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patrickjcollins

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dans la mains de son père [Nov. 19th, 2009|11:22 pm]
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Je la vois de l'autre côté de la rue. Elle se promène avec ses amies. Elle a un sac suspendu au bras. Elle marche gracieusement, ses hanches ondulent. Elle sourit, parle, rit. Je la suis de ma chaise, je la contemple derrière mon journal, à travers les fenêtres des voitures. Je vois son reflet sur la vitrine d'une boutique, elle s'accroupit pour regarder des chaussures qui lui plaisent. Elle se lève, se faufile entre les voitures, à l'affût d'un moment pour traverser. Ses amies la suivent, la dépassent. Elles s'assoient, à la table du café, pas si loin de moi. Mon coeur s'accélère, je peux à présent la dévisager. Je commande encore un café quand le serveur passe pour prendre leur commande. Nos regards se croisent par inadvertance, elle me remarque, son amie fait une blague, tandis qu'elle esquisse un sourire et retourne à sa conversation. Elle porte une cigarette à ses lèvres, l'allume et aspire. Elle enlève sa veste, l'adosse sur sa chaise, et en se retournant l'étirement du tissu léger de son chemisier laisse transparaître sa bretelle. Elle pose ses lunettes de soleil, je vois plus distinctement les lignes de son visage, son nez, ses yeux. Elle est belle, presque trop, une beauté captivante, qui suscite l'attention sans effort, une beauté qui rend trop souvent capricieuse et égoïste. Malgré ça, ses manières laissent à porter croire qu'elle est avenante, amicale, généreuse et aimante. J'imagine que ses parents l'aiment énormément, mais ont toujours été strictes. Je l'imaginais enfant, courant dans des champs verts mains dans la mains de son père. Je la voyais dans les bras de sa mère, appréciant les caresses de sa mère dans ses cheveux. Je la vois, maintenant, allongé dans son bain, les yeux fermes, le bonheur sublime d'être émergé dans l'eau parfumée. Durant un longue moment, je détourne mon attention, je lis les gros titres, le menu, je regarde la rue, je fume, mais finalement je me sens attiré inexorablement par elle. Elle écoute les paroles de ses amies l'esprit ailleurs. Je souris, elle le voit, elle me rend ce sourire. Je veux détourner mon regard, mais je n'y arrive pas, je sens mon sourire s'effacer et à son tour le sien. Je cligne des yeux, mon café arrive. Le serveur demande de régler. Je cherche de la monnaie dans ma poche, lui donne, et me retourne vers elle, elle me remarque mais ne tiens pas mon regard à nouveau. Plus je la regarde, plus j'attend, plus il est difficile d'aller me présenter. Malheureusement je ne peux pas me lever, m'approcher d'elle, m'imposer à elles.
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with her father's hand [Nov. 19th, 2009|11:20 pm]
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I see her from across the street. She is walking with her friends. Her bag is dangled from one arm. She steps carefully, her weight flowing from one foot to the other. She is smiling, talking, laughing. I follow her from my seat, my gaze skims the top of today's news, through car windows. I see her reflection in a shop window, she kneels to look at shoes she likes. She arises, and threads her way between parked cars, looks hurriedly up the street waiting for a gap in the passing traffic. Her friends follow, overtake her. They sit, at the café table, not too far from me. My spirits rise, for now I can take her in slowly. I order another coffee as the waiter goes to serve their table. I catch her eye inadvertantly, she notices me, her friend makes a joke and a smile widens as she turns to converse. She puts a cigarette to her mouth, lights and inhales. She removes her jacket, as she twists to hang it over the back of her chair, her silk blouse is pulled taught across her chest. I can see the straps of her bra through the light fabric. She takes off her sunglasses and I can better see the outline of her face, her nose, her eyes. She is beautiful, almost too beautiful, a beauty that captivates, a beauty that garners attention without effort, a beauty that all too often renders the bearers capricious and selfish. Despite that, her manner gave leave to wish that she was a kind spirit, friendly and open, generous and loving. I imagined that her parents loved her greatly, but had always been strict. I saw as a child, running in green fields with her father's hand. I saw her lying in her mothers arms, enjoying the idle caresses upon her crown. I saw her now, lying in a bath, her eyes closed, the bliss of sented water enclosing her body. For the longest time, I turned my attention away, I read the headlines, the menu, I watched the street scene, I smoked, but eventually I felt my attention drawn inorexibly back to her. She was listening to her friends speak, her mind elsewhere, daydreaming. I smiled, and she saw me smiling, and smiled back slowly. I wanted to look away, but I could not, I felt the smile slowly fade from my face, and then watched it slowly fade from hers. I blinked, and my coffee arrived. The waiter asked to be paid right away. I fished for coins in my pocket, gave it to the man, and looked back to her, she noticed me but did not hold my gaze a second time. The longer I looked at her, the longer I waited, the less I would able to introduce myself. Unfortunately, I could not stand, approch her and introduce myself, for that would encroach upon the intimacy of her group of friends, and put her in the awkward place of having to quite politely ask me to go away. No, that simply wouldn't do.
