In the worst-case scenario, it can be a reward-trip for getting my diploma in a few years! I’m counting on you in the meanwhile, ha ha.

Yes, it must be hard to see animals you cared for die, but I guess doing your best to save those that you can is rewarding enough.

There’s a wildlife center not too far from my university that’s always looking for volunteer help, and I’ve wanted to join for a long time (despite knowing that as a non-qualified volunteer I’d probably spend more time cleaning poop than looking at cute animals), but it’s simply not possible with my workload and schedule. Recently I read on their website that they’ve been brought more animals than ever this past month and are really having a hard time keeping up. :‑(

From what I understand, it’s been a nation-wide problem, because of the heat wave in June-July (it’s better now). The centers have been especially flooded with young swifts who fell when trying to get relief from the very high temperatures under the roofs.

I don’t know, you’d think it would be easy for them to get eagle owls since they’re local, but they’re wild animals, so it’s probably not that simple? Obviously they can’t take them from the wild. And in the end, only few zoos are easily accessible (without a car) from my home, so it’s not that surprising that they don’t have one particular species. Space is precious, after all, and there are so many amazing animals, they have to make choices I guess.

I looked a bit more, and there seem to be eagle owls in two not-too-far-but-not-too-close zoos that I didn’t know or think about, which could be reachable in a big day trip even without a car. One of them is in a forest and has a lot of forest mammals as well as raptors, it looks really nice and different from the zoos closer to me. I’m a student-worker, though, so when I get a day off it’s generally spent either studying or trying to fix something in my apartment or desperately trying to rest. Even a day trip can be difficult. :-( Maybe I’ll be able find some time, we’ll see.

Hammer time! I think it looks like it’s wearing one of those fancy designer dresses that are unwearable in real life, but a sarouel works too.

Long legs! I hope it will be able to recover.

It must be hard for the rehab center to deal with all that work, I hope they’re doing okay.

A lot of the locations look somewhat remote, but the original graffiti looks so intentional and symmetrical for something done as a prank.

They are, since it’s a mountain stage, but during the Tour a lot of people go there to watch. Some viewers are very involved, making banners, sometimes wearing costumes, painting (technically illegal but tolerated) words of encouragement on the road, so I’m not surprised that the penis-drawers would make the effort to draw them symmetrically.

I really wish I could follow along with what they’re saying, based on the comment section.

The language isn’t the easiest to follow, it’s really informal and the sound often isn’t very clear. At the beginning, they say that they’re going to the col du Tourmalet. (It’s a famous mountain pass in the Pyrénées mountain range that’s almost always part of the Tour.)

Basically, they’re riding in the car, then one of them say “there, a dick”, then step out to paint and the older guy describes what he’s doing and/or gives instructions to his younger collegue (apprentice?). Rinse and repeat.

At 0:38, Older Guy says he’s drawing a circle around, and tells Younger Guy to try to draw legs. Then OG explains to the camera that they’ve just made a little owl to hide the sight of the genitals to the public, but he doesn’t seem very satisfied with the “legs” YG has painted. :-)

(Uiltje is “little owl” in Dutch. In French, he calls it a hibou, not a chouette — I believe that Dutch, like English, doesn’t make the tuft-based distinction. By the way, when he says « petit hibou » the guy is making the liaison (that is to say, pronouncing the word « petit »’s terminal T) when he shouldn’t. That kind of mistake is actually fairly common among native speakers.)

At 1:23, OG says they’ve found four (dicks) in five kilometers. (« Quatre à l’actif, sur cinq kilomètres. »)

At 1:35, OG says “a dick, oh fuck” and sighs, then says “we’ll try to give it wings, [inaudible] butterfly”. OG laughs, tells YG “I’ll do it” and says something about YG “messing around” (? « Tu fais n’importe quoi. ») but while he paints the eyes and antennae, YG paints the wings in a nice big circle, and OG tells him “well spotted” (« bien vu » — maybe it’s more like “well done” in this situation?) in a satisfied way.

At 1:57, OG says “another one, oh fuck”, then another word I can’t understand. Outside, OG says “I’ll give it two eyes” (« Je vais lui faire deux yeux. »), then he adds they find a lot of those in mountains passes. It ends with him saying something like “Okay, come on, let’s go for another one”.

The older guy is a pensioner called Patrick, who’s been doing this as a side job for something like fifteen years. Apparently, he’s well-known enough in some circles to have been asked for his autograph several times.

Yes! I don’t know where it is unfortunately. I really miss mountains…

Edit: I’m stupid, they say at beginning of the video that they’re going to the col du Tourmalet, in the middle of the Pyrénées.

I don’t care about the sport at all, but I occasionally watch the Tour for the landscapes, and I’m probably not the only one.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but on French TV, one of the commentators gives geographical and cultural informations in addition to the _boring sport stuff. That should be great, but unfortunately, the guy who’s been in charge of that since several years is a far-right pseudo-historian who regularly gives slanted information… I’m so angry that he was given this job again when there are so many serious journalists who could do a great job.

I didn’t know about that, but I’m not surprised at all, ha ha.

Unfortunately for me, there’s none in the nearest zoos, which isn’t surprising since they’re mostly focused on “exotic” animals. I’ll probably have to wait a few years before I’m able to travel in another region to visit a zoo that has an eagle owl.

But while searching, I saw that the zoo near my summer workplace has snowy owls, maybe I’ll go take a look one of these days!

Thank you for the lovely picture. I hope I’ll get to get a glimpse of one of those before dying. They look huge, it must be awesome to see. Eagle owls exist here (France) too, but it’s not a species I have any chance to meet in the Parisian suburbs, ha ha.

By the way, in French it’s not called an “eagle” but a “great-duke” (grand-duc). And there’s also a “small-duke” (the scops owl, Otus scops, who’s really tiny) and a “medium-duke” (the long-eared owl, Asio otus).

some states explicitly do not ask about immigration status. It’s better to have all drivers licensed and insured than for immigrants to drive unlicensed and uninsured

Interesting, that makes sense. I don’t think it’s possible in my country (France) for foreigners to take their driving test without a valid residence permit.

Wait, you don’t have ID cards in the US?

I don’t know New York enough to answer. What’s special about Staten Island?

At home, I always heat the water in a saucepan on my stove. I only use a microwave when I’m making tea at the university, where it’s the only way I can get hot water. These microwaves are always a bit dirty because most students don’t clean after themselves, and I can’t fully enjoy my tea because it feels tainted.

It’s a 2 € plan with a 2 € discount because the mobile operator is also my home internet provider. So 0 €/month.

And it’s my one and only mobile number, not an extra one for crap content. The plan only includes 50 MB of (4G) data per month, and I have to pay extra if I go over it, so barring emergencies I’m only using wifi — but I don’t mind not having access to internet everywhere and all the time, I find that healthier in a way.

I assure you most people don’t know that.

I’m in my mid-thirties, and while I didn’t have the Instagram/Whatsapp problem as a late teen / young adult, the pressure to use Facebook was similar. When I decided to close my account, it was almost a social death. My friends organised all their outings there and didn’t want to bother reaching out to me. And many of those who did go out of their way to include me occasionally made passive-agressive remarks about how I was being ridiculous and making their life difficult.

That said, I would have loved being able to just say “I don’t have Insta” when men were bothering me in the street. :-) But I’m sure that wouldn’t stop most of them even now.

0€/month for me. :-)

I didn’t know that one, thank you!