Saturday, February 28, 2009
Off to Barcelona
While obviously not a break from blogging (apologies to anyone looking for updates here), K and I are off to Barcelona tomorrow for a few days of sightseeing. It's odd timing for a vacation since recently has been one of those rare phases of work where I've been keeping enjoyable busy, but we're overdue for some exploring. My colleagues have been very helpful pointing out some sights to see, so I hope to return with many a photograph.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Comment dit-on "fail" en français? J'ai oublié.
Today we got a break from our usual Monday evening French class with Marie-Noëlle. Months ago, we were very excited to begin learning a new language (or continue learning, as in K's case.) These days, though, we're less than eager to hear that buzzer go off between six and six fifteen.
Our opinion of learning French is largely determined by how recently we've been completely dumbfounded by an interaction with a native speaker. As long as we're conversing with friends at a slow, easy pace, we get confident--or even excited--about using what we've learned. Give us a few minutes of watching television or attempting a transaction requiring more than "une bière et un thé froid, SVP", for example, and we start talking about which US cities have good cheese shops.
It's not that we aren't improving. I still can't pronounce the Rs correctly, but it's better than the banjo-twang phrasebook mutilation I started with a year ago. I can manage train tickets, Chicken McNuggets, and even fuses on one occasion. Purchases are slowly beginning to click when the cashiers read the total, and the numbers in my head resemble the numbers on the registers.
One listen to the television or encounter with verbose waitstaff, though, and it's all over. Television--which many people recommended as a way to practice--is especially discouraging. Even with the subtitiles turned on, my brain can't align the 2.5 vowels I heard with the full sentence on the screen. My ears just aren't tuned to the way French speakers twinkle hummingbird tongues across so many unspoken letters, slurred vowels, and sing-song phrases.
I feel sorry for the natives who have to listen to my oral dismemberment of their language. French is a beautiful painting on the wall of the Louvre; my French is tubes of paint and brushes nailed to the wall with a Craftsman 20oz rip claw. My flash-card, word-by-word approach is visibly frustrating, and it does little to help my confidence to continue even finishing sentences.
Still, I can't help but keep trying. Classes at Migros have been looking more and more tempting lately, and the idea of being in a classroom and listening to other students butcher the language seems like a relief compared to the spotlight private lessons we've had so far.
One day, perhaps we will no longer be the butt of this joke:
"If you call someone who knows two languages "bilingual" and someone who knows three languages "trilingual," what do you call someone who knows only one language? ---- An American."
Our opinion of learning French is largely determined by how recently we've been completely dumbfounded by an interaction with a native speaker. As long as we're conversing with friends at a slow, easy pace, we get confident--or even excited--about using what we've learned. Give us a few minutes of watching television or attempting a transaction requiring more than "une bière et un thé froid, SVP", for example, and we start talking about which US cities have good cheese shops.
It's not that we aren't improving. I still can't pronounce the Rs correctly, but it's better than the banjo-twang phrasebook mutilation I started with a year ago. I can manage train tickets, Chicken McNuggets, and even fuses on one occasion. Purchases are slowly beginning to click when the cashiers read the total, and the numbers in my head resemble the numbers on the registers.
One listen to the television or encounter with verbose waitstaff, though, and it's all over. Television--which many people recommended as a way to practice--is especially discouraging. Even with the subtitiles turned on, my brain can't align the 2.5 vowels I heard with the full sentence on the screen. My ears just aren't tuned to the way French speakers twinkle hummingbird tongues across so many unspoken letters, slurred vowels, and sing-song phrases.
I feel sorry for the natives who have to listen to my oral dismemberment of their language. French is a beautiful painting on the wall of the Louvre; my French is tubes of paint and brushes nailed to the wall with a Craftsman 20oz rip claw. My flash-card, word-by-word approach is visibly frustrating, and it does little to help my confidence to continue even finishing sentences.
Still, I can't help but keep trying. Classes at Migros have been looking more and more tempting lately, and the idea of being in a classroom and listening to other students butcher the language seems like a relief compared to the spotlight private lessons we've had so far.
One day, perhaps we will no longer be the butt of this joke:
"If you call someone who knows two languages "bilingual" and someone who knows three languages "trilingual," what do you call someone who knows only one language? ---- An American."
