Current features, travel adventures, and whatever interesting stuff I find on the net or in life.
Book sale: if you buy Intermediate French for Dummies between now and the end of April, you can get a $5 rebate – just download the rebate form and follow the instructions here: Dummies rebate
If you didn’t already know about it, my book includes intermediate-level grammar lessons, writing tips, and practice exercises, and is the most extensive (and, all modesty aside, the best) book I’ve written. Check it out at Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore:
I had to reinstall Windows a few days ago, and afterwards all of my fonts looked thin and pale, especially in FireFox. It took me a while to track down the solution, so I’m posting it here – both to help any of you in the same situation as well as to have a record of it for next time (knock on wood). The problem was that font smoothing wasn’t enabled – here’s how to fix it: Font Smoothing in Firefox
And here’s the site that led me to it: Do your fonts look faint and washed out?
Here are some links to help you celebrate with your beloved.
French love language
French terms of endearment
Spanish love language
Vegetarian aphrodisiacs
Freelance journalist Nadine Visagie of Suite101 recently tracked me down to answer some questions about The Importance of Learning French.
Just read a great article about one thing that all Americans can do that really will make a difference: take it out of the big banks (you know, the ones that got bailed out and then gave bonuses to the very people who caused the subprime mortgage disaster and the need for bailouts) and instead put it in small, local banks. I am a firm believer in the power of the dollar – what we choose to buy and where we keep our money has over the course of our lives, in my opinion, a much greater impact than any other voting we might be allowed to do – so I did this years ago, and I’ve been glad every day since.
Arianna Huffington – Move Your Money: A New Year’s Resolution
Good-bye 2009 and the unnamed first decade of the new millenium! Hello 2010 and another difficult to name decade! I spent nearly the entire year in France, other than my three weeks in Italy, and I’ll likely be in France for all of the new year as well. Best wishes to all!
Here’s some reading material and ideas for New Year’s Resolutions for you:
New Year’s in France
French New Year’s Resolutions
Veggie Table New Year’s Resolutions
I hope you and your families are happy, safe, and warm this holiday season. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all!
Vegetarian Christmas Menu
Christmas in France
French Christmas Vocabulary
Spanish Christmas Vocabulary
The Provençal Christmas season kicked off on Friday with the sowing of blé de la Sainte Barbe. We can’t plant ours until next week because we’re leaving today for Lyon (Fête des Lumières) followed by Strasbourg (marchés de Noël). More about all of that when we get home.
Update 4 Dec: Another kind reader has made three book wishes come true. The internet’s wonderousness never ceases to amaze me.
Update 7 July: I’ve received three books from one grateful reader who emailed me, and two others who didn’t. So to all three of you, anonymous and named, thank you! I appreciate the books. 
Original post (28 January 2009): I had a flash of inspiration this morning. While looking at my never-ending list of books I have to have, I realized that there are probably tens, even hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people out there just dying to buy me presents. So I put them all into my Amazon wishlist to make it easy for you:
Seriously, though, I made this to organize my thoughts. But if anyone out there does want to buy me a book, please note that I prefer paperbacks. Kindle is good too, except for cookbooks and grammar books.
Grenoble is a city of superlatives. One of the largest cities in France, Grenoble is also one of the hottest in summer and coldest in winter, and had the world’s first urban cable-car.
