The sweet life

So I've made a few changes recently which I'd like to announce.

First, Lisa and I are now engaged. Yes, I know it may not come to a shock to many since we've been happily dating for well over 5 years but it wasn't a decision we took lightly. Also, I haven't actually bought the ring yet so maybe it doesn't count. My mom tells me that when she told my relatives in Italy they responded with peals of laughter since they had assumed that Lisa and I were already engaged long ago. In Italy you see, getting engaged is like going steady. Once you decide not to date other people you buy a ring and stay engaged till you can afford your own house. Anyhow, it's nice to know that my relatives can find something to laugh at besides my poor (but improving!) grasp of the Italian language.

Also, I've quit my job and am taking a sabbatical before searching for a new one. I enjoyed working at Xythos - it's a nice company with a lot of nice people - but the consulting game of traveling to middle-of-nowhere Texas every other week gets old after a while and it's not the type of business I want to be in when I start a family. By switching over to a developer position I can stay closer to home and focus on what is arguably my core competency: writing code.

Speaking of, I have just gained a new illegal hobby: downloading textbooks. I consider this closer to "super-library check out" since I don't plan on keeping the books longer than my two-to-three month sabbatical. Still, the wealth of information is nearly overwhelming. After studying this I will surely be able to ace any interview... even with google.

The intersection of politics and hilarity

If you haven't seen this you really ought to because it's quite possibly the funniest thing that's going to come out of this election:



Hilarity aside I can't help but suspect that we'll be seeing more of this kind of thing in the future. I have no idea who produced this or what their motives are (besides presumably electing Obama) but the ad is pretty fracking effective even considering that the content of the attack is pretty thin. I mean, honestly, calling your wife a c*nt in front of reporters is uncouth but it doesn't really reflect poorly on his presidential skills. I mean, for all we know it was just a word he picked up from the youngsters and he didn't really knew what it meant. Either way, how he treats his wife won't have nearly as much bearing on his presidency as his plans on healthcare or the environment. And those provide more than ample reason to vote against him.

Also, Lisa pointed out that the most surprising thing about the quote was that in 1992 McCain used the word "Trollop" in a non-ironic context. I mean, jeese, I guess he really is older than chocolate chip cookies... though again, that's no reason to vote against him (the neo-con foriegn policy though: that's a good reason).

No, it happened a long long time ago

My ongoing quest to not suck so hard at speaking Italian continues as I finally complete my mission to learn about the myriad Italian tenses. I can now say that even if I don't know how to form them properly at least I know what each tense is used for.

In the Italian classes I've taken the tenses were always presented in order of importance and complexity. Rated with this metric the Italian "passato remoto" ranks dead last. Not only is incredibly complex, requiring completely different conjugations for all three verb groups, but it's function is to indicate things that happened a long-ass time ago. To make things even more difficult the proximity in time is not measured by months or years, but by how emotionally distant it is from you now. For example, in 1984 Cindy Lauper followed up "Girls just wanna have fun" and "Time after Time" with her third solo album "She Bop". I do not care. This is the perfect time to employ the passato remoto. On the other hand, in 1989 Weird Al starred in UHF which affects me emotionally to this very day. The much simpler passato prossimo will aid me quite nicely in expressing this in Italian. This leaves only the task of explaining what Ultra High Frequency is to people from a country that has never had it.

Since the passato remoto doesn't usