Mais non!

Zoot alors!

In my quest for continuing self-improvement I decided to take a stab at some foreign languages this week. I have quite a bit of fun checking the materials out of the library and listening to them in the car. There's one publisher, Pimsleur, who really makes this possible. I have come to trust Pimsleur since I drove out here from Arkansas and listened to -- oh, it wasn't the super-basic Portuguese and it wasn't the 50-cassette version either -- a Portuguese course and picked up just about everything it was trying to tell me (I can't go back, it's been missing since my car was stolen). O senhor entendi? Eu entendo. Eu so americana. Onde fica o hotel? That sort of thing.

I picked up some Cantonese off Pimsleur but again, when the car was stolen so were the tapes (and they were from the library, my fourth home after home, paper and the Y) so I never learned how to ask to get to King's Road. Thank goodness I know mm hei ho SIC TANG!, which tries to approximate the tonal qualities for "I don't understand so good." At least when I saw "Kill Bill 2" I understood when the master said "Cantonese" — in the question form it's "gwong-dung-waAHah." Possibly the best thing I know, however, is "Hei mmm Hei SIC TANG YING-man-aAH" which is, do you understand English?

So I thought, well, go for something basic. Go for French. Here's a new 12-CD Barron's course. Put it on hold. While you're at it, get that "Colloquial Vietnamese" because that looks like fun. But oh snap! the CDs match up to pages in a book! And the Vietnamese book is only that! I harbor no illusions about learning Vietnamese via a book. And I harbor no illusions about my ability to study along with a book while I listen to CDs. I'm thinking I'll load them up on the iPod (not forever!) and do a study session on the Precor machine. Hopefully all the New Year's Resolution people will think that's what I am.

Actually, I'm just your garden variety freak. Je suis une freak du variete jardinois. Or so I would imagine that's how it goes.

Went to Target with Beth and she calls it "Tar-zhay," which is okay if something of an old joke, but I was shocked to hear all the people on cellphones say "Oh, hi, I'm at Tar-zhay." This is its new name.

I only meant to get lip balm but I ended up suckered at Action Alley, where I got "Reservoir Dogs" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for less than $10 each. I am not a DVD purchase person. I have no idea what came over me. The only other time I was tempted to buy a DVD was before flying to Arkansas and nearly picking up Season 1 of "Reno 911" (I was in "Tar-zhay") thinking it could be a hoot on the plane and then, quivering with a sense of stunned disbelief that I had nearly spent $25 on entertainment, realized the show is on Comedy Central all the time! All I had to do was not miss it! I am still wondering what, exactly, came over me. More so for the "RD" purchase than "CTHD," which is one of my favorite movies of all time. But I'm quite far from being a cineaste much less a collector of anything.

I think it was buying the wifi router at Comp USA, then all the indian food at World Market, that precipitated the roaring slide into decadence.

In the meantime, in what would in the minds of the RIAA amount to theft if I downloaded it from the internet, I checked out The Hives' "Tyrannosaurus Hives" and Wilco's "Summerteeth." One is great to put on workout playlists, the other for driving.

Why isn't RIAA worried about all the music in the library system that any fool could scrape off a CD? Why doesn't anyone in the (real) media bring up the fact that most libraries today are spending a larger portion of their $$ on digital media than ever?