Confuse-A-Cat ltd

first impression

2009-12-15T12:46:16Z

so we sorta started to move in yesterday. During all the time we were climbing up and down the stairs with our stuff we saw nobody... except the time when i had a guitare in one hand, a trombone in the other, and a guitare on my back. That time we crossed our new neighbour who looked at us in an... interesting way...

way to give a good first impression !

The main difference between USA and France..... or not.

2009-12-12T19:28:18Z

You may (but more presumably may not) have heard of the French Singer called Johny Halliday.

Although very little known in the US, he is without a doubt the most famous rock singer in France. Like the ultimate boss of the last level in the game of rock singer. His name and look are directly imported from the States (his real name is Jean-Philippe Smet), and he begun his singer career at 17 by covering famous american rock standards, and quickly became the idole of all a generation. My father had posters of him in his attic, unknown to my grandparents who couldn't stand this "savage music".
He is now 66, and is still our best classic rock and blues singer. In France, he is as famous as say... Michael Jackson.

Why that comparaison ? Because Johny Halliday, the immortal, may be dying right now in an LA hospital.

Some days ago, he was operated in Paris for a hernia, and apparently the opperation was badly done by the surgeon. He had a nosocomial infection, which were not diagnosed, and he then took a flight to LA whre he has a second house. During the flight his condition went real bad so he had to go to the hospital when he arrived, where they diagnosed the infection, and he is now in an artificial comas, "to prevent him from suffering"

The hospital is not communicating, and all of the famous French singers and actors are now flying to LA to see Jhony in his hospital room, as it may be the last time they see their friend (yes, everybody is friend with Jhony in the French show biz, even our president, but that's ok because it's a show biz president after all)

So you see america, we too have doctors who kill our best singers. Well, almost, because i hope Jhony won't die. Some people, however, wish that said doctor would die... he has been beaten up this night in front of his kids in Paris by 2 masked people.

Which makes me wonder : america, what did you do against the doc who killed your Mickael Jackson ?

he is the man

cat_confuser @ 2009-12-11T15:46:00

2009-12-11T14:44:37Z

In France, Perry Winkle is called Bicot. And his sister Winnie is called Suzie.

And only the stories focusing on Perry were translated, so if Bicot is (was) a rather famous character, nobody here heard of Winnie Wiknle.

Fin.

cat_confuser @ 2009-12-07T19:29:00

2009-12-07T18:29:40Z

feels like dancing

Who have seen this movie btw? just curious.

cat_confuser @ 2009-11-27T23:05:00

2009-11-27T22:05:30Z

looks like i'm really moving ! in 2 weeks...
excited i am

cat_confuser @ 2009-11-04T11:58:00

2009-11-04T11:16:39Z

So i went to Alameda to get trained on new products one of our supplier is making, and how to service them.

The class was followed by 12 guys : me, an Australian, a Japanese, 2 Koreans, 2 Mexicans, and some Americans.

Now i don't really like clichés but... well i let you judge
The only people to wear suits were the asians
the 2 mexicans wore big jackets and too much hair gel
the australian guy was thin, grey hair in a pony tail, and wore a short sleeves jungle green shirt
all of the american were big. (not to say they were fat)
There were a french guy from the hosting company, and he and I were the only ones getting bold.
the korean guys spoke approx. zero english, but surprisingly enough, the japanese guy made understandable sentences (that is, if you could wait untill the end of the sentence)

i was in fact the only non native english speaker to understand fully english.

I ended up speaking spannish with the mexicans, then japanese, french, and english. that's a lot in one day.

Everybody was cool and we had a god laugh with the american guys, especially during lunches.

One of the best part : Australian guy making some joke about how useless are the one dollar bills, then proudly showing australian money saying "see guys ? this is a 2 dollar coin"
Automatic response from american guy : "yeah but you can't snort cocain out of that"

About america now... i didn't see a lot of places, i only had one free day, but i'm pretty sure the only places where i saw proper fresh food was in chinese and japanese groceries.
Otherwise near my hotel we had burger king, jack in the box, taco bell, mc donnalds, subway, some donut place, and weinerschnitzel (the fuck is that name ?)

so yeah, i ended up eating at a japanese restaurant twice ;)

Oh, and writing the actual value of a dime on the coins would be a good idea too ;)

SanFran

2009-11-03T15:47:35Z

a few things about the trip :
- lol bay bridge closure
- SF feels a lot like Kobe (or maybe it's kobe that feels like SF)
- 3 days is fucking short
- actually heard someone say "yikes"
- carpet in subway ? good luck for cleaning that huge puddle of puke the morning after halloween...

night talk

2009-10-27T08:51:35Z

Kumiko talks when she sleeps.
Most of the time it's in japanese and i don't get half of it but this night, out of nowhere, she suddenly said in a reproachfull voice

"You're not a super Sayan"

wel... sorry.

