race by the printer

Question posed by a friendly older guy waiting for his print job: "Are you Spanish?" Me: "No, American." Him: "Latin American? South American?" Me: "No. My father is Indian, but I was born in the United States." Perhaps I have a Spanish accent in French. Or he's mixing me up with my Colómbian officemate. But I don't think so.

didn't see this coming

My plan to walk half an hour each way tonight to the Fields Institute to print out my boarding pass and return my key became a very bad plan when I sprained my ankle. To be fair, it was never really a good plan.

but only $40 CAD

My mp3 player has a "playlist" button but no playlists. You'd think the software would be cheaper to implement than the hardware.

wish the chair lift had legrests

Skiing on a sprained ankle turns out to be precisely as bad an idea as it sounds -- no more, no less.

still swollen

I sprained my ankle running down stairs to get to a math talk, which I was late to because I was doing math. It's the most righteous injury I've ever had.

can you spell that for me?

Banff: the extra 'f' is for 'fun.'

typical II

I lost my mp3 player today. I looked all over my room, and was resigned to having packed it in my suitcase, when I found it in my jacket, which I was wearing at the time.

typical

I lost my mp3 player the day before yesterday. I looked all over my room, and was resigned to having lost it, when I found it in my hoodie pocket, which I was wearing at the time.

Anachronism

When are airplanes going to be made without No Smoking signs above every seat, or at least without ones that can theoretically turn off? Are airlines hedging against the contingency that one day, smoking on a plane will be legal again, and it would be too much trouble to paint over permanent signs?

New Year's in Lyon

I have a terror of a bad new year's, probably caused by years of having nothing to do in NY, which is pretty pathetic. This year, I had dinner with Javier, Mónica, and Mónica's visiting sister, Ingrid. We then went out to see the town. We had a list of a few places that were free, and we figured that we'd check them out, along with the usual bars. We did not anticipate how crazy the French are. I mean, really fucking crazy. In certain things, like this, France resembles less a Western country, and more India. The year I spent in India, my whole family came for the holidays, including New Year's. Shantha and I talked of going out for New Year's, but were informed that it wasn't advisable -- you had to go to very upscale clubs and spend tons of money to get in, and there were gangs of young men marauding. Instead, we watched Enemy of the State, possibly for the second time. Last night was better than that, but there were definite echoes.

When we went out, Javier and I contented ourselves by badmouthing the French and the relative emptiness of the streets -- fewer people out at 10:30 than you'd find on an average Friday night. Our first stop was a bar that was listed as free, with a "surprise theme." The "surprise theme" turned out to be "costume party," and they were going to open at 11. So we continued on, to Vieux Lyon. It was there that I realized that our jokes were no laughing matter. Our two reliable bars were both closed. Closed for New Year's Eve. One other place that was listed as free seemed to have a 10 euro cover, and so we headed back to the "costume party." On our way, we hit the second disagreeable aspect of French New Year's. Two guys, late teens to my eyes, were going up to women and walking with them, putting their arms around them, going for kisses, etc. Really ugly. At one point they bumped a guy, but their main object was women. Javier and I weren't sure what to do. In this, as in many other things, not speaking French makes things tricky, we agreed.

Arriving at the costume party, we found it not very crowded at all, and with nobody in costume but for the waiters. Which you might expect -- costume party is not really an appropriate "surprise theme," since it requires a modicum of preparation. Our current theory is that they were planning to close for New Year's Eve, like all the other bars, and then, since they are part of a chain of clubs, the other members of which were open for New Year's Eve, had to throw something together in a hurry. But we were grateful -- don't get me wrong. We settled in and debated why French mojitos are so awful. I got nervous, though, as midnight approached and there seemed to be no signs of any kind of unified action. Javier's worst instincts were justified -- at midnight, there was a kind of delayed, half-hearted cheer, sans preparatory countdown or any other such ritual. Truly pathetic.

We finished our drinks and headed out of the bar, to find more exciting places to go, but of course now everything was full. There were also guys out in force harassing women. We finally got a measure of satisfaction when we saw three woman who were surrounded by these guys who would just not let them alone. After watching for a bit, Mónica marched over and grabbed the girls, dragging them away, and we surrounded them, keeping the guys out. Interestingly, what we noticed is that these guys have no interest in fighting with other guys -- just in harassing groups of girls by themselves. In that, they seem to be a bit different from drunk American men, who seem to be as interested in fighting as "loving." An unfortunate racial note is that most of these men seemed, to my untrained eye, to be of Arab descent. I could very easily be wrong about this, though, since it seems to me like there's a racial continuum in France -- I see people who look clearly French European (to me), and people who look clearly Arab, and people at all points in between. Since there can't have been so much intermarriage, I guess this means I'm incompetent.

We ended up on a boat, which was nice enough, dancing in an incredibly packed space to Senegalese musicians. La Passagere came through again.

unpleasant topic

Because of this article about MySpace's handing over 90,000 registered sex offenders' names to the states, I started to wonder how many cases of sexual abuse of children had actually started on the internet. Nobody seems to know. This report on "Protecting Children from Online Sexual Exploitation" has lots of scary passages. It has figures on the percentage of children who say that "they have been invited to a face-to-face meeting with a stranger," but no numbers on the number of children abused by people they met online. So I wonder. My parents told me what to do if a stranger tried to talk to me (take the candy -- never turn down free food) on the street, and they worried about it, but that wasn't a reason for me not to go outside by myself after the age of 10 or so (getting hit by cars was the reason). So why should the risk of being talked to by strangers be so bad, unless people actually end up meeting them? But there are no numbers. Is this going to be like the day care scandals of the 80's and 90's?

complete protein

Sometimes, when I have Asian food, I consume it with large quantities of rice over a period of days. During that time, my ratio of dish-to-rice will vary dramatically, sometimes getting to the point where I'm just eating rice in a bowl that once held the main dish, and kind of enjoying it. Anyone else have that happen? Anyone?

no wonder detroit is going downhill

From the ads on bus shelters, it appears that Canada thinks that Michigan is literally just a big dump. Which is apparently not so far off the mark in terms of garbage exports, but still, it's not cool to have a picture of an old armchair with the caption, "Don't let it end up in Michigan."

my home and native land

I watched the Super Bowl on Canadian TV, despite the lack of ads. When I wanted to watch the amazing interception return again, I found that the feed it was taken from was CTV, so I get to be consistent. I wonder if Canadian channels aren't as big on piracy prevention.