I always tell my students that you can learn best by just diving in and tinkering, but it blows my mind that I was just able to make some SVG icons do what I wanted by making educated guesses about how their code worked.

I always found the Inhumans stuff the least interesting part of Ms. Marvel comics, so I’m digging the reimagined parts of the TV show.

Comme je reprends la course à pied, j’augmente aussi le nombre de podcasts que j’écoute; il y a des podcasts fancophones à ne pas rater ?

Après presque deux ans de pause, je reprends la course à pied. Mon dos va mieux, j’ai de nouvelles chaussures, et je suis bien impatient de recommencer cette habitude.

Whenever I book travel for work, I pull up the Amtrak website to see if it would be in any way practical to add a rail component to the trip to replace flying (or driving, but it’s rare that I drive for work travel). Given the state of American rail, this is most often an exercise in disappointment. My only success story in four years at this job was when I attended a conference in Bordeaux; I flew into Paris and then took a low-cost OuiGo TGV for my trips between Paris and Bordeaux.

Shortly after last week’s mostly-successful experiment with Hypothesis, I noticed Chris Aldrich posting to Micro.blog about the software and started up a conversation. I’d followed Chris a few weeks before in trying to get more into Micro.blog (perhaps my favorite indie social media platform out there, though I’m also enjoying getting into Mastodon) by following academia and academia-adjacent folks, and was pleased to see an area of common interest. It wasn’t until a separate conversation on Mastodon this morning that I remembered that my Hypothesis setup was dependent on my manually checking annotations on my website.

Francophones, quelle est votre traduction préférée du mot « tag » dans un contexte technologique ? J’ai des applis qui disent « étiquette » et d’autres qui disent « mot-clé ».

The more I work with WordPress site builders, the more they annoy me.

A few months ago, during a weekend where my family was out of town, I binge watched both seasons of « Au service de la France », a hilarious spy comedy available on Netflix. One of the running gags of the series is the (fictional) French secret service’s obsession with bureaucracy. So, for example, when the service suspects a mole in its midst, one of the responses is to make sure that every piece of paperwork is signed multiple times before being stamped twice.

As I’ve been working on updating this website and revamping my web presence over the course of the summer, one of the items on my to-do list has been to add a commenting feature to the website. I love Hugo, but the absence of any in-built commenting feature is definitely a downside. I’ve looked over various Hugo-compatible commenting systems, but I honestly don’t know how much commenting activity I’ll see, and I’ve been hesitant to pay a third-party platform to do all of this for me.

I remember the first Floppotron, and 3.0 continues to be delightful. I may have to show this in class next year. link to ‘This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold - The Verge’

I’ve been trying to figure out for weeks how to best add commenting to my Hugo static site, and it just hit me that I could embed Hypothesis and use that as a social layer. Very excited about this idea.

J’ai découvert un podcast sur le jeu de rôle en mileu Star Wars (que j’aime beaucoup) qui est en français canadien (dont j’essaie d’améliorer ma compréhension). Ça tombe bien !

Very excited for this show. I hadn’t been all that concerned about the changing of Kamala’s powers, but this article brought up some good points about how that changes some of the messaging behind the character. link to ‘Ms. Marvel review: Kamala Khan’s new series feels like the MCU’s future - The Verge’

Ce weekend, j’ai regardé une émission sur la ligne ferroviaire Lausanne-Échallens-Bercher qui m’a beaucoup plu: Quand j’ai vécu à Renens pendant quelques mois, c’était toujours un plaisir de voir passer une rame du LEB en me promenant sur l’Avenue d’Échallens. Je n’ai jamais eu l’occasion de voyager sur cette ligne, mais j’ai fort envie de retourner dans le Vaud pour l’essayer. Regarder des vidéos comme celle-ci (ou bien des vidéos « en cabine » qui montre les gares différentes ainsi que le paysage vaudois) me donne une nostalgie profonde pour le temps que j’ai passé tout près du LEB.

I hope it will be the last. End it while it’s still good. link to ‘Ted Lasso season 3 might be the show’s final one - The Verge’

Just this weekend, I was trying to figure out if I could do this to improve some video quality. Neat! link to ‘You’ll soon be able to use an iPhone as a Mac webcam - The Verge’

I don’t know how many folks are subscribed to this blog via RSS, but if you are, chances are that you subscribed out of an interest in my professional writing. I’m making some big changes to the blog in part to give me the freedom to start writing on some other topics as well. You’ve probably seen some of these posts already, but I want to make it clear that it’s going to continue.

