mother. Humph. Anyhow Mom loved it, and Princess won major brownie points, and I think some of them splashed onto me by association, so what the hay.

Yeah, Right :)

By a twist of fate of no significance whatever, my GISBE package was waiting for me, and I have a new CDfull of MP3s loaded on the Shuffle and a texan Tshirt from Crystal at All Geniuses Are Crazy. The second Mad Genius to grace this humble blog with a touch of their holy madness... eh, James? Crystal obviously has a sick sense of humour sending such a T to a liberal from France fighting extra kilos... I enjoyed the dig in the ribs (texas ribs, get it? ... on second thought, forget I said that) so much that I added her to the blogroll. I'm poggo-dancing in the kitchen listening to Death From Above and the dog is SERIOUSLY worried about me. It likes me better when I'm humming to Incognito and Tribe Called Quest, well, tough, doggie. It's about time I listened to some saturated guitars and screeching voices again. Woof woof to you too :) BTW, Tania has received the package I sent for GISBE as well :

Für Greg...

2005-03-17T09:57:00.000+01:00

Greg's been complaining about the lack of hot Latino guys in this blog...

Best I can do, real Brazilian forestry manual labor hamming it up when I whipped out the camera thinking of you, dear Bro. I know the shot's not great, but it was clear they would have welcomed you with open arms on the back of that truck...

Slummin'

2005-03-17T02:23:00.000+01:00

One nite wasn't enough... We almost did it again tonite. Drove back from Beauvais with the check for my deposit safe in my pocket to find Chaton and Step in a pub down the street.

Being a good geek, I whipped out the camera, and then proceeded to check my mail and the blog with the laptop while drinking a beer. Step snagged that picture of Yours Truly, the Rue du Bourg Tibourg, and Chaton. We then walked to Les Halles to see SAW on wide screen and stumbled out a little dazed and in shock. What an ending :) Speaking of which, went back to Chaton's for some blogging, and a wash of dark clothing. I think the does had a safe nite tonite. Now I'm off to lalaland while the surf-on-sand soothing sounds of the washing machine continue to bleed thru the walls.

Blogging la Boda...

2005-03-17T01:46:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I haven't exactly been feeling inspired about the wedding. It's taken me a while to admit it, but there, I said it.

Oh, I have lots of pretty pictures, and I could describe the lovely (short) oecumenical ceremony in which the pastor and the priest failed to trip each other or hog the lines, or gloss on the murals of the church, but why bother?

You weren't there, you don't know these people, and frankly, even if le tout-Asuncìon was there, CNN, Fox, and MTV failed to cover the event. The world's loss, and I'm sure Hunter S Thompson woulda found the fault lines to clive this diamond in the rough into the Star of Africa and enough small change for a thousand fiancée solitaires, but there it is, I'm not he.

I could tell you about the civil ceremony, with a dozen witnesses to sign the paperwork, all dressed in pastel, breezy dresses and looking like they'd just stepped out of a particularly well-cast eighties soap opera heavy on the cute blonds and dusky brunettes. My efforts at capturing on electrons the effects of so many colors were met with incomprehension and suspicions of liking "butt pictures".

Yes, I can be the misunderstood artist now. Because I may not be Hunter S Thompson, but at least I can take a few decent pictures now and then, even if that's no excuse for the generaly worsening quality of the writing lately...

And besides, the best pictures from that evening weren't even taken by Yours Truly. The Kiss, above, was shot by the Queen Mother, while the Official Picture, below, was taken, well, by the Official Photographer. The one who's pictures will end up in the social pages of the Main Daily Newspaper, with, even in Paraguay, slightly more readership than this blog...

At least, the Princess looked positively STUNNING in her red dress, I managed to look a bit less like a waltzing bear refusing to waltz, and just before the live band opened up at 130 dB to force me from the room, we did dance for 25 seconds. Hummmm... Perhaps I'm NOT completely over my failed attempt at marriage, am I? The strange thing is, the Princess still loves me even if I was an ass that evening, and I'm just a lucky man to have her :) In a red dress or anything else. I love you, Tigercub.

Beware of Cheap Limitations...

2005-03-16T16:10:00.000+01:00

Well, you leave them alone for a week in Paris under the influence of meds, alcohol, and women, and here's what you come back to :

Lacoste, je t'ai dans la peau...

That's right, Step has had the Lacoste crocodile tatooed on his chest, right where it is when you wear one of their polo shirts. A deeply held desire for twelve years, one is left to understand. In the mean time, Chaton and he are inseparable, and carving a broad swath of destruction in ParisianNiteLife with a veritable constellation of around-the-bend-hysterical-broads orbiting in the backwash from the propellers. Some people need to shed old skin regularly, and, well, some others need to burn themselves up in a bonfire of the vanities fueled by various forms of self-destructive behaviour or the wild glee one feels when kicking puppies, to rise phoenix-like above the ashes. As these things go, I assume one little tatoo and a few hysterics reconfirmed in their belief that all men are assholes is not exactly Nero burning Rome. In fact, one such hysteric would be quite satisfied to know how tediously LONG last nite's discussion of her position in the current mayhem really was. We had the two girls at the next table over in stitches for most of THAT little slice of male wisdom on how to handle the other half of the species. Cute too, but thoroughly forewarned by the graphic content of some of the negociations, they were having none of it. I felt what all ex-hunters feel when the doe bounds out of the sights... relief, and I wished them well, away from phoenixes and serpents and other such creatures of our nights.

Now How Cool is That?

2005-03-16T11:00:00.000+01:00

A guy spends a week in Paraguay, where they have the slowest Internet connections known to man, and he gets a little behind in his posting, and massively behind in his blog reading. The bloglines notifier in my system tray is telling me I have over 400 posts I need to read. Guess I know how I'm going to kill my productivity today... But that's not the best part. Li'l Bro just started his very own blog! Faithful readers (and you know who you are, since you stuck with me thru both the patchy posting last week AND my total absence of commenting on your own blogs ;D) will know Le Serpent, and not be particularly interested in yet another picture of his pretty face. But fear not, his blog is not about his face (well... not exclusively :P) and makes great reading. But that not the best part of the best part... Our MOTHER IS GOING TO BLOG! I'm in shock... Haven't even followed the link from her comment to her profile yet. :D Only Dad doesn't have the virus yet!

Intercontinental Zombie from Hell

2005-03-15T17:47:00.000+01:00

Last nite was the second nite in a row spent sleeping in a plane. In the last 48h, I've been in Asuncion, Paraguay, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in Newark, NJ, and both Beauvais and Paris, France. I'm in a café logged in over the cellphone network while listening to Prince and Missy Elliot and IAM shuffled on my dear, dear, iPod, waiting for Chaton to get back from work and provide me with access to a shower, and a bed, in his flat. I'm also short 30 cents to pay for the 4.40 euro coffee I just guzzled. And I have a gazillion pictures of the wedding to upload and suffering from the blogging equivalent of motormouth in the meantime... this post will probably scare away what few readers have kept coming here thru the patchy posting from South America :D Thanks guys, you know who you are, and i'm not ashamed to say half of you are family ;P Anyway, here's my big thought of the day : tropical developping countries all look the same. Thailand, Bali and Paraguay, on the ground and in the streets, look much the same. Big, gaudy, beat-up, evil-smelling, big black cloud belching, no air-conditioning buses on irregular roads with oversized gutters/sewers, corrupt cops in overly tight uniforms, beating heat, curdling humidity, great, cheap food, friendly people who practice siesta religiously,

local beers you learn to like because they fit the weather so well, expat communities and an elite that live very well, are very educated and polite and nice and smart but very focused on their social life, like a PC reality-TV version of Dynasty/The Jetsons,

an irresistible itch in your shutter-finger that leads to taking 800-1000 pictures a week, and thank god for rechargeable batteries and digital cameras, everything you were warned about not nearly as bad as it had been made out to be, and the rest sometimes surprisingly painful to watch, or scary, or just plain weird. Oh, and the little detail that gives it all a local taste and makes you so happy you braved the trip and the discomfort to see it, however humble. For me, that would be seeing all Paraguayans, no matter how rich or humble walking around with their little coolers of cold water and their horns full of Yerba Matté to drink cool, refreshing Tereré thru a silver straw... The epitome of exoticism for me, as i first read about this in Claude Levi-Straus's 'Tristes Tropiques' as a late teen.

The main difference, I guess, is population density. Paraguay is basically empty, compared to SouthEastAsia, and it shows, particularly when you drive across the country. It's not an easy country, and they are not very well off, politically, or economically, but at least they are not suffering from over-population. Anyhow, I had a great time, and I'm looking forward to any future visits, with some real time in Brazil with La Hermana, since she speaks the linguo.

Checklist?

2005-03-13T17:36:00.000+01:00

Wedding a success? Check.

Vayan Con Dios...

Asuncion Postcard Giveaway mailed off? Check. Bags packed, airline tickets, passport? Check, check, check. See y'all in a day or so, from NJ. I'll post more pictures of the wedding, and give you the dirt on how it went down.

Feliz Cumpleaños!

2005-03-12T17:57:00.000+01:00

La Hermana turned 25 yesterday, and we had a big asado (BBQ) at the Princess House close to the Yacht Club. I got to skin and cut the beef because I'd boasted that my grandad had been a village butcher in the North of France.

It's in the genes, dude.

As Der Koenig waited for the Groom to be done cooking the first batch of morcillas (blood sausage), chorizos piquantes y non piquantes (sausages), and brochettes(kebabs), we cut the bull around some nice cold Brahma b33rs.

The essentials...

La Hermana, despite being la agasajada (the guest of honor), was busy in the kitchen making Caipiriñas in her swanky black dress, waiting for the guests to arrive.

La agasajada...

Which they soon started doing, bringing the music with them, and arguing endlessly about which exact styles they were playing, and whether they were argentine, or brazilian, or paraguayan. I jumped in with some questions of my own, and soon was thoroughly lost :D

Guests...

Fortunately for me, one of them was an anglo-paraguayan raised in Texas who looked uncannily like W at times and was happy to babble away in both languages and discuss the intricacies of musica latina with me, or local politics, or business. He's here on an internship and is a handful of credits away from an MBA at a good American University. His smooth manner, instinctive people skills, and passion for talking, eating and drinking leads me to believe that when South America gets around to creating their own union, he'll be a strong contender for the Officio del Presidente!

El Futuro Presidente de los Estados Unidos de America del Sur, Christian!

Like any self-respecting college man, he has a hollow leg for b33r and vodka and Caipiriñas, but more impressive still, his other leg is hollow too, and he proceeded to stuff with beef for the entire evening. We all kept count and he put away more than a kilo of meat. Two pounds. Now, if South American politics are anything like French politics, that particular party trick may well be the clincher in the upcoming elections.

Christian and Argentine b33r...

He has my vote, anyway :)

Bono's Band...

2005-03-11T18:21:00.000+01:00

In all the rush, I believe I forgot to mention that I found an iPod Shuffle in Newark before getting on the plane to Sao Paulo.

Shuffle Me!

I'm a happy puppy! Speaking of which, meet Bono, the Bug-Eyed Boxer, 7 months old and bored out of his little skull whenever he's left alone more than a minute, which unfortunately happens a lot lately...

Bono the Bug-Eyed Boxer

Yes, he is named after the singer of U2, which shows my transition isn't THAT tenuous what with all the mutuam promotion U2 and Apple are throwing out there :D ... Anyhow, Bono tries very hard to be a good perrito, but it's so haaaaard, when there are so many things to climb, and chew, and snuffle, and scratch and bark at! The Princess, in particular.

Muy BIEN, perrito!

But he's so proud he could burst, when he gets to pose with his master, the Groom!

Un novio y su perro...

The Famed Falls of Iguazu

2005-03-11T00:00:00.000+01:00

Finally, after four hours of dodging dodgy trucks and highway robbery patrols, we made it to Ciudad del Este, crossed to Brazil on a tiny bridge covered in a sea of pedestrians carrying huge bags of discount, duty-free and contraband electronics, and made it to our destination, to the beat of some native Bossa Nova on a Brazilian radio station, and how cool is that? Finally, after four days of fighting the slowest internet connections known to man, I've been able to upload all the picture I will need to do full justice to this Natural Wonder of the World. Grab a seat, the tickets are free, and all the sweating has been done for you by yours truly. The Falls are over three kilometers (two miles) long, so we'll take them in the order of the nature trail that borders them, and finish at the breathtaking view from the pontoon the Brazilians have throw over one of the steps and to the edge of the void.

First View

As you walk down the trail, you suddenly see, between the trees, the first stretch of the Falls, which spill down into a round bay which you can visit by boat, bungee cord, or helicopter.

The Second Strech of Falls...

Further on, the Falls become multi-level affairs, like a cascade or a set of stairs, with trees growing on the intermediate levels, mist covering the whole affair, and it all makes you want to film a true-to-the-original movie version of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

Taking the Bend

As you walk farther, and deeper down into the main canyon, you take a turn to the left, and get a better view of that intermediate level, and altho you can't see the dinosaurs, you can hear them roar and shake the ground beneath your feet. You can just make out a stone archway at the top right of the falls in the previous picture, through which you can see the white water behind it.

Where the Author Gets Wet...

You push on, despite the heat, and the exertion of going up and down with the terrain, and dodging all your fellow tourists, and suddenly catch a glimpse of the promised land : the pontoon, where you will see sights you can't imagine, and more importantly, you will be covered with a fine mist of cold water, and subject to a strong breeze off the Falls, and consequently well rewarded for the hot, sweaty work you put in so far...

Life at the Edge!

Not for the faint of heart, the pontoon will take you to the very edge of the mist-filled void!

Rainbow

Yet you will be surrounded by roaring water, blue sky, deep void and sparkling rainbows!

Teetering...

Plant life has carved out a living teetering at the very edge... with tons of water flowing past it to fall hundreds of feet below.

Full Power of the Falls...

Giddy, soaked, half-deaf from the roar of the falls, you will retreat to the side of what you can't believe is just one of the smaller sideshows of this titanic THX, cinemascope and 3D version of what Niagara does in boobtube format, and wait for the elevator to take you back to the world of man, nestled at the side of the fall, and feeling its full power rush past you in a blind, irresistible FALL!

The Road to Iguazu...

2005-03-10T14:02:00.000+01:00

Everybody had something to do Tuesday except La Hermana and I, so we jumped into one of the two sharks and took off for the border with Brazil at Cuidad del Este, and the famous Falls of Iguazu...

The Shark

Well, we would have taken off if it hadn't been South America. First we stopped for gas, which comes in filtered and unfiltered...

Filtered or Unfiltered?

and they checked the levels, and pretty soon, it turned into a nice, long oil change.

Oil Change

Then we ran a (very well hidden) red light and surprise! there were cops hiding just up the road, and we were shaken down for "Coima" or a bribe. We negociated down from 300,000 Guaranies to 50,000, or about 8 bucks.

Paying Coima...

So it took us quite a while before we were on the one-lane highway (you pay toll to get on it and toll to get off it, how creative :D) for the four hour drive to the other side of the country and the place where the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina come together in one point... and where you can see the Famous Falls of Iguazu...

Meeting the In-Laws

2005-03-09T19:09:00.000+01:00

Monday Night, then, we met the In-Laws. Well, the father's side anyway. We had surprisingly good cheese, apparently made by a swiss man who moved here a few decades ago, some good Argentine white wine, and just generaly made chitchat over dinner. I gave my Spanish a workout, the father-in-law trotted out his French from the days HIS dad was the Paraguyan ambassador to Washington DC, and mostly we understood each other, talking about airplane landing horror stories. Meet the bride :

The Future Cuñada

The Future Cuñada is very pretty, and very busy finishing her thesis. Her mother is off on vacation, and so the Queen Mother has been left to pick up most of the organizing... As Queen Victoria would have said, We are NOT amused. The Princess besides having a brother about to marry the Future Cuñada, has a kid sister, La Hermana, who was kind enough to drive me to Brazil and back the next day to see the Falls of Iguazu, the object of the next picture and superlative ladden post.

La Hermana

Here are las dos hermanas zusammen :

Las Hermanas

And, lastly, yours truly doing what he does best : sucking up to royalty :D

Nyah Nyah Nyah :P

A King and his Kingdom...

2005-03-09T18:42:00.000+01:00

Der Koenig is the Father of the Princess. Logical so far.

Der Koenig

He reigns on his old furniture factory, a handful of workers, and in his house, his children call him "El Viejo", the Old Man... Sheesh. King Lear, anyone?

A King in his Castle...

He's a funny, dirty old man, and makes me think of my paternal grandfather, who once asked my english teacher (my big crush at 14) upon meeting her for the first time, if her husband satisfied her. The innuendo is, if anything, even clearer in French. (I still wince, sixteen years later) In Spanish, I miss most of the jokes, but I can always tell he just put out a good one from the rolling eyes of his family, the twinkle in his, and the sudden silence of any other people who might be present... such as the future in-laws.

Making Plans for the Past...

Business is quiet at the factory, the local economy has been bad for years, and he can't compete with asian production on the US or European markets. He has cabinetsfulls of the plans for furniture he made for the Sheraton Hotel, or the National Assembly, or the Embassy of this or that...

Where Once the Plans Were Laid...

Now he just keeps busy, and cracks jokes just to embarrass his family, and despite all the warnings from the Princess and the Queen Mother, Der Koenig has been good to me.

First Day in Paraguay...

2005-03-09T17:42:00.000+01:00

... I slept fourteen hours straight and woke up to this view of the Rio Paraguay, and Argentina on the other side :

Room with a View

The hotel is hosting a world-class tennis tournament (they often have the Davis Cup here) and breakfast was a bedlam of loud, boisterous teens with incredibly buff bodies and spray-paint-on shorts. Gaggg... We retreated to the Yacht Club's pool to soak up some rays :

Yacht Club Pool

Life is soooo hard :D

Found an Internet Connection...

2005-03-07T20:33:00.000+01:00

...and putting up with a Spanish keyboard :) in the Princess Family estancia. The Princess has a honey-do list for me, at the top of which is playing bodyguard for her when she goes to buy some last-minute supplies for the wedding preparations in the market. I understand this is a dangerous undertaking, so if I never update the blog after this post... you know where to send the Marines. Pictures forthcoming, along with some of the awesome pool at the Yacht Club, the raw jungle on the other side of the Rio Paraguay, where Argentina starts, and lastly, the family factory... just as soon as I figure out how to get the pictures on this computer, or connect mine to the internet, instead. See y'all later!

Good to Be Home...

2005-03-05T13:36:00.000+01:00

Had a smooth, comfortable, exit-row-cum-window flight to Newark with great movies and a beautiful, shallow approach paralleling Manhattan on a sunny, clear afternoon.

Manhattan from the Air

(not my picture)

I was a bit edgy about entering the country on the visa waiver program while I have a valid visa in the passport (my employer doesn't me to start using it until the job actually starts, because it's only valid for three years), but the immigrations officer was like, whatever dude, have a good stay. This whole work visa thing has ended up being sooooo much more simple than I thought it would be. I grabbed my bag off the belt, breezed thru customs, brushed my teeth in the men's room under the befuddled stares of a dozen guys who don't even wash their hands on the way outtadair, and called my Princess, who picked me up at the bus stand outside the terminal. And that's all I'm going to share with you about yesterday ;) except to say that it's good to be HOME! NB : Our flight onward to South America is tonite, so see y'all tomorrow if I can find an internet connection ;)

Good News Delivered to your Inbox.

2005-03-04T12:54:00.000+01:00

I'm sitting in the Air France Lounge, and checking email and doing some business on the cellphone before I'm cut off from access for 8 hours in the aluminium tube that shakes and rumbles until it magically opens again on Newark Int'l Airport. Just as I'm about to shut the laptop down, the Gmail notifier pops up to inform me that I have an urgent message from my bank. My heart skips a beat (a habit I acquired as a poor student whenever I got snailmail from them), but I open the message and learn that my balance has just popped up by a couple grand. A click and a password later, I see that it is a wire transfer from my employer, for the travel expenses of the trip to Korea last month. Just in time to beat the Amex Credit Card debit carrying those expenses, too, meaning this month, I'm not going to be financing the credit on my travel expenses, and I can send my hard-earned money back to the savings account. Thank Vishnu for internet banking which makes all these transfers possible wherever I am in the world... I hate to think how I'd have to handle this otherwise. Anyhoo, they're calling the flight, see y'all later from the East Coast timezone.

Meet Da Playahs

2005-03-04T09:49:00.000+01:00

Last Nite was the last thursday nite firefite with the Cyberpunk Brigade. Faithful readers (you know who you are...) will remember that we had just secured a pocket destroyer after it tried to board our supertanker. We proceeded to sweep it clear of the last few pirates and roostertailed across the India Ocean... anyhoo, thought it was high time for you to meet the Players :

The Wunderkinder, JayBee and Chaton, gamehost extraordinaire.

Our Hoary Old Sage, David, who also put me up for the nite.

Sebastian, our trusty medical tech, who patches up our wounds and applies US Gitmo rules for interrogation to captured enemy combatants pending definition of their status.

Yours Truly

Well, time for a shower and driving to the airport... I may post from there if I find a network, if not, see y'all on the other side of the Atlantic!

About Time!

2005-03-03T15:49:00.000+01:00

Local HR has accepted my request to waive their right to keep me in their employ for three months from the date I resign. We're shooting for an effective release date end of this month, and so a start date with US operations in early April. This was the last major hurdle, and the Princess and I are VERY DEEPLY HAPPY, plus we get to celebrate face to face in about thirty hours, for a WHOLE WEEK. Tonite, I will celebrate with Chaton, David and the others. Champagne's on me! *chink chink*

Trip to Bali and Java, June 2002

2005-03-03T08:48:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be a little busy today, so I thought I'd just leave you with these pictures of our June 2002 trip to Bali and Java that I've just uploaded here. I have a few more to add later today.

Balinese Rice Paddies

UPDATE : Added a few more pictures of Bali, plus a couple from Singapore.

A Balinese girl, Amed, 2002

Going to See My Baby...

2005-03-02T08:35:00.000+01:00

Today, I'm driving to Nantes where my genius daughter .dot is studying to be the next Spielberg. Haven't seen her in ages :) Day after tomorrow, I'm flying to NJ to see my Princess. Haven't seen HER in ages either. This is my good week :D UPDATE : Arrived safe after seven hours of driving and some bad, bad sleet, installed WiFi network & internet access for my .dot, copied slightly less than a hundred gigabytes of goodies from her roomate's PC, and enjoyed sumptious and sinfully heavy dinner prepared by same. Am also fully reassured that same is totally gay, and glad I left the rock-salt-loaded blunderbuss back in Albi, as will not be needing it here. Readers wondering what has happened to my syntax should take note that Aussie Mama is now posting again under new pseudo Madame Butterfly. Hope she has kept verve, snarkiness and taste for red wine and chocolate...

Dinner for Three...

I Love You, Bollywood!

2005-03-01T20:36:00.000+01:00

Just finished watching cult classic "Kuch, Kuch, Hota Hai!" from Bollywood, sometimes referred to as an Indian version of "Grease", as it features a love triangle in a school with sing and dance numbers, in the first third of the flick.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Like many Bollywood movies, it tends to drag on between the songs, but its bright colours, sweet lyrics and bouncy music will have your head bopping and your foot tapping within two bars of the first chords. Plus the actresses Rani Mukherjee and Kajol are as cute and as shapely as can be desired :) Once you're past the school bit, however, hold on to your sari! The plot gets much more interesting, Kajol stops looking like Sporty Spice and looks drop dead gorgeous, and the pacing quickens, and there's a happy ending and I'm a sap for happy endings... Makes me cry every time. Altho there are some freaky scenes around religion that come over kinda weird for westerners, and one memorable charade scene with Bollywood movie titles which feels like you're missing every punchline of Saturday Night Live, this is light years beyond "Grease". As long as you get into the rythm, a wonderful introduction to Bollywood's musical films. If you get a chance to see it, go for it, and get the extra large popcorn :)

Hairy Ball Theorem...

2005-03-01T09:58:00.000+01:00

If f is a continuous function that assigns a vector in R3 to every point p on a sphere, and for all p the vector f(p) is a tangent direction to the sphere at p, then there is at least one p such that f(p) = 0. In other words, it is not possible to comb the hair on a ball smooth, not without a bald spot.

Nuts, ain't it?

As AC/DC used to say,

some balls are held for charity and some for fancy dress, but when they're held for pleasure, they're the balls that I like best...

Note that donuts CAN be combed smooth in a fascinating variety of ways, thru the hole, or along the edge, or in a spiral.

Might take some work, tho...

Hours of endless fun with nary but a hairy donut (link not safe for male readers prone to fainting spells or penis envy) and a comb, proving that the male fascination with holes is as powerful and inevitable as, say, nuclear fusion.

A Trip to Thailand and Cambodia...

2005-02-28T19:24:00.000+01:00

This series of pictures taken in Thailand and Cambodia in the spring of 2003 is dedicated to my friend James of Genius of Insanity. I know he will like the buddha and the monks, and that he'd like to visit those countries one day.

Yes, gents, that is a Lingam.

Click on the picture or here to go see the others.

Too Much of a Good Thing...

2005-02-28T18:27:00.000+01:00

Because pictures of him are always a hit, because the NWGs have asked for him by name, because he loves the attention, and because I can, I've found another excuse to post a picture of Greg. He's bought that camera we were talking about. Not a reflex, but a cute little Sony wonderkam with a whopping 7.2 megapixels, Zeiss optics that still fits in his pocket.

Makes me realize I should do more portraits...

I TOLD him he didn't need that many pixels :)

Looking Hi&Lo for my Lil'Bro...

2005-02-28T14:00:00.000+01:00

This morning when I logged on before getting out of bed, I found my Lil'Bro on MSN, now the proud owner of a 7.2 Megapixel Sony camera and rapidly running out of space on his MemorySticks. After the usual banter, we got down to brass tacks and he indicated that he did, after all, want that Belkin memory card reader for his iPod, like, now. Problem is, where the heck is it? Which of the five moves which all somehow converged here was it a part of? Which box?

Stairway to Heaven

First I ran upstairs to the two (count 'em, two) unused floors of the main house, having discounted the other house as it only holds what we moved yesterday. Waded thru box after box of stuff and couldn't find it.

s'a lotta stuff

After some thought and discussion with the parents, decided that no, the adaptor must have been in the main move, which now fills most of the cellar.

oops, this is the wine cellar.

Basically moved all the shit in that six room cellar two feet over to check all the cardboard boxes. No adaptor. That's the bad news. The good news is that the two months in the gym have paid off and after two days of heavy lifting in all the wrong positions, still no back pain.

A Day Well Spent...

2005-02-28T00:14:00.000+01:00

Sunday morning, Chaton and David showed up as promised around ten-ish and in two hours we cleared out the flat and filled up the rental. I'd cleared out the place except for furniture and a few appliances, and a good thing too, you couldn't have fit another throw cushion or lava lamp in the van without risking a bent bong or a broken eight-track. Scoobidoo was much relieved.

This season, white lacquer and anodized steel with louvers is in.

David's mad tetris skillz came in handy as we rotated the table to slide it into the sofa, and then added a smaller table the other way round for a four line cancel and max points! As a connoisseur, I was most impressed by his attention to detail in the apparently thankless and tiresome task of fitting in the chairs . A thing of beauty, and a pleasure to unstow at the other end, too.

Make a quarter turn left with a flip and slide it into that little nook under the grandpiano, will you?

Dad, on account of age and volunteering for the job, got to take pictures. He did a great job and was not, in any way, annoying and most emphatically did NOT get mooned.

hold the pose... hold it... just a little longer... I think this thing's out of batteries!

By the time we were done, it was time for lunch, and off we all went to the local Alsacian restaurant for some saurkraut and beer. We had a wonderful conversation about homeless people, butchers, patois & languages, sheep, and complexily recursive family trees with a fractal dimension of at least 2.7. Guess you had to be there :)

Think derlbee enuf?

Afterwards, did wonder about the beer, but by then was too late as was already on road to the sunny south... Dad kept me entertained with stuff from the papers about our latest goverment scandal whilst I drove under vanilla skies and occasional snow flurries. A peaceful trip...

Reading the Sunday Papers...

...which ended with big, fluffy snow falling in the night, lit only by our highbeams on the last stretch of country road to Albi and Mom's Apple Pie.

Flying snow in the highbeams...

Render Unto Caesar...

2005-02-26T23:54:00.000+01:00

French film-making has just had its big night. The French Oscars, you could call them, or more properly, 'les Césars', in which instead of getting a little dude in 1930's futuristic style, you get a gold brick of mashed together scrap metal by famous French sculptor César, because we're the French...

Les Césars

So there! :P In fact, we gave a 'César d'Honneur' to Will Smith this year, altho what an Oscar of Honor from a member of the Axis of Weasels stands for, I don't know. Oh, sorry, forgot Condi was here last week to listen to Chamber Music and tell us America doesn't hate us. We were so relieved. ;) Oh, and appreciative of her Neo-save-the-World outfit in Wiesbaden. Luuuv da boots, Ms Rice, really. The Manolo, he must have approved the boots of the State.

Condi's boots

Anyhoo, not what I wanted to talk about. Also won't touch the usual gripes about how phony the whole thing sounds, etc, because one day, my darling, genius daughter Chloe will go up on that stage to receive one of those heavy gold bricks for best first film, or best director, or perhaps even best film, and I wouldn't want people to quote from the old archives of the man who dethroned the Instapundit (not even gonna link him) as the biggest blogger in the universe, who would just happen to be her aging father, and embarrass her. I mean, the whole moment should be about her, not me, you know?

