neuro-surgery

proper technique

2008-06-13T15:10:00.003+01:00

Alessio wailed and screamed on the bus no.59. He was tired and over-heated. I was tired and scared, because I was alone with him.

A grumpy old lady felt the urge to tell me that my dummy technique was not effective nor appropriate. Like I should care

We got off the bus at the next stop

captatio benevolentiae

2008-06-11T14:57:00.002+01:00

"A process is suspended when someone hangs their computer out of a tall building..?"

in a simple world...

2008-06-07T17:15:00.002+01:00

... credentials would be believed

you gotta fight for your rights

2008-03-12T16:44:00.001Z

waiting for april 08...

2007-11-02T18:53:00.001Z

life as a fake plastic tree

2007-10-10T22:30:00.001+01:00

afterall, life it is an easy matter

it's the revelation at 2:31 of a video

cheapee

2007-08-31T18:58:00.000+01:00

(it is always advisable to have a plastic bottle when walking in london)

my browser's on fire

2007-07-30T18:40:00.000+01:00

applause please

2007-07-29T10:26:00.001+01:00

with these multi-billionaires, you never know if you should laugh or what

gimme my money

2007-07-05T17:22:00.001+01:00

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

the flood from their point of view

2007-06-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

The central part of the UK has been lately flooded and under so much rain.

That also means that swans in the Brayford pool, in Lincoln, cannot cross underneath the bridge, but instead wait for the level to go down...

Some meters away, people are waiting for the train to pass, and the rail-bar to go up...

computing and nutters

2007-06-25T09:42:00.001+01:00

I knew there was something mental in what computing teachers do

eureka

2007-04-25T00:53:00.000+01:00

There are days where life spins you around and doesn't make sense at all

Other days when you only have to go back to sleep, because figuring out what's going on is impossible

Others when you start drawing connections among the events, believing that where you are is actually a result of a relatively logical sequence of related events

...like Bono sings: "some days are better than others"

-----

But I am sure that I am not only one who...

...somedays believes that life makes a perfect sense, the (in)famous "meaning of life" becomes obvious, even too much and too soon, left with the feeling that you get the whole picture of what you are supposed to do

I have this recurrent feeling these days

that life is somehow a check-list of proverbs
you swim through events
and you check-in the proverb that you experienced on that event

for instance

today I checked-in (and fully understood) the saying

"Still waters run deep"

what have I done?

2007-03-28T18:06:00.000+01:00

Despite living in UK for a while now, the drinking attitude never made it for me.
Happy, yes. Euphoric, yes. But I have to admit never loosing the control completely.

Just once in my life I experienced the "dark side" of alcohol: pretty awful state, and not just laughing or being depressed or such. What I do remember is that the morning after I didn't remember anything. I was up and working as usual. When I saw Ilaria, who reminded me about my performance, small pieces of a memory puzzle started fitting together, and I clearly remember thinking: "Oh gosh, what have I done?"

The movie Hidden from Michael Haneke gave me this type of feeling: for once, the director is not imposing his or her visions, or finale, on the story. In the end, you are left rummaging on the scenes just seen, with a vague sense of "that's useless cinema".

But then all the pieces start falling into place and you're left with a:

" oh my"

"what have I just...."

...

"seen?"

ongoing quest

2007-03-13T17:01:00.000Z

Everyone with an uncommon name and/or surname knows this: when you're young, naive pupils make horrible jokes about assonances (i remember myself in the first grade making fun of a friend called maffiotto, of course associating it with the infamous southern italian respected families), and parents sometimes do not help in the choice (having a surname "Impalato", Empaled, the choice of "Crocifisso", Crucifixed, is not ideal: all true...)

I remember in the past being called many many different surnames, the best being Scialuppi, or the more updated Cappuccino, but I wasn't that pissed with my first name. That fitted quite ok, overall.

This before coming to the UK. Andrea is lately a joke to me: when i claim this as a male name, people giggle and look somewhere else; still it is one of the most common names in Italy!

Today I just found out that I'm not alone in this misunderstanding. Ordes of very italian, very masculine "Michele", stay put: your name here is meant to be for a Miss, a Mrs, or more gently a Ms.

my 2 cents

2007-02-28T16:48:00.000Z

Global warming is an issue. Big issue. Both if you're considering it from a positivistic side ("yes! let's save our planet!") and if you're deemed by your worst pessimistic nature ("i didn't use my car in the last 3 years, what has changed in the world since then?")

here's my two cents for what is's worth:

1) cars, plane, trains, buses and all the vehicles should have a dynamo converter, using the pedals of passengers to gather energy and saving fuel. A discount should be applied to the fastest cyclers, who are contributing more to the accumulation of energy. Just imagining work commuters panting in the metro makes me eager to patent this idea. And no more hitch-hikers left behind!

2) differentiating rubbish here is (nearly) useless: you separate paper from glass from cans from plastics from all the rest, put it outside, and later the collectors throw everything in the same bin (they say "we will differentiate later"). There are tools available to make you own "homemade paper", based on recycled paper. PaperChase sells is, still at some astonishing price. I'd say: diffuse a converter per each family, and let them use their newspapers to create recycled toilet paper. Extra-fun when it comes to your most hated politician... And no more wasted paper pulp!