!

2009-10-01T17:19:29Z

loosy organisation is also an american trademark ? i thought we were champions... well, we still are, but honorable mention goes to our supplier whom i'm visiting in november in San Francisco

It started rather bad for me in fact : when i booked for the plane tickets tuesday, i was too quick because i had a lot of things on my mind (had to visit a customer the afternoon plus all the moving and buying a flat thing). So i made a mistake, and basically on my way back i had a comuting (? good word ?) at chicago of only 36 minutes.
And the next plane to paris was the day after, so if i missed it, i had to satay one more night at chicago.
Which, considering a certain person lives there atm, is not a bad thing at all itself, but that still means losing a day of work.
Anyway, i discovered that after the flight was confirmed, so that sucked.

Then, the next day, our american suplier informs us that... "oh btw, the training is one week earlier, i hope that's not a problem for you ?" What ?? we already booked the plane stupid ! Soooo, i had to cancell the plane i'd booked the day before, byebye the 36 minutes run at chicago !

So now i re booked the good dates, and i was carefull to take enough time at the transfers. I leave paris the 28th of october, change at Chicago (hi Hana !) and arive at SF that day.
Then i leave SF the 1st of november, change at Chicago (bye Hana !) and arrive at Paris the 2nd.
My free ady at SanFrancisco is the 31th

Which means : i'll be in SF for halloween... how is it actually in the USA ? i mean, here it's just a pseudo pale copy of the original, some kids do the trick or treats thing, some mock spiderwebs in the shops.. that's all. How is the real thing ?

lol san francisco

2009-09-28T14:45:37Z

So yeah, it looks like i'm going to san francisco for good.

The 5th and 6th of november i'lll be working, and the 7th which is a saturday i'm free, and i leave the sunday 8th.

the plane ticket is half cheaper than if i left the saturday... really half ! (500 euros instead os 1000)
So, i stay one more night at the hotel but it's still cheaper so i have a free day at the bay, cool !

btw, which are good companies and which are bad ? US airlines ? delta ? AA ? Continental ?
I'll have to transfer too, i wanted to transfer at Chicago just to say "i've been in ur city Hana haha" but it's faster by JFK... so i don't know. maybe i'll still do it ^_^

How far (long) is LA from SF ?

money

2009-09-24T20:28:25Z

So kumiko and I found a flat !
cool thing is : we can afford it
not cool thing is : i guess we cant afford anything else for the next 5 years ><

seriously, i'm going to take a loan to buy it, for 20 years, and i can't afford a loan to pay the totality, so we had to gather all the money we could from our different bank acounts. One of them is a citybank account in japan, and it's COMPLICATED to get the money here. basically, it'll take 3 to 5 weeks. (due to the fact that Kumiko forgot her web password and that we moved last year and all, and the japanese bureaucratie isn't helping)
Well, we have to gather 47000 euros, and we just have them, but then we have almost nothing to pay the remaining rent (untill december), my transportation card, and all the different taxes.

Speaking of taxes, i went today to the tax building of my town to get some stuff done so i can hve some free money from the bank (not going to go in details) BUT i found out they calculated something wrong (or so i suspect) and i'll have to pay more taxes than expected next November... Cool thing is, i can't complain before actually paying (french system), so i'll have to pay the extra tax, then verify their calculation, and complain if they're wrong, and some months after get the extra money back if thy are indeed wrong.

I've never really been into money things, but lately i have to chack and calculate and verify a lot of figures, and it's tiring. I hope things will go ok and we can get the flat ! cause it's really nice. (despite it being a fourth flour without elevator)

Oh, another thing : we may not have enough money to pay movers, so we'll do the moving ourself... but we hve heavy pieces of furnitues, and the new building has no elevator, so i don't know. Not to mention, i'm the countrary of strong.

aaaaaand.... i may have to go to San Fransisco for work 2 days in November !! Which is cool ! But !!
November will be the time where i have the less money. And for work, i'll have to pay things there and the company will pay me back when i get home. I don't know if i'll have enough money on my bank account >_<
that, and i have to check if my passport is accepted in paranoia-land.

sweet words

2009-08-21T15:21:37Z

" je vais la mettre en diffusion la photto de ta chatte sale pute, je vais la diffuser sur internet salope "

I was coming home and this is what i heard from an opened window in a street near my house. Note that the voice was from a young laidy in her mid 20s i'd say.
It translates rouhly in
"I'll put it on download that picture of your cunt you dirty whore, i'll put it on the Internet bitch"

tsss the youth of today....

cat_confuser @ 2009-08-16T11:20:00

2009-08-16T09:37:04Z

I've discovered those "literal version" things on youtube and i'm a fan. Here are my favorites ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILhJs8BLcTQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL6_t-cdgLI

[edited for embeding issues]

scrabble

2009-07-22T20:05:28Z

We recently bought a scrabble, because Kumiko is a fan, as it makes her learn new words and spelling and stuff.