Shooting on location, Thailand 2003

Where was I? Oh, yes, I want to thank my wonderful dad, so funny, so kind, so inspiring and trusting and supportive and... oh, no, errr... wrong paper, this one's for Chloe. No, shopping list for GISBE... ah! there it is. I wanted to point out how PROUD I am, me personally as a frenchman almost born in Algeria, and with a profound admiration for the islamic culture and faith thru the ages, a bottomless sorrow that this proud, deep, generous, open faith and its people have fallen on such hard times, AND a lasting sense of shame for my country's treatment of her sons and daughters of arabic descent, THAT a young frenchman of North African origins, Abdellatif Kechiche, has won Césars for best script, best director and best film with his film "l'esquive" set in one of our "troubled neighborhoods". Oh, and they threw in best new female actress in there somewhere.

Link to a french review of the film

Congrats, Abdel, and shukran for being so modest and noble up there at the stand. I love your Saladin quote :

"Pleasure or pain until death. When pleasure is here, enjoy."

Father & Son Project

2005-02-26T21:59:00.000+01:00

Wondering where I was all day?

Malebonding with my Old Man! Nothing like sitting in a noisy, drafty truck for the whole length of a country with your progenitor and shooting the bull while eating foie gras sandwiches to rediscover your roots.

Drive On, McDuff

Cuz, you see, it's not just my bro who's rad. My Dad's radder. Altho when he saw Rat Girl at the gas station, he DID say : "I hope your mother doesn't see THAT post, or she'll want one too."

Because sometimes, you need a furry friend to go fill up the car...

Tomorrow : Filling the truck with friends with furniture but without fur, err... with furniture without fur with friends. Even if one of them is a kitten. Or something. Location : Beauvais NB : Oh, and the twelth postcard will go to Pat, and this concludes the first phase of the Asuncion PostCard Giveaway.

Credits

2005-02-25T23:16:00.000+01:00

It's only been 36 hours since I introduced the new template, and there has only been one comment on it so far (thanks, julie), but I can already declare it a success. All indicators are up (hits, page views per visit, time per visit), but more importantly, new visitors are much more likely to stay and read. Heck, some of them might become regular readers! In particular, the drop-down menus seem to garantee access to the better bits without wading thru the recent blabla, and also to zero in on themes you like. Not Work Safe seem to be a big hit, for some reason. Altho my personal favourites are all in Front Line Stories. I'd like to know how it impacts regular readers, who seems to number in the 30 to 40 range, these days, so feel free to drop a comment or three. I was gonna keep this a secret if I botched his masterplan, but as it seems to be working, I'll give credit where credit is due... This was Greg's idea, of course. But then, we all know he's the best brother a guy ever had, and still makes more traffic with a two-year-dead site than I do posting three times a day.

The fact that pictures of him are wildly popular has nothing to do with it...

Location : my Rodina. Viewing : this, and laughing my ass off.

And You Thought I Was on Vacation?

2005-02-25T19:01:00.000+01:00

Well, staying at my parents' place has never been a walk in the park, and faithful readers will remember I'd promised to install a certain carkit into mom's new car.

Once more unto the breach, my friends...

So once again, I ripped her guts out and started playing with the cabling, altho it was almost too easy. No soldering, no splicing, no holes to drill. (well, none I'll admit to making anyway...)

Taking me back a few years...

Almost, that is, except for the old limber limbo in the driver's footwell to get all the cables thru. Thank god she didn't buy that Rover Mini she wanted! Anyhoo, took a couple hours, but it's all dialed in, and you couldn't pay to have it more professionally installed. Not a cable visible, and no (visible) damage to the car. If there's been no fire by this time next week, we'll be able to declare this an unmitigated success.

Back to the Basics, a White Russian and my Blog...

Decided to celebrate anyway with a White Russian and my trusty old blog. location : Home Sweet Home NB : I have TWO slots left in the Asuncion PostCard Giveaway, people. Oh, and remember, be ready to give me a postal address if you want one. If you think I'm a serial killer, get a postbox.

Brother Talk

2005-02-25T12:47:00.000+01:00

Panoramic Greg

Mathieu : dude, you used to lug that big land camera around Mathieu : why go for compact? Grégoire : yeah well I don't anymore. that's the problem. Mathieu : get the best reflex you can buy, and throw in a little piece of shit to carry around Grégoire : well, in a perfect world, dude... Grégoire : compromise or no compromise. the eternal question. Mathieu : in a perfect world, it would be the size and weight of a cigarette pack, be wideangle all the way to fisheye, be waterproof to 100 meters, eat AAA batteries, hold one million shots, be WiFi capable, have a real viewfinder with depth of field preview and be 1600 iso Grégoire : oh yeah. Mathieu : we're not gonna get that until we have nanotech manufacturing Grégoire : that would be nice. Mathieu : and it will be built out of diamond and rat neurons Grégoire : well that's what researching your next buy is all about. you aim for perfection and then you settle for the crap you can deal with. Mathieu : sounds like dating Mathieu : kaZING! Grégoire : fuck, it does. Grégoire : so that's what I'm compensating. maybe when Fiat gets back I won't want a cam at all. Mathieu : LOL Mathieu : you know that this is going up on the blog, right? Grégoire : oh no. I don't want to look like an obsessive compulsive geek. I've only researched this camera thing a few minutes really. not giving it much thought. I'm too cool to be bothered with this really. fuck, I'll just go out and buy any one in the end, you know. just like that. rock n' roll attitude. :D uh-huh. and that's the troof. Mathieu : either that or I post the picture of Dad I took this morning with mom's new cameraphone. Check your inbox. This IS blackmail, in case you're wondering... Grégoire : I'm saving it for school tomorrow. I'll be so bored. Grégoire : gonna go to a bbq now Grégoire : big kiss Mathieu : ciao ciao Grégoire : take good care of the old people Mathieu : I'll try Grégoire : (L) Mathieu : love you too

Better is the Enemy of Good

2005-02-25T10:52:00.000+01:00

Old French proverb, which roughly translates to the yankee 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'.

Da Fly

In response to several questions from viewers of my photos, I wrote two pages of technical blather about why I love my Coolpix 990. Can you say, BORING? Sheesh, I sounded like a new father gushing about how adorable their progeny is.

My Pride and Joy

I'll summarize it all by saying that, at the time, it had the biggest net community of any digital camera, by a factor of ten, it even had mods! It was the überg33k machine. I fell in love, hard. It's been with me since 2001, and we've been around the dial about three times, meaning 40,000 pictures taken soon, and in a dozen countries, often able to continue only because it happily eats AAA batteries when I can't find an outlet to recharge. I spilled a birdbath in Bali on it, and it dried out fine (altho I was besides myself with grief for a day).

Spider!

*squelsh desire to talk about the fifteen other cool features* Anyhow, recently, I've been talking about maybe, perhaps, at some point, upgrading to a digital reflex. You know, like I have seven-year itch, and I'm shooting the bull with my buds around some suds, toying with the idea, talking myself up to it while pointing at glossy magazine shots of the newer generation's power curves and va-va-zooms.

Top dawg

The tipping point was almost reached when I grabbed an emulsion (ugh, revulsion) reflex at Chaton's the other day, and looked thru the viewfinder and twisted the zoom and KaTCHACK, framed the perfect shot of David's wife. So easy, so smooth, such unbelievable crisp viewing, including the depth of field preview!

Camouflage

But no, my trusty coolpix still wins out over any tryst. Because I can shoot from the hip with the twisty lens, because it's smaller, because it eats AAA batteries, because 3 million pixels is enough for any man who's secure in his color pecker, er, picker.

And because I'm thirty now, and i don't buy the newest gadget anymore, just the ones I really need...

Sliding Into Home Plate

2005-02-24T21:58:00.000+01:00

Spent the morning packing up (dumping into trash bags) stuff, leaving only furniture for the truck move this weekend and stowing (shoehorning) it in the car. The main issue was fitting all the gliders in, cause some of them you can't take apart easily, and they tend to stick out in at least two dimensions in awkward ways. But by thinking about it for a while, and being very orderly, I soon found a way (lost my temper and just threw it all in and burnt the stuff sticking out with a flamethrower).

Where there's a will, there's a way...

Snow was heavy for the first hundred kilometers, by as I neared Paris and points south, it pretty much disappeared, allowing me to make good time. Most of the traffic were big (slow) trucks, and I only saw four police radars, all at just the right time too, id est while phoning. Not that phoning isn't illegal behind the wheel, but I always slow down when i answer it.

Cuz, like, I'm a safe driver and all.

Whoooooaaa! Emergency fly-by! Engage manual overide Mr Solo!

I tried to leave an audiopost, but for some reason, I never got a connection to the phone number. Bummer. I had a great idea for the first illegal and truly mobile (not just relocalized) post, and you'll just have to wait until i sort out the technical issues. Anyhoo, I'm tired from all those walks up and down the stairs and the long, boring drive with only the local equivalent of NPR to keep me company, so I'm off to bed. Vayan can Dios, muchachos! Location : Homeland. NB : Down to just a handful of Asuncion PostCard Giveway Slots, people, this could be your LAST chance :)

Changed the Template...

2005-02-24T11:31:00.000+01:00

In particular, I limited the number of days on the front page to two. After that, off they go to the archives. To compensate, I've expanded the classics menu into several, thematic menus holding what I consider some of the better posts. You can find the entirety in the monthly archives. Comments welcome about what works and what doesn't in this new format. Oh, and a plug at the top of the sidebar for a week for anyone who can explain to me how you can make the dropdown menus white text with a black background. :) Y'all have a good one today. I'm going to try to drive south and not think about how I wished for snow all these winter months and now have to drive 600 miles in this shit ;)

Insomnia Post

2005-02-24T00:02:00.000+01:00

Uploaded more pictures here. Tell me what you think?

Putting your head in the lion's mouth.

Location : long dark teatime of the soul. (thx, Doug Adams)

SFYPDFUA

2005-02-23T16:56:00.000+01:00

I was discussing fame within our families with a good friend who made me promise to never tell that she's a hottie and a modern-day mother teresa just earlier today, and now my brother (definitely the star in our family, ex-model and weekly appearance on a major French daily newspaper under pseudonym Le Serpent) tells me that he still gets traffic on his website.

Le Serpent Foundation for Young People who Deserve our Full and Utmost Attention

Which he hasn't updated in, like, two years. Go check it out, there's good, if slightly dated, stuff there. Oh, said traffic being about equal to what I get, posting several times a day here... sigh... he'll always be more popular than I.... boohoohoo. Granted, his google key words are nothing I envy, and he has no links from other sites to speak of, but dang. Oh, and he's also a mother teresa of his own, lives in Thailand, and has his head screwed on right. Sheesh. Enough already. I love you, bro :) Location : Beauvais, France.

Snow Day, Yay!

2005-02-23T14:28:00.000+01:00

As i drove down the highway this morning, my business meeting in Paris was cancelled due to massive gridlock as the city got snowed in.

Another Shameless Plug on the Mirror Project...

Now, before you Yankees out there get this mental image of a foot of snow in the City of Lights, take a good look at the picture above, taken as the call reached me. Now granted, there's probably a little more snow in Paris for the gridlock to reach 400km in total (250 miles), but I've seen the city leave the key under the doormat over about two inches of snow, a few years ago. They're just not used to snow.

This is a snowed-in car, Paris-style.

Personally, i'm psyked, cuz I just miss the snow, and cuz next week, I'll be in the Southern Hemisphere in balmy 30°C summer weather...I just hope there's not too much of the white stuff tomorrow as I drive down to Albi, and over the weekend during the move... Careful what you wish for :) Location : Beauvais, France.

NB : Gecher Asuncion PostCards whilder hot! About half a dozen left!

UPDATE : Grrrrreat pictures from Jason live in Paris, where you can see that 2" was a good estimate. Go see them, and blogroll Jason if you haven't done so already. He rocks!

We're Not Old Farts!

2005-02-23T01:48:00.000+01:00

The Arab on the Corner

Spent the evening with Step drinking beer and eating delivered pizza and talking about women. I seem to be making a habit of it, but it was more thoughtful and deep and less dark with him than it was yesterday nite with Pierre. But perhaps more painful. Or maybe it was just that there was a lot more b33r. We did young bachelor stuff like piss in his kitchen sink to prove that we weren't old farts, but I won't show you the picture unless you click here. Well, actually we did that because I broke the Geneva conventions in his bathroom and we were afraid to open the door, but it FELT very young bachelor.

And feeling is everything.

But, man, it sure SMELT like old fart. Location : Beauvais, France.

Princesses and Palaces and Tigers, Oh My!

2005-02-22T16:25:00.000+01:00

The Yacht Hotel

Well, the Queen Mother has decreed that the Princess and I will take over the Yacht Club Hotel, rather than sharing the family castle with all the country cousins. Princess Tigercub actually owns one of the family palaces 200 meters from the Yacht Club, I understand, but that's already been put to good use for the wedding. I initialy choked on the prices, even if Queen Mum was picking up the tab, but was told not to worry, "we're members, we get discounts". We were offered the Princess suite, but we wanted to be incognito, and well, staying at the eponymous suite was pushing the purloined letter a little too far. We'll just rough it in a normal room. See, I'm not used to the good life. No-one in my family was ever a member of a yacht club :D . Color me Prince Consort. ;) Location : Beauvais, France.

Err... Excuse Me?

2005-02-22T13:42:00.000+01:00

Missing the point?

Click on the image to go to Geneffects website to see the original post.

I'm aware that this is not a real Planned Parenthood ad, but it has set off some reactions in me that I'd like to work through. Aside from the one you just thought of, thank you very much. I'm also aware that this is a delicate (ahem, focus) subject, so I'll put on my asbestos suit. Flame away in the comments or via email if I've offended you or you think I'm full of shit. I'll try to explain myself better and listen to your arguments.

This one bothers me a little. I mean, yes, unplanned parenthood is a bad thing (altho I would not have my wonderful daughter to cherish if my ex-wife had been more careful), but there's AIDS to worry about to.

I grew up in the AIDS generation, and we were religious about condom use, if you'll pardon my French. Speaking of which, in the French gay community, in particular, people have stopped protecting themselves, soit-disant because you can now "live with AIDS". Sure, popping dozens of pills a day and feeling, I understand, rather shitty in the process.

This is very disturbing to me. I try to understand it, but I can't. I'm just scared witless by that disease.

On the other hand, I suppose you don't want to fall into the other extreme and condemn this ages-old anticonception measure on the basis that you should use a condom in the first place. That would be uncomfortably like the Catholic church denouncing the condom because you shouldn't "sin" in the first place. I've know enough catholic girls who had recourse to abortion because they thought condoms were bad, so didn't have any, but couldn't say no when the occasion to celebrate 'vive la différence' presented itself. Surely abortion is a bigger sin than condoms in the church's book, no?

So avoiding abortion or a teen-birth or an unwanted child or, as the ad suggests, just the pain of childbirth are worthy goals, and it would be bad to not reach them for want of recourse to anal sex in the absence of a condom.

I'd suggest oral sex as a replacement, but that defeats the whole joke/argument of the ad about the pain, and I'm also not entirely sure oral sex is entirely safe anyway. I used to think so, but have heard information to the contrary lately. Anyone know better?

Location : Beauvais, France.

NB : Gecher Asuncion PostCards whilder hot!

A Hello to Brazil!

2005-02-22T13:14:00.000+01:00

Serendipity being the facile, flighty lady that she is, just as we're preparing for a trip to South America which will, if we can organize it, include a side-trip to Brazil, someone got here via a brazilian google search for ascii art + nemo + dory. Actually came up fairly high on that search, but not sure I should be proud of that ;) I get a lot of people who come here, and are probably quite disappointed, looking for Sidhe material. Someone dropped in here looking for Dwarven Poems. I'm not sure the Ulrik Haikus over here where what they were looking for. I'm not exactly the world's greatest poet. People have stopped googling for the Thai Tsunami ChainLetter Debunking Post, but that was a big source of hits for a while. I'm just happy noone's ever googled for this post. Location : Beauvais, France. NB : Gecher Asuncion PostCards whilder hot!

2005-02-22T12:36:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I had to write two letters. By hand. One was my letter of resignation to the french subsidiary of my employer. It was kinda fun to write, actually, and not very long. The other was four pages of densely packed "déclaration sur l'honneur" of what I remembered of the end of one of my friend's marriage. I'll spare you the details, but his soon-to-be-ex-wife is self-admittedly guilty of conduct unbecoming (they're both in the military), reviled by her own family for said sins and the callousness of her attitude towards them since, and now being greedy in the divorce proceedings. More to make sure that he gets less, than to get more for herself. Lawyers will get most of it, and taxes the rest. A very angry, confused, and sick young woman who is causing a lot of damage, not least to herself. And, at last count, three marriages not including her own. When I see this, I'm soooo grateful that, even if we fucked up our marriage, Pauline and I got our divorce right, did not fight over what money was left or over our daughter, and can now suck our gums and watch her grow up into a fine young woman who'll win an oscar for best director someday, you just watch. Anyhow, I turned in my four pages of filth, human frailty and madness, and Pierre and I had another quiet evening with one beer each, bachelor-cooked rice and salmon, and lots and lots of talk. Because only time, and talk, ever heal those wounds. Location : Beauvais, France. NB : Come get your Asuncion PostCard while they last!

Asuncion Post-Card Giveaway!

2005-02-22T12:04:00.000+01:00

Well, another trip coming up, so it's time to play our well-established classic, the Post-Card Giveaway! Rules are the same, if you want a postcard from Asuncion, Paraguay, please send me your meatspace coordinates at syvwlch@gmail.com . This offer is good while supplies last, and I'll close down shop after the first dozen players, or after I leave the country, on the 14th, which ever comes first. Once you receive your card, if you display it on your blog, and email me the link, I'll copy to a post here and link back to you. Like I did here. (Oh, that offer also stands retroactively for the Korean PostCard Giveaway, of course). Special requests welcome, but no garantees. (Sorry, Jelly). Location : Beauvais, France.

Yohoho, and a Bottle of Rhum!

2005-02-21T00:12:00.001+01:00

Mustapha Lenin der Trapp was a proud man. He came of good stock. His father a diamond-hard East German with a past only evoked in grim whispers, and his sainted mother a dusky-eyed beauty from the large Turkish community in the Reunited Germanies. Nothing to be ashamed of. That he knew about, anyway. The ship pealed like a gong under his feet, echoed by the air-borne crump of high explosives, and soon followed by a softer sound like ripping cloth. His man for security, currently scanning the approaching tramp-destroyer with his cyber-goggles, had told him that the ripping sound was the artillery round travelling thru the air, and you only heard it after the hit, because the round was supersonic. Good man to have in this situation, your Frank Lee Humongous, even if he waxed a little too loquacious at times. His Austrian musclebound buddy with the flat vowels, Kurt Retort, tended to the opposite extreme. Witness that loud-mouth dockhand in Marseilles spray-painted all over the pier with a .44 hollow-point to his unibrow. Headquarter's knickers were still in a knot over the two policemen they'd had to politely divest of their weapons and immobilize with their handcuffs. Typical, they wanted it taken care of, by any means necessary, and then hindsighted you to death on a complete success. Bureaucrats... Another bright flower of raw flame blossomed at the bow of their tanker. Not that he cared about the cargo, now that it was clear they would be boarded.

I'm holding out for Zeiss Optics, mate!