There’s a SomaFM internet radio station that plays NASA recordings of Apollo missions over calm electronic music. I don’t listen to it often, but I love it when I do.

I’m interested in this argument about Star Wars feeling like a TTRPG campaign setting. Throughout much of middle and high school, I played the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars TTRPG, and that made even the prequel movies beloved because they became a setting to explore rather than movies to be unsatisfied with. link to ‘‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ Is a Mashup of the Things That Make Up Star Wars’

Il y a plusieurs années, un ami m’a prévenu qu’il y a tant de jeux de mots dans les albums Astérix qu’un Américain ne les comprendraient jamais pleinement. Les chansons Stromae me donnent maintenant la même impression.

Woke up to a They Might Be Giants song stuck in my head, which I choose to interpret as a good sign.

Not really interested in the new Stranger Things, but it does make me want to get serious about a Tales from the Loop campaign (surtout avec le supplément « La France aux années 80»)

Very happy to learn that the whole run of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is now available through my library. I am several years behind and eager to catch up.

Recently bought a used ABBA greatest hits CD for next to nothing, which has led to a comically difficult effort to get access to an optical drive so that I can actually listen to the music.

Il y a un an, j’ai regardé ma première Eurovision, Je l’ai ratée cette année (conflit avec un anniversaire en famille), mais j’espère y retourner en 2023.

Il y a trop peu de monde qui aime les podcasts et apprécie aussi RSS pour d’autres fins.

Je suis impressionné par le nombre de BD francophones disponible aux bibliothèques du Kentucky, mais c’est quand-même hyper decevant de lire une BD francophone en traduction.

Since April, I’ve gotten sucked into the Slow Horses British spy series after really enjoying the Apple TV+ adaptation. I’ve been powering through all the full-length novels and am now reading 2021’s Slough House, which features a character who’s survived a bullet wound to the head. Her description stood out to me for one particular detail, though: Her hair was different. Maybe that’s what death does to you. I twas still mostly red but now punkishly short, with a white stripe across her left temple where the bullet had passed…

I’ve been a big fan of audio-only media for a big chunk of my life. I grew up listening to NPR radio shows like Car Talk and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me on Saturdays while my dad drove us around to do errands. TV wasn’t allowed in my family on Sundays, but the NPR Sunday Puzzle was—depending on what time church was that year, we’d listen to it on our way to Sunday meetings.

Voyage pour le boulot qui s’approche, et j’essaie donc de proposer un trajet mi-avion, mi-train. C’est vraiment le trajet le plus efficace, mais comme j’habite dans un pays ferroviphobe, il me faudra de la chance…

So excited! This has been a great show, and this season seems topical. link to ‘For All Mankind sets its alternate timeline sights on Mars in S3 trailer | Ars Technica’

The more I learn about and work with the DNS, the more impressive and frightening it becomes.

Messing around with my Hugo static site between other, draining tasks may be the only thing that got me through today.

It’s a testament to Apple TV+’s adaptation of Slow Horses that I am now reading the whole book series and that I can only imagine the characters as the show’s actors.

J’suis pas hyper doué en cuisine, mais comme il reste rien à manger demain matin et comme j’ai une recette pour le muesli fait maison, je suis en mode Farmer Croc, là.

Tentative de publication depuis mon site web.

Now checking that the tagging system works fine.

Testing a new Siri Shortcut for remote posting to Hugo.

Is this just mastodon.social? Seems like it, but that’s not the only instance getting a bump, and sloppy reporting to ignore how federated instances work—that’s one of the reasons we’re all moving there. link to ‘30,000 New Users Signed Up for Mastodon After Elon Musk Bought Twitter’

Between Enilda here and Josh Rosenberg’s recent decision to do something similar, I feel that I have a lot to learn from and think about. link to ‘Sometimes in order to reconnect, you have to disconnect – Design Goodiness’

Great news for a tough Monday! This is one of my favorite comics, I love podcasts, and North is writing scripts. Perfect combination. link to ‘Marvel Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Podcast Milana Vayntrub Ryan North’

Admire what Josh is doing here. I’ve been rethinking my own social media presence recently and want to take some cues here. link to ‘A social media reset | Joshua M. Rosenberg, Ph.D.’

Local farmers market has garlic chocolate chip cookies, which I love and no one else in my family likes. Suits me just fine.

I think I like to listen to the Interstellar soundtrack when I’m feeling anxious, but the truth is that listening to the Interstellar soundtrack makes me more anxious, so I gotta stop doing that.