3) where we live I can "see" some 15 wireless networks, of course all of them encrypted and secure. A better approach would be: I use it when I use it, you can use it when I don't use it. Very similar to the SETI@home project (have you got extra CPU cycles on your pc? donate them to track extra-terrestrial radio messages!)

we will never be fing rock stars, but you know what? we don't give a fing sh*t

2007-02-18T17:49:00.001Z

the wrens @ ULU, london

translation lost

2006-12-07T17:51:00.000Z

when you speak in italian and you add some english words is like showing off:
"guarda, sono appena stato a un briefing"

sometimes it is simply, plain stupid:
"arrivo or ora da una sessione di inside trading"

If I had to show off in italian, I'd say: "L'altra sera ho visto i tool", and I'd get some appreciation for the ultra-metal band. But saying "yesterday i went to see the tool" is making sense only for a subset of people here, the others maybe thinking about some naughty erotic show.
Only when you're in an english-speaking country, you get to realise how silly some band-names are:

- city names: Berlin, Boston, Turin Brakes, Chicago, ... If i called my group "poirino" nobody would come and see me

- animal related: Animals, Bug, Cows, Cranes, Eels (what about "The Passero Solitario"?)

- my favourite category, objects: Cake, Can, Tool, Helmet, Alarm, Coil, Cream, Doors, Elbow, Shoes, Sky, Smile, Smog (wjat about "saracinesca" or the already existing "cerchi in lega"?)

- the out-of-context category: A House, All, The Band, Cleaners From Venus, Dinner Is Ruined, Handsome

any others?

i'm going down down down...

2006-11-28T15:28:00.000Z

The latest italian elections were a real treat for ilaria and me.
We went off to Turin for voting properly, and we had the time of our lives following the exit poll projections with bated breathe.. personally I stayed up to 3 in the morning to have an idea of what was going on

Lately, a dvd is raising new questions, and they are heavy questions: what if the "sacred" right to vote, this taboo, was violated? What if my ballot was just a fake? What if the "almost draw" of Berlusconi and Prodi was driven by some external force?

For italian-speakers, this is the link

There are theories.
There are believers.
There are faiths and assumptions.
There are parties, political convictions.

I am an engineer, first and foremost, and I like data, as a matter of fact. And when I see something like this (projections of the votes for the Parliament through exit polls, during the day):

or, better, something like this (votes for the Senate):

i would love to be a statistician and claim that these curves were never seen in any elections. Never.

Pity I'm not a statistician

Five years on the run

2006-11-24T16:59:00.000Z

my first academic paper has been accepted at the 2nd workshop on open source software in 2002. I remember vividly the sensations of flying to Florida and meet the legendary people I knew from their papers, the astonishment of hearing his presentation and thinking "oh gawd... THAT is sound...", and especially a long talk with Donald K. Rosenberg. The idea of speaking with him, his involvement in the discussion, and his book as a gift are among the best momories of that conference.

Five years later.

Another life.

During ICSE 2007, Grex and I will take over the workshop and run it ourselves.

Ok, it's only a workshop. But we will run it.

inevitable transition

2006-11-21T09:53:00.000Z

Some lecturers believe this.

"Students represent the lecturer's greatest reward and heaviest burden. Some students can be both at the same time. There can be few more gratifying experiences than to instill a life-long love of learning into another human soul, or to hone a blunt, dull-edged mind into an analytical instrument of surgical precision. Most lecturers experience this once or twice in their careers. For the rest of the time, we take averagely bright individuals with modest critical faculties, and do what we can to turn them into averagely bright, but well-educated, individuals with some notion of independent thought"

"We all knew that students were incapable of mature judgement, and were as likely to rate a lecturer highly because he had an interesting haircut as by the quality of his teaching. So, clearly, students' opinions were irrelevant. "

"A lecturer's recognition by his students is irrelevant because students' opinions are held to be worthless. What matters is recognition by other lecturers. This means that status is tied to research activity above all else, as it is something that other lecturers can relate to. No lecturer increases his status by being a renowned teacher."

I believe that the biggest challenge for lecturers is not to forget how they felt like when they were students.

socialism without frontiers

2006-11-11T13:03:00.000Z

living in england without being english is not easy.
As it's not easy to live anywhere away from your homeland.
Communication problems lead to a lack of socialisation, and you typically end up in composite groups of international friends (if you're lucky), or within people of JUST your own nation (if you're lazy - or unlucky - but mostly lazy).

Yesterday a colleague told me "mate, i feel so much better since we play football".
Take any children, give them a ball, and they will start kicking it. Communication is not an issue (apart from "meeeee! meeeeeeee! passsss meeee the baaaaaalllll!").

Corporate football sucks. Amateur football joins nations (especially when your nation wins the world cup)

in-between

2006-10-27T14:28:00.000+01:00

Cheap flights come with cheap magazines which drive your attention away from the perception that you're some kilometers up in the sky inside a tin cilinder.

Cheap magazines contain useless stories, cheap humour and barbershop-like gossip. These days, cheap flights come with small biographies of famous enterpreneurs, to make you feel like a negligent piece of crap who is still flying on a 43cm long seat instead of any luxurious business class seats.

Cheap magazines tell you ambivalent stories. And they stay in-between like many other things in our recent culture. Nothing is black, nothing is white. Only countless shades of grey. This behaviour is cool; but its opposite is cool too. Felix Dennis is the founder of the man magazine Maxim and other needful ones. He founded a magazine of Kung-Fu in the 70's to cash out from the death of Bruce Lee. And he claimed in the cheap magazine that he spent some hundred thousands pounds in drugs, parties and whores in a year. That team work is for losers. Only tigers survive. And the predictable amount of "my dick is bigger than yours".

