Looney's in the GMail contest....

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks

Another nice summer week in San Francisco...

Francky arrives in SF...

Link to his blog: http://franckygoestosf.blogspot.com/

Trip to Oregon

Kalifornia - The Return

Back to Switzerland...

Normandy

Trip to Bruges, Belgium

Visite de Bretagne

Refuge de la Bise

Refuge de la Bise

Trip to Indonesia !!!

Trip to US National Parks !!!

Franckie goes to Switzerland...

The HR Giger Museum in Gruyeres.

Jango Edwards Live !

http://www.jangoedwards.net/

Bouillon de culture....

Diner au "Restaurant dans le noir"

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to be blind? What if you had to go through an entire diner without even seeing what you eat? This is the principle of what the "Restaurant dans le noir" (Restaurant in the dark) offers, an amazing and unique experience of dining in total darkness! Interesting thing to notice is that the waiters are blind. This is the best shot we got from the evening:

Among the many crazy things that happened during the diner, one of them was that Ira got an apetizer instead of the desert he had ordered! Funny how even the waiters get confused :) Definitely a great experience, and one to recommend for a "blind date" ! (uh uh, funny!)

For more information, check out http://www.danslenoir.com/

Soirée improvisée à PAAAris...

Arrival in Paris and we go straight to an comedian improvisation game. This is a great experience, the two teams compete on different themes and have to improvise the scenes. The public votes and a funny referee has to call the winning team based on the votes. People who disagree with the ref can throw a slipper at him :)

Next in la Butte aux Cailles, a nice little quarter in the 13th. We find a restaurant called les Gladines! Tried to get free food, claiming that Gladine is really an name evolution of Glading and that Alice owns the brand... did not work! The food was excellent though...southwest and Pays Basque, can't go wrong with that.... !

Finally we meet with my friend Gilles and his pal, and we got to Maxim's, no less! A fun evening that ends around 6AM.... wow, the song says "5AM, Paris s'éveille", but we go to sleep after that...luckily tomorrow is Sunday...

For reference, Gilles "modern art" web site: http://www.audience33.com/site/index.php

Tagine Party !!!! Inch Allah !

A nice tagine party at Virginie's place and super punch made by Laurent to kick off the evening!

We got a special on all the posters acquired by Virgo, the queen of house decoration :)

Does skying too much drive people crazy?

Visiting the children of Yvoire....

I've always been told about these stories of visiting poor african countries and being cheered by children there, like they run after you in the street, they wanna take pictures with you and stuff... they want to touch you, get any object you own etc etc...

Well the strangest thing happened to us today. Basically we were adopted by the children of Yvoire, a rich small French town on the shores of Lake Geneva. We get in the village and all these kids start running around us, they take pictures of us, they touch us (well especially Alice), they want our contact info etc...

Now that I think about it, maybe they were just from africa themselves? Hum not sure really what the deal was, but that was fuuuun.... Well, if you want to send money or food to the children of Yvoire, we started a Non Profit Organization called ZeChildrenOfYvoire.org! Look how cute they are...

And Yvoire? Uh, yeah, nice....

Karaoke is definitely coool.......

La Bretagne ca vous gagne...

The week-end is amazing sky-wise, and we get the visit from Alice's cousin Mael, from Bretagne... a real Breton, not like the wanabee's from Paris...! Amazingly, these Bretons ski quite well.


The day is great, and we spend again 2 hours in this amazing French restaurant La Cremaillere, and get very close to get stuck on the French side again, as we catch the last seat back to the (dark) Swiss side.... Ouf, almost another costly taxi ride!

Finally, back on the slopes !!

Yeeeeeehaaaaaa ! Finally the snow is back and we're again in Champery for a beautiful day!

We stop at the grocery store in Aigle and meeting some very strange people there...

There's even a goat in the store! We stop and ask her what's the best goat cheese sold in the store. She looks at us smiling, does not say a word... Did I say something bad? Oh well, we decide to proceed and go with some yogourts instead...

After skying and relaxing at the Lavey baths, a little fire + good seafood and that's a good day of chomage that just ends nicely :)

Culture, sport and music, what a busy day!

Ok, it's been a while since we haven't done anything cultural.
Geneva is the perfect place to visit non-governmental organizations, then let's go to la Croix-Rouge Museum and see what this is all about...

Uh, interesting statues at the entrance : they're supposed to represent humiliated prisonners whom hands and feet have been cut off, but somehow, one of them seems to be different... well, not so much on the humiliation aspect, but he seems pretty decontracted and free-minded for a prisonner...


Ok, after culture, let's do some sport ! Cleaning up the snow from the driveway, how fun !! Ok, that's not the funniest sport game I've practiced, but it's a good way to get warm by -5°C !

And after sport, MUSIC !! Orishas, the best hip-hop/rap/salsa/funk music coming from Cuba, live in Lausanne at the Docks !

More on Orishas at http://www.orishasthebest.com/

La reine des chomeurs plébiscitée dans la presse !

What would be the best way to promote yourself when you're unemployed and bored in Geneva? Get an article in the most famous newspaper of Switzerland, of course: 20minutes.ch !!


Here is Alice giving her point of view about the Abbe Pierre's death. Well, not very inspired, uh.

Luckily the newspaper had enough pity to write "informaticienne" (=computer engineer) instead of "lazy bum" for my job, how nice :-)

La reine des chomeurs a été élue...!

