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Dollar DVD rentals at QFC
Remember those CineBank DVD kiosks affixed to buildings and neighborhood storefronts in Paris, and which made available an array of popular movie titles for daily, and even hourly rental, thanks to a pre-paid, rechargeable video card or credit card? A similar movie rental service is now available at the QFC Bella Bottega through New Release, a Houston-based company that has been doing business since 2002. Customers can now rent films for a dollar a day from the New Release DVD dispenser inside the grocery store.
We haven’t yet tried out the dispenser, but if it is anything like the kiosks in Paris, it will be packed with blockbuster new releases but will carry only a handful of older titles and independent films. And limited space in the dispenser will probably mean long waits before a popular film becomes available for rental and quick turnover in the stocked titles to make room for newer releases.
The machines are located inside the QFC grocery store, meaning customers can only rent films when the QFC is open for business. But it is also out of the reach of vandals, so it will probably be up and running for more hours in a day than if it were outside and open 24 hours.
The kiosk won’t replace a good video store, but the $1 a day rental price for a new movie is unbeatable – provided you don’t wait a week to return the movie. We have a monthly membership at the video store near QFC and invariably, every month there is someone in line in front of us paying off some ridiculous fine for overdue films. If a customer is having trouble keeping up with five-day rentals, she probably won’t do much better keeping up with a daily rental.
Des applaudissements
Sweat equity
My timing is off. I arrive in time to witness another resident laying claim to the better of the two treadmills in the tiny gym, so I have to take my chances on the machine that has been scrolling “notify maintenance” across its electronic display since early January. He selects a TV station airing a laggard, black and white snoozer with a tinny soundtrack, and positions the remote control haphazardly on the side of his treadmill. As I fiddle with my controls, he sets his treadmill to a slow, walking-speed and breaks into a fast-paced and heavy-footed sprint, like an ungainly praying mantis. Perhaps he was making his forays into the realm of machine-assisted exercise and it didn’t occur to him to run at the speed indicated on the display. I push “enter” and the belt on my treadmill starts a loud and violent grunt and sputter routine that causes my neighbor to sigh in irritation (the tiny gym is covered with mirrors to provide the illusion of spaciousness, and a clear view of the other gym-goers) and, instead of upping the speed on his treadmill, he turns up the volume on the TV to drown out my noise. I glance at my chosen workout ensemble – an oversized t-shirt, billowy three-quarter pants and taupe-colored knee socks – as I run alongside the sprinting mantis on my aching treadmill and I laugh out loud. He again ups the volume and switches the TV to a comedy with a noisy and irritating laugh track, and continues running.
I renewed my annual membership to the Redmond Athletic Club last week. After a month-long hiatus, I was glad to have an alternative to the convenient but cramped gymlette in our residence. Naturally, the day after renewing my membership, I found the best excuse for returning to the first floor gym, rather than making the .2 mile trek to RAC: rain.
Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?
In his best-selling “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read” (Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?), Paris University professor Pierre Bayard offers tips on opining about a well-known tome, even if you have never even cracked the spine. I look forward to reading this when the English translation gets published. If I try to read it in French, I’ll just end up in literary limbo: unable to get through it, embarrassed that I didn’t finish, and frustrated because I won’t be able to take advantage of the book’s pointers if someone asks me what I thought about it.
Packing lightly
Packing for travel with our toddler can be pretty stressful. Whether going to have lunch with friends, who live less than 10 minutes away, or on a week-long trip, each outing is like a major relocation project requiring the careful preparation of checklists and a suitcase full of contingency items, including emergency bread and a fleet of locomotives.
For our trip to France next month, we have decided to travel lightly. Of course, light is relative when you are packing for someone who drools so excessively, he often looks like he has been doused with a hose. We just won’t bring anything we can forgo for two weeks, like the pack and play portable bed/play pen that we usually drag along on overnight trips and for when an outing at a friend’s house coincides with naptime. These beds are supposed to be light and easy to transport, but ours feels like it is filled with cement. If only someone could come up with a bed that’s light, truly compact and multipurpose, and that doubles as an airline-approved car-seat with built-in games, and perhaps even Wi-Fi.
Cable news
When did the hosts and anchors on cable TV news programs become so chatty? Whenever I tune in to a news show on cable, I always seem to catch some animated and opinionated personality expressing her views on anything from day-to-day politics in Washington to some so-called breaking news event. The common thread running through conservative, liberal and neutral cable news programs this week was breaking news in the Anna-Nicole Smith case. Yesterday’s ruling on who gets custody of the baby and on where Smith will be buried – and the Florida judge who handed it down – are still receiving wall-to-wall coverage on just about every channel, and the array of guests, theories and opinions is befuddling. There is a special tonight at 10 on MSNBC and Danny Bonaduce is supposed to be commenting on Anna-Nicole, celebrities and rehab, but I doubt that will clear things up for me.
