Oh boy.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/16899220.htm

http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_072172732.html

"Police are searching for a suspect who shot a man in the head on board a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon. Authorities said a 45-year-old man was shot twice in the head while riding the Route 33 bus near 22nd and York at about 5:00 p.m."

The Host

Today I saw "The Host", a Korean monster movie. I don't watch many movies, and almost none that could possibly be tagged "horror". But this movie wasn't gory, wasn't too scary, and there were several ridiculous/funny moments that made me laugh out loud. Overall, it was a good movie; it was well-made and I liked it.

Watching this movie, I was struck by the cultural similarities between Korea and Japan. The setting, the family interactions, the body language, the character archetypes, the cultural norms. The one discordant note might be the ease with which guns were obtained, but that's about it. With the sound off and no korean signs in the background, I would believe you if you told me this was a Japanese movie.

Dear Philadelphia Gas Works,

Was is really necessary to start drilling down the street at a quarter to 8 this morning? Really? Was it really so urgent that it couldn't wait an hour?

Oh, and thanks for stopping just after I was fully awake.

Seen on craigslist

From an ad offering to pick up any of my junk (emphasis mine):

I reuse, remake and/or rebuild practically anything and everything! Let's help save our Earth by recycling and reusing...(Must be able to fit in my SUV.)...

Today I am sick

That is all.

Collision course

Our apartment here in Philly has a single, albeit large, window in the living room. Early this morning, I was awoken by a loud THUMP from the direction of the living room. "Eh," I thought sleepily, "someone must've thrown a snowball at our window." And I promptly fell back asleep. Later, after getting up, I realised that (a) there is no snow on the ground, and (b) our apartment is on the 4th floor and thus not readily accessible to snowball throwing. Curious as to the source of the thump, I started to look closely at the window. In one of the panes, I found a bit of a greasy spot about the size of my palm, in the middle of which was stuck ... a couple of small feathers. I think an unfortunate bird flew right into our window, and pretty hard judging from the sound it made. I hope it was okay.

Not okay.

A lot of people got shot in Philly last year:
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/16722878.htm

"Like the city's homicides, the shootings were most numerous in North Philadelphia, West and Southwest Philadelphia, and parts of South Philadelphia." Which leaves what part of Philly...?

Philly.com has a helpful interactive map of shootings in 2006. While I'm at it, here is the interactive map of homicides in 2006.

Ninja squirrel

Rittenhouse Square: A squirrel, chased by a little girl into a garbage can, takes a heroic flying leap from the rim to the trunk of a tree over five feet away with nary a loss of altitude. Landing on all four paws, it quickly scrambled to the other side of the tree trunk, where its little head could be seen spying on the enemy. The little black ninja outfit and the miniature shuriken were perhaps a figment of my imagination.

Road work

There is apparently a piece of road work so urgent that it must be done at 10pm on a Saturday night on the corner of the street where I live.

La Fille Sur Le Pont

Love this scene!

On homicides in Montreal and Philadelphia

So far in 2007, Montreal has had 7 homicides, of which 6 are street gang related. This has fueled a slew of articles about street gangs in Montreal in the Canadian press, and speculation of a gang war quickly quashed by police (links from the montreal city weblog). Just to say, 6 gang related homicides in 6 weeks in Montreal is considered newsworthy, and is considered to be a serious problem.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia has had 47 homicides (this comes out to roughly one homicide per day this year). I've gotten used to seeing the phrase "no arrests have been made, and police are still trying to determine a motive" in these articles. There is a general acknowledgment that Philadelphia has a high homicide rate and that this is a problem, but nothing much seems to be happening to deal with it, other than people talking about it and saying how it's a problem.

For comparison purposes, the population of the city of Montreal is around 1.5 million. The population of the city of Philadelphia is also around 1.5 million. (Note that the Philadelphia metropolitan area is more populous than that of Montreal.) Sure, Philly is a big city, and big cities often have lotsa crime, but this is inexcusable. I find the violent crime rates here in Philly put a serious damper on the quality of life. One big reason why I still pine for Montreal. I'm still looking for violent crime stats (ie. not just homocides) for both cities, and hopefully will post something on that later.