Pirates! In 2023... they'd have cyberoptics instead of eye patches and hand-mounted cyberguns instead of hooks, but the same basic attitudes to prisoners as their distant predecessors, in the Carabbean or off the Barbary Coast. He eyed the new addition to the team, Mittens deVine, and congratulated himself, again, on his excellent HR skillz. She'd be very motivated in this situation. Their captain had soiled himself, he noticed absently as the man cowered under the radar scope, his big, fat, streaked rear not finding room. Mustapha looked across the deck at the tattered remains of their crew, retreating under heavy fire after the quivering fartbag's doomed attempt to repel the boarders at the flame-ravaged bow. Frank was in charge, now, and Mustapha was confident the dozen or so pirates following them would be sent ad patres in good time. As Kurt started picking off the boarders with his smartlinked sniper rifle from the startboard bridge-wing while they ran aft across the open deck, he sighed contentedly, and checked his own Sternmeyer handgun. They might even make Honk Kong early, if they captured that destroyer. It looked rather fast, he thought. Kurt dropped three on the run, and Mittens and him took care of the four who tried to flank him, with an impressive series of headshots with 12mm dumdums while they milled around the base of the superstructure. Slowly, it dawned on their assailants that being shot at from a three-story steel building sucked, and they tried to rush the outer stairs to get to Kurt. Three seconds and one 40 round clip later, the bottom landing was awash in gore, and Kurt's body armour would need some repairs. He winced. More paperwork for the expense department. Never the less, Mustapha would have to engineer a general raise for the team, the head hunters were sure to call after this one. Since they'd dropped the tanker's twelve-ton achor on the destroyer, it wasn't going anywhere. Time to round up some crew, put the fires out, and get in touch with headquarters back in Paris. He had a feeling they would see this in the wrong light again. He sighed. It was the price you paid for the freedom of field-work. The endless post-action kibbitzing with the desk-warmers back home. Frank gave him a thumbs up and his signature millimeter grin, and heck, Mustapha had to admit... it was all worth it. Location : Chaton's awesome Cyberpunk 2020 game, Paris, France. If you're in Paris, looking for an english-language roleplaying game, drop me a line, I'll put you in contact. They play CP2K, AD&D 3rd ed, and open to others!

Seeing my Princess in Two Weeks...

2005-02-20T11:58:00.000+01:00

Well, we bought the tickets. On the 4th of March, I fly to Newark to see my Princess, and then the next day we fly to Sao Paolo, and then on to Asuncion, Paraguay. Return trip ten days later. We have seats next to each other, with extra legroom on every flight, all thanks to the usual Princess attention to detail and her wonderful organization skillz. Talk about complementarity :D Oh, and the DRESS is ready and I'm not going to see it until we get dressed for her brother's wedding. Because, I understand, it will bowl me over. Not that I haven't already dreamed about this dress. Twice. So, bring it ON, I say, My Sweet Princess Tigercub. I can't wait to see you again, and visit your native country, and (gulp) your dad. Location : Beauvais, France.

Shonky Showtunes Moments of Shame...

2005-02-20T11:52:00.000+01:00

It's Jellyfish's Birthday, and for such a momentous date, she has elected to play Shonky Showtunes Moments of Shame with us. If you have a minute, drop over to her blog and leave her a comment about your own Shonky Moments, or just your early moments on the stage. It's her birthday present! Oh, and you get to read about me dressed up like Conan the barbarian, woohoo! Location : Beauvais, France.

Virtual Pay Toilet...

2005-02-19T17:53:00.000+01:00

Click-Thru at your peril...

Location : Beauvais, France.

The Heist...

2005-02-19T13:21:00.000+01:00

Step and I were to have a quiet, dry dinner last nite, to talk as sedate adults about the vagaries of life as a thirty-something, but as the date drew closer, well, our plans morphed into a much more typical evening of beer drinking at home, followed by cocktail drinking at a bar, ending with leaving the tab for some people we hardly knew. Oh, and we stole the girl :D

Portrait of Step as an Artist

Chaton was invited, and he brought his friend Julia, who's just moved to Paris from NYC. She's a dancer, in case you hadn't noticed, altho I don't think that's where she lost her belly button. Doesn't that only happen on the cover of Vogue and Elle?

It was RIGHT THERE!

After a couple beers, we walked onto one of the islands of Paris, to a Canadian Pub. Step and Julia walked ahead of us, deep in conversation while Chaton bent my ear about Miami real estate schemes. Step, you owe me one.

Walking there...

We met up with some male friends of Chaton's in this pub, but they found Julia so pretty, they could hardly dare to look at her, nevermind drag their tables over to ours. Chaton wanted them to meet Julia, but they were having none of it. Ah, the lonely life of the truly pretty girls...

Two is company, three's a crowd...

She and Step just kept right on talking, leaving me to try to make chitchat with Chaton, who was as agitated as a 3 year-old ADD with a sugar high, and not watching his mouth. At one point, he started yelling about this other girl he was hoping to get a call from, and I just stopped him, cuz you just don't do that in front of a woman. It's... uncouth. Now, I was under the impression that Julia and Chaton were an item, but Chaton vehemently denied it : 'She's not my girl, I just brought her cuz she wanted to meet some people', pointing across the room at his friends... who cowered behind their beers. But that's when I distinctly heard her whisper :

I believe I HAVE met someone...

Well, folks, the evening was a wrap. Step, Julia, and you trusty reporter left the bar, and the tab, to Chaton and his buds, went to Step's for a nitecap, and then, around two-ish, I drove her home to her mom.

Cuz the trains had stopped at one. Location : Beauvais, France.

Your Smiting Needs Served Weekly!

2005-02-19T13:01:00.000+01:00

I've referred to this several times in comments, but the intense gratification I got today seeing that God has answered my plea to smite the evil peddlers of tests of hand-eye coordination in fun-fairs, has pushed me over the edge and I've decided to plug God (pun intended, for you french readers out there) in a post. For your smiting needs, go lay a comment on the Man. It's sooooo satisfying! Location : Beauvais, France.

Terra Incognita Humana...

2005-02-18T16:51:00.000+01:00

JB enraptured at the Terre Humaine expo...

Just met up with my old, old friend JB, who lives in Thailand, and was visiting us in Paris. We met at the Très Grande Bibliothèque to visit the Terre Humaine expo.

Terre Humaine is a well-known collection of books about ethnology, which has since diversified into all aspects of the human condition. I bought a book about Paris homeless people, another about peasants in Brittany, and the first one in the collection, from 1952, about the Inuit.

The best part of the expo, aside from being free ;) , were the bits of video archives of the authors talking on various French talk shows about their work.

If you have a chance, go see it!

Location : The Frog & British Library Pub&Café, France.

I'm a Crawly Amphibian...

2005-02-18T00:02:00.000+01:00

... climbing to dizzying heights from my lowly beginnings a month ago as an insignificant microbe. I am now a Crawly Amphibian. Where will I go next? ;P Location : Beauvais, France.

Che cosa stanno alimentando ai pesci?

2005-02-17T22:42:00.000+01:00

Had my first visitor using automatic translation today. I'm honored that it should be in Italian, which is the most beautiful language on earth. I never tire of listening to it. Here is the page my Italian visitor saw. I'm far from an expert in Italian, and I'm influenced by what I know of the original, but the translation looks understandable, if with the usual hilarious turn of phrase, some downright obscure passages, and failure to translate all l33t speak and other malphormed wurds. Anybody out there know better? Anyhow, it's always a big moment in the life of any author, their first translation in a foreign tongue, and I'm going to celebrate this milestone, and the succesfull conclusion of today's 600 miles of french highway, by going to bed early, id est : before midnight. Ciao a tutti! Location : Beauvais, France.

Who's Received Their Korean Postcard?

2005-02-17T11:05:00.000+01:00

I've received emails telling me some of you have received their Korean Postcards! I'm very glad that this is so. Care to leave a comment here if you're one of the lucky ones? Location : Albi, France. UPDATE :

Wendy's Postcard (not so tedious) JellyFish's Postcard (busted her nom de plume at home, too)

Vivi's Korean Postcard, finally arrived!

Flying the Nest...

2005-02-16T22:52:00.000+01:00

Well, Mom, Dad, it's been good, but I have to run.

30 years ago, I was born in Albi's hospital...

At my employer's rates, you just got several thousands of euro's worth of free IT consulting, and in the end, a working home network, both ethernet and Wifi, GBs of freed-up HD storage (all that pr0n piles up after a while, but I suspect Dad will miss it, now that he's down to just the Pirelli calendar), some good advice on the new car, and only one big bag of dirty laundry. But never fear, I'll be back next week to move all my junk to your place from Beauvais. I'm moving to the USA with just my suitcase and 250GB of data on an external HD. The mid term plans are to stay with my friend David in Paris while his wife's away, until I fly to Newark to be with the Princess on the flight to Paraguay, second week of March. Beer and geekitude and cyberpunk roleplaying galore, d00ds! You ain't seen the last of me yet, my dear devoted parents, but I wouldn't want to outstay my welcome ;) Seeya next week, Your son the elder. Location : Albi, France.

Leggo My Lego!

2005-02-16T12:31:00.000+01:00

I'm a sucker for lego and CG animation...

Now, I could admit this without shame, if I hadn't picked up the link here. Yes, that definitely brands me a geek. Ascii art + pr0n, so eighties... Funny how little it took back in 1986 to get me all hot and bothered, and I don't mean the file size.

Now we have japanime tentacle monsters assaulting over-endowed teens with a battery of technological aides rendered in stunning detail on computer workstations with more power than the entire planet contained in the early eighties. Area 51 included.

And we say : "hohum... what else is new?"

Whatever happened to our puritan ancestors (ok, I never had puritan ancestors, being french, but you get my point, you poor anglo sunzas?) having to loosen their collars when they caught a glimpse of a well-turned ankle?

Whatever happened to that lump in our juvenile throats the first time we beheld a tit, never mind held it?

Gone with the wind, my friends... Except, there is hope for us yet.

Witness Tony at busblog falling in love with a virgin, and rediscovering the joys of dallying at first base with no firm schedule to get to second...

And how content you are , that all your base are belong to her, when she is your Princess :)

Location : Albi, France.

What Have They Been Feeding the Fish?

2005-02-16T02:00:00.000+01:00

You know those claw machines at funfairs? Like the one filled with three-eyed aliens in Toy Story? (The Claw has chosen him!) Well, we have one of those right in front of the house. Except it has fish in it, and that I'd like to know what they've been feeding them lately. I haven't seen anyone look that spaced out since High School.

Nemo : Ooh, look at the pretty joystick!

Dory : Hey, what's that metal thing coming down?

Speaking of High School, never understood why my gum-popping dates would decide that these torture machines were a suitable test for my qualifications as a potential mate. Ok, kisser/kissee. Ok, hand-holder.

