awesome find of the day

yesterday I discovered this website, Runstoppable, that allows you to map your running routes through the use of Google maps. It serves as a jogging log, so whenever you go for a run, you just enter the date and the name of your -previously configured- route, and your run is recorded in your account.

Since I tend to run the same route every time, this site will make it pretty easy for me to quickly establish a running log for the coming months. One of the cool things about the mapping function is that it also gives you the elevation for your route, so you can see if you're running on flat terrain or not. Mine is definitely not flat, which is one reason I really like it.

This service is free, and is available in 23 countries, and really is the best online running tool I've seen for runners like me who don't want to invest in a fancy stopwatch and are pretty regular in their running itineraries. I've talked before of my interest in the Nike+ kit, but to be honest, it seems like a hassle since you need to have your ipod and sensor with you at all times. And now that i've got used to running without music, I'm not even sure I'll go back to running with my iPod on a regular basis. So I guess that means I'm not even sure I'll be buying the iPod Shuffle after all. Me changing my mind, what a novel concept !

mellow my man

don't know if this is considered "normal" or not, but I eat soup pretty much year round. Winter, Spring or Fall, and even Summer, it doesn't matter, soup is an unequivocal part of my major food groups (along with diet Pringles and kiwis). I started being a fan last year, and I've kept the habit since.

For some reason, people whom I tell this tidbit do not react well to it. Like they're part of the no-soup-when-it's-warm church and I've just committed the ultimate sin. I never got it, if you like eating something, why would you set boundaries as to when you can eat it ? Seriously, pizza for breakfast isn't that bad. Speaking of ridiculous, my Mom had this "rule" when we were kids that we were'nt supposed to drink water when we had soup. I don't know if it's something that's detailed in the handbook of good manners, which I've clearly not been handed yet, but it never failed to perplex me or my brothers. It's definitely entered the family lore now, just like the fact that we weren't allowed to wear black jeans because "those were for bad boys". Mind you I was about 8 at the time, so I clearly did not give a crap what color were the pants I wore as long as I could run around in them. When I was 15 I actually got a pair of black jeans, but Moms never said anything. Oh, the mysteries of Maternal rules.

Maybe laying out seemingly random and pointless rules is just a game parents play: set the most out-there principle for your kids and see if they'll buy it. In which case I say: I can't wait to be a dad. "Timmy, you know very well you're supposed to use your calculator upside down when doing your math homework in November !"

hurry up

preparing for work in the morning is all about efficiency for me. Since I take the bus from its starting point, I know what time it leaves and thus am able to reverse-engineer the time I need to get up so as to get on it. The goal for me is to do so, while taking care of my morning routine (shower, shave, dress...) with not a minute to spare.
Considering what time I want to be at work (around 8:30am), my bus is the one that leaves at 7:40am (ish, this is the RATP after all). Which means I leave home around 7:30-35am. In the past it took me a good 45 mins-1h to get ready in the morning, which would include a lot of moments when I'd just be taking my time. However, I've become less and less tolerant of this, and consequently I've now managed to do my whole routine in around 30 minutes. I don't feel like I'm rushing when I'm doing it, but I definitely look at the time to know where I'm at. Still, you'll be amazed at how much stuff you can do in 30 minutes when you're efficient. For me that includes :

• wake up
• shower+brush teeth
• shave+clean
• dress while watching news
• make sure i've got all my stuff before going to the kitchen (to avoid repeated trips to my room and thus potentially wake up my roommates)
• go to kitchen, prepare lunch
• depending on the time, have a "full" breakfast or, more likely, get my vitamins, juice and a yogurt, and grab a Kit Kat + some Krisprolls on the way out

All this might make it sound like I'm some sort of control freak, in actuality it's mostly the manifestation of my sleep-hungry slacker side trying to eke out a few minutes of sleep where I can. Trust me that if I find I can gain 2-3 minutes more I will push back that alarm.

disguised

no doubt when it comes to cultural matters (and women) France is a complex place. One such case is how most people have an instinctive negative view of all things American, yet American movies, TV shows and music are still dominant. I've got another, kind of baffling, example : the popularity of Halloween.

It all started about 10 years ago when, so goes the urban legend, some costume manufacturers (there were probably some candy makers involved too, they're quite evil, especially that Willy Wonka fella) decided to promote the event as a way to increase their declining sales. Pretty soon every mass-market brand was joining in, and now Halloween is a pretty mainstream event.

