101 things to do in 1001 days

The Internet takes me to strange and inspiring places.

I had just started sending New Year's greetings to some of my expat blog contacts, and I only got to the third one on La France Profonde's sidebar: Megan of An American in Provence. I was intrigued by a passage she had in her sidebar:

"101 things in 1001 days project begun July 4th, 2008 time left until April 1st, 2011 : 821 days 4 hours and 57 minutes left"

She had no link, but geek and ye shall find: a quick Google search brought me to Day Zero - The home of the 101 things to do in 1001 days project.

As a lover of lists and goals, I might just take the plunge on this one. And also, unlike New Year's resolutions, it won't have to be done by tomorrow.

Unconscious Mutterings 6

Click here to play with this week's Unconscious Mutterings.

1. Destined : to fail
   


2. FAIL : too weird
   


3. Camping : campground


4. Only you : can make my life complete
   


5. Incessant : mutterings
   


6. Tomorrow : is another day
   


7. Impressive : resumé


8. Riches : wealth


9. Dislike : hate


10. Speaker : phone

Looking over these mutterings, it's interesting for me to see how the English (as a second language) teacher in me comes out. On 8 and 9, I just spit out synonyms, much as I do in class.

Number 3 was not so much a synonym, but a recurrent correction: the French word for campground is le camping, so students often, and rather logically, think that that must be the English word. So I'm often correcting that error. I can hear myself:

No, in English we go camping (to go camping gets written on the board) but the place we go to is called a campground (go to a campground flies up on the board as I speak...)

From business school to batik

One of the miracles of the Internet is being able to keep up with all of those people I surely would have lost touch with in the pre-digital days.

As someone who loves life stories -- or life's stories -- I was tickled that electronic communication brought me back in touch with Julie, one of my former business school students, and also one of my daughters' past babysitters.

I always thought Julie's personality might take her down a different life path from the typical business route, and I was right: she is now living in Senegal and recently married batik clothing designer Omer Silé Dao Diatta. She is helping out with his business and also occasionally modeling his creations, as you can see above!

Check out Omer's website and his beautiful work here.

Unconscious (Christmas) Mutterings

I decided to do this week's Unconscious Mutterings with a Christmas spirit in mind. I don't know if that's true to the idea of the activity, but it sounded like a fun thing to write.

1. Carpet : No Christmas ideas


2. Bottoms : Up


3. Music : Jingle Bells
   


4. Nails : Nine Inch
   


5. Watch it! : Haven't we done this one before?
   


6. Your life : Varied


7. Candies : Candy Canes
   


8. Chafing : Dish, I think my mom has one
   


9. Svelte : A brand
   


10. Ding : Dong, Christmas bells

Well, I didn't manage to keep the Christmas theme for all of the words, but a few worked out rather nicely!

Happy Holidays!

PS: Dear Santa, For Christmas I would like somebody to read and comment on my previous post. I guess it didn't get picked up by Google alerts because if it had, I'm sure some Kinks fans would have chimed in.

Rekonnekting with the Kinks 1: Arthur Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have made up my mind to gradually purchase all or most of the Kinks' CDs in order to rediskover my favorite group.

If they're my favorite group, how, you might ask, did I end up living without them for practically two decades?

Let's just say practical considerations (Do you remember the young and innocent pre-Amazon days?) and life got in the way.

But I'm not one to sit by the fire in my Shangri-la. I can now one-click my way over to the UK and order as many Kinks CDs as I want; I got my first shipment a few weeks back.

I'm determined to take my time and savor every moment of this unstructured rediskovery.

The first album I have listened to repeatedly has been Arthur Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. I ended up with the Castle edition, which has all sorts of extra tracks, but I'm not going to deal with those.

And I'm not going to attempt a full review, which would be great if I did this for a living, or if this were my only blog, or if anyone other than fans who get Kinks Google alerts were going to read this post...

Instead, I thought I'd have my fun categorizing the songs according to my reactions to them after a nearly twenty-year hiatus, with comments on some of the songs.

MASTERPIECES:

Victoria: Between the unexpected lyrics and the infectious melody, this is not just a Kinks masterpiece; it's a rock masterpiece.

Shangri-la: This song will certainly move way up in my Kinks' Top Ten list when this whole re-listening project is over. When Ray Davies sings "But he's too scared to complain, 'cos he's conditioned that way," my heart just breaks.