Proficiency with the claw would have required an investment of my hard-earned pocket-money that, had I put it in Microsoft stock at the time, would now mean I could not only buy Nemo, but Pixar along with him.

Alas, altho I failed to buy MS stock in 1985, I also failed to practice with the Claw. Which cast a dim light on my hand-eye coordination, and thus my ability to spear an antelope, or get a driver's license. Meaning dating me was a waste of their time.

Somehow, I never managed to convince them that my scores at Arkanoid were a better yardstick... or some of my weirder skillz :

Post-It Origami Soccer Ball!

Location : Albi, France.

Have to Rush!

2005-02-15T17:58:00.000+01:00

Sorry, people, have been running around all day, and now have a dinner in Toulouse, an hour's drive away. Have to rush off, but I will be posting later tonite when I get back. I promise. In the mean time, I've put up some more photographs in http://syvpics.blogspot.com/ which you might want to take a look at, and leave scathing comments about. See y'all later! Location : Albi, France.

Buying a Car... For Your Phone?

2005-02-14T23:27:00.000+01:00

What better way to spend Valentine's Day then buying a used car with your dad? You get to stand in a windswept parking lot full of cars...

Helps to have some reach, too...

Very SHINY cars. So shiny, in fact, that you can see yourself in them :

Not that this has anything to do with getting traffic from the Mirror Project...

Now, all this would be just dandy, if we didn't have one little problem... We have to find the car that fits Dad's phone. Because you see, this phone has a lot of sentimental value for him. I gave it to him, with a matching carkit, back in 2001 when I still worked for a phone manufacturer, and I installed it myself. In other words, it has never cost him a cent. That's FOUR YEARS AGO. That's 28 in dog years, or 40 in internet years. I've changed PDAs twice, phones at least six times, and laptops three times in that many years. I've had a divorce, moved three times, changed jobs, been to a dozen new countries, and started a blog! You'd think it would be time to change phones? Nooooo... We need to fit the new car around the old phone. So Dad, who's nothing if not persistent, has been mugging the car maker, the company they buy the car radio from, and the company that manufactures it by phone, email, fax and pony express for two weeks. He's been leaving ME progress reports on my voicemail THRICE daily for a least a week, and is convinced that I'm in Albi to perform surgery on both cars to transplant this relic from the previous millenium's phone technology.

Spilling her guts...

Now this takes me back to my very first job, pulling radios from cars of this very brand and installing carphones by dismantling dashboards, seats, consoles, drilling holes in the roof, laying cable, splicing wires, and soldering lines, and every so often, starting a fire. This does turn out to be a good way to gauge how desperate they are to sell a car, because if they let you yank all her guts out in the middle of the sales yard, well, you can pretty much set your price. Which proves there's a method to me Dad's madness. The result of all this is, we beat the price down another 500 euros, we determined that I can probably perform the transplant and save him the 300 euros for a new car kit, 300 euros for a new phone and whatever the installation woulda cost him, and I got him to buy me an external HD to bring all my data with me to the US. He's still ahead by a few hundred euros. Dang, he's good! Location : Albi, France.

Let Me Count the Ways...

2005-02-14T18:46:00.000+01:00

Dearest Princess Tigercub, You are the promise that gets me up in the morning, and the dream that gets me up in the evening. You are the hourglass in my hands when we dance, and the sand in my hourglass when we don't. You are the coin of my wealth, and your every heartbeat is priceless. You are how I know that I need a woman in my life, and that that woman is you, Because you and I can talk as equals, and you have never hurt me.

My Doodles...

2005-02-13T23:50:00.000+01:00

Here in Albi, on an old 60GB hard-drive (yes, dear, HDs used to come in tens of gigabytes when you were little... Before you were born, I had one that was all of 20 megabyte small), I found my drawings from late 2002 and early 2003. You can comment on them here. Guess I'm a hog for punishment, or praise, or feedback, or something. Oh, must be attention ;) Location : in the past...

Hurt Me Good!

2005-02-13T17:20:00.000+01:00

The Princess has made some very astute comments about the length of some of my posts, to whit : too bloody long. She suggests a limit of one pagedown per post, pictures included. And she's right, I ramble. The Monique post is a good example, because the rambling isn't even funny. So, dear readers, in the interest of making me a better blogger and enhancing your experience here at Ban Sidhe, please comment on what I'm doing here, emphasis on the bad. Which kindza posts work, which don't. Which gimmicks? Which writing styles? Anything, really. And don't be gentle. It's for your OWN good ,) Location : a happy place. PS : This would a great time for some of you lurkers out there to come out of the woodwork :) I'm sure you have things to say!

I Loved These as a Kid...

2005-02-13T17:16:00.000+01:00

Thanks for the link, Kitten.

Kate Caught Me Out...

2005-02-13T12:21:00.000+01:00

I was being lazy... couldn't remember the title of that movie about a man, his wife, and his lifesized lovedoll. So I didn't look for it, and just posted about it without giving a reference. Bad, bad, BAD Mathieu... She called me out on it in the comments (thanks, Kate, you're keeping me on my toes, and providing me for the perfect excuse to break my promise I wouldn't post about this anymore!). Also, Jamie and I made up via email. At least I hope we did, because I have a creeping suspicion he just COULD be my partner from Vivi's GISBE, since I asked for somebody form Asia... If I want good goodies, I have to be nice to visitors from that side of the planet now ;) Anyhoo, without further ado, I give you : Monique!

Monique, freshly, if messily, uncrated.

Monique is, aside from a Realdoll, the title of this french movie. It is from 2002, not 2003 as I remembered. The writer/director is a woman, and the movie is a good take on boredom setting in in a couple, with the sudden intrusion of the latex doll serving to bring to the fore all that is wrong in their relationship. It even has a good, satisfying ending, which is becoming rare, particularly in french films.

Not the most crate-ive poster...

I looked for it on IMDB, but couldn't find it amongst the dozen films with the same title but rather more raunchy content. Remind me never to name a daughter Monique. Altogether the wrong associations in the Anglo-Saxon world... I did find this review in French. Babelfishing it will give the usual, Manolo-like, hilarious results :

A body of dream, always available, never of migraines, never of tears, never of scenes: she is called Monique. This inflatable doll (or rather moulded ^ _ ^) will upset the life of Claire and Alex, a couple which "had not lived" more for a few years, tired of a marriage too quickly consumed. The reactions of principal concerned will be quite as astonishing as those of their entourage...
The films on the relations of couples are far from being badly represented on the fabrics of cinema, quantitatively speaking... Often, one adopts the ton of the comedy, simpler (all at least it is what seems to be commonly allowed) to put in scene; simpler perhaps also when one speaks about things by not taking them completely with the serious one. Monique, at the end of the summer 2002, also adopted the ton of the comedy to speak about a serious subject: the trouble in the couple. And contrary to a certain number of films, it did it well.

Ah... The ton of the comedy indeed, my fellow frenchman.

With that, I leave you, gentle readers, to mull on this :

Loneliness, inability to communicate, alienation even, are universal, and there is evidence that at least some couples find these dolls to be a good way to talk to each other, strengthen their relationship, and make new friends. Far be it from me to judge... except, perhaps, esthetically?

Location : Albi, France.

Doing it Life-Sized

2005-02-13T00:20:00.000+01:00

There is a 60" version, too!

Earlier today, I shared some Japanese dolls with you, that came in 11" and 24" versions. Well, there are life-sized ones, too. (Sorry, Jamie, I know you don't like that this comes from Japan, and we all recognize that Japanese culture isn't limited to porn, and that it's popularity as an export says more about us than about the Japanese, but this is too good to pass up.)

And a magazine devoted to the life-sized version...

I carefully chose non-erotic pictures too! Yet, let us not hide behind our pinkies here. These are sex-toys. That their owners will spend untold moolah, time and attention to detail to accessorize them, dress them up, do their make up and then obsess enough to go buy the mag is, frankly, a wonderful bit of humanity. This is exactly why I love people. They never cease to amaze me!

And to make you feel better, Jamie, lemme be the first to tell you that here in France, we actually made a movie about a man, his wife, and his life-sized lovedoll. It was a pretty good romantic comedy from last year, and it didn't have a single anti-japanese joke in it. Plus there is a well-known French manufacturer of such dolls, and they give the Japanese a run for their money, I hear.

Anyhoo, I won't promise not to troll those sites for a little while longer, but I promise not to expose my readers to any more of this stuff. Nope. Not even to the Realdoll to Superbabe consumer test and comparison chart. You guys'll have to google for it.

So there... :P

Location : Land 'o Hypocrisy ;)

How to Get Lost with a Nav System...

2005-02-12T23:53:00.000+01:00

...in one easy lesson. Step 1. Enter a destination you know very well. Step 2. Follow instructions even when they take you on unexpected route. Step 3. At some point in the middle of nowhere, cease following instructions, and follow instincts. Step 4. Ignore new instructions, everytime nav calculates new route. Step 5. Go to Map view. Step 6. Scratch head and make dubious noises. Step 7. Follow instincts. Step 8. Find well-known town of destination, but via unknown back street. Step 9. Get lost in back streets of well-known town. Step 10. Learn from triumphant announcement of nav that the destination has been reached. Step 11. Fail to recognize current unknown location as well-known destination. Step 12. Follow instincts. Step 13. Stop and ask directions. (optional, for females only) Step 14. Drive around until you recognize a street. Step 15. Make a triumphant announcement that the destination has been reached. Step 16. Drive the 300' to the destination you have been circling for 15 minutes. Location : Albi, France.

Keeping Everyone Happy...

2005-02-12T19:13:00.000+01:00

Dad's been jealous of Mom being blogged...

So here he is folks, my one and only father! He reads this blog regularly, so go ahead and leave him some comments.

He's currently in the middle of buying a new car, and we absolutely HAD to try the car out this afternoon, which gave rise to :

HOW TO GET LOST WITH A NAV SYSTEM in one easy lesson.

