Foreign Prophecies

The Department of War

>> 29 May 2018 – USA

On one of the episodes of Manhattan, there was the Secretary of War coming in to inspect the progress of the Manhattan Project in the New Mexico base.

I have heard of the Department of War before, but I used to think that it was created as a separate department from Department of Defense in order to handle the involvement of the United States in both WW1 and WW2.

Oh dear, I was wrong.

Apparently, up until 1947, the Department of Defense was called the Department of War.

I have always wondered why the United States has been embroiled in a war elsewhere in the world for most of its existence, but now I finally understood.

Semantics matters, people.

Discovering Natalia Lafourcade

>> 28 May 2018 – music

When I was living in Bali in 2003, I remember how popular the song "Asereje" by Las Ketchup was.

The tunes were catchy, almost like a more recent version of Macarena.

Then when I visited Trinidad & Tobago and Suriname in 2014, I heard Latin pop blaring out of minibuses everywhere.

Not really my type of music, though. I have never been a fan of blaring boombox music that are often played in discotheques.

I'm more of a classical/jazz/slow pop-rock music listener.

It was from that time onwards that I chose to forswear any Latin pop from my musical preferences.

Then last month, I discovered Natalia Lafourcade from a famous tech Youtuber's Instagram story. Apparently she is a huge fan of Lafourcade.

The name sounded French, so I checked out one of her albums on Youtube.

And I instantly fell in love with her songs! She is like the Mexican Spanish version of Madeleine Peyroux or Carla Bruni. A lot of modern renditions of Latin American folk music, in addition to her own slow pop original albums.

I don't normally recommend music on my blog, so this is a first.

List of Spanish-language sites

>> 28 October 2017 – lingo, others

For reading:

For grammar studies:

I am playing Pokémon Go using wifi-only connection, in French!

>> 10 July 2016 – USA

Though Pokémon Go was released on 6th of July in the US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and several other similarly-awesome countries, I did not install it on my iPod Touch until the 8th of July because I had other matters to tend to.

And little did I realize that I was missing out!

However, now that I have installed it, I discovered that the language of my Pokémon Go corresponds to the language I use on my iPod Touch, which is...French!

Ah yes, I simply chose Team Mystic because blue is the closest color to my favourite colour of all time, aquamarine. Also for the fact that the French call it Équipe Sagesse (Team Wisdom), which gives it a Ravenclaw-like aura.

Do you remember that I do not have a mobile data plan on my cellphone? Though I own a Samsung Galaxy S5 now, I only bought it for its high-resolution camera. This means that in the last two days alone, all the Pokémons I have caught are locatednot too far from a wireless router.

These are the Pokémons I have caught so far:

Those names are the original French names, as giving a nickname to Pokémons is something I had never done (even during the good ol' days of playing Pokémon Red, Gold, etc).

For those of you unfortunate enough to be living in countries without Pokémon Go, you only see 19 Pokémons on my screenshot even though the Pokémon list says 28 out of 250. This is because some of them are Pokémons I have lovingly evolved myself!

This wifi-only connection is a handicap, because this means I will never be able to challenge a gym if it had not had a wifi connection present in its vicinity. So who knows, I may just decide to obtain AT&T's $45/month prepaid plan which also includes mobile data sometime soon...

I may decide to post more updates on my plan to become Pokémon Master once I have reached my goal of obtaining 50 Pokémons, so stay tuned!

Alternative news websites I like to visit

>> 13 September 2015 – news

The following are alternative news websites that I like to visit on a regular basis. I like them because they are NOT among the ones owned by the six major corporations. Therefore, the viewpoints expressed in these websites are more reflective of the freedom of press.

By the way, when I say "alternative", I do not mean that they are like the extreme right-wing or extreme left-wing news channels which focus their news reporting heavily on conspiracy theories and other nutty news. Instead, I focus on those that publish smart and engaging articles on topics that are timely even if they don’t make it to the top of the news cycle.

The alternative news websites I listed above are those that report on real news (and stories of human interest) without having to keep you awake at night with news circulated by nutjobs out there.