OTHER GREAT TUNES:

Yes Sir, No Sir

Australia: This song is more intriguing to me since I saw Come Dancing, which picks up on the same theme.

Arthur

FUN SONGS:

Drivin': Along with Victoria, this is the song that my 17-year-old daughter likes the most on the album.

She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina: For the title if for nothing else.

SONGS I QUITE LIKE BUT MAYBE YOU HAVE TO BE A KINKS FAN TO AGREE:

Brainwashed

Young and Innocent Days: I always visualize this song; I think it certainly would have worked better in the original Arthur "televised rock opera" concept than it does on the album.

SONGS THAT DON'T QUITE DO IT FOR ME:

Some Mother's Son: I know a lot of fans love this song. To me, it starts out well but doesn't hold its promises, and veers dangerously towards the maudlin.

Nothing to Say: I could say the same thing.

A FORGETTABLE SONG:

Mr. Churchill Says: The category is to be taken in the first degree; I had totally forgotten this song, and may well do so again.

One final comment: Arthur Or... is without a doubt my favorite Kinks' album title.

Unconscious Mutterings 5

1. Travel :: Uncountable


2. Expensive :: Stuff


3. Backspace :: Typing foxes
   


4. Traffic noise :: Beep


5. Now see here :: Missy


6. Vegetables :: Vegetarian


7. Chat :: Cat
   


8. Your calling :: Teaching


9. Weekly :: Reader


10. Oh! :: MG

Inspired by Unconscious Mutterings. Photo credit here.

Kinks Wordle

(Click on photo to enlarge)

In the category of "fun things to do on the Internet," I have just discovered Wordle -- thanks to big blogging buddy spacedlaw. It's an application that turns a bunch of text into an image, featuring the most frequent words.

This is my first attempt. I'm sure one can be much more poetic and artistic, but I liked the image I got out of the content of all of my blogposts about the Kinks and Ray Davies.

Wordle seems to have a rather stringent copyright rule going which I don't quite understand, but I think it means I need to link to my actual onsite version.

Since I'm going on and on about Kinkdom, I'll mention that I enjoyed reading a fresh and well-written blog post review of Ray's December 12th concert at the Hammerstein ballroom in New York. The writer had never seen the Kinks or Ray in concert, and he managed to catch the spirit of what Ray brings to audiences as well as any of us oldies.

Kinks Koncerts

I'm just passing this along. I saw this tour (or a similar version of it) in July in Seattle and it was fantastic:

"Ray Davies has 4 shows remaining on his current tour and there are still tickets available for each of the performances. By all accounts this has been an excellent tour.

The following 4 dates remain:

10 Dec, 2008: Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, Providence, Rhode Island.
11 Dec, 2008: Higher Ground, Burlington, VT.
12 Dec, 2008: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, New York.
13 Dec, 2008: Paramount Theatre, Asbury Park, New Jersey.

You can find ticket info at Dave Emlen's Kinks site:

http://kinks.it.rit.edu/tourdates.php

If you can make it to one of the shows, please try and do so. Also let your friends know that there are still tickets available. A Ray Davies concert is a not to be missed experience. If you don't buy tickets online, call ahead to confirm seats."

Unconscious Mutterings 4

Here we go again: Unconscious Mutterings 306:

1. Love affair :: with life
   


2. Bubble :: gum double
   


3. Pimple :: Clearasil


4. Knocks :: Hard


5. Persistent :: Pain
   


6. Infected :: Wound
   


7. Yay! :: Good class
   


8. Repaint :: a house
   


9. Daily :: Post


10. Quickly! :: Finish

Rekonnekting with the Kinks

Last summer, my sister bought tickets for the two of us to go see Ray Davies in concert in Seattle.

Little did she know what this outing would bring about: the return of my obsession with Ray Davies and the Kinks -- a passion that has rather sadly been on standby while I have pursued being a mom, holding down a career, and basically living a grown-up's life.

It's not that music has been absent over the past years: we have plenty of CDs, and I have listened to a lot of my favorite musicians since I've lived in France. I've also gotten more into jazz, standards and French popular music.

And of course, I do own a nearly komplete kollection of the Kinks' albums: all on vinyl, sitting forlornly in my parents' basement.

