Why is it that some people get all of the talent? I think Jared Leto is a phenomenal actor (and not bad looking, either) – did anyone see Requiem for a Dream? Just incredible. Then I find out that Jared Leto is in a band called 30 Seconds to Mars, and some of the songs (particularly “Attack”) are amazing. How can one person be able to do so much?
Not going to France yet
If you’re subscribed to my French newsletter, you know that I didn’t leave for France on Thursday as I’d planned. Why? Because my visa was turned down. Why? No reason given (!) but they said I could appeal. So I wrote a long letter of appeal, but you can imagine how tricky that is when you don’t know what exactly it was that they objected to. Anyway, that was nearly two months ago, and the only response I’ve received was a letter of acknowledgement. My ticket was non-refundable (natch), so I had to eat that, but the real drag is the fact that I expected to be in France by August and I’m not, and I don’t know when I will be. 🙁
Online News
I love being able to read the news online. When our power was out last week, I actually bought a newspaper for the first time in years, and it seemed very odd. I particularly like Google News, which aggregates headlines from papers all over the world. I have it customized an emphasis on world news, including headlines from French papers; an extra section with articles that mention “French language”; and no sports section. I visit my personalized news page at least three or four times a day – it’s great.
Tourist Remover
Here’s an interesting addition to your photo editing options: Tourist Remover edits out moving distractions like tourists and cars in front of whatever monument you’re actually taking a picture of. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds amazing, and it’s free.
Either and Neither
The English words either and neither can cause some problems for native and non-native speakers of English. Sometimes you can use either one and sometimes you have to choose either one or the other, but neither one is very difficult: Either and Neither
Power Outage
Just got back online after 72 hours without power. Fortunately, we live near a creek, so had clean (albeit icy cold) water to bathe in, wash dishes, etc. We have a gas stove, so were able to do simple cooking, and we don’t need AC, because the stone barn we live in is always cool, so no problem there. We bought bags of ice and put them in the fridge to keep things from going bad – it worked for about 75% of the food. We only have cell phones, which went out the first day (I guess a tower lost power as well), and then by the time they started working our batteries were dead. The worst part of the power outage was the boredom: no work, no internet, no TV. I normally read a lot, but after a couple of days I was sick of that. I bought a newspaper for the first time in years (I normally read the news online) and read it from cover to cover. Quite the adventure. 😉