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!

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.

This is an old link I should have posted ages ago, from the UK’s Observer Monthy Music (“OMM”): Tom Waits on his cherished albums of all time: ‘It’s perfect madness’

In the first of an occasional series in which the greatest recording artists reveal their favourite records, Tom Waits writes about his 20 most cherished albums of all time. So for the lowdown on Zappa and Bill Hicks, step right up…

Here’s that take on Bill Hicks:

bq.15 Rant in E Minor by Bill Hicks (Rykodisc) 1997

Bill Hicks, blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer and brain specialist, like a reverend waving a gun around. Pay attention to Rant in E Minor, it is a major work, as important as Lenny Bruce’s. He will correct your vision. His life was cut short by cancer, though he did leave his tools here. Others will drive on the road he built. Long may his records rant even though he can’t.

Nice find, this: Language Courses from the U.S. Foreign Service, including text and audio files free for the download; apparently in the public domain, having been produced with American taxpayer dollars.

First in this category, and first of the new year, of words to avoid: somewhat.

After reading around the web, looking for guides to implement a GTD system, I kept finding this word, and realized it’s indistinct, overly cautious, and a sign of authors backing off their own opinions. I also realized I’ve used it in this unintentionally ironic phrase: “somewhat vague.”