À propos of nothing in particular, I’m looking into how to set up a Mastodon instance, and it’s not as hard or expensive as I thought.

Just recognized a song playing on (Swiss) radio as being from Eurovision 2021, and that makes me happy.

Hard to think of a worse use of the OGL than this. I’m already grumpy about NFTs, but this is making me mad. link to ‘NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons’

Recently got a six-month free trial of Apple Music, so I figured I’d try out music streaming for the first time in years. As great as the music selection is, though, my bias toward owning music and listening to internet radio is being strengthened.

Comme il n’y a même pas de métro chez moi, je suis limité à « vélo, boulot, dodo »

Ça fait 10 ans que j’écoute Les Cowboys Fringants, mais je les apprécie davantage avec chaque année qui passe.

Very relieved to learn that the singer on French radio that I can’t tell apart from Johnny Hallyday started his career as a Hallyday impressionist.

Pleased to see Stromae reviewed in the NYT—by someone who liveblogged Eurovision no less. Will be listening all afternoon, I’m sure. link to ‘Stromae’s Music Delves Into Dark Topics. His Return Is Right on Time. - The New York Times’

Long week ahead, but there’s a new Stromae album coming out Friday, so I already have some self-care plans in place for the end of it.

Shut up and take my money! This is why itch is one of my favorite game-related places on the internet. link to ‘Tabletop Designers Rally to Support Trans Kids in Texas’

The last panel is the real gem here. link to ‘Super Philosophers - Existential Comics’

Rewatched the Pixar movie Soul while going through old letters and mementos, and that’s quite the combination.

Grumpy about DRM today. So much content I’ve purchased but am forever beholden to Amazon to access.

Jim Hacker is in The Prisoner???

Came across this while explaining Puerto Rico to my games and learning class. I love board games, but we have to critically evaluate them just like any other medium. link to ‘How Board Games Handle Slavery’

I think concerns about being dependent on technology are valuable, but I also note that no one is ever talking about technologies like, say, language or agriculture.

Is NaNoTwiMo a thing? Every time I assign Twine to my students, I want to spend some time doing something big and beautiful with it.

One of my favorite differences between European and Canadian French is the subtly different way they each pronounce words and names in English.

Anyone know an easy way to get Belgian citizenship? [link to ‘Belgium’s new passport features comic faves | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2022/01/27/belgiums-new-passport-features-comic-faves.html?utm_source=rss

More Wallace and Gromit is always welcome. link to ‘Netflix Reveals New Wallace & Gromit Movie, Chicken Run 2 Cast’

Going through old files and throwing out notes from a French phonetics class from over a decade ago. I recognize that I don’t need them anymore, but there’s still something hard about it!

Paid a visit to Cincinnati’s Union Terminal today. The building makes for a gorgeous museum, but how cool would it be if it were still the busy train station it was designed to be?

I have been joking since March 2020 how desperately we need a new Stromae album now, but I could have never anticipated how perfect Multitudes is going to be for this moment.

Is it too late to exchange this 2022 for a new one? We’re within 30 days, and this one clearly came broken.

Angry at myself tonight for not noticing spousal abuse perpetrated by someone I worked with regularly while it was happening. Angrier still at those I know who were aware of it and did nothing.

I wish Nintendo would translate the French release of Mario Kart as « chariot de Mario » because it’s very fun to say.

The internet is dumb but sometimes in an amazing way. link to ‘People spent 15 hours roleplaying a McDonald’s drive-thru on Twitter Spaces - The Verge’

Why shut down Alexa rankings??? link to ‘Amazon is retiring Alexa — no, not that one - The Verge’

Grâce à YouTube, j’ai appris au sujet des « speakerines » aujourd’hui. J’étudie le français depuis vingt ans, et il reste des tas de choses à apprendre.

Initial Dungeons and Dragons pizza plans have fallen through. I have pointed out that there’s a LaRosa’s nearby and am now swelling with an unexpected amount of Northern Kentucky pride.

I traditionally get a mild cold every beginning and end of semester, which has always been a pain but has become anxiety-inducing these past two years.

It has been a long week, and tomorrow is looking just as long, but it’s been a beautiful Sunday that I plan to cap off with the new videos from the French train nerd YouTube channels I subscribe to and maybe even some Stardew Valley.

The more Grammarly ads I see, the more my skepticism of them grows.

