With thoughts and feelings still preciously vivid of a seven-month long tour of work duty in Rome earlier this year, and right now whilst back in the Citta’ Eterna for a brief family holiday, I came across this list through my colleague Josephine McKenna of Seven Network tv (Australia) which for us expats here sums up humourously really well what the Eyeties are all about! Have a happy new year y’all
Just for a laugh!
You know you’ve been in Italy too long when…
1) You consider accepting the dinner invitation at the house of someone you just met.
2) You can have a conversation with a stranger comprised entirely of facial expressions, hand gestures, and no words.
3) You can’t imagine not wearing a black down jacket and black sunglasses most of the year.
4) You keep honking at the traffic, not at anyone in particular, just to keep the flow moving…
5) You have become an expert in parking your car in the narrowest space and driving while talking on the phone and having a conversation with other passengers at the same time.
6) You don’t hesitate to overtake a car blocking the street through the pavement/sidewalk.
7) You automatically ask for the vino della casa (house wine) when you have a casual lunch out.
8) You can convey all your feelings with a single “maa…” or “boh”.
9) You refuse to go out if it is raining, even a bit, and wear a scarf whenever it’s not over 25°C.
10) You don’t raise an eyebrow when you are asked to apply for your application at a government office.
11) You don’t even check for opening hours and schedules anymore as you know they don’t mean anything.
12) You only have coffee for breakfast, then if you feel a bit peckish get a pastry at 10 am with more coffee, in between two other morning coffees.
13) You don’t cringe at the idea of having offals for lunch.
14) You can’t imagine having lunch before 1 pm.
15) You dip your bread in olive oil – even at home.
16) You know that a true espresso shouldn’t contain more than a few drops of extremely concentrated coffee, which can be diluted with sugar.
17) You know that Starbucks isn’t real coffee but you go anyway because of it’s trendy and American, and they have free Wi-Fi.
18) You start calling your mother every day, sometimes several times a day, although you never did before.
19) In a queue, you constantly keep an eye for line jumpers – unless it’s you !
20) You have twenty favourite flavours of ice cream, because you have to be selective.
21) People back home think you speak too loudly.
22) You understand that when someone tells you that it’s impossible, he is just asking for you to negotiate.
23) You stick your index finger against your cheek to say that something tastes good.
24) Back home, you say that you dropped a spaghetto (and not a spaghetti) when taking them out of the package.
In a two-minute video recorded in Moscow, where Former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum, he spoke of concerns over surveillance and appeared to draw comparison with the dystopian tale 1984 which described a fictional state which operates widespread surveillance of its citizens.
“Great Britain’s George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book – microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us are nothing compared to what we have available today.”
In the run up to Christmas Day, and right up to Boxing Day today, have found myself once again captivated by the wit and humour of the North american sit-com on CBS, THE BIG BANG THEORY. Am now up to speed, having finished viewing the last episode aired earlier in December from ongoing season 7, which is Episode 11 entitled “The Cooper Extraction”.
For those unfamiliar with the central plot of the series, the show is centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: roommates Doctors Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, who are both brilliant physicists working at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. They are colleagues, best friends, and roommates, although in all capacities their relationship is always tested primarily by Sheldon’s regimented, deeply eccentric, and non-conventional ways. I guess that Sheldon has some form of Aspergers Syndrome, or other on the Autism Spectrum, that gives such folks their beautiful minds.
Leonard and Sheldon (occasionally called affectionately Lenny and Shelly) are also friends with their equally geeky and socially awkward friends and Cal Tech co-workers colleagues mechanical engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Dr. Raj Koothrappali. The foursome spend their time working on their individual work projects, playing video games, watching science-fiction movies, or reading comic books. As they are self-professed nerds, all have little or no luck with popular women.
When Penny, a pretty waitress and an aspiring actress originally from Omaha, moves into the apartment across the hall and next to Leonard and Sheldon’s, Leonard has another aspiration in life, namely to get Penny to be his girlfriend (which he does as the series develops over the ensuing sit-com seasons).
The geekiness and intellect of the four guys is contrasted for comic effect with Penny’s social skills and common sense.
Over time, supporting characters have been promoted to starring roles: Leslie Winkle, a physicist colleague at Caltech and, at different times, a lover of both Leonard and Howard; Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard’s girlfriend (later his wife), a microbiologist and former part-time waitress alongside Penny; neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, who joins the group after being matched to Sheldon on a dating website (and later becomes Sheldon’s girlfriend), and Stuart Bloom, the cash-strapped owner of the comic book store the characters often visit.
Well, can’t restrain myself from sharing the plot summary: Sheldon goes to Texas for his sister (Missy) since she is having a baby. While Sheldon is gone, the gang imagines their lives without Sheldon in it. At first, I thought I was going to see yet another producers’ mishmash of cuts and edits from past episodes’ instances of highlighted relevant incidents, to merely create a Christmas themed special, but luckily it turned out not to be the case!