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Parents
For the past few weeks, I've been eager for my parents to visit us in Switzerland. They flew in last Tuesday, staying a night in Zurich to rest up before taking the train to Fribourg. Kristen and I tried to come up with some ideas for sites to see during their visit, but we didn't have anything concrete in case they just wanted to relax or go do things on their own. We're not the greatest tour guides considering we've only been here for ten months, but we figured the places we really liked would be a good start.
First thing was first, though, which was the suitcase of loot Mom and Dad couriered for us from stateside. There are quite a few things which are either prohibitively expensive or impossible to find in Switerland, so we placed a few orders online to be shipped to their house:
Contact solution (obscenely expensive in Switerland @ 17 CHF/bottle)
Noodler's fountain pen ink (impossible to find here)
Futurama Season 2 (much cheaper in US)
Ten or so books, mostly for Kristen (English language books are rare here)
A camera lens (roughly twice the cost in Switzerland)
The suitcase o' loot nearly did not make it to us: it was left in the US after missing a connection in Dulles. They flew it over to Zurich just in time. It arrived at the hotel just as Mom and Dad were leaving for Fribourg. Whew! Good thing, too. We had been waiting for some of the loot since May.
Anywho, they made it here just fine. They insisted on sampling all the Swiss food we could find them, so we made some raclette at home with our trusty raclette grill. We had quite the assortment of racle-ssories: potatoes, ham, cornichons, onions, pineapple, raclette spice, Aromat, and a few bottles of white wine. Dad and I drank most of the wine, a few shots of bourbon, and a few beers. Off to a good start!
We wanted to take Mom and Dad to see Murten, a nice lil' place on Lake Neuchatel which isn't too far from Fribourg. Due to a mix-up with the train, we ended up in Yverdons-les-Bains. Oh, well. Same lake, different end. Luckily, the weather was beautiful and no one minded the mistake at all.
Where we did successfully go was Gruyères, home of the famouse Gruyère cheese. We took the cheese tour at the fromagerie across the street from the train station. For 7 CHF you get a self-guided audio tour of the cheese-making process as well as three samples of Gruyère cheese: 6 month, 8 month, and 10 month. Kristen and I prefer the stronger, grittier 10 month; Mom and Dad liked the softer, milder 6 month.
As important as cheese, we visited the Giger bar and had a drink!
We skipped the museum; Kristen refuses to go, and Mom would probably not have liked it at all. Despite all the forecasts for rain, the weather was cooperative for a nice stroll around Gruyères-ville.
The next day the rain finally caught up with us. To continue the Swiss food tour, we went to dinner at Café du Midi in downtown Fribourg. The four of us got a big ol' pot of moitié-moitié (half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois), a selection of dried meats, wine, and--of course--meringues with double cream for dessert. I'm afraid I have no pictures; we were too busy eating.
Finally, Dani and Steph took us out to a really great Vietnamese restaurant in town. We all ordered various menus, so we ended up with about nine different dishes to share. Everything was delicious, but the five-spice shrimp was particularly tasty. They do take-out, too, so Kristen and I will most certainly be visiting there again.
At last, a non-food activity! After dinner we all went back to the apartment. Kristen, Steph, and Mom played Ligretto while Dani, Dad, and I smoked Cohibas on the balcony whilest drinking Knob Creek. We guys joined in the Ligretto for a while after the cigars, then we all played a few rounds of Apples to Apples until 1:30 AM.
Like all visits, my parents' was too short. They had a second leg of their vacation to be spent in Vienna, Austria, before heading home to Suffolk. I'm still waiting to see the pictures from Austria (hint, hint, Dad...) We had a great time having them visit, though, and we're looking forward to seeing them this Christmas.
First thing was first, though, which was the suitcase of loot Mom and Dad couriered for us from stateside. There are quite a few things which are either prohibitively expensive or impossible to find in Switerland, so we placed a few orders online to be shipped to their house:
Contact solution (obscenely expensive in Switerland @ 17 CHF/bottle)
Noodler's fountain pen ink (impossible to find here)
Futurama Season 2 (much cheaper in US)
Ten or so books, mostly for Kristen (English language books are rare here)
A camera lens (roughly twice the cost in Switzerland)
The suitcase o' loot nearly did not make it to us: it was left in the US after missing a connection in Dulles. They flew it over to Zurich just in time. It arrived at the hotel just as Mom and Dad were leaving for Fribourg. Whew! Good thing, too. We had been waiting for some of the loot since May.