Everybody should be responsible for his/her own actions. I don't want to stay in-between anymore. Felix Dennis attitude revolts me. The attitude of sitting back silently revolts me more. Someone in the world is scaring people with the winner ideology for the masses. Scared people must reject this ideology: cheap magazines journalists should stand up and say to Felix Dennis: "what you just said will be with you always, when you will be sick and old and alone"

love and hate

2006-10-07T09:35:00.000+01:00

three moments when teaching is frustrating
- you enter in a classroom where the air is hot and thick, and you are sure everyone will be sleeping
- you see someone really sleeping
- your mouth is dry and you forgot to take water with you and the words come out like small bricks

three moments when teaching is gorgeous:
- you think "now it would be nice someone took notes" and they actually take notes of what you say
- you are approached by students after the lecture, explain once again, and they tell you "smashing"
- you see someone in the audience with a TOOL t-shirt (this single reason is stronger than the three weak points)

sabbatical

2006-10-01T10:34:00.000+01:00

recent heard conversation
"He was a great man"
"Indeed"
"But I think I would have not survived the experience"
"What do you mean?"
"I would have killed myself instead"

Not only they did a remake of the first superman movie.
Not only they chose a similar actor.
Not only they painted his face to make his look more resemblant.

In the movie, which i didn't see, he's supposed to justify himself for not being around on the Twin Towers airplane crash.

He was having a sabbatical 5 years on the Krypton planet.

Now it's clear why Zidane could do the headbutt.

sleepy songs

2006-09-20T18:04:00.000+01:00

if you could choose to hear - live - one specific, whole record of a band you have liked a lot in the past, which one would you pick?
Personally, I would like to listen to "achtung baby" from U2, "born to run" by springsteen, "daydream nation" from sonic youth, "oK computer" from radiohead, ... and so many others

But I didn't understand why, at the barbican, in London, Tindersticks played the [untitled 2] album entirely, having released better records before ("untitled I") and after ("curtains") that one

The tone was slow and dense, and the audience responded quite well (people sitting below and beside us were only awakened by the overloaded applauses after each song) and I couldn't understand why and if U2 could ever play all together the zooropa record

But then I thought of how difficult is to have on stage all the instruments to reproduce live a whole record. Still on other records they use pretty much the same stuff

But then I thought that they may have liked that record more than others. Still after playing it all, they started playing something more cheerful from other records

But then I thought whatever, they are tindersticks!. Still i paid 28 quid for it

But then I thought the venue was fantastic. Still we were sitting, probably in the farmost chairs from the stage.

This series of concerts is called "don't look back".
So tindersticks, please, follow this rule because maybe it's me running after you, claiming my money back

missing genes - 2

2006-09-13T16:11:00.000+01:00

I think that I miss the genes for getting into the Fabric of London

probably I would need some weeks to understand how I should get dressed

sense of

2006-08-19T10:40:00.000+01:00

i coulnd't update this blog from japan, it would have been a shame to loose time connecting too much on the internet

but this new toy made me remember some of our impressions about where we stayed in Japan. When we got to Tokyo, we didn't have any accomodation yet, so we decided to give a try to the "love hotels", las-vegas, rococo-like and cheap accomodation designed for "rest" (up to three hours) or "stay" (the whole night). What you saw entering the room was a bunch of stereotyped erotic gadgets in a cleanest, zero-windowed cube, soft music, fluorescent lights to make your teeth shine (well, that's what we got from it really :-(, coloured yakuzi, porn dvd on the player, porno channels, and the dream-of-a-life: a tin box with ropes and hook to emulate your manga heroes...! Come on Mazinga!

The playful and idioteque look of it stuck in my mind for a while, but later it changed to something dirty, pervert and utterly wrong, girls exiting/entering the places with clients, the dull mornings in a sex-obsessed city and an unfortunate reading , occidental tourists being accompained in sex tours by japanese guides, where they shouldn't be allowed to enter, girls' favours sold by their schoolmates.
That's the one, real aspect that I disliked of Japan, this "sense of", which you can't even mention in words, because it's already gone, Ilaria's bottom and cleveage being stared continually and obsessively, commuters watching naked girls on magazines sitting beside impenetrable women, everywhere impenetrable faces under which

this sex ipod to me is childish-ness exposed

beside i'd like to try some speed metal or death-metal on it

cool brain

2006-07-28T07:55:00.000+01:00

time for vacation
time for cooling my brain off
time for something easy, brainless easy
time for shortest-term plans (I'm hot. Shower. Ohhh)
time for "it hurts to see you dance so well" from The Pipettes, nomination for the best song title ot the year

the next post will be from japan

time and flow

2006-07-18T19:13:00.000+01:00

i could program for hours when i'm in the flow...

this limb-like state which everyone experiences also in movies/theatres/books, I'm quite happy it's an important part of my work also

my recipe is:
- discard the time applet on the laptop
- avoid reading emails
- plugging the music of underworld/tape/lithops/motorpsycho

I read of an autistic guy who could memorise 22,500 number of the pi, and declaim them as in a prayer, he said. He felt like paiting on a canvas a scenery of immense colours and flashing lights, but to me the best part is imagining his state of flow in that hours

i'm english and I'm proud of it

2006-07-13T11:30:00.000+01:00

p.s. sorry for the cheap humour
p.p.s thx to ilaria for the picture...
p.p.p.s. thx to the mysterious girl leaving that beautiful trace on our tracks!

useless zodiac

2006-07-05T11:55:00.000+01:00

i think all the italians seeing Germany vs Italy have baby-cried at the end of the match: it's something in our genoma, italy and football is like Uk and beatles, you have one (or many) modified genes

my theory today is about zodiac: planets move and influence your life, the closer the better. So, since 60,000 fans were supporting Germany last night, their hopes were influencing the games. Ther hopes were useless. Hence zodiac is useless!