Wine in Philly

Buying wine in Philadelphia is a dicey proposition. In Geneva, or in Montreal, there are fairly knowledgeable people employed by the wine shops (or even grocery stores), who will recommend you a good bottle of wine if you ask for advice. Here, not so much. We were very lucky in that there was a very good guy at the wine store down the street who knew a lot about the wines and recommended some excellent ones at good prices. Then about a month ago, he quit his job. At the time, I did not realise the extent of the tragedy.

Today, I went out to buy some wine. I plan to make a Boeuf Bourguignon tomorrow, so I was looking to buy some bottles of red Bourgogne. I asked the cashier if they had someone who could make wine recommendations. He pointed to an employee walking down one of the aisles. I asked her if she could recommend a couple of bottles of red Bourgogne. She took me down the aisle of domestic wines and pointed out to me the huge 3 litre jugs that are labelled "Burgundy"! Okaaay, I said, maybe we could take a look at the French ones ...? She took me to the section of French red wines, where she picked up a bottle of Côte-du-Rhône and started reading the label to see if it came from Bourgogne! At which point, I realised that this was an entirely useless exercise, thanked her for her help, and told her I would just browse the wines myself.
Not such an easy proposition, you know. The french wines were not grouped by region, so I had to look at each bottle individually. And I discovered that they had very few red Bourgognes in that store - lots of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Bordeaux though. But hey, does it really matter? It's not like anyone cares - except the occasional wine customer. Sorry, I'm becoming a Pennsylvania wine cynic.

Honk if you're happy Italy won!

Beep-bip-beeep-beep-beep-beeeep-bip-beep-...

Yep, that's the sound of happy football fans. It's 1am in our quiet residential neighbourhood, and the we still hear cars honking like mad. I never realised until this World Cup how crazy the fans go. And by "fans", I mean the general population.

Chocolate milk for diabetics

Ideal for diabetics. Only in Switzerland. (I'll bet it's pretty good, too.)

Haircut!

I finally cut my hair. The last haircut I got was two years ago, right before I left for my solo Europe backpacking trip.


Seb got a haircut too. His is less noticeable though.

In Soviet Russia

Yesterday, I received a letter in the following FedEx envelope:



Yes, opened by U.S. Customs. Neither origin nor destination was in the U.S. What next? Censors?

[Update: I hadn't noticed until now, but they actually opened the letter inside as well. I can't believe it. It was a letter of recommendation from a prof, so the fact that it was opened kind of renders it unusable. The lesson here is not to use FedEx anymore, because they'll open your mail.]

In peripherally related news, I don't believe I will ever transit through the States again.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/08/11/arar-lawsuit050811.html

The opening paragraph:

A senior lawyer for the U.S. government has told a judge hearing a lawsuit over Maher Arar's deportation to Syria that foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights.

Fireworks

Last Thursday marked the beginning of the Fêtes de Genève. I went to see the fireworks by the lake with Seb, Ian (he was visiting us for a few days), and Hiroshi (I'm teaching him a bit of french). Since we were up close, we got a really good view. They were pretty spectacular.




Later we stopped by one of the kiosks for some drinks.

Josh's visit

Josh came to visit us back in April. It happened to be very cold that weekend. It even snowed!

Josh writing postcards.


Josh buying delicious "Pave de Geneve" chocolates.


We climbed the church tower of St. Pierre. It was windy up there! Nice view though.



Back at home.

Our apartment in Geneva

Here are the long-awaited photos of our apartment I took several months ago. It was when Seb was away, which is why the place is so clean. Things don't look quite the same anymore, because we've changed the furniture in the living room. But you get an idea of what it looks like. First the bedroom.



The living room.



And the kitchen.



I took these pictures when Seb was away, that's why the place looks clean.

flickr photo post

More flowers.