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the dancer [Oct. 31st, 2009|06:50 pm]
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Hands clutching the hem of her skirt, the fabric flew up and down, the bright red frills tore through the air, and the bangles on her wrists clattered as her arms shook in time with mine own. The great rings suspended from her earlobes and the many bead necklaces strung from her neck shook as I spun her around to the pulsing latin beats. I could smell the musky aroma of he scent. Her hands prescribed patterns in the air as intricate as the henna tattoos they bore, while her hips undulated slowly, I felt my spirit rise. Her green eyes gleamed in the light of the beach fire.. She looked at me tauntingly. It was to be a test of my masculinity. I could take this wild creature to my chamber, remove all her clothes and marvel at the smoothness of her darkly tanned skin, caress her naked form and make love throughout the torrid night.
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two girls [Oct. 31st, 2009|06:49 pm]
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Through eyes hazy I gazed at her while she spoke softly to me, taking care not to awake the family. Heavy sleep was pulling at me, and my eyelids fell closed. She urged me to remain awake so that she might tell me a secret of great importance, a sacred secret between friends so close we could have been sisters. Through languid lips I solemnly made the promise to guard her words safe, to hold them close to my heart. Despite my fatigue, I felt a flutter of excitement at the confidence she was placing in me. I have always adored the intimacy of sharing secrets, the rare opportunity to be granted access to the deepest inner sanctum of another's soul.
She told me that since birth she had slept in the same bed as her mother, her father and her elder brother. The children had grown up side by side, in the arms of their loving parents who desired to keep their children near. She was accustomed to her parents making love, she had listened to and observed their throes of pleasure since the youngest age. Her mother had taught her how to pleasure herself, the gentle caresses needed to stimulate her young body. As she explained how despite her most ardent efforts she could never surpass the sublime ecstasy of the touch of her mother's knowing hands my eyes flew wide.
All sleep had been washed away by the shock of her words, for I had never even touched my own body, shamed by the relentless sexual demonization that had been indoctrinated into me by my own entirely different family. Had I not lied to them just to be there, at that moment, in bed beside her, her warm body but an arm's stretch away between the light linen sheets, listening to true stories that I could lest imagine. Clumsily I expressed these feelings, she laughed with surprise, could it be true that I had never felt an orgasm? I was embarrassed, although with hindsight I shouldn't have been, for we were both so young really, I don't quite remember how old, perhaps early adolescent, nevertheless despite the passage of intervening time I still recall so clearly every indelible detail of that night.
She encouraged me to try, to slide my fingers down my chest and abdomen, to stroke gently the soft inner flesh of my thighs and then feel them rising upwards to the place of intense pleasure, yet despite my curiosity I felt nought, I could have cried in frustration. She smiled and slid closer, and I felt her hands upon me, gliding across my skin, down they went and I felt a moan escape my lips. A sharp intake of breath and she had entered me, her eyes wide with wonder at my shaking body.
Later, after the intensity had subsided, I asked her if she had finished telling me her secret.
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That boy [Oct. 31st, 2009|06:49 pm]
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I watched him strike the drums, while his feet plied the peddles of the bass and hi-hat. I was perfectly incapable to follow the beat, to anticipate the next drum roll, the rhythm too complex for my novice mind. He was shirtless, young, lost to the love of his beats.

