quick takes

number something or other in series of a number yet to be determined, where i don’t have one big thing to say, so i just write a post consisting of lots of little things to take up space.

»  french class was unexpectedly fun and nothing to get het up about. some of the class members had our prof for the last class, but they weren’t any better off than i was in the french communication department. it all comes back, and i kept pace just fine. the teacher, marie-christine starfield, is fun, witty, intelligent, and informative, and keeps things going at a good pace. not too many notes, which in the end is probably fine with me. my last french prof, joel kozicka, was equally as good but in a different way. lots and lots of notes on the board, which when learning french grammar is probably a good thing. i’m impressed with the french institute alliance francaise, which does a great job of organizing these classes, all things considered.

»  hey am new york!, please get your guys off the sidewalk and out of my face. am new york is this free rag of a newspaper that i never bother to read, partly because it’s very inky and your hands get black, and mainly because it sucks. you get what you pay for. i get all my topical news online and read time magazine for the bigger picture, so no room for a newspaper. and if i do happen to get an actual tree-killing newspaper for some godforsaken reason, it’s almost always the new york times, which i admit i subscribe to.

online.

anyway this am new york rag hires these people to hand out the paper in busy places, usually by subway stops. and there’s two guys outside the c/e stop at 50th and 8th, on the southeast corner, and the two of them block the sidewalk and try to shove the paper at you. to get by, you have to run a newspaper gamut, and it’s not pleasant, and, mr. am new york, any chance you ever had of getting that paper into my hands has been shot to hell by your overzealous employees. yeah they are just doing their job. whatever. have them do it and not block the public sidewalk at the same time.

»  are you still using a pc? promise me that when it comes time to buy a new computer, you’ll bite the bullet and get a mac. it’ll be the best move you ever made. trust me. don’t listen to all those people telling you that you can’t play games, and there’s no software, and blah blah blah. none of it is true. what is true is that i keep looking on my mac for maintenance tasks to perform and software to configure and debug, because i spent so much time doing that on my dell pc, and with the mac there’s hardly any of that to do. so, as a tinkerer, i admit to going through a bit of withdrawal on that front. but any small amount of missing that is more than mitigated by there being no keyboard loggers or spyware or viruses and whatnot on my computer. all not there, i might add, not because i vigorously swept my computer daily for that crap, but because it just ain’t there in the first place.

yeah, i know i drank the koolaid. apple flavored koolaid. but i’m telling you, there’s a reason why so many people drink it. when’s the last time you saw someone blog and rave about the wonders of the windows start menu?

»  some people actually use the widget, oddly enough. at one point, there were ten people using it, including me. now there are six. site sampling and all, i’m sure. the one truly positive thing that came out of it was that apple linked to my site, which boosted my google ranking immensely. were i truly interested, i’m sure i could get the hits up. there’s a game to play when you blog, and that’s to link to everyone else’s blog, and post comments on their blogs, and stick to one subject religiously, and eventually it becomes a self-fulfilling circle jerk where everyone wins.

constant reader, as you can see, i don’t do any of that very well, mainly because i do all this to amuse myself and to keep a record that i can look back on.

in other words, to paraphrase frank n. furter, i didn’t make it…for you.

3 thoughts on “quick takes

  1. I am considering a class at Alliance Francaise (where I have taken many classes) that Joel Kozicka teaches (advanced grammar)
    and want to be sure that he doesn’t waste a lot of time talking about himself or nonsense during the class. I’ve had some good teachers there and some lousy ones. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Joy

  2. hi joy,

    i thought he was great, with none of the nonsense you referred to. your mileage may vary : )

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