Benvenuti a mia casa!

The hardest part about my job should NOT be finding or struggling with the tools I need to do my job.

DUH! DUH! DUH! (to the tempo of cheesey dramatic music)

Saw Shutter Island DUH! DUH! DUH! this past DUH! DUH! DUH! weekend.

I DUH! DUH! DUH! typically don’t go in DUH! DUH! DUH! for “scary” movies, but DUH! DUH! DUH! since this was a Scorsese DUH! DUH! DUH! movie, I figured DUH! DUH! DUH!

STOP THAT ANNOYING STUPID CHEAP SOUNDTRACK BS!! I know this is the dramatic/scary part! You don’t have to DUH! DUH! DUH!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

Seriously…the first 10 minutes POST credits was normal scenery and dialog and character/plot building with nothing but DUH! DUH! DUH! rolling over the whole bloody thing! And it didn’t end there…it showed up more times than birds do in a Hitchcock movie!

I’m not a Scorsese fan at all, and this is more evidence for me DUH! DUH! DUH! to continue to not like him. DUH! DUH! DUH!

IF (a big if) you liked Hitchcock movies the first time you ever saw them, you MIGHT like this because it is classic Hitchcocky’in directing. The crappy soundtrack that becomes another character in the movie to help the audience along as to when to be scared or when to be “humored” or whatever; the dramatic camera angles that throw other characters way out of focus and in the background; even the scenes by the water reminded me of some Hitchcock movie I’ve seen in the past.

Leonardo really acted very well and with out his work I would not have cared to even write this much of a review.

The characters were OK and you really have no idea what’s going on until the last 5 minutes, though I did figure out a few points along the way, irrelevant though they were.

So thumbs down unless you like that dramatic, pounding DUH! DUH! DUH! played over and over and over and over….

Went to see Alice in Wonderland while in Texas.

It was “OK”…I guess.

Saw it in 3D and (as most movies now) it wasn’t gimicky, where they for no reason poke a finger out through the screen or anything.

The 3D just gave it a nice “depth” for lack of a better word.

And the special effects were very nice. I always say you can’t impress me with f/x anymore but these were nice. There were times when The Hatter was holding tiny Alice and their interaction in such a close up scene was believable at that size.

But this isn’t the original story…this is Alice returning to Wonderland, so the story was completely made up (yes, so was the original but they had free reign to do whatever they wanted).

And the story doesn’t really make sense and the end was very anti-climactic.

There were 2 great lines in the movie, which I wont spoil for you but I have repeated one of them repeatedly since I heard it!

So, if you LOVE 3D and would rather watch a OK movie in 3D than wait for 2D DVD, then yeah, maybe go see it. Otherwise wait.

It has been quite a while since I’ve posted. Not sure why, just nothing good to talk about. Until this weekend.

The plan was to leave work Thursday for a 3 o’clock flight, spend Fri, Sat, Sun in Texas, then return Monday morning at 10:10am, subway to work, then train home on the evening train.

Well, I got to the airport the recommended 2 hours before hand and as I was clearing security, I heard them call last call for another flight to DFW.

Well…why not? So I ran to the gate and asked if I could board and they let me right on, though I had to check my carry on and I was arriving in Dallas 2 hours before my ride.

I frantically called everyone to make sure they knew of the change, then got on board and had a great flight. I watched a movie on the netbook of course!

Had a great visit, too.

We went to Chili’s the first night for a quick I’m starving dinner and back home to settle in.

Saturday we went to “running club” with the kids. It was an organized exercise/run disguised as fun for the kids.

When I was a kid, it was called “go outside”, but it was nice.

Not everyone who went wanted to go. They didn’t want to go to “running club”, they’d rather go outside and run around instead.

Anyway, Ryan most of all didn’t want to go. He was mopping about while being dragged in the wheel barrow.

Most importantly, he didn’t want to go, because in his own words: “(His) exercise was asleep”!!!!!

I couldn’t agree more.

But they suffered through it mostly because Uncle (squishy) Mike took them to the play ground there instead.

There was also ping pong playing (Christo lost the most), movie watching, bruschetta making/eating, book talking about, shopping…etc etc…

Sunday night I went to bed about midnight after the movie and wasn’t sleeping well for the allergy attack I was having.

Plus at 3 a.m.!!!!! AA called me and said that my flight was the next day was cancelled. The automated message asked me to say “yes” to acknowledge. I said all forms of no I could think of.

Got an agent who wanted to put me on a 5pm flight, but in my sleepy haze I opted for an 8am flight…2 hours prior to my planned flight, and just 5 hours from the phone call.

Had to figure out how best to get to the airport (woke Cat up 2 hours early), but had to slip out without saying goodbye to anyone! Super sad.

But I got “home” (to work actually) just fine, then FINALLY home to my sweet sweet honey!

Movie reviews to follow…

is there a trip report in the works ? ?

What to do when your website is broken, no one is at work and it’s raining out:

Go to Cafe Luna for a doppio, cheese cake and watch Bugs Bunny cartoons on your netbook.

OK…GO!

Cafe Luna: check
Doppio: double check
Cheese cake: check (but not a very enthusiastic one)
Bugs Bunny: check

Mike Happy? oh you know that’s a check.

I really can’t say how useful this netbook is. There are so many “things” that my life has allowed me to buy (or acquire wink wink) that fall by the way side after a certain amount of “fun”.

But this netbook is really very useful.

I was researching them for a while and Dad had actually bought one that really kicked off the whole industry (The EEEpc From Asus) when I stumbled upon this at Circut City before they closed.

