Thanksgiving

sushi
thanksgiving feast
Unlike all of the other holidays to date (even the American ones like Halloween) Thanksgiving this year felt like it didn't really arrive. One look around and this all makes sense of course, but for us it made us feel even farther from home.

So naturally, just the two of us decided to have our own Thanksgiving meal together. We ordered sushi!

(Actually, we had other plans to celebrate later that weekend, but that will be for another post.)

posted by geek @ jeudi, novembre 24, 2005 3 comments

3 Comments:

Anonymous iris @ dimanche, décembre 18, 2005 9:13:00 PM said...  
When are you coming back? We gather for a big family dinner in costumes.

Blogger geek @ samedi, décembre 24, 2005 1:44:00 PM said...  
We'll be back for two weeks at the end of January :)

Anonymous Anonyme @ jeudi, novembre 26, 2009 8:18:00 AM said...  
Lire le blog en entier, pretty good

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Ferrari 275 GTB: Porte Dauphine à Sacre Cœur en 10 min

vroom-vroom
holy crap
Completely insane...

I came across this incredibly terrifying short-film a few days ago. It's amazing that he was able to drive a course through the heart of Paris at 140 MPH running red-lights and dodging obstacles without killing himself or anyone else. Only in August when the whole country is on vacation would he be able to do it. It's like watching a video game.


On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.


It's recently resurfaced on the internet (it's 35mb): find it here, bit torrent, or our good friend Google.

posted by geek @ mardi, novembre 22, 2005 4 comments

4 Comments:

Blogger Jennifer @ mardi, novembre 22, 2005 7:18:00 PM said...  
Oooh how cool! Thank gawd he didn't hit anyone.

Blogger Jennifer @ mercredi, novembre 23, 2005 7:04:00 AM said...  
Ok so I watched it in full and OMG, I think i blinked.. maybe twice. I just needed one of those moving chairs like they have at Great America and BAM! Instant ride!

Anonymous jwz @ lundi, novembre 28, 2005 6:04:00 PM said...  
It's absolutely terrifying, despite looking a lot like a video game. "Red light! Red light! Red light! GARBAGE TRUCK!!!" The only thing it's missing is a woman pushing a baby carriage, and a couple of guys carrying a plate-glass window.

Anonymous iris @ mardi, novembre 29, 2005 5:08:00 AM said...  
That was in...sane.

But hey, I saw actual parts of Paris and I think I would love to come in August (when no one is there!)

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meet my new love:

Boulette d'Avesnes

See his pic here (what a hottie)

Read about him here

posted by bookworm @ jeudi, novembre 17, 2005 0 comments

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book-vending machine

Book-Vending Machine
a book at all hours
Some of you might have read that Boing-Boing article back a few months ago.

Well, these little 24-hour book machines have been popping up all over the place, even inside the métro stations.

posted by bookworm @ lundi, novembre 07, 2005 1 comments

1 Comments:

Anonymous iris @ lundi, novembre 07, 2005 10:51:00 PM said...  
Yay! Literacy!

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Fête de Halloween

Halloween
sculpter la citrouille
We were missing home so we got together some of our friends for a Halloween party. I've heard that Halloween was very popular here a few years ago, but since then it's becoming less and less widespread. The kids though still haven't given up on it, and we even saw a few running around in costumes during the week looking for candy. I guess candy is a good motivator in any country.

The biggest challenge was finding the pumpkins. As you know, most people here that live in the city of Paris don't have cars so the few pumpkins that we saw in the markets were pretty small or cut in slices. Not really suitable for carving, even if they knew of doing such implausible things. They really just make soup and cook with them here.

So after searching for a few weeks, we finally got a tip from a friend back home that found a farm just outside of Paris that was selling pumpkins (big ones even)! So Shanta went one day to go investigate and bring back the pumpkins. We wanted to get enough that everyone at our Halloween party could have some fun carving, so we decided to buy seven.

You can imagine the next challenge was getting seven pumpkins home from a farm pretty much in the middle of no-where to our apartment back in Paris proper. We had called a taxi company ahead of time and planned for her to return by taxi, but that proved to be difficult. After driving (like a crazy taxi driver) for a few blocks the driver got fed-up (the pumpkins were knocking around too much in the trunk), refusing to go any farther and turned around, tossing her and the pumpkins out at the farm again where she started.

Luckily one of the nice farm-workers offered to give Shanta and the pumpkins a ride back to my work, which was on the way as it is in a suburb just outside of Paris. And then the two of us struggled on the train and metro (during rush hour) carrying them back. You can imagine the strange stares we got everywhere we went.

It's funny that we do these crazy things to hold on to a piece of comfort that we know from back home. I don't think we are ready to try this with seven turkeys for Thanksgiving, though.

posted by geek @ mardi, novembre 01, 2005 0 comments

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