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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🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 6)
Still fun! Just didn’t stand out as much as some of the other series.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 5)
I really enjoy metahumor, and Finnemore’s talent for it is on full display in this series—even to the extent of calling himself out on overreliance on it. Doesn’t bother me, though!
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 4)
I’ve been tempering my praise of this series through this relisten, but the time travel sketch in the finale is excellent, and there are other top notch examples of Finnemore’s humor scattered throughout.
What’s more, the recordings of this series on the Internet Archive are actual recordings and have bits of continuity announcer on either end of the episodes. I just love that, for reasons I can’t fully articulate, and I wish all the series were like that.
merci Karl, merci Melissa
Lundi matin, une amie et une collègue à moi est décédee bien trop jeune suite à un cancer. Ce n’est que quelques jours plus tard que j’ai appris l’existence du nouvel album des Cowboys fringants, un album posthume de Karl Tremblay qui lui aussi est décédée bien trop jeune suite à un cancer.
Je suis content de pouvoir entendre Karl chanter sa propre mort pendant que je pense à la disparition de mon amie Melissa.
🔗 linkblog: How do you build without over polluting? That's the challenge of new Catan board game'
Really interested in this game.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 3)
I miss the traditional “storyteller” sketches at the end of every episode, but I know they’ll be back in future series, and there were plenty of laugh out loud moments in this one.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 2)
This show continues to be fun, even if it wears off its genius on the third run. Some parts still make me laugh out loud, though!
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (Series 1)
This is the third time I’ve listened to this series in the past five years, and I wonder if I’m rating it a bit low because of that. At any rate, I couldn’t help myself from trying it again after finishing Cabin Pressure. I might like this show even better—Finnemore has more freedom to show off his gift for words and his intricate plotting and callbacks.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Cabin Pressure (Series 4 and Finale)
It’s been about a decade since I was introduced to this show, and I’m very glad to finally have experienced the whole thing. The last season was fun, the finale was a nice wrap-up, and I really do think the whole thing is a masterpiece.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Cabin Pressure (Series 3)
This series feels like Finnemore kicking things up a notch. There are some interesting new character arcs in play, and it’s fun to see Finnemore playing with the fact that one of his actors is now taking on the role of Sherlock Holmes. He’s also clearly having fun subverting some audience expectations with stories and characters.
I hadn’t heard this series before, and it was fun to come back to it!
yet more on Independence temple theology
On the way home from work today, I listened to the latest episode of the Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land podcast, recapping the recent LDS General Conference. The two guests—Emily Jensen and Patrick Mason—were both great, and even though I have no interest in watching General Conferences myself, I’m really grateful for the Tribune’s coverage.
Patrick Mason made a comment about possible Latter-day Saint temple theologies that struck me as interesting in the context of what I’ve been writing recently about Community of Christ Independence Temple theology, and I wanted to capture it here.
some praise for Dumbing of Age
I’ve been a big fan of webcomics since I first discovered they existed in the early-to-mid 2000s. I’ve been following Order of the Stick for about twenty years(!), I’ve read the entire web run of Dr. McNinja, xkcd makes frequent appearance in my lecture slides, and there are other comics that I’ve jumped in and out of over time. It hasn’t been that long since I started following Dork Tower again, but last Fall, it did a crossover with Dumbing of Age, which I mentally noted I should check out sometime.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Cabin Pressure (Series 2)
My journey through Cabin Pressure continues! I can’t remember how much of this series I’ve previously listened to—definitely not the Christmas special, but probably the rest of it. At any rate, it continues to have exceptional writing and lovely acting. Radio is underrated, and John Finnemore is perhaps the best example of that.
🔗 linkblog: The Story Behind The XZ Backdoor Is Way More Fascinating Than It Should Be'
I’ve been meaning to read more about this story, so I’m grateful for Masnick’s summary here.
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Cabin Pressure (Series 1)
It’s been ages since I’ve listened to this, though I’ve listened to some of John Finnemore’s other work in the meantime. It’s such an excellent show: brilliantly written, well acted, and a real joy to listen to.
I’m confident I haven’t listened to all four series, though I can’t remember which bits I’ve missed. Looking forward to finding out!
🎙️ radioblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Primary Phase)
I first picked this up through an Audible deal several years ago, with the idea that it would help with the move from Michigan to Kentucky (I can’t remember if I wasn’t yet anti-Audible or if it was just a good deal that I couldn’t pass up with the whole family living off my grad school fellowship). Anyway, the U-Haul didn’t have an aux jack or Bluetooth, so my brother-in-law and I cranked my phone as loud as it would go and tried to make out the jokes over the highway noise.
