Randomness

I really like random things. Random songs. Random blogs.

Random songs

I have thousands of songs on my iPod. Obviously it would take over a year to listen to them all, especially since I tend to listen to about 5 different bands at one time, and it kind of rotates.
Right now I'm in my Scorpions/Jack Johnson/ Kansas/ Bee Gees phase. (don't try to find any sort of relationship. I just like different styles of music).
But then again I've had my W's/Lighthouse Family/ Within Temptation/ Kansas/ ELO phase.

How do I go from one "phase" to the next? Random play. I listen to random songs on my iPod when I get tired of the same albums, and I either hear something I like but didn't even know I had, let alone know what it is (I put all my parent's CDs on my iPod because I figure that's how I found out about Styx, Meatloaf, and SuperTramp for example- but that doesns't mean I know where all of it comes from), or sometimes I just hear a song I LOVE but hadn't heard in awhile.

*mental note: add the Queen CD I forgot to put on it because if I ever get in the mood for "I want it all" I'll go crazy*

Random blogs

I like blogs that stay on topic, it's nice if you like to have news about a particular technology, etc...
But I mostly enjoy random blogs like my own. Blogs where people mention their life but don't make it the focus of their blog. It's more of a material to add content that might interest the world.
A good book review, or a thought about a movie they saw, or just a random thing that happened to them during the day.
In my opinion, that's what's blogging is all about!
Not putting up a gazillion pictures of yourself and your friends. That's called a photo album (Dropshots is nice. Smugmug too.)
Not telling all the details of your life (although it can be funny if you get the right humoristic angle to it).

website building

I just bought the book Réussir son site web avec XHTML et CSS, and I'm pretty excited about starting to read it.

It's a book for beginners, and it's very well written. I'm not exactly a beginner when it comes to HTML, but I learned everything I know as I went, and I wanted a reference book to brush up on some details I didn't necessarily catch in the tutorials (especially in CSS and for forms).
I figure if it will help me have more standards-conformed code, and a better methodology to write it, I'm all for it!
After awhile, a patchwork of tutorials from more-or-less reliable ressources can get confusing, and with CSS it's easy to get mixed up.
Obviously there's documentation, and I consult it fairly often, but it is nice to have a reference book.
Plus I have a friend who wants to build a website and doesn't know where to start, he can borrow it eventually. :D
(and that friend doesn't know that bmp files are not good for the internet. his current webpage loads only in Internet Explorer and it takes a very long time to do so because the files are so huge-- especially on a 56k modem, which some people still have)
I'm not saying my websites are perfect- on the contrary.
But I want to make them better. For now I'm not personalising my blog because I'm too busy learning PHP. Eventually I might "move". I'm not sure yet.
Then again this blog is finally getting somewhere (I have a google pagerank of 3, and I appear in the top ten results for "Waiting, Wishing", which is amazing considering that it's the title of a song by Jack Johnson.

Un téléphone pour vous sauver la vie

Bonjour, j'ai trouvé cette info sur le site du Zéro, que je vous recommande d'ailleurs si vous voulez apprendre le PHP par exemple (c'était ce que je faisais quand j'ai vu l'article suivant). (un peu tronqué)

Admettons que vous avez un accident de voiture. Je sais pas pour vous, mais perso je me ballade pas trop avec mon carnet de santé en permanence. J'ai pas vraiment d'allergies ni de problèmes de santé connus, mais admettons que j'en aie. Les secouristes auraient besoin de le savoir au plus vite afin de m'apporter des soins adaptés (au lieu de me donner un médicament efficace mais auquel je suis mortellement allergique, par exemple).

Une idée anglaise

Un infirmier anglais ayant constaté qu'il est plus probable de trouver quelqu'un ayant son téléphone portable sur lui plutôt que ses papiers médicaux a émis l'idée d'utiliser ces petits bijoux pour servir leur cause.

L'idée est très simple et ne nécessite rien que l'on ne puisse faire avec son téléphone. Elle l'est tellement que toute la presse anglaise a transmis le message et qu'il est même parvenu de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique !

Il s'agit d'utiliser son répertoire téléphonique pour indiquer le numéro de téléphone des personnes à joindre en cas d'urgence. Afin de permettre aux secours de trouver rapidement ces numéros, ils ont instauré la norme suivante : le numéro doit commencer par "ICE". Si vous souhaitez en mettre plusieurs, il suffit d'ajouter un détail après ce préfixe comme par exemple un numéro (ICE1, ICE2 ...) ou un mot (ICE justine, ICE maman ...)

Simple, isn't it ? (traduction : Simple n'est-ce pas ?)

Mais, en France ?

Toujours en relation avec les secours, la première chose dont j'ai entendu parler qui se rapproche de ce sujet est la carte Vitale 2. Celle-ci, en plus de permettre aux médecins d'accéder à vos anciens dossiers et à la sécurité sociale de vous rembourser correctement, stockerait des informations importantes comme votre groupe sanguin ou vos allergies médicamenteuses.
Malheureusement, cette nouvelle mouture de la carte verte bien connue des français n'est qu'à l'état de projet balbutiant. Il faudra donc attendre plusieurs années avant de pouvoir la mettre dans votre portefeuille.

Que faire dans ce cas ? Imitons les anglais !

Sauvez votre vie

La méthode utilisée serait la même que la méthode anglaise mais dans notre belle langue :
Prenez votre téléphone portable.
Créez une nouvelle entrée dans votre répertoire.
Donnez-lui un nom commençant par "ECU". Par exemple, "ECU maman" ou "ECU papa".
Mettez-y le numéro de téléphone de la personne à contacter en cas d'urgence. Cela peut être quelqu'un qui vous connaît très bien ou qui peut avoir accès à votre dossier médical. Vos parents ou votre médecin traitant feront bien l'affaire.
Vous pouvez ajouter autant de numéros ECU que vous le souhaitez mais pensez qu'il faut bien les sélectionner. Un pompier ou un ambulancier ne s'amusera pas à téléphoner à tous vos contacts !

Vous êtes libre de mettre le sigle que vous préférez (ECU, ICE ou même SOS comme certains le proposent) mais l'idéal serait de fixer un et un seul sigle dans votre pays.

Mais est-ce que ça marche ?

C'est ici que l'affaire se corse. Pour que ça fonctionne il faut que la chose se répande !
La santé publique compte sur vous !
Parlez-en à vos amis, à vos enseignants, à vos parents ! Dites-leur de faire tourner l'information ! Bloggez-la ! Newsez sur votre site personnel ! Plus cette initiative prendra de l'ampleur et plus de vies seront sauvées !
Imaginez qu'un de vos amis ne soit pas au courant et qu'il lui arrive quelque chose ...

Blog spam

I've only recently had to deal with this. I don't really have time to delete dozens of messages about Viagra every day, so I put more restrictive rules on commenting on my blog.

What's worse, is if I have spam I don't necessarily realize it because my e-mail spam filter blocks out the notifications which contain spam messages!

I think I've got most of the messages out of the way, but if you come accross one in an post before november, please leave a comment to bring this to my attention.

Homeward Bound

Remember our good old friends, Shadow, Sassy and Chance?

Shadow, the wise one, the faithful one, the one who always kept his doggie-head on his doggie-shoulders.
Chance, the crazy one with a sad past, has a hard time trusting again. But he's fun, quick to complain, and quick to become friends.
Sassy, the well... sassy cat. Kind of somewhere between the two. A cat in a world of dogs, she complains about them but loves them, deep down.

One goal: to get home to their masters.
They would have been ok if they had stayed put. Their masters were coming back.

* lesson n°1: sometimes if you take things into your own hands out of lack of faith, you'll get home, but you'll make it hard on yourself and meet bears, porcupines, and mountain lions on the way.

So on their way... they discovered how to work together and be a team even when they didn't agree, they stuck up for one another.

* lesson n°2: cats aren't as strong as dogs, but they have gifts dogs don't have. To make it home, you need both cats and dogs, working together

They got spotted by some rangers and were brought to an animal shelter, the "bad place". Their masters were going to bring them home from there, but once again they ran away.

* lesson n°3: we don't always have the ability to understand why. Why things happen. Why we end up in the "bad place".

After running away, Shadow gets stuck in a mud pit with a broken paw.

* lesson n°4: even the best of us mess up, fall, get discouraged. sometimes want to give up altogether and be left for dead.

* lesson n°5: that's what friends are for.

I'm a geek, so what?

I always have been and I always will be.
This is an open letter to people who feel I've changed in a bad way. This is an open letter to anyone who is afraid of geeks.

Geeks can be scary. They know stuff about computers -- in fact they spend most of their time on them. They use verbs like "google it", phrases like "check it out on wikipedia". They think that /*no comment*/ is funny.
I'm the type of person who gets phrases like: "in a free world, why do we need windows and gates?"

Sometimes it gets to the point where it's all they talk about - or almost. Especially when they're learning.

But a geek doesn't have to know anything about computers. In our society that's what geeks are mostly known for- but you can be a geek and never touch a computer. Geeks are all about knowledge. At least I am.
Geeks can often cite from memory lines from entire movies, speak elvish (as defined by Tolkien), or read math books for fun.
I have always been a geek and always will be.
Geeks are interested in knowledge- general knowledge of course, but they have a special liking for the trivial!! Which can also be scary.

