"Visitors...from the outside...oooo!"

I've had a raccoon visitor 2 nights in a row! This is very surprising since I live in a 3rd-floor apartment in the middle of a big city!

I have two bags with my recycling in them on my porch. Last night I heard strange noises and I thought it was bad guys. It was the raccoon trying to open the my recycling bag. Who knows what he wants in there...there certainly isn't any food. So I scared him away.

And then tonight, he came back. This time, he came a lot earlier in the evening and the light was on in the kitchen and everything. I chased him away again. But he seems persistent. Imagine, climbing all the way up to my balcony! Maybe there was something shiny inside the recycling. They like the bling, right?

Well, I'll certainly take care not leave the patio door open in the future. I might end up unwillingly adopting a raccoon.


P.S. You get a gold star if you can tell me what movie I quoted in the title of this post!

Silly video made me cry

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

La chute

This is one impressive series of photographs. "La Chute", a book by French photographer Denis Darzacq, contains photos of people froze in mid-fall. They seem to be eerily floating in air that is somehow thick enough to support them. They look like embalmed creatures drifting in viscous fluid. There is a feeling of peace and contentment that contrasts strongly with the settings: grocery store aisles, concrete jungles, packed storerooms...

Smells

I went to the bank on my lunch hour. As I stepped outside, the outside smelled! After a long winter of frozen streets and trees, I was surprised. It wasn't a recognizable smell; neither good nor bad, it was subtle. I felt the subconscious memories associated with these smells grip my chest with emotion. It was hardly subtle, this unrecognizable emotion, but I think it was more good than bad.

The pros and cons of shopping at American Apparel

Pros:
Their clothing is made in L.A., not China (I've recently decided to boycott Made in China products).

Cons:
The inherent oddity of the clothing in question.

I ventured into an American Apparel shop for the first time last week to purchase a plain white tee to go with an outfit I had. Is anyone else leery of AA shops? There's just something about them that gives off creepy vibes. All those sparkly leggings and multi-coloured jersey shorts! Bathing suits to wear over your clothes! Freaky. Who actually buys this stuff? It didn't help that the cashier was way too cool to even acknowledge my presence. No greeting or eye contact, she just took the shirt and my credit card. I left the store with a distinct feeling of relief. Mais ils sont fous, ces Romains!

What The Onion has to say about American Apparel.

Igloo building looks fun!

[Photo: Banff Lake Louise]
As a translator, I'm always googling bits of sentences to see how they've been translated by others. The results I get and the pages I end up on often make for interesting discoveries.

This morning, I was looking for the English word for "glacière" (which I found out is "cooler") and I landed on this site about the ICEBOX, an igloo-building kit. The site goes into a lot of detail and makes it look fun to camp in a giant snow shelter.

The catch is, the kit costs about $200. It really wouldn't have to. You can make your own igloo-building tools out of almost anything, as Matthias Wandel has demonstrated on another randomly-found page.

Too bad I didn't find out about this at the beginning of winter, when I still felt like enjoying the snow. Maybe next year.

Yael Naim

So I don't watch TV that much. But the few times I've seen (or rather heard) the new Mac Airbook ads, they just make me want to grin and do a finger dance. No, not this one! The happy pointy-finger dance you do when you're just having fun.

The reason for all this glee is Yael Naim's catchy tune "New Soul" which absolutely makes the ad for me. I don't care that the Airbook can fit in an envelope. I'm just enjoying the muze! So, for your listening pleasure, here's "New Soul":


Oh yeah, I went out and bought her CD at HMV for $11.99 and I'm enjoying most of it. A lot of the songs are in Hebrew with little bits of French thrown in. It's always harder for me to connect with a song if I don't understand the lyrics. But the sound is really enjoyable. All but the cover of "Toxic," which I simply can't dissociate from Britney. But overall, it's a pleasurable new music discovery!

Actually, Yael Naim's music and especially this video remind me of a movie I recently watched called, "Once." It tells the story of an immigrant girl who meets a busker. He plays a guitar that is literally worn through on the streets of Dublin. She studied piano for many years, but now she cleans houses. During her lunch break, she plays the pianos in a piano shop. They develop a friendship and undertake the ambitious project of recording a CD together. I love the idea of strangers coming together to create. Throwing out little strings of friendships that might create some ties but could just as easily rip, leaving just the ragged ends of memories.