you generally use the word retard as in “je suis en retard” which is to say, “i am delayed.”

I see these occasionally, since I live near St Tropez. The last one that I memorably saw was on one of the back roads between Hyères and St Tropez. The best road is along the sea, but you are frequently caught behind slower traffic. The quickest cuts through the hills, with the road being in parts extremely winding,…

hell, who even remembers that when the wolf fell down the chimney, that he fell into a huge cauldron and the three pigs ate him as soup? as an american living in europe, i was surprised when i read the original to my kid in french. i was like “wait a minute...” but yeah, the three little pigs totally eat the wolf at…

does anyone else think we are going to have a repeat of what happened in the 70s and early 80s, where american manufacturers made gas-guzzling junk beasts and the japanese came in with their “rice burners” ie small gas-sipping cars, and everyone lost their shit because “ermergerd!” the japanese are stealing our jobs…

oh god! i spent several months in vietnam about 20 years ago. that coffee! it’s heaven! but, man, it was such a disappointment that when i brought back the little steel filters that were used and tried to replicate this magic, i failed miserably.

as someone that just went through a bout with the detla variant, despite two doses of vaccine and mask wearing, and giving to my family, i sure as hell hope that i at least have partial immunity to this new variant. i do not wish to get this again, ever if possible.

i finished “the last graduate” by naomi novik, the sequel to “a deadly education”. definitely worth the short wait, though i am not really sure that it was the end of the series or the bridge between a trilogy.

4,214,942 miles! what do i win? :D

let me just preface this with: i have done it enough to have a good idea of what i am talking about... ;)

my dad was a neurosurgeon during the ‘50s and 60s. he used to say that if he was called in for a motorcycle accident, to perform surgery, the determining factor of whether his patient was going to live or not was whether they were wearing a helmet or no. also whether they would survive and reasonably expect to resume…

NEUTRAL: after three years in the army, i got out in 2006 and headed south of the border. for the next 15 months, i traveled through mexico and central america and then jumped down to south america. in argentina, i made a rookie traveling mistake and put my travel pack down in a way that it was easily stolen. stolen…

since halloween is a relatively new holiday import to france, the people that participate seem to have no sense of proportion in candy buying/distribution. that is to say that my kid comes back with a ton of candy, as well as i having a bunch undistributed, maybe deliberately, and left over. i make her save her candy…

down in europe still as of 19h30 (GMT+1)

off topic, but has kinja been super extra broken the past couple of days? it would show me as not logged in, then would not let me log in, but then at random times show me as logged in and then log me out again. is it only me?

like it is not already a risk buying clothes online, unless it is something that is exactly like you have always bought it’s a crapshoot. a car is not something i would do ever entirely online.

i am a driver for mildly mentally handicapped kids, this is usually in combination with some social/behavioral difficulties. this year i have 8 kids! all middle school age, in all of their traumatic adolescent glory with hormones in full percolation mode. it’s a nightmare! half are good and calm, the other half not…

it’s been a while since i lived in the US, but in france there’s a ton of freelance “last couple of km” delivery people. most of the time they’re using rented vans, it’s like an uber for box deliveries. a lot of the stuff is for cheap/”free” shipping. i cannot imagine they’re making much per package. i mean, my SO…

man has kinja screwed up my paragraph with a embedded link!

so yeah... one of the facebook groups that i follow is an occult/magik/spirituality group. as an agnostic pagan, i try to keep an open mind. but this kind of thing comes up so often that i had to bookmark the  frequency bias/baader-meinhof because it is always a good idea to keep a bit of rational thinking as an…

it reminds me of meals that you get at fancy french restaurants, those tiny courses centered on huge plates. of course, the point of those tiny servings is the unique experience of each individual plate; both visually, as well gustatory. each tiny portion is meant to be a separate and distinct experience. eat, enjoy,…