He is leaving immediately. Leonard inquires if someone is sick. It seems that Sheldon‘s sister is about to have a baby. Penny brightens up and is happy for the new Uncle Sheldon. Sheldon tells everyone that he is going to be Uncle Dr. Cooper. Amy wonders why nobody knew that his sister was pregnant. Sheldon also didn’t mentions his brother‘s kidney stones. Did people want to know everything that was coming out of his family‘s genitals? Sheldon is going to fill in for his brother-in-law that was in a horrible motorcycleaccident. Sheldon feels that the is lucky since he doesn’t have to be there for the blessed event. His sister Missy is due the next day, but since it took her six years to get through high school, Sheldon doesn’t know how long it’s going to take. Amy offers to give him a ride to the airport, but he doesn’t want to inconvenient his girlfriend. He does turn to Leonard and tells him that they have to leave in ten minutes.
Everybody minus Sheldon are together for a tree decorating Christmasparty. Since Sheldon is absent, so are all of his tree decorating rules including the required spacing of the ornaments. Both Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments can now be on the same branches. The fact that Howard is enjoying trimming the Christmas tree might cause his mother to have a heart attack. Bernadette then takes the opportunity to photograph Howard trimming the tree. Penny is a little short of funds this year so her Christmas present is going to be giving him herself, which is what Leonard got last year and last night. Stuart then joins them as Amy’s computer notifies her of an incoming video chat from Sheldon. He thinks that they are so thoughtful that they have a Christmas party after he left since he isn’t into Christmas. His sister has been in labour for an hour and is having a home birth. Raj points out that many women want to give birth at home in a warm comfortable environment. Sheldon feels that she will also turn her bedroom into an amnioticSlip and Slide. Sheldon then gets called away to have a family picture taken because his sister is fully dilated and there is no blood yet.
Early Christmas present.
Raj wants to know if Amy would want Sheldon there if she was having a baby. Penny breaks in that she doesn’t think Sheldon will be there when they make the baby. Bernadette brought over the holiday film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” to watch. Neither Raj nor Stuart have seen it. Amy describes the movie as being at Christmas time, Jimmy Stewart is really depressed and wants to jump off a bridge and kill himself which is pretty much Stuart’s life story. Bernadette then adds that he gets to see what life would be like if he never was born. Penny wonders if anyone ever considered life without someone. Leonard asks, “Knock..knock..knock…What do you think?…knock..knock..knock… What do you think?…knock..knock..knock… What do you think?” doing Sheldon’s knock. Amy points out that despite the jokes they make about Sheldon, none of them would be there if it wasn’t for Sheldon. None of them would know Amy. Bernadette would never have met Howard. Leonard would not have beendating Penny. Leonard disagrees because he has been going to The Cheesecake Factory for years and he could have still {picked her up causing everybody to laugh. Penny then explains what would have happened. Howard, Raj and Leonard are having a meal and Leonard tells them that he is going to finally ask her out. Penny comes over to ask what
Flashback: Leonard asking Penny out at the Cheesecake Factory.
they want to eat and Leonard can’t even speak to her. He then walks over to her, introduces himself and tells her that there is something he has wanted to ask her for a long time. If she is not too busy he wants to know if she could tell him…where the restroom is. Penny remarks that he is too late looking strangely at him. Back in Apartment 4A, Leonard objects that he would not have wet himself though Raj and Howard think that she got the story right. Leonard did ask Penny out, but that could not have happened if he hadn’t moved in with Sheldon. Of course, Penny would never have been introduced Howard to Bernadette. Howard replies that he could have also met her when she was a waitress. Bernadette explains her version where she tells Penny that she finds Howard cute. Then she sees Raj feeding Howard a bite of his dessert and then cleaning off his mouth with a napkin and Bernadette changes her mind. Leonard then confronts Penny that she wouldn’t have done so great herself due to the type of guys she had been dating. In Penny’s apartment she is preparing food and in walks Zack Johnson who calls her babe. She asks if he paid the rent and instead Zack bought some magic beans. Then Leonard makes them both pee on themselves since Penny did the same thing to him. Sheldon calls back claiming that he has seen lady things that he shouldn’t. According to Amy, they don’t normally look like that. That is not the way to make people since its like some dirty magic show, describes Sheldon. People should not becoming out of people. Sheldon‘s mom calls him to bring a mop. Sheldon is distraught that he has two PhD‘s and is reduced to being the janitor of his sister’s birth canal.
A Leonard spoof of his imagination: Penny living with Zack. He bought magic beans!!