Come on Italy let's make it magic!

have you seen this man? - 2nd edition

2006-07-04T15:51:00.000+01:00

this man is hostage of Lincoln (or, as they say, "Lincon") City
we will release him shortly, but only if Italy wins tonight (or when he'll reveal how he can type that fast)

embarassing embarrassment

2006-06-28T21:31:00.000+01:00

one of the beauties of the work i do is going for conferences. I am at one at the moment. For privacy (and some other reasons), can't tell where...

I remember having big problems for introducing myself and speaking with strangers at conferences when i was younger. But that's also caused by some professors, who treat PhD students at conferences a bit worse than their socks after a long walk. Now the bits of conferences which I prefer is knowing new people. Sometimes it's ok, and you find someone to do some nice smalltalk (where you can use the jokes you have been testing with your students); some other times it gets very lucky, and you find someone with the same interests as yours. That's not only nice, it also gives sort of an excuse to get along with your research ("i'm not the only one wasting my time on this stuff")

I remember the PhD general-tutor in my former job, listing a number of errors to be absolutely avoided when going to conferences:
1) do not walk in groups with your PhD buddies everywhere
2) practise your 5-words statement to introduce yourself, and be captivating!
3) do not tell obscene jokes when approaching a magnus professor
4) avoid having sex with any of the conference attendees
and others

To these wise advices I would add the following:
"never run like hell out from the train to reach the conference in a haste"
"avoid to sweat massively after that"
"for goat's sake, never share the lift with other attendees in those conditions"
"if you do, complain that the lift has a strange smell and that they didn't clean it properly"
"in doing so, do not raise your arms"

if thee hath done that, do not complain if approaching people you will feel like Moses and the splitted waters of the red sea

wrong sequence

2006-06-25T09:24:00.000+01:00

Lukas Moodysson is a very brave director: he first created a number of devoted fans all around the world with three (fucking amal, Tillsammans ("Together"), and Lilya 4-Ever) beautifully crafted movies, and finally spat in the eyes of each single of them with his latest movie (Hål i mitt hjärta, Ett ("A Hole in My Heart"))

I saw an interview with the director, where he said that when you are in such a position to be able to speak to many people, you should say something important. Like in the Oscars' night, when you get a prize you shouldn't just stand and thank your mum, say something for real

"a hole in my heart" is a disturbing movie, i like to think that the director was so deeply impressed by a certain sequence of "lilya 4-ever", that he created a whole new movie digging in the hole that sequence created in his soul. It's a moral baptism, where all sins are washed away in the latest scenes. I was not impressed with the movie, but yesterday, due to the absence of ilaria, i made an experiment. I played first "a hole in my heart", and next "tillsammans", to see if that made more sense as a sequence. I found out that yes. The newest movie looks like conceived by a young anarchist, with all his dreams and hopes and confusion and anger shaped up in a nasty black hole, the only redemption being keeping your eyes wide open and watch. "Tillsammans" made me think of a director building around his peace of mind, rather than trying to cope with a psychosis.

And I wondered: how many directors or artists can claim a "reverse order" in the power of their works?
Also, playing that sequence, I really hoped that his ghosts did evanesce after opening up the hole in his heart

my tube

2006-06-22T13:45:00.000+01:00

i like questionnaires, especially when they ask you to rate your opinions, like in "strongly agree", "mild agree" or "mmm i agree but i would rather ask my wife first". Some of them nowadays are about how long you spend on the internet, but mainly about what you are interested in, when surfing among pages. Typically you can find these answers:
1) Newsgroups
2) Chatting
3) Sending email
4) Information-seeking

Questionnaires are made to extract patterns, so choices are restricted. Therefore you will never find this option, which I add as the most dangerous one:
5) Losing time

there's dozens of choices to loose your time, instead of sending boring emails, or reading about people buying viagra on internet and then finding themselves small as berlusconi.
Since blogging is mostly sharing, here's my shared catch of today for loosing valuable time: http://www.youtube.com/. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of videos, made by amateurs for everybody to see their compositions. My second catch of today is: how many will never have a TV again? or prefer to download free music/videos/amateur football/amateur theatre, instead of the bloated, commercial ones?

I don't mind loosing the latest episode of X-Men on widescreen if i can see four folks preparing and smoking the largest joint ever (40 gr!!!). A video or two after lunch are even better than coffee and cigarette!!

be my driver

2006-06-21T18:41:00.000+01:00

looking for the definition, the term "generalisation" (or its yankee counterpart, "generalization") is termed here as follows:

Noun 1. generalization - the process of formulating general concepts by abstracting common properties of instances

i love generalisations, like "all faculty meetings are boring", or "all socks stink after some running" or even "you are really a man, you always generalise" and the such. Generalisations ("gen" in the following) help cleaning your mind, and provide fewer things to carry with boring details. My previous tutor is a great generaliser, and I guess his ability in writing academic papers is his focus on simplicity and how to give the big picture quickly

Lately I found this article, that reports on some outspoken attack by a Sun (the eXtreme magaZine) journalist claiming he would shoot in the face bus drivers, because they are "little Hitler bastards". He claimed that bus drivers never let go cars first... But something else which happens quite a lot in London is that bus drivers never open the doors when they are any centimeters away from their stop, they shout at you if you don't sit properly, they shout at you if you are eating mentos on the bus, and in general, they shout at you. Bus drivers do not open the doors even if the passengers are waving correctly, in the correct position, with the right amount of waves and everything. They simply vroooom away. So, my generalisation is "London bus drivers are mad".

In the movie "Wings of Desire" by wenders, two angels speak about the nice things they see about humans, how many wonderful small and big actions men and women do along their days: so my counter-generalisation was this amazing London bus-driver (angel?) who picked me from the bus after waiting for me who came running, asking me if I was ok, where I was going, letting cars pass with a smile, waving at his colleagues on other buses, letting an old lady jump on the bus to cross a dangerous junction, and smiling, smiling like only africans can

masquerade

2006-06-20T09:29:00.000+01:00

blogging is like sharing secrets (well, kind of...)
i'm astonished of what people can tell when writing blogs.
Like noone could ever judge them for what they say.