His room was festooned in flags of the United States and the United Kingdom, his cowboy boots were casually scattered around the floor. There were posters of the Stones and the Doors draped from the walls, and in the corner there was a small shrine to Bob Marley, replete with a bong and a full bag of marijuana.

He stopped playing and we smoked a joint. He showed me videos of beat-boxing while I steadfastly ignored his young teenage sister frolicking in the pool outside with her friends, their maturing bodies clad in small bikinis and glistening in the evening sun.

Dinner time rolled around and his mother brought us meats and salad and a glass of beer, although only one each because I was driving. With great gusto he made me taste a variety of cheeses, which made me remember that despite his rock-star exterior, he was still French to the core. I told him so and he laughed and we talked about life and travel and culture all things rich and lovely.

I knew that beautiful girls lines up to bed this man, and I knew why, he was ruggedly handsome and tanned and he played the guitar and drums and was kind and generous and he spoke with a deep husky voice and despite myself I felt an attraction, a lusty unspoken unimaginable stirring within myself, to lie with him and feel his lips upon mine and grasp his firm arms in my hands.

Could it be too much to imagine that he felt it too, for I made him laugh and I gazed at him curiously. It is an unexpected feeling, the homosexual drive welling up within oneself, something that we men keep so carefully at bay. I couldn't possibly just lean across and kiss him spontaneously, an act so easily executed with the fairer sex, for I was not shy, au contraire, I actively engaged in amorous relations whenever given the opportunity, but this was something altogether different.

Despite the consternation of his mother we got drunk on a bottle of good wine. His father came to our darkened corner of the garden where we had dined and asked me if he might roll a cigarette. He failed in the attempt and I rolled one for him, honestly by that point I could do it with my eyes closed. He intimidated me in a way that few people do these days, but I kept my cool, making idle chatter till he at last left me alone with his his adonis progeny.

Through the rising tendrils of my cigarette smoke I let my eyes rest on his dimly lit features. He rolled a cigarette for himself, freed from the watchful regard of his family who had since retired to bed. We chatted idly, and I considered taking my leave when he invited me into his room. He lived in a renovated outbuilding detached from the family house, which gave it an air of intimacy and privacy which he cherished. I sprawled upon a rug and we drank heavily as young men are want to do. It was unquestionable that I should drive home in my present state of inebriation. He offered the couch, and I gratefully took it. He climbed the rungs to his mezzanine and soundlessly fell asleep.

I stirred restlessly, as the roiling images of muscles, of hair, of the overwhelming perfume of masculinity tormented me. As I slipped further into a drunken stupor, the intoxication of sexual need manifested itself in perverted imagery. Flashes of clutching fingers, of desperate moans, of sensual caresses burst upon the bright canvas of my fantasies. Sleep was fleeting, so devilishly inaccessible.

I lay, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling, my heart beating like a drum, wondering, with a sliver of hope, that he too was awake, sharing my inorexable desire, but alas he did not stir, and at last, glorious sumptuous sleep enveloped me and carried me off to the land of nod. I shall never know what might have happened, had I risked everything, had I leant forward and kissed those full male lips when destiny beckoned.
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Mon élève française [Oct. 31st, 2009|06:48 pm]
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Le village blanc nacré longeait l'affleurement rocheux et trempait un orteil dans la mer azure impeccable.

J'étais assis sur un banc en bois, lisant un journal.

Je l'ai vu pour la premier fois quand elle a pris un virage sur la colline en pédalant lentement. L'âge et le caractère de son vélo cabossé esquissait un contraste avec sa jeunesse fougueuse.

Elle était souriante, et elle partageait son bonheur librement avec tous ceux qui la regardaient.

Je l'ai vu faire un signe de la main au patron du café au moment où il a mis son balai à côté et s'essuya le front, et son visage âgé et bourru se brisa en un charmant sourire.

Elle portait une robe d'été légère qui flottait dans les airs et qui remontait peu à peu à mesure que ses cuises se levaient et descendaient. Quand elle m'a approché j'ai vu furtivement sa culotte en dentelle, avant de tourner la tête dans un effort vain pour protéger sa pudeur.

Toujours aussi gaie elle sauta du vélo alors qu'il roulait encore, et elle planta un bisous mouillé sur ma joue et elle me dit "Bonjour, comment ça va?" dans son accent étrange.

Mon élève française était arrivée. Elle avait à peine 15 ans, et j'allais m'engager dans encore une heure d'angoisse et de désir irrépressible.
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victoria [Oct. 31st, 2009|06:46 pm]
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Oh Gaspard, she said smiling coyly, how good it is to see you once again.
Votre majesté, he murmured as he kissed the outstreched lace glove.
She turned to her entourage. I trust you are all familiar with Gaspard de Gromard, French agent provocateur.
Quelle menteuse, replied he, a smile curling the corners of his lips.
I can't say that I've had the pleasure to make your acquantaince, said one of the ladies stepping forward. I am Jessica, 13th Baroness of Arlington, but you can call me Jess.
Another kiss upon another impeccibly adorned hand.
Enchanté.
Oh you French men, always so gallant and infuratingly handsome. So if you are not a trouble-stirrer, what is your past-time?
Je suis homme politique.
Oh goodness, it's even worse!
Gaspard is a rising star in France, interjected Victoria, I believe he's recently been elected to the European Parliment, isn't that so?
En effet, depuis hier.
How terribly exciting. That's quite a dashing tie you have on.
Quand à vous, votre robe est simplement magnifique.
Oh, do you like it? She hefted the heavy fabric of her skirt and waved it jovily. A Japanese artisan made it for me as a gift during a recent state visit. Rather generous, wouldn't you say?
Soit.
The party was moving out onto the lawn for croquet, and as Victoria swept past Gaspard turned and imperceptably whispered, il faut que je te parle.
Without missing a stide she opened a Spanish fan and headed outdoors. As she walked down the steps Jessica took her side and impatiently asked, What did he say to you?
What ever are you talking about?
Monsieur de Gromard, I'm so French, I'm so rich, I can have any woman I please, what did he say to you?
Oh, that. Nothing. Nothing worthy of repeating. She cast her gaze upon the brightly dressed players, with their pin stripe suits and flowing ribbons gaily striking their mallets, and a cold wind swept through her eyes.
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My first story in French [Oct. 9th, 2009|04:31 pm]
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Je marche sur le trottoir. J'adore la sensation des feuilles sèches d'automne qui se brise sous mes pieds. J'ignore la foule.

Dans le métro je m'amuse à tenir le poteau et tourner en cercle. La voiture ondule. J'ai horreur du bruit des roues sur la voie ferré, ça fait mal aux oreilles.

Devant sa porte je sonne à côté du nom "Girard". Avec force je pousse la grande porte et accède à la salle d'entrée. Les carreaux en marbre brillent. Je glisse jusqu'à l'ascenseur. Je monte aux sixième étage. Accueillante et souriante elle m'invite à entrer et à m'asseoir sur une chaise. Elle me sers un verre. On parle pendant qu'elle se maquille. Nous sortons.

Elle me mène vers les grands magasins, nous achetons des parfums, des vêtements. Elle trouve une robe noire, sans manches, courte, avec une texture lisse, qu'elle essaie dans les cabines. Je la regarde devant le miroir, à tourner, elle lève ses cheveux puis les laisse retomber sur ses épaules. Elle achète, en disant qu'elle la mettra ce soir là.

Nous baignons aux soleil dans les fauteuils du jardin du Luxembourg. Nous buvons du café sur le boulevard Saint Germain. Nous regardons des parisiens, la mode, les gestes, puis nous nous perdons dans notre conversation, la bulle se ferme autour de nous.

Nous rentrons pour nous préparer, puis nous dînons au restaurant. Elle est gracieuse pendant qu'elle mange. Affamé, je me force à ralentir à son rythme. Après les desserts nous nous baladons. Il y du jazz improvisé dans un bar. Ses yeux s'allument. Les musiciens ont un talent remarquable. Une deuxième bouteille de vin déjà finie et nous, légèrement ivres.

Nous rentrons en taxi, je regarde les lumières par la fenêtre. Je devine l'Opéra Garnier avec ses statues dorées. Ses mains sont posées sur ses genoux, je suis la ligne de ses jambes. J'évite son regard quand elle se tourne vers moi.

