Category: Fourre-tout

I recently added a “Translation” feature (bottom left corner)  to my blog to make it more appealing to non-English speakers.
Now, in the blink of an eye, you can read my posts in English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

While the translation is a long way from being perfect, it nevertheless makes the text comprehensible. The computer makes short work of the job, but there are problems.
There is absolutely no such thing as a perfect translation, especially when so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI) handles it. An electronic brain is not able (yet) to master the subtle or double meanings of some words.

Traduttore, traditore is a famous Italian expression meaning “Translator, traitor” emphasizing the fact that the translator (human or otherwise) will always “betray” the author and the meaning of the original text.

For instance, a few days ago I wrote a little piece called “Extreme cleavage.” Midway through the text, you can find the following paragraph:

“A kamikaze décolleté, like a miniskirt or yoga pants, is not for everybody. To pull such a stunt successfully, you need the right equipment and the right garment.”

 Imagine my surprise (and my embarrassment) when the computer handed me with the following French translation:

 Un décolleté Kamikaze, comme un pantalon de yoga ou minijupe, ne sont pas pour tout le monde. Pour tirer un coup avec succès, vous avez besoin du bon équipement et le vêtement droit.

In case you did not know, “tirer un coup” is a crude French slang expression meaning “to f**k.” So, if I retranslated this text into English, it would say something like “To f**k successfully, you need the right equipment…”
Traduttore, traditore !

“A major difficulty in translation is that a word in one language seldom has a precise equivalent in another one.”— Arthur Schopenhauer

Summary

 A translation app is useful but not perfect and should thus be handled with caution. Whenever you use it, be ready to beat a hasty retreat if you put your foot in your mouth.

Alain ??

“Translation is like a woman: if she is faithful, she is not beautiful; if she is beautiful, she is not faithful.”— Russian Proverb

Yesterday, for those of you who missed it, was a fabulous day for pétanque. Despite a heavy fog blanketing our field in the morning, the day turned out beautifully. Cool in the morning yes, but sunny and warm in the afternoon.

Expecting a low attendance, I was surprised upon my arrival to see a sizable crowd on the courts. For our first official tournament (?) of the season, we had a great attendance. It looked like all the Bay Area clubs sent some teams.

Sacramento sent a contingent of experienced players, and Sonoma also sent strong players.

The organizers of the tournament (Noel Marcovecchio and Christine Cragg) registered 45 players but unfortunately, they are too numerous to be mentioned here. If you are curious, look at one of the photographs.

The format of the tournament was “select triplettes” and I teamed up with Francois Moser and my wife Tamara. As usual, 3 timed games were played before lunch to qualify players for the Concours or the Consolante.

I am an average player. When I play a tournament I would rather not qualify for the Concours and play in the Consolante… where my peers are. But as luck would have it, our team did well, winning 2 of our 3 games and we qualified for the Concours.

While playing the morning games, I was particularly impressed by Beth Lysten and Phominik Lee. Both are great shooters and scored a bunch of stunning “carreaux.”
After lunch, we lost our 4th game 9/13 and were out of the competition.

While a little disappointing, it gave me the opportunity to indulge in my other passion: photography.

So I spent the rest of the day taking pictures. Around 5:00 pm, I had bagged over 850 photographs. This is because when photographing sporting events, I shoot in bursts, 3 or 4 pictures at the time. Later on, I choose the bests shots for publishing.
Today I struggled to bring the number of photographs under 250.

By the way, if you want to see yourself in my photo collections, don’t dress in black. It does not photograph well.

At the end of the day, Sacramento faced Sonoma in the finals. Sacramento fielded Carmen Ellis, Tom Lee and Poe Lee.

Sonoma was represented by Barbara Hall, Kevin Evoy and Peter Mathis.

I didn’t know much about the Sacramento players, so I surmised that Sonoma would come on top. But to everybody’s surprise, the scrappy Sacramento team led by Tom Lee (the Cobra) unexpectedly defeated Peter Mathis’ team by a final score of 13/10.

Final results:

Concours
1st place: Tom Lee, Carmen Ellis and Poe Lee
2nd place: Barbara Hall, Kevin Evoy and Peter Mathis
3rd place: Christophe Sarafian, Brendan Cohen and Liza Moran
4th place: Jean-Michel Poulnot, Bernard Passemar and Mireille Di Maio

Congratulations Sacramento. You deserve it!

Consolante
1st place: Michelle Dang,  Chan Xiong and Phomenik Lee
2nd place: Maggie, Rob Houghton and Tim Wetzel

I hope that you will find yourself in my photos.

Alain

La Pétanque Marinière is a pétanque club, but equally important it is also a social club. A loose association of people sharing a common interest.

The main reason for the club’s existence is obviously to play pétanque, but it also serves as a gathering place where you can meet new people, forge lifetime friendships and incidentally, find romance.

You often join a club for the same reasons that you join a gang: to evade loneliness. And regardless how happy you are with your mate, you cannot live in a vacuum. You need to leave your lair once in a while and rub elbows with unfamiliar people.

In the old days, places of worship served as clubhouses, but these places can be dull and stale. Before exchanging gossips, pleasantries, and confidences, churchgoers have to listen to a sermon, and many individuals would rather do without that.

In a social club, you don’t have to pretend to be pious or reverent. You can gossip to your heart’s content and use a great deal of profanity to let loose your emotions.

But besides exchanging gossips and risqué jokes, the club also has a more serious function.  It is a place where you can find friendship and comfort, especially after the loss of a dear one.

Even though club members might not know you that well, you are still part of a brotherhood, an extended family that will rally around when life gets rough.

So even if you don’t (yet) play pétanque, it would not hurt to join such a social club.

But not any club. Look before you jump!

“I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”  Groucho Marx

Alain ?

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt