Joe's Blög

Busy weekend I think…tomorrow going to the Comics and animation fest in Lucca (with a probably sleepover at Matteo’s) and then to Florence on Sunday for halloween (party at some hostel “filled with American girls”). Followed be a sleepover at Leo’s.
Nevermind that I don’t find american girls at hostels interesting…and I suppose they feel the same about me…

I’ll have a go anyways…Back here on Monday or Tuesday…

Monday is a holiday…November 1…Day of the dead (I think  it’s called). I guess it’s another Catholic thing…When I was still in Portland I had a Mexican colleague and he told me that it was a day of remembering your ancestors. The families all go to the graves of the dead ones and pretty much throw a party…food…drinks…candles…memories…etc…etc…etc…et al.
I have noone to celebrate, but if I wander upon a cemetary I’ll stop in…I am fond of cemetaries.
I will have both cameras with me (I was told that at the comic fest there will be lots of pictures to be had)…cemetery pics are probably more exciting, but time will tell

On a completely unrelated note…
I found this interesting: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=1
but it’s a topic I like to follow…

I don’t really have the energy of focus to tie this into the “internet kill switch” (which may or may not have anything to do with national security) and then to even further tie this into a joke about americans who are oblivious to important issues (such as the link, or terrorism, or climate change, or hypocrisy) until something critical happens at which point said americans would find a way to assign blame to someone “else”…These are the same people who blame our fine President Obama for the economy but it has never even crossed their mind that they should blame Bush for 2001…

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I got a flat on my vespa today…really hard to drive with a flat…It happened about 100 meters from the office parking lot and it was quite a struggle to get it even close…the back tire wouldn’t turn so much as I was trying to push. I got it close and decided to park it and go for help…somehow I got it.
I was just hoping for some help getting it across the street and into the parking lot, but a colleague saw us and stopped. We changed the tire on the sidewalk and then I got it to the parking lot…by the time I left for the day the spare tire was flat…So I borrowed a car (I hate driving a car in Italy!) and took the tire to the Vespa dude where he swapped out the tube (I didn’t realized the tire was tubed)…How old skool is that?

Finally made it home, but it’s late…

Here’s some stolen pics from Matt, Jeff and Bergers trip here last August…These are all Monterosso except the two at the train station…That’s Carrara…they are slowly shrinking the mountain to get marble for the sidewalks here (and rich people abroad).

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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″

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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

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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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So I talked some colleagues into a poker game. I didn’t even have to host (tho I guess in the last week I’ve had 2 dinner parties and hosted a movie night at mine – that’s too much activity).
Anyways Daniele cooked some polenta and cuttlefish. Those were both basically a first for me (I had tested cuttlefish once). The polenta reminded me of malt-o-meal. It was quite good. I guess you boil down some corn and add corn flour or something (yeah I’m realizing that I’m probably the worst cook in Italy). Cuttlefish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish) is some weird invertebrate fishy thing…

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A long few months ago (huh) someone sent me a link to a similar video as this…the first one isn’t viewable, but this is some nice technology so I just made a new one (vain!)…anyways, it’s a giggle…

if the embedding isn’t working try this link…http://en.tackfilm2.se/?id=1287595887268ID66

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I don’t think I’ve ever had chestnuts, but I did last night. I made the witty observation that in the States they would be covered in brown sugar, cream, ice cream, chocolate and pie…
It was a monumental moment and probably worth a picture…

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I’m not sure why I never really noticed this before (I haven’t been the the UK in a while tho. That may be it), but the brits are really polite. Almost annoyingly so. They’re very fond of Please and thank yous.
For example if you’re in a store they will ask for (example) 10 pounds please. Thank you. When you hand them money they say thank you a second time, and then again when they give you change. It’s disconcerting.

But also when they’re giving you bad news they’re so sincere. In the states you might hear some canned response like “Thank you for choosing Wal-Mart” or some such shit…and you know it’s just fakery and they don’t mean it, but in england it doesn’t matter what they’re saying – I just want to believe them cuz they’re saying it so nicely.
“I’m sorry, but we had to put your children down because they were a nuisance”. I’m so sorry. Thank you
Or
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to have sex with you”.

Just two random examples, but ya gotta love the brits

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