Friday, December 31, 2004
Sigh, the tough life of a jet-setter (ahem...)

We're leaving today for Atlanta for the NYE celebrations. Should be lots of fun, considering how much alcohol they consume without really noticing in the south. And of course, we will go here.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
That 100 bucks you were gonna spend on sale items at Banana Republic or on this new trendy restaurant that just opened? Yeah, put it to better use...

Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Aid pledged by Bush (briefly back from vacation) for tsunami disaster:
$35 Million
2003 US Budget:
$2,100,000 Million
Aid amount, relative to the 2003 median household income of $43,000:
72 cents
Saying the following with a straight face:
Priceless
We're a very generous, kindhearted nation, and, you know, what you're beginning to see is a typical response from America.
UPDATE: According to the OECD (from a Le Monde article), the US spent this year $2.4B on humanitarian aid, which represents 0.1% of their GDP. France gave 0.4%, Norway 0.9%. According to the UN, the following countries pledged for tsunami relief alone:
UK
$95 Million
Spain
$92 Million
France
$30 Million

But that hasn't stopped Bush from huffing and puffing and announce the US would "lead" a "coalition" to help (reported here by the disgusting Washington Times, just for fun)

Washington
Not feeling too courageous to make this hugely complicated... There's a bunch of pictures, so it may take a few seconds to load.



[+/-] Show "Travel Pictorial"

Paris, Port Royal


Paris, Louvre Museum



Paris Suburbs, Chateau

Paris, with Ajit and Camille


Paris, my (public) High School

En route to the Riviera, Viaduc de Millau

South of France, my 'hood


Da Car and Da House

Views from the house




My Town (Its Casino! Its Palm Trees! Its Marinas! Its old people!)



Cannes, Marina where the mega-yachts sleep in the winter


Cannes, Palais des Festival (home of the Film Festival), with my buddySebastien and his wife Marie




Travel, Pictures
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Donate now to the Disaster Relief Fund. God knows they need all the money they can get now...

Processing all the pics from my trip. In the meantime, here's this one, just for Steph. They took out the blue tape from it. Looks kinda cool, actually.

Sunday, December 26, 2004
My parents were telling everyone at the Christmas dinner table how I sucked my thumb until age 10. They should have known what that would mean, no?

TGV'ing back to Paris today and flying out tomorrow to Chi-town. Yay I'm gonna see my baby!!!

By the way, in their TV lineup, my parents get a bunch of german channels, Al Jazeera, and E! dubbed in French... Very, very odd.
Life
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Happy holidays, kiddos
Thursday, December 23, 2004
It's supposed to go down to -1F tonight in Chicago.

Tomorrow, in the south of France, I will be wearing a sweater and playing on this:



Just wanted to point it out. I'm a dick like that.
Travel
Sittin' at home today, in the south of France, finally. We ended up driving pretty much all day because of the detour to the Viaduc de Millau. It is absolutely breathtaking, by the way. Well worth the drive.

Now I'm sitting in the study, trying to blog with a French style keyboard and only a dial-up connection, since here, ADSL never works.

Got lots of pictures to share with y'all, but they'll have to wait till I get back. I aint doin' none of that dial-up shit no more.

Kisses.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Hey kids.

Arrived in Paris Friday morning. Shitty flight of course. I still don't understand how so many people think they can just ALL put their fucking carry-on luggage in the overhead bins, which, in a 767, are the size of my ass. Landed on time and actually got my luggage back in less than an hour, so that was a good surprise. What wasn't a surprise was the legendary French customs. Basically, it's a bunch of agents huddled in a corner, shooting the breeze while travellers walk by. Awesome for smuggling drugs into the country.

[+/-] Keep Reading

Paris is as usual for December, meaning sheer and utter hell of people. You know how a bunch of geese or a school of fish manage to always go in the same direction, in a perfectly coordinated fashion? The French have managed to figure out how they do it, and then to do the EXACT opposite. If you don't watch where you're going, you WILL get trampled or stabbed to death by an umbrella. I guess I forgot how people are, because I'm having a hard time not killing anyone...

Going to the Riviera in two days, using the new Viaduc de Millau. And then I should hit the slopes on Thursday (the Alps are 2 hours from our house). And then back to the States next Monday. My life is so tough, I know.

So I still have some time in Paris to meet friends and all. So far I have been able to see a ton, for once. I finally met Steph&Alek, who are as sweet as they seem. Saw, and fell more in love with, my niece and nephew (forever known now as the Cutest Kids on Earth!).

I hesitate to do anymore shopping, since everythng here is so outrageously overpriced to begin with, and the dollar is worth, like, nothing. I don't even know how people manage to live here anymore. All my friends tell me Paris is becoming like NY. Crazy shit.

That's all for now, folks. Cheerio.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Jetting off to France today. Posting will be intermittent for a bit. I might try that Audioblogger thing..
The WB premiered yesterday their new "sexy" show of the season with Big Man on Campus. Basically, it's like the Bachelor, but with college girls. The first episode consisted in actually choosing their "Big Man" from students at some Florida college. Yummy boys everywhere. Muscles, but of course not a whole lot of brains...

[+/-] Keep Reading





Now, the problem is that the rest of the show is going to be the girls fighting for the guy. Drama already started, and most of them are just so fucking annoyingly bitchy, whyiny and stupid. No wonder I'm gay.




One final thought: melanoma anyone?

Boys
Monday, December 13, 2004
They need to come up with a better name for this...


Funny
Interviewed last Friday with a really cool company. Interview went well. The whole thing was brokered by the Most Hyper Recruiter Ever. He seriously called me about 7 times on Friday. His last call was to tell me their HR would call me this morning.

