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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🔗 linkblog: mes pensées sur 'Lyon-Barcelone avec la RENFE. ça vaut quoi ? - YouTube'
- kudos:Il y a peu d’occasions de voyager en train chez moi, et je dois donc profiter de ce genre de vidéo pour vivre un peu l’expérience. Comme la SNCF et les CFF me manquent ! Je n’ai pas d’expérience avec la RENFE, mais je suis impressionné par ce que je vois ici. lien pour “Lyon-Barcelone avec la RENFE. ça vaut quoi ? - YouTube”
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Si vous voyez ce message, j’aurai réussi à refaire mes raccourcis pour poster depuis mon portable.
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Something somewhere has borked, and now my Siri Shortcuts for near-effortless posting to Hugo from my phone are producing dumpster fire text files filled with URL encoded characters instead of the real things. Gonna have to fix this, but not looking forward to it.
is the Mistborn Adventure Game the ethics TTRPG I've been looking for?
- kudos:Twice this month already I’ve written about whether and how to try to play according to one’s values in games. Both posts have been inspired by Lotus Dimension, a TTRPG that explicitly encourages finding nonviolent solutions to in-game problems. In my first post, I expressed interest in the game because it “allow[s] and encourage[s] other paths to vidtory.” In my second, though, I wondered whether that were good enough: “Is ethical behavior in a game because the system of the game rewards that behavior truly ethical?
🔗linkblog: my thoughts on 'Why Do Video Games Want Me to Be a War Criminal: WIRED'
- kudos:Some interesting writing on a topic I’ve posted about a few times recently. link to ‘Why Do Video Games Want Me to Be a War Criminal
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If some tea (well, tisane) purist wants to tell me that smores tea shouldn’t be a thing, I don’t really have a great counterargument, but it’s delicious, so I have no plans to stop drinking it.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Fables: The Deluxe Edition (Book Two), by Bill Willingham
- kudos:Reading a second volume hasn’t changed my impression of this series: It’s an interesting premise, but there’s not really enough substance to it to be worth my attention. There’s more out there, but I don’t feel any completionist tendencies about it.
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I have seen some unwieldly proofing software in my short career, but the one they’re having me use for my newest acceptance really takes the cake. I’d rather (re)learn InDesign and fix it there.
more unfinished thoughts on games and living one's values
- kudos:A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about buying a copy of Lotus Dimension, an indie TTRPG that encourages players to find non-violent solutions to problems. I haven’t made my way through the whole rulebook yet—I’ve been busy, and frankly, it’s a bit dense. It’s a bit crunchier than I would have expected from an indie TTRPG focused on an interesting premise, and I’m frankly not sure if it will live up to my initial excitement.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Fables: The Deluxe Edition (Book One), by Bill Willingham
- kudos:As promised, I’m reading this in honor of Bill Willingham’s badass public domain antics earlier this week. I think the concept of his series is fun, but I’m not sure if I think it’s as great as its reputation. The idea of fairy tale characters living in the real world is full of potential, but the story seems pretty superficial. Will probably keep reading, though.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Pluralistic: Bill Willingham puts his graphic novel series “Fables” into the public domain (15 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
- kudos:Appreciate Doctorow’s detailed (and expert) perspectve here. link to ‘Pluralistic: Bill Willingham puts his graphic novel series “Fables” into the public domain (15 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow’
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I often gripe that Markdown doesn’t have as much functionality as HTML, but I just had to hand-convert a short .md document to .html, and it emphasized just how much easier it is to write Markdown on the fly.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'WordPress blogs can now be followed in the fediverse, including Mastodon | TechCrunch'
- kudos:So neat! Gotta figure this out for my Hugo site. link to ‘WordPress blogs can now be followed in the fediverse, including Mastodon | TechCrunch’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Willingham Sends Fables Into the Public Domain'
- kudos:Such a cool thing to do. I haven’t read Fables in ages, but may revisit it out of respect for Willingham. link to ‘Willingham Sends Fables Into the Public Domain’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Terraforming Mars team defends AI use as Kickstarter hits $1.3 million - Polygon'
- kudos:This is an interesting interview. I don’t think I’m sold on the defense—if anyone can afford to pay artists, the team behind Terraforming Mars can—but I do see how there’s more nuance here than my gut reaction to the headline. Still not pleased, though. link to ‘Terraforming Mars team defends AI use as Kickstarter hits $1.3 million - Polygon’
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I was already enjoying the actual play podcast Worlds Beyond Number, but once the phrase “pro bono rules lawyer” was uttered, I knew I was totally in.
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I inherited from my mom a heart rate that just trends low—even lower if I’m exercising regularly. The doctors I’ve talked to aren’t concerned about it, but every morning, my Apple Watch freaks out, convinced that I almost died in my sleep.
