Recently in Paris Category

Another weekend on my block and things are always happening. This past weekend someone got married and they went all out!

Stretched Hummer, Range Rover, a fleet of BMWs, Mercedes, and an Audi RS8.

And they blocked up traffic for blocks.

Like something out of a music video they broke out in a dance, popping champagne, and video tapping a celebration that will end up on youtube I assume. I find it fascinating and great that celebrations like this happen from time to time and no one got arrested.

You can't avoid it. October and November is the month for strikes. It's like Easter and comes every year. Today it's SNCF and RATP on strike. For what else? Pensions. On my way to work this morning I saw, more cars on the road. Longer lines and packed trains that ran every 10-15 minutes instead of the normal 2-5 during rush hour. All the velibs were taken. Lots of bike riders today. But what can you do? I was lucky to catch the train after waiting 15 minutes for one. Some of my coworkers haven't been lucky and had to stay home since transportation is a problem.

I was also told this is the reason Paris lost the bid for the Olympics. The committee came here and there was a strike. Off course, when they got to London things were operating smoothly as usual. That's 1 for the English.

Just took a 2 week vacation back to Magic city. Now I'm back in the city of lights. It feels good. Especially seeing how foreign the US is becoming to me. But it was also good to see the family after a long time apart. Little Mac met his cousins and relatives. And the happy, chubby little boy is happier than ever. He also has a few more teeth than when he left, which was a pain in the ass on the flight back. But he toughed it out and slept through the entire trip all 9 hours.

For me, it's back to programming and getting ready for the next point release. I'm still working on getting the kinks out of my media center PC. I would like to take the keyboard away and use it exclusively for movies, music and storage. But I'm still waiting for a proper remote. Come on Philips, get the SRM 7500 to people that want it.

It took a long time to get here but I'm finally back on the web. Its been a pain in the ass to not have a connection. And I felt like I was cheating when I logged into the tabac's free wifi downstairs. I prefer my own internet for obvious reasons. 3 weeks seems like a long time and I'm quickly trying to get caught up on emails, newsfeeds, and learning.

And you thought that stopped after you were done with school... We now have TV. it's a big improvement. Unfortunately there is nothing to watch and I'm already having second thoughts about what I did. As an american in france your options are vary limited. You can watch the few french dramas that come on in the evening. you can watch past seasons of american and british shows which fill up the majority of the day, or you can watch the news. Which isn't all that interesting.

The new place is slowly coming together. I'm not ashamed to invite people over anymore. And I am putting the Fon AP I picked up many months ago to good use. It links the bedroom, where the dsl is installed, to the salon. now I can browse the web throughout the house.
Mini-me is getting real big. One month later and he's already up to 5kg. Ubfortunately he's a real screamer and a hungry hippo. I've never seen a person eat so much and continue to do so for hours and weeks on end. I change a lot of diapers but not nearly that many to account for the volume. He does have a bobble-head. If I had a car I'd put him on the dashboard.

In France and Paris to be exact. As far as I can tell, if you are looking for good Chinese food prepared to be disappointed. For some unfortunate reason there is never a good one nearby, and the one that is has a very different meaning of what it is. If you've lived in Paris you know what I'm talking about. le Traiteur Asiatique is the French version of Asian fast food and its as disappointing as it sounds. But certainly better than the American equivalent. For your money you are served something that mildly resembles Chinese, but with a French twist on it. And it's seriously overpriced. A typical scenario goes something like this. You walk while the shop owner sits in his little corner to watch TV. Eventually someone (usually a son or daughter) comes by and asks you what you want. You select a few items without paying attention to the price in 100s of grams. The low value stuff (rice, noodles, veg) they never give you enough of and the high dollar stuff they really try to load up your plate with. At the end they pop open th microwave (funny I never noticed that before?) and this is, for an American atleast, when your jaw drops. All those mildly edible things you picked out have to be warmed up...because they aren't fresh. Resigned, you walk away with your meal and eat silently, complete in the knowledge that someone pulled a fast one on you.
I have a very cool relationship with microwave food. It's one thing to pop popcorn and the occassional Hotpocket. But we all know microwave food is never as good as the packaging it came in describes it. It kills me more to know that all these asiatiques serve the same damn thing everywhere.
But there was light at the end of the tunnel. I found a very good chinese restaurant near Galleries Lafayette that knows what they are doing. It's a good sign when you see other chinese eating at a chinese restaurant. Mrs. Chin and I went in and tried the cuisine and she keeps going back for more. Everytime. I like it where I can order a family-size helping of lo mein and actually have enough to feed a family. And the petite marmite is huge and grande marmite is gigantic. And it is full of meat and tofu. I like eating there because I'm not hungry an hour later and we are still within budget. This is how chinese food should be served; not a little plate with waifish veg, but a huge steaming, overflowing pile of noodles and veg. To be shared amongst family and friends.

Our waiter for the last few trips there looks like Jet-Li. I'm not kidding.
Pavillon des Bambous
16, rue de Lafayette
75009 Paris

DSC00136

Christmas is almost here and for family in the US Thanksgiving is here. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a real equivalent here. The French didn't find themself in a foreign land and unwilling to eat the local food. They have no reason to worry about starving in the winter. And they didn't screw up the relationship with the locals afterwards.

Here, Christmas glides in easily with a few national holidays and school breaks between now and then. Already, the shops have put up their Christmas wear and the scent of apple and cinnamon is wafting in the air as the new perfume for this winter. As I'm typing this I wonder what I should be buying. I've already started my list of stores I won't be shopping at this Christmas.

• Those that make me buy a bag for the convenience of carrying all the shit I bought from you home. Really, which idiot in charge thought this was a good idea? It's bad enough I'm giving you 200 large, now you want to charge me .10€/bag so I can carry it home. C'est pas juste. And you know who you are.


• Those that have too much or not enough heat. This might be an inconvenience. But if I come into a place I don't want to stay in. Don't give me a reason to leave. It's bad enough that I'm carrying a lot of things, and a coat. If you see ripples of sweat on my forehead. I'm on my way out the door.

I'm walking down Rue Custine the other night and walking past me is this little kid. With a cigarette in his mouth. And he's puffing away like he's been doing it all of his very short life. I wonder what he thinks of the smoking ban that comes into effect next year. He probably doesn't care nor reads the newspaper.
Here's something I didn't know. Approximately 20% of Parisians are smokers. This is a very visible and vocal minority. And it ruins the image of foreigners of Paris. You know where we pull up to our local bar to have "une clope et une cafe".
I wonder what percentage of >10 year olds smoke in this city?

DSC00042

I watched An Inconvenient Truth last night and it was a really good documentary about Global Warming and how its going to have a greater effect on our lives, if it already hasn't. I've taken classes in meteorology in college with a cool, sleepy professor, Prof. Snoke. He cleared up a lot of errors the popular media had about global warming. So as I watched this film made 5 years after I had taken this class. I'm still hearing the same errors that have been corrected by scientists.

But the overall message is still the same. In the coming decades things are going to get a lot hotter. I'm curious as to how hot its going to get in the UAE. It is one of the hottest real estate markets in the world and the average temperature is already unbearably warm for a lot of people.



Also, a frog will jump out of hot water no matter how slow you turn the heat up. They're not that stupid to be cooked alive.

DSC00482

If there is one thing that you do in Paris, you atleast have to make it to this place. O'Sullivans. Pretty good bar right next to the Moulin Rouge. I used to work there and the people are great. And they aren't one of those big chains that don't care who you are. This photo was from the last night of the job I had there. I was a bartender. And let's just say the rest of the night was a blur.



Keep it pimpin'