Mad Men is back ! (and some other stuff that came up while I was typing)

And to show you how good this show is, just watch this scene :

and realize this isn't the main reason I liked the opening episode of the fifth season :)

With a Game of Thrones coming back on Sunday, Spring is going to be good !

On this note, I'm closing in on the end of the french translation of the original book series (A Song of Fire and Ice). I must say they are definitely entertaining, although I suspect the translation doesn't give it justice. Next in line, while waiting for the translations of the next tomes and for the end of The Wheel of Time, The Black Company in French and Cyteen in English (as I already read it in french, albeit yeaaaaars ago, I feel I can handle it in its original version), unless I lack patience and read them all directly in English to avoid the wait :)

You may ask yourself, why do I read those books in French if I'm able to read them in English : answer is actually quite simple, I read about 2 or 3 times faster in English, and with a lot less effort, which makes it easier to get into "the Zone" (you know, this state of mind often praised by video gamers where you totally lose the conscience of your surroundings and even your vital needs, as you are completely hooked by the activity you're in - be it reading a book or playing a game) and thus allows me to better appreciate it. It's actually funny to read books that way, it gives me the feeling at the end to have watched a movie as my mind creates pictures while reading. As a result, it's sometimes disturbing when I watch a movie after (or before) I read the book it's inspired from, sometimes in a good way (movie matching how I picture the universe, LOTR for example) or a bad way (not matching, and I usually dislike the movie :))
There are of course flaws to read a translation, aside from the obvious one that it may just be a bad one. It's for example quite hard to translate some expressions, and the style of the author can only be fully grasped in his native language, although I must say some translators do a very good job at translating it. This is why I sometimes take the time to read the book again in English, as I already know the story it allows me to appreciate the subtleties I missed in my first reading (and of course, it improves my English understanding as well, although not my writing, as you can see...).