I'm a nerd, so what!

Please support Firefox 3 and the mozzila foundation if you want a better, cleaner, faster web. Also, more Firefox users means less web programmer developing some weird psycho split personality. Together we can spread the words of ethics and good use of the world wide web. So be part of the great download day and click on the foxy fox picture!! No seriously I'm already using the preview Release Candidate version of Firefox 3 and oh baby it rocks your mamma! It's lighter, faster and better that FFx2 which was already so much better than Internet Exploder. So please help firefox win the browsers war. Have your family download and use it, have your co workers do it, you friends, dates, your local grocery store and any person you might bump in. Go go Firefox!

-Paris Clem: a place where nerds find a warm welcome.

The Great Crow Incident

First there is a terrifying scream tearing the sky. Horror from above, the feeling of an evil presence. It's the ghost of my fears, haunting my dreams, the insufferable memory. I am referring to the great crow incident, of course. It all started back in December 2007. I was in Bozeman, Montana (USA). There I was, walking from the university campus to my apartment at the Peter Koch Tower. It was one of these cold, bitter and gloomy day. The silence of the empty block was only disturbed by the crunchiness of my footsteps in the snow. My cheeks blushing, whipped by a freezing northern wind that the Gallatin valley liked to blow on it inhabitants. Suddenly I heard what will always bring chaos in my soul. The Crow was flying, majestically, with an hypnotizing movement. Deploying all his feathers, assured, with what we could interpret as being proud. I was captivated. Then came the shit. My jacket got attacked and the casualty was definitely visible. The attack had collateral damages that I'd rather not describe because this memory is still aching me deeply. The Crow, victorious, was flying, shouting his pride. At this moment I sworn I would one day take my revenge. My honor wouldn't stay unavenged. A stream a fury went trough my body, and I admit I started running after the crow, cursing all I could in all the languages I know with a rare intensity. Dear lord, I hope no one saw me that day, in that street because that person would have been stained and shocked by the absurd scene (or could have died of laughter).

Livin' la vida parisienne

Oh yeah baby, three languages in a 4 words long sentence. Gotta be jealous! I'm in Paris these days, so the blog earns its righteous Paris Clem name. I'm staying at a hotel near "place de la république" because I was so not in the mood for squatting, plus it doesn't feel great when you call a friend and the first thing they say is "sorry man, I can't let you squatt...". Yep, I earned my squatter reputaion well, now I have a hard work ahead getting rid of it, but hey, I like challenges. So what's new? I've been interviewing a little bit with another finance company with Julien's push. I have a good feeling about them. They seemed open minded, dynamic and good at putting me at ease. Tomorrow I have another interview with them, I'll meet with the co-founder. That will be an interesting experience!
Today, I went to fedex to ship the computer I had from rightnow technologies, my previous job's hardware. Then I went to the movies because I want to use my unlimited movie card. So far I have already seen 3 movies this week. Indiana Jones 4, a bit disappointing, but well the other movies weren't really great anyway. Super Heroes Movie, well that was definitely stupid, I justa wanted to eat some popcorn in the dark, that movie suited well the popcorn craving. And today... an ultimate chick flick: Sex in the city - the movie. My goodness, that was long. I had already seen a few episodes on TV - it was ok - but I guess it was ok because they were about 40 minutes long, while the movie lasted 2 hours and a half!! Never ending series of "twists" in the story and true boredom in between. In the end, I found it boring but cheering as well. Weird.
Then I've been walking around "Les Halles", I brought a book so I read a bit in the sunlight. Yes the sun! It's been quite warm here since yesterday, the sun is finally here!
The sun was kinda blasting my eyes so I couldn't read for very long, creature of darkness I like caves, underground sewers and things like that. So I stopped in a music shop on Boulevard de Sébastopol (its name comes from a victorious battle of the Crimean Wars, yes France won some battles in it's history! Anyway how did you think this country in the crossroads of Europe manage to devellop its very own special culture during the last two milleniums? We had to protect our asses countless times), there I grabbed an acoustic guitar officilally to "test" it. You know the real reason is I can't spend a day without playing a bit of guitar or I just go nutty!
Tonight (20:30) Acolyt #4 is playing live as PALEM at Baroc a pub in the 10th district near Belleville metro station. I'll come to support! Also there might be some jamming (I'll be happy to grab a guitar) after the concert. So if you are ready for some craziness please come!
That's it for today dudes and dudettes.

-Paris Clem: Ze Blog

War of worlds

Today, big news, the NASA (the American space agency, not the Nodosaurus Acutally Survived Apocalypse group) has been proud to announce the landing of Phoenix (not the city) on the surface of Mars! Yes, ok, it's not the first time we send something there, so what's the deal? This time the scientists sent it to the north pole of the Red Planet in order to find some water. Well I guess there isn't just enough water on earth so we have to find some new sources. Can't you see it? They want to sell us some Martian spring water! Huge market. Billions of dollars to make, one crazy opportunity. But you've got to dig a little more and you might come to the same horrible conclusion as I did. This is a first step to human colonization of a new land and you know what happens when a new land is free for some new settling! Think of what happened when Columbus discovered the Americas... The conquistador riding their mighty caravels with a strong greed fever pushing them, attracted by the gold, THE gold. Then the war, every European country wanted their piece of new land, gold, slaves and whatever you could imagine. Of course, when everyone wants the same thing and everyone's got a gun... there is always someone crazy enough to shoot first!
Can you see the parallel now? I'm talking about our great countries and civilizations riding their spaceships for a run to the Martian spring waters. Once they get there, a bloody mess. In the end everyone manages to get a piece of it, small or big, except for one: Europe. Why? because it would be a shame for Europe to do anything crazy like trying to conquer Mars to get it's water. We usually prefer, in Europe, to buy whatever crap the rest of the world wants to sell us. So Europe will just spend its money on buying the Martian spring water. In the end we will eventually discover that this water isn't proper for human consumption when all Europeans have died in a giant mega diarrhea. Then this is the end of the world when all the other countries try to conquer the European wasteland.

