I like French, comics, books, podcasts, (board and roleplaying) games, biking, and trains. I try to stay organized and in good (physical and mental) shape.

Moi, j'aime le français, les BD, les livres, les podcasts, les jeux (de plateau et de rôle), le cyclisme, et les trains. Je fais de mon mieux de rester organisé et en forme (physiquement et mentalement).

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It is flannel shirt, heavy gloves, and balaclava season for this bike commuter, and I couldn’t be happier.




Thanks largely to traveling, I powered through my first Franco-Ontarian novel over the past few days, and it was delightful. Some of the best Francophone books I’ve read have been purchased used for about $5, so hooray for used bookstores.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Bugs Bunny's Official D&D Character Sheet Is A 15th-level Illusionist | Boing Boing'



A fun article that reminds me of my plans to create a Cleric of Trickery based on George Smiley for an upcoming 5e campaign.




Why did no one tell me there’s a new Stromae single???


🔗 linkblog: just read '42 years later, how 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' has endured : NPR'



Posting this for hoopy froods to read.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'A squeaky glove compartment accidentally sounds like light jazz | Boing Boing'



This delights me to no end.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Shang Chi Director: American Born Chinese Series for Disney+'



Tentatively excited! Such a great comic—they’d better do it justice.




Two years ago today, I visited a mental health therapist for the first time and immediately wished I’d done it a decade earlier. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself, and I can’t recommend the experience enough.




Here I am, refreshing local news to get sports updates—not because I care about the game, but because I want to know when my neighbors will stop yelling at their TV.




On one hand, I am worried about the platformed internet. On the other, I realize that the phenomenon of “in cab” train videos probably wouldn’t exist without a centralized, problematic behemoth like YouTube, and that would make me sad.




It amazes me how many people there are who think it’s acceptable to ride a scooter or a skateboard the wrong way down a bike lane.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'The Melting Face Emoji Has Already Won Us Over - The New York Times'



I immediately connected with this emoji the first time I saw it. Also, I remember writing a paper in high school arguing that emoticons were legitimate “language.” The paper was horrible, but I still believe in that central thesis, and I think emojis are vindicating it.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'The train that shrunk France… and Europe | Ars Technica'



TGV forever


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Y: The Last Man's Collapsing Infrastructure Scariest Part'



So far, I’ve only watched the pilot and am not sure how far I’ll make it in the series, but this article reinforces my belief that 2021 can do more with the premise of the series than 2002 did.




Currently reading Hervé Le Tellier’s « L’Anomalie », and it is so dang good. An English translation (The Anomaly) is coming later this year, so I’m going to go ahead and recommend this book to everyone.




This weekend, after over a decade of off-and-on attempts, I finally read the entire run of Y: The Last Man. Turns out the upcoming Hulu adaptation was a good motivator.




I was made aware of an unexpected generational divide today when one of my first-year students announced that as far as he was concerned, there were only six Star Wars movies.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'This chainless drive system could revolutionize e-bike designs  - The Verge'



Keeping an eye on this! E-bikes are exciting.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Anne Hidalgo demande aux cyclistes de ne pas dépasser les automobilistes pour éviter de les humilier'



Passing a car through an intersection or keeping up with it in a roundabout is one of the greatest pleasures of commuting by e-bike.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'There's merch for long-time nuclear waste warning messages | Boing Boing'



This article is what got me to read the Wikipedia article in the last post, and now I want some of this merch (especially the “in this house we believe” one).


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Long-time nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia'



This is an unexpectedly fascinating Wikipedia article.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Un manuel transfrontalier pour raconter l'histoire du Grand Genève - rts.ch - Genève'



Interesting story about efforts to write a story about the greater Geneva area that transcends national borders—and the project’s difficulty of transcending national borders. Reminds me of the time I was driving through Meyrin, took a wrong turn, and accidentally wound up in France—or when I would get from one side of the canton to the other during the awful rush hour by leaving Switzerland and taking a French autoroute around.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Beauty Surge, a new short story by Laura Maylene Walter.'



Very interesting speculative fiction.




If there is a better way to end the first week of classes than Ted Lasso and Marcel Pagnol, I don’t know what it is.




A great way to insert a bit of hesitation into your next viewing of Firefly is to think about how among all the other Western tropes in there, Mal and Zoe are essentially coded as former Confederate soldiers.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'Ariol, vingt ans d'un héros de la bande dessinée jeunesse'



Great conversation in this podcast about the danger of dismissing comics as simply “easier to read.” I appreciated the discussion of the literacies needed to understand a comic.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History - The New York Times'



Adding this to my to-read list.


🔗 linkblog: just read 'trains are people'



I have been enjoying these posts from a Micro.blog user documenting his cross-countey Amtrak travels.




I am up late on the busy week before the semester starts trying to write an Alfred workflow for generating Hugo blog posts and a Siri Shortcut to support a new approach to linkblogging, so…


🔗 linkblog: just read 'How Teenagers Are Rediscovering An Old Game About Authoritarianism | by Clive Thompson | Aug, 2021 | OneZero'



Papers Please is one of the finest and most moving games I have ever played. It deserves all the attention and all the praise.




I know it’s an obvious choice, but including « Gentleman cambrioleur » in the soundtrack for the Lupin finale was just perfect.




I am offering the name Marky and the Lafayettes to any group that can make good use of it.




Having poutine with goetta, which is like the food at the center of the Venn diagram of my life.




Microsoft Word spellcheck (set to U.S. English) is offering the English “television” and the Spanish “televisión” as corrections to the French “télévision” in my manuscript. Great example of algorithmic values.




It never ceases to amaze me how much more helpful a screenshot is than just a text description when trying to solve a tech issue.




It really bothers me when browsers hide anything after the domain name in a URL. Sure, it’s cleaner, but there’s so much important information (and low-key surveillance) embedded in a URL, and I want to know about all of it.