Perhaps as part of my post-Obama euphoria (I'm part of Barack's generation, so I feel young again!) I have decided it is time to get the Kinks back into my listening habits. So I recently Amazon one-clicked my first Kinks CD order:

Something Else by the Kinks

Arthur or the decline and fall of the British empire

Lola vs. Powerman and the Money-go-round

Workingman's Café (a Ray Davies solo album)

And be warned -- I plan to bore you with the details of my rediskovery.

Unconscious Mutterings 3

OK, I think I'm going to get addicted to this. Here are my responses to Unconscious Mutterings 305:

1. Sleepy :: Time Herbal Tea


2. Thanksgiving ::Thoughts


3. Fifteen :: Again


4. Authority :: Whatever


5. Bangs :: Cut


6. Curled :: Hair


7. Young man :: Oh, don't get me started, I wonder if one of my blogging friends is going to read this. He'll know what I'm talking about.


8. Surprised :: Often


9. Mistake :: Error
   


10. Handle it :: Don't get mad, get glad.

Things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving

(Lovely, free image courtesy of mahalo.com)

I'm not one for touchy-feely posts, but the fact that my youngest daughter is celebrating Thanksgiving in the USA with my family this year makes me want to at least give the holiday a nod.

So what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving?

1. My darling, fun, loving, and fun-loving daughters. Don't be afraid of the teenage years!

2. My bright, generous and dynamic husband. There's never a dull moment.

3. My great family in the USA: my parents, one grandmother (yes!), my sister and her family, all of whom have been willing to take my daughter in for the whole year. I miss them and love them...which leads to:

4. Summers -- which I spend in the USA.

5. My life-long best friend whom I met well over thirty years ago. My move to France hasn't changed a thing about our relationship.

6. Having a job I love every single day. (Okay, almost every single day.)

7. The Internet. Seriously! It helps me keep in touch with the people above, old friends, and also make new ones through my blogging activities.

8. Music. Especially the Kinks, REM and Bob Dylan.

9. Obama's victory. Yes, we did.

10. Being in good health. Four years ago at this time, I was in the hospital for a rather long stay. I do blame it all on Bush's 2004 victory, because I fell ill the very day of his re-election. But that's all over now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Popularity brings Europeana site down

When I read about the new Europeana site, I just couldn't wait to click by.

Culture! Europe! A lot of cool French stuff! A huge digital library!

It sounded like just the sort of site I had been waiting for:

"Europeana combines the digital resources of museums and libraries, and the information provided includes paintings, maps, videos and newspapers," reports Stephen Castle in the November 19th New York Times. "Material is free of copyright so it can be downloaded for blogs, research or schoolwork by anyone with an Internet connection."

How great does that sound?

So great that the site has been receiving 10 million hits per hour, leaving it inoperational as I write:

"We launched the Europeana.eu site on 20 November and huge use - 10 million hits an hour - meant it crashed. We are doing our best to reopen Europeana.eu in a more robust version."

I can't wait!

Unconscious Mutterings 2

OK, this is addictive. I think I'll do it every week. Here is Unconscious Mutterings 304:

1. Spit it out :: the gum, you'll look like the American that you are.


2. Shadow :: Land
   


3. Database :: Access


4. Expression :: This


5. Boss :: Bruce


6. Baby :: I love you


7. Mystic :: Man


8. Kate :: a friend, I wanted to write her last name but did opt for her anonymity


9. Boobies :: What?
   


10. Raid :: Insects, bugs

10 vaguely interesting things I've done

I found an interesting blog activity/meme at La Vie Quotidienne.

Of course, I was also intrigued by this blog because the name resembles my own Cuisine Quotidienne.

I couldn't resist leaving the blogger a comment about how a lot of people don't know what "quotidian" means. I hope her readers (somehow I'm sure it's a woman but I could be wrong) at least know what vie means.

But I digress.

The meme consisted of marking in bold print the things you've done out of a list of 150 activities. Yes: 1-5-0. That sounded like a pretty long undertaking, so I decided to take it differently and divide it in different categories of 10.

And that might just get me through to the end of November and NaBloPoMo!

So, here are 10 vaguely interesting things I've done:

1. Said “I love you” and meant it (are there that many people out there who say that insincerely? Hmmm...)

2. Visited Paris (for work, for family, for education, for travel...you name it)

3. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise (and even got in trouble for it...)