They did. And offered me a job. One business day after my first interview with them. One week after I started looking.

Yay.

I start January 10th.
Life
Friday, December 10, 2004
The virtual Ben is much hotter than the virtual me.
Max keeps trying to eat the little baby Jesus from our nativity scene. I worry about that.

In other news, interview this morning went A_OK. Spent the rest of the day fielding non-stop calls (seriously) from recruiters. Looks like they all really want their year-end bonuses.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Knock on wood for me. Interview tomorrow AM with a company that makes me wet my knickers. My former COO even knows their HR manager and sent her this wonderfully nice note:
As we discussed, attached is the XX superstar, FrenchBenj, that I told you about. [...] FrenchBenj is very talented, hard working and has a great sense of humor. [...] I can't recommend him highly enough.
Aww..
Life
Wednesday, December 08, 2004

Life
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Due to my previously reported doom, I am selling the extra Dieux du Stade calendars I had bought. I have four to sell. Here is the first one...
Team,

It is with sincere regret that I inform you that the deal to purchase the XXX and XXX assets from XXX has fallen through.
Looks like I'm really out of a job now. Damn.
Life
Found this picture by chance somewhere. Not sure if it's real, as I cannot find any info on that crash...

For your next vacation in the Mediterranean, consider chartering a boat instead of those pesky suites in hotels.

The legendary Leander, for example, can be chartered for under $500,000/week. Twelve of your best friends will be pampered by a crew of 24 aboard this 246-foot yatch.

The price, however, does not include food.


Monday, December 06, 2004
Mediaweek reports that 99.8% of complaints received by the FCC in 2003 originated from the Parents Television Council, an LA-based activist group.

Just as an example of how utterly delusional these people are, here's a cartoon they published:



Do they even know any 17-year old?

Their descriptions of "questionable material" is always good for a laugh. Just imagine their outrage at the following:
From their "MTV Campaign":
Shavonda: "Even though I'm free to do [bleeped "shit"]. [Bleeped "fuck"] you. You got caught, and I'm happy you got caught. Cause your ass is out and I hope you have a [bleeped "fucking"] great time. And you lean on Jenny's shoulder while you're [bleeped "fucking"] crying. Don't come out and see my ass. You are stupid if you think I'm going to sit here and let that [bleeped "shit"] happen. [bleeped "fuck"] you and kiss my ass."
From their "Sex and the City campaign":
Samantha is on top of Adam in bed with him. She's lying on top of him and he keeps trying to send her to his crotch to perform oral sex and she starts out telling him she's not in the mood for it tonight.

Washington, Funny
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Two fags, on their couch, crying incontrollably and sipping red wine.

The movie is as good as the book, which is a nice surprise.

I know, I know, it's unfair to judge the entire army on those two incidents. It's just so fucking funny they'd happen the same weekend...
  1. French soldier barricades self in arms depot; threatens to blow up 60 tons of explosives
  2. French police loses 150g of plastic explosives at airport (after planting it in some random person's luggage)

France, Funny
Saw this book sitting on the "New Books" table at my local Borders. Scary.






My first apartment by myself in Paris. Then my awesome studio in the 13th. And the last picture is what I believe to be Ina's building. Should I stalk her? And how gay am I to want to stalk a Food Network host for her autograph?



UPDATE: Yup, definitely her building. She owns the corner apartment on the 6th floor. Call me Nancy Drew.
France, Life
Friday, December 03, 2004
Scary video I had found on Drudge. Not seekable, unfortunately.
Intrigued by the "princess" that stars in Love in the Heir, on E!, I did what anyone would do: I googled her. That led me to a discussion board about royal families.

There are people who post, litterally, hundreds of messages about aristocrats they've never met. And they're quite passionate about it too:
It's disgraceful to call her "Mrs Windsor". She is H.R.H. Princess Philip of Greece and Denmark!

Do I understand that members of the Welsh Assembly do not take an oath to the de facto sovereign at the beginning of a session? Or maybe this particular member has changed her opinions since taking the oath?
I really feel that Her Royal Highness has really come into her own in the last few years, she is an asset to the royal family.
[It is infuriating] To be able to see other royals milling in the background and not to have better images of them, this is one thing where I wished the British would follow the European precedent.

It would be great to see the Countess of Wessex, Princess Royal, Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Michael and Princess Alexandra all wearing tiaras.
Wow, dude...
Funny
Thursday, December 02, 2004
On December 3rd, 1984, around midnight, Union Carbide's plant in Bhopal, India, spewed 40 tons of toxic gases, over a 250 acre area. Hundreds of thousands of people woke up choking for air and ran as fast as they could away from the toxic cloud. In total, at least 17,000 perished from the poison. Some estimates put the number closer to 25,000.

That's 6 to 10 times the death toll from September 11th.

To this day, families have not been fully compensated, the then-director of the plant, Warren Anderson, never faced any charges, and the site was never cleaned up.

Union Carbide Corporation was bought in 2001 by Dow Chemical (both always denied any wrongdoing in the spill). Its chairman, William Stavropoulos, made over $11M last year and holds over $20M in options.

Do something:
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
My record is 9 minutes without pissing my pants.


DRUDGE POSTS PICTURE OF SELF ON SITE. SHOULD NOT.


Ubermodel Karen Mulder (part of the Cindy, Claudia, Christy, Linda, Naomi clique) was tired of the runways and decided to dabble in music. Apprently, it's working out good and she's in the top 10 in France. Pretty good!



Take that, Janice Dickinson.
Gilligan (a dashing 20 year old buck by the name of Chris O'Malley) is yummy !


Boys