Paris, France -- The commitee for election of queen of the Unemployed has nominated Alice Glading as Queen of the Unemployed for 2007. "The competition was tough but Miss Glading has demonstrated an amazing dedication to the Unemployed and surely deserves that title", said M. Francky, head of the comitee for the Unemployed and nominated King of the Unemployed himself in 2006.

Indeed, Miss Glading has proven herself mastering all the processes that make a great unemployed person. "Becoming a ski-bum was my initial intent, but the lack of snow this year in Switzerland has pushed me to diversify my slacking skills and has made me a better unemployed person as a result", says Miss Glading, who is now spending a lot of her days sleeping til noon, and also perfecting the art of doing nothing. "Before with my job, I did not even have time to get a headache", claims Miss Glading. "Now I finally take full pleasure in every little action that we usually all take for granted, such as going to buy a stamp or empty the dishwasher".

Miss Glading wish for the coming month, is to be soon able to join l'Abbé Pierre on his crusade to help the poor in France and around the world.

Rhum arrangé: quand l'éleve dépasse le maitre....

One of the benefits of being unemployed is that you have plenty of time to learn new skills! So what better skill to learn than making the famous "Rhum Arrangés" !! Good stuff to have in the winter, especially when there's not snow on moutains and nothing else to do than staying home drinking booze :)

Yeah, we've all heard how tricky it is to make, how you really need the right ingredients, the proportions have to be perfect, etc etc... almost like black magic, jeeez this is scary just to think about making one.

So let's start making the famous litchis Rhum: first thing is to get the ingredients:

• 1 liter of Rhum from La Martinique!
• Vanilla
• Brown sugar
• Honey
• and..... litchis of course

(quantities not disclosed for obvious commercial non-disclosure reasons)

Second thing: getting an empty bottle, throwing all ingredients in there, shake it a bit, and............... the magic is taking place..........!!


Ok I disclose at least the site which discloses a little of the magic:

http://www.iledelareunion.net/cuisine-reunion/rhum-arrange.htm

Now see you in three months for a degustation :) !!!

Japan Trip 会社案内 :// バリューコマース

We've been asked for the pictures of the Japan trip again, so here's the link:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=153j2nzh.1v6w4e9x&x=0&y=2dafk4

14.01.2007: journée à La Clusaz

Bon, à défaut de skier, il faut bien improviser des activités secondaires. Donc dans l'ordre pour la journée:

1. Dormir
2. P'tit Dej
3. Directions les montagnes pour rejoindre Virgo et ses potes de la Fédé pour aller faire des "rakettes"! Petit detail qui tue: le RDV était à 9:30 et on se lève à midi. Oops, on part avec un handicap, connu comme le syndrome du chomeur, caractérisé par une perte de toute notion de temps :) Alice a bien fait réparer sa montre la veille mais cela n'a pas suffit...
4. Arrivée à la Clusaz vers 14h30. Ch'tit retard... A défaut de raquettes, on tente une activité alternative, le déjeuner-terrasse au soleil. Ca muscle le coude, c'est déjà ça...
   
5. Ch'tite rando au soleil vers le lac des Couffins, pour prouver qu'on est pas des p'tits fruits quand même....
6. RDV avec le groupe pour une séance de bains-amam-sona. Bien sympa, sauf que l'eau est un peu froide à notre gout. Les bains suisses sont plus chaleureux!
7. On fini la soirée tranquille dans un petit resto viet à Genéve....

13.01.2007: les détails tuent-ils?

Nous voici enfin arrivés le 13 janvier, la date fatidique pour tous les amateurs de soirées à suspense.... la party des Détails qui Tuent est programmée pour ce soir! Les convives affluent de la France entière pour assister au spectacle, certains ont annulé leur trip, d'autres des rendez-vous importants.


Non la photo ci-dessus n'est pas une preview de Terminator 4 !!


Résumé de la soirée par Patrick:
"Je tiens a vous remercier a tous d'etre venu , j ai ete heureux de vous voir , j ai passe une bonne soiree malgres le fait que l on etait pas autant que la derniere fois et j espere que vous aussi.

Une mention special a Alan qui non content d avoir des chaussure depareillees, ma agrandit mes pompes , a Stephane qui ne piquait que d un cote lorsque l on s est embrasse , A Virginie , le sexy te va bien Virginie,, dommage que tu ne sois pas venue avec nous dans la boite, au moins on aurait su pourquoi tout le monde se battait, a ALice et son rouge a levre qui tue grave, a Laurent et son champagne qui acheve , a stephane et son sac de couchage qui tue toutes les irregularite d un plancher , concernant fissou et myself on a prepare la party de la mort qui tue avec rendez vous a la pizzeria du coin ( c etait la permiere fois que j y mettais les pieds ), c etait deja pas mal comme petit "detail" qui tue

J ai particulierement apprecie la deuxieme partie de soiree, la rixe dans la boite de nuit, la photo devant la limousine (Merci de transmettre a Nadege que j aimerais une copie pour ma collec person afin servir de social proof pour ma prochaine soiree) , les pates de Stephan un delice a 5h du mat, la discussion agite autour du cash , finalement ca c est presque termine par un KO , mais on va dire que c etait match nul (car il est vrai que le cash existait deja au moyen age... )"