What's nice about being a computer geek is you can be paid to program. It's a special way of applying math, and logic, to create things and have a "real" job. (knowing Tolkien's works by heart or being able to compose an encyclopedia about Narnia would be fun -- but it's not a "real" job)
I started my interest in computers pretty late in life, and very fast, so that some of you don't recognize me anymore. But if you think- really think- it makes sense. I've always been the type to solve sudoku puzzles, I'm been obsessed with Narnia, Star Wars, many TV shows and science fiction in general. In high school I did math on my free time just for kicks, I'd try and see if I could prove the results and theorems we learned in class. I even programmed my calculator. I've always liked technology and I always thought it would be cool to know how it worked (remember when I played video games all the time?)
Another reason this isn't surprising is that I naturally have a love and feel for different languages. Programming is like learning to speak to your computer in a language it understands. It's also an application of math.

I've always been excited about learning. And since I specifically started to know computers late in life, I've learned a lot in a very short time. Which means, that to catch up, I work a lot. Hours every day. Learning what words mean. Learning how to program stuff.
And I finally feel like I'm meeting poeple who understand my way of thinking. Geeks are everywhere, but there are a lot more of them in computer science college! And in Japanese class (geeks tend to like Japan, too).

I'm still the same person. I'm sorry if I talk about computers all the time. (I'll try to work on that)
But it's what I do to work (studies), what I do for fun, and what my friends do. In college that's what most of my conversations are about. So I get used to talking about it.
But as I said, I'm the same person. I still love the Lord (and I'm a geek about reading my Bible, too!! I love studying it, going deeper into the text, reading commentaries, discussing it)
I still love sharing my faith and evangelism.
I still love playing the guitar, although I've lost the habit, which I regret, and I'm going to get back into it (guitarists are geeks, too. sometimes when talking to a guitarist about something completely unrelated, they'll get this LOOK in their eyes).
I still love math, although I feel slightly inadequate because I havn't been working on it as much as I used to. (I've been mainly concentrating on learning programming, and japanese)
I still want to go to Japan. If you really ever knew me, you know this.
I still love to read. For those of you who saw me this summer, my nose was almost always in a book. And not just geek-books. Fiction. Including a really good romance series.
I'm still romantic. I'm still with Daniel and very happy of that (2 years now!).

More about my relationship with God. I talk a lot less about it, but in a way, it's deeper than ever before. It's more real to me, more vital than ever. I know that without God in my life I am nothing. Perhaps you don't see that, blinded by the fact that I talk about computers.
But my geek friends all know I'm a christian who is serious about my faith.
Sometimes we have really good discussions about that, too. Debates. Generally, the people I meet are rather cynical about God.
I just don't talk about my faith in christian settings as frequently or as directly. You may need to start out with some "small talk" (NOT Smalltalk) first -- which makes sense. Often times you ask me about my day, and I say what I did. I rarely go into details-- but just ONE technical (not so technical, usually) term makes you think I'm into geek mode-- which I generally am not. Usually I say something like "today I worked on the website but I'm having trouble with my CSS" and then, unless you know something about CSS, I'm totally ready to talk about something else. Like how I'm doing spiritually, how you're doing, what you've learned.
At agape, well, there are other geeks. Including Yannick. So sometimes we talk about geek stuff and you get the feeling I don't talk about anything else. Perhaps since I don't come to ciné- discussion anymore you think I'm no longer interested in philosophical discussions, in long talks about God, grace and salvation (my favorite subject EVER). But talking spirituality just to talk about spirituality isn't my thing. (Anymore. Believe me, you don't want to know little miss Pharasee :p)

My blog. For one, I don't really have much time to blog anymore, and I try to stick to a topic. Computers. It's not like my Prodigal Son series was a huge success. I still write them sometimes, you know. I like writing. I even love writing. I just don't have time and I don't feel like people respond to my writing. So please don't judge the state of my life by my blog.

I'm having a lot of struggles right now in my life. I don't really want to go into details, but I don't really always want to talk about it. I have my up days and my down days, I have days where I snap at people, where I'm so tiered *yawn* but I'm working on that. I have days where I'm just so sick and tiered of always messing up on things I should know better. Don't we all? Don't we all have struggles? Isn't it a normal part of growing? And when I do want to talk about it I either feel judged or like people aren't listening.

But I also have my good days. And my relationships in general are better than ever. I have lots of friends, of the good sort, in college. Lots of casual friends, lots of closer friends, and I still try to stay in touch with my old friends (although sometimes I feel like they're not trying that hard). I still care about people. Geek doesn't mean heartless.
I've always felt so lonely and inadequate in groups, and I'm finally getting over that, I feel like finally people don't make fun of me as much anymore. College is a wonderful experience compared to high-school or worse, middle school.

Conclusion: take me as I am. I'm probably one of the rare people who is willing to talk about anything. Any topic. Try me. If I don't know about it, I'll read up on it on wikipedia! I want to learn, I want to grow,

Deep dark secrets

In the first episode of the first season of Desperate Housewives, Mary-Alice kills herself. Why? She received a note, along the lines of "I know what you did. You disgust me. I'm going to tell".

It could very well have been a bluff.
I'm sure that if any of us received such a note, we'd all get chills up our spines. Some of us would change towns. Some of us would even leave the country. Others would try to kill whoever discovered their secret, and others would kill themselves.
Some of us would fess up and beg for mercy.
Some of us would have a nervous breakdown.

Others just wouldn't care. Perhaps some people wouldn't even be worried- they have no deep dark secrets. Although I would tend to doubt that.
We all have deep dark secrets, I wonder.... perhaps we even sort of need one to function. When I was a kid I had imaginary deep dark secrets. Or I would pretend that charaters in movies were me, and their secrets were mine.

Who am I?

Do people change?
Or do they stay essentially the same?

Is everything you say or do or think a reflection of your personality? Or can there be "freak" moments, where you're not really yourself?

Can you truely change? Or just reveal your true personality?

Old vs. new

Old friends, new friends...

I've made friends so fast I can hardly even believe it. And not just people to hang out with once or twice. FRIENDS. People I can confide in, people I'll go out of my way to see.
People I can talk to about my passion for Japan, or just hang out with, or talk about computers.
And then I have new friends I don't see that often.
And "old" friends I'm still in touch with (and am glad to be - they are people I can hardly imagine my life without)
And yet I still have my old friends, my true and tried relationships, the people I long to see. I can forget temporarily. But I miss them so much deep down. I still see them sometimes. I can hardly imagine my life without them. To be honest, I can name them: Oli and Joe.

This morning my brother and sister were watching the Swan Princess. Reminded me of when I was a kid and me and my best friend Cyril would watch that movie every single day after school.
He liked the sword fights, I liked the romance.

I miss Susanna. I miss Becky. I miss Cyril. Chelsea. Isaac. Peter. People from my past who I was very close to. Childhood friends. But it's not really painful. Just a fleeting thought here and there.

And then there are people I *should* miss -- but I don't really. I'm not even sure I really want to see them. Friends I'd be embarrassed to see again because I let them down. (sorry Kara)
Other people who I missed so hard, and so long, that the pain just ate me alive and I had to forget them. Now I've almost forgotten them.

Devos :)

you can read my morning's reading here. I know it's out of context (and I'll actually do some research on that later, now that I have a study Bible, it's easier to do).

Micah 7:7-9 (New International Version)

7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.

Israel Will Rise

8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be my light.
9 Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the LORD's wrath,
until he pleads my case
and establishes my right.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.

It also goes pretty well with a sermon by Tom Hovestol I've been listening to, how to come clean when I'm dirty.

Some other songs that I found to be related to this passage are "Renew me" by Avalon and to a degree "Dreams I dream for you" (more of a stretch, you might need to be ME to see the association)

Install party d-2

I'm starting to get excited/stressed.
Excited because I'm going to learn a lot.
Stressed because I have a test this week and I don't feel ready. Stressed because the exams are coming up.
Stressed because of my responsibilities. Stressed because I don't know what I want exactly.
But happy.

I'm also tiered. Exhausted. I just had a great week-end. But just thinking of all that is left to be done exhausts me. And yet Daniel would tell me I do nothing of my time, compared to all the work he does. So I guess I can't really complain. I just need to readjust my rhythm.

up close and personal

I have a hard time being that in my writing anymore, especially on a blog. Not that online journals actually interest anybody, as a general rule.
I remember a time when people would spend money to buy books of people's journals. Now there are so many free, online, that it's just plain not that entertaining anymore.
Except the very well written. Without wanting to sound conceited, at some point, on my previous blog, I think I somewhat managed that.

But I'm just not as artistic as I used to be. I need to watch movies, or TV shows, to get my philosophical juices running enough to make me write. So now and then I'll be posting thoughts on a movie I saw.

I'm not sure what actually interests my readers. Someone actually found my blog while searching "hell figured out exothermic" on google. Weird. When I saw the post, I got it. But who searches for that kind of thing anyway?

Some people found me in V600i themes. Must have been dissapointed because I didn't put a downloadable version online. I can, though, all you need to do is ask. Seriously, I think I'll put them up anyway.

I really like the intro song to Grey's Anatomy, as well as the video that goes with it. There's something I like about eyelash curlers, zipping up a dress, the cocktail, the shoes, all tied in to medical images. I just like it. Find it very catchy. Posted the video as well (normally).

