La télé qui donne des visions

I've got some really good karma going on... first a free bike, now a free tv. Yup! I had been looking around for one, and a friend of JD's had a small one, after she upgraded hers, and so she gave it to me! She won't take any money. We tried. I bought her chocolates today, and JD suggested I get her a DVD player, now that they're wicked cheap, so that may be the plan.

So... it plugs into my internet box (the same one that gives me broadband and phone), and basically it just worked. Cable for me. Lots of French channels, and a bunch from elsewhere... CNBC, Sky from Britain, channels from Germany and Italy and Spain and Bulgaria and Algeria and China and yes, even Al Jazeera.

But I'll be sticking to the French channels. The whole idea about getting a tv was to practice listening to French without having the extra cognitive load of being in a noisy bar, actually having to participate in a conversation, and so forth. And when it's not a voiceover, you can actually watch people's lips move, unlike the radio. Well, okay, you can watch their lips except when it's foreign things dubbed in French. I got to see the Simpsons speaking French! Lisa's voice was spot on, and the others were really close (and funny). What a trip!

It is officially the end of the summer: la rentrée here, Labor Day in the states. Happy birthday to "Big M" (that's my mom, btw) and my goddaughter little Z!