x-mas in america…
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/11/alt-text-black-friday/
and some italy stuff not related to x-mas
Burlesque Tony rocks
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/08/bunga-bunga-scandal-threatens-berlusconi.html?obref=obinsite
volcanoes also rock from time to time!
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/20/should-scientists-probe-the-massive-volcano-under-naples.html
Cheers Leo for belonging to that photo club 🙂
You’re photo taking skills are beyond exceptional! CTFD!
So someone had the bright idea to go bowling last night…I won 2 games out of 3. Not because I’m any good, but I’m slightly less bad than everyone else 🙂
So it was supposed to be a surprise party 😉 I didn’t expect that many people to show up tho. Good turnout considering the mail just went out yesterday…Thanks Giadda and Daniele for organizing it.
So dinner at some little place up in the hills. Food was great!!! People were great. I got gifts (see hat in picture).
Afterwards Daniele, Enriqo and I went to the Jolly Roger for “just 1 beer”…(I think we had 3 – and shut the place down). I walked home and they left…I was slumbering peacefully when my doorbell starts ringing repeatedly…I thought I was back in Frankfurt again 😉 what….4am…doorbell ringing! wha…!!! I ignored it for a while, but it didn’t go away.
anways, Daniele lost his house keys and needed a place to crash. I made him clean my place before he left 😉
So Thanks again for everyone that showed up!!!! Really great!
So apparently a friend was trying to organize a dinner party for me tomorrow (without telling me about it). A colleague says to me something like “I would like to come to your party but I’m not sure I can make it…”
I guess that was when I knew…anyways organizer says later in the day something about planning a party and only inviting a few people, but then someone invited someone else who invited someone else and now I guess half the office knows about it…awkward!!!
but cheers! I’m looking forward to it. 🙂
Who among us doesn’t love a good blurry photo…
so this week I saw a doctor and an optometrist…Apparently Italian law dictates that if you have a job the company has to handle getting you an eye exam and a half-physical at least once every two years…ummm OK….The only thing I can think is that if you go to your own Dr. for a visit there’s some kind of Dr./Client privilege, but if the company handles the arrangements then the company gets to know what the doc finds…Okey Dokey…the optometrist was not interesting, but the GP type doc was pretty cool…he’s some kind of crazy hippy. He spent 5 minutes talking with me and then listened to my heart, lungs, asked me to Aaaahhh while he shined a light down my throat and did the same with my eyes. I’m not sure how that really benefits the company…but allright…I was being paid for the visit since it was during the workday.
I’m seeing Mel in Florence this weekend…that’s pretty cool. I’m excited…Mel’s a friend from Frankfurt (via Oz)…
My favourite opening to a song that I heard this week:
Frida Hyvonen: “One day I wasn’t drunk and the sun was shining straight…”
That’s one of my favourite opening song lines ever!!! That’s awesome…
In America democracy is the tyranny of a half minority (old white folk)…(as opposed to the idea that democracy is the tyranny of the majority). Man I dislike America…Of course with Burlesque Tony’s antics (fucking 17 y.0. whores…and I suppose 18 y.o. whores, and 19 y.o. whores…etc… – as well as his general crookedness – changing laws for his own benefit etc) I couldn’t exactly say I’m fond of Italian politicians either…Maybe the Greeks really did have it right…picking random people to run for offices…i.e. Pick random people off the street to run for Senate, councils, prefectures, firemen, judges, engineers etc…
I’m sure I don’t have that exactly right 😉 but go with it…
pick 100 random people off the street (non-politicians) and let the voters choose between these 100 random people as to who would be the best fit for a particular office…no career politicians here…
In fact I think I proposed a long time ago that there should just be some kind of questionnaire/test that determines your fit-fullness for office and just give voters the scores and details of that test (to determine tempermant, openess to new ideas, willingness to compromise, conservativeness, etc) without identifying the name of the person they’re voting for or how they feel about certain specific issues…Just vote for the person who you think would be best for a specific post based on their test scores…
No politicians (what kind of loser actually wants to be a politican anyways?), no BS, no campaigning…
“The people” might actually end up with the Best and Brightest of society instead of pandering, unthinking idiots…but then again if we were voting according to my plan then most people would just continue to be ignorant and vote according to what their TV, or religious figure, or boss, or neighbours told them too…
I guess that means I can conclude the problem isn’t the people running for office, but the people voting for the people running for office…You suck americans!
