December 5th, 2010
No matter which political party forms the Canadian
government during your Administration, Canada will remain one
of our staunchest and most like-minded of allies, our largest
trading and energy partner, and our most reliable neighbor
and friend.
Aw, guys, you shouldn’t have.
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/01/09OTTAWA64.html
November 24th, 2010
Dear Google,
I understand times have been getting harder for you recently, what with these upstart social networking sites and search competitors lately. I’ve been a big fan of you guys for a long time. However, what made you think that instant previews on search pages were a good idea? And that it would be even better if people couldn’t disable this feature?
I won’t be boycotting Google anytime soon, but I’m now certainly open to using other search engines.
Yours,
Cat
October 3rd, 2010
In addition to all the usual stuff about weather, health, and security, there’s this line:
Eviter les remarques sur l’accent québécois.
XD
September 11th, 2010
It blows my mind that @riefuofficial follows @viennateng! Unbelievable!
(And I only knew this because I follow @loveyanen!)
July 21st, 2010
Phoenix makes me pretty happy. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix sounds like a happy album, but reveals itself to be a little more somber underneath (just look at the lyrics). That doesn’t stop me from adoring this album to bits. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of them before last fall.
“so sentimental, not sentimental, no…”
Also terribly excited to be seeing them live in September! My entertainment budget has shifted to concerts from travel, clearly.
May 30th, 2010
Okay, so in France everyone seems to use deezer.comto listen to music on their computers (it’s a free streaming radio, you can find a ton of stuff on there).
So I have “Bad Romance” stuck in my head, strangely enough, and do a search for it…. the second result is a remix of The Last Unicorn‘s theme song by an artist called “Bad Romance.”
I guess you really can remix everything.
March 14th, 2010
Stumbled onto Wikipedia’s article on perronismes, which reminds me of English mixed metaphors.
Never quite having fully grasped what a mixed metaphor was (and being unable to come up with them on demand), I found the examples presented here interesting. Perhaps they’re easier to see when it’s not your native language? Plus—it’s always a joy when such things can be translated correctly, with the right amount of awkwardness.
“Atteindre la lumière au fond du baril”
“To reach the light at the bottom of the barrel”
“La forêt vierge est une forêt où la main de l’homme n’a jamais mis le pied. ”
“Virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.”
February 12th, 2010
One of the hardest things for me to keep straight in French is the difference between ‘tu’ and ‘vous’. I mean, obviously I know the difference, but I haven’t internalized it… it often happens that I start a sentence with ‘vous’ and switch to ‘tu’ halfway through. I figure I get a semi-free pass as a foreigner, though.
Anyway, this is only relevant because I was in Munich recently, wandering around Marienplatz. It’s right by the city centre: tons of shopping to do, quite touristy overall. One of these survey people (I think) came up to me and asked, “Sprichst du Deutsch?” I muttered “Nein” and kept walking, but the first thing that popped into my head was “He just tutoie-d me! He doesn’t even know me!”
So maybe the French are getting to me a little.
ETA: I was talking to the Franco-German student at work and he explained to me that people in Germany systematically tutoient people if they appear to be less than 18, which is not necessarily the case in France. Hum. I don’t think I look that young.
February 3rd, 2010
There’s this guy who keeps pacing up and down my hallway in the evenings. Talking. On a cellphone, I assume.
I am really really confused about why he needs to do this every night, and why he needs to do it in the hallway. It’s not like he’s bothering a roommate (we’re all in single rooms–or we’re supposed to be, anyway). I doubt he gets better reception in the hall.
January 11th, 2010
And okay, because I’m weird like that, here’s the English version of Feist’s song translated into French.
I really like the “La même histoire” much better than this.
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