Chez elle, elle mets un pyjama et nous nous asseyons face à face sur le grand canapé, chacun avec un bol de thé. Nous discutons. Elle porte un pull en laine blanc, ses cheveux noirs tombent en grandes boucles. Elle est tellement ravissante que je dois m'empêcher de poser mon bol, de me pencher vers elle et de l'embrasser sur ses lèvres. O, quel malheur d'être amoureux de deux personnes en même temps... Nous nous allongeons côte à côte en écoutons la radio. La musique est douce. Elle est toute près de moi, je sens son corps, son parfum. Je suis intoxiqué. Je caresse ses cheveux, elle ne résiste pas. Elle se retourne vers moi. Il n'a y plus de mots, juste un regard. Je pourrais l'embrasser. Et je ne l'embrasse pas.
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Thanks for nothing [Jun. 19th, 2009|01:21 pm]
Back in 2004 I landed a contracting gig at CitiBank in Dublin. The pay was good and the office was close to the city centre. On my first day of work I couldn't get the code to compile on my workstation. A hapless but amiable colleague tried to give me a hand, which only made things worse, for after he abandoned the task my web server was all busted. The solution, it turned out, was to liberally sprinkle the magic command "ON ERROR GOTO NEXT" (i.e. ignore all errors) throughout the code. Apparently compiling the code base was a bad idea as large swathes were nothing more than the tattered vestiges left by long vanished contractors, genetic junk code if you will.

I picked my way carefully through this jungle, whereupon I found a subtle but serious bug. "Look," I said jovially to the responsible programmer, "I found a bug in your code." He regarded me gravely and replied "Fuck off and get out of my face." I was speechless for a while, I returned to my desk, typed up and printed off a resignation letter. The boss demanded justification. I gave none. "Well, thanks, I guess," he replied, and then added "for nothing."

That weekend I went to Amsterdam and smoked a big joint and felt much better.
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Progress has been made. [May. 30th, 2009|11:44 am]
So, the computer game. This is a progress update. After 5 months of intermittent labour, I have created a very basic prototype. Assuming an average life span of 75 years, I thus have 47 years left to finish the project. The first version can be "played" here: www.adeletraduction.net/patrick/paris/Paris_v2.html

I did also write a synopsis :

William, a struggling but dignified English artist, has always dreamed of one day living in Paris, the capital of art, fashion and romance.
Finally, that day has come, and you, the player, must help William brave the métro, the bad service, the dog shit, the clouds of cigarette smoke and the icy women, in order to gain access to the wonderful world of pastries, designer shoes, oh, and the occasional art exhibition naturally!
Sidestep the French administration, rent a studio in Montmartre, find the best bakery in town and the cheapest bar... these are some of the many challenges you will face in the role of William, all the while learning the basics of the French language, grammar and pronunciation.
Who knows, maybe it could end in a love affair with a Parisienne?

I have been pinching graphics off the internet without crediting the original artists, how terribly unethical of me. In the goodness of time, I will find a graphic designer to create original in-game art. Programming in ActionScript is simple enough, especially for 2D graphics, although the developer community isn't great and there is far too much obsolete or contradictory flotsam on the internets. Sometimes I get blocked for days on simple things like trying to get a box to bounce out from the centre of the screen in all four directions. I do like using a browser-based cross-platform environment that just works. On the dev tools side, Flash CS3 just crashes on start-up and I haven't taken the time to investigate why, so annoying.

Why am I doing this? I want to finish learning French, so I've set myself a grand challenge. I'd like to help others who want to learn a bit of French and enjoy themselves at the same time, because for me it was just spitting blood the whole way. It would also be nice to earn a bit of money from the game once I put it online, perhaps even to enable me to quit my day job and do art full time. (Yes, computer games are art; that said I really would like to do something more arty.)
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Flash CS4 classes in Flex Builder 3 [May. 12th, 2009|02:51 pm]
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When developing in ActionScript using Flex Builder 3 on a Mac, to gain access to the Flash CS 4 classes in the fl.* namespace (such as fl.transitions.Tween) you must open the project properties window, choose ActionScript Build Path, then select the Library Path tab, click on the Add SWC... and finally choose /Applications/Adobe Flash CS4/Common/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/libs/flash.swc

That took me half an hour to figure out. It would be nice if there were a few real programmers writing on the various Flash forums.
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Flash / ActionScript intro [Apr. 29th, 2009|05:03 pm]
Adobe has two different products for Flash development : Flex Builder 3 and Flash CS4. It would seem to me that CS4 is oriented towards graphic designers and animators and Flex is oriented towards programmers. CS4 kept crashing on my iBook G4 whereas Flex seems to work just fine, so I'm using Flex.