Linux on iBook tutorial

Here is a link to my installing ubuntu on iBook tutorial.
It's in french, and not 100% complete yet (I still havn't put up the sections on the Airport wifi card, or on bluetooth and other hardware issues).
But as I said I'd put one up, I suppose I had to do it ;)
This is the very first tutorial I write myself.
It involves a lot of research, to make sure I don't forget to explain some minor steps that are nevertheless important, it involves research to find reference pages online, link them, and make sure to refer to the exact places that might interest the people who want to dig deeper, either out of curiosity/desire to learn, or just because they feel they need more explanations before doing what I say.
I also added links to learn yourself and go deeper which aren't necessary to the tutorial in and of themselves.

Formatting is also very important to make a good tutorial. I think I spent more time on that than on actually writing it.

I hope you will enjoy it, if that sort of thing interests you (I admit, people interested in installing ubuntu on an iBook aren't that common, especially since iBooks aren't sold anymore. On a macbook, it's much easier to do, I think. And if you have Mac OS X, there really is no need to get a better OS. I really like Mac OS as my everyday OS. I only put linux on my computer to play around and for the learning experience. On a PC, it's more useful because Windows is really hard to work with, in my opinion).

why is it...?

... that when I'm finally picking up speed in my stats (bear with me. 2000-something sounds PRETTY good to me) I'm not actually posting very much? I wish I had so much success when I actually had something to say.
It's not that I don't have things to say, I just havn't had time.

I've been very busy. I've been working on putting linux on my iBook and configurating it. It's a wonderful learning experience. I love Mac OS and I don't think I really need linux- in fact I'm so tight space-wise that I actually should only have one OS on my computer, dual booting is almost a problem.
But the learning experience makes it all worthwhile. I still don't know much- but I know a whole lot more than I knew even just a week or two ago!
Eventually if I have time, I'll compile everything that worked for me and put it up here. I know many sites already have put that sort of thing online, but some tips don't work on all machines (I've tested them) and it's just a good idea to post them, if only to keep them handy for reference (my own) - a notebook is physical, I cannot consult a notebook I left at home if I'm travelling. A note on my computer would be handier- but if I'm having problems with my OS, not really. I can go online anytime, though.
Anyway, it looks to me like I'm getting more and more command-line oriented. I've tried some graphical utilities which have in the background exectued some commands I never wished them to (just opening my Disk Utility program on my mac made me have to reinstall yaboot *I think*- it could be something else but I think that's where the problem came from)

Well got to go

theme ideas

I realize I havn't been blogging as much recently as I used to. I've been very busy, and when I'm not busy, I'm not near a computer, or I just don't feel like blogging.

But here is an idea for my faithful reader(s?)...
In german class- yes, I need to take german- I need to animate a debate in a few weeks (not sure exactly when) on an interesting topic that preferably isn't too technical considering my level in german. If you have any ideas of interesting debates, tell me in a comment :)

I don't really want to have a political debate. That's too common and also too complicated. I think something funny and lighter would be better.

Maybe we could do a theme on blogging! I could give stats, talk about different blogs I've seen, and we could ask the class if they have blogs, what they put on it, if it's for friends and family or on the contrary for the WWW but not people they know in real life, debate whether a blog needs to have pictures, text, video, audio, what the point of blogging is, etc...

3 days, 1 emotional rollercoaster

I've been "back" in my student life for 3 days since this week-end... And since then, I've laughed so hysterically in the library that I was in tears holding back my laugh- I was reading a book about stupid things students have written in school papers. The funniest, though, were the excuses parents wrote for their kids. And some school rules were pretty funny, too.

I've been a pain to the cafeteria about the prices. In the other university in the city, a sandwich is 1,85 euros. Here, the same sandwich is sold 2,30 euros!! It's the same organisation, it's not like it's an independant cafeteria. The prices should be the same. The lady didn't even believe me. She was so dubious that I even doubted myself, until I realized that I'm sure about the 85 cents bit, and it can't be 2,85 euros, because that's more expensive than a whole meal with a Resto U ticket. And I'm not about to pay more for a sandwich than for a whole meal, and I obviously ate sandwiches often last year. So I'm right, she's wrong.

I've been trying to plan my month of October, but it keeps getting more and more complicated, and I'm just not sure of anything anymore.

I've also figured out the social security, finally. At least I think/hope so.

As I said, I've received my scholarship, which was blissful... Especially since most students don't get their money in their account until the end of every month, and I get mine right at the start!! Some don't even start getting money until December or January... So that was a pleasant surprise.

Last night was the Agape barbecue, lots of people came :)

And let's see... I fainted on Monday...

And yesterday with Gaelle, we had a Windows/Microsoft bashing party in class lol... I think the teacher likes listening to us. While we're trying to figure out our Java together (we're supposed to work together) it's also kind of funny to listen to us, because she's constantly comparing it to C and complaining that it's not C, and I'm always complaining that we're not using Eclipse, so it doesn't pick up typos until compilation.
Fun :p

3 letters... 1 podcast

I got 3 letters in the mail today.

One was my student card that finally got here. I've been waiting for so long! Now I can finally borrow books from the library...

Another was a letter from my bank to remind me to pick up my new card (my old one expires tomorrow).

And the last one was perhaps the most welcome of the three: the confirmation that I will get a scholarship this year and that it should be pouring into my bank account this month!!!

Three things that have been pending for a long time. So I'm glad that's taken care of. All I have left is changing my phone plan, and getting my "Carte Vitale".

Anyway... Here is a great podcast you should check out. It's some sermons by Tom Hovestol :) The most recent one I'm listening to right now is on depression.

4 geeks, 1 kitten

Todqy i4; typing on q qwerty keyboqrd<<< Cqn you tellM

No, seriously, I'll make an effort for my fellow bloggers and dear readers... I have to admit the combination of qwerty and a different OS (Solaris) is somewhat confusing especially for someone used to typing fast enough to get a "wow" from most easily-impressed people...

This zeek I hgqve qzqy q kitten to q good friend zho zqnted onem... ugh... I need to look where I'm typing! I found an owner for one of the kittens, in case you didn't get what I just typed.

I went over to his house the other day (Tuesday) after classes to have a karaoke evening, which was very fun. I'll (eventually) put up some pictures. What do you get when you put 4 geeks in the same room for an evening? Very hot, for one, no matter how cold it is outside, even with the window open. There were tons of computers running, printers, digital cameras, a TV, sound system... And hardly any room to breathe! Fun ;) And wacky. The guy who was organizing the evening has a pro camera, so we went overboard picture-wise. Some are so funny that they might end up on a promotional poster for the next Dazibao...
I'm surprised the neighbors don't complain. They must be used to him lol

It's cat-paradise... Little Neko-Chan 5`(that4s what he calls her for now until he can think of a more original name for a cat) has a blast hiding out in his room lol...

Apart from that, I've been mostly studying, learning java, I've started to learn regular expressions. Turns out one of my friends in college is also learning them so we have fun talking about it at lunch just to bug our biology-major friends :p

nothing

Don't you just hate the feeling of having "wasted" a day? Even when you did do a few important things? It's almost depressing :( Like nothing in the world could bring back the time lost.

Links (the browser)

I was curious/bored today. And frustrated for some reason that I'm not learning enough, fast enough. I'm just too impatient.
And I was talking to a friend who told me to just learn the basics in math, and in the meantime get to know my Terminal, and LaTeX, etc... So that's what I've been doing.
I had heard of lynx somewhere, so I wanted to try it. So I tried downloading it but there isn't a version for mac os x 10.4 yet, if I understood correctly. So I tried Links. And I tried viewing my blog, posting a comment (which I deleted because it was just to test) and even posting. I didn't manage to log in to blogger though... Might not be possible. I couldn't seem to log into gmail correctly either.
I also tried some surfing, which generally speaking works like a charm. It's nice to have your page load immediately and not be slowed down by all the images... And it's very easy to toggle and see just the source of the page, and search it.
I'm also going to try and learn a bit more about Vi. I want to be able to survive with a terminal.
Obviouly I love "eye-candy". Too much, perhaps. I'm making a fool of myself because most of my readers probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about, and the few who do will probably say I sound silly.

Reading the tables

In classes, it's sometimes interesting to read what's written on the tables. Sometimes it's vulgar, sometimes it's funny, but very rarely anything intelligent.
Today I found something pretty smart. It's in french, so I'll translate (very approximately) for you.

Dieu a dit (God said)
Il faut pacifier (Make peace)
Il faut désarmer (No weapons)

Bush a compris (Bush understood:)
Il faut pas s'y fier (Don't trust them)
Il faut des armées (You need armies)

Why is this smart? Well, because if you pronounce it in french, "Il faut pacifier" sounds exactly like "il faut pas s'y fier". And "Il faut désarmer" sounds like "il faut des armées".

Apart from that, I went online, found the classroom for a class this afternoon, but there were lots of people there, all in Master 1. So I don't know where that class will take place. Don't you love university?

Another dream

I've been dreaming quite a lot lately... Last night I dreamt I managed to blog about something people actually are interested in and my stats exploded to the point where I couldn't even answer all my comments anymore.