Went to the comics and animation fest in Lucca. That was cooler than I expected. I want to go next year for halloween there…that’s my plan…There were many pics to be had, but unfortunately I wasn’t properly prepared most of the time.
Cheers Matteo for letting me crash and for the hamburgers :)!
Left for Florence on Sunday to hang out with Leo…we ended up going to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror…It was less rowdy than I expected…Only a few people yelling at the screen and dancing etc…but it was pretty fun! I took no pics in Florence, but I had some great wine…thanks Leo!
I made it to class for the second day in a row…I have forgotten everything that I theoretically may have learned…
really the highlights of the class is when Maria yells at someone (besides me) and then the class and Maria all burst out laughing at the same time…
I had an aborted conversation with a waitress tonight…about 60 seconds of her reminiscing about a time this summer when she had tried to talk to me, but was apparently unable to correctly convey her thoughts…I didn’t really get it…By the end we had two waitresses (waitressi?) and two italian/english dictionaries out so she could try to figure out what she was actually trying to say…I’m sure it was amusing, but after a minute or two she just said “niente”…which is more or less “nevermind”…and the second waitress was faithfully backing up her friend and immediately said something like “thank you. Good night”
Me: “…ummmm…….Really…OK…bye…”
I left with a bemused look on my face.
Tho I guess it’s not so often that you leave a pub with a bemused look on your face. It must have been good…luckily I don’t feel obligated to tip at this place.
Random out of context quote: “If you learned italian you I promise you would get laid 10x more than you are now.”
me: “10 x 0 = 0”
So I got a phone call today from an Italian number…I don’t normally answer these, but I had a colleague close to me (for translation purposes), and I picked up. I normally assume it’s Vodafone just calling to try and sell me on something. It was my Italian teacher (Maria…something)…(I didn’t ask my colleague to translate…I handled it all by myself).
Maria: “Joseph…blah blah blah…Maria…scuola…blah blah…”
Translation: Joseph…it’s Maria..where the fuck are you!?!
Translation of the Translation: She calls me Joseph because it’s on my passport…I’m not sure I could explain to her that only my mom calls me Joseph (and I guess one of Julia’s ex-friends called me that like 3 times in our one short conversation)…scuola is school and Maria is a tiny woman who is quite nice, but she has a tendancy to yell and pound on the desk for emphasis.
me: “not today…domani”
Translation of my response: I’ll come tomorrow because I can hear you are yelling at me and probably pounding on something as you’re talking.
Maria: “Buono! blah blah blah…d’accordo?”
me: “d’accordo”. Bueno sera!
Translation of that part of the conversation:
Maria: Good! If you don’t come tomorrow I’m going to kick some arse! Okey dokey?
me: Okey dokey! Have a nice day!
Apparently I’m going to class tomorrow and then to a BBQ at Leo’s…I can only hope for hamburgers 😉
Tonight I twice noticed a dog wandering the streets…it was the same dog I noticed both times and it reminded me that I’ve often seen dogs wandering the streets not as strays, but as almost people like…They stay on the sidewalks. They look both ways before crossing the streets and they always tip their waitresses (ok…nobody tips here)…but you get the point. The dogs are very well trained here. I assume these are well taken care of dogs that have owners who can’t bother leaving their place to walk the dogs. They just turn them out and trust they will be ok (and they are)…When the dogs are done they know where to go back home. I saw this once…Some dog I thought was a stray basically ignored me as it was on it’s way home…I passed it later pacing outside of a doorway that was obviously it’s home.
That’s the end of observation number 1….
OK…we have thunder and lightning again tonight…
A couple weeks ago there was a similar storm and the thunder seemed to be very different than anything I had known before…It wasn’t worthy of it’s own entry, but since I’m on the mundane I’ll mention it…
In Oregon the thunder would go for a second or two, but during this storm the other night the thunder would go continuously for many many seconds…and it seemed to basically go out of hearing distance…which is to say it never really stopped, it just sort of moved away and faded…which is to say it would start loudly and move for 10 seconds away from me…It never stopped it just faded from earshot.
How boring is that?
Tune in tomorrow when I come up with something stupid to move this entry down…
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