I just found out that one of my child blogs, who has since denied his father, has gone as far as signing into blogtree(w) and displaying another blog as his parent. It kinda forces your admiration. Or not. I wonder, maybe I still have his FTP password somewhere. (I’d say I’m writing this to scare him into asking his hosting company to change the password, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t read me either.)

I can survive an Internet outage. There are lots of things I can do: touch up pictures I haven’t edited yet, or redesign my site, or whatever. But an electricity outage I can’t. It’s inhuman. No computer, no blog, nothing—not even TV or radio. Dead.

I’ll never understand how my father manages to systematically buy (and ultimately hand me) malfunctioning alarm clocks. Is there really a market for those things? Stores dedicated to electronic appliances that don’t last over six months? I just spent fifteen minutes looking for the exact spot you must press on the Clock button in order to be allowed to set in on time. Yet it shouldn’t be so complicated to build a device that works correctly.

All day long, half of the French Internet has been unavailable from my provider, so that, not only I couldn’t read half the blogs on my list, and not only I couldn’t check my mail, but I couldn’t either access my own site and blog. And that’s bad luck, because I had lots of things to write today. So here it’s all in a mess:

I dreamt I had an interesting dialogue idea for my movie, and I was writing it down on my notepad, and I was wondering whether I had really written it or if it was only within my dream. And all that maanaged to wake me up, so that dialogue bit is now really in my treepad. It’s frightening. In a positive and productive way, but still.

I hate when complete strangers, in a chatroom, send a how are you? in the first minute of chat? (Actually, the French version is tu vas bien ? and is stronger still.) We’re not intimate, you’re bound to be a psychopath asshole like everybody else, don’t talk to me like we’ve known each other for months. Garoo’s good manners, tip #185: you don’t ask a stranger how are you? but what’s up? I’d be willing to explain more clearly why, but it’s three in the morning.

By the way, chatroom addicts still can’t stand being forced into behaving like human beings, with a brain and all (I’m not even asking for a heart here, I do spend my time on cruising chatrooms) instead of robots saying the opposite of what they think because it’s easier on them. But it’s still three in the morning, and I’m too tired to think of a way of saying it that wouldn’t make me look like a soured old man, so I’ll get back to it another time. Well, actually… maybe that’s just what I am?

I have another article waiting on my notepad-for-when-I’m-out, but it’ll be for another time, because I don’t want to botch it. Oh, right: I went out today. Not long, just enough to see the weather is still great, and the sun sets one hour later than yesterday (daylight savings are off now—or on, or whatever, the point is, time changed).

Voilà, just as planned, I missed my exit. I was all set to go, cold-washed and dressed up and Bam! a chatroom accident. Damn it, I shouldn’t ever go there again—except that I didn’t pay fifteen euros to just stop going there, they won’t refund me just because there are too many sociopaths there for my (and everyone’s) taste.

Yearghh I need to go out of my home!

(Should it only be so that I haven’t taken a cold shower for nothing. It’s nice and energyzing and all, but I wouldn’t take one every day. Particularly if I eventually don’t go out afterwards.)

I spent five years there, and look what they did with it. Well, alright, I only had certain classes on that location (maybe I should go and take some pictures in the school’s other buildings, it could be fun) and I have no partcularly good memories there, but destroying it is still an unacceptable lack of respect for me and my past. Five years from now, when I need to choose a place where to shoot interviews for a documentary about my career, where will I go?

I’m sweating like a pig and the hot water is out of order… I wonder if I could take a cold shower and survive it? I’ll let you know.

Tiens, je vais vous coller des logs de conversation, ça occupera. J’ai trop la flemme de rédiger des vrais posts (et dire que je déteste ça quand d’autres blogueurs le font…).

[00:39] L’appareil photo c’était pour les loisirs. La DV c’est pour un projet professionnel (c’était ce que je voulais dire [à la phrase d’avant], mais sur le moment j’étais pas sûr que c’était vrai).
[00:39] J’ai toujours rêvé de faire un film en steadicam [Cf. Shining]. Et maintenant de savoir que c’est faisable, et en DV, ça me fait fantasmer.
[00:41] Par exemple, quand je vois le making of de Jeanne d’Arc avec un traveling en steadicam sur un quad en plein milieu des bois, c’est le pied.
[…]
[00:46] Ceci dit, je n’aurais jamais dû me documenter sur les DV semipro. Maintenant que j’ai vu ce qui existait, si jamais je fais quelque chose avec des DV "bas de gamme", je vais être frustré à mort.

