News You Can Bruise

Yesterday: I assembled a computer desk, and Adam came over.

Adam Parrish's suggestion, that to get my French back I buy a French phrasebook and simply read it cover to cover, has been surprisingly helpful. However, the phrasebook is full of ridiculous phrases like "Where are the most beautiful landscapes?", which implies that Francophones have some device that measures the beauty of a landscape, and that they are keeping this information secret from the rest of us. Also, the phrasebook assumes you're going to France, and contains precious little information about Belgium other than an injunction to check out the fine linens and crystal, which I have no intention of doing.

Finally, the vowels in my phrasebook have all sorts of weird lines on top of them, like sprigs of linguistic parsley. So Kevin and I are starting our own phrasebook, dealing with situations likely to occur specifically in Belgium, and with no funny accents on the characters to confuse things. The English phrases are Kevin's; the French, my half-assed translations.

"Give me the large waffle with herring."
"Je voudrais du grand gaufre des harengs."

"Please place the kippers under my shoe in the morning."
"S'il vous plait, mettez les kippers sous mes chausseures le matin."

"You heard me; you know where the damn kippers go."
"Tu m'entende; tu sait ou vont les kippers!"

"Get out of my way; I'm heading to France."
"Allez! Allez! Je vais au France!"

Eating at "Fondue Fred" in Berkeley, with Sumana, Adam, and friends. The fondue is pretty good. Above Fondue Fred in this little shopping center is a little cafe that has hung up a New Zealand flag and serves Kiwi Pub Pies (today's special: curried vegetable). There are antique electric mixers all over the cafe; Joe, are there mixers in New Zealand pubs or is this a quirk of the cafe owner?

I have no way of knowing, but I think this is the first time a NYCB entry has inspired someone else to write software. Adam Parrish read my review of La Grande Bouffe, and had this to say:

It is possible... that the recent trend in congress [nb. he means this] will extend from fries and toast to film (France's other great export to the States); in which case, you should get on the bandwagon early and switch your "French film" references to "Freedom film" references. To facilitate this, I wasted the following time:

http://adamparrish.warped.com/cgi/french-to-freedom.pl

(I suggest trying it with the following URL: http://www.lambweston.com/company.asp?navid=29&chain=7,29 ... tee hee)

I think this proves that the marketplace of ideas has disintermediated our elected officials, whom we used to pay to think up this sort of picayune gesture of international chumship or saber-rattling. Perhaps someone should tell them... but they're having so much fun!

Coming soon: this.

Happy birthday to Susanna! And Adam! Susanna and Adam are exactly the same age!

Movie Madness! Last night I went with Sumana and Adam to the Pacific Film Archive see Some Like It Hot, which wowed me. I've heard it called the best comedy of all time, and I thought that was hyperbole, but I now think it has a shot at that distinction. Very funny, and racy without being very dirty. It also didn't suffer from the bane of modern comedies, the minutes of tiresome non-funny exposition. The exposition was funny! Long have I waited for such a movie! (Not that long.)

I say "Madness" because the movie-watching is not yet over. Tonight Sumana and I will be watching The Seven Samurai.

Adam Parrish points out that you probably could use whales in spam if you wanted to.