ahem. er. oh. hee hee. Oh, whatever.

2004-02-06 19:29:55 GMT :
rimozione di http://evaristo.blogspot.com/
in corso

That's what Google told me ten minutes ago.
So, for ninety days or so, this blog won't be findable on google.

Why? Oh, i got a very polite phone call yesterday upon returning from Udine... And i don't mean that ironically. The call was from the same person who left this comment.

And i must say i can confirm everything in that comment. And must add that the person in question was extremely charming about the whole affair. And that my mutandine also remained clean throughout the call, even though they did get a little bit worried about their future when i was informed of how this page was found in the first place.

Ok, let's try to be clear:
The teacher mentioned here did not shit his pants. He was just worried about thirty-something college students walking into an osmizza, well knowing that the wine was bad and the roads back to duino even worse. As a matter of fact, it's a nuisance to have so many people coming along. If it's ten or so people, it's fine. You chat, you eat, you drink, you chat some more, and it's over. If it's thirty, you just drink up and have to carry people home, which isn't always very amusing. Even though the locals seem to enjoy watching us do it. But they don't enjoy having thirty people in a place which doesn't really fit them.
Was it his duty to inform anyone about this? not at all. He just did it because he was genuinely concerned. And he didn't call the headmaster, he called the teacher on duty. All that came after was luckily nothing to worry about.
People were carried home, as per usual, with almost no damage. And they all had a good laugh about it the following day.
The headmaster went to check, but found nothing. And we all had a good laugh about it the following day.
The teacher i mentioned found my site, didn't really appreciate the dissentery reference, called me up, and in the end we just had a good laugh about that, too. Although i still believe i owe the man a drink, he was just too kind about it.

The only thing that was an authentic cause of worries, as i was saying, is how this page was found in the first place.
He had googled for the headmaster's name and surname. And my blog showed up on the fourth page of results.
Which was not. good.

I checked, the page also shows up very easily when looking for "duino" and the name of the little house i used to live in.
So what i had to do was go back, remove the one time i had mentioned the HM by his full name, and then remove all else that might have been easily googleabole by the wrong people. Actually, i didn't remove anything, i just replaced stuff. Oh, and i also corrected one phrase in a post which i felt wasn't really comprehensible. Reading my old posts was such a pain, they all feel like something's wrong about them, and that was the only case in which i didn't manage to leave things how they were. But anyway.
The next step was to remove the site from google's indexes, which was just done. This means i won't be seen on google for the next ninety days or so. Not really a problem, considering the kind of referrals i had.
So no big deal. It would've been, if the person who found this hadn't been so friendly.

Ok, i think that's explained. And this post has gone on for a bit too long.

More tomorrow.

This will seem familiar to most people who have anything to do with a blog...

Slowly, i turned...

No updates these days - my exam's tomorrow, so i can't waste too much time. Yeah, right, as if i hadn't spent the last 45 minutes of open library last night reading Sight & Sound.

Anyway, remember that thing i linked to, but went offline five minutes later? Here's where you can find links to mirror download sites. After viewing, remember to ask yourselves how fucked up my mind has to be if i enjoy this kind of thing.

Exam tomorrow morning 9:30 GMT+1. Think of me. Hope i don't fall asleep.

The Beer Church

It is the goal of Beer Church to provide a fun, informative and useful Web site for persons all around the globe who are interested in and passionate about beer.

Oh, and Pino just redirected me to this site, which is probably one of the best spam-sites i've ever seen.

Some Folklore

Friday night was Osmizza Night, once more. Some thirty of us clambered our way up to Medeazza, followed the Bay Leaf indications, and took possession of what little tables were remaining in a room that looked much bigger before the rest of us got there.
Much fun was had. At some point, an accordion materialized between the hands of the locals, giving way to almost everybody's wild cavorting.

Meanwhile...

On arrival, a teacher was present. Said teacher was very charming about so many of his students entering an obscure homebrewed wine watering hole. He greeted us from his table, and when he left jokingly exchanged some chitchat with us.

He then proceeded to go home, shit his pants, and call the headmaster.
When the M.O.N.A. heard that a horde of his oh-so-childish-and-unreliable students were loitering in some small nearby town, he only saw it fitting to seek out such a small town, seek out the premises, and just generally give everybody a bad time. After all, that's what he thinks he's there for.

Luckily, he hasn't the slightest idea of what an osmizza is.

So he pulls out his car, put-putts his way up to Medeazza, goes around the town twice, sees nobody around, notes "no students here", goes home. He was quite obviously expecting to see a large flashing neon light saying "osmizza" in bold capital times new roman letters.
Meanwhile, we were all inside some local's house, drinking our heads off.

I consider all of this extremely folkloristic.

Whoah! Time zone check!

Am i out of my mind? I was so sure this was gonna be tomorrow!
Oh well, after all i'm reknowned for hardly ever knowing what day it is...

Waiting for the big event...