Today, nothing.

Yesterday, nothing, and tomorrow nothing either, and the previous days, and the next days, and the next years, and I’m fed up with that, and… what was the point in having a diet meal at noon if I was going to eat half a liter of ice cream now.

I’m getting old! Yeah, I know, nothing new here, and screw you. I’m getting old, I said. A little walk in the Marais for a few minutes to celebrate the arrival of spring, and I’m feeling homophobic. There I am: I’ve become completely unable of going out with a twenty-year-old twink who spends his nights clubbing. Have I become old, or only an adult? And which of these options frightens me most?

How can one start (again) a diet near Easter, when Kinder begins selling a revisited version of its small chocolate eggs? They won’t show any mercy, will they? I’ll never understand how a single maker can maintain such a stronghold over the fat, industrial chocolate market. There has to be some secret ingredient in every product Ferrero ships—an ingredient that, when consumed in large quantities, leads people to write and direct amazingly stupid commercials. This is the final evidence: the sale of Nutella should be forbidden for the sake of the future generations. And I’m not offering to dispose personally of the remaining stocks: I just said I was on a diet.

(Sorry if you’re reading this from a foreign country lucky or unlucky enough not to be exposed to any Ferrero product. You’re missing something out, but I’m sure you too have interesting junk food of your own.)

Here come my very first portraits using a digital camera. It works pretty well—in fact, my portraits have never been so sharp and well exposed and everything.

But… how did I manage last year to make it through the whole year without working? It’s just mid-March, and my bank account is already in the red. Of course, in 2002, I didn’t have the same needs, since I didn’t go out. But still. It’s not like I’m a big spender on my nights out. I’ll have to start getting people to buy me drinks again. Or maybe… I’ll have to… find a contract. Erk. And the big problem with this situation is that it makes me go into crisis mode, where I’m particularly not productif and, more importantly, unable to think long- (or mid-) term and make projects. Bad times.

Just when I was realizing, walking across the Marais, that the [gay] world wasn’t represented fairly by the chatroom psychos (it happens that, in real life, there’s a whole bunch of completely different types of psychos, who may be much more interesting than the online ones), and as I was discovering a convivial bar, I spoiled it all by displaying my best tight-ass Parisian frown, and sending assassin stares to whoever dares address me (even though some of those people were… interesting). I have to say I hate going alone in a bar, and I only went because F. was giving a mini-concert there. Next time I’ll have to either get drunk in advance or bring someone in so I don’t spend the 15-minute break on my own, gazing into the void like the socially inapt geek I’ve never stopped being. On nights like this I feel like I’m fifteen again—or rather, like I’ve never been beyond that. No wonder I have no income.

There was a time when my future was clear, when I didn’t wonder if I was motivated enough to do what I had to, or good enough to do what I wanted to. I just hate hearing on the radio some song I haven’t listened to for more than ten years. Memories should be burned down as we go, and everything would be so much simpler.

Right now, since burning memories seems impractical (though it should be achievable with a good, sharp ice pick and a good aim), I feel like burning down the future (which brings me back to the ice pick, by the way). At least it wouldn’t be uncertain any more.

I also feel like closing this blog (and not only because of you don’t know what, or because of you don’t know what either), but I have no idea what could replace it (for me, I mean, not for the readers). It already doesn’t keep me that much busy these days, but if I delete it there’ll really be nothing left for me to do. But still, some people are reading these lines (no, actually, they’re reading the French version) although they shouldn’t, and it’s not helping.

A little editing on the home page: the image, since I’ve been wanting to fix the perspective for a while; the menu, more evident (though still far from perfect), hoping that it will suddenly start working on Macs; the French/English selector mor visible, I hope, and less ambiguous. Well, not that I expect it to bring me English readers by the millions thousands hundreds tens.

And now I don’t know what to make of what’s left of the day, and there’s a big chunk left.

