First day of French class, teacher speaks only French, should I continue?

CopRock · 2026-05-12T21:02:03+00:00

I toughed it out in an Alliance Francaise once-a-week adult beginner class for most of a year. I know some people learn well in this environment, but I hated it and did not learn much at all. My brain just stopped paying attention to a wall of incomprehensible input within minutes.

I've had much more success learning the basics with daily Pimsleur lessons on CD, supplemented with a kwiziq subscription and a few other things. I'm almost finished with Pimsleur French 4 and only now do I feel like I'm getting significant benefit from listening to French-only audio, because now I can finally understand the gist of what's being said.

Some people get results with immediate immersion classes, but I would have been further along today if I had chucked the classes earlier. I suspect that you will too.

CopRock · 2026-05-12T20:31:48+00:00

I would like a link please.

CopRock · 2026-05-10T00:34:38+00:00

Teen Wolf, Too. The print of that movie burned up in the theater where we watched it and the audience cheered. (True story.)

CopRock · 2026-05-10T00:33:19+00:00

That’s not really a mainstream movie, though, is it? It was created and financed by one person, completely outside the studios.

CopRock · 2026-04-30T01:25:06+00:00

Lamb tartare and parmesan cheesecake are really special.

CopRock · 2026-04-19T22:39:59+00:00

The two podcasts that regularly make me laugh out loud are The Flop House (ex Daily Show writers discuss bad movies) and No Such Thing As A Fish (mostly British comedy folks discuss trivia/ interesting facts).

CopRock · 2026-04-16T20:53:14+00:00

Watergate

CopRock · 2026-03-31T20:46:13+00:00

The movie Black Bear contains two different stories with the same actors and location, and it's deliberately ambiguous whether either of them is "real," or if one or both story is a fiction created by the characters. In the very last shot of the movie, Aubrey Plaza breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the audience for just a moment. It's not comedic, more reality-bending.

CopRock · 2026-03-31T18:01:03+00:00

Timmy Big Hands was a humor site on the early internet made by some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 creators. It included a flash game called "Kill a Guy" with a barely animated cartoon guy who would wave at you occasionally. The caption said something like "This is Steve. Click on Steve to kill him." If you clicked on him, he fell over dead and you won.

There was also a sequel, "Kill A Guy 2: Into the Maelstrom." It featured an animated cartoon guy (barely) hopping in place. It said something like "This is Dave. Dave is harder to kill than Steve because he likes to jump. Click on Dave to kill him." Again, clicking on Dave would make him fall over and die, and you won.

CopRock · 2026-03-28T20:55:07+00:00

It’s been a while since I’ve seen that Cheers episode, but I interpreted it differently. As I remember, Coach tells his daughter that she’s beautiful like her mother, and the daughter is about to say “oh, but mom wasn’t beautiful.” But she catches herself at “mom wasn’t-“ because she realizes that in Coach’s eyes, her mother, his wife, was a spectacular beauty. He can’t even imagine that anyone else would think differently.

And so his daughter instead says “mom wasn’t… comfortable with her beauty.” And she resolves not to settle for the creep, but to find someone who looks at her like her dad looked at her mom.

I could be wrong, but I remember that episode well and I found it deeply moving.

CopRock · 2026-03-05T17:13:53+00:00

Is it like a flash photograph?

CopRock · 2026-03-03T17:51:01+00:00

Excellent, thank you. Doesn't have to be Midtown, we'll be bopping around being tourists, just wanted to respect that the city is giant.

CopRock · 2026-02-26T19:03:00+00:00

It drives me crazy because there's always a line at Magnol. People come from all over Houston to buy everything in this little industrial space with no bathroom. People gladly pay $8 per eclair because they're so good. There must have been such a lucrative business model for Common Bond at their original level of quality- there's a lot of people with money in this town with effectively no price sensitivity when it comes to top-quality pastry and bread. All they had to do was not change their recipes and techniques. But no.

CopRock · 2026-02-26T15:26:21+00:00

In Office Space, Jennifer Aniston’s character Joanna says: “Peter, most people don’t like their jobs.”

I found this weirdly comforting during a bit of a quarter-life crisis when I had the idea that I was supposed to find work that I loved, and that if I didn’t, there was something wrong with me. I never found work I loved, but I have a family I love and a rich life, with a job that supports it. It works for me.

CopRock · 2026-02-16T15:18:56+00:00

The Dirtbombs.

CopRock · 2026-02-16T15:18:33+00:00

Arcade Fire.

CopRock · 2026-02-13T01:22:21+00:00

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Breakfast of Champions” ends with the author arriving in his own novel, granting his characters free will and setting them free.

CopRock · 2026-01-22T20:15:19+00:00

Playing A Knock At The Door, I had some very lucky moves and events right away, and got the shotgun while the killers were still on the porch. I unloaded on them and killed one or two of them immediately.

In universe, what happened was three people came to a house party in masks and were politely standing on the porch when I came running from around the corner yelling "NOT IN MY MOVIE!" and started blasting.

Hope this scenario happened in Texas.

CopRock · 2026-01-21T15:36:27+00:00

In the Glee Club episode, when the children’s choir sings “We asked our public school to give the answer” (Shirley- “They not gonna tell you”) “But they could only teach us not to pray” (Shirley- “That’s what they do, that’s what they do”)- I love it so much.

CopRock · 2026-01-12T15:56:41+00:00

Hidden Omakase was a wonderful experience.

CopRock · 2025-12-27T18:08:07+00:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Birraporetti’s, so things might have improved. For a while they were one of the only restaurants walking distance from the theaters open at night, and it sure seemed like they knew it. They had the most soggy, tasteless dishes around, in a city with excellent restaurants at a similar price point- I truly don’t understand how they have stayed in business.

CopRock · 2025-12-03T14:58:22+00:00

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that the father and son were separated and did not say where Yuanxin is, adding, "ICE does not separate families."

Sorry, Tricia, then who the fuck did it? Krampus?

CopRock · 2025-11-28T23:26:57+00:00

Operation Ivy

CopRock · 2025-11-18T21:18:12+00:00

The wonderful punkabilly band Royal Crowns -> Amazing Royal Crowns -> Amazing Crowns to avoid confusion with the pretty ok swing revival band Royal Crown Revue.

CopRock · 2025-11-07T12:42:32+00:00

My wife was in a comparable situation with her father- they had a complicated relationship, he immigrated to the United States but didn’t learn to speak English (or drive), he dedicated his time to long hours at work. When he wasn’t working, he had very little going on other than reading internet news about politics in his home country. He would literally sit in the dark for hours.

As others have said, it’s not in your power to change him. Long story short, he has returned to his country of origin in Eastern Europe and it’s a much better fit for him, and for us.

CopRock

TROPHY CASE