To get started, click File > New ActionScript Project. Give the project a name, and a new ActionScript file will be added with the same name as the project.

The ActionScript language has a close resemblance to JavaScript. One difference is the type system. Declare a variable as follows :

public var someVariableName:int = 0;

Functions are objects, so this code is valid :

var moreClickListener:Function = function(evt:MouseEvent):void { onMoreClick.apply(this); };

Note that the function declaration is in lowercase and the variable type has a capital "F". Also note that the function return type must be declared even if void.

To draw a rectangle, stick this in the class and add a call to DrawRoundRect in the constructor.

public function DrawRoundRect(x:int, y:int, width:int, height:int) {

graphics.beginFill(0x5ED4F7);
graphics.lineStyle(5, 0xCEFFB8);
graphics.drawRoundRect(x, y, width, height, 10, 10);
graphics.endFill();

}

In Flash parlance, the stage is the screen. Sprites are placeholder objects that can be added to the stage. You can draw onto sprites or directly onto the stage. Drawing only needs to be done once. The advantage of using sprites is that they can subsequently be moved around and made invisible. To create a new sprite object :

var mySprite:Sprite = new Sprite();
mySprite.graphics.drawsomething...();
addChild(mySprite);


Stick this code into the main class constructor to stop Flash from resizing your background images :

this.stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
this.stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;

Here is a handy function to load and draw an image from a url at the specified coordinates and then call a function once done. Add the image to the /src folder and then specify the image name for the url, ex: DrawImage("myimage.jpg", 0, 0, function():void { trace("done"); });

public function DrawImage(url:String, x:int, y:int, onComplete:Function):void {
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR,
function(event:IOErrorEvent):void {
trace("Unable to load image : " + url);
});
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,
function(event:Event):void {
var image:BitmapData = new BitmapData(loader.width, loader.height, false);
image.draw(loader);
var m:Matrix = new Matrix();
m.createBox(1, 1, 0, x, y);
graphics.beginBitmapFill(image, m, false, false);
graphics.drawRect(x, y, loader.width, loader.height);
graphics.endFill();
if (onComplete != null) onComplete.apply(this);
});
loader.load(new URLRequest(url));
}

Some handy shortcuts

Apple+S to save
Apple+B to build
Apple+Shift+F11 to start without debug
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My English student [Apr. 26th, 2009|02:39 pm]
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The pearly white village ran down the stony outcrop and dipped a toe into the crisp azure sea.
I was seated upon a wooden bench, reading a newspaper.
I saw her first as she rounded the bend up the hill, pedalling gently. The age and character of her battered bicycle drew contrast against her bountiful youth.
She was smiling, and she shared her happiness freely with all who looked upon her.
I saw her wave to the café owner, as he laid his broom aside and wiped his brow she gleamed at him, and his gruff old face broke into a charmed grin.
She was wearing a soft summer dress that floated in the air and inched ever higher as her soft thighs rose and fell. As she approached I caught a sliver of a glimpse of her lace panties, before looking away in a vain attempt to protect her modesty.
And as she rolled to a halt and gaily alighted before coming to complete stop, she planted a wet kiss upon my cheek and said "Hello, how are you?" in her foreign accent.
My English student had arrived. She was only 15 years old, and I was about to embark on yet another hour of anguish and irrepressible desire.
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The workshop is activated [Apr. 26th, 2009|02:21 pm]
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I'm working on a computer game. I'm developing it in Flash/ActionScript. I don't know if this is the best language choice. What I do know is that I'm not too worried about frames per second, 3-D graphics, textures, lighting and whatnot. What I really want is a simple lightweight environment where I can do basic graphics and then release my game online. Flash seems to fit the bill. I was fooling around with scarygirl today, a pretty platform game developed in Flash. Blog post from the developers here, it took them nearly two years to make the game.