It wasn’t a huge bargain at the time as far as netbooks go, maybe 10% off full price.

I’ve added maybe $100 more stuff to it: bluetooth module, GPS unit, more RAM (a hard drive too but since I’m not using it that doesn’t count).

So in total let’s say it was $450.

I put it away for a while, but Sherri borrowed it for NY which brought me back to my attention and it really is a fun portable box of joy.

I sit at the cafe watching Bugs Bunny drinking a doppio or surfing the web or writing in my “journal”. And becuase it’s small and light weight, it isn’t a bother at all to carry around.

There are 2 things I’d change about this particular model:

There is no spot to slide a cellular modem so no easy 3G internet access. I don’t really want/need that now anyway…most places I go have free access anyway, plus it still costs to much to pay for as a novelty.

And I’d like a “faster” CPU. And this isn’t REALLY a requirement.

Right now, I’m watching “The Princess Brider”, I have a chat window open and a web page, and I’m typing away as fast as I can without any slowness at all. I even have some pretty fancy graphics running, too.

It is running fine with out any issue, it’s just at times it’s a big slow in starting new apps.

The new models are coming with a seperate video card to help eleviate(?) some overhead but now you start balancing battery usage with performance.

So in the end, I guess this is a fine balance of usefulness and performance.

I didn’t mean for this whole post to be about how awesome the netbook is so let’s move on…

I go to Texas in almost exactly 1 week, oh and you know I’ll be bringing the netbook!

I can’t currently easily tell how far away Italy is since the site is down…under 60 days I know that.

I don’t like writing anything (stories, emails, blogs, etc) where each new sentence starts with the same letter (like “I” for instance).

I don’t know if it’s technically wrong, but I do find it poor writing.

I therefore will stop that now.

Still looking I am for good “offline” journalling software so I can write more, especially while I don’t have access to the blog.

I use vi a lot for work which 99% of linux users hate, not to mention the rest of the worlds loathing for it. It is a command line text “editor” that is on 99.9% of all *NIX systems so it’s good to know, but it’s horrible for formatting and no spell checking what so ever.

Well, now I’m watching (not listening too since I don’t have headphones here) to The Princess Bride. If you haven’t seen this movie, or haven’t seen it lately, go watch this movie. It has the potentail of being the best movie of all time.

Think I’ll go search for some offline journal keeping software for a while. ciao ciao

PS: i heard people at the consulate saying “ciao ciao” when ending a phone call. I *think* it is similar/anagalous to us saying “bye bye”. Just thought I’d share.

PSS (PPS?): Before I go, however, let me also praise Linux, specifically Ubuntu Linux which I am currently using.

First, a little explination: The commercial company named Cononical took Debian Linux and re-packaged it in the way that they thought best served the user.

They did this all for free and legally and call their “new” product Ubuntu Linux.

They make money buy selling support, but the product is free for you to get, install and use and re-distribute and re-use, no strings attached.

When you install it, it includes a list of official Cononical run (therefor safe and supported) software repositories.

So, if you even need a new piece of software (like a journal writer) all you do is say “apt-get install software” and Linux will go out to those repositories, find the package, figure out what other packages you need and install it all for you.

All for free, all very well supported and tested and it all typically just works.

For instance, a search of the list of available packages resulted in a couple of options for me. I ran “apt-get install (package)” and BAM! I am now using new software.

Love or Hate Microsoft or Linux, but you cannot beat this type of software distrobution.

Back to the research…

Today was a strange day.

Chrissy’s sister had to go into Boston today, so Chrissy talked her into taking the train.

We cleaned off Chrissy’s car so she could take her sister to the train station and as we were a city plow came lumbering by.

“Wisely”, Chrissy waited for him to pass so she could follow behind him, driving on a nicely plowed road.

About 500 feet later, the plow stopped, so Chrissy stopped. Then the plow backed up, right into the front of her “new” car!!!

So now the car is at the mechanics, we are both home and sister is driving herself to Boston anyway!

OH well…at least everyone is safe.

here and here and some snow pic’s…didn’t think to get car pictures since it was pouring rain out during the accident.

Well, I have now officially applied to be an Italian Citizen!

After 2 years of document gathering, translations, apostille’s, and Texas, the Consulate accepted all of my paperwork today and will send it to Italy for admission(?)!

It will most likely be rejected however.

Dad still needs to clear up the random use of his name, but he couldn’t do that today because the passport office was closed for a computer upgrade!!!

But…at least I have finally now applied, and if Italy rejects it they reject it and we’ll deal with that afterwards.

And we go back in just 2 weeks to the passport office and maybe we’ll have even more forward progress at that meeting…we shall see.

Have you seen this man? He is considered old and dangerous. Do not approach this subject without a full compliment of gifts, wine, or political views of a person trapped in 1963.

Also, BUON COMPLEANO MIO PADRE!! Auguri!

Bob Seager, Against the Wind (can’t find a good video link):

It seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely she was the queen of my nights
There in the darkness with the radio playing low
And the secrets that we shared
The mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
‘Til there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove
And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then

Still runnin’
I’m still runnin’ against the wind
I’m still runnin’
I’m still runnin’ against the wind
Still runnin’
Runnin’ against the wind
Runnin’ against the wind
See the young man run
Watch the young man run
Watch the young man runnin’
He’ll be runnin’ against the wind
Let the cowboys ride
Let the cowboys ride
They’ll be ridin’ against the wind
Against the wind …