This morning's email included a request to peer review an article for a journal. I assume my selection based on a book I published in 2007, so started to look at the journal to get some context and to see if I am up to date in the field. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
Gad Elmaleh : Lui-même is on Prime now and it is pretty funny. I looked up his bio and discovered that he emigrated to Canada with his family and attended McGill Uni before moving back to France. (I did a postdoc at McGill, but we never met, quelle suprise!)
A fun day at our household:
1.Listening to an audiobook & think, that sentence should be in the subjunctive.
2. Mention it to Karin and she agrees.
3. We mourn the loss of the subjunctive in English and speculate on a German translation of the sentence.
4. We get caught up in its reflexive aspects.
Today‘s culinary experiment: black bean, carrot & nut-butter burgers.
The programmers that implement the error codes are, in my opinion, somewhat overzealous in the execution of their duties. I live in a northern climate and my old Honda used to get tire pressure warnings whenever the temp dropped below -20 C & loose gas cap warnings when it warmed quickly to +5.
This morning's odd path to music:
1. Turn on Swiss Radio Klassik.
2. Read Bluesky feed
3. Follow up with news
4. Wonder why I care about US politics now
5. Think of Sun Zu "Know your enemy..." & look up quote.
6. End up listening to this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hdq...
Typo Thai oops.
We are watching Tunnel on Netflix. It is a Tai show with a plot something like the BBC show Life on Mars (Ashes to Ashes too) in that a police officer is transported through time, but in this case the hero goes forward in time. I don't get some of the cultural cues, but it's quite good.
Yesterday, when I was driving Axel home from Uni I mentioned the last time I saw US military bombing the Middle East on TV was when we brought them home from the hospital (birth) in 2003. Axel was a fussy baby & Karin & I spent many late nights taking turns watching news TV & rocking them.
When I was a teenager I retrained harness horses for saddle. (Mostly track horses who were too unruly for trotting or pacing.) They did not enjoy the idea of having a human on their back and I was thrown off quite regularly. It is amazing how the human body becomes less resilient as it ages. Sigh.
Today it was about -3C and when I went for my run up the hill it was sunny and mostly bare asphalt. On the way down the hill there were patches shaded by the forest and black ice collected. I did not notice, fell and got road-rash on both hands. Stupid old man lecture from beloved wife pending.
I think that the early years of the USSR had a number of epithets directed at the intellectual class. That went well for their new society too, I presume. Sigh.
Guess who is doing snow removal again today instead of going for a run?
Google home in English can't find Radio Swiss Classic, but if asked in German it can. I looked to see if using the Gemini AI on Google home would be better, but that change simply erases its ability to respond to two languages; English only even in Canada. So, AI is going to improve things? Wieso?
We started watching Die Notärztin on ARD Mediathek yesterday evening and it is quite engaging. Set in Mannheim, the show follows the life of a physician attached to a fire department crew. There are significant plot differences from Canadian & US medical dramas. www.imdb.com/title/tt2771...
Today was a running day, but we had a fairly heavy snow fall so I used the energy to remove the snow from our driveway instead of running on a road with poor visibility & traction. Of course, it is still snowing, but I am hoping that stops before I feel that today's effort was wasted.
I think that kindness implies socially or morally superior position. You are kind to those who do not have as much as you. (money, moral rectitude, social standing, etc). Nice is a matter of peaceful interaction between parties. e.g Be kind to your bank manager or be nice to your bank manager.
We started watching Bugonia last night, but could not finish it. Although I agree that there are many reasons to mock both corporate culture and conspiracy theory anti-logic, a story about two men kidnaping, imprisoning, humiliating, and torturing a woman is an unappealing implementation.
Long shot of eagle in a tree; zoomed to the max and still not clear.
SO, today there were bald eagles out and about as I was running near the local landfill site. One swooped down and skimmed the road in front of me and another landed in a tree as I was passing. Here is the image of the one in the tree. I stopped and froze my hands digging out my phone to get this.
It is back to -20 degrees here in the true north, strong and free (apologies to Nunavut et al) and I was wrapped up to the max for my 10 K run yesterday. I even had a red spandex mask over my face and it was covered in ice by the time I got home. (Reverse situation to US masks I hear).
I had to look it up, but I was thinking of the BBC series Ambassadors (2013), & parts of Bluestone 42 or Our Girl as UK shows with some similarities although the two military shows were much more serious.
There are a lot of similarities with UK shows about government outposts in the vestiges of their empire. (some military and some just embassies etc.) I watched Outsourced when it came out too and I see the connection. This German show is something like the Goethe Institute & the DAAD on a bad day.
We found the German show Das Institut, Oase des Scheiterns on the ARD Mediathek this evening and it is a fun watch. The ARD interface sucks, but you can find shows that are not geoblocked in Canada. (No English subs anyway) Some jokes about Ossi & Wessi culture. www.imdb.com/title/tt5808...
Watching How to Get to Heaven from Belfast last night and really liking it. Same show writer / creatory as Derry Girls and has an interesting view of the interaction between citizens of the 2 parts of Ireland. Good sense of humour. www.imdb.com/title/tt3170...
Karin & Mopsy come home after a walk on this winter day.
Loaf of rustic-looking bread
Today's culinary experiment: Soda bread using yoghurt instead of buttermilk. (no buttermilk in the house) I did not add raisins, sugar, or any other cake-like ingredients; when I make bread it is minimalist.
1. Updated Mac to Tahoe
2. Printer security not recognized
3. Can't update printer security as HP util is insecure
4. Insecure printer cannot update itself (see #2)
5. Changed Mac to use ip address of printer instead of more "secure & easy" methods
6. It works now.(~2hrs work) Beware the Updates!
I don't follow US football, but Bluesky makes it impossible to miss the political implication of any US event. So, I discovered that the US has variable voting rights according to geography. If you live on some islands you have no say in the presidential elections. An indirect learning experience.
We finished watching the Netflix spy drama Unfamiliar last night. It was in German, set in Berlin, but the show creator is not German & the narrative structure, pacing & character presentation reflects this. It feels American when compared to other German spy shows like Deutschland 83 & Kleo.
The back door handle broke last week so I was not surprised when the front door handle came off yesterday. I bought a new one (my spare parts were used) & installed it. I suppose the wild fluctuations in temperature this winter have result in metal fatigue. Life in an era of climate change.