Whether commenting on some celebrity news or using persuasive, subjective language to make a “developing story” seem way too compelling for you to switch channels during the commercial break, cable hosts and their guests just seem to be chuck full of insight. I know this is part of the appeal of cable news shows. I doubt anyone turns on “The O’Reilly Factor” to hear the host deliver a disinterested account of the day’s hard news from a teleprompter. They want to hear what Bill has to say. And I’m not complaining. I don’t mind that everyone is so opinionated because that’s precisely why I tune in from time to time. I like the casualness of the anchors speaking off the cuff, even when I don’t share the viewpoint. There is nothing stopping me from changing the channel when I have had my fill, or when a host starts repeating herself and the guests are no longer adding anything new to the debate.
Occasionally, some of those viewpoints are just plain mean-spirited. A few weeks after the 2006 World Cup held in Germany, I tuned in to a Fox News program to hear a host commenting on a handshake between Zinedine Zidane – the French football player who head butted a defender on Team Italy who uttered some racial slurs during last year’s world cup final – and French President Jacques Chirac. The host on Fox commented that the handshake proved once and for all that France is a nation of losers. Thank goodness for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.” Both shows air on Comedy Central but are a good source of real news nonetheless. When commenting on France’s new 24-hour news channel that launched earlier this year, Jon Stewart commented that finally, the French have broken their silence on world politics. That made me laugh.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed
Last week in the elevator, a neighbor looked at our son, Tiggy, smiled, and remarked that children always have such bright eyes. His comment moved me because it sounded sincere. It wasn’t the mandatory "that’s an interesting little offspring you got there," comment that people often recite without even looking offspring in question. And only moments earlier, I stood staring into the bathroom mirror wondering when I lost that spark in my eyes that I can’t seem to get back. Before I turned 30, I noticed that I often looked much more exhausted than I felt, and it started to take an entire morning to bounce back from a night of heavy sleeping.
I don’t mind that my hair gets grayer every day. And I hardly pay attention to the fine lines around my eyes. But I do miss that sparkle I used to have in my eyes. D’s eyes have kept their youthful glow. Even behind his thick spectacles, he looks vibrant and generally well-rested. But even three hours after crawling out of bed, I still look like Jean Reno in The DaVinci Code: puffy-eyed, like someone whose life is beating her down in every sense. I suppose that’s one of the steeper tolls to pay for traversing my teens. To get back that sparkle, I’d probably have to sell my soul to the devil, and agree to some very fine print in the terms and conditions of sale, like having to accept every fashion trend – no matter how nonsensical – as a personal requirement.
Seattle-Paris en vol direct
Daily non-stop flights between Roissy and Sea-Tac
The Port of Seattle announced today that starting June 11, 2007, Air France will offer daily non-stop service between Seattle-Tacoma Airport in Washington and Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
Air France will serve the new Paris-Seattle route with an Airbus A-330-200.
Des vols directs entre Roissy et Sea-Tac
Le Port of Seattle a annonce aujourd’hui l’établissement des vols directs Air France entre Seattle-Tacoma Airport et Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle a compter du 11 juin 2007.
Les vols directs vers la capitale française seront effectues au quotidien en Airbus A330-200.
A Tout de Suite
Set in 1970s Paris, A Tout de Suite is shot in black and white and is told in flashback by a young woman about her relationship with a man she met casually in a brasserie-cafe when she was a still in school. A day or two after they met, we learn, the young guy telephones in the midst of a botched bank robbery and nonchalantly tells her to turn on the news. After making his getaway, he calls her again to explain that he and his accomplice needed a place to crash, and she should leave the front door unlocked. She takes them in, then joins the band of fugitives on the road, ditching her comfortable life, several countries and accommodations with them before they end up ditching her after a close call with Immigration in Athens.
This may sound like a dramatic and passionate nice-girl-meets-bad-boy story, but it isn’t. The guy is the antithesis of a Vincent Cassel character. He’s dull and passive, and lives with his parents. The guy and the girl just seem like two teenagers acting on impulse. They are young, and together, so they must be in love.
The story made me think about when I was 19, and how youth clouded my judgment. I didn’t aid and abet bank robbers, but I saw the world through my 19 year-old eyes, and made some short-sighted decisions and acted on impulse because of that.
Light Rail
Travelers in the Seattle area will soon have a fast and efficient way to get to and from the airport. The Link Light Rail will connect downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac by year-end 2009. Of course, if you live on the eastside, you’ll still have to get to downtown Seattle.
V, A, A, T and D family blog 