While everyone here at WGD Central is gearing up for tomorrow's big events(gotta get them Gorilla suits outta the wardrobe!), we'll just go down and mellow into

Won't Go Down's Official Blues Day
A completely random tradition born no less than twenty seconds ago.

Here's some links:
The Father of Ethnomusicology: Alan Lomax. Why hadn't i seen this site earlier?
Robert Crumb portrays the Blues Greats.
Vintage Interview to The Captain.

And wandering back into more familiar, albeit wacky, territories: there's new junk to be grabbed over at The Big Note!

Uh, i guess that's it for today.

Important Announcement

I Hereby Issue A Formal Complaint

Just as i though. I started to blog again, people stopped writing to me.
Bastards.

Duino

I got some worried phone calls yesterday morning.
There was a rumour out there saying somebody had been suspended from The College(i have adopted the policy of not naming the place too much, so this blog won't accidentally be googled by people who want to go study there. Or even worse, who work there and can't stand me).
Some people even went so far as to tell me that it was an italian, a second year, who had been caught in pala, after curfew, over the weekend.

Now, guys. None of this actually happened. So just relax, ok?

During the holidays news had also been around that the aforeblogged Bungalow Bursar had been fired. That [unfortunately] hasn't happened either. If there weren't enough incompetent people here, this place would actually start working quite well. And that's not what The System wants.

Instead, some rather bad things have happened, or rather, have started to happen once more. One first year had a birthday party. During that party 250 euros were stolen from her. And now all involved in organising that party are in trouble. Because of the theft? Noooo! Because they had bought alcohol. Ex-students, pick up pen and paper and write it down this minute: there's no more such a place as home.

Tonight, the Balkans had their taster session. Taster sessions are what's left of old National Evenings: instead of having dinner in Agip before the show, they have people taste typical cuisine in pala dayroom. Not too bad, if you don't have strong memories of how it used to be. And probably also more representative of different cultures etc. etc.
Tonight was especially good, for two of my favourite pagan divinities (Mr. Burek and Ms. Rakjia) were supervising from behind the clouds, a satisfied grin on their faces. But.

But later it turned out that a wallet had been stolen, again holding a large amount of money, this time also with passport and other documents. And it wasn't in a room: it was in a coat, among other fifty or so coats, on the ping-pong table, in the dayroom, while about 200 people were there eating, drinking, chatting, dancing and just plain having fun.

These things shouldn't happen here. And they make me particularly mad.

So mad, i don't even feel like commenting on the facts that next year ES's flat will become a storage zone, PS will be moved out of pala, and that old offices middle floor(underneath us) will become a teacher's flat. For more than one single teacher.

Let's just not talk about that right now.

Ok, just to end this post with a high note (quinta di piccardia, for all you music experts out there), here's the Quote Of The Day:

"Whaddaya mean i can't dance? I taught Karol fuckin' Wojtila to dance!"
-Myself, a couple hours ago, mickey mouse bar.

Just got back from Monfalcone, where i went in desperate need of buying some comic books, after a whole month studying the god-damn Renaissance. Don't know how i resisted this long.



I've been so far into this stuff, that last night, after eating my piece of chicken, i pulled the wishbone with myself. What did i wish for? Well, having just spent an afternoon studying the different interpretations of Botticelli's so-called Primavera, i told myself that my right hand represented carnal, passional love like the characters (r-l Zephyr, Clori, Flora) on the right side of the painting. My left hand was chosen to represent cultured, platonic love(the three Grazie) pointing heavenwards thanks to Mercury on the far left of the painting.

The right hand won. Hope it brings me good luck for this weekend.

So, as i was saying, i've had enough of Renaissance art.

(PS: Blogger's spell check wanted to replace "passional" with "vaginal". And "Zephyr" with "zipper". Sneaky little freudian spellchecking applet!)

I hereby declare that i'll be using&abusing of this punchline for at least the next six months. Or years, if nobody notices.
Speaking of which, the latest Suburban Tribe storyline is becoming more and more similar to an old Leisure Suit Larry game. And i like that.

Time for some links.

First up, here's Hamlet: the textgame.
(Via Neil Gaiman)

Next, here's a useful walkthrough...for IKEA.

And finally, check out this short cartoon about the US budget. One thing i envy the US for is the clever ice cream manufacturers with good musical taste. Don't get many of those around here.

That's about it. I mean, i'm sure there was something else i desperately needed to link to, but there's no way i'm gonna remember what it was. Oh well. But hey! Here are the unofficial official rules of Calvinball!!!

um. er. hello.

