I heard someone playing music on their cellphone today, and I was transported back to the S-Bahn. I thought I was in Frankfurt again…The trend has thus far been absent my italian life…I hope it was a fluke.
Funny when a sound transports you to another time and place!
I saw this on facebook…I don’t know who took it, so my apologies, but it makes me giggle.
ok…Is it really Tuesday? It feels like a Friday cuz I’m happy and lots has happened.
I’m looking at one more flat on Thursday after work. I’ve found one place I really like, but if this place on Thursday is better then I’ll try to get it. Otherwise I’ve settled on one of the ones I looked at Saturday.
This is a big relief. I hope to have it all sorted before I leave for the states (gads…week and a half)…
…and for anyone hoping to rob my place while I’m gone…I’ve decided I don’t trust you and will remove all banking records and anything of value, so don’t bother…
Plus there will be booby traps and such! So…don’t bother….but if you do come watch out for the snakes, scorpions and cockroaches!
OK, past couple weeks I finished that Che book I talked about before. It got much better after the revolution. It was quite good.
Also have read “Ham on Rye” by Bukowski. Fantastic! Much better than “Pulp”.
Now I’m reading “Ghosts of Cannae” by Robert O’Cconnel. About Hannibal the Carthaginian in the good old days. Good read.
Remember how I was complaining about the lack of exposition in the Che book…Well this has lots of exposition. Maybe a bit much, but to be honest I’ve not read much (if anything) on pre BCE Rome, so it’s all new to me. It’s actually a good read.
Not enough maps!!!!
There’s my one complaint!
US plans are coming together nicely. Fly to Seattle. Meet Matt, 2,0 and Carly (Matt’s sister who I met in Frankfurt a few years ago) for a few days. Eric (2,0) pisses off on Monday. Then the rest of us go to Vancouver for a day or two. Carly pisses off to Sydney, then it’s just Matt and I on a road down to Oregon (Portland, Salem, and Coos Bay) then points south…Probably including SF, Reno, Bodie NV, and then back North. Probably stopping again in Oregon before flying back out from Seattle…
I’m a bit stressed about the Oregon times, cuz there’s too many people to see…ack! 😀
I heard on a podcast today that there is now software that analyses twitter feeds (and I suppose it does or will analyse all sorts of other human generated data) to get the mood of “the people†(consumer confidence) and then uses that information to make investments…from my understanding it just reads keywords (positive or negative) that aren’t even related to anything having to do with investment.
i.e:
my friend lost his job.
I really hate the weather today.
I really like the new album/movie/tv show etc
That’s awesome!
I suppose it’s only a matter of time before there’s a mutual fund that is completely managed by software. Thus taking the irrationality out of markets and disemploying a bunch of wanker bankers…
I see a reality TV show here…
Find an apartment in a country where you don’t speak the language is a pain.
My colleagues are really helpful. I sorta feel bad. They are treating me like a little brother or something. Really super nice!
Viva italia!
I’ve seen 3 places so far. Only one I really like and they want 6 months deposit, plus one month agency fee. I can’t pay 4,000 euros up front. That’s ridiculous. However I don’t really want to just settle. I want a nice place.
Appointment to see 2 more places tomorrow. Both are promising.
I was chatting with some colleagues about r/c stuff today (one for an r/c helicopter). I was telling them about all my and my dad’s r/c stuff – 6 months building, 10 minutes crashing ;).
Most of my memories have to do with crashing the planes :)Â Feeling nostalgic!
I remembered the other day how a terrorism analyst said something a few weeks ago like Al Qaeda will not attack on 11.Sep. They will observe any stepped up security measures, and use that knowledge to plan their next attack.
Now the Palestinian statehood vote looms, and  we all expect america to botch this vote again. Here is Obama playing politics by not voting “Yea”.
Anyway, you know where many american lefties/progressives/communists stand on the issue; displacing one group of oppressed peoples to give something to another group of oppressed peoples isn’t really fair – I can only trust that the republicans were shouting socialism in 1948 😉
But I’m trying to tie this in by pointing out that I’m flying through New York. It was my only option. It’s the only direct international flight from Pisa.
connect dots…I hope there’s no attempt at retaliation after the statehood vote is vetoed by the north americans.
and some nice quotes in this article:
http://www.salon.com/news/global_post/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/09/22/france_america_palestine
“Listen to the cry of the youth in the Arab Spring,” Sarkozy said. “They shouted, ‘Long live liberty!’ They didn’t shout, ‘Down with Israel!'” Sarkozy added, “You cannot stand still while the wind of freedom and democracy blows through your region.”
AND
“Israel has been the only democracy in the Middle East, and yet it has tried to solve the conflict with the Palestinians by oppression, has responded to terror with injustice.” It concludes, “There are reasons to vote out of solidarity with Israel against recognition of Palestine. But the Israelis have to realize how high the price is to deny a people something they deserve.”
Do I need to talk about my porn’n’chicken foreign policy plans 😉
I was told last night that I do the greatest Stephen Hawking impression ever…errr…I’m not sure if I can be proud of that one or not 🙂
On a completely unrelated note, I watched Season 1 of “Extras” again on Sunday. What a show! I’m thinking of one of the stupid questions that the girl always comes up with…Would you rather have your body and the brain of a chimp or the body of a chimp with your brain?
Those last two paragraphs are not related…at all!!!
I guess this weekend I traded staying in cuz it’s too hot (all summer) for staying in cuz it’s too rainy..it rained pretty hard on Sunday. I’m complaining about it.
Three times in the past week I’ve had “dinner” at Aisha. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but you have  a drink after work and the Italian pubs give you food. For someone who doesn’t cook the pub food is enough for dinner.
…homeless in Italy could be good.
So I read a LOT lately…I haven’t been keeping up here….So my recent reading list…This is about 6 weeks worth I guess.
Title – Author
Pulp – Bukowski
South of the Border, West of the Son – Murakami
Absurdistan – Gary Shteyngart
Zombie Capitalism: Global crisis and the relevance of Marx – Chris Harman
Hotel Iris – Yoko Ogawa
Complicity against Palastine – Various
All pretty good. My favourite was the economics book. Bukowski was great! I’m currently reading The Story of Che Guevara by Lucìa Àlvarez de Toledo which I find a bit flat (tho in the intro she seems to say that because she’s Argentinian she’s more qualified to write about Che…whatever!!!!)…It’s like a bad american TV show (say CSI or whatever)…This happened…then this happened…then this happened…Just a bit of a boring narrative. I need more exposition or something…Nothing in this book is really making me think.
Hopefully by the time I get to the states I can spout my reading list and get some yank to spit on me whilst calling me a liberal, upper-class, elitist, big city, tree hugging, peace mongering, piece of bollocks…Most of which will be at least marginally untrue…at a minimum open to interpretation and even discussion (cept for wankers!!!).
On an unrelated note I’m really really enjoying a podcast “all songs considered”. It’s basically a bunch of music geeks sitting around and talking about music. Some concerts, some interviews etc. They tend towards indie stuff, but I’m still finding lots of new bands that I need to hear more of!
If you’re interested I think you can either google it or if you have iTunes you can go to the podcast directory and search there…Good stuff!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noam-chomsky/was-there-an-alternative-_b_950216.html?ir=Yahoo
Unfortunately there are just a few shows in english on TV here…even more unfortunately the one that seems to be on every night is CSI Miami…I’ve just watched 3/4 of an episode and it’s awful…The red haired guy (who used to be on NYPD blue right???) is frickin awful…Go act in a Roger Corman movie or something…you annoy me and I want those 40 minutes back…
Proudly powered by WordPress
Theme: Esquire by Matthew Buchanan.