On a more realistic note, I drove for the first time today without my driving instructor, but my mom instead. I don't feel quite ready to drive all alone yet- and perhaps not even tomorrow. I shouldn't even drive today any more. I have such an awful migrane, it started to hit me before driving, but when I got out of the car it was head-splitting. I'm amazed I can even type. Thankfully my computer screen is nice on my eyes (the PC's monitor really gets to me).

But I'm going to take a nap, soon as I e-mail the girl I'm doing the german project with. We need to do a little presentation next Monday, and I probably should have done this sooner, but before I didn't have a german dictionnary on hand and as much as I am relying on the internet for nearly anything now, I still don't quite trust it when it comes to the German language. (I'm billingual and so I know what it's translating services spit out sometimes from French to English and vice-versa)

On the traces of the iPod bus... #1

Here is a picture I took "on the go" of one of those buses... Enjoy. Well, I'll try to get a better snapshot this week.

A fairytale

Last night I had a dream, and I think it would actually make a pretty good kid's book.

Here goes:

Once upon a time, a poor man and his wife lived in a small cottage. They had 3 children, and to live, the man needed to sell objects from door to door. So every week he would leave and come back only a week later, with enough money to live for the next week.
In the land, a beautiful queen had a very expensive piece of jewlery, a rare diamond, but one day, while swimming in the lake, she lost it.
Now the poor man was walking along the path near the lake, and saw something shining. He turned around and picked it up. He immediately knew his wife would love it, but had no idea how valuable it really was. So he went back home and put it in a box so that he wouldn't be robbed while travelling. He would give it to her on their wedding anniversary in a month, he decided.
At the first house where he went to sell his goods, the man invited him inside to eat dinner, and at the table they discussed all the lastest news. That's when he discovered that the queen would give a gigantic reward to whomever would return her jewlery. The man kept quiet about having found it and decided that he would bring it to the queen as soon as he came home the next week.
Meanwhile, the wife decided to clean out the house, and found the box, as well as the jewlery. She immediately understood that he would probably give it to her for her anniversary, but since he wasn't home, decided to wear it until he came back so that she could enjoy it anyway.
The man was so excited about being able to finally live with his wife every day, once he received the reward, that he decided to come home a day early and see her sooner. This took her by surprise, and so she hid the diamond so that he wouldn't know she'd found it, and decided to put it back in the box only after he had left.
The man, upon finding the box empty, assumed it had been stolen and went searching for the thief throughout all the land. He vowed to not come home until he had found it. A month later, he caught one thief, but he didn't have the diamond. So the years passed, he caught many thieves and murderers, and became a quite famous hero, with a mysterious identity. He never forgot his wife but didn't dare go home after all this time with nothing to show for it. So his children grew up, the wife wore black because she assumed her husband had died, she mourned him, and so she wore the diamond every single day in memory of him.
After twenty years, old and grey, he was too tiered to continue his search, and so he went home. He found his wife, in tears, weeping over the diamond. He said her name and took her hand, explained where he was, what he was doing, and then saw it. She told him: "why didn't you come home? I missed you so much; I don't need all of the nice things you wanted to get me, i need YOU".

Bad day....?

I've been dragging along a headache for the last couple days, as well as, last night, a slight fever. (I think walking home in the rain a couple days ago didn't do me much good) So I didn't go to classes yesterday. But today, I was feeling slightly better, so I decided to go, despite the pouring rain and the fact that I would probably be 5 minutes late even if I took the bus. The thing is, I missed it by a minute. And one of the bus lines doesn't stop at that stop anymore, and the next bus was 30 minutes later. Obviously, in such a case, walking was the quickest solution.
Under pouring rain with non-waterproof shoes, even an umbrella doesn't help this to be a pleasent situation. So I got to the building, and made a nice discovery: there's a cafeteria right underneath the classroom part, so I got a nice hot cup of tea. But between walking perhaps an extra kilometer or so (you need to see the way to my classroom as a triangle. Trying to take the bus and walking from there is like being at one angle, walking down to another angle which happens to be the right angle, and walking from there to the other angle. MUCH longer), under the pouring rain (so not as fast) and taking a cup of tea and drying off, I was over half an hour late. Instead of disrupting the class, I decided to wait in the hall and do some math on a little table with a chair that was conveniantly put there, until the mid-class break. When I walked in at that point, I explained the situation to the teacher, and he was very understanding and nice and said that I should have come in anyway, no matter how late I was, and that it didn't matter so long as it didn't happen every week! To top it off, he's a GREAT math teacher!!
And today is Friday, which means I'm going home.

apple special event video

I've just finished watching it online... And I do wish I had waited. The problem with Apple is their stuff keeps getting cooler and cooler faster than I can spend my money... :(
My iBook is only one year old, and since then there has been iLife 06, the MacBook with intel chips, iSight...
My iPod is only 2 months old and since then... well you know if you've been on the Apple site.

I like the search feature in the new iPods.
At least I didn't buy a battery charger- the new ones are much smaller. (40% I think, I don't feel like checking my info- but I know it's way smaller) So that's my consolation.
My second consolation is that I at least didn't get the 60Go one.

iPod bus

Today I was walking in town, solving a couple of my problems... and I saw a bus. A bus painted top to bottom, throughout the entire length with album art, and an iPod nano. Even the windows on the bus were painted...
Now that's what I call a commercial. I think it's brand new, because I never did see it before, and considering Apple's iTunes 7 update, as well as the new iPods (I'm soooo glad I didn't get the 60Go a couple months ago!!)... it makes sense.
I've heard people say that the Zune will beat the iPod- I don't believe it.
Only one thing I'm not too excited about: iPod movies. 10$ is too much. I can get a DVD for that price. Granted it's a huge operation if I want to put it on my iPod, but if I want to watch a movie when travelling I just use my iBook- has more battery life anyway.
The games (especially Tetris!) sound fun though...

If I can get a picture of the iPod bus I'll put it up here and on iSmile, too :)

Problems

Problems: either you deal with them, or they deal with you. That was my main though this lunch break - because I have many problems to deal with.

Sometimes a problem will solve itself. Last year that happened with social security. If you hate spiders and there's one in your room, it might go away on its own if you're too afraid to squish it- but then again it might bite you in the night! Sometimes if you don't deal with it, it'll lash out on you so hard that it's even worse than it would have been had you dealt with it yourself.
It's a bit like the "howlers" in Harry Potter: red angry letters that, if you open them, a loud voice houls at you, yells at you... but if you don't open it yourself, it will eventually explode and the yelling will be so loud that absolutely everyone will hear what it says.

We have lots of "problems"- some we can ignore for awhile, some we just have to live with, and others need to be dealt with immediately. Some are so awful that we know that dealing with them might just cost us everything... so we assume that leaving well enough alone, ignoring it, will make it go away.

Imagine you have no insurance on your car. This isn't a problem if you're never stopped by the police and you never crash into anything. But the day one of those events occur... you're in deep trouble.
Imagine you've told a "small" lie. If the person leaves it at that, isn't inquisitive, and the issue never comes up again, you might not see any consequences. For instance you may say "I had a very important phone call from my bank, which is why I'm late", instead of admitting you were sleeping and didn't want to get up so early - that sort of lie probably won't catch up with you. But imagine you tell something about yourself to a friend, to make yourself look better. You might have to keep on lying to covor up your lie, the lies will get bigger and bigger and eventually it might blow up and destroy your friendship.

The main problem we all have is sin (don't let yourself be put off by the word- please read on and comment if you disagree). Most people ignore it, try to hide it, or decide to declare "it's not a problem!"- but it is. Some people try to do all three, which isn't logical. They say "it's not a problem"- but they doubt this enough to try to hide it, even from themselves, and therefore try to ignore it. If it wasn't a problem they would live it in the open. The other approach is to try to deal with it. Some people try to deal with it by trying to stop. This doesn't work. Try it- just for one thing- and if you're like me you won't last a week.
Others figure that since they can't stop, they may as well try to outweigh the sin by good works. Doing random acts of kindness is a good thing, but it doesn't erase the problem of sin. It just makes you a nice person.
The only way is to be forgiven and redeemed, purified, by Jesus Christ.

You can decide to deal with your problems now, or wait until they deal with you to start working on your problems, or, worse, wait until it's too late to do anything about them. You can get away with a lot for a long time, but not with everything forever.

My sister's new blog

My sister now has a new blog, you can read it here. It's a bit like her old one (and in french) but she is very artistic and takes beautiful pictures, so even if you don't understand french it's worth the visit!

First day of classes

Today is officially my first day of classes in Rennes 1.
When I got up this morning, I didn't know what groups I was in (the lists hadn't been updated yet and for some reason they had forgotten my name- I checked last night, the update came about mid-morning - which meant that I wasn't on the list in german class!) I also didn't know where my classes were, because last night the internet connection was so slow that it wouldn't load the university's class calendar. So I got there only 5 minutes early because it took me slightly longer than usual to walk over... And yet I had no trouble because I just followed people who I heard talking about the class I was going to.

I had 8 hours of classes today- a big day, considering that tomorrow I have 4 hours, and the rest of the week only 2 hours per day.
I was glad to find out I actually know some people who were with me in high-school. That was very helpful.
So I had B04 this morning, but as it turns out I had followed the beginning of that class last year so it was somewhat boring. And then I had german. I didn't take german last year, so I was overjoyed to find out I understood everything the teacher said! I just lost most of my own capacity to speak because the vocabulary and grammer doesn't come back that easily.
This afternoon, C02. A harder class, in theory.
And now I'm in OFI, "Outils formels pour l'informatique"- but my break is over so back to work!

Got my licence!!!

I just got the call from the driving school, and after having told my closest friends and family, here comes the news to all my blogging friends :)

I'm sooo happy! Especially since I was far from sure I would get it!

New links

I've been surfing lately, and I've found blogs I like. So here are the recent additions in my sidebar (quite a few, as I got behind)...

Post Secret

A day in the life...

Controlled Chaos

World of Yaxlich

books, cats, life

So... If you want to check those blogs out, they are definately worth the visit.

My licence

OK, now that I've explained how it works, may as well tell you how it went for me this morning. I was first to pass the exam, and I had to drive in town for 5-10 minutes, until we got to a residential area. There, I was asked to backup into a street - and I completely messed up that manoeuvre.

From there, I drove some more, mostly on the freeway, and then came back into town, and had to park, which I did rather sucessfully! Then I had to check the tires, make sure they weren't torn on the side, etc... and I also had to use the back window-wipers.
So I'm not sure if I got my licence or not, in Rennes, since many inspectors got attacked after giving the results directly, they are always given by mail now. So I'm hoping to find out tomorrow. I'll keep you posted!

French driver's licence

I figured that today I'd tell you a bit about the french driver's licence. The exam lasts 35 minutes, and costs 60 euros (so it's a bad idea to mess up because then you have to pay for more lessons and for another exam).

There are two manoeuvres, one of them is necessarily in reverse.
There are also two questions, one about the ouside of the vehicle, and one about the inside. For example, I could be asked to check if there's enough oil in the motor, or if my break lights work. For the interior, it could be turning my lights on, or opening my window (that's the easiest question on the list!)

I also need to drive for 10 minutes in town, and the rest of the time out of town (either on the highway or a country road or both).

There are 3 possible grades: A, B, and C. C is if I make a terrible dangerous mistake, B is if I make a few tolerable mistakes and A is good. On the questions I can only get A or B.
Everything else is graded A, B or C. I get my driver's licence if I have at least one A and no C.

I'm going to pass it in the southern part of Rennes, which is somewhat a calmer area than the north, except for one particular street near Clemenceau, and the roundabout at La Poterie.
Apparantly in the south they are very picky about trajectories at turns.

I'm guest blogger for today!

Check out my review on Bestest Blog, or just read it here from the comfort of my own blog ;)

If you like reading teaching anecdotes told with lots of humor, as well as other funny stories,A day in the Life is the blog you need to read! (Or should I say, the garden you need to visit?)

She is an excellent "gardener" (blogger), and as such, always has "fresh flowers" (recent posts). There's a new bloom nearly every day.
It's a beautiful garden, I personnally enjoy blogs with an interesting template, it highlights the content and makes you want to read more.

Quilldancer teaches in a school as well as a Sunday-school class, and always has interesting stories to tell about the children, and even better, parents. The class pets vs. parent episode is hilarious.
She also gets confused with employees in Walmart, with hilarious outcomes.
She loves teaching, she loves her students, and her students love her, too. She asked them to "grade" her as a teacher, and the lowest grade she got on her report card was a B+.

She also has a "Wordless Wednsday", where she posts funny pictures and videos.

So if you havn't already, go to her garden and if you like it, leave a "bouquet" (comment). Tell her that Bestest Blog and Alessia sent you!

IE, comments and french culture

Thank you for commenting and reassuring me that my blog is indeed popup-less... I'm sorry I havn't had much time to get back to you, visit blogs, etc... and my linking hasn't been updated in awhile as well, because I just started back in college this week and I'm passing my driver's licence exam on Friday, and in France it is hard. So don't expect to get too much blogging out of me for a week or so, a post here and there but not much.

I didn't know that IE7 had tabbed browsing, thank you for pointing that out to me. Must admit I don't use Windows unless I'm undergoing serious internet withdrawl (like now... I can't use my mac here yet).

OK... And here's one off-topic cultural item: I love smoothies... They've finally come to France (I've been waiting for that for years now!) and it's really nice because it's so hot out right now.
That's pretty random I suppose, but I guess it's interesting because most people don't know that Dr. Pepper is unknown here, nobody's ever been to a Taco Bell and smoothies are a novelty.

Blogexplosion=blind?

I was curious to try blogexplosion. I actually read some of the blogs in their random blog button and left comments and all that, and liked it well enough.

But then I tried submitting both of my blogs. Apparantly this blog looks scrambled in IE and is un-readable. Well, I got on a PC, tried IE, and nothing odd appeared except for my "get firefox" message. And I realize there's a little problem in my CSS I havn't had time to fix, but it does not scramble my blog, and it does not make it unreadable. In fact, you won't even notice it unless you go into my archives. (if you have a problem with my blog, please let me know and tell me exactly what browser you're using)

As for iSmile, they say there are empty popups. Now that is weird. I didn't put any code to put popups on it, and whenever I open the blog from any browser, I never get popups, even when I disable the popup blocker. (do you see any popups there? If so, leave me a comment and I'll try to get rid of them.)

I don't know what the BlogExplosion moderators are talking about.

Pff... who needs BlogExplosion anyway? On blogexplosion, I bet most people are just waiting until the 30 seconds are up to get their credits and don't even take a glance at my blog.

Explorer Destroyer

I don't like Internet Explorer. Really. Not just because it's Microsoft, although I suppose that's reason enough ;) I do use Microsoft Office though, but I've been recently converted to LaTeX and rarely use Word anymore.

ANYWAY- back to IE bashing :p

I don't like not being able to do tab browsing. I'm addicted to tabbed browsing. I figure I have enough open windows as it is (all my Gimp projects, e-mails, iTunes, Adium -thank goodness Adium has tabs, too!- iSync...). So when I get on a PC, even more windows are open, my desktop is a real mess, so tabbed browsing is even more handy. I use Firefox whenever I can (that is when I have the authorization to install it). On my mac, I like Safari.

I don't like popup ads. How come IE doesn't block them?

I hate spyware.

And I really don't like the design of it. If I'm going to spend 8+ hours per day on my computer, I like to have a pretty interface.

Firefox is nice. It's free. Better yet, it's Open Source.

So I think that using level 1 of Explorer Destroyer is actually doing a public service. It's just a message on the top of my blog for people who are using the browser, and it doesn't stop people from reading my blog normally, so I think it's just a suggestion.
If you have money to get a new computer, just get a mac. Or if you don't, why don't you consider intalling Linux? If neither of these options appeal to you, at least get Firefox, it's worth it. And if you don't like it (for some obscure reason I couldn't imagine), you can always revert to IE.

For all you fellow bloggers, check out Explorer Destroyer. It's easy and fast to add to your template. And if you use AdSense, you'll get 1$ for every referral to Firefox. Personally, I don't. I'm not doing this for the money.

Another Sony Ericsson theme!

Here is another adiumy, the Lederhosen one. I love Adiumy he's so cute. I download them off AdiumXtras. And then I let my creative juices flow to make the theme :)
You can't tell here, but I figured out how to make the SMS composition screen look like the Mail.app e-mail composition window.
Figures... I get a new phone and the first thing I do is create my own themes and sync it with my iBook. I havn't even called anybody with it yet!

making V600i themes

I downloaded the software and some starter themes here.
From there, I just fire up the gimp and it's fun, fun, fun :)

Here is the main page of the theme, I've been having a blast making this Yoda adiumy one!
There were no adium themes on the website, so I've been working on it.
My theme is only good enough to go on my own phone for now, so I'm not going to be uploading it. And also I doubt there are very many adium users with my exact phone... Sooooo it's pretty pointless. Except to make me happy :D

syncing the V600i and the mac

I just got this cute new phone. I'm happy now, but at first I was extremely frustrated with it. It just wouldn't work with iSync. Then I found this hint and it helped A LOT.
If you do this, back up your .plist file before making the changes (Open With TextEdit), and you should be OK. Also, when you're done, you need to quit iSync and THEN, only then, add your device to your device list. That's where I went wrong and got very frustrated, but now it works like a charm. It syncs with my iCal, and with my address book. I love syncing things :)
My only remaining frustrations are that it's impossible to buy an additional memory card, and my iBook doesn't seem to realize anything is plugged in when I use the USB cable. But as long as the Bluetooth works, I guess I don't need the USB that much. Except that it's a better way to "unload" my pictures, which will be necessary since the memory card is so small. (like 24 Mo if I remember correctly)

I think it's kind of lame that you have to be slightly geeky or at least very persistant to do something that should be easy. Most people don't care for editing .plist files (I don't really mind that much).

As for the phone menus, I'm still used to my Alcatel phone's menus, which were a charm to work with. But I'll eventually get the hang of it.
I don't care for the fact that there's a Vodafone live button on the side. I'm afraid I'll connect (and pay big bucks for it) by mistake.
But I love the Visio :)

iSmile

Please check out this new blog. It's a brand new project I started and I hope it'll gain momentum... It's meant as a tribute to my favorite computers, iPods and fruit :)

The idea is to post a picture of yourself with your favorite apple product on your blog, put a comment, link the blog on yours, and I'll link you and put your picture up...

