Here's one we made earlier

I must've gone completely stupid, because even though i'm busy working on my final exam i found the time to make this site, which ends up being my fourth blog. Four! The very though is a staggering testament to my irresponsibility. Luckily, this time it's not completely mine. The main idea (blatantly nicked from KillUglyRadio -hats off to Barry and his crew!) was mine, the dirty work (setup, template, neat animated gif on top) was done by Pelodia and Gnapppo will be helping along every now and then, as will others yet to be announced.

So what's it about? It's about my favourite italian band (yes A., the one i keep promising to make you a cd of), Elio e le Storie Tese. It collects any news and stuff about the band from around the web and puts it all in one comfortable place. It will also contain rantings about the band which didn't really fit in our respective personal blogs, the kind where we go on and on about completely insignificant details, technical or otherwise. Many a time i felt like posting something or other about them here, but it just didn't feel right. That, and every time i had interesting news before anybody else i would either put it here, which was useless for non-english speakers, or just keep it for myself and feel really really clever and occasionally start giggling in crowded places with a mysterious gleam in my eye.

Just in case, and since i still haven't linked them on the sidebar, here's a list of the blogs i'm currently in charge of:

Cat Walking On A Keyboard - Occasional musings from a certain oft-photographed feline
El Blog De Fidel - PoMoBlog which is a result of the axioms: a) Blogs are people writing about stuff for hours which nobody really reads, and b) Fidel Castro is a person who makes hour-long speeches which are humanly impossible to follow completely.
I Ragazzi Della Via Gluteo - The one this post is about, named after a song which has never been published and with a really neat animated gif on top.
Won't Go Down - this blog, which is something like life in its way of not really having a meaning but attempting to at least be amusing every now and then.

And let me say it one last time: That animated gif is really, really neat. I keep staring at the screen for hours waiting for it to change. Then i get distracted and have to start over.

This Year's Latin American Movie Festival in Trieste

...will not be counting on my participation.
Because i'm just too busy, that's all.

Dindi

Music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.
Portuguese Lyrics by Aloysio De Oliveira:

Céu, tão grande é o céu
E bandos de nuvens que passam ligeiras
Prá onde elas vão
Ah! eu não sei, não sei
E o vento que fala nas folhas
Contando as histórias
Que são de ninguém
Mas que são minhas
E de você também
Ah! Dindi
Se soubesses do bem que eu te quero
O mundo seria, Dindi, tudo, Dindi
Lindo Dindi
Ah! Dindi
Se um dia você for embora me leva contigo, Dindi
Fica, Dindi, olha Dindi
E as águas deste rio aonde vão eu não sei
A minha vida inteira esperei, esperei
Por você, Dindi
Que é a coisa mais linda que existe
Você não existe, Dindi
Olha, Dindi
Adivinha, Dindi
Deixa, Dindi
Que eu te adore, Dindi.


English Lyric by Ray Gilbert:

Sky, so vast is the sky
With faraway clouds just wandering by
Where do they go
Oh! I don't know, don't know...
Wind that speaks to the leaves
Telling stories that no one believes
Stories of love
Belong to you and me

Oh! Dindi
If I only had words I would say all the beautiful things that I see when you're with me
Oh, my Dindi
Oh, Dindi
Like the song of the wind in the trees that's how my heart is singing, Dindi
Happy, Dindi, when you're with me
I love you more each day, yes I do, yes I do
I'd let you go away if you'd take me with you
Don't you know, Dindi
I'd be running and searching for you like a river that can't find the sea
That would be me
Without you, my Dindi.

Lisa Ono with Quarteto Em Cy - Dindi (192kps Mp3, 5.23Mb)

Some songs are impossible to ruin.

It may be good for you

It's been a while since i've last linked to good comics here. One that i've been appreciating recently(i.e.:gone through the archives for a whole day, instead of studying) is Reprographics, a photocomic by sculptor, artist and photocopy guy Chris Yates. Reading this strip actually made me miss the not-too-distant times when i worked as an underpaid but (let's be honest) only occasionally overworked photocopy lackey.



Go there and enjoy. It's one of those cases where i see something and say "it's just how i would have done it". Which probably means that anybody else will say "this makes no sense whatsoever".
Whatever, i like it.

(click here to read the particular strip i criminally cut-and-pasted to illustrate this post, thus removing all traces of humor)

3% of people had this result.