Not to sound all Johnny McCranky, but that's ridiculous. I grew up in a place where we celebrated Halloween as kids, and the whole thing seemed pretty organic. Sure, it was also a hugely commercial event, as pretty much all these things are nowadays, but at heart it was still kids going door-to-door asking for candy. To me that day carries many memories of my brothers and I running around our building with friends, dressed in our best getups. I specifically remember going as Axel Foley one year, basing my costume mostly on the fact that I carried a toy gun and could imitate his -unmistakeable- laugh. If you'd seen me that night, there would've been absolutely no way for you to convince me my costume wasn't convincing (FYI since my pic isn't on here: he's black, I'm not). I just thought it was the coolest and I reckon that's all that matters when you're 8. Plus I think my brother went as Daniel-san, so we were like a gang of little tough guys that day, no one would've dared mess with us.

This whole kids looking for candy is the basis of Halloween. It's not about Coca-Cola putting out a special orange bottle, or clubs hosting costumed parties, or even people coming to work with fake teeth, although that's part of it too. Therefore the tradition at the centre of that day doesn't really exist in France, even if I have in recent years spotted more and more random kids walking around with candy bags. But since I'm guessing 90% of people don't stock on sugary sweets, how can they honestly do the trick-or-treating thing ? Unless they've got a North Korean-size stockpile of stink bombs, in which case I should be buying some emergency M&Ms myself.

But even if trick or treating does become a national occurence, it still will feel weird to be, because of how the whole thing started. I've read a bunch of articles explaining how Halloween really was a Celtic (read non-American) tradition, and that that was the custom we had adopted in France, not the crass mass-market US kind. Like I said, this whole thing started very recently, quite probably due to some savvy entrepreneurs who recognized a marketing opportunity. If that's not typically American, I don't know what is.

By now you'll probably understand that I won't be going to a costumed party next Tuesday. If you feel the same way I do, I've got just the thing for you : a gig by the soon to be world famous The Goodfellas (best.name.evaaar). They mostly play a bunch of classic rock/R&B covers, in fact I've got an idea for a tee-shirt for them that would say "If you haven't heard G.L.O.R.I.A played live, you haven't been to a Goodfellas concert". Or something to that effect.

The concert is at my favorite bar, Le Reflet (Google Maps; Metro: Odeon or St Michel), right next to the Boulevard St Michel and Rue des Ecoles intersection. The official start time is 7pm, but I know they'll be playing till late, so come in anytime. I know that my stats say on average only 4 people read this blog, but to them I say "screw you, I'm an optimist". So join me on the crabby express and say yes to good live music, and no to fake traditions !

l is for

as I was walking home last night from dropping off an important piece of mail at the rue du Louvre post office (open 23/7), it occured to me this was definitely a drinking occasion. Not that I do that sort of thing too often (once a week, on average), but this seemed like a fitting occasion. As the saying goes, "on big days, have yourself a shot of whiskey". Or maybe I just made that up, I forget.

Problem was, after spending a few minutes on the cell, I couldn't rally any of the troops to join me for a drink and a half. Recruiting people for the Friday Night Drinking Club (FNDC ?) is never too hard, but Wednesday nights don't have the same cachet, apparently. Walking aimlessly around the half-empty Etienne Marcel neighborhood, I knew that going home at that point was not an option. That would mean defeat on many levels, including possibly running into my roommates and their newfound bougie lifestyle, and though I can deal with it 99% of the time, this was not such a day. The only resort I had was to just pop in some random bar and have drinks on my own damn self.

Because I've seen way too many movies, the way I envisionned it was I'd enter the place, find a cosy spot at the bar, and order a Jack on the rocks, with my customary suaveness. By then the Zooey-lookalike sitting on her own at the other end of the joint would have noticed me and I'd have noticed her noticing me, so I'd swoosh (yes, swoosh) over to her side of the bar to introduce myself. Or, plan B, I'd start talking to the entertaining/funny/thoughtful bartender with whom I'd discuss the subjects men discuss, and he'd quote Kierkegaard when giving his opinion, all the while punctuating his phrases with "brother" like that guy from Lost.

So of course, none of this happened. I ordered my first drink, looked around the place and saw that things might not turn out the way I thought they could. No stunners forlornly waiting for me to approach them. A less than cooperative bartender (okay well I'll be less than cooperative on your tip then, brother) and generally not the type of vibe I was looking for. Mostly loud rap/R&B instead of soft lounge music, although i did enjoy hearing Wreckx n Effect when entering the bar. And the joint was filled with more thirty-something couples than an Ikea on Saturday morning.

Still, I ordered a second Jack, waiting to see if things would change. Strangely, they did not, and as I pondered the mischevious vagaries of life while making my exit, I realized that this was all very fitting. If your evening's gonna be crap, it might as well be from the beginning. That way you head home early and have none of that nasty hangover you would've got otherwise. That I'm keeping for Saturday morning, if things go as planned.Expectations: they're a bitch

cousin of death

had to go to my home office today for some administrative stuff (I work out of my client's office, so I rarely venture back to the corporate mothership). The meeting was at 10am, so instead of heading there straight from home, I went into work a bit earlier than usual, worked for a bit, then headed to the HQ.

On the way back, it was only about 10:45am by then, I'd barely got into my seat when I started to feel the all-too familiar strains of fatigue set in. Probably because I went for a run last night. Or maybe I'm just a weakling, either one. Anyway after I allowed myself a 10-minute power-siesta, rocked by the mellow rythm of Explosions In The Sky's A Slow Dance, I realized I was strangely refreshed. I know this sort of behavior is common in Tokyo, where some salarymen are still subject to insane working hours, but you don't see it happen too often in Paris. Which is unfortunate because I know a bunch of people who could use the rest. I think people should just slump down and doze for their sleeping rights.

Say it with me : We want more comfortable bus/metro seats ! Higher headrests ! More mellow tracks from Explosions In The Sky !

brewster's millions

although I've been working out of college for 3+ years now, and despite my financial background, I don' have a particular financial and/or investment strategy. Mostly because I don't try to save up as much as I could/should. You know, life is short/par-tay/woo-hoo and all of that. Still last month I had some spare cash lying around, and as an experiment of sorts, I decided to buy some Apple shares with it. The price back then was 72.87, so I didn't go too wild on my purchase order, but I thought the company had good prospects for the coming months, and I would see where the stock would be at at the end of the year.

Well, it's now about a month later, and the stock is sitting pretty at 81.46, on the basis of a strong Q3 (that's 3rd quarter for you non-boring, non-financial types) earnings report . Basically a 11.7% return in 4 weeks (a bit less if you count transaction costs). Of course nothing is sure when it comes to the stock market, but this whole deal has got me interested in learning more, especially when it comes to long-term stock-buying strategies. Managing money is generally tedious, unless you try to understand the forces at play. Then it becomes much more interesting proposition, although still not as enthralling as blogging, especially about money.

huh ?

last week, while grocery shopping at the Réaumur Monoprix, I noticed stacks of boxes piled up along the exit stairs. A closer look led me to realize these were in fact chocolate boxes for Christmas (you know, Mon Cheri, Ferrero Rocher and their heinie-fattening brethren). I even took a craptastic cameraphone pic of them, but lack of internet access at la casa prevents me from sharing this highly essential piece of pictorial evidence witht the world.

This sort of thing I've come to expect in the US, where I once saw a xmas tree in a store in late September, but I thought France would be immune to the phenomenon. Is it too much to ask to wait till at least November 15 ? As Rob Cordry would say, "I mean come on" . To recap we're still having 20° temperature on most days, and retailers have already started to crank up the xmas machine. I know the Galeries Lafayette have started to put up their decorations and window dressings, so guys in full Santa attire (and your local boulangère wearing a Santa hat) can't be too far behind.

Thus in the spirit of the "if ya can't beat em, join em" strategy, I will be partaking in one of my personal traditions, the annual viewing of Elf, a bit earlier than usual. And to really feel festive, I'll probably pull out my Rat Pack and Sufjan Xmas albums. In the words of Buddy: SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!

hope and despair

after talking about my anticipation toward Children of Men, I owed it to this fascinating blog to post a follow-up. I did see the movie this weekend, and, without giving away any sort of spoilers as I hate those, and you should too, I loved it. Nay, I blooooody loved it (I need to get used to using words like bloody more often). The film is a bleak and somber tale about a future that does not seem so far-fetched, and Alfonso Cuaron does wonders with the script. His directing was some of the best I've seen in ages. There's one tracking shot in particular that still resonates with me now, as if I'd just exited the movie theater.

The acting is top-notch, with Clive Owen affirming his weight throughout the whole film, but really, no actor here does not do a good job in my mind (Michael Caine in particular is impeccable). The thing about Owen is he's a smooth man, like movie actors are wont to be, but he's also got that edge that other suave types like George Clooney or Brad Pitt seem to lack. Therefore he comes off as highly believable in roles that need him to be world-weary, such as this one.

The movie actually was pretty different from what I initially thought it would be, but in fact that made in even more powerful and I was completely caught up in the action and progression of the story. The last 45 minutes or so were unbelievably tense, and I have to congratulate Cuaron for that. If he keeps on making movies as brilliant as this one, he can definitely make as many Harry Potter ones as far as I'm concerned.

Unfortunately the movie isn't showing in that many theaters, even though it came out just last Wednesday, so I hope it can still achieve some sort of word-to-mouth success. I know I might go see it again with a friend, I hope the second viewing will confirm my first impression.

Lastly, since loud statements tend to be the only thing that matter anymore, let me end this by proclaiming: best movie of 2006 so far. Bring it on, Clint.

don't you know pump it up, you gotta pump it up

feeling kinda tired this morning. I woke up last night at 2am-ish to watch some beisbol (this is a rule on my blog : baseball is beisbol, and football/soccer is futbol. I think it just sounds cooler that way), specifically my NY Mets play the final game their playoff series against the St Louis Cardinals. Waking up at night to catch a game is something I did often back when I was a student and 3 hours of sleep on a weeknight sounded not only completely normal, but actually pretty cool. Nowadays I'm a boring so-called yuppie, so I tend to value my sleeping time more. It's pretty sad, but I actually get kind of excited when I manage to get to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep. Moving on... It was a very close and exciting game, but alas the Cards pulled away with the W thanks to a 9th inning 2-run homerun (if you have no idea what that last sentence means, the translation would be : "nooooooooooooooo").

The game ended at around 5:45 am, so needless to say when about an hour later my trusty Casio alarm clock let me know I should get my ass up, I wasn't feeling too refreshed. You kow those Herbal Essence shampoo commercial ? Picture the exact opposite. Fortunately, this being a Friday, putting on my sloppy casual outfit of jeans and a polo (black of course; no I'm not being melodramatic) helped me start the day on the right note. When I started working I used to think that dressing different on Fridays was pointless, but now I totally get the point.

But my real super-duper-secret weapon to actually getting that much-needed jolt of energy to kick-start my day (besides listening to some angry teenager music) was a cold, cold, oh-so on point, make-you-want-to-wrestle-a-tiger can of Red Bull. Nothing will get you in gear better when you need to act like you're actually paid to do something at work. Plus it's actually illegal in France, ooh how exciting.

Red Bull in the morning: try it, love it, live it

boring post

- came home from work
- went running (1h)
- met up with a friend near his place
- bought some candy from a street stand
- chose a bar to watch the second half of the game
- ordered a croque monsieur and a beer
- watched some footy while discussing, um, footy, and also the finer points of the Socialist Party primaries (kidding, one of these two topics wasn't really discussed)
- ordered another beer
- watched some more footy while discussing girl karma (this subject definitely needs its own post)
- suddenly remembered I had a bag of candy in my jacket pocket ("DESSERT !")
- ate delicious candy and suddenly understood the meaning of the word serendipity
- left the bar, went home

all in all, a good night I'd say

we're all looking for rosebud

as the holder of a subscription to Gaumont/MK2 cinemas, going to the movies is a fairly regular activity for me. On average I probably go around 3-4 times a month, which considering my movie card costs 18 euros per month, makes it a pretty sweet deal for me (normal ticket prices are now at or above 10 euros). Without calling myself a true movie buff, I'd say I'm fairly knowledgeable on the subject, and I try to follow up on the main movie news : who's making what movie, who's the big star, which movie will probably flop... All this to say that I'm pretty aware of the movies coming out in any given month, especially in cases when I've seen the trailer for a flick before and it's given me hope that it might be a good one.

Today such a movie comes out, and though I won't be able to see it before this weekend, at the earliest, I sincerely hope I'll have this in my year-end best of list. The movie is Children of Men, starring uber-suave Clive Owen and Julianne Moore (what's she been up to recently ?), and directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who made the brilliant Y Tu Mama Tambien, but is generally presented as the guy who directed a Harry Potter movie (don't ask me which one, I read a couple of the books which were fine, but that's that). It's based on a novel by PD James, and since I'm pretty bad at describing movie plots, I'll give you the IMDB version (spoilers below):

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind

I don't like sci-fiction movies that takes place in a far-away future or in space, but this sort of plot sounds highly appealing to me (kinda like Gattaca). What really sold me on the film was the egregiously manipulative trailer, which I've probably seen 6 or 7 times. In it you get the basic set-up, with admittedly nice visuals (Cuaron has proven to be quite good in that department), and a few scenes between Owen and Moore (who plays his ex and recruits him to take care of the pregnant girl). The manipulative aspect comes in toward the middle of the thing, when the first few bars of Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla start rising, and the song plays through the end of the trailer. That song, with those images, and Chiwetel Ejiofor saying "now you know what's at stake"... resistance is futile. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for that sort of cinematographic experience. After all, Spielberg is one of my favorite directors. Essentially that hope I feel before seeing such a movie is what keeps me interested in films. After all, if that didn't happen, I'd just rewatch old classics all the time, like one of those sore critics who think nothing made after 1976 has any significance. And there's definitely enough of them already.

fanfare for the common man

Choosing what music to listen to is often highly dependent on the context. Some tunes go great with night driving (see: Dramamine by Modest Mouse), others are awesome for parties (see: pretty much anything produced by Pharell or Timbaland). In that respect, there are certain artists whose work goes very well with the urban landscape, others not so much.