Blog vision

The Bestest Blog of All Time has got me thinking. I consistantly don't want this to be categorized as a "personal" blog because I feel I have very recurrent themes. But I decided to change categories. Before, I was in the "Writing" category (but nobody seemed to care about my Prodigal Son series (check the archives if you want to read it)). Now I'm in the Internet/Technology section. I tend to talk a lot about geek stuff, but still throw in an occasional post about other things, such as spiders, my *personal* life, college, or my faith, or a book I'm reading. I find it very difficult to stick to one theme.
So what are my options?

I could decide to orient my blog in one direction or another and limit my "other" posts to one designated day a week.

I could give up and become a "personal" blog- but honestly, that's not really what I want. I wish there was a "randomness" category. Because I think there's a difference between "personal" and "random". Most of my "real-life" friends don't even really visit my blog that much, although some do. I don't make a habit of talking of myself beyond that subtle limit of what I think might interest random-blog button surfers.

I could decide to orient it according to the title, Waiting, Wishing. Perhaps say "I am waiting for Leopard to come out, and wishing I had a MacBook". "I am an aspiring geek."
That way none of my posts will be off-topic. And considering my major in college, technology will be a big theme on here. More than this summer- I tend to read book after book during the long summer nights. So I tend to blog about litterature and philosophical themes in summer.

I do like the "one day a week" idea, though. So, let's say, Saturday is random day. Expect funny pictures, random things I found online, etc...

A light in the darkness...

Here are some positive things to end my day:

Billy Mac, from Critique My Blog, a blog that reviews other blogs, talks about Adsense and a lot of other topics that interest most bloggers, has reviewed my blog. Here is what he says:

Here is a cool blog by a young girl who is doing what blogs were made for in the first place. Expression. I'm guessing you're not from the USA from the (A) sticker you have to put on your car. Nice job with the blog...I'd keep posting and keep adding content. Keep a running journal and you'll have fun looking back years from now to see how your blog has progressed and matured. Maybe add some adsense, that's my only critism. Nice job.

Thank you :) And yes, I am from France, but blog in english by choice. About the adsense, I don't think I have enough visitors to justify messing up my template. :p I just don't like ads in general.

Another positive thing is that next Thursday, I've been booked to be "Guest Blogger" on the bestest blog of all time, which is a nice place to read random blogs. I'll be reviewing a blog I like and giving it a "Bestest blog of the day" award :)

So despite killer spiders, life isn't that bad.

Spider season is open!!

In every sense of the term. Of course, thoses evil creatures are omnipresent. All year round. But they get worse in September/October. They are big. They are black. And they are in the house.
I saw one. But it's so late I can't even do anything about it except pray it's too large to get in my room through the crack in the door. And pray it will be in the same place tomorrow morning so my dad can invest in a bazooka.

The second sense is that I want to start a worldwide conspiracy. We need to exterminate evil spiders. Especially big black ones and ones that bite people. I guess daddy long legs are ok. Little tiny ones I don't mind so much.

If you like the idea, leave a comment, and post about this on your blog. We might create a support group of people trying to get spiders out of their houses. I mean I understand full extermination, aside from being impossible, might not be best for the ecosystem, but I at least need them OUT of my house.

How come only the cute, furry, animals are in danger of extinction? Why not mosquitoes and spiders?

testing MySpace

Now what compelled me to do that?

My best friend thought that would be a good way to keep the whole group in touch this year without actually skyrocketing our phone bills and overloading our e-mail boxes with pictures, news, and all that.

I read an article in the newspaper about it's success. So I guess I supposed it wasn't as bad as it looks.

So... much as I was reluctant to do so, I set up an account. And I updated my profile.

The french beta is really not ready to be online at all. Good thing I speak english!
I don't like the fact that you're a MySpace "loser" if you don't have any "friends". I really don't care for that sort of community. Doesn't seem all that much better than skyblog. I also don't like the way they manage blogging. I don't like the layout. I don't like the profile settings. I just plain don't like it.

And what I really don't like is that you're not sure what you're seeing. Your admin interface? Your "blog" as it appears to your friends? Something entirely different?

There are too many menus. I hate menus. Seriously. Well I don't mind menus that much if I can move them around as I like, customize them. And find ways to avoid them altogether.

MySpace. Ringo. So many services to keep track of birthdays, friends, photos, whatever. Gets confusing. And none are usable unless you sign up.

Crabby mood tonight...
Maybe MySpace isn't that bad. I guess I've only been using it for a day. There are some things you don't like from the get-go, but that are nice in the long run. Just take getting used to. Don't know if that's the case here

administrative mumbo-jumbo

I just called my best friend and found out that we have the same administrative mumbo-jumbo to mess with...

This involves retrieving a paper in University A, bringing it to University B to be signed, going to the library to get another paper, and bringing it all back to University A (I used different names because we're actually transferring from opposite universities!!! Might be easier to just switch identities :p)

Let's just hope the offices will be open.

I also need to get pictures of me taken, buy enveloppes, stamps, photocopy every possible and imaginable document that could be asked of me, go see a doctor (which is a joke: he'll take one look at me and sign the paper saying I can do sports!!! then again sometimes they listen to my heartbeat and take a look at my knee...).

I'm going to have QUITE a week!!!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy birthday iBook :)

It's one year old, today...

Today, I saw Daniel again after a long time without seeing him at all, which was nice.
I also talked to a very good friend I havn't seen in over a year, which was really fun. But I left msn abruptly, forgetting that's rude, and now I feel really bad. I tend to leave without giving it a second thought because I'm usually back in time for it to barely matter. But then again there are times when you just don't have time to say goodbye- some things just can't wait. I'm so used to talking to people who are on 24/7 that... well... I tend to assume the person will still be online when I get back, or be back on within a couple hours.
Well, I'm forgetting that I didn't see that guy online for over a year and a half... so I must be dreaming. I hope he doesn't take it personally.

Other than that, I got some books as late birthday gifts :)
And I've advanced quite a bit in my administrative stuff...

AND- a new car!!!!!!!! Not all mine (I don't even have my licence yet) but I can drive in on week-ends. It's a cute 8-year-old Citroën Saxo :)

The 1998 version

For those of you who care, here is an article about the french editions. I have the 1998 version.
It's really worth being read. I wish I had the missing episodes. I'm glad I have that version and not the 2004 and 2005 ones, they have deplorable translations of dialogues, and even worse coloring (why don't they just keep it the way it was in 1998?)

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

I admit it: I'm a fan.
I used to read about my favorite duck when I was a kid, and I actually own the collector's La Jeunesse de Picsou from 1998, which, today, can only be found on ebay for about 30-40 euros. (original price: about 30 francs)
It's one of the best comics ever.
And I was just feeling really bad I missed out on the re-edition of them in 2004 and 2005, with extra episodes. This came about when I bought the most recent collector hors-série with Don Rosa's comics for my sister's birthday, and now I wish I had all the "in-between" episodes that aren't in the 1998 edition.
My best bet is to buy them in english, for the simple reason that it's a book, and not a magazine. So it's not a collector's item, but it's the original version or close enough, and brand new. There's actually a new one coming out. There's the first one that contains episodes 1-15, and then this new one, coming out on September 6th, contains all the "in-betweens" and the episode 0.

I'm quite tempted to get them. For less than 15 euros each I can have the original (aka in english) version, brand new (and not with a ripped cover, like my collector's edition now has: it has been read and re-read by my entire family).

The end of ResExcellence...

*gasp* what is to become of me??? It was one of my favorite sites...
There were so many cool ways to customize your mac, it taught me everything I know practically... And the forums are closed, too... I come home from vacation to that... Was gone all summer so I didn't see it coming.
I'm so bummed out :(

I just found This page, and I think it explains a lot.
Personnally I was enchanted by the mac community, I've always found the forums helpful, and although some people can be rude, I just always figured that was "life".
I know that whenever I've had a problem, if I do my research myself first everywhere I can think of and if I explain my problem, as well as everything I've tried, as clearly as possible, everybody has always been very helpful.
I'm sorry to hear that this isn't true everywhere.
And I'm sorry if I've ever been rude...
I can understand why the site was shut down, and I do hope somebody else will be able to take it over.

On a funnier note, this page cracked me up. Especially the image. I hope it's ok to post it on my blog, along with a link to the post. If not, I'll take it off.

my HD icon

In case any of you want to have it, or have one with your own desktop image, just leave me a comment on this post with your e-mail adress and I'll send you the icon, and you can also send me a screenshot of your desktop and I'll make you a personalized one. I also have a couple pink ones with cherry blossoms.
Feel free to check out my AdiumXtras as well (cf. sidebar).
I like making stuff :D
I can also make 14-inch iBooks, powerbooks, I can send you icons for System Preferences with colorized Apples, and I can colorize any of your application icons, (or I can try!!)

Confusion

This post was actually too long, so I shortened it.

My biggest problem with having lots of things to do is I never know where to START on a problem. Once I've started it, I can generally finish. Same for school: if I have to write a paper, if I can find ONE idea, the rest generally come naturally.

Right now, the most important thing in my life isn't installing Linux, but I NEED to get it done.
It's saving all the documents off the PC that need to be kept and putting them back on that bugs me. I'm not sure exactly how well the iPods will work with Rhythembox, and I'm not quite yet sure where to store everything. On my iBook? On an iPod (not mine, my disk is formatted for mac-only)? Or just get an external disk, we'll need one eventually anyway?
It's not like I actually have much space left on my iBook, as you can see.