And she keeps beating me ! How is that possible, i'm super good at scrabble ! And this even is not her first language !

she beated me today with more than 50 points ahead. Huh.

CDs

2009-07-11T16:48:54Z

i had a cupboard full of piles of all my CDS, so i finally decided today to buy a propper CD shelf. I've just spent hours arranging them on the shelf, but i have so many that all of hem didn't fit and i had to let some in the cupboard.

but.

when i look in the cupboard, there semes to be as many CDs inside as before !... why ?? >_<

i have too many CDs.

And i know someone who has just twice as much as me (most of them being japanese old bands, if you see what i mean)

song i wrote

2009-05-19T10:26:10Z

I wrote this song for the new band, it's in english, do you see anything wrong in it ? (grammar, vocab, etc)
thank you~~

She's an iron fist in a leather glove
and that's exactly what i love
with a single hand she can knock me down
she touches me, i hit the ground

have you ever kissed the perfect lips
and got blown up by an uppercut
since the day we met i've been counting stars
and soon i'll be counting my scars

i have a date in the boxing ring
i have a crush on a violent mind
i fell in love witha puching girl
and now i cry and i cry

Welcome in hell
when you hear the bell
you know she's ready and she won't hold back
fighting with rage
like a tiger in a cage
don't mess with her or she'll paint your eyes black

In the day she's make-up, dress and diamond ring
but at night it's tank top, shorts and gum shield
the queen of Vegas is a featherweight
she's in the race for the belt

Well she hooked up on me
and i have no hope
just a hook of the left
and i'm against the ropes
She won't stay under my sheets
cause on the count of 10
she's already on her feet
giving me a hard time yeah

scooter !

2009-05-16T19:39:14Z

We had an accident with a scooter today. We're fine. The scooter guy too. the scooter, not.

We had spent the afternoon in a big shoe shop outside of paris, i had borrowed my dad's car. We were driving home, it had rained and the road was slippery.
We stopped at a red light (like normally, not suddenly) and suddenly we hear this slidding sound from behind for like 2 seconds and BAM, something hits us in the back. Luckilly, not very strong, but still enough to make the seatbelts block and shake all the car.
It was a scooter : the guy had slipped when he braked for the red light, fell on the side and slide with the scooter and hit right into our bumper.

The "fun" things are :
- he had just bought the scooter, like one hour ago. he made 2kms with it, and now it's completely destroyed. It costed him like 7000 euros.

- he didn't have an insurance, because he had just bought it. technically, it's illegal, he should have had one.

- It was not my car, it was my dad's. So i phoned him to ask him what to do, cause well, it's my first accident.

- they guy is going to take an insurance on monday, and he and my dad will declare the accident on tuesday to the insurance, so that he can pay us back for the bumper. Luckilly, only the bumper is dammaged, and not very much. It's not falling apart, the gas pipe is OK, the back door too (even if it won't open because of the bumper being all bended at the moment, but once it's fixed, it'll be OK)

- while we were trying to move the scooter from under the car, in the middle of the road, a car right next to us bumped into the car in front of it, because the guy was looking at the accident and not paying attention. Arguments and cursed words ensued.

- Our car is OK, only the bumper is damaged, still my parents took that opportunity to cancel a trip they had planned next week with people they don't really like. So they phoned them and told them the car was out of order, too bad, sorry, next time ok ?

the not fun thing : Kumiko is all right, but i have a slight pain in the shoulder that started like 3 hours after the accident. this shoulder often aches (because of the computer mouse, you see what i mean ? ) So i don't know if it"s the usual pain or because of the accident.
If it still hurts tomorrow, i'll check in the ER on monday.
And it will cost me nothing. Sorry : /

shuffle

2009-05-05T20:59:42Z

So i opened my banck account like 9 years ago (only ?) and every months i get those fidelity points and i finally decided to use them at their online store, so i chose an iPod shuffle and i recieved it today for freez.