Anywho, they made it here just fine. They insisted on sampling all the Swiss food we could find them, so we made some raclette at home with our trusty raclette grill. We had quite the assortment of racle-ssories: potatoes, ham, cornichons, onions, pineapple, raclette spice, Aromat, and a few bottles of white wine. Dad and I drank most of the wine, a few shots of bourbon, and a few beers. Off to a good start!
We wanted to take Mom and Dad to see Murten, a nice lil' place on Lake Neuchatel which isn't too far from Fribourg. Due to a mix-up with the train, we ended up in Yverdons-les-Bains. Oh, well. Same lake, different end. Luckily, the weather was beautiful and no one minded the mistake at all.
Where we did successfully go was Gruyères, home of the famouse Gruyère cheese. We took the cheese tour at the fromagerie across the street from the train station. For 7 CHF you get a self-guided audio tour of the cheese-making process as well as three samples of Gruyère cheese: 6 month, 8 month, and 10 month. Kristen and I prefer the stronger, grittier 10 month; Mom and Dad liked the softer, milder 6 month.
As important as cheese, we visited the Giger bar and had a drink!
We skipped the museum; Kristen refuses to go, and Mom would probably not have liked it at all. Despite all the forecasts for rain, the weather was cooperative for a nice stroll around Gruyères-ville.
The next day the rain finally caught up with us. To continue the Swiss food tour, we went to dinner at Café du Midi in downtown Fribourg. The four of us got a big ol' pot of moitié-moitié (half Gruyère, half Vacherin Fribourgeois), a selection of dried meats, wine, and--of course--meringues with double cream for dessert. I'm afraid I have no pictures; we were too busy eating.
Finally, Dani and Steph took us out to a really great Vietnamese restaurant in town. We all ordered various menus, so we ended up with about nine different dishes to share. Everything was delicious, but the five-spice shrimp was particularly tasty. They do take-out, too, so Kristen and I will most certainly be visiting there again.
At last, a non-food activity! After dinner we all went back to the apartment. Kristen, Steph, and Mom played Ligretto while Dani, Dad, and I smoked Cohibas on the balcony whilest drinking Knob Creek. We guys joined in the Ligretto for a while after the cigars, then we all played a few rounds of Apples to Apples until 1:30 AM.
Like all visits, my parents' was too short. They had a second leg of their vacation to be spent in Vienna, Austria, before heading home to Suffolk. I'm still waiting to see the pictures from Austria (hint, hint, Dad...) We had a great time having them visit, though, and we're looking forward to seeing them this Christmas.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Yodel!
This past weekend, K and I tried to get out a little more than the usual trip to Coop for snacks during an entire weekend of laze. On Saturday we took the train to Lucerne for the annual Yodeling Festival. If you're serious about yodeling, this is the place to be. I've never known anyone really into yodeling before, so it was a bit of a surprise just how popular it is. I've never seen so many people dressed to so many Swiss nines in my life. The clothing was pretty much as I expected--the same sort of picturesque rural Swiss garb that one might associate with Heidi or the Sound of Music--just much more numerous than I imagined.
Also popular were the alphorns.
What I did not expect, though, was what that there are different kinds of yodeling. There's the "yoo-da-lay-HEEEEE-hoooo" type that everyone imagines. We didn't hear a whole lot like that. What was much more common at the festival were groups of people standing in circles singing what sounded like acapella church hymns, except without words in any language I could recognize.
The other popular stage for singing was seated on picnic benches inside beer tents, mugs in hand. I'm not even sure what triggered the songs. At one moment, everyone is sitting around chatting. The next moment, they're singing in unison.
We spent a few hours wandering around most of the populous areas of the festival before exhausting a lot of what there was to see. We didn't stick around for any of the stage proper performances as we were very tired and a lot of it would be lost on us. Maybe next year.
Also popular were the alphorns.
What I did not expect, though, was what that there are different kinds of yodeling. There's the "yoo-da-lay-HEEEEE-hoooo" type that everyone imagines. We didn't hear a whole lot like that. What was much more common at the festival were groups of people standing in circles singing what sounded like acapella church hymns, except without words in any language I could recognize.
The other popular stage for singing was seated on picnic benches inside beer tents, mugs in hand. I'm not even sure what triggered the songs. At one moment, everyone is sitting around chatting. The next moment, they're singing in unison.