4. Gone to a huge sports game (Go Ms!)

5. Changed a baby’s diaper (Wait, are these interesting things... even vaguely...???)

6. Given more than you can afford to charity (I hope the Obama campaign counts here)

7. Bet on a winning horse (Yes, I've actually been to the races)

8. Had two hard drives for your computer (For sure!)

9. Taken a road-trip (from Olympia to Fort Collins, Colorado with my whole French family -- unforgettable)

10. Alphabetized your CDs (Mais of course! I wouldn't have it any other way...)

Unconscious mutterings 1

I got onto this fun blog activity from some new commenter, and I can't remember who! I'm sorry because I wish I could link back to you...

The idea, presented on Unconscious Mutterings, is a kind of free association activity...just for fun; no heavy psychoanalysis going on or anything! And I'm going to try to do it without too much self-monitoring or trying to be clever. Here we go with week 303 (!) of this prompt:

1. Please stop :: referring to Obama as "le président noir" in France. The French are making way too big a deal out of his race.


2. Move over :: rover
   


3. Sweet as :: sugar, honey, sugar just couldn't be bought.


4. Bet :: 'cha


5. Mad about :: London


6. It’s over :: THE ELECTION


7. Intend to :: finish NaBloPoMo with more quirky activities like this one


8. Blame :: game


9. Jefferson :: Airplane
   


10. Heartless :: Hopeless

Well, that was decidedly fun. I think I'll have to try it again...

A tale of two Internet sites

Somebody has probably come up with a definition of the Web 3.0, and somebody will probably be smart enough to tell me about it in a comment.

I haven't done any personal research on the concept, but I feel Barack Obama seems to be ushering in a whole new era of Internet use that will make the Web an indispensable and inescapable tool of democracy...could this be the Web 3.0?

Any doubters who thought President-elect Obama's (I love writing that) Internet strategy would slow down once enough money had been amassed to run the most brilliant presidential campaign in American history have only to click over to the uplifting, user-friendly change.gov, the new virtual "Office of the President-elect."

There's a very different feel and look going on in Obama's Web office than at the decidedly dour and user-hostile whitehouse.gov, where if you look very closely and can read tiny, light-gray print, you can figure out that President George W. Bush lives there.

The site's tab says "Welcome to the White House," but a quick scan of the content makes the visitor feel anything but. And once again, all over the site there's a clear preference for minuscule fonts -- do they really want anybody reading their garbage?

Given their own definition of the situation they're passing on to President-elect Obama, I have to think the answer is no:

"With our Nation at war, our homeland targeted by terrorist adversaries, and our economy facing serious challenges, the Administration is committed to establishing and executing a transition plan that minimizes disruption, maintains continuity, and addresses the major changes in government since the 2000 transition..."

Well, dubya, it sounds like you did a great job with your two mandates! You've got an inspiring legacy going there!

I'm thinking I don't want that much continuity maintained. Sorry.

NaBloPoMo oblige

I don't really have the time to post to this blog today, nor to La France Profonde tomorrow. But I will: NaBloPoMo oblige.

As I mentioned over on La France Profonde, I signed up for this blogging extravaganza this month.

For those who don't know about it, NaBloPoMo is a type of blogging "event" to encourage bloggers to post every day for a month. As their site says:

Post every day for a month. That's all you have to do.

I got onto NaBloPoMo last November when some of my blogging buddies were doing it. (Oh, that peer pressure...) And at the time, I was under the impression that November was the one and only National Blog Posting Month.

I remember thinking "November -- what a terrible time to undertake such a project." The days are getting longer, winter energy lack is setting in, and in my case, my work schedule is getting heavier and heavier.

When I went to the site, though, I noticed that you can actually participate any month you want.

What the heck. It was November 1st, and I signed up.

Bear with me.

And with Blogger being so smart and all, why can't they figure out that I'm actually posting this on THURSDAY THE 13th at 6:30-ish AM and not on WEDNESDAY (Pacific Standard Time.)

I got up at 5:45 to make sure to have time to post, so this is counting for my Thursday post, no matter what the date says!

Where do we go from here?

(Click on image to enlarge.)

A friend of mine sent me this comic from a fun-looking "Webcomic" site, xkcd, whose artist is kind enough to share his creations through a Creative Commons License.

It so reflects how I am feeling right now.

What can I do with all the Internet time I spent obsessively reading fivethirtyeight, pollster, and The Huffington Post, just to name a few?

All suggestions are welcome!

Lest we forget...

Of course I am still basking in Obama's victory.

But I hope Americans will not forget the crimes of the past President.