Just finished two phone calls that I’ve been dreading and putting off for weeks, and both were fine. I’m relieved, but it’s also a stark reminder of how high my anxiety has been this semester.

Taika Waititi is doing a movie based on a Franco-Belgian comic, and I am very excited. I haven’t read this series, but it’s time to fix that. [link to ‘Taika Waititi to adapt The Incal for the screen | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2021/11/04/taika-waititi-to-adapt-the-incal-for-the-screen.html?utm_source=rss

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.

A fun article that reminds me of my plans to create a Cleric of Trickery based on George Smiley for an upcoming 5e campaign. link to ‘Bugs Bunny’s Official D&D Character Sheet Is A 15th-level Illusionist | Boing Boing’

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

Posting this for hoopy froods to read. link to ‘42 years later, how ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ has endured : NPR’

This delights me to no end. link to ‘A squeaky glove compartment accidentally sounds like light jazz | Boing Boing’

Tentatively excited! Such a great comic—they’d better do it justice. link to ‘Shang Chi Director: American Born Chinese Series for Disney+’

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.

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. link to ‘The Melting Face Emoji Has Already Won Us Over - The New York Times’

TGV forever link to ‘The train that shrunk France… and Europe | Ars Technica’

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. link to ‘Y: The Last Man’s Collapsing Infrastructure Scariest Part’

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.

Keeping an eye on this! E-bikes are exciting. link to ‘This chainless drive system could revolutionize e-bike designs - The Verge’

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. link to ‘Anne Hidalgo demande aux cyclistes de ne pas dépasser les automobilistes pour éviter de les humilier’

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). [link to ‘There’s merch for long-time nuclear waste warning messages | Boing Boing’](https://boingboing.net/2021/08/30/theres-merch-for-long-time-nuclear-waste-warning-messages.html?utm_source=rss

This is an unexpectedly fascinating Wikipedia article. link to ‘Long-time nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia’

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.

Very interesting speculative fiction. link to ‘Beauty Surge, a new short story by Laura Maylene Walter.’

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.

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. link to ‘Ariol, vingt ans d’un héros de la bande dessinée jeunesse’

Adding this to my to-read list. link to ‘How a French Novelist Turns the Tables on History - The New York Times’

I have been enjoying these posts from a Micro.blog user documenting his cross-countey Amtrak travels. link to trains are people

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…

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

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.

Je relis de vieux plans de leçon cet après-midi pour un projet, et je repleure donc l’assassinat d’Ahmed Merabet.

It is a coincidence that I’m visiting my local independent bookstore the same day Bezos went to space, but it’s a happy one.

I have Doug Forcett on my mind, and it’s not even noon on Monday. Looks like it’s going to be an existentially demanding week.

I have just learned that “leapfrog” is called “leapsheep” (« saute-mouton ») in French AND that, by extension, a “sheep-leap” (« saut-de-mouton ») is the name for a particular kind of railway junction. Don’t know which delights me more.

I am generally not a sports person, but one of my favorite memories ever is seeing Geneva celebrate after Switzerland beat Spain in a 2010 World Cup match. Would have loved to be back there last night.

I have twice bought a Francophone book based on the title, and both were winners. « Vers Saint-Gétorix » was as enjoyable as the pun, and « Kiffe kiffe demain » delivered on its promise of a story from la banlieue.

The sudden ubiquity of ad-delivering screens on gas pumps feels like a subtle but firm step toward dystopia.

Turns out a great way to get distracted from a Disney+ show you’re enjoying is to think “this franchise should be in the public domain by now.”

Listening to the 1940s anti-KKK Superman radio serial while cleaning up lunch dishes.

Won a $25 gift card to local indy bookstore from local library. Went to bookstore and wound up spending an ADDITIONAL $50, so it looks like everybody won this round.

Just got a phishing email that was subtle and well thought out enough that I almost didn’t recognize it. Those are the scariest kinds.

Today is “change my files and folders scheme and see what software breaks” day. Grateful for here::here() so that I’m not terrified of implications for #rstats.

One of my pettiest of peeves is the conflation of the term “UFO” with “aliens” even though the entire value of the term is in acknowledging the unidentifiable without reading any more into it.

Got stitches in a pinky finger last night, and adjusting my touch typing, while annoying, has gone surprisingly smoothly. May help that I had a thumb in bandages for most of my first semester of college.

If dozens of CAPTCHAs are any indication, Google’s working hard on traffic lights, crosswalks, and fire hydrants today. So proud of all I’m contributing to AI without compensation because it’s the only way to access this site.