When we come back, after dinner with the Joneses. (Mom's showing off her offspring again)

Four in Hand

2005-02-12T12:06:00.000+01:00

I thought a Four in Hand was a kinda a men's tie, but I guess not in Japan. Click on the picture for more examples of this bizarre take on the barbie doll.

Gotta love 'em japanese.

You can buy these (or less blatantly hentai ones) in 27cm (11") or 60cm (24") tall versions from various stores, in both sexes, and then accessorize them with heads, wigs, undies and clothing.

Oh, and what girl, plastic or meat, would be complete without a superfantastic selection of the shoes?

Heck even the windows of the soul can be changed.

They have sitcoms on Japanese TV with an entire cast of these.

Samantha, how could you?

The Avengers do Desperate Housewives with a sideorder of Space Vixens, what?

Location : still in bed at a shameful hour.

600 Miles in One Afternoon

2005-02-11T23:20:00.000+01:00

Woke up this afternoon, and decided to get off my lazy ass and drive the 8 hours to go see my parents. Hastily wrote a letter of notice to my landlady to tell her that, pleasant as the hair-splitting has been, I was on the lam in just six weeks, and then threw my dirty laundry in the car and roared down the southbound 'autoroute' to Albi, city of my birth.

You are, of course, my passengers on this flight at 80 miles an hour over the smooth pavement of expensive French blacktop. The white bag behind us is the dirty laundry, which it is traditional the prodigal son should bring when he goes to see his Mom.

As you can imagine, it can get pretty boring on such roadtrips, where, gasp, there is NO network, and you don't know that you've been emailed, that Coquette has posted to her blog, or that the Princess is pinging you on Instant Message. Yea, verily, a valley of darkness...

frought with many occasions to sin, not the least of which is the dreaded roadrage. Yet, O Lord, canst one not smite thine enemies when they perform the heinous fishtail maneuver, which is an abomination in thine eyes?

Hour after hour, we drove, stopping only for coffee, icecream on a stick, and batteries for the digicam. Lo, soon, night was upon us!

Pretty lights began to glow, first inside the dash...

and soon, they raced across the skies before us, in a fierce battle of laser beams and lighting bolts!

The space gate had opened, and I felt time sluicing around me like molasses and snake oil while the seconds exploded on my mindshield with a roaring patter of cratering fluids in a rain that had fallen inplacably since the first turn of the wheels in this epic journey to the roots of my life, when suddenly, they appeared before me.

Triple, self-contained, and awash in light...

The Geisha-Balls of Destiny.

Location : where it all started.

Update from Phuket

2005-02-11T11:44:00.000+01:00

Some of the earlier readers of this blog will remember that my brother Greg lives in Thailand, on the island of Phuket, hard hit by the Xmas Day Tsunami last december. His live reports are available in the classics menu in the sidebar.

You will also remember that he collected some money from close friends in the US or Europe to assist the kids of the school where he teaches english. I promised to come back with an update on that.

Turns out his school received a million bhat (20k euro) from a swede, and he has had to find someone in more dire need. This is Bang Tao School, because the school itself is undamaged, and in a spot where few westerners go, and has received little private aid, and no public aid what's so ever.

Here is a breakdown on the spending of the 4,600+ euro he collected :

3 times 10,000 bahts for the 3 kids that lost at least one parent.

64 times 2,500 bahts for the 64 kids whose homes have been destroyed and whose parents have lost their livelihood (fishing boat, beachfront restaurant).

42 times 1,000 bahts for the 42 kids whose families have suffered some damage and loss, but not so traumatic.

Greg tells me the economy is tanking, people are getting laid off, and the sponsors for his radioshow have cancelled sine die. I'm sure this money, as little as it seems to us, will be of real help in Bang Tao.

Location : the Road to the South of France.

Where My Rent is Going...

2005-02-11T03:02:00.000+01:00

My landlady lives in the flat just under mine. She also cuts my hair in the salon she owns at ground level in the same building, and the cute underage teenager to whom she rents the pad across from mine is the one who shampoos my hair in the aforementioned establishment. Keeping it all in the family, as it were. By now, some of you are wondering if I'm talking of a salon by allegory, and mean something completely different. All I gots to say is, define 'completely'. Anyway, this morning (in whatever timezone I'm currently in, obviously not the same one as the rest of the building since everyone was busy splitting hairs by then, and here I am posting at 3am), as I headed downstairs for a drive to Paris in search of an iPod Shuffle (no joy) and some flowers for my dinner-date in Orsay, my progress along the arrow of decreasing potential energy was impeded by a stack of cardboard boxes, the largest of which was fully 6' wide and said in bold, futuristic lettering FLAT SCREEN TV net weight 32kg. 32kg of l337 japanese flat screen kewlness, people. I just sat down and cried. Now I know what an ownership society is... and where my rent euros are going. Location : Beauvais, France.

Shameless Plug...

2005-02-10T14:57:00.000+01:00

... but not for me. Ryan, over at Wading in the Velvet Sea, has been trying to sell the two compendia of his blog's very best. Sales haven't been all that they could be, and he's decided to release both books (Wading in the Velvet and Headful of Lightning) as downloadable, unprotected PDF files. First off, he's funny. Secondly, he deserves to be read more. Third, he's dumb enough to give us the goodies for free. So why don't skip on over there, read the recent posts in the blog, and if you like it, well, link him, download the PDFs, comment on his blog (he REALLY needs more comments, people), and tell him you love him. Heck, put a plug for him in your sidebar, like I promised to do for at least a week. Isn't that why we all blog? Cheers, people, I love you too. Location : Beauvais, France.

Wham, Bang, Thank You, M'am!

2005-02-09T14:16:00.000+01:00

Phone message from my dad this morning, asking me how much ransom I'd be willing to pay to get my passport back. I'm all, like, no way, you have it already? He's all, well, maybe I do, and maybe I don't. Harr, harr. Shiver me timbers. Yohoho and a bottle of Pastis. *breathe deeply, focus, Mathieu, focus* Wow, I have a real, live, valid work visa for the USA. After all this nonsense with the corporate work visa bureaucrats, I can't believe the public service ones were so fast. I mean, I was there yesterday at eleven, and the visa is delivered to my parents' doorstep at nine the next morning.

Ok, I'm sidetracking. I just can't face this head on, it's too big. It means, in exactly one month, I move in with the Princess, at LONG last. It means, heck, I don't know what it means, except we're both SOOOO happy. Happy Chinese New Year, everybody! :D Location : Beauvais, France.

Au Suivant!

2005-02-08T17:19:00.000+01:00

Well, my visa should be coming back in the mail in the next couple of days. *being very cool and detached about it while singing "it's my birthday" and shaking my bootie* ahem, yes, the consular officers took my paperwork and wished me a good day and that was that. So simple, so easy, that the only way I could possibly draw material from it would be to compare it to French bureaucracy, and i'm too much the patriot to stoop so low. I mean, I was only there 150 minutes, wasn't asked a single question at any of the three tills I was called to "Number 60 to Window 7!", "No.... I am NOT a Number, I am a FREE MAN!", cut to shot of big white balloon bouncing into the waiting hall, thinning the droves of applicants, and, it turned out, had brought WAY too much paper, photographs, and various sundries, although the proof of payment of the fees was much appreciated. Stamp, stamp, ok, thank you sir, you can go now, the visa will be in the mail in a couple days. Anticlimactic, what? Well, I did get a nice jolt of satisfaction from a quintessentially french couple who cut the line. They decided to skip the first line, which ended at a jolly little man who checked you had all your paperwork in order, did not pass go, and went straight to the second line. Well, it turns out that the first line gets you a pass to the express line which has priority over the second line. So *I* got number 60 (this is with showing up 15 minutes before the clerks even started work), and they got number 90, bwahahahaha! Line cutting is a big french vice I do NOT share and do NOT find endearing in my countrymen. I guess the US consulate set this system up as a way to prioritize non-french applicants without saying so, because that line #2 was TWICE as long as line #1 and the express line COMBINED. Cheaters are so dumb. Oh, and actor Tchéky Kario was applying for the same visa as I, and he had number 75, even if his Bacon Number is an impressive (for a non-US actor) Two. Now, I don't know how HE did it, but he went way before me, and he got the cute clerk (I got grandma #3) AND she told him to go around and she'd meet him in her office. I wonder what he did, but I guess he was to me, what I was to those stupid french line-cutters. Suddenly happy to be outtadairer, by about forty minutes. Location : Beauvais, France.

Kiss of the Abalone

2005-02-07T19:13:00.000+01:00

"Mom... I'm pregnant." "err... Mathieu, is that you?" "Mom, I mean it. I can feel it moving in my belly... OUH! Dang that hurts..." "Ok, baby, lie down and breathe deeply." "Mom, I think I caught it in Korea... I don't kiss and tell, but I think it was that Abalone in the sushi place last week. It came on a bit strong, and a little voice told me I was making a mistake, but I was caught up in the whole experience, and I just never..." "There, there, honey, it's alright, we all make mistakes." "At first, I thought it was nothing, just some motion sickness, or sitting in the plane for so long, but now I'm sure. It makes my skin crawl!" "tut tut" "It's colonizing my body! It's growing inside me, eating me alive, drinking my blood, and it's going to burst from my belly like Alien I!" "..." "Mom, I can't get rid of the taste, the smell, it's awful! Steamed Abalone in everything I eat! Every breath I take! It's like when you kiss your first girl from a new country, and your mouth feels all weird while her bacteria colonize your mouth, except it won't go away! The Princess will never forgive me! I can't show up at the Interview tomorrow like this! The Americans won't accept me with an Abalone growing inside me! Oh, just shoot me...." "Poor baby, have you tried eating yogurt?" "Yogurt?" "Yes, dear, yogurt, help you build up your flora, it will" "Yoda yogurt?" "Whatever makes you happy, honey." "I've been taking lots of coke..." "Now, now, what have I said about coke?" "The Atlanta kind, Mom!" "Ah, good. Well, take two cups of yogurt and call me in the morning, ok?" "Yes, Mom, thank you." "And you really should be more careful who you eat out, Mathieu." "You mean who I eat out with, Mom." "Whatever makes you happy, honey." Location : Beauvais, France.