Sheldon sends everyone a holidayemail including a picture from the birthing room that disgusts Leonard, Penny and Raj. Back to the “It’s a Wonderful Life” discussion, Penny would still have met Sheldon. Amy describes how without Leonard there, Penny would try and seduce Sheldon. Penny stalks Sheldon in the laundry room wearing her short shorts. She sunders over to him and asks if he is doing his laundry. Of course, because Saturday night is laundry night and he is in a laundry room. Sheldon tells her that her interference is justified which Penny thinks is so funny. Penny is going to do her dirty laundry as the dirty girl wearing them starts to undress. The real Penny wants her to stop, but the guys disagree. Now in her bra, Penny asks Sheldon what does he think. He finds her a tad asymmetrical, but nothing to worry about. Penny tells him that they are going to do it in the laundry room right now. Sheldon reminds her that he is saving himself for a bespectacled neurobiologist who has hair the color of mud as Amy tells the story.
Sheldon calls back from Texas saying that things are going better. His mother asked him to get some towels, so he left and went to “Bed, Bath and Beyond“. Missy then screams while Sheldon is on the phonewhich he finds very rude. Amy has now diagrammed the absent Sheldon premise and tells Penny that she would never have met comic book legend Stan Lee. Howard would have always known Raj and Leonard. Leonard never got an apartment with Howard because of his serious relationship with his mother. Bernadette again mentions that if they had not met, he would still be living with his mother. Howard tells his version, first he is taking his mother her lunch in her bedroom and
An Amy spoof of her imagination: Penny seducing the guy across the hall – Sheldon.
that she didn’t get enough food. Later he is seen feeding her, but she is still in the bedroom dead reminiscent of the mother in the movie “Psycho” with Howard now doing her voice. Howard is neutral on whether she starved to death or if he actually killed her. Leonard and Raj did not move in together because Raj thought he was going to be a ladies’ man. In Raj’s scenario, Leonard is living with him as Raj cooksdinner for a very heavy Leonard. Since he had no girlfriend, he compensated by overeating and Raj deep fried food. Then Leonard also makes Raj fat in the living together scenario. Then Stuart shows up fat have dinner with them and to be in someone’s story.
In Amy’s case, without Sheldon she is alone in her apartmentcrying over a cupcake and singing “Happy Birthday” to herself. Stuart shows up and blows a party favor in her face to be in another story. Sheldon is back reports that his sister had a baby boy. Sheldon was not sure he was going to make it, however his mother gave him some ice chips and his sister (in labor) kept giving him encouragement. He’s not going to go back because he finds the baby irritating since he has been crying his entire life. Howard tells him that the baby is already taking after Uncle Shelly. Amy tells him to return to be an intelligentrole model for his nephew which Sheldon agrees with. They were amazed that Sheldon did exactly what Amy asked him to do. Even though Amy kept telling the gang the impact Sheldon had on them, he has had an impact on Amy too. Amy felt if that we’re really true she wouldn’t still be living alone. Leonard tells her that Sheldon cares for her more than she really thinks. Amy doesn’t believe him so he shows that her picture is on Sheldon’s screen saver along with Swamp Thing, Madame Curie, Stephen Hawking, etc. Amy gets excited that Sheldon is really into her. And she doesn’t mind Madame Curie being there because she is already dead.
Howard imagines he eventually went “Psycho”, and did his mother in.
After Sheldon returns, Amy is walking up the stairs and staring at Sheldon. She tells Sheldon that she missed him to which he quotes Han Solo, “I know.” After Amy asks if he missed her, he replies that he would have liked her to be with him or had gone in his place. Amy also wonders how he felt holding his nephew hoping that he might want one with her someday. He looked into the blank innocenteyes of someone who didn’t comprehend anything he said which was like another day at he office for him.
Finally a fat Raj and Leonard are eating at the Cheesecake factory and again Leonard asks Penny out. She already has a boyfriend, a very suave looking Stuart. Of course, this was Stuart’s Christmas fantasy.
Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47, holding a prototype of his famous assault rifle in 2007. The arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles and machine guns that would indelibly associate his name with modern war and become the most abundant firearms ever made, died on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic, where he lived. He was 94. Picture by Dima Korotayev/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images
Mikhail Kalashnikov, Creator of AK-47, Dies at 94
The inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died at the age of 94. His ingenuity earned him widespread admiration, but his legacy became more controversial when his weapons were used in some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts.
“It is difficult and sad to realize that Mikhail Kalashnikov is no longer with us. We have lost one of the most talented, memorable and committed patriots of Russia, who served his country throughout his life,” said the statement from the press secretary of the Udmurtia administration Viktor Chulkov.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed “deep condolences” over the death of the engineer. Picture below: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (C) and Mikhail Kalashnikov (R), the Russian inventor of the globally popular AK-47 assault rifle, talk during a visit to IZHMASH Izhevsk Mechanical Works, a weapons manufacturer, in Russia’s city of Izhevsk, 1,126 km (700 miles) from Moscow May 25, 2010.(Reuters / Alexei Nikolsky)
Kalashnikov who continued working well into his nineties, had been suffering from heart and intestinal problems, and on November 17 was admitted been in intensive care in Izhevsk – where the plant that produces the eponymous rifles is located. The official cause of death will be revealed following a mandatory autopsy.
