Tag: water

Urges [en]

[fr] Un vieux texte ressorti des brouillons.

A draft dating back from March 2010. Probably inspired by a dream.

Loud rhythmic music started drifting in the air, and the crowd on the festival river boats slowly went quiet. People stood up and started dancing and cheering.

I looked at Paul. We could feel the urge, but knew that giving in would only make it harder to resist what would come next.

Everyone sat down as the music went silent.

People looked at each other grimly. They knew that however strong the urge, they should not jump overboard.

In a flash, I noticed the group of children a few seats away.

“You! Come here right away!” I ordered.

A little bewildered, they came withing reach. People around me had understood, caught the children as they arrived, and sat them firmly in the seats next to them.

As for me, I grabbed two under each arm — two girls and two boys.

The girls didn’t budge, but the little boys started struggling and hitting me. I didn’t let go.

Films, TMS, et blabla nocturne [fr]

[en] A couple of film recommendations, update on my RSI and some considerations on chronic pain, as well as various random other things (like cats in boxes).

Je trouve mes blablas un peu plus décousus que mes billets. Des tas de petites choses à dire plutôt qu’une grande. J’ai rajouté un “générique” (haha), parlé de deux-trois choses (les liens ci-dessous vous donneront une idée) et pas mal de TMS et de douleur chronique (avec quelques nouvelles d’où j’en suis). Allez, assez de parenthèses, plongez dans le vif du sujet [16min41] — oui je sais, c’est un peu long.

Liens pour aujourd’hui:

J’ai oublié un lien? Dites-le-moi!

First Impressions of LIFT'06 [en]

[fr] Premières impressions de LIFT'06.

Venue: not too much trouble finding it, that was nice. Laurent himself at the ticket desk, that was nice too. Robert Scoble looks younger than I expected (I’m sitting right in front of him, didn’t do it on purpose, promise!).

In Line for LIFT'06

Missing in the conference room:

  • water (no drinks allowed apart from water, and all I have in my bag is orange juice, and I’m really thirsty) Update: thanks to David Galipeau, I’ve found the water fountains now.
  • more power strips (yeah, I know)

Missing online (update)

  • backchannel? (I’m sitting in #lift06 on chat.freenode.net, just in case)
  • live audio?
  • people using Bonjour/Rendez-Vous… (I’ve opened and announced a document for collaborative note-taking in SubEthaEdit… just in case, feel free to join if you’re at the conference).

I have a huge problem: I totally suck at understanding non-native speakers talking in English (particularly francophones). Isn’t that amazing, given I’m a francophone myself?

First Two Days in Kerala [en]

An account of our package days in Kerala. Nice!

It took a bit of firmness, but it was finally less difficult than I had feared to obtain the various entertainments promised in our package.

We started yesterday evening with a trip around the local canals in a canoe. Peaceful, and nice, glimpses of lives in little houses or huts near the water, and the splashing of the oar in the dark as we headed home, interrupted only by the twilight din of the birds hopping and chirping excitedly in the coconut trees.

The food was nice, although the ‘vegetable curry’ we ordered alongside the fish was ‘somewhat bland’, and we clearly hadn’t ordered enough. For my part, I was thinking ‘family style portions’, but each dish here was clearly meant to feed one person only.

We got up at dawn this morning (6:20 a.m., the birds were at it again with their racket) for a slightly longer tour through the backwaters in a motor boat. Luckily we just chugged along slowly, so the noise didn’t prevent us from enjoying the peacefulness of the morning scenes offered to us: fishing, bathing, and washing up the dirty dishes.

We came back for a hearty breakfast of appams, and discovered that the vegetable curry wasn’t too bad with a little added salt and pepper.

By nine o’clock the car (mini-van, actually) was ready to take us to a neighbouring village for a short trek. There isn’t much to say about it apart from the fact that it was pleasant and allowed the atmosphere to sink in. Anita shot quite a lot of videos with the digicam.

Lunch was a success. We had ordered a lot of food and it was really nice — especailly the prawn masala (prawns naked, if you please). We ordered accordingly for this evening.

Half of the afternoon was devoted to laying around and bathing for me, and hotel-hunting and transport-organizing for Anita. Again, I cannot say it enough: thanks, many thanks.

Around three we set off for a brief visit of the highly coloured temple, a stroll on the beach (the soft sand and warm water made me want to bathe, can you imagine!) and a walk in the town. Our driver, Matthew, turned out to be a very nice chap who told us all about the finest umbrella manufacturer in all India (here in Alleppey only), as well as a local church we peeked into.

I’ve rarely packed as many things in an Indian day as I have today!