🔗 linkblog: mes pensées sur 'Genève inaugure sa première piste cyclable solaire - rts.ch - Genève'
- kudos:Quelle belle idée ! lien à ‘Genève inaugure sa première piste cyclable solaire - rts.ch - Genève’
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 pour Le Petit Nicolas
- kudos:Je dis pas que c’est un chef d’oeuvre, mais ça faisait plusieurs années depuis la dernière fois que j’ai regardé ce film, et on s’est bien amusé, ma fille et moi. Ça donne envie de lire les livres.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Paris Turns ‘Little Belt’ of Train Tracks Into Green Spaces - The New York Times'
- kudos:Faudra que je visite la petite ceinture un jour ! link to ‘Paris Turns ‘Little Belt’ of Train Tracks Into Green Spaces - The New York Times’
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Il y a beaucoup de sagesse dans la chanson « Octobre » des Cowboys fringants. Faut que je l’écoute plus souvent.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for A Legacy of Spies, by John Le Carré
- kudos:I didn’t love this when I first read it after its publication, but it has grown on me since! It’s fanservice, franchise-oriented writing at its best, and even if some of its details strain plausibility (just how old is Smiley?), it’s fun to see behind the scenes of Leamas’s narrative in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and to weld that narrative to characters we know from the Karla trilogy.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character - Polygon'
- kudos:Neat! This could make a good reading for my class on games and meaning. link to ‘Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character - Polygon’
unfinished thoughts on games and living one's values
- kudos:After several years of having it vaguely on my wish list (ever since Cory Doctorow’s post about it on Boing Boing), I finally picked up a copy of Lotus Dimension, a tabletop roleplaying game with an intentional emphasis on resolving problems through non-violence. I’ve been reading a lot on non-violence lately, and even though I still have a lot to learn, I’ve been asking recently whether a commitment to non-violence in real life would be incompatible with enjoying games where violence is one of the key ways to achieve victory.
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I’m torn between how much I dislike the idea of a connected car and how easy it just now made it to get a question answered at the local dealer. I guess we wouldn’t agree to all this surveillance if it wasn’t actually useful sometimes.
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Je trouve que Paris est surreprésenté dans les mondes francophones et francophiles, mais je me lasse pas quand-même des vidéos sur son métro.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Good Omens 2
- kudos:I really enjoyed the original adaptation of the book (which I’m trying to read now), and the characters and many of the jokes were just as delightful in the second series. As a whole, though, the series felt like it didn’t have much of a plot—or, when it did, that it was moving furniture for a third series.
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Je regrette ne pas avoir réussi (pour le moment) à enseigner le français à ma fille, mais ça reste utile pour parler en secret avec mon épouse.
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I have loved They Might Be Giants longer than any other artist, and I still feel like I constantly overlook how good they are.
caffeine
- kudos:I grew up not drinking tea or coffee because of religious convictions—a habit that ultimately stayed with me longer than those convictions! Over the course of the two years I spent as a Mormon missionary, I taught a number of people that (among other things) they should adopt the same convictions and also give up tea and coffee. One of the most interesting lessons on this subject I had was with Jonathan.
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I was excited last weekend to buy two new teas to add to my growing collection, but these might be the first duds I’ve picked out since starting with tea in May. I know rooibos is a red flag for me from years of herbal teas, so I don’t know how I missed it in the one ingredient list.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Smiley's People, by John Le Carré
- kudos:I skipped The Honourable Schoolboy for this Le Carré adventure because I think it’s the weakest of the Karla trilogy, and because the BBC Radio 4 adaptation made me dread what kind of stereotypical Chinese accents an audiobook reader might adopt. I couldn’t possibly skip Smiley’s People, though; I think I might like it even more than Tinker Tailor, though you can’t appreciate this without having read that. It has the best of Le Carré—copious but not irrelevant detail, moral ambiguity without needless grittiness, and a sense of inevitability that still keeps you hooked on the story.
des crêpes proustiennes
- kudos:Ma fille aime bien les crêpes au Nutella, et ça fait un petit moment qu’on n’en a pas fait. Comme elle est malade depuis quelques jours, c’était le bon moment ce soir de reprendre cette petite tradition. En mangeant ma première crêpe, j’ai été rempli d’un tas de souvenirs, comme si c’était la madeleine de Proust. Je n’ai pas envie d’écrire sept tomes sur le sujet, mais pourquoi pas un petit blog ?
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- kudos:I don’t know (or care) much about D&D worldbuilding, and I’m not going to let Hasbro off the hook for their OGL nonsense, but this was a fun movie, and I’m glad I finally got to watch it.
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J’aime bien la ville où j’habite, mais c’est fort dommage qu’il n’y ait pas d’Alliance Française ici.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Chroniques de jeunesse, by Guy Delisle
- kudos:J’ai déjà lu cet album cette année, mais comme j’étais en mode « Guy Delisle », j’ai décidé de le relire. C’est bien différent que ses albums de l’étranger, mais c’est tout aussi émouvant. J’aime beaucoup.