Godzilla vs the Thing

Known, in Japan by the name of "Mosura tai Gojira" and elsewhere by the name of " Mothra VS Godzilla", this movie features fairies, scientists and most importantly : a fight between a giant moth and a mutant dragon. This revered Japanese movie is a masterpiece ! You will love it... if you are Japanese.

My giant moth and mutant dragon are a hummingbird and a blue jay. When I was a child (it's a long time ago...) I saw on television a documentary about the hummingbird ; "oiseau-mouche" or colibri in french, (I don't know why, but a good friend of mine laughs at the french name... ''oiseau-mouche''.... It's not really funny but this guy is sometime a little strange I guess). So after this program I desperately hoped to see a hummingbird some day. When you are child, simple things make you happy, to day I need to be a lottery winnner to get the same high. This hummingbird is my Mothra...

When I arrived in Long Island, 18 month ago I saw a beautifull blue bird. My Godzilla. For the rest of the summer I hunted this beautifull bird (with a horrible screeching song... it can't have everythings, it's justice !). This bird loves to play hide and seek with my camera or if I spotted him he quickly flew into the distance.

Since the begining of last summer, I don't know why, but this bird became kinder and more sympathetic towards me. I was able to catch it in different poses. But even more exciting was the shooting of another species of blue jay during my last trip to California !

I don't know which bird is more intersting to me ? So it's my Mothra VS Godzilla.

Enjoy and if you have a recipe for one of those, send me an email (to understand this read my previous post ''The birds'').

PS : My stupid friend who laughed at ''oiseau-mouche'', gave me a compliment today. He saw one of my pictures, - a cactus, and said "Ho it's funny Charles, this picture looks like ''the Mac background plant''... So after ''Windows Vista Pictures'' (read my previous post)I should write a post on ''My future in the world of informartique ltd".

With that I'm sure to have a beautifull career as a photographer...

Humming bird

Blue jay from east coast

Blue jay from west coast

Legends of the fall

'' I took a picture of a wild beer...'' At this point my friends thought '' Ok, Charles has lost his mind, this guy is over the edge''...

Let's go back a few weeks. I was in California, (I will tell you about this journey in a another post,) but today I want to tell you about one part of my trip - Yosemite... If you are in California, it would be sad to miss this park with these sequoias, rivers, mountains, plains, blue jays, deer, and wild beer...

I took many pictures, but I am most proud of the one of the famous wild beer. Don't imagine a big bottle of Corona, Budweiser, or Heineken. Try to imagine me telling this, with my fabulous French accent,  '' a wild beer...'', but if you say it with an American accent it becomes, '' a wild bear !''

I was very exited to tell my  friends about this encounter, and you cannot imagine my confusion, when I saw the disbelief in their eyes. Nobody understood me ! At this time, I thought my friends wanted to buy me a shirt, with very long sleeves to attach around my back. The apogee of this moment, was when I impersonated the bear to clarify my explanation. The worst thing was, my mime was a cross between a mummy and a bear...

Now, when I greet one of my friends, when  he raises his hand to say ''Hi'', I don't know if he is saying ''Hi'' or mocking my famous impersonation of the bear...

I also met a deer and reindeer, but I did not do a mime for them. Just... nothing. I don't know how to mime the difference between these two animals.

Seriously, you must visit this park, and if you can visit during the fall, don't hesitate,

it's wonderful.

As one my friends said to me, if you go to Yosemite you can take a '' Windows Vista picture" ( I lost his phone number and his address after that comment)....

Wargame

Unfortunately this is not a game or a funny post. I noticed that my pictures have been ''stolen"...!!!

I have two options. The first is to freeze everything and not put new pictures on my website, or I could brand my pictures like a horse  to prove they are mine.

It's too sad ''to destroy'' a picture like that, but sometimes you have no choice. The worst part of this story is this ; I try to take the most beautiful pictures I can, and the people stealing my pictures used a ''print screen''. This is the best way for losing all the quality of an image.

Now, all my pictures will be like the one below.

I hope everybody understands my point.

"Lion King" or "Lyon King"

Paris, Paris, Paris.... When someone asks me where I come from, (in fact nobody asks me because with my accent everbody knows,) as an echo to my answer I hear a syrupy voice say...."Aaaaaaaahhhhhh Paris" and the person lets out a sigh... Perhaps "Paris" is orgasmic, who knows ? But you must know this, in Paris the streets are covered in dog droppings, the Parisians are rude, it's always rainy and cold, the sun is "persona non grata", and the Parisian soccer team is really crappy...

Ok I confess it's not true (except for the soccer team), but the non-french person must know one thing : Paris is not the only beautiful city in France.

I love Manosque and its mountains, Carcassone and its ''cassoulet'', Caen and its cheeses, St. Raphel and its Mediterranean sea, La Bourboule and its thermal hot springs, the Alps and its ski resorts, Paris and its.... its nothing! As a rule, I don't like Paris... But above all, I love Lyon.

Lyon is an amazing city : gastronomic capital of France, in the middle ages it was the crossroads for the merchants of Italy and Spain, it was a center of silk making... It's the city of Auguste and Louis Lumière, the inventors of photography and the cinema, Paul Bocuse the most famous chef in all the world, the Olympique Lyonnais the best soccer team in the world (ok perhaps I exaggerate a little, but this team has won the national league 7 time in a row), and many other things. The blog is too short to do justice to this city.

If the child of King François the first had not been assassinated in Lyon, the history could have been different and Lyon could be the capital of France today.

In Lyon you can see the evolution of the city. If you stand at the Fourviere Cathedral, the panorama of Lyon is before you. You can see the architecture of the city unfurl in a front of your eyes ; Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century and now.

When I lived in Lyon, one on my friends, who is very knowledgeable about her city and its history, was my own personal tour guide. She showed me many "traboules", these are old corridors in a building between two streets. The silk makers used these corridors to cross the town quickly and to protect themselves and the silk from the rain. I must confess, sometime it' s a little scary. It's very easy to imagine a cut throat or a pickpocket hiding in a shadows. At this moment of my visit I asked myself if my friend was suicidal. But no, she is psychologist.... ha... that's a point. Perhaps she had a depressed patient just before our visit and now, life is too boring for her... I controlled myself and I tried to listen to what she was saying, the history, the legends (you must know, in the middle ages, one pope lost a big jewel in the old street, and nobody ever found it...), so I preferred listening to her rather than my imagination... This visit was perfect, if you are not a cardiac patient (between your imagination and the topography of the city), try it.

So, in conclusion, I encourage everybody to visit Lyon. You could visit Paris too (execpt if you like soccer, forget it) but come to this city. If you want, I can give you the phone number of my friend and perhaps, if you are lucky, you may survive her tour, and appreciate it. And if you are verrrrry lucky you could find the jewel and it would pay for your travel expenses (don't forget to tip the guide at the end of your trip).