Wow. Haven't posted in so long, blogspot forgot my username(i mean the cookie expired. To date, blogspot has been treating me absolutely fine, and i recommend it to whoever should want to embark on the obnoxious pastime of keeping a blog). Actually, i've realized that every time i don't post for a day or three, people send me emails, cellphone messages and even comments to my posts. So it's fun to hear from people once in a while. Even though what usually happens with email is this:
-i get a short "are you alive?" message (1 line)
-i answer an equally short "yes i am!" message (1 line, maybe 2)
-i get a nice "where i am, what i'm up to" message (not more than 5 lines)
-i answer a completely involved, open heart message about all i'm doing and how i feel and good old days and so on and so on(10 pages or more)
-i get no answer, having scared the shit out of the receiver.

Anyway, sad to see that the site i linked to in my last post went offline shortly afterwards. Big time copyright infringement, i suppose. Well, that's what it gets for sticking Outkast's Hey Ya into my head all sunday, whistling it and singing it over my head all day long. To the extent that i had to come to extreme measures: i downloaded the bloody bastard of a pop song, and listened to it ten times in a row. It's what i call the Jordi Vaccination Method. Or Asereje vaccination method, depending on what generation you're from.

Things like these shouldn't really exist.

Is catchy though.

scribble scribble post post

"So, how's your blog?"
"Ah, it sucks."

-myself, last night, in bar.

There was snow in duino this morning! But it thawed out now. Awww...
I am currently in mid-coffeebreak, which in my case is a toast-and-soda-update-blog break.
Not many updates in the past few days, i apologize, was busy being busy. Studying first, then discovering that my exam isn't on the 29th of January but on the 4th of February, then studying a little more, and then spending the whole of my saturday slacking. Also went to an Osmizza with Pino and Stic, was lots of fun(why do most of the people i know have nicknames? Even my parents don't call each other by their real names! They call each other "mom" and "dad"). Oh, and had a nice walk in Trieste on friday night, made good use of the local Guinness Pub.

Uh...that's about it for now. Sorry for the lack of real content. Don't worry, i'm not dead! i just stopped living for a while! Happens to everyone!
Blogging will resume in due course(probably tonight or tomorrow).
Great things are afoot!
(actually, they're not. Just sounded like a good way to finish this post.)

What Hath God Wrought?

Mark Evanier's just added a new page of pictures from his Backyard. Possums, cats and more possums, oh my!
I visit Mr. Evanier's blog almost every day, most of the time to get tons of information i would never have needed. Today, for example, he's commenting on how the voice of one of the characters from a 1960 cartoon called King Leonardo was miscredited on most reference books.
Mr. Evanier is the kind of person who takes these things seriously.
And i'm the kind of guy who takes him seriously. What fools these mortals be.

(But aren't those critters adorable? As one acquaintance of mine once put it, "The man lives in some fucking zoo!")

morning morning

Scott McCloud's latest Morning Improv is coming out really beautiful. His imagination had gone a bit too wild recently, it's a joy to see him return to character/story situations.
On one side, i'm crossing my fingers that he doesn't mess this one up again(hey, he's one of my favourite cartoonists-ahem- sequential artists, but nobody's perfect!).
But on the other, i'm secretly hoping giant dinosaurs or attack monkeys start appearing soon, because the way this one's going, i expect it to break my heart by the end of the week...

How To.

So lately all i've been doing is locking myself up in the library eight hours a day and studying the hell out of all those renaissance guys. Not much to tell about my life, then. Not much to tell about Duino, either: eventless start of second term. Ok, there were a nice dinner with good friends and some nice beers with fred et al, all very pleasant but nothing that'll make good blog material. Whatever that may be.

(Speaking of which, i've been informed that 16 is legal in Italy. Cool, but i still haven't forgiven them for all this military service business.)

In the meantime, i'll explain how you can tune into my show tonight. JJFlash and i spent most of the past two nights configuring my system for the broadcast, so you'd better pay attention.

To listen, you'll need two things: Winamp and Streamer. The former, i assume everybody already has. But look out! Streamer doesn't work with Winamp3! Then again, who does? Just in case, i linked to it.
Anyway, download Streamer file, run it, it installs. Now run the program.
Select the "config" button, top left, next to "stations". In the "Bandwidth" area, select your kind of connection. You're supposed to already know what kind of connection you've got, so don't ask me about it. Now, don't touch anything else on this screen, the connection's fine enough. Don't touch that, i tell you. Good. Now click on "stations".
Look at this screen. Empty isn't it? Well, if it's all configured correctly, stuff will start to appear on it within one or to minutes. Keep staring at the black screen just in case. Think of a good enough excuse in case somebody walks into the room and sees you.
Ok, by now several names of webradios will have appeared. The one you have to select is RadioPhiga(ITA). Double-click on its name, and winamp will automatically open up and reveal all our broadcasting beauty.

If none(or all, what the heck) of this works, feel free to contact me via icq, messenger (contact on sidebar) or pop over to the radio's chatline, #radiophiga, over at Azzurra. I can occasionally be found there(of course i will be there every time i broadcast), mainly on a chatroom called #affanc1. Note the delicate elegance of our puns.

Program begins at 22:00 GMT+1! Be there or be Winston Churchill's Parrot!