Scarygirl, in its essence was only planned to be a 9 month project (sorry Sophie), but I think, in our excitement of making a "proper game", not what people generally see a flash game to be, we overshot the timeline a little. We tried to give the game a depth which most Flash games don't have, as it seems most flash games are focussed on being small, fun snippets of a game. We wanted to produce a full experince.
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carte escapades [Oct. 6th, 2008|10:06 pm]
So before I had the carte 12-25, and I could regularly nip off to visit my girlfriend in Rennes for only 50€ return thanks to the 50% discount. But then I turned 26 (according to the incorrect date on my passport), and so I no longer qualified. I bought the carte escapades for 80€, which offers reductions under the condition buy a return ticket, spending at least one night at a destination more than 100kms distant. Marseille and Montpellier don't qualify, so this is really only useful if I were to go to Nice or Paris.

Now it so happens that I went to Nice for my sister's wedding, but lo, would you believe that the dates on the tickets were incorrect. And because those dates were in the past and I had used a reduction card, I couldn't be reimbursed, so I had to buy a new set of tickets. Later I discovered that I had been double fucked as the return dates on the new set of tickets were wrong as well. This time the date was in the future, so I thought at the very least I could change this one. But no. See, I had thrown away the used ticket and kept just the return, and now I needed to present both tickets to change the return. It's enough to make you rip your hair out.

Now, none of this would have been a problem if I had just bought normal train tickets, those are always changeable. The catch is the reduction card, which so far has cost me very dear indeed, nearly 200€. Dammit.
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Screwing up my song titles [Jul. 16th, 2008|08:17 pm]
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I updated to the latest version of iTunes a couple of days ago (7.7.43) and since then any song title containing accented characters becomes screwed up, eg : "Télépopmusic" becomes "TÈlÈpopmusik". This is so very annoying. Apple, please make it stop.

Update (29 august 2008) :
I was prompted to download the latest update, the version is now 7.7.1 (11), and it is no longer screwing up my song titles. Alas, I shall have to manually correct the mangled titles.
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La vie de Siddhârta [Jul. 14th, 2008|02:25 pm]
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Today I saw "La vie de Siddhârta", a puppet show with a difference. The puppets were silhouettes projected upon scenes of Cambodian landscapes in water-colours. The story was a classical tale of a young prince who finds the path to Buddhist enlightenment. This was a fantastically beautiful piece, colourful and enchanting. The puppeteers exercised superb control, transmitting a broad range of emotion into every scene. I would definitely recommend this to all!
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Movin' Marvin Brown [Jul. 11th, 2008|10:07 pm]
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Last night we saw "Movin' Marvin Brown" at La Luna, a tap-dancing, rock & roll concert. I must say, I was frustrated by the theatre seats as I would have preferred to watch this show in a cabaret with a dance floor. Marvin was a good showman, and the crowd seemed to have a pretty good time. I found the musicians a bit lacklustre, and the Italian woman translating American jokes into French was a complete disaster.
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4 Secrets [Jul. 10th, 2008|09:41 am]
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The Avignon Theatre Festival has started, and last night I saw "4 Secrets" at the Théâtre Notre Dame. Julien Labigne, a smartly dressed clairvoyant, invites members of the audience to join him on stage. Somehow he manages to guess what people are thinking simply by watching them, or by asking them to repeat a word. His various acts are cleverly woven together through the telling of the story of a myserious British family from the 1920's. Also featuring Nixon, Roswell, Ben Johnson.

I really liked this show, although I felt that Mr Labigne would do well to polish his showmanship a bit.
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Avignon -> Beach [Jun. 13th, 2008|11:43 am]
Avignon is 80kms from the Mediterranean Sea, which is just not quite close enough for my liking. I'm going to try and update this page with information about getting from Avignon to the sea without a car (i.e. on public transport).

Sunday, we are going to try and go to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

Here is the itinerary:

Gare Avignon Centre – Arles (train)
Arles – Saintes-Maries (bus)


Agrandir le plan

The timetable for the train can be found on this page (middle right, section "Fiche horaire", select 08 - Marseille-Arles-Tarascon-Avignon).

The timetable for the bus can be found on this page (ligne 20 : Les Saintes Marie de la Mer / Arles)

Update
Return fare train+bus : ~30€
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