freedom of choice

Between 10 and 13 years old, a nice and grumpy teacher made us pupils go read some various stories, write an essay on them and adding a special session, the "moral taught". It was weird and utterly adult-esque trying and imagining Joda-like sentences ("this teaches us how to behave in a situation of panic" I remember writing on a story I read, and for which i received a pretty good mark) but in the end it wasn't that bad (I imagine everybody in the class survived the experience)

so, this is my essay on a story and the "moral taught" will follow:

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premise
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"my parents remember that my choice of icecream flavours was always different, and that I liked to try different combination all the times. This mix-and-match attitude was brought on lately in other aspects, like the variation of deodorants I owned, the shirts, and other things (note of the author: I got severely punished because I couldn't get rid of the "etc" after a list of elements, as in "I like apple, oranges, etc", and they made write hundreds of times on my note-book 'I will not write again etc')."

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story
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"When I first saw a penguin with a couple of floppy-disks attached I couldn't resist: I had to try something called "linux" on my computer. That was an old windows95 pc, and I hated it. I wanted to escape its limitations. The instructions on how to install linux on a machine already holding windows were clear, I think, but with my pioneeristic attitude I broke some ten times the machine which my whole family used happily. They hated me for that. Those were their documents: I always tried to push the argument, yes, but with the new linux you will be happier! I had this vision of happiness: a happy family is a linux family! In the end I made it also a research topic in the university, but this will be explained in another story (and another moral)
That situation was unbearable: a single pc wasn't enough. So I bought myself a laptop and started my experiments, nobody knows what damages i created to myself (would you like to talk about your thesis document, and how it got evaporated in an attempt to "try some interesting commands"? No, thanks), so you will not know. Something was still not ok: I always has a safety net: whenever I wasn't able to achieve my objectives with linux, windows was an (unwanted) cure.
When I visited my friend Gregorio in Spain I remember thinking: now I will only use linux, so i will erase everything of windows and have no other choice... That was it, from then on I never touched windows again"

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Moral taught
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this story teaches us that, as long as you have many options, you are not a real linux user

idiotheque

I have very silly habits, and I'm sure im not the only one

like summing up numbers on every car's plate
like listing the 10 best songs ever
lately, like seeing resemblance everywhere

that girl looks like my sister
this man looks like a badger
that politician resembles a friend (who looks like a camel)
and the such

i know that many other people do the same, someone told me for sure I was similar to Hugh Grant. Well the exact words were: you are better than Hugh Grant. I assume the amount of alcohol plays a role here

Even if this resemblance thing is old and silly, I wonder: how many can testify two "similar" people who have "similar characters"?? I did, and after a lot of harrassing I got a photo from them

gianni this is patrick
patrick this is gianni