Was not expecting the S2 “For All Mankind” finale to influence my feelings on nuclear disarmament that much, but here we are.

I learned today that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is « La servante écarlate » in French, which provokes a lot of thoughts about translation.

Spending four figures on bike stuff and trying to remember it’s still cheaper than a second car.

I have discovered r/trains, and it is bringing joy into the chaos that is the last few weeks of the semester.

Just reread “Superman Smashes the Klan” after a day that involved checking up on Gab for research purposes, and I believe more than ever that this is one of the best and most important comics of our time. 📚

Working some this week on doubling down on RSS. Switching apps, trimming feeds, continuing to use it as my Twitter and newsletter interface, and trying to get more into Micro.blog and reddit by integrating them into my RSS “readflow”.

Five flats between two bikes in six weeks (four in the last two) can’t be a world record, but it’s a personal best that I’m not interested in beating anytime soon. Wishing the bus came closer to my house, even though that commute is even longer.

I get that people associate being tall with perks, but I’m more likely to remember things like how this “which standing desk converter is right for you?” quiz has only two options for someone over 6’1”, one of which may still be too short for me.

I never mind paying fines at a library, and I never grumble about a bill at a bike shop. Both institutions deserve all the money they can charge me.

I know that Stromae has had good reasons to be taking a break these past few years, but I can’t think of anyone better qualified to put the feel of 2020 to music, so I’m still hoping for an eventual return.

Spent a good chunk of today getting a battery replaced and some stitches removed, so if my laptop and body would agree to stay in good shape for the next while, I’d really appreciate it.

Spring and fall have the best weather in all respects except for figuring out what to wear for one’s bike commute.

A word of advice: If you’re going to fall and split your chin on a Friday morning, don’t do it by passing out first. Hard to answer doctor’s questions when you can’t remember much of what happened. 😂

Whenever I step on a scale, a voice in my head sings the numbers as though I am a radio station being advertised between songs, and my weight is the frequency. Don’t know how this started or how to make it stop.

It is only just now occurring to me to check for an emoji of the flag of La Francophonie, so I am not surprised (if still disappointed) that it does not exist.

Got on a bike today for the first time in months. COVID has shown the flipside of tying my exercise so closely to my commute.

My calendar account has started doung this neat thing where it doesn’t show all of my events on all my devices, so now whether I miss a meeting or not depends on what screen I check that morning.

There is a 1976 song by a French artist, the lyrics of which are sung from the perspective of a dolphin that is upset because children are afraid to go swimming because of the recent success of the movie Jaws. It is so weird, but I love it.

Sometimes I don’t realize how ridiculous a phrase in English is until I’ve heard its literal translation into French. The first time I heard Bugs Bunny’s catchphrase as « quoi de neuf, docteur ? », it felt like my world was being turned upside down.

Thinking about how D&D has druids, bards, and magic potions and wondering if anyone has ever done an Astérix-themed campaign (or, preferably, actual play podcast).

I hear Italian PM Giuseppe Conte’s name fairly often on Francophone radio, but I nearly always hear it first as José Piquanté and then fix it in post.

TIL that Star Trek’s “warp speed” is translated as the vastly inferior “distortion” in French and that at least one French news outlet has therefore adopted the translation “Operation Lightning Speed” for the U.S. vaccine effort.

Just minutes after complaining that Harry Turtledove works so many recaps into each book of the series I’m reading, I discovered that I’d actually skipped a much earlier book. I hadn’t noticed because the recaps were so helpful in catching me up.

I recently ordered a book directly from a French publisher, and thanks to COVID, watching the FedEx tracking updates is the closest thing I’ve had (or will have) to vacation travel for a long time.

Reading about the Dreyfus Affair is spookier in December 2020 than it was back as an undergrad in French Civ II.

Weird Thanksgiving. 1st since 2008 w/o family (b/c COVID) and 1st since 2013 w/o a morning run (b/c return of chronic back issues). Still so much to be grateful for—but also conscious this year how much “being thankful” isn’t quite enough. It helps me better appreciate what I have but doesn’t change what others lack. I could stand to do better with the former, but I have much more work to do for the latter.

A year 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.

The artwork on the “cover” of a Kindle book has been updated since the last time I read it. It’s a relatively minor change but reminds me that you never truly own an e-book you buy from Amazon (and why I now try to buy hardcopy).

Marvel, I get that WandaVision is intended to be trippy and demonstrate Wanda’s reality warping powers, but unraveling my world by using a song that I’m only just now learning is the basis for the Skyline Chili jingle was a step too far.

This morning, I learned that my kid believes that Batman is Batgirl’s sidekick, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s now canon.

A local library offers access to a fourth-tier music streaming service with a limited collection. Don’t know why most people would bother, but me and my ultra-niche music tastes are doing great.

Madeleines are to Proust what theme songs from James Bond movies are to me, except I couldn’t write an entire book about how they remind me of playing Axis and Allies with my brother.

Ça fait plusieurs mois que je fais (presque) tout sur mon smartphone en français, mais aujourd’hui, je me suis demandé pour la première fois si je préfère être tutoyé ou vouvoyé par une machine.

Bike commuting today for the first time in 5 months, Also, commuting today for the first time in 5 months.

My brain has decided to treat me to an unrequested Serge Gainsbourg/Hamilton mashup, and I’m not sure what to think.

The NPR radio adaptation of Star Wars is just as great—and just as terrible—as you would think. Totally worth a listen.

Victoire du jour : apprendre que la FNAC fera livrer des livres jusqu’au Kentucky. 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Late fines start to lose some of their teeth once you start reframing them as new opportunities to financially support your local library.

Resolved, that watching a clip of the first Enterprise vs. Reliant fight from Wrath of Khan shall be accepted as a legitimate reason for staying up too late.

The more tired I am, the more easily I cry, so maybe staying up late last night and running 10k this morning were not great choices prior to introducing my kid to Up.

Currently reading Superman Smashes the Klan, and it is the epitome of what a Superman comic should be. Can’t recommend enough.

Just figured out a regex solution to something in under ten minutes. Watch out Friday, nothing can stop me now.

I just finished rereading Philip Roth’s 2004 novel “The Plot Against America.” It is really good—in ways I didn’t appreciate when I first read it in high school and that I couldn’t begin to articulate now.

One of the greatest joys I experience as a veteran of a decade of French classes is whenever I discover that a song we used to listen to in high school is an actual song, not just something made up for class.

Hearing a lot of things today that are reminding me why I find utilitarianism totally unsatisfying as a moral philosophy.

Listening to public Swiss radio (as I do) and got chills when I heard a new, prerecorded gov’t COVID-19 safety message played before the hourly news update. Felt like I was in disaster fiction.

TIL that if you don’t keep an e-bike adequately charged, all of that fancy-but-heavy pedal assist equipment is as much of a liability for your commute as it usually is an asset.

Is there a word for “the uncanny valley” but for British actors doing American accents (and, presumably, vice versa)?

If Charles Xavier is looking for a copy editor, I’m pretty sure my mutant power is noticing unnecessary spaces between words in a manuscript.

My experience with my office’s snack cache is suggesting the uncomfortable possibility that protein bars are their own state of matter.

I can appreciate Le Carré’s shocking twists over and over—because he is also good at the inevitable-but-gripping and because he uses them both to create compelling tragedy.

Highlight of the morning: Hearing a translator for the interviewee on a France Culture show about comics struggle to remember the French neologism for “spoiler.”

Quick thought post-Mando and pre-TRoS: What Star Wars has given me a world in which to tell stories—not just movies. I played RPG campaigns that made the prequel trilogy look good, because the world held up even when the movies didn’t.

It must be called two-factor authentication because the app never works the first time.

I have just learned that there is an Etsy shop dedicated ENTIRELY to producing and selling magnets in the shape of trains and subway cars, and it’s restoring some faith in the internet.

A personal philosophy that I need reminding of today: To make fun of others’ typos or grammatical errors (whatever criticism they otherwise deserve) is nearly always a flaunting of privilege and therefore unnecessary.

My dual monitor setup relies on my using my standing desk. Since I’m under the weather today, I’m working from a chair instead and trying out the new Sidecar functionality for my iPad. Pleased with it so far!

Libraries are beautiful places: I just left one with four volumes of Star Wars/Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics and a copy of Dr. Wil Gafney’s “Womanist Midrash.”

Just learned that there’s a French cover of “Raindrops Falling on My Head,” and now I want to know if they use it in the French dub of Spider-Man 2.

Completed a flat-tire-halfway-to-campus bike commuter’s biathlon today.

Gonna start spelling GIF as /dʒɪf/ to make my feelings about the pronunciation clear.

I know some people have strong feelings about split infinitives, but if it’s good enough for Kirk and Picard, it’s good enough for me.

