Repair at Le Garage

IMG_7403If you want to have a festive brunch, by all means go to Le Garage in Sausalito.

This French restaurant is facing the Richardson Bay and on a sunny day it is a real treat to dine outside.

The Sunday brunch menu is not elaborate (among other things: French toasts, eggs Benedict, omelets, croque-Monsieur, croque-Madame, burger, ham sandwich), but you don’t come to Le Garage merely for the food. You come to soak in the atmosphere.
If you have out of town visitors or guests from another country, they will be delighted by the genuine conviviality of the place.
Service is cordial and efficient.IMG_7417

But (there are always buts) the place is fairly difficult to find, parking is becoming increasingly laborious (even with valet parking), and it can be very crowded.
And unfortunately le Garage doesn’t take reservations for lunch or brunch.
If you don’t want to wait, the best time to arrive is around 1:30 p.m.

Le Garage can be very noisy and it is not the place to be if you want to have an intimate conversation with your inamorata.
But this type of ambiance could be very conducive to a clean breakup.
“Sorry Stacy, but I think I’m in love with your mom” or “My cat doesn’t like you.”
And you can get up and leave. Nobody will notice anything, even if Stacy starts crying (or screaming).

If you want a quieter atmosphere and a more elaborate menu, come for dinner.
They take reservations.

If the dining prices are reasonable, watch out for the drinks.
One single glass of Frank Family Vineyards 2013 Chardonnay set me back $15.00.
A little too rich for my blood.
If wine drinking you must, you would be much better off ordering a full bottle for $52.00.

Despite its shortcomings, I am still keen on Le Garage. Must be my French genes.
It is the perfect place to celebrate anything with your chums.

And you can be as loud as you want while munching on Moules Marinière or duck confit.

Alain

The fabulous Freddy Mercury:

Cyber security

Everybody craves security but security can be a fickle mistress, sometimes abruptly changing loyalty.

It is supposed to keep criminals from entering your castle, but it occasionally seems to change its mind and prevents you (the owner) from having access to your goods.
It feels like Jeeves refusing you entry to your own estate.

You naturally want to protect your belongings, so you put everything valuable under locked key.
But what if you lose the key to your vault? How are you going to retrieve your valuables? Who is going to help you?
This is the $64,000 question.

IMG_7372Yesterday I installed Windows 10 on a desktop computer running Windows 7.

It was a rather lengthy process and It took me about two hours to complete the operation. Let me point out that it was not a “clean install” but an upgrade.

Everything went tediously well, and after repeated messages like “This won’t take long”, “Taking care of a few things”, “Just a few more tweaks”, the Window 10 interface finally appeared on the screen.
Kookaburra! Good golly, miss Molly!

I experimented with the interface for a little while, especially with Cortana (Microsoft’s answer to Siri) and I then turned the machine off and rebooted it it to make sure that everything worked properly.

The computer burped and sneezed and finally asked for an “ausweis” (password), and that’s when everything came to an abrupt halt.
The cyber doorman rejected every password that I offered. And the following message appeared tauntingly each time:

“You can’t sign in you account right now. Go to account.live.com to fix the problem or try the last password you used on this PC.”

No matter what was entered, the Cerberus would not accept anything.

It is comforting and at the same time extremely annoying.
Comforting because it shows that the system is very picky about who can have access to you data, and annoying because it is basically protecting you from yourself.
Prove to me that you are who you pretend to be, it says.

I suspect that the mix-up occurred while I initially entered the required password.

The problem could have had something to do with the computer’s keyboard.
Any decent keyboard should have a visual indicator signaling that the “caps lock” key is activated or not, and this keyboard didn’t have this feature.

When you enter a password into a system, the machine often doesn’t show the actual letters being entered, but black dots. So you are never sure that what you entered is correct.

Since a decent password is supposed to have a mix of lowercase and uppercase characters, it could be a problem.
And it turned out to be a problem. A real pain in the wazoo.

Taking care of a computer that refuses access to its operating system can be a daunting task.
It is a never ending Catch 22.

In desperation I finally called Microsoft support. The last thing that I wanted to do!
After being transferred from department to department, I was finally put in touch with an Eastern gentleman.
Let me say right away that I love Bollywood movies and that I harbor no ill will towards Indian gentleman; but when it comes to technical support I would definitely prefer talking to somebody who speaks the King’s English.

After a few minutes of a difficult to decipher conversation, I regretfully had to end our technical powwow.
Strangely enough, as a foreign-born person I find it always difficult to understand foreign accents.

Then trying to retrieve the password online also proved very frustrating.
After different unsuccessful attempts I was told to cool my jets and not to bother Microsoft for at least 24 hours.

The computer is now mockingly inoperative. It knows that I know that everything is working properly, but it refuses to do anything until given proper identification.
It is aware that I am not a hacker, but it still declines to let me inside the club.

But I have not said my last word… I have lost a battle but I have not lost the war… yet.

Alain

To be continued…

PS: View some of my best shots.
To look at these photos and listen to the accompanying background music, turn your computer’s sound on, and click on the link “My Photos” located on the right side of this page. For best viewing, go “Full Screen”.

The murder of Cecil

In 1637 French dramatist Pierre Corneille wrote a play called Le Cid.
One of his most famous lines known to all French schoolchildren goes:

« A vaincre sans péril l’on triomphe sans gloire ».
To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory.

Almost 400 years later this line is still relevant.
For where is the risk in killing an animal from a safe distance?

Cecil the LionThe world reacted with outrage and disgust when it became known that a vain imbecile called Walter Palmer killed Cecil, a beloved lion in Zimbabwe.
Not only did he kill him but he also bragged about it, smiling broadly behind the carcass of his victim.
This to me reeks of Nazi barbarism when some degenerates made “trophy” lampshades out of human skin.

What kind of a man (or woman for that matter) would do that?
A boastful, insecure “ersatz” of a man, that’s who.

“Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.”
Paul Rodriguez

Hunting is not a sport indeed. Killing is never a sport.

“Sport” killing is never acceptable, even if it is (regrettably) legal.
I will never condone any animal killing, but if hunting you absolutely must, make the execution quick and merciful.
An arrow might not kill immediately (as it was the case in Cecil’s killing) and the animal suffered a long agony before being finally shot in the head.

The only possible exception for killing an animal is if your life is in danger.
Either the animal is going to kill you, or you will to starve to death.

I will reluctantly agree to hunting when animals are as equally armed as hunters and I support our right to arm bears.

Walter Palmer is now hounded on Social Media, and rightly so.
A lot of people hope that due to negative publicity, his business will fail and that he won’t have $50,000 to spend anymore for the very dubious privilege of collecting another “trophy”.

Shame, shame on you Walter Palmer, and on all the “glory” seeking animal killers.

Alain