I was thinking about this on the bus this morning as I listened to my favorite Razorlight tracks. Razorlight isn't one of my all-time favorite bands per se, if I had to rank them they'd probably be at the end of my top 20. Yet for times like these there's probably no other artist, save for the Strokes perhaps, that I'd rather listen to. The taut guitar riffs, urgent singing and bouncy drums are the perfect accompaniment to my morning commute through Paris. In the grand scheme of things I might prefer Neil Young or some Skynyrd, but since one of the things I like in music is to have a soundtrack to what I'm doing, these wouldn't do the trick. The city has a fast and irregular heartbeat, and just being along for the ride ain't enough, you need a voice to kind of make sense of it all.

To me this style of music is just perfect for an 8am bus ride while observing all the little moments that compose city life: shop-keepers setting up their stores, girls wearing skinny jeans smoking one last ciggy before entering the subway station, little kids skipping along while their weary parents take them to school, or just simply some guy wearing a suit and listening to his iPod, while taking it all in.

from weefee to deeveedee

Although I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable in the computer field, the extent of my know-how is limited to problems I've encountered and have had to solve over the years. Therefore when I'm faced with a new issue, I'm generally at a loss as to what the correct solution might be. But if there's one thing I've learned it's that a lot of computer problems can be solutionned with a small screwdriver and some patience.

For instance, yesterday evening, just as I was preparing to go running, I decided to reinstall Mac OS X to see if it would get rid of the Wifi woes I'd been having on my mac mini for a few days. I thus inserted an installation DVD that came with my Macbook and promptly confirmed that I wanted to start the installation process, which initiated a restart. That's when I got a kinda scary looking error message telling me I was having a kernel panic (or something) and that I should manually restart the computer. Unfortunately two such occurences happened again before I understood that using that particular installation DVD was a BIG mistake. I was now stuck with a DVD that I couldn't eject, yet which caused a fatal error preventing me from even getting past the startup stage. My pseudo-DYI instincts kicked in: I was gonna have to go in the belly of the beast and retrieve the dang DVD myself. After much exertion I managed to open up the mini, unset a few screws and somehow recover the disk, but not without a hint of possible damage to the optical drive (or worse).

Thankfully when I turned on the thing, it started up fine (although still no Internet). I then did what any semi-logical person would've in the first place and inserted the installation DVD that came with the computer. By then it was 10pm and going running was, frustratingly, out of the equation. Still the install process seemed to go fine, and after 40+ minutes, I had the computer back to the state I'd bought it in. Well, save for a few scratches on the top from my screwdriver artistry.

The moral of the story ? Well, I'm still having Wifi issues (could it be any other way ?), but at least I know what to do if some CD or DVD decides to spend some quality time in my DVD drive. That Macguyver fella was right: you can do a whole lot with a screwdriver, and most of them are awesome.

tuning a run

One of the more surprising aspects of my newfound jogging (or yogging. it might be a soft j, I don't know) habit is that I don't mind running without any music. Spending 1h of my personal time without any tunes is pretty rare for me, outside of work. But when I run I don't really think about it as a hassle to "just" have to think about stuff.
However, when the new ipod shuffle is released (supposedly sometime in October), I will acquire it faster than a Cobra snake trained in the ancient ways of the ninja. The incorporated clip, the small size and the (relatively) affordable price make this one a can't miss for my next buy.
Materialistic fool ? Yes, hopelessly. But I'm also an Apple shareholder. So in a way all I'm doing is supporting my stock price. Right ?

pop du jour

my current top 40 obsession is Rihanna's Unfaithful. For some reason I've always preferred sad and bitter breakup songs to fluffy joyful love songs, and this is another great addition to my collection of said tracks.
One of the major rules of pop is that a song should reach its apex during the chorus, and this one is no exception. When Ms Rihanna sings about not wanting to be a murderer, I get it. Which means that I've got at least the same poprehension level than that of a 13-year old girl, what a relief.

food for thought

when it comes to choosing a restaurant (at least when I'm relied on to make that choice), I tend to not plan things in advance and pretty much decide on the spot. Reservations ? Not my bag baby. Such a situation arose last night when I was out with a friend near Opera (more specifically the Galeries, where I bought a pair of jeans, unfortunately not on sale) and we were both beginning to feel the pangs of hunger.

After walking for a few minutes toward rue de Rivoli (my friend had to take the RER at Chatelet to go home, so we walked in that direction), I remembered that we were in the vicinity of one of my favorite small bistrots in Paris, le Bar de l'Entracte. Located on rue de Montpensier, just behind the Palais Royal gardens, it should be overrun by tourists, but for some reason isn't. One of its main selling points is the great terrace. I'm not a big fan of Parisian terraces, as too often they're too close to a pedestrian-filled pavement, or they're just a people-watching HQ for jaded Parisians. But this is the real deal. The place is on a small street, so there's nary a car in sight, and the only time there's a crowd on the street is when the Theatre du Palais Royal lets out its audience (and even then it's nothing major).

But it's not just location, location, location when it comes to this bistrot, as the menu is quite cheap (for that neighborhood). One of their specialties is the bowl of macaroni and light cream which they couple with various ingredients: swiss cheese, chicken, lardoon... They've got at least 10 different recipes and all those I've tried were delicious. They've got plenty of other items on the menu as well, although I can't say I've tried those. The service is good and the way the tables are set up mean you can even -yes, I know this might be shocking in Paris- make small talk with people around you. There's also an Italian restaurant right next to it, with the same sort of terrace, so I might have to try that one of these days (although I've pretty much given up on finding pizza as good as that I used to have in NYC).

I'm not a big fan of dressed-up eating, where a meal can take up 2h (when I was a kid I always had a problem with long meals, and I've barely gotten better since), my thing is more the small "unremarkable" places that end up knocking your socks off because of their great combination of relaxed setting, laid-back people and good food. What's funny is once you get there, good conversations start flowing, a feeling of well-being takes over, and you end up staying 2 hours+. Le Bar de l'Entracte is one of those places, and I hope it won't be two years before I go there again.

picture taken by Nokier

dub-dub-dub

when computers work, they're the best thing ever invented, but when they're acting up, you feel as though you'd rather be back in the stone age. Right now my Apple laptop has been suffering from the stupendous Random Shutdown Syndrome. And by random, I mean really random. Sometimes it'll work fine for a couple of days, then start shutting down for no reason. Since it's not an issue that's going to go away magically, as it stems from hardware and not software, I've finally managed to back up my precious data (okay, mostly 50 GB of music) to an external HD, and this weekend I'll be dropping it off for repairs.

In the meantime I've set up my other computer, a Mac Mini, in my room so I could listen to my music and surf the Web. But for some reason its wifi connection is spotty. Unless I can fix that, I won't have access to the Internet (not to sound like a geek, but: oh nooooo) once the laptop is in the shop.

Apple computers are still the best thing I've ever tried in the area, compared to PCs I've tried, when it comes to reliability. But when something like this happens, it almost makes one pine for the good old days of pre-Internet. Or not.

de Nîmes

I need to get some new jeans. Even if I tend to prefer a loose fit when it comes to denim (slim fit is evil), I have to admit that out of my three pairs, two are too big for me. So it came as a nice surprise to me this morning to see a poster (no, not that one) informing everyone of the start of the Galeries Lafayette's 3J. The Galeries, as people call them here, is one of the oldest and most well-known department stores in Paris (there's also a chain of them all around France). And it just so happens they have a Lucky Brand Jeans "area". Thus I'll be heading there before this weekend to try and see whether they have something for me, preferably with a delicious -30% symbol attached to the price tag.

black is the new black

there's this poster for a Hugo Boss ad campaign I've been seeing everywhere recently. In particular, there's one at the bus stop where I catch my bus after work, and it's become a favorite of mine. Not only is the girl used in the ad stunning (probably some famous model, I think I've already seen her somewhere), but the composition of the shot is perfect, illustrating the kind of classy urban environment that I'm thinking Hugo Boss would like to be associated with, and that's with a plain gray background. Photographs can be effective that way.

I couldn't find an actual pic of the poster, but here's a screen print I took on the HB site:

Don't know how long ad campaigns usually last, but I'm guessing not more than a few weeks. If so, it seems I should be bracing myself for the inevitable replacement of this new fave by a Gap one, or worse, Herta Knacki. Ain't nothing worse than seeing a food ad when you're about to start your treck home.

early bird does the worm

I've just booked my train tickets to spend New Year's Eve (or weekend, actually) in merry London. This is definitely the earliest I've ever made plans for New Year's. In fact it's generally a last minute decision for me, like last year's shindig at some Swedish embassy official's palatial appartment. But this time I had an opportunity to get a cheaper ticket. Even though those stingy people from SNCF did not let me use it, I called up a good friend from b-school and decided to get a ticket anyway.
Now we have almost three months to plan a most excellent night of partying. Yummy.

up in smoke

so apparently, the full ban on smoking in public places is set to come into effect on January 1, 2007. Great news for non-smokers like me, for sure, but not just them. I understand people that smoke who feel that this is an infringement on their personal freedoms, but really in such a situation where two sides cannot coexist without one's behavior impacting negatively the other, it is the only way.

After living in Paris for close to ten years, I'm not going to say I don't mind cigarette smoke, because I do, but I have sort of gotten used to it. Still as someone who is moderately allergic to smoke, I definitely notice when i stay in a smokey environment. You eyes and throat sting, and you feel a bit dizzy if you stay too long. Some (mostly smokers in my personal experience) have been saying that separate sections for smokers and non-smokers were an acceptable solution. But truthfully, if there are people smoking in a closed environment like a restaurant or a bar, you're going to notice it sooner or later. And the same goes for terrasses, which tend to be static-air environments. Nowadays in Paris it's impossible to go out to proper bars and not come out smelling like a stale Gauloise. Getting soaked by a spillt beer happens, but having to clean your jeans every single time you go out because of cigarettes tends to get tedious after a while. Bar and restaurant owners fear many people will stop going out and prefer to stay in their homes so they can keep lighting up. But man is by essence a social being, and I'd be surprised if revenues for cafes and restaurants drop significantly once the law is actually applied.

And this is only from a lifestyle POV, without getting into the argument of health-care costs. One of the issues in France on that aspect is that the government actually makes money on both ends, since it taxes-dearly- a product it is also involved in selling (through Altadis). Yet the costs of caring for all the people suffering from tobacco-related illnesses has to be a staggering amount, and if I weren't so lazy I might try to search around for some information on that. But since I am I'll believe what I've read in recent articles on the subject, in The Economist and other publications.

Bottom line is this is a trend that's been unavoidable in recent years, and which is not borne by freedom-hating puritans, as some would have you believe, but mostly by logical interests of public health. And the result of such a ban can only be a good thing for society at large.

what's old is new

Paul Simon => Joshua Radin

Nick Drake => Rivulets

Fleetwood Mac => Midlake

the first time

before the glorious days of high-speed internet and Napster at work (r.i.p.), and way before myspace or bittorrent ever existed, finding and listening to new music was pretty low-tech. For me it generally involved scouring amazon.com looking for listmanias based on some albums I liked and reading the user comments to get an idea of how that CD was. Listening to song snippets (snippet, what a wonderful word) was useful too, but back then amazon only had the first five songs available for listening to, and the quality wasn't that great. So often i'd have a pretty good idea of whether I'd like an artist or band I'd newly discovered, but I still had to take a leap of faith in buying and actually liking the CD.
That's exactly what happened with Red House Painters. I was looking for some slow indie rock music back in the late 90s, when I first got into that genre (aka shoegaze, slowcore...). I saw a bunch of great comments on amazon about their album Songs for a Blue Guitar, just before leaving for NYC to go spend Xmas with the folks. So when I went present shopping at the 34th St HMV, I made sure to look for it, and, even though it was priced ridiculously high ($17.99+ tax I think it was), I had a hunch it would be good. That night we left for 3-4 days of skiing in Vermont, and I was presented with my first opportunity to listen to it. The road was half-empty, the car silent, thus the mood perfect for me to enter the world of Mr Mark Kozelek. To this day I will remember the melancholy and simultaneous joy I felt at hearing such perfect music. The first track Have You Forgotten, about a man who reminisces about his life, immediately entered my personal top ten after, oh... 21 seconds. The voice, the instrumentation, the lyrics; it was all there. And the rest of the album was just as life-affirming (as much life-affirming as sad-sack music can get, anyway), varying between slow, mournful numbers (Have You Forgotten, Song For A Blue Guitar, Trailways) and more enthusiastic mid-tempo rockers (All Mixed Up, Long Distance Runaround). I'd consider the Red House Painters to be my favorite band of all-time, and that first taste of their music will definitely stick with me for a long time. I've got a couple of other personal moments in which RHP music was prominently featured, and it is my hope that many others have felt the same bond to a band's music, through a specific moment in their lives, as I have. If I were part of a Cameron Crowe movie, this is where I'd say it is how music becomes part of the fabric of our lives. Cheesy, but true