I hope the Disney+ Ms. Marvel show will have an episode set in France where Kamala fights a local super who believes her burkini-based costume to be « une atteinte à la laïcité »

In the years since its release, I have begrudgingly accepted that the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie is not that great. The hardest part of that acceptance, though, is how amazing some of its constituent parts are.

I am generally a fan of responsive design, but it’s frustrating when a website’s menu goes into mobile mode if I have my browser open on “only” half of my not-small monitor.

I cannot read the word “poignant” without remembering that it is etymologically related to the French word for “fist” and, by extension, to the French expressions for “punch” and “brass knuckles” (literally, “an American punch”).

When I taught keyboarding, students complained about HTML lessons, asking what it had to do with typing. I explained that if you mistype things, you break things… I’m sure they laugh now every time I bork my website w/ a misplaced line break.

What I love about having ~15 years of personal journals hanging around is that if I ever run out of anxiety rooted in the present, I can go back and remember all the anxiety I felt in the past.

Old favorite thing: Finding BBC Radio 4 shows on Audible; new favorite thing: Finding BBC Radio 4 shows on the Internet Archive.

The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack just came up in iTunes; it’s good to occasionally remind oneself that Star Wars owes as much (if not more) to Williams, Burtt, and McQuarrie as it does to Lucas.

Toggl has an amazing API and disappointing native apps. If it weren’t for the first, the second could be a dealbreaker.

I have now successfully migrated all of my “following” to Feedbin’s Twitter-to-RSS service. Weird way to keep up with tweets (and costs me a monthly fee), but I’m really enjoying it so far.

I am more invested in the FRA - USA match going on right now than I have been in any other sporting event this year. (Then again, that investment manifests only in occasionally checking the score, so you can see I’m not a sports guy).

I am incapable of listening to Devo without remembering that they get a shout out in Watchmen.

Sapiens is a challenging book, but that’s also why it’s a must-read. As much as its focus is on science & technology, I ultimately read it as a reminder that we need to ask ?s from the humanities to safely navigate our present and future.

In jury-rigged standing desk news, I have replaced the MacBook box my monitor was teetering on with a Yeti microphone box, and I think I’ve got the monitor at the right height now.

Bike commuting adventure of the day: Finding all the places in my office where I can discretely hang up wet clothes from a rainy commute (thank goodness for my closet full of dry work clothes).

Just finished the 2006 “Life on Mars.” Fantastic premise, and some amazing individual scenes, but not quite enough connective tissue between the two.

When Twitter first gut-punched third-party apps by limiting their API, I was afraid not being able to check “likes” through Tweetbot would make it unusable. Now, that’s actually the appeal.

Central Kentucky libraries apparently have summer reading programs for adults, and I can’t remember the last time I was this excited.

I love learning more about regular expressions except the part where it’s always in response to some mistake I’ve made.

Paying for my third year of Posteo tonight and not missing Gmail at all. (Still haven’t kicked the Drive/Docs habit, though).

Going to see Endgame tonight, and it occurred to me earlier today that the first Avengers came out when I was still in college, and this one came out at the tail end of my second semester as an assistant professor.

As a big fan of both The Good Place and the French language, I suddenly feel an urgent need to know what substitutes Chidi hears in French when Eleanor tries to swear in English.

Currently in the middle of the long process of purging old tweets from my Twitter account, so my profile page looks weird, as though I haven’t tweeted regularly since 2017.

Super excited that Alfred 4 is coming out this summer. I was just thinking yesterday how the app continues to impress even after years of using it.

YouTube is a great way to talk about personalization algorithms. On one hand, it’s quite good at what it does. On the other, that often leads to my watching more YouTube than I meant to, and I resent it for that.

Sometimes I unplug my headphones and give anyone walking by my door the gift of learning about Johnny Hallyday.

I recently finished “Weapons of Mass Diplomacy,” the English translation of a comic based on the author’s time in the French foreign ministry in the leadup to the Iraq War. Loved it, but wish my library also had it in the original French.

Just got a notification that today marks a whole year since I began journaling in Day One. I’ve really enjoyed it so far (even if I have a couple dozen incomplete entries right now that I need to go back and finish).

Every year, I hit a point where my productivity system feels constraining, so I give it up for a few days, only to feel like I no longer have any control over my time.

Sometimes, being a bike commuter means spending the first 30 minutes of your work day fixing a spring clasp on a pannier.

I don’t really understand how fraternities and sororities work, so whenever I hear about Greek life, I half-expect someone to follow up with a discussion of “Roman life”, where all the names are different even though everything else is the same.

THERE’S NO ONE CURRENTLY NEXT TO ME FOR WHAT WILL BE A NINE HOUR FLIGHT BUT I’M NOT SURE IF BOARDING HAS CLOSED YET AND THIS IS THE MOST STRESSFUL PART OF THE WHOLE TRIP SO FAR

Highlight of Paris airport this morning is the Scottish “hey Europe, can we still be friends?” ads that I keep seeing.

What I’d really like to see added to HTML are tags.

J’ai déjà atterri à Roissy, j’ai déjà fait le contrôle des passeports et la douane, mais je viens d’entendre le « jingle » de la SNCF, et c’est donc maintenant que je sais vraiment que je suis en France 😍🚉

Just when I thought I had screenshot shortcuts down for macOS, Cmd+Shift+5 reveals itself and blows my mind!

One of the best gifts I’ve ever received was when my mom sent me a copy of The Moody Blues’ “Days of Future Passed” for my birthday when I was a freshman at BYU, assuming that because it was quirky, I would like it. She was 100% right.

Objects in my office visible from my webcam when I’m having professional teleconferencing meetings: an Axis and Allies board, a model of the Battlestar Galactica, and some Star Wars fan art.

Thanks to my upcoming presentation at a conference in France and the different ways different countries do Daylight Savings, I have the dubious honor of getting to “spring forward” twice this year.

Next flight has no headrests, which is way more comfortable (for me, at least).

Currently on board one of those planes where what is intended to be a head rest for normal people is, for me, a “shoulder-pusher.”

There’s something about stepping onto a new bus that makes me feel like I’ve stepped into the future. I don’t need jetpacks, just clean seats and an electric motor.

Public library holds and academic library holds are two of my favorite things.

Dans une semaine, je serai à Québec, et j’ai trop hâte.

Thanks to latitudinal differences, my spring break trip to Québec is happening while there is still snow there but after winter boots have gone on clearance here.

Today’s writing is powered by The Doubleclicks. Hard to believe it took me this long to start listening to them!

A bug in my macOS mail client has just told me that after years of trying, I have finally reached the elusive “Inbox Negative One.”

Last week, I noticed that my RSS reader was no longer refreshing feeds from my local newspaper’s website. Today, I discovered it’s associated with VPN use. Anyone know what’s going on?

Finally decided to cut ties with Prime, and then Amazon goes and buys Eero, my router company of choice. It’s like I can’t escape (which is, in turn, exactly why I’m trying to).

Prisencolinensinainciusol is my favorite song-whose-name-I-can-never-remember. It’s an amazing rendition of what American music sounds like to someone who doesn’t speak English, and it’s worth a listen.

Quand une fusée temporelle commence son voyage dans le temps, on appelle ça un « décollage horaire »

In June, I purchased an “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue” compilation on Audible that is over 18 hours long. Tonight, I finally passed the halfway point.

Je viens d’acheter des billets pour visiter le Québec (pour les vacances) et la France (pour un colloque) au mois de mars. J’ai trop hâte !

Lexington has a sister city in Normandy, so I’m currently applying to our sister cities organization in the hopes it will provide opportunities to keep up my French. 😊🇫🇷

Bought a frame today for a nice piece of The Last Jedi art I received for Christmas. Going to hang it up in my office and start using it as a litmus test for visitors.

Over lunch, I continued a new (for me) book on the history of French and decided to email a thank you to a wonderful BYU professor who taught a class on that subject. I think of him often and am embarrassed I hadn’t reached out earlier.

Last week, I confessed to my colleagues some of my quirky passions, like radio dramas and Franco-Belgian comics. This week, driven by a compulsive need to outquirk myself, I am listening to a radio drama adaptation of a Franco-Belgian comic.

I think my favorite takes on La Marseillaise are the 1812 Overture and that scene from Casablanca.

Gotta say, Amazon, the amount of effort you’re making me go through to cancel my Prime membership is just validating my choice to do so.

One of my favorite “not designed for that” uses of the macOS app Alfred is to strip formatting from text when copying from one doc to another—paste it in Alfred bar in between, and voilà!

Just misspelled my own name in an email because I didn’t want to be impersonal by using my text expansion-powered signature 🙄

This post is a test of Twitter integration with my new Hugo blog (via Siri Shortcuts).

Hello World! This is a test of a Siri Shortcut for posting to my new Hugo blog from iOS.