tim merritt [dot] net

English journalist Craig McGinty blogs about life in France at This French Life. Ironically, I found This French Life not while looking up travel information. No, it came up while while looking for advice on septic tank maintenance, and how nice that he’s posted information about caring for them in France, complete with local product names. Vive la France indeed.

He recently posted an interview with Hugh Nagle, who has a French instruction by podcast site called, plainly enough, Learn French by Podcast. I’ll be heading there regularly.

C’est marveilleux!

Might be able to call home cheaply with OneSuite. Current rates from France – after dialing a toll-free number – to the U.S. are 12.9¢ a minute. Not bad.

A quick list of links E found; have to close her browser, but don’t want to lose these.

• Marriott Rewards
• Paris Eiffel Tower News, a blog by a frequent Paris traveller
• A Romantic Paris Vacation
• Anthony Atkielski on Paris Fast Food

• Anthony Atkielski’s Paris FAQ

Behave, baby. Wikipedia’s list of French faux pas. Here’s one: “Like in many languages featuring a T-V distinction, addressing people with the familiar “tu” (like in Middle English thou) when they should be addressed with “vous” (you) is seen as derogatory, insulting, or even aggressive. Conversely, addressing familiars with “vous” is considered snobbish and introduces distance.”

Via kottke.

I had seen several links to this Russell Davies post on PopUrls, and finally followed it. I may make this my home page, it’s so good and inspiring. Before following the link, I expected a guide to being interesting, but it’s really about being interested – ten suggestions for living in a more engaged and thoughtful way and sharing it through the web. (Jason Kottke linked to a New York Times story about Pixar University in January on the same idea; after reading the article, so did I.) Russell works in advertising, a profession that I find very problematic, but when practiced well combines the best of storytelling, teaching, and artistic expression. Imagine a classroom with similar guidelines. Teachers can model this for their students and they’d both find more in life to look forward to. He writes:

The way to be interesting is to be interested. You’ve got to find what’s interesting in everything, you’ve got to be good at noticing things, you’ve got to be good at listening. If you find people (and things) interesting, they’ll find you interesting.

Interesting people are good at sharing. You can’t be interested in someone who won’t tell you anything. Being good at sharing is not the same as talking and talking and talking. It means you share your ideas, you let people play with them and you’re good at talking about them without having to talk about yourself.

Read russell davies: how to be interesting

_Cross posted on DV for Teachers because it’s too good not to have here too._

Mark Bittman, the New York Times’ Minimalist food writer, raves about baker Jim Lahey’s easy, slow bread recipe.

This looks fabulous. Little yeast, almost no kneading, gives a loaf Mark Bittman raves about. It just takes about 18 hours to rise, and you bake it in a pot. Hmmmm.

Read The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work.

In Paris, Photographing a City That Has No Bad Side – New York Times

More Paris travel coverage from the Times. I plan to photograph that city.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall November 5, 2006 07:04 PM

Readers are posting to Josh’s site claiming that Republicans are making repeated and annoying calls to voters claiming to be Democrats, in an effort to make themselves look good. It seems it’s all they have to run on….

Today is day seven with my new eyes. Lasik surgery at Emory Vision was expensive, but now I rarely need glasses to blog, or read, or do almost anything. There’s some halos around traffic lights and car lights at night, and some loss of contrast in high-contrast lighting situations, but the doctors say it should improve. My eyes get dry a lot now; that’s normal after the surgery for a while as well, they say, and I’m putting drops in all the time. I found sites with complaints from people unhappy with their laser eye surgery; I think I’m happy with mine.

Why do I only think I’m happy? It’s a big change, and I find I miss the feeling of my glasses. My face feels oddly naked, and I miss having them to manipulate when I’m thinking or talking. When my eyes are tired or dry or both, it’s a little harder to read traffic signs far away than when I had my glasses, but when I’m fresh it’s amazing. I have a pair of Ellen’s store-bought reading glasses (+1.75) with small lenses and purple metal frames for close viewing. They make close fine work razor sharp.

When I use the computer though, I find myself holding my head at the angle I needed when I wore glasses. I still think about it all the time. Overall, I like it, and I look forward to getting used to it.