Halloween, birthdays, Guiness Stout and Linux

... Are the ingredients for a really weird party. Let's see if I can tackle a lot of topics in some kind of semi-rational order. For starters, Halloween! As usual in France, October and Halloween in general were a big disappointment. This is the one season of the year when I really prefer the US version. Christmas in Brittany is beautiful and low-key compared to all that American screaming, winter is warmer (OK, I do miss snow also, but nothing like I miss North Carolina in October), spring here is paradise, and I don't think anyone could pay me enough to have to go back to a North Carolina August after three years of high summer temperatures around 80. Unfortunately, as I commented previously, while the French are slowly beginning to celebrate Halloween, they are not at all comfortable with it and seem to focus only on the negatives (commercialism, etc), totally missing out on the true fun of the season (traumatizing small children). I won't go into great detail on this because someone else has already said it better - The new American editor of Expatica News wrote a fantastic opinion piece about France and Halloween, so if you want to know why Emily and I dream of flying back home every October, go read this

Despite the general blah-ness of Halloween in France, we determine to enjoy it as best we can. Last night we drove down to St. Nazaire, the modern port city at the mouth of the Loire, and wandered around in the "foot traffic only" town center to watch trick-or-treaters. And there were some to see! I did not take pictures because it was raining, so I opted to leave the camera home, but I was pleasantly surprised to see more kids (and even some adults) dressed up than we have seen for the past three years. Obviously the big cities are the place to be if you want to see wandering 3' tall Yodas carrying candy bags. After a bit of shopping, we came back here and relaxed to watch all three hours of the 1979 "Salem's Lot" miniseries. I hadn't seen it since I was a child of 13 and it freaked me out, but as with all such childhood memories, I was a bit nervous that it would fall flat. Fortunately, no way - excellent flick, very creepy, with one of the scariest vampires ever put on screen. I can also add that the 79 version is vastly superior to the recent 2004 Rob Lowe remake, which was deadly dull.

November 1st is my birthday, which we've traditionally celebrated at midnight Halloween night. This year Emily got me a small portable easel. While I have needed to get back into drawing again, I've lacked space, and trying to sketch while sitting around the house always ends up with some part of my anatomy turning blue and dropping off. But, I haven't wanted to spend money or eat up much house space on setting up another studio - as with my pipemaking, I tend to start with the crudest of tools and see if I have any talent first, and then think about buying goodies. It's tough, though - in the US, I had a dedicated art studio with a large drawing board, silent-run compressor supporting three airbrushes, and all the supplies I could dream of. Here... Well, I have a flat piece of wood! I found an old chunk of board out in the workshop and cut and sanded it to make a usable drawing table. I have to admit, it was a better experience - in the US, I assembled my studio by going through catalogs and jotting down model numbers, while here I was sitting alone in the dark workshop listening to the rain patter on the slate roof and sanding the thing myself. I could not help but be reminded of the opening scene from one of my favorite movies. I clamped it in the easel stand that Emily bought, and now have a workable drawing table... We'll see if any actual skill follows!

Finally, yesterday I had the computer download the 3.12 gigbyte version of Knoppix
Knoppix is the bootable CD/DVD version of Linux, and I was curious to give it another shot (I think I've been listening to too much of the TWiTcasts). For those who don't feel like repartitioning their hard drive to try another OS, Knoppix allows one to install a fully-functioning bootable ISO of the Linux OS onto a DVD or CD, and boot the computer from that disc. IIRC, the last time I worked with Linux was around 2001, and it was seriously not-ready-for-prime-time. I figured, surely it has improved markedly in the intervening years, but alas... I found myself looking at the same damned ugly KDE screen with its eye-twitchingly bad fonts and labyrinthine menu structures. I know I will be crucified by Linux enthusiasts for saying this, but my honest opinion is just... argh! The days when I had the time to mess with an OS for the sheer sake of messing with an OS are long gone, and I can sit down and navigate the polished interfaces of XP or OSX in five minutes of poking. The Linux experience was the same I remembered - most of the included software looked like it was written (and then abandoned) for term projects by college students who never actually had to use what they were creating, and menus were filled with empty entries, nonfunctioning commands, GUI clashes, etc. I tried the games, and three out of four had some sort of issue, the silliest of which was one which opened a non-resizable window that was three times the size of my screen (and why is KDE still stuck at a max resolution of 800x600?) which could only be navigated by dragging the top menu bar to the left or right to see a bit more of the game picture. I'm not sure what to make of Linux - in the beginning, it seemed that it just needed "catch up" time to become as polished as the commercial OS's, but it's had that and more, and retains its patched-together-with-baling-wire feel. I suspect this is what afficionadoes of the system love about it; that "old VW" feeling of being able to take the engine out and tinker with it on your kitchen table, but I have well and truly entered the working world where time is money and that which is most efficient to use, wins.
I'm afraid I've lost my geek status forever.