A public funeral will be organized by the regional administration, in consultation with surviving relatives, though no date has been named so far.
Patriot, genius, villain?
For most of his life, Kalashnikov was feted as a straightforward hero.
The self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school, but achieved a remarkable and lasting feat of engineering while still in his twenties.
But as the rifles, inextricably linked forever to their creator by name, were more and more commonly seen in the hands of terrorists, radicals and child soldiers, the inventor was often forced to defend himself to journalists.
He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years, though nine out of ten AKs are not produced in Izhevsk, and perhaps as many as half are manufactured illegally.
“I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it,” he told them.
On a few occasions, when in a more reflective mood, the usually forceful Kalashnikov wondered what might have been.
“I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists,” he said once.
“I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower.”
Review Photo/Kevin Graff The John Hampu Band performs at the annual Christmas party hosted by Alliance Municipal Court Judge Robert G. Lavery on Tuesday.
Review Photo/Kevin Graff Janet Vick hugs Alliance Municipal Court Judge Robert G. Lavery at his annual Christmas party on Tuesday. Vick was a secretary for Milton Gieger, since the 1940s and has known Lavery since the beginning of his career.
M&S TELLS MUSLIM STAFF THEY CAN REFUSE TO SERVE CUSTOMERS BUYING ALCOHOL OR PORK
This is in Great Britain, not Saudi Arabia!
Marks & Spencers (M&S), an old British firm on the UK’s retailing market, has told its Muslim staff they can refuse to serve shoppers buying alcohol or pork! The chain has granted its checkout workers in more than seven hundred stores permission to decline to serve customers on religious grounds. Instead, shoppers are being asked to wait to pay for certain items at a different till!
This seems quite out of the ordinary, a tad wee bonkers, and just plain craven acquiescence to a foreign religion on home turf, when the same is NOT reciprocated in any mild form in such Muslim states.
Last week, shoppers buying alcoholic drinks for Christmas at a M&S store in central London were asked by a Muslim checkout worker to wait to be served by another member of staff. One customer – who wishes to remain unnamed – told a newspaper she was “taken aback” by the M&S store worker’s request.
Britain, like a couple more other European states, seeks to appease every other religion or ethnic group, but there is no reciprocal move by those Muslim countries to accommodate other (Western or non) customs and religions. For example, despite the presence of thousands of Saudi funded mosques in Britain, there is not a single Christian church in the whole of Saudi Arabia!
In contrast to M&S, Sainsbury’s has told Muslim staff that there is no reason why they cannot handle goods such as alcohol and pork – even if they are not allowed to eat or drink the products.
UPDATE:
M&S apology over Muslim staff policy
Marks and Spencer says shoppers won’t be refused alcohol by staff as it claims a failure to follow internal policy led to a shopper being told to queue elsewhere because a Muslim worker couldn’t serve them alcohol
A Marks and Spencer customer chooses a bottle of wine Photo: Kumar Sriskandan / Alamy
Customers at Marks and Spencer will not be refused alcohol or pork by Muslim staff after the store reacted to a massive backlash by customers.
Thousands of shoppers threatened to boycott the retailer after Marks and Spencer said it would allow Muslim staff to refuse to sell pork and alcohol because it was against their religious beliefs.
But now Marks and Spencer has apologised and said that Muslim staff who did not want to handle these products would not man tills and would work in other roles such as in clothing or in the bakery.
The Vatican has hired two international consulting firms to modernize Holy See communications and to improve financial procedures throughout the Vatican’s agencies.
“An advisory role has been entrusted to McKinsey & Company for the development – in close collaboration with the heads of the relevant offices – of an integrated plan to render the organisation of means of communication within the Holy See more functional, effective and modern,” the Holy See press office announced Dec. 19
The decision was made the previous day, on the initiative of the Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organization of the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, after a bidding and selection process. The commission was established under Pope Francis to study and streamline Vatican administration.
“The consultancy project will aim to provide the Commission with the information needed to make appropriate recommendations to the Holy Father,” the press office’s communique noted.
Won’t get the chance to wish each of you all following me on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Linkedin a Merry Christmas! So here it is: a message en masse…. Be safe and be merry, have a Happy New Year too 🙂
Here’s an awesome CGI twist to a Van Damme advert that went viral, but this takes the mickey at Chuck Norris:
Video grab taken from Channel 4 of Edward Snowden warning about the global threat to privacy as he delivered the Channel 4 Alternative Christmas Message. Photo: Channel 4/PA Wire
The Cons's Nook: www.ivanmconsiglio.com 