We spent a few hours wandering around most of the populous areas of the festival before exhausting a lot of what there was to see. We didn't stick around for any of the stage proper performances as we were very tired and a lot of it would be lost on us. Maybe next year.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Where does all the time go?
I hate this feeling of blinking and having a month go by. I've been keeping a little too busy lately with work, jiu-jitsu, extremely painful French classes, and socializing with our Swiss friends. Weeks go by, and I don't feel like I'm actually doing anything.
If anything, I get the sinking feeling that I'm regressing instead of progressing. My jiu-jitsu instructor and I went to Geneva to train at the Igor Araujo school, and I felt like a white belt again. Every Monday our French instructor teaches for two hours, and I can't remember stuff I am certain I knew the week before. It's very frustrating and makes me want to stop practicing both, but I know that won't help a bit.
I need a nap.
If anything, I get the sinking feeling that I'm regressing instead of progressing. My jiu-jitsu instructor and I went to Geneva to train at the Igor Araujo school, and I felt like a white belt again. Every Monday our French instructor teaches for two hours, and I can't remember stuff I am certain I knew the week before. It's very frustrating and makes me want to stop practicing both, but I know that won't help a bit.
I need a nap.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Microsoft Sucks
Yup, I can't put it more plainly than that. Perhaps you might call me a hypocrite since I am typing this on a computer installed with Windows XP, so let me explain.
Windows XP gives me a decent selection of applications and games to run on my computer. That's about all the credit I can give them. I enjoy Photoshop, Cakewalk Sonar, and a meager shitload of games. The rest of the operating system is dull. At no point do I find myself really excited about the things this computer can do. Compared to Linux, for example, where I constantly amazed at how many cool things you can do to data with a handful of commands piped together on the command-line interface (that's the typey-typey interface instead of the pointy-clicky interface for you technically disinclined out there...) XP doesn't have any "oh, cool!" moments. You must spend quite some time downloading, installing, and mucking about with other peoples' software to make it worth your while.
Anyway, K and I decided to get an Xbox 360 so we could enjoy the new Grand Theft Auto IV, and its 400CHF price was much more appealing than the 700CHF price on the Playstation 3.
Setting up the Xbox was not much trouble: plug everything in, push a few buttons to get the controller recognized, then enter a name for yourself. I chose "Ars," my default game name. Threw in the game, and we were off and running. Awesome.
We logged about 25 hours of game time on GTA IV over the next few days, stealing cars, running over hookers, gunning down drug dealers, all that good GTA stuff.
After the first weekend, I decided to get a wireless router to attach the Xbox to the Intarwebs and try out some of that fancy Xbox Live stuff I had heard about: movie rentals, game downloads, stealing cars with friends--the whole lot. I picked up a cheap Linksys router and installed dd-wrt such that it could allow the Xbox internet access.
The Xbox connected to the Internet just fine. However, when it got online, it said my chosen name (Ars) was not available on Xbox Live and prompted me to choose a new one. Okay, fine. I chose Taco Moriendi, a name I've sometimes used when playing Counterstrike.
It prompted me to add an email address to create a "Windows Live ID" account. This is Microsoft's single sign-on service; it allows you to create one account yet sign onto many different Microsoft services with the same email and password. The address I entered I had apparently already used to create a Live ID account, so, bada-bing, I was all signed up.
Then, some trouble. I wanted to add my credit card information to my account so I could download a few old console games they had available on their marketplace. Unfortunately, my account had my country listed as "United States" and my credit card is based in Switzerland. There was no way to change this on the Xbox.
Shit.
The next day, I called Xbox Live's customer service to try to get this sorted out. I figured it would be in their interest to change the country such that I could buy their crap. I spoke with a woman named Angel who sounded a lot like the police officer from Idiocracy: no longer speaking normally, but hacking together trite phrases from the profession. I think the call would have been a lot shorter had she spoken normally rather than littering the conversation with bullshit customer-service-speak phrases like "can you please wait for one minute while I check with my available resources" and "I am here to help you with your particular problem today, sir," which she repeated several times during the conversation.
The gist of the call came down to this:
Okay, fine. I created a new account and deleted my old account for Switzerland named QuadratA. The last A was not supposed to be capitalized, but you sure can't change it when it's done! I then deleted the old profile. And since I didn't have any other services I cared to use with Windows Live ID, I deleted that account, too.