Conlusion: I am nuts.

Gabacho en Barcelona ! Part one

Wooohooo! So at the begining of the month I went to Barcelona and had tons of fun! First I want to thank Elena, Núria, Maria and Marina for organizing the fiesta. Good job! So on the 30th of April, Christophe, Aurélien and I took the plane at Marseilles. It was a small plane of the old kind with propellers! The roaring of the engines was deafening so we were communicating by gestures and faces. When we arrived in Barcelona's airport, terminal C, Elena was waiting for us! Good surprise, I thought we were going to wait about an hour as it was originally planned. It was very nice to see her, many memories just flashed suddenly in my head, all these good times in Kannelmäki, at that moment I was sure this week-end would be a blast!

Away from chaos

Yes, I'm still alive! The pas two weeks have been very buzy for me. I have been in Barcelona for 4 days, having tons and tons of fun. Then I've been helping preparing and enjoyed Christophe's wedding and that was a blast too!! I'm waiting to gather pictures from both long week-ends and as soon as possible I'll share them with you, plus some of my hilarious comments (who said I suck !?).

Yours, The Clem.

Oh my... another post!

You're not dreaming (or in the middle of a nightmare), yes "here ! new it post is a" Yoda would say. And you know how wise he is and how stupid he can sound (I wonder how he talks when he's drunk/wasted, anyway...). Tada, this time I come with pictures I took around Paris with my cell phone, so it's not Ruben's reflex uber zoom 235x 10 giga pixels stuff and I guaranty the quality is 100% horrid but yet enough for you (lucky you) to enjoy (who said I'm a m*****f***er ?!). Well seriously it's all I got now so sorry about that. The pictures represent:

• A road sign to "La Folie" which means "The madness". It really sounds like a nice place to settle, have kids, a garden... I'm getting nuts!
• The satanic pyramid of the Louvre who is told to have 666 triangles. Look also at the fascist fences, very trendy.
  
• A mob gathering at "Place de la République". They were against my return in France, haha too late!
• One uber sexy business man.
• Casimodo's mansion by night.
• A band singing some pop rock stuff at the guiness tavern.

Well yes, that's not much but it's already something! So what's up with me? Today I had a job interview, that went ok but I wonder if that was enough. I'm still looking for an apartment but I guess I'll have to have a long term job first. We got together once with my band to play, so we're more in the composing process right now. You can always check our myspace for some great musical delirium: http://www.myspace.com/theacolyts . I'm planning to go back to my hometown this weekend, get refreshed! Then there is some extremely cool stuff coming, on the 30th I leave for the week end to Barcelona, and dude that's going to kick ass. It's been too long since I've seen my erasmus pals, so it's going to be a crazy party! Then on the 9th of may, my old friend Christophe is getting married and I'm his witness!!! Another party :) (I'm bringing him and Aurélien (his other witness) to Barcelona to do his bachelor party). Well well well, I guess I will have plenty to say when I come back from this craziness, until then If anything happens I'll post!

Thanks for reading Paris Clem*!

*made with 120% more love than the nearest competitor.

Welcome to Paris Clem!

Oh yeah! Welcome back into my world, after Finland, Montana, I give you Paris! The glamorous city of lights, fashion, monuments, culture and the political center of France, a country many dislikes because its people is so weirdly different in their head. Still Paris is the most popular holiday destination in the world. Why? Well if you forget about its citizens, for a big city it has a lot of charm. Let me be straight, this blog won't be spending time on frenchy French "we're the best" kind of stuff. I just want to speak about things I've seen from time to time. Show some pictures of some places I like, even some friends (who knows!) and try to have you guys spend a good time reading my crap!

I have arrived a month ago in there. I'm happy to see my good old friends, we've been partying a lot! Unfortunately Cyril just left for Tokyo, but he's giving a lot of news and funny stories about Japan. He just opened a blog : http://youpijapon.mi-blog.net/ It's in French, but I guess if enough persons complain he could do something about this ;)
These days I've been mostly working. I'm under contract with the company I was working for in the USA, RightNow Technologies. After spending some good time with them there, I offered my help to finish the project I was working on so we can continue the experience. I'm glad it's happening, first I have the feeling of completing something and of having a professional behavior/ethics. It's kinda hard to get used to distance working, but that shouldn't take too long.
I'm also looking for an apartment in Paris, my friends have had the enormous generosity to host me so far, but I don't want to abuse their hospitality, so it's getting more and more urgent to find a place. I have a few problems that prevent me from finding a place easily. But well I keep hoping!

Thanks for reading Paris Clem, not too fancy, not too smelly either (I hope).

-Clément.