The most important problem for me to solve right now involves scholarships, social security, etc...
which means that I need to work on scholarships first because that's what gives me the right to have free social security, but for that I *think* I already need to be signed up in university. But I can't be signed up until I have social security. Oh and let's not even mention that my files need to be transferred from my old university to my new one and I'm not even sure of the procedures for that.
I'm quite confused.

Battery Exchange Program iBook G4 and PowerBook G4

If you have a powerbook or an iBook, your battery may be a security hazard, and Apple will recall it and send you a brand new one, free of charge.
Kind of nice, I was starting to get an alarming amount of loadcycles!
Battery Exchange Program.
It's for 12" and 15" ibooks and powerbooks (not 14")...

Scarlet Letter...

Pretty soon (if all goes well), I'll be able to place this sticker on the car :D

OK... OK I'll explain... I'm not bent on committing adultery.
In France, young drivers need to place that sticker on their car for 3 years (not quite sure why it's an "A" though... if anybody know's I'd be glad to find out why) and have a lower speed limit than everybody else and less points on their driver's licence (6 instead of 12)... So I'm not exactly excited about the sticker, but I am excited about being allowed to drive soon!
My exam is on September 8th!!!!

Apart from that I'd like an Apple sticker on my car when I have one of my own... :)

Courage

Why is it that when you build up both the courage and the motivation to do something important, it isn't possible to do it?
Is it precisely because it's not possible? So it seems easier? I'm not certain of that- in some cases I guess that would account for it, but not always. Sometimes courage just comes when it comes, like a "déclic"- a revelation, and you know something needs to be done. You just can't do it right away.

Projects and a rant on the point of life (of my blog, really)

Yes, I'll rant on the point of this blog, too... Just thank me that I won't rant on and on on the point of life... lol

I'm not sure when I'll actually have time for all of this, I've been quite busy lately and it's not likely to change until at least October...
But I do have some plans and dreams and hopes and wishes...

I'm WAY behind in my webdesign... I have at least 2 or 3 projects to work on (for family, friends, and yes, even this blog... there's a bug somewhere in the template that I can't seem to fix- I could if I had time to- but I tend to forget... AND for a new blog, more later in the post!!!)

I also need to work on making the family PC usable. For now, it bugs all the time. And Windows is getting on everybody's nerve (especially mine, I'll admit), so I need to put Linux on it :)

I need to figure out the social security stuff... Free for me, cuz I'm a student, but still a LOT of paperwork...

I need to finalize my inscription to my new univesity...

I need to pass my driver's licence.

And last but not least, I have a new blog idea in mind... top secret... I've already written a few posts on paper, jotted down ideas as they came... I think it might be more interesting than this one, in the sense that it'll actually have a fixed theme, this one is more of a "jot-down-the-thoughts-as-they-come" sort of blog- which obviously interests only a select audience, and only for a short time. I won't abandon this one though, I like it too much for that...
This blog is a sort of therapeutic blog for me. Patience is the virtue I lack the most. So I use this blog to vent, or work on it, try to reason with myself, perhaps bring a chuckle to my readers, or help or whatnot, although I'll gladly admit humor isn't my "thing", either. I'm sure nobody's cracked up reading my blog. Oh well. That's life.

And I'm certainly forgetting some plans.

cruisin'

I'm back from the island of ré (which explains the lack of posts here!!)....

As usual, it was a wonderful trip: walks on the beach, swimming in the waves nearly every afternoon, enjoying the beauty of the island, eating the crabs my dad caught in the morning...
But I think the best part was the cruise we went on, with my family, my grandfather, aunt and cousins... From St Martin to l'île d'Aix, and with a tour of Fort Boyard, we saw it from every angle. We also went under the bridge of the island, and it was soooo fun!! The weather was beautiful, there was no wind in the morning, but in the afternoon there was some and that was fun too, all the waves splashing water on us, the wind blowing in my hair, the waves sparkling in the sun, all this with the Corrs singing in my ear (i love my iPod!)
I also wasn't sea-sick at all, and for the first time was able to appriciate why people love boats so much, love navigating... Because I do too!!!!
I was so excited to get into the port of La Rochelle... It was beautiful, all the towers...
I'll eventually put up some pictures.

Sneak peak at Leopard

Click the link and behold!!! I'm sooo excited, although I probably won't have the money to buy it right away...

Visitor stats, or why do people google a URL?

I was looking at my stats, and I noticed that 2 people found my blog by googling my URL...
What's up with that?

1. What's the point in putting a URL in google, if you already know where you're going?

2. How in the world did they know MY URL? My URL is long, it is unusual and complicated, and I don't know anybody in Italy. Lucky guess?
If it was just Waiting, wishing, I could understand. But adding alessia afterwards is almost like the person already knew my blog :p

Also, I suppose people found my recent post :)
My OS X user stats exploded! They went from a usual 5% of users to 17% :)

top 10 free OS X apps

All the following applications are for Mac OS X, and at least have free trial versions that can used (and re-used...)
Some are to be used with caution, some have questionnable uses but can come in handy, and I'll provide all the website links for you.
This is a special post to celebrate post #100 on this blog!!!

1. Adium

I like Adium because you can use all your instant messaging accounts on it (msn, aim, gmail, yahoo, etc...) simultaneously. I also like it because you can download lots of Xtras, some of which I made, I like the fact that it is open-source and that it's so good that mac-users will never need to use msn's awful software!!!

2. SizzlingKeys

This is REALLY cool if you like listening to your background music while working. You can configure your own keyboard shortcuts to change songs, pause your song, etc... And you can configure the floater to look really nice on your desktop. It's free!

3. Growl

This is REALLY COOL and why Windows will never amount to anything :p... It works with iTunes, Mail, Adium, and other applications to notify you for some events. You can configure the floater to look nice on your desktop.

4. Senuti

This wonderful application will allow you to do the only thing iTunes will not: copy music from your iPod to your computer. This has many legal applications: backing up the music on your hard drive, saving space to put all your heavy developper apps which take Go upon Go of space on your poor hard drive, or even just transfering your music from your old mac to your new mac :)

5. VLC

Now illegal in France, but I don't see why. Anyway most media players are fussy. This one isn't too much. It'll allow you to read even .wma files without downloading Windows Media Player *shudders*. Excellent for watching DivX, DVDs, and home videos when QuickTime gets fussy.

6. Amnesty

Dashboard is nice. But I don't like opening it. I like having my widgets on my Desktop and closing them when I'm sick of them. You can enter a terminal command to make this possible without downloading Amnesty, but I still like Amnesty because it allows you to change your widget's size, rotate it, change it's transparency, etc... It's 20$, which is a lot, but I've been using the trial version, which works very well :)

7. ClearDock

Ever get sick of the color of your dock? Change it! You can also work on the transparency, and the border. WAY cool. Unsanity also has other cool haxies but this is the only free one.

8. HandBrake

This is a DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. That doesn't sound very legal, but there is a legal use I like: for those of us with video iPods, it's nice to put our home videos on it without having to buy the pro version of Quicktime, or even to put a film we legally bought to watch on the plane, for example. PLuuuus, the dock icon looks really cool :)

9. CyberDuck

An excellent FTP client :)

10. Coconut apps

These are really cool to know if there's an open network in the area, or how well your battery is doing, or where your mac was built.


OK, well those are just a few of my favorites. I think with all those you'll have time to get the most out of your mac :)

it's frustrating to wait when you're ready...

Waiting is OK when you're not ready.
Waiting is OK when you're not sure.
Waiting is OK when you're scared to death.

Waiting is annoying when you're aching to do something you could do, but aren't allowed to do yet.
When it would be so very practical and wonderful,
when it's something you know you'd enjoy and you know it would make other people's lives easier if you could do it.
When it would simplify travelling.
When it would make life as a whole easier.

Waiting is hard when everyone is doing it around you.
Even people who shouldn't.
When all your friends look at you in disbelief: "but I started when I was 16!"
When for a long time you believed you wouldn't have to wait so long but things didn't turn out quite as planned.
When you could probably get away with not waiting... after all, lots of people do, you just need to be careful...

I'm ready to drive. I'm good at it. I feel confident on the road. I believe I'll get my driver's licence right away, or if I don't, I'll miss not by much. I love driving. It would be sooooo practical. But I must wait. Wait until the lists aren't so full. Wait until September, when I could have been ready in July.

Some things just can't be undone

Here are a few thoughts on the last book of Liz Curtis Higgs' trilogy. This post will mainly be about the evolution of my feelings about Rose. Do not read this post unless you don't care about spoilers. You are officially warned :p
I originally titled this post "Whence Came a Prince"- but I believe I have explained things sufficiantly for it to be interesting even to people who havn't read the books.

At the end of the second book, I truely despised Rose. I wished she had died as her friend had. She had reasons to be angry with her sister, obviously- but that's no reason to steal her husband and child and then rub it in by asking terrible questions. And it is also no reason to resort to witchcraft.
Also her motives for wanting a child utterly disgusted me. And her methods, even more.
I was also disgusted by the decision of the church- and it just didn't seem to me to be a realistic course of action. Not really. Two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes, even if things got the way they are by wrongdoing, the best thing isn't to try and fix them, but leave best alone.
She and Jamie had already been living as husband and wife for a year. They had a child together and were genuinely in love. Everyone had believed, including themselves, that they were rightfully married.