Big mistake.
It turns out the saved games cannot be transfered from profile to profile: some sort of anti-cheat mechanism to keep people from bolstering their achievement points on their Xbox Live account. So all my GTA IV and Viva Pinata save games were inaccessible, still sitting on the hard drive but completely unavailable.
I tried in vain to recreate the deleted Windows Live ID account with the same information, but it seems the Windows Live ID comes with a unique identifier to which the Xbox Live account is attached, not the email address.
Calling Xbox Live support was a gigantic joke. The guy who answered my call ("A.J.") was absolutely useless; I spend roughly 40 minutes trying to explain the situation before he told me I had to call Xbox Live SWITZERLAND support. Sigh. I tried again to explain how that would not help, but got disconnected. Judging by the tone in his voice at the end of the call, I seriously suspect that he hung up on me. I didn't even have a case number or anything to reference the call, so I was in for another long explanation when I called back.
Thankfully, the next customer service rep I spoke to ("Jonathan") was much more astute in the matters of Xbox Live accounts. He was at least able to look up the Windows Live ID associated with my Xbox Live account, but he was not able to make any changes. After a good solid hour on the phone, I became weary of dealing with the issue and gave up for the day.
During the calls I learned that quite a few people have had issues with Xbox Live accounts after moving. There are quite a few people who move within Europe, from the US to Canada, or from Canada to the US and are pretty Shit Outta Luck if they don't keep a payment option in their old country of residence.
When you choose your credit card, you are limited to credit cards based in the country you chose for your Xbox Live account. Additionally, you can only use store-bought Xbox Live point cards and subscription cards sold in the country or region which matches your Xbox Live account.
So let's say you create an account in England and stock up on points from cards you buy at your local electronics store. After playing for a year or two, you move to the US. Because you cannot change your country of residence on your Xbox Live account, you cannot use point cards purchased in the US. Nor can you use a US-based credit card, so you'd better have a credit card from England. Otherwise you have three choices:
One more incredibly stupid annoyance with Xbox Live: if you choose a country like Switzerland, the language choices are limited to French, German, or Italian. With the world becoming so much more globally-oriented these days, it makes no sense to me to force your language selections based on the country in which you're living. Even more moronic: the only choice for the United States is English. Pretty crappy if, say, Spanish is your first language?
In the end, I kept my Swiss account in case I want to buy anything in the Xbox Marketplace using my credit card or cards purchased locally (highly unlikely now considering my reluctance to give them more money until they stop being so awful) and one US-based account so everything will remain in English.
Quite a ridiculous hassle, isn't it? My recommendation to anyone considering an Xbox 360: Don't ever, ever move.
Windows XP gives me a decent selection of applications and games to run on my computer. That's about all the credit I can give them. I enjoy Photoshop, Cakewalk Sonar, and a meager shitload of games. The rest of the operating system is dull. At no point do I find myself really excited about the things this computer can do. Compared to Linux, for example, where I constantly amazed at how many cool things you can do to data with a handful of commands piped together on the command-line interface (that's the typey-typey interface instead of the pointy-clicky interface for you technically disinclined out there...) XP doesn't have any "oh, cool!" moments. You must spend quite some time downloading, installing, and mucking about with other peoples' software to make it worth your while.
Anyway, K and I decided to get an Xbox 360 so we could enjoy the new Grand Theft Auto IV, and its 400CHF price was much more appealing than the 700CHF price on the Playstation 3.
Setting up the Xbox was not much trouble: plug everything in, push a few buttons to get the controller recognized, then enter a name for yourself. I chose "Ars," my default game name. Threw in the game, and we were off and running. Awesome.
We logged about 25 hours of game time on GTA IV over the next few days, stealing cars, running over hookers, gunning down drug dealers, all that good GTA stuff.
After the first weekend, I decided to get a wireless router to attach the Xbox to the Intarwebs and try out some of that fancy Xbox Live stuff I had heard about: movie rentals, game downloads, stealing cars with friends--the whole lot. I picked up a cheap Linksys router and installed dd-wrt such that it could allow the Xbox internet access.
The Xbox connected to the Internet just fine. However, when it got online, it said my chosen name (Ars) was not available on Xbox Live and prompted me to choose a new one. Okay, fine. I chose Taco Moriendi, a name I've sometimes used when playing Counterstrike.