You are Animal.
You are completely nuts, but fun to be around.

SPECIAL TALENTS:
Drums, Women, Food.
HOBBIES:
Drums, Women, Food.

FAVORITE EXPRESSIONS:
"Louder!", "Food now!" and
"Want Woman!"

LAST BOOK EATEN:
"The Musicians' Guide to Drums, Women &
Food"

NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT:
An appetite.


What Muppet are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

883 other people got this result!
This quiz has been taken 32502 times.
3% of people had this result.

Asked some friends if it was a realistic description. They said "well, so and so". Then they saw the picture and said "actually, the picture is just right".

I suppose this makes me something of a Ricky Lancelotti. (Beware: Obscure Zappa-related jokes here lurk)

Good news makes me happy.

Unexpected knowledge

So i was putting things together for a post yesterday afternoon when The Cat came along insisting to play. And insisting. And insisting. And insisting some more.
Until he eventually got sick of my ignoring him and in a surprising feat of coordination went and pulled the plug out of my computer.


The Cat, a couple of weeks before yesterday's accomplishments

Which is even more surprising if you consider that in order to plug my pc out, a small red button on a nailed-to-the-wall plug rack is to be pushed. So my theory is that after some fourteen years living with us the little yellow guy has finally developed opposable thumbs and of consequence we are doomed, all doomed.

Another cool thing is that when i looked under the table to punctually gawp in astonishment at what he'd just done (as he just sat there looking at me as if he'd done the most ordinary thing in the world) i noticed that at his feet was the little audio-to-audio cable i'd been looking for for the past weeks, so now i can finally convert some of my tapes into digital files. I might post a couple of results here when i finally have ftp access again.

(DSL update - long story short: our former operator and the new one are currently too busy arguing over which one of them hates us the most to actually hook us off or onto any of their lines)

Moral of the whole story: i proceeded to play with The Cat for the following half-hour. He'd just gone a step up in evolution just to prove a point, so he certainly deserved it.

At this rate he'll be going out and buying a mac (the following step in evolution) any day now.

Street vendor, Iquique, July/August 2005

Iquique bus terminal, July/August 2005

No Title Today.

So the cold or flu or whatever it was seems to have almost completely gone away, thus allowing me to pop my head out into the wilderness again a couple of times this weekend, and even to finally(!) shave after a week of scruffyness. Because for some reason if i shave while i'm ill, i get worse. Is this just me? Or is there a little-mentioned law of thermodynamics according to which less facial hair=temperature going up? However it may be, i now tread this world without a constantly itching face and no longer looking like The Master.


Roger Delgado, a.k.a. The Master. Don't know who he is? Shame on you. Get into a timewarp and watch some seventies british tv.

(Speaking of which, i have a great story about how Roger Delgado accidentally ended up in a Beatles studio recording, but i'll keep that for another day)

The second problem, however, seems not yet to have been fixed. I'm still on a very temporary, very firewalled connection which does not allow me to upload all those picture galleries that i've been telling people to have been ready for over a week when they're all actually still in the realm of undiscarded ideas. I plan to call up my new provider today to see what's up. If at all. I'm also unable to download stuff, which is also bad because i keep reading about cool bands i should check out(last week's Alias had a two-pager on The Free Design, and i'm hurting to find some of their music online). So in the meantime i can only hotlink to other people's pictures or upload the odd one-picture-at-a-time with HelloBloggerbot.
All this gives me a great excuse for being so lazy with my blog.

Ah, i also really, really need to update the sidebar. The books and cds bit is now a year old. And i have some nice new blogs to add to the links. Blogs by people who actually know me. Unusual.

The sporadical gift of saying the right thing at the right time

Meanwhile last night i was once again on one of my thankfully rare (free booze) visits to never-should-have-been land.
The context is of no importance, the scene you and i have seen at least a million times. Outside a residence, she comes towards me with tears in her eyes. "They'll never talk to me again", she says.
"That's not true and you know it", i answer.
"Then why aren't they here?" she reasonably replies.
"Because they're back there in the garden hiding the bottles", i point out. "Now go there and don't be stupid" i continue as i walk off in the opposite direction.
"And you?" she asks while following my stern orders.
"I'm going to pee."

As i mind my own business i hear a very loud and wet "I'm Sorry!" come from the other side of the bushes. I return to them, now hugging, and speak the words:
"So are we going to have to go through any more of this nonsense or can we carry on drinking?"
Sadly, nobody paid attention. Ah, for a drum roll.