For example, in the Bible, David married Saul's daughter, who was in love with him. But he had to flee from home, for his life was threatened by Saul. He had no choice. And Saul gave her away, certainly against her will, to another man.
Years later, David was king. He had other wives already, but, to prove a point, went to take his first wife back, when she was finally settled with that other man, who obviously loved her. It's a heartbreaking story.

Sometimes situations cannot be restored to how they *should* be.
In the case of the book, "restoring" the situation meant seperating a couple, and making a man marry the sister of the woman he loves, while he doesn't love the sister in question, taking Ian, their child, away from his rightful mother and giving him to an immature 16-year-old. To top it off, Leana had truely repented, and was a woman of faith, walking with God (which the pastor eventually realized), but her sister had nearly died from dabbling in witchcraft (which was a secret she only knew).

Some things just can't be undone. And trying to un-do them just makes the situation worse.

So, back to Whence Came a Prince. In the end, Rose dies after a tragic miscarriage of her twins. She had changed a lot in the book, she had repented, and everything, but I do think that it was the consequence of her past mistakes. She had dabbled in witchcraft to get married, pregnant, and she had cursed her father, stolen from him... I felt sorry for her, because by the end of the book you do, like Jamie and Leana did, forgive her and love her no matter how hard it was to do so. Sometimes even though you get forgiveness you can't undo what's done and have consequences to deal with.

Something that always bothered me in the Bible was the death of David and Bath-Sheba's first child. One of the only innocent parties. And this was after David's repentance.

Another long post, but interesting, I hope. I tried to explain things so that even those who havn't read the books might understand.

The truth will set you free

This has potential for being another LONG post. But I don't want it to be. I think the bulk of it is in the title.
This phrase has two meanings, both true.

The first one, the original one, means that Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, will set you free :)

The second one, which I will explore more in this particular post, means that lies will ensnare you, entrap you, and sometimes it may seem easier to keep some things under wraps, but no matter how painful it is to have the truth out, at least you have nothing to hide, and you are free. You're not trying to keep secrets, people may judge, point a finger, stare, be hurt, but you are free.

The question here, is: is this freedom worth the cost, which may be a personal cost, or one that affects another person deeply?

I was thinking of this in relation to the series of books I was reading, especially Fair is the Rose. Leana was much happier when nobody knew how her marriage to Jamie came about. When the truth was out, she lost her husband, her child, and had to sit on the repentance stool- all of which was utterly unfair. But at the same time, she was free.
Telling the truth isn't the easiest way, and sometimes it's better to not tell some things to the whole wide world- in Leana's case I think it would have been perfectly OK if she never told everyone, morally- but I was admirative that she told the truth to the kirk session even though it cost her everything.

I think that sometimes it's best to confess things that have remained hidden- but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone has to know everything. Sometimes they can remain hidden, but I'm not convinced that's the best way.

Feel free to comment on this post. Here are a few questions to reflect on, which would be worth commenting:

*for those who have read the book I'm referring to, what would you have done in Leana's situation?

*what should David have done instead of murdering Bath-Sheba's husband? What do you think would have happened if he had done that instead? I've been told this isn't the best example, if you can think of a better one feel free to comment on that

*do you think that if you've lied to a person in the past, and there is no way the person could possibly be affected by it presently, or ever find out, unless YOU tell, should you confess anyway?
And if you do decide to tell, who should you tell? Just the people immediately affected, or a wider audience?
And what about the case where it's a past affair? Is it the same thing as a lie, or should it receive a different treatment?

Over and over again...

When will this EVER end? Why do I do the things I do? Why do things start to get better in my life and then why do I fall into the same awful traps again and again? It's like I don't want to be free from all that, but I do!
I can pray, ask for God to intervene in my life, to help me, and He always does, he is always faithful... but then I mess up again and after awhile I'm just tiered of always confessing the same sins, asking sorry again and again- my repentance is always genuine, and I'm fine for awhile- but a few years down the road, or a few months, or a few weeks, I blow it all again.
I'm always sincere.

Guilt really gets to me and I just want to be free. Free. I long to be free, I long for the day I'll believe...
I can be thinking I'm doing fine and then realize I just chewed someone out again, or had a bad attitude, or judged someone, or gossiped... Or, worse, that I have been ignoring God, havn't talked to him in days, and don't even *care* what He thinks. And yet I do.
It's incredibly frustrating.
What makes it worst is I know the answers- I've read my Bible and listened to enough sermons and lived enough to know better and to know the way out. I can give good advice, even give it to myself. But following it is another matter...
It's like in my driving. Every now and then I'll make a mistake, and Rémi will stop me and ask me what happened, and I'll tell him : "this is what I should have done, this is what I did, and this is why. This is how I could have avoided the mistake". And then he'll be like "so why didn't you do it?" and I never know why. I think things are the same with my faith.
Faith and driving have so many parallels.
The answer is very simple: "Read your Bible and pray every day" - "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart" - "Love him with all your heart"
Why does it have to be so simple? Sometimes I'm much better at doing the hard stuff. And it's much more embarrassing to mess up when it should be simple.
How can I still mess up when Christ lives in me? When I am filled with his Spirit? When I love him? When I'm trying to follow him?

It's so tempting to set myself rules to keep myself on the right tracks- but then I want to break them for they are "only" rules I made up. It's so tempting to say "I'm back for good this time, Lord, I won't dissappoint you". I'm so afraid to fail that I dare not even try anymore.
Or I end up legalistic. And my faith becomes a set of rules. And I become judgemental.
What does this sound like? been there, done that... I've said that so many times before. I've expressed those frustrations countless times in my journals.

When I was a kid, I loved reading the Old Testament. I enjoyed the stories (even though I didn't understand them- it could be fairly humorous to post "The Old Testament, read by a kid") but mostly I wanted to read the Bible like any book and I always got stuck in the Prophets so I kept starting back in Genesis. I made it to the New Testament sometime in my early teens!
My thoughts, after awhile, were "I see a pattern here: Isreal trusts God, God delivers Isreal, they are happy, but stop relying on him, sin against him, ignore him and get idols, and then God punishes them and then they repent and it goes on and on and on like that."
When I was a kid I thought "that's pretty stupid"- and it is. But I'm pretty stupid as well. I'm turning around in my desert when I should be in the promised land!!
I think their main problem was that they wanted to go to the Promised Land, but they also liked some aspects of Egypt. They couldn't get in until they had "divorced" Egypt. I won't get anywhere so long as I still have any regards or regrets of my life on my own.

House

I have just finished reading the book co-authored by Peretti and Dekker.
Imagine finding yourself after a fishy car accident in an old house with strange hosts and another couple in a similar predicament, and then being told three "rules": 1. God came to my house. I killed God. 2. I will anyone who comes to my house like I killed God. 3. Bring me one dead body and I might let rule 2 slide..
(quoting by memory here, so it may not be the exact words, but close enough)

Makes you think. It's a good thriller, I've always been a big fan of Peretti's. I wouldn't go so far as to say this is my favorite book by him (I think The Oath, or The Visitation or Monster would get that title. I can't really choose. Perhaps The Visitation.) But it is nonetheless excellent, exciting, and a page-turner. It's actually much scarier than his other books, I'm guessing this comes from the association with Dekker. But perhaps a bit sloppier in the storyline- normally I'm crying out in pain because I long to know what's coming next- here it was going so fast I could barely breathe. I didn't even see the 300-something pages go by!!!
A good summer read. But I guess the problem is that since it's less a thinking book than an action book, I wouldn't enjoy reading it again and again. Other books by Peretti always have hidden facettes to discover.
Until the end I wondered who would kill who and what would happen, who would survive, and I wondered for a long time about the mirror. I was very happy to understand in the end. But I had the intuition about the "bad guy" from the 3d chapter.
The only problem with the book is that it is somewhat confusing in the basement, you tend to forget where the characters are. Perhaps that was intentional: the house seems to have a mind of it's own.

Apart from that, there was one thing that really bothered me, but saying it would be a sort of spoiler. So don't read this next paragraph if you're planning on reading it.
What bothers me is it's recurrent. In The Oath, the woman dies too. I think she could have been saved, should have been. I think this woman was perhaps a bit further away- but not nearly as far as Stephanie. I wish she hadn't died. I've always seen her as a victim. Of course she sinned- havn't we all? I really wanted her to be free from what was haunting her in her past. I genuinely feel for women who have been abused, and her whole life she was trying to figure it out- by being with men, by studying psychology, etc... And in the end she seemed to understand she had been going about it wrong- and for no good reason (IMHO) was killed off. She was the only "interesting" character, the only one I found to have much depth. And even then... The others were too stereotyped and sometimes just plain annoying.

The end wasn't really that surprising. Online lots of people have said the "message" wasn't very clear- I disagree. I found it clear. Peretti's books are novels, not sermons. Novels that make you think, of course, but still novels.
Think fiction. :p I only wish perhaps that we could have seen more into the character's thoughts and feelings towards the end, their inner struggles...
I think the story was very much along the lines of The Oath- that is, practically allegorical- and it also has the same "message". I got more into the other one though, partly because I'm "into" dragons. I even named my iPod Smaug!!
Ok I'm going off topic here, but I do recommend this book and I did enjoy reading it. I just had very high expectations because I'm a fan!