oh no

as I've been taking the bus to work for a while now, I've started to notice some behavior patterns that one might not see when riding the subway. One is people not doing anything: they don't listen to music, don't read the paper or a book, they don't even look out the window, which is frankly one of the more underrated things in life. They just kinda stare into the void, as if they had undergone hypnotic therapy or a lobotomy. To be honest these people kinda freak me out, and there's a bunch of them. It's not about them doing something (and believe me, there's tons of stuff you can do on the bus), as much as it is about these people sometimes appearing to be very tired about life, like doing something has no point. When you sit next to them it's like they don't even register you're there. Although I guess it's still better than having them stare at you or, worse, some little kids.
Another thing I've seen often is people working. Now I have a pretty busy day myself. I'm no air traffic controller, but I do my share (on average from 8:30am to 8pm with few breaks). Yet I can't fathom how "working" 10-15 mins on the bus is going to help you out. There's this one guy who takes the same bus as me who does this every single time I see him. He's probably on the bus for 15-20 mins and invariably he'll get out his laptop and start typing away. He doesn't seem agitated, like if he were under a deadline. And this morning as he sat not too far from me on the crowded bus, he actually did the staring thing for 5 mins before getting his lappy out and starting his workday (double whammo). If I knew the dude, I'd probably ask him what he thinks doing that is going to accomplish, instead of trying to relax during his commute. I'm not saying this is a general rule, as in "you should only work when you're at the office", but when all you're going to accomplish is write an email or review 3 slides, it seems pretty pointless to me (and is another missed step on the slippery slope to not making a distinction between worklife and personal life). Basically, if you need to finish something up, stay at work 10-15 mins later and then go. If you have something to do in the morning, wake up earlier and do it at work.

Of course, there aren't things that really annoy me. Just things that I've noticed and which puzzle me a bit. If you really want me to get angry about something, ask me about people who clip their nails on the bus (true story). Then I'll have a topic to get riled up about.

open letter

amends need to be made: I had listened to Justin Timberlake's new CD, Futuresex/lovesounds a few weeks ago, and did not enjoy it at all. Most of the stuff sounded robotic and cold, most notably the lead single, Sexyback.
Well, after reading what esteemed blogger Donnie Jeter had to say about this release I gave it another shot this weekend, and my views on this album have definitely made a 180. The things that annoyed me after my first listen, I now find brilliant. For instance the two-part, two-beat songs, of which Lovestoned-I Think She Knows is a brilliant example. Seriously, that second part might be the best 2 mins of dance pop I've ever heard (MJ excluded, of course). Or what I thought was cold and distant, I now see as a great throwback to the R&B sounds of the 80s, like Freddie Jackson (you've heard of Freddie Jack, right ?).
And as so often happens in times like these, Sexyback was played in a bar I was hanging out in on Saturday night, so that I could really understand the true power of that song. It's a pretty good song when you listen to it at home or during your commute. But on a Saturday night, in a bar/club, that song is baaaad.
So Justin, consider this a formal apology for not trusting you more the first time around. I can't promise that I won't do it again, but at least I will definitely give your next album a few listens before forming my opinion.

life's a playground

My voice got hoarse after staying out late on Friday night and thanks to another dose of going-out on Saturday has stayed that way since (leading to the inevitable "hey, you know you're supposed to get some sleep on the weekends" wisecracks at work), and I have to admit, I sound way much cooler than usual. I almost wish I always had this voice. Who cares about credibility toward bosses and coworkers when you sound like Benicio Del Toro.

collectionitis

As I was choosing a movie to watch yesterday night, I wondered how many DVDs I would keep if I had to choose. Glancing quickly at my collection, I realized that the justification I had for a DVD purchase a few years back ("I want to have this in my collection") was vastly different from the one I hold today ("I want to have the movies I love, admire, and that I can watch anytime"). I currently own around 90 DVDs, and most of them were bought when I first got into the format, in 2000-2003. Now I only buy 4-5 a year, max, and I tend to go for rentals or downloads to watch supposedly good movies I haven't seen, instead of trying to find a steal on amazon.com or a local secondhand store.
Thus I decided to see how many movies I would keep if I had to make radical cuts in my collection, to say 20-25 items. After all, these are proven films for me, not simply movies I feel I should have because they're "good" and I "might get into them". Sure, that boxset of the Godfather trilogy was cheap, but knowing I don't like Mafia movies that much, why did I feel the need to own it instead of trying to borrow it from a friend ?
The movie I ended up watching that night, The Graduate, would definitely be number one on my list of desert island DVDs. Now all I need to do is find its 20 brethren and I'll be set for a while.