It prompted me to add an email address to create a "Windows Live ID" account. This is Microsoft's single sign-on service; it allows you to create one account yet sign onto many different Microsoft services with the same email and password. The address I entered I had apparently already used to create a Live ID account, so, bada-bing, I was all signed up.
Then, some trouble. I wanted to add my credit card information to my account so I could download a few old console games they had available on their marketplace. Unfortunately, my account had my country listed as "United States" and my credit card is based in Switzerland. There was no way to change this on the Xbox.
Shit.
The next day, I called Xbox Live's customer service to try to get this sorted out. I figured it would be in their interest to change the country such that I could buy their crap. I spoke with a woman named Angel who sounded a lot like the police officer from Idiocracy: no longer speaking normally, but hacking together trite phrases from the profession. I think the call would have been a lot shorter had she spoken normally rather than littering the conversation with bullshit customer-service-speak phrases like "can you please wait for one minute while I check with my available resources" and "I am here to help you with your particular problem today, sir," which she repeated several times during the conversation.
The gist of the call came down to this:
- She could not change the country because it was against policy.
- I had to create a new account to set my country to Switzerland.
- She could not delete my old account such that I could keep my name.
- I should delete my old profile from the Xbox (although it won't delete it from Xbox Live.)
Okay, fine. I created a new account and deleted my old account for Switzerland named QuadratA. The last A was not supposed to be capitalized, but you sure can't change it when it's done! I then deleted the old profile. And since I didn't have any other services I cared to use with Windows Live ID, I deleted that account, too.
Big mistake.
It turns out the saved games cannot be transfered from profile to profile: some sort of anti-cheat mechanism to keep people from bolstering their achievement points on their Xbox Live account. So all my GTA IV and Viva Pinata save games were inaccessible, still sitting on the hard drive but completely unavailable.
I tried in vain to recreate the deleted Windows Live ID account with the same information, but it seems the Windows Live ID comes with a unique identifier to which the Xbox Live account is attached, not the email address.
Calling Xbox Live support was a gigantic joke. The guy who answered my call ("A.J.") was absolutely useless; I spend roughly 40 minutes trying to explain the situation before he told me I had to call Xbox Live SWITZERLAND support. Sigh. I tried again to explain how that would not help, but got disconnected. Judging by the tone in his voice at the end of the call, I seriously suspect that he hung up on me. I didn't even have a case number or anything to reference the call, so I was in for another long explanation when I called back.
Thankfully, the next customer service rep I spoke to ("Jonathan") was much more astute in the matters of Xbox Live accounts. He was at least able to look up the Windows Live ID associated with my Xbox Live account, but he was not able to make any changes. After a good solid hour on the phone, I became weary of dealing with the issue and gave up for the day.
During the calls I learned that quite a few people have had issues with Xbox Live accounts after moving. There are quite a few people who move within Europe, from the US to Canada, or from Canada to the US and are pretty Shit Outta Luck if they don't keep a payment option in their old country of residence.
When you choose your credit card, you are limited to credit cards based in the country you chose for your Xbox Live account. Additionally, you can only use store-bought Xbox Live point cards and subscription cards sold in the country or region which matches your Xbox Live account.
So let's say you create an account in England and stock up on points from cards you buy at your local electronics store. After playing for a year or two, you move to the US. Because you cannot change your country of residence on your Xbox Live account, you cannot use point cards purchased in the US. Nor can you use a US-based credit card, so you'd better have a credit card from England. Otherwise you have three choices:
- Have someone buy point cards for you and send you the codes to enter on your account
- Buy point cards for your Xbox Live account's country on Ebay
- Create a new account in your new country
One more incredibly stupid annoyance with Xbox Live: if you choose a country like Switzerland, the language choices are limited to French, German, or Italian. With the world becoming so much more globally-oriented these days, it makes no sense to me to force your language selections based on the country in which you're living. Even more moronic: the only choice for the United States is English. Pretty crappy if, say, Spanish is your first language?
In the end, I kept my Swiss account in case I want to buy anything in the Xbox Marketplace using my credit card or cards purchased locally (highly unlikely now considering my reluctance to give them more money until they stop being so awful) and one US-based account so everything will remain in English.
Quite a ridiculous hassle, isn't it? My recommendation to anyone considering an Xbox 360: Don't ever, ever move.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