Which reminds me that I haven’t taken advantage enough of the Western world before it’s destroyed. If Bush ends up dropping the bomb on Baghdad, I’ll have to make good use of everything that’s available in our consumer society and its sorta-freedoms, while they still exist. Looting and orgies galore!

I should go out and take some pictures. I must go out and take pictures. I have to take advantage of the not-so-bad weather and tha not being asleep and the not being comatose. It’s not the right time to start watching a lousy Gwyneth Paltrow romance. But, uh, what can I photograph? It’s winter, nothing looks nice in winter.

Oh, il semblerait que j’aie trouvé la réponse à une question qui me travaillait depuis un moment. Enfin, une question qui m’a travaillé au moins deux fois dans les douze derniers mois, en tombant sur des oeuvres anglo-saxonnes dans lesquelles Ulysse s’appelait Odysseus. Apparemment, en sales pays latins que nous sommes, nous aurions gardé la version romaine du nom, Ulysses ou quelque chose du genre, alors que le nom d’origine serait Odysseus. Quelque chose comme ça, quoi. Enfin, bref. C’était juste pour pouvoir m’en souvenir un jour. Non seulement Odysseus est bien le nom d’Ulysse, mais en plus c’est nous qui avons tort. C’était important de le signaler. Parce que comment pourrait-on critiquer les autres si on n’admettait pas ses propres erreurs ? Hein ? Hein ? Hein ?

En même temps, ça ne doit pas être un scoop pour les plus littéraires d’entre vous, puisque le nom de L’Odyssée vient justement du nom du personnage principal. Comme quoi ce post doit certainement se ranger dans la catégorie des choses que j’ai sues et gaillardement oubliées. Et il est en bonne compagnie, parce que je peux vous dire qu’il y a du monde…

Ah, oui, je comprends. J’ai mis vingt-quatre heures à comprendre. La vengeance, c’est mal. Je n’y avais pas pensé. Sérieusement, pas une seule seconde. C’est peut-être parce que je suis à moitié corse, que je suis un incurable romantique qui regarde trop la télé, ou que je suis juste un psychopathe, mais je n’ai pas envisagé une seule seconde qu’un téléspectateur puisse se mettre du côté de Buffy et dire que ce que fait Willow est mal. J’ai immédiatement et sans réfléchir rangé ces discours dans le tiroir des bondieuseries qu’on est obligés d’écrire quand on raconte ce genre d’histoire à la télé. Pas pensé une seconde que les scénaristes puissent être sincères — d’ailleurs, je continue à être persuadé que Whedon, au minimum, pense que ce que fait Willow est justifié. J’espère. Qu’à défaut d’être un bon producteur il est au moins romantique. Sinon il m’aurait menti toutes ces années. Bref. Où j’en étais ? Ah oui, je disais que je suis un sociopathe à enfermer d’urgence — en tout cas, d’après les standards répandus sur fr.rec.tv.series.sf, on dirait. Si on tuait ma Tara et si j’avais le millionième des pouvoirs de Willow (voire aucun pouvoir magique du tout, la torture existe très bien sans magie), je dédierais tout ce qui reste de ma vie à faire subir mille morts (par an) au coupable. Ca paraît évident. Pas à vous ? Ou peut-être à vous, mais pas à tout le monde. La vengeance. C’est pourtant tellement logique et justifié et totalement moral. Non ? Ben si ! Alors voilà. Le dépeçage express de Warren sans qu’il ait le temps de bien savourer sa douleur, c’était minable. Minable, minable, minable. Ridicule. Pas à la hauteur du tout. Pas étonnant que l’acteur qui jouait Warren n’ait pas exprimé plus de terreur que ça, il savait qu’elle n’avait pas de couilles. Ah, les femmes, même pas capables d’émasculer un homme propre salement.

Do I accept to go out in Paris on a Saturday night out of sheer masochism, or for the sake of reinforcing my misanthropy? Unless it’s just there are (against all odds) a few people among my acquaintances that are only available on weekends. Yet that’s not for lack of spending my time chatting with Peter Pans without any job or occupation, but I guess every rule needs its exceptions. But still, the Châtelet on a Saturday night is a pain—and we’re still in winter.

Yay ! Ca y est, depuis hier, je fais finalement partie de la masse de gens qui se connectent à Internet sans passer par AOL. Oui, je suis toujours sur modem (parce que trop compliqué de passer à l’ADSL, pour plein de raisons que je n’ai pas envie de détailler, pas uniquement parce que j’aime bien être à la traîne technologique depuis dix ans), mais désormais sur un forfait illimité Cario (w). C’est exactement le même prix (enfin, à un euro près), c’est sans engagement (mais je n’étais plus engagé sur AOL, puisque je peux résilier), mais… c’est un provider. Un provider Internet, vous savez. Un truc qui s’installe par l’accès réseau à distance de Windows. Auquel on se connecte en quelques secondes. Duquel on se déconnecte immédiatement. Le tout sans pub, et avec un ping probablement plus rapide sur les adresses françaises (quoique je n’ai pas spécialement mesuré, et pour surfer sur le web c’est de toute façon assez peu important).

Je me serais juste passé de devoir laisser leur site m’installer un ActiveX qui m’a tout l’air d’être une porte ouverte dans mon ordinateur, permettant à qui voudra d’installer tout et n’importe quoi (heureusement encore que je n’utilise Explorer que pour deux ou trois sites spécifiques). Je n’ai plus qu’à chercher un logiciel qui trifouille dans la configuration du browser et supprime les gadgets dont je ne veux pas. Tout ça pour installer leur logiciel de connexion propriétaire… Maintenant vous devez installer automatiquement votre connexion. Cette étape vous permet de télécharger le compteur de connexion, l’outil indispensable de votre accès internet avec cario.fr. Avec les gros mots écrits en gras, on se dit qu’il faut peut-être vraiment le charger, que ça doit être obligatoire, que sinon on va se faire virer et recevoir une facture carabinée. En tout cas, tout ce que je sais, c’est que ça connecte aussi très bien sans.

Enfin… je n’arrive pas à croire que je ne passe plus par AOL. Que leur interface éléphantesque ne prend pas une place dans mon dock, qu’elle ne va pas planter quand elle voudra, qu’elle ne va pas me gueuler A bientôt ! en triple exemplaire à chaque fois que je serai déconnecté. Que je suis de retour sur Internet, quoi. C’est agréable. Seuls le dictionnaire et la page météo inclus dans AOL vont me manquer, mais je trouverai bien des remplacements. Tout a l’air d’aller plus vite : la connexion, la déconnexion (ça, ce n’est pas une impression, c’est le plus tangible des changements), même les téléchargements ou les newsgroups. A tel point que je me suis laissé aller à télécharger un Quicktime de Once More With Feeling : 55 Mo téléchargés en trois heures, non seulement je n’y serais peut-être pas arrivé avec AOL, mais en plus ils commencent à envoyer des recommandés aux utilisateurs de peer-to-peer, alors le changement est bienvenu. Ceci dit, je crois que je ne vais pas encore commencer tout de suite à regarder les épisodes de Buffy le lendemain de leur passage aux Etats-Unis : c’est petit, c’est flou, et surtout le son est tellement médiocre que je ne comprends rien aux dialogues — et qu’est-ce qu’ils ont à toujours parler tous en même temps ? Est-ce que je suis moins bon en anglais que je ne croyais, ou c’est vraiment la compression qui rend cette bouillie incompréhensible ?

You Are A: Lawful Good Elf Bard Thief.

Lawful good, that’s expected. The contrary would have been impossible, even. I told you I vote for the left out of deep political conviction! Elfe is alright, especially with the definition given there: well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with (and I hope that doesn’t mean sex). Yeah, perfect. Bard is fine. But a thief?! Me? And why? I can’t even see what I did wrong in the questionnaire to justify this. However, the script specifies: While not all use [their] skills for burglary, that is a common occupation of this class. Not all. Not me. I’m a thief who doesn’t steal, it’s just that I’m very agile and discreet and I’m intelligent enough to avoid traps and pick locks if I want to, which I don’t. Or maybe my destiny is that of a bard (which, in the 21st century, means I’m on TV) who robs banks in order to finance himself. Why not? Can there be a successful bank robbery be in 2003?

via cosmochips.free.fr

I feel like everyone around me is finally managing to make something of their lives. And I’m here standing still. And it’s all my fault. Pff.