Arthur Dent, the bulldozer, and generative AI
This week, I decided to see if it was worth relistening to the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series. I’m having trouble committing to things to listen to right now, and I’ve found in recent years that I don’t enjoy H2G2 as much as I once did, so it’s hard to say whether I’ll follow through with this. However, I did get far enough in to the first episode to enjoy Arthur Dent’s confrontation with Mr.
🔗 linkblog: New Catan game has overpopulation, pollution, fossil fuels, and clean energy'
Interesting! I haven’t been into Catan for years, but this could bring me back.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Borgen (Season 1)
I struggled with what to rate this series. It’s great in a lot of ways, and it’s fun to watch a political show that is based in a country I don’t know very well (plus, explaining parliamentary coalitions and other election systems to my spouse made me feel smart).
That said, it’s also not as tight and polished as something like The West Wing, and while it might not be fair to compare the two, it’s inevitable.
🔗 linkblog: After years of trying, the U.S. government may finally mandate safer table saws'
I have a scar from a nearly 20-year old table saw injury, and that made this fascinating to read.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Nancy Wins at Friendship: A Nancy Comic Collection, by Olivia Jaimes
This time, kiddo checked this out on hoopla, and I decided to read it, too. As I’ve said before, gag-a-day comics aren’t really my thing, and as delightful as Nancy is, I still can’t say that it’s my favorite.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Dune Part Two
The Dune universe is super weird, and I don’t know that it’s my favorite, but this is a really well done movie.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for Dune
This movie looks great and was a lot of fun to watch. I have very vague movies of the book but liked this a lot better.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow
This is a fun book in many ways—Doctorow is great at super weird science fiction. However, there’s just not enough in there of what else makes Doctorow good. I’m glad I reread this, but it’s probably my least favorite of all the Doctorow novels I’ve tackled.
🔗 linkblog: Une Miss Allemagne âgée de 39 ans et originaire d'Iran : un pied de nez aux racistes et misogynes'
On vit dans un monde pourri, mais quelle jolie façon d’apprendre la phrase « pied de nez ».
un souvenir ludique de Grenoble
Il existe à Grenoble un magasin des jeux nommé « Les contrées du jeu ». Il y a seize ans cette semaine, alors que j’habitais à Grenoble, j’y suis entré m’offrir le jeu « Wings of War ». J’ai toujours une carte de fidélité comme preuve de cette transaction :
Il n’y a rien de profond dans ce souvenir, mais j’ai beaucoup de petits souvenirs du temps que j’ai passé en France et en Suisse qui semble avoir une grande importance malgré cette manque de profondeur.
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for The Marvels
I came for the Ms. Marvel, and this delivered! She’s a great character, and it was fun to see her in this movie. There were also lots of weird-but-fun bits that I enjoyed.
There are plenty of things about the movie that didn’t work for me, but it’s no less dumb than most Marvel movies, and I have no interest in feeding what I understand is a bunch of hating on the movie.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Queen & Country Definitive Edition, Volume 04, by Greg Rucka
I recently came into some Amazon gift cards, so I bought this volume to complete my collection of Queen & Country. I think this is the first time I’ve owned an entire comics series? At least, one of this length.
I’m glad I own the whole series, but like the show its based on, I feel like it gets less interesting the longer it goes on. It’s fun to get some peeks into the backstories of the characters who come up in the first two volumes, but it’s just not as interesting as the early stories.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤 for Doctor Who (2023 specials)
I got really into Doctor Who for the better part of a decade, I have really fond memories of the many seasons I watched, and there are episodes I would gladly return to. I petered out after Jodie Whitaker’s first season, though, and watching these specials showed me I’m still not ready to come back. I don’t know what has changed, but I feel less patient with the show’s goofiness. If it’s going to keep coming to Disney+, I’ll try to keep an eye on it, but hard to say if I’ll ever really reinvest.
un helvétisme que je ne savais pas connaître
Mon beau-frère s’intéresse beaucoup aux langues. Moi aussi, d’une manière générale, mais lui, il se fonce dans une langue quelconque quand l’envie lui prend. C’est donc comme ça qu’il sait lire un peu en français, en espagnol, en turc, en néerlandais, et ainsi de suite. Si je n’ai pas la largeur de ses compétences linguistiques, j’ai quand-même une meilleure connaissance du français que lui, et il lui arrive donc de me poser des questions sur le français.