That thing is cool. It's the small 1Go version, still better than my old 256 Mo mp3 player. plus it's on USB rechargeable batteries, not classic batteries like the old one.

only drawback : iTunes. I do not tune. (oh, and no display, but eh)

btw, in french we have 2 words for batteries and... well batteries. How do you make the difference in english ? (between batteries and batteries obviously^^) Sounds inconvenient.

sparta

2009-04-30T13:44:03Z

300 jokes are old, this one still cracks me up everytime

cat_confuser @ 2009-04-08T08:35:00

2009-04-08T06:34:37Z

HAY FEVER BITCHES !

catch my thoughts if you can

2009-03-16T19:38:30Z

so i was cooking tonight, and while i was waiting for everything to burn i was thinking about... stuff.

First i thought that i was hungry, so i took 3 squares of chocolate in the cupboard, and it made me think of a TV program i saw the other day about children getting fat eause they eat too much candies. Now, i'm very thin and i do eat some sweets sometimes, so i thought that it was something that came because they eat those things all the time. Like, of course, all Americans do.
Then i though about America. They're all big, ok, well known cliché, but they're also taller tan us.  So i thought maybe it's because they often drink milk when they're young, and eat more meat than us, in larger proportions. Then i remember that Hana was taller than i thought when i met her. then, thinking about hana, i remembered something she said me about girls in LA who couldn't eat bread because of a special diet they were doing that was a real craze lately (something like amidon free diet) I remembered that i had replied that it was a bit of a nonsense in a country where you find SUGAR FREE butter and NO FAT sugar. Anyway, it made me want to eat some bread, but all i had was some Harry's bread that i eat for breakfast.
So i took a slice of bread and spread some butter on it and ate it and thought that you'd be horryfied to see me eat all these fat and be so slim.
Then i thought that Harry's bread was no comparaison with a baguette, but you can't keep a baguette more than one day, whereas you can keep harrys bread like 3 weeks, because of all the chemicals they put in it.

AND NOW WE GET TO THE POINT OF THIS POST

It made me want to check what exactly were the ingredients of harrys bread. Note that i'm talking about BREAD, something usually made with flour, water, salt and yeast.

so, here it is :
wheat flour      ok
water     ok
margarine ...     hmm, fake butter ?
then all the ingredients of said margarine (in french cause i dont know the english words... but the long words are scary even in french)
    - water
   - emulsion
   - mono and diglycerides of fatty acid      hmmmm fat...
   - citric acid      what, lemon juice ?
    - flavours          what, like "bread flavour" or something ?
sugar           sugar in bread ?
yeast
salt            less salt than sugar then ?
flavours       again?
wheat gluten      i don't even know what that is
stearoyl-2-lactylate de sodium       wtf is dat doing in mah bread ?
seed flour
guar gum       please stop there !
and ascorbic acid.....

yeah... ok... all that... in bread.

But THEN, i read the most AMUSING THING !
it's written :

"made in a factory where milk and eggs are used."

and i'm like what ? We put tons of disgusting unknown chemicals in our bread but that's ok because in the same factory we use milk and bread ! We don't put any in the bread, but we use them, everything' s ok !

ok, then i understood why it was written. Because it's an american product, and they don't want to get sued by a maniac vegan who had the bread analysed and found a billioniem of an ounce of animal product in it.
stearoyl-2-lactylate de sodium and guar gum are ok, but milk and eggs ? YUCK !

and it made me sigh

French House 2

2009-02-28T16:15:35Z

Michel Cymes et l'hélium
envoyé par loicb54

     The woman is the co host of their medical show : she starts to tell the program of today''s show and he finnishes with helium induced voice. His real voice comes back towars the end

             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XVhbN9EMzs        -
           the real House changing his voice too

The real House really changing his voice in that one...

French Dr House

2009-02-27T19:45:12Z

On the 5th channel in France, everyday, there's a medical program hosted by a real Doctor, Michel Cymes.
He often tells jokes and silly things when the subject are too serious and he has a rather cynical humour that I like.

this is what he looks like :

looks familiar ?
I guess a lot of people told him that he looked a bit like Greg House, and that he kinda had the same sense of humour, because since 2 months now he looks like this :

Today i was watching and they were talking about memories and people who can't make the difference between a real memory and a memory based on what someone has told you, and he said something like
"i'm having that theese days cause i can't remember if i've really played Dr House or not"
And that made me laugh.

Japan videos

2009-02-20T17:09:56Z

So, i went to Kobe...

... and THIS happened ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDKjXP8rsx4

but that's ok, because just 10 minutes before, THIS had happened : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vquRsKMQzqo

cat_confuser @ 2009-02-15T07:59:00

2009-02-14T23:01:20Z

I just won at mah jong against a japanese grandma.

this just needed to be mentioned

i guess the next step is winning against a hongkongese grandma ?