Admission of a poor personality becomes a value point through comments: i read once the "set-him-free" comment pool for a guy admitting he's always watching girls ass. Always. When he's with the girlfriend. Can't imagine what's the driver for saying that thing publicly

Last sunday it was father's day in the anglo-speaking parts of the world, and along with the celebrations of "regular" dads, i found this site where people share their secrets on eventually not-so-nice dads
I was wondering what is the difference here, so is these guys trying to catch some easy compassion? But then I realised that I prefer this one better: my secret is my secret is your secret, you might say...
i give away something valuable when you don't see me

ready for the flood

2006-06-19T09:29:00.000+01:00

interesting news shows that the son of the last italian king has been convicted to prison, alligations being his involvement in mafia and prostitution

the best thing of this is what is happening as a side effect: politicians are called to testify, other politicians are allegedly involved, a whole scandal has been raised (again). Again. Always the same story: a young girl asks for favours and lays with some politician. As a result she was given a TV program for kids broadcasting tom&jerry. I remember thinking she was angelic and a bit dumb doing that program "chiiildreeeen, are you ready for the toons??", but now someone claims she was a big "porcella" (i wouldn't know how to translate that)

and once again, I would like all this system to crumble down, politics being involved with mafia, mafia being involved in casinos, casinos being involved with prostitution, and everything being symbolised in an italian town, called "Campione d'Italia" (Italian Champion) created with the pure intent to attract healthy managers and mafiosos to spend money and have some young girls as a compensation. Once again this news gives the false hope that something will finally change, there will be some wheel spinning, and as the tool sing in Aenima, "The only way to fix it is to flush it all away". I am ready for the flood, let's do it

when fact is fiction TV is reality

2006-06-13T09:25:00.000+01:00

united 93 is the movie related to the events happening on one of the four planes which allegedly were hijacked by terrorists to crash on specific targets around US. Three of them hit their targets, and the movie tries to explain what happened to the fourth one, and why it couldn't reach its final destination.

there are some theories on what could have happened on that plane, different from the original version of the facts. There are also well-documented, extensive documentaries about what could have happened in the tragic day of september 11th.

I had strong feelings on what I have seen, which make my veins tremble with anger, and useless frustration: one was getting to know, once again, that in these absurd, dehumanised, horrible cases, what you are shown is something digested and pre-processed by someone else. That isn't even censorship any more. That's managing emotions and feelings, moulding brains, building the breath of the nation into one single stream.
Also, what I experienced during the movie was something new and violent and unexpected: my brain could not filter the facts on the screen. It is for real and you can't excape that. On internet you can find all sorts of weirdo movies, hard scenes, bloody imagery, and what you are left with is some numbness, the inability to tell what's true, what's giving you emotions, what's a plot, what's made for my voyeurism. United 93 gives shape to real feelings of real people, and you can't fool yourself anymore.

I could resist and avoid to have a look at Nick Berg's humiliation. My brain refused to take that. I had to refuse some scenes of United 93 by closing my eyes. Also to avoid to throw up my lunch over my friend Fabio

singing the twilight - aka again weird habits

2006-06-07T16:54:00.000+01:00

in my career of music passionate, i listened to some hundreds albums (dont say thousandz cuz wouldnt like da RIAA to come and inspect my houze...)

my stupid stupid habit (which i'm trying to work on) is about associating people I meet with albums I've come to listen: have you ever met anybody looking like a pet shop boys album? Personally I have crystallised some friends to the "papa don't preach" period of madonna, some others to the "concert in finsbury park" by art and garfunkel, someone other to the trance-techno of underworld's "dubnobasswithmyheadman"

of course the best part is seeing whether and how these references change over time: has any marillion record ever become a nine inch nails one? i can testify one case indeed

the powder burns new album by twilight singers is what I'd like to be associated with for the next 10 years or so

think for yourself, question authority

2006-06-02T11:57:00.000+01:00

Opinions are a damnation to me: it's always possible to find someone undermining your (my) hard-earned vistas on events and things. I used to love a music magazine in my youth, where opinions were straight and in black and white, no shadows of doubts there. "This record sucks" hey, I'll never buy it! "Look out, that movie is a masterpiece", cinemas here I come! Most of all I loved a movie reviewer speaking weird technical and philosophical terms about movies: i remember the review of "dancing in the dark" by von trier, and how it made me want to see the movie and feel the same hate for the director...

But then I realised: how many movies did I skip based on bad reviews? how many more books are there which could cause a sparkle in my mind, even if everybody agrees it's crap? why do I feel frustrated if I can't appreciate "Ulisses" by Joyce and everybody says "aahhhh wonderful" instead?

and there it came: the perfect fusion of theory, opinions, historical facts and fiction, that Da Vinci Code which is turning everybody in suspicious doubters on everything religious...
what if jesus was an UFO troll? maybe we would be adoring some fake icon since too many years... what if the daughter of jesus was connected with the millennium bug? or the high heels of berlusconi? I bet each one of us would like to be among the jesus and magdalena descendants to watch the world and think "ha! THAT is something to tell friends at the pub"

beside the "american catch" that the whole operation is having, I am amazed by how everyone wants to have _their_ view on the facts, maybe biased and incomplete, maybe extreme or naive. And I amazed that everything, _everything_, can be questioned

noone likes to be pushed opinions in the head and to realise it

Bad teachers create students. Good teachers awaken the teacher in you.

2006-06-01T13:58:00.000+01:00

A former colleague used to say that marking exam papers for teachers is like unloading trucks... at least you have the sensation of doing something real, like other jobs do

I spent three whole days marking papers for my new "operating Systems" course, and it was amazing: you can't predict the outcome of what you say during the course to the students. It's simply a matter of hope to believe they are really involved in what you teach.

Ilaria strongly believes that I'm a good teacher, but I much prefer thinking that I'm mostly NOT a bad teacher: _my_ models of bad teaching are the first and only ones I try to avoid. Some teachers in my youth were apparently concerned only with the best eggheads in the class, and I hated that. Some teachers patronised the class, and I hated that. Some teachers terrified the class, and I was revolted by their responsibility and how they managed it... puah

That said, the exam papers where splitted in some clusters:
- the majority was citing the book, citing my words (gosh, somebody even cited my example of a trip between Turin and London...)
- some of them wrote "highly common-sensed" sentences
- but...

...but some of them really made something out of what they learned... it was not only the concepts, the lines in a book, the boring details of the subject for them. It was engaging their brain in something new, it was trying and focusing their attention on *other* details that I wasn't even mentioning

On the question "how can you define this xxxx policy"? a student wrote "this is self-explanatory, and I won't explain it...", but oh
...after that s/he gave a long, amazing, appealing dissertation on a more open question and I was gazing the paper and I was happy

As a student, I had never been THAT clever: but, boy, it feels GREAT to have such students

freedom of choice

2006-04-27T08:09:00.000+01:00

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:

========
premise
========
"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')."

========
story
========
"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"

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

idiotheque

2006-04-04T09:52:00.000+01:00

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

my rewards these days

2006-03-29T09:33:00.000+01:00

teaching is the best job ever -- that is it
sometimes you stand there and there's

...silence...

and you understand you're doing a good job

lincoln mon amour

2006-03-23T19:08:00.000Z

After the two-year experience in Milton Keynes as a visiting researcher of the Open University (of which I'm totally, utterly proud), I recently got a permanent position at Lincoln university

Apart from the pleasure of being selected for an interview, when I first got here I have to admit that I was deeply struck by the city, and that helped me accepting the position. Its university has been lately built in front of the large pool formed by the Brayford river, and many sailing boats are parked here just steps away from the main entrance of the building. Swans and other birds find here their natural habitat: the magic thing of this place is definitely about its distance from the main city centre, which is literally 3 minutes away from the university main site.

When you hear speaking about "old England" you can safely figure it out as the Lincoln site: the main, high street is paved with cobble, the main chains of stores don't disturb too much the sight. The whole city sits at the base of a steep hill, which takes you up to the main castle and the cathedral of lincoln

I love walking in the morning or in the evenings and discover new places, spots and sights: it gives me a lot of peace. It gives me a lot of satisfaction also the idea of being able to see my house when I'm working, and back... Here some of the spots I could gather

re-election day

2006-02-23T17:52:00.000Z

Italian politics has evolved thorughout a series of boring and grey individuals, which tended to hide politics from citizens.
Maybe it's a perspective of youth, but all I remember before 1994 is a long list of ministers, coalitions, parties which didn't influence too much my life: I believe that a vast majority of young italians can't mention the progression of prime ministers up to that point.
Only two months before 1994 elections, a new party was created from scratch, and Berlusconi won its first elections. No matter of what his coalition will say, he's the one and only headmaster of the right party, everything passes through him anyway.
Berlusconi claims of having done many good things for Italy and italians. I believe he did something for me too: he pulled my attention back to politics, and as myself I believe more and more people have become interested in their country again.
Something we have learnt in these years is that politics is a complicated affair, a lot of levers to be pulled or released for this or that aim, a lot of interests to be collated together, a lot of voices to represent and many coalitions/fights/words that most of the times confuse and irritate citizens.

I am really scared now, and I mean truly scared, by how the campaign is going: many signals told that Berlusconi's government was collapsing, so the polls and statistics. But now people seemingly will not vote Prodi because he's ugly, and he's a communist, and he will eat your children. I am astonished by the violence of attacks of the right parties to him, and astonished by the marketing department of the left parties, which is saying: "errr, yes Prodi's not that beautiful, but you should see his dog", falling in these traps. Along the internet, people discuss forever about some minor-minor faults of Prodi (who's got a white soul?) and noone is smart or convincing enough to say "hey how do you like the idea of our presidente B. having survived a number of sentences through prescriptions and laws he himself created?"

Thanks presidente for making me feel an active part of Italy

life vs blog

2006-01-30T21:59:00.000Z

we are camping since a month and a half by some friends who are gently hosting our bags and dirty socks on their exclusive carpet and wooden floors. Our new/old house will be ready in some days, and since the beginning of january, family roca/montrucchio is enjoying our exclusive presence
It's mostly a nice sensation, and teaches you how not to settle down in any place, avoiding to gather objects over the years, which make you both heavy and respectable.
At the end of december I was given a position in the university of Lincoln, which i seem not to be able to speak about: too many things have changed, and we need some time to digest all these new faces, ideas, situations, streets and new paths.
Some blogs are the summaries of a person's life, i like the idea of blog as a place where accepted events are crystallised and will never be changed again

cyclic behaviours

2005-12-11T22:46:00.000Z

Tonight it will be a very long long long night: we are in the middle of an exam deadline, so our room looks like a paper industry just blown up

and of course, my wife () in these things is unbelieveable...

she fills spaces like nobobody else can do. Her skill is so mature and developed, that anyone wishing to try it out, is very welcome.