Last night as I was walking to the subway train I prepared a text explaining why I don’t write much these days. Now it looks like posting it today wouldn’t be quite appropriate, so I guess it’ll just wait.

This is the era of nanotechnologies (well, close enough), of furniture that cleans itself requiring no effort, of food cooking itself and high-technology tampons. So tell me why are we still using plain paper towels as handkerchiefs? Why hasn’t anybody come up with a revolutionary product that would absorb it all and remain dry, that we could keep in our pocket all day long without seeing it become a blob of shredded papier mâché ? Why aren’t they at least woven with some kind a magical fiber that would maintain structural integrity? And for that matter, where are those liters of mucus coming from anyway?

J’ai reçu les formulaires de déclaration de revenus aujourd’hui (ça ne me dérange pas, je n’ai pas eu de revenus). Est-ce qu’il est prévu que je puisse renvoyer la notice annotée pour dire que, non, les priorités à financer ne sont pas assurer la sécurité intérieure et renforcer la sécurité extérieure ? Et je ne mentionne pas Promouvoir une justice plus proche du citoyen parce que l’intitulé est gentil, bien qu’au fond il s’agisse surtout d’envoyer les banlieusards en prison plus rapidement. Je demanderais bien une exemption d’impôts parce que je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce qu’on fait de mon argent, mais comme je n’en paye pas… Ah, oui, et puis ça ne serait pas démocratique. Mais, comment dire… Democracy can bite my ass. Oui, voilà comment dire.

1. How could you react if faced with evidence that, on an exact subject, you are behaving against a principle you keep proclaiming?

Why don’t you begin with bringing the evidence, and we’ll talk about that. Because it can’t happen to me. Never did, never will. Axiom One, to be displayed over your bed so you don’t forget it: Garoo is always right. And no, Axiom Two isn’t Even when he’s wrong, he’s right, because it’s already been established he never is wrong.

So he always abides by his principles. And I don’t have many of those anyway. And my principles usually included exemption clauses for cases where there may be a problem. For instance, Never harm someone intentionally: that leaves plenty of room to harm lots of people. Only, not intentionally. Which I never do. So there.

It’s so easy not to disappoint yourself: just don’t expect too much!

2. How do you conceive the work of a trade unionist?

Uh. I feel like answering Not applicable. May I? Trade unions are not my business. Actually, since I’m unemployed, I end up having the outsider’s point of view, which is that trade unions usually locks factories and jams highways and hold people hostage and is generally a pain in the ass. But that’s not the way I understand the work of trade unions. Because I’m a left-wing kind of guy.

3. Do you deem necessary to listen to the antithesis of an argument you immediately adhered to?

Uh… I wouldn’t say necessary. But it can be nice. Let’s say I don’t think it’s compulsory, but I’m not hostile either. Because there’s no point in having convictions if you can’t stand and oppose contradiction. And as we say in France, only idiots don’t change their minds.

4. What is the cruelest feeling a parent can have towards their child?

Uh… indifference, I suppose?

5. What is the best way to express a feeling of rage?

What a joyful week… It’s hard to say, because I hardly ever express this kind of feeling. Almost never. I tend to keep it all for myself, until the day I’ve accumulated too much and it has to go out and I… still do nothing. That’s who I am.

Anyway, I guess that primal scream is an elegant solution. Or the idea of punching through a wall, but it doesn’t always work out so well. Especially here: the walls are thick and sturdy.

6. How would you define "society"?

It’s the aggregation of millions of individual egoisms which, thanks to some miracle I couldn’t explain, doesn’t immediately and totally lead to self-destruction.

Well, not immediately… On the planet’s scale, a few millenniums aren’t that much.

7. Do you reread old posts you have written?

Scarcely. Or even never, considering this tendency I have to completely forget what I may have posted two days earlier. I’m not one of those bloggers who write for future reference, in order to read themselves again later and reminisce all their past thoughts. I write for readers, not for myself. And since my readers don’t deserve me spending my time rereading old posts and fixing mistakes and reworking sentences, I’m not about to bother.

In fact, it’s more about respect for the very essence of blogging. Once something is posted, it mustn’t be edited anymore. Fixing typos and adding post-scriptums is okay, but it wouldn’t make sense if I spent my time changing some details and altering sentences in posts from last month. Yet if I read them again I’d be frustrated by all the flaws I can’t correct anymore. When you have a propensity to perfectionism like I do, you need a lot of discipline not to become obsessive-compulsive about rereading your works.

I just watched a documentary about prison suicide. What can I say… I thought I knew most of everything there was to know about jails, and I was wrong. I always assumed the hardest thing for an inmate would be to commit suicide, because there are watches and patrols to prevent you. And in fact it’s the contrary: one suicide every three days in France, all you have to do is hang yourself, which seems to be quite simple. In addition, if you act at night, nobody in the house will be able to interrupt, because they don’t have the keys—so at least you’ll have the posthumous consolation of waking up the director in the middle of the night because he has to bring in the keys.

And that’s how they tell us the story of twenty-two-year-old boy who stole a jacket in a mall and kills himself in jail, although the store didn’t file a complaint, only because he resisted the arrest. Outrage and rebellion, it’s called. That thing allows them to send anyone they want to jail. Of course, I shouldn’t worry too much: I’m well-mannered, I’m as white as can be, I don’t look too menacing and, when I’m not alone, the people around me look even less so. But still. I hate this world. I mean, I should just despise and ignore it, but having to live in an environment you despise, and having no escape (other than, uh, hanging myself up, but I’ll wait for after I’ve been caught robbing a bank, thanks) is the kind of circumstance that leads you to hate, isn’t it?

In fact, rather than a cat model, what I really need is someone to lend me their basement as a photo studio. That’s what is missing for me to start making lots and lots of portraits. Actually, that, plus the courage (and/or the will) to ask guys to model for me, considering most of them have already shot me down when I approached them on a more… personal level. That business is not gonna be simple. On the other hand, if I don’t find a studio (and I don’t expect to), I’ll have until summer to get motivated for photographing people outside.

Am I the only one thinking this post is messy and poorly written?

The sky is white… What is there I could go out and photograph when the sky is white and uninteresting? I’m dead bored, I want to take pictures of something. Does anybody here have a cute cat or something?

I need a best of, a top of the blogs section, like a few other blogs have. We should all have one (well, except those who only ever write shit? or those who are steady geniuses, but that’s technically impossible). I hate to think that someone who’s discovering my site today (and many do these days, with all the time I spend on chatrooms) could believe that the most recent posts, those displayed on the home page, are representative of this journal. Because they’re not, it’s been much better once. Yeah, really. So I’m launching a great public poll: which are the ten best posts in the history of garoo.net? Which posts should be included in the upcoming reader’s digest section of the sidebar?

I shouldn’t post this, because I systematically forget everything I’ve written just the minute I publish it on my site. Well, I guess that if I do receive feedback (not that I expect much of it—especially for the English version) it’ll remind me of that thought.

My tooth doesn’t hurt anymore, so I guess the fever must be down. But what am I doing awake at ten in the morning?

Maybe I shouldn’t actually complain about having a cold, since it gives me an excuse to stuff myself with chocolate-filled wafers. Should I also take care of my bucket of ice cream while I’m at it, or rather save it for the next time I’m depressed?

I am certain my electric heater has conspired to kill me, and it’s having great fun poisoning my air so I die of pneumonia. It’s my second cold in two weeks, and I’m getting tired of it.

C’est marrant, le web. Les gens existent-ils ou non, sont-ils réels, sont-ils inventés par les Renseignements Généraux ou par la CIA pour nous faire parler ? Quoi qu’il en soit, merci aux bougres pour leur carte postale de Biarritz, et il n’y a pas de mal pour l’utilisation du whois, il est là pour ça (enfin, non, mais tant qu’à être obligé de publier mon adresse autant que ça serve à quelque chose — à défaut d’être inondé de cadeaux, je veux bien recevoir des cartes postales).

Ils ont poussé le vice jusqu’à utiliser deux écritures différentes pour faire croire qu’ils sont vraiment deux, c’est que c’est une entreprise de désinformation sérieuse, tout de même…