(On the Winamp: Gilberto Gil & Caetano Veloso - Live in Umbria)

P.S. My Norton Autoprotect just expired, so i am now internetting without a safety net. The thrill!

Teaser re: 7.10.05

Guess the moustache!

Teaser re: 6.10.05

Spot the webmaster!

(Hint: the other visible male)
Via: RetecivicaTrieste

Obligatory quick update post

Justification for a week's absence. Unlike previous absences (i.e. most of september), this time i wasn't posting because of simply too much stuff going on, namely:

a) the rockingest weekend in quite some time(pictures coming soon), and
b) my catching a cold and being stuck at home. But also
c) a very temporary internet connection while we change providers.

So in the meantime here's a picture of my new hat being worn by a ventilator.

Enjoy!

Giant Bunny Of The Day

Missed this one when it happened: a Giant Pink Bunny was erected two weeks ago by art collective Gelatin on one side of the very evocatively named Colletto Fava close to the village of Artesina, Piemonte, Italy and will stay there until 2025. At which point i assume it will get up, shake some dirt off and go back to its giant pink nest. Or eat Tokyo.

(Link via the great Drawn.ca website whose existence i had somehow forgotten until yesterday, when memory of it suddenly came back to my mind. I had probably at some point been brainwashed by baddies.)

qwerty adventures

The origin of the qwerty keyboard, explained in a webcomic.
I'd always been very curious about this story, as i'd heard many different versions of it (some concerning demonic, sionistic or otherwise supernatural secret plots) and never knew which one to believe. But this one's in a comic, so it just has to be true.
The comic proceeds to convince the reader to switch to the effectively more functional Dvorak keyboard, which i'm tempted to try out at some point if only to make it impossible for other people to use my keyboard. And also impossible for me to use other people's, which i suppose is the downside.

Kahimi online

It's only been brought to my attention recently: Kahimi Karie finally has an official website online, and with an english section no less! Sadly, no audio clips for me to convince people that this is a good thing. But the site is nice.

On a partially related note (i.e.: things that only i get excited about), Maki Nomiya(ex-Pizzicato Five) will be publishing a new album this october and among the many guest stars will be none other than Wolfgang Flür(ex-Kraftwerk)! I have reason to believe that this is the much-rumoured about unreleased collaboration from 2000 which Flür mentions in the conclusion to his autobiography, Ich War Ein Roboter. Now how's that for useless trivia?
(via Chipple.net)

Upcoming event

Yours Truly just made the happy surrogate-of-a-person dance around the room upon discovering that Paula Morelenbaum is playing in Udine this december!
That's all, just wanted to share this groundbreaking development with the rest of the world.

(And while we're at it, what *is* the relationship between Paula Morelenbaum and Jacques Morelenbaum? Oh, the hours i've spent discussing the matter with friends! Husband and wife? Brothers? Bizarre coincidence? Do even they know the answer to this one? I've had a chance to speak with both more than a couple times over the years, but never had the nerve to ask such a delicate question.)

It all depends on how you shake the packet.

Two food anecdotes. Well, "food".

1 - A Recipe

Instructions: empty two portions of Philadelphia cream cheese into a bowl, accidentally bump your elbow into a spice rack, watch in helpless despair as your nice white bowl of cheese fills with red, red paprika.
Reassure all present with the phrase "Don't Worry, I'll Think Of Something."
Mix bowl.
Later, when the guests at the tea party enquire about the contents of aforementioned bowl, just nonchalantly answer "Oh that? It's that new paprika-flavored Philadelphia cheese they've been advertising recently."
Observe its disappearance in seconds flat.


2 - Easily distracted by flashing lights and noisy objects

So this webmaster goes to the kitchen to fix himself some lunch. Feeling adventurous, he decides to try his luck on some deep-freezed ginger orange technicolored chicken cordon bleus of dubious (read: the big discount store) origin.
He pulls the box out of the freezer, and gives a snicker. He turns it around to read the approximate cooking suggestions, and laughs a little. He turns it upside down and laughs some more.
Some minutes later he could be found rolling on the floor laughing while shaking the box to and fro. When questioned, the only answer to all this mirth he could produce was "if i move the box, it makes a noise like rain."

(Aftermath: the contents turned out to be very colorful and absolutely uneatable)