All of this is just better and better because in these occasions we typically host guests (or beggars?) to share this experience: this time a nice and handsome guy from Italy will wait up to 3:00 in the morning before being able to see the floor again...
Thanks in particular to Costa and Ninno for having shown a great maturity and wisdom cutting, pasting and trimming up to 5 in the morning, having the plane at 10... thank you guys!!!

spanish machos

2005-10-31T14:38:00.000Z

Let's see if I can provoke any of my spanish friends here...

The news about the baby born of Mr. Felipe and Mrs. Leticia came also here. I can see spanish people placing bets on the baby being male or female...

of course spanish and italian cultures are so similar: in the italian language, when you are speaking of a group of feminine subjects doing something you refer them to the feminine adjective ("quelle ragazze sono BELLE"), but as long as there is only one man in that group, you refer everybody to the masculine adjective ("Quei ragazzi sono BELLI"). Of course you still use masculine if there's one female among many men (come on, OF COURSE)

this is to say that the spanish girl is going to become a princess (oh dear) IF AND ONLY IF there will not be any other male among the descendants of Felipe&Leticia... hold your breathe anyone...

maschilism rulez!!

taxed texts

2005-10-25T10:34:00.000+01:00

The italian Senate is going to discuss some 3,000 items for defining the new Financial maneuver for 2006. Every party has the right (the duty) to propose new cuts in the costs, and of course the most relevant ones are evaluated in a common discussion among all the deputies.
These days the proposals are being evaluated for going into the discussion, so anybody can see what the deputies have proposed.

Amazing! Italy is the land of brainy people! Among others, somebody proposed to get 1 cent of an euro out of ALL sms texts, so believe it or not, to fill the horrendous gap of Italian Financial situation, everyone from 10-yrs old onwards will contribute, when writing any text... What if I send a very long text, splitted in two different texts, will it count as one or should I pay double? Maybe next time I'll send a text to somebody and write "...oh, and say hi to your friends, because I can't send too many texts". Other people who will contribute to the Italian deficit are the graffiti people: 2 euro of taxes out of every spray-can: if they want to ruin my wall, at least they should pay some taxes...

My proposal for new taxes:
1) 1 euro for having too much hair (especially on chest & shoulders), they waste our environment and are difficult to reuse
2) 2 euro for those spitting on the streets, unless they have a bag and a shovel to collect it (avoid sense of repulsion)
3) 1 euro for having mega-bass stereo on your car, 1.5 euro for blue lights under your car (avoid audio-visual waste)
4) 5 euro if you have any of the multitonal rings on your mobile (avoid feeling an idiot with your own beep-beep tone)
5) 3 euro for people overtaking others in the queue (do you want to be served faster? ok, but at least you pay)
6) 0.5 euro any 1 euro collected by beggars on the streets (they are getting my hard-earned, with a lot of sweat of my forehead money without any effort)

money for dope

2005-10-20T14:32:00.000+01:00

some days ago, one () of the nephews of Giovanni Agnelli (founder of FIAT) was recovered in an hospital for overdose. He is (was?) a brilliant manager inside of FIAT, designing T-Shirt and jumpers with the FIAT logo.
He took a cocktail of drugs, mixing them together during a party in a friend's house.
He felt in a coma, and one of the friends called an ambulance. This friend is a (relatively) well known transexual of Torino (), and other transexuals were in there.
The ambulance brought him to an hospital, not to a private clinic. Of course this news created embrace in his family, in Torino and in the whole Italy.

Of course I'm one of those people who falls for these news: even Johnny Depp admitted that he likes reading gossip newspapers when he's in the toilet

Italy is a wonderful place, anyway: why not bringing that jazz even louder? One of the most famous italian anchormen (mr Bruno Vespa) asked the father of the FIAT manager to come on a TV programme based on misfortunes of great families (kennedies, among others). Gee, maybe he could have revealed if the son was or not dressed as a woman when he was taken to the hospital.
Probably I would have watched it.

have you seen this man?

2005-10-13T15:34:00.000+01:00

two main things happened lately
first yoseph decided to have a nice three-months vacation in south-africa, after his graduation
the beauty of it is that he pretends to be working there! and somebody is paying him!!!

where are you yoseph? give us some news!! what about the plants? found anything interesting??

the second thing is that we live in london, close to russell square
we leave behind a shared house in tinkers bridge full of cats

guinea pigs

and other...

everything here is supersized compared to MiltonKeynes and massively stimulating
it's something you have to do once in your lifetime

missing genes

2005-10-11T14:21:00.000+01:00

there must be some kind of physical laws:
some people (like me) are totally unable of continuing something more than twice. Take for instance this blog. People like my friends in Spain keep a diary of every small fly that passes in front of them, i don't blame them!! they're so persuasive that you dive in your own bloch and hope to do the same
why men (like me) can't follow maps? why people like israel opensource get lost ten times inside of a campus in two months?
why women (like ilaria) can't help filling every space with something?
why men say "yes" but they're not really listening?
why women say "oh you shouldn't go there we go together! oh, do you want to go yourself? ok, so could you buy me this and that and that?"
i miss the genes for buy cappuccino e not get my tongue burnt

python is not only a language!!

2005-09-07T11:20:00.000+01:00

Declaration of Revocation
by John Cleese (monthy python)

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your
failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern
yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your
independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical
duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories.

Except Utah, which she does not fancy.

Your new Prime Minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the
97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world
outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America without the
need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any
of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown
Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Then look up "aluminium." Check the pronunciation guide. You will be
amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and
'neighbour'; skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on
your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without
skipping half the letters.

You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed'
not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g.
Edinburgh. You are welcome to re-spell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if
you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look
up "vocabulary." Using the same thirty seven words interspersed with
filler noises such as "uhh", "like", and "you know" is an unacceptable
and inefficient form of communication.

Look up "interspersed."

There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're
not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat
shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary, then you won't have
to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English." We will let Microsoft know
on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take
account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize."

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents.
It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,
upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier).

You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents ---
Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with
subtitles.

While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no
such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is
"Devon." If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States
will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to
play English characters.

British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not
be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who
can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The
Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want
you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football." There is only one kind
of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very
good game.

The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your
borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football.
You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play
proper football.

Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a
difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to
play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not
involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full
kevlar body armour like nancies).

We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005.

You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an
event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside
of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world
beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of
baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders,"
which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves,
collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no
longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public
than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible
enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a
permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new
national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive
Day."

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap, and it is for
your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what
we mean.

All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will
start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you
will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of
conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call 'French
fries' are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian
though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in
Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you
insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps." Real
chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional
accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat.

Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to
all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity
to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not
actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper
British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of
known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The
substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be
referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the
product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be
referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true
Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech
Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or "gasoline," as
you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices
with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the
former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices
(roughly $6/US gallon -- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns,
lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and
therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns
should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort
things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then
you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you
shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to
1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.

growing older...

2005-09-02T09:55:00.000+01:00

right now i see the news that policemen in Louisiana have the right of "shoot to kill", in order to avoid people jackalling houses and other poor people

...

apart from any personal appreciation of the men/women behind these decisions (blair or bush are only heads to show to people, not really the ones who do decide) my feeling is not really say "bastards! fascists!" and so on
[But yes there's also that feeling: afterall, nobody is giving you the right of "go-and-lay" with your best friend's beautiful girlfriend/boyfriend...]

i'm thinking of a friend who is on our age, and who believes that police does right to break arms, legs and whatever to citizens. That these abuses are only the answer to violence and neverending stupidity of human behaviours.
So I'm thinking of these old men who say that young people are the our hope... heheh but hey man! when you are growing older, you see your friends (and yourself????) becoming less able to distinguish your childish "fight-for-your-rights" thoughts

geeeee... what a news...

london carnival

2005-08-30T07:02:00.000+01:00

people in london know how to carnival...

notting hill has been for two days assaulted by tourists going mad and dancing in the streets, and a large square of this neighboroughood was the centre of the biggest audio-systems you've ever seen
racks of 10, 20 30 speakers tied together to get a constant drone (if you were walking at some distance) or to make your nose bleeding and your chest bumping (if you were crazy enough to get too close to any of these
locations). Children are dancing inside the trucks hosting deejay screaming on a loop "yooooooooo!!!! are you haaaappppppyyyyy????!!?!? letsSTARThereweGOOOO": one of these children was getting sick on the street for this, and the mother was upset because she couldnt dance and showup anymore (i think that there's a competition for the "nuttest mother of the carnival", and she was clearly winning)

what's also interesting though is what happens around the event, thousands of policemen/women deployed everywhere, helicopters high in the sky, and of course fights in the streets after dozens of beer cans

the most dangerous event you can have in an italian carnival is getting hit by candies, trown by the trucks full of questionable, typical italian masks (if you're lucky you're hit by maria grazia cucinotta or valeria marini, if you're not, maybe it's berlusconi)

but if you feel risky enough you can still try and throw some oranges in the beutiful ivrea carnival, where people throw oranges for three days, in a parade of trucks with horses. The smell of squashed oranges and escrements of the horses is something i'll remember forever

Alton Towers dream-like

2005-08-28T09:21:00.000+01:00

yesterday a loose group of people (Ilaria, Angela, Des, Katerina, Tannishta, Avik and myself) went to the well-known Alton Towers, a sort of theme park with many many many many people enjoying hours in a queue to get a 30 seconds ride on the fastest set of carriages in the world

I see that britain finds that "Rita" is a very scary name for a very fast and furious speedo-matic engine, but for an Italian "Rita" is something like "Tracy" ("Hey wozzup???" "Jo man, ive been on Tracy, waaaaa!!!"), which sounds more like a porno-conversation than a very intimistic ride with your intestine and stomach upside down

I much preferred the optical tricks and shake-shake-shake of the haunted castle, or the real fulfilling sensation of flying with twirls of "air", man, that's enjoyable!!

maybe i'm too old for these things, and I coulodnt really enjoy all the amusements in the park like Tanni (sometimes i envy her enthusiastic approach to life), expecially i dont understand the point of something called "oblivion", where you drop vertically from 80 meters inside a black smoking hole. Bah, i prefer smoking something else

discoteque cats

2005-08-19T10:02:00.000+01:00

During my stay in Milton Keynes, once I was refused to enter a club because i was wearing white sport shoes, which i really like by the way. Apparently if you wear sports you are some kind of nuts and idiot hooligan as a principle

this is to say that in our new shared house, today i discovered that they're installing a new device for wannabe-club-cats. It's a traditional flap like dozens seen in every door, but it's only opened through a special collar that your favourite pet is wearing

I remember entering the U2 "infamous" VIP-heart-shaped-circle during one of their concerts: together with ten or so friend we passed around the "exclusive" bracelet that only some lucky people were meant to have, so i was wondering if some form of sub-culture among cats is already spreading in this sense

2005-08-17T22:36:00.000+01:00

Today is a strange day
I was notified that soon I will be moved from my desk. Somebody else will be occupying my place. I think this is a weird situation, I'm in the middle of nothing and something's got to give
just a thought and a feeling, afterall

yesterday night

2005-07-28T11:18:00.000+01:00

... it was scary
we saw a neuro-surgery live, with brains, pieces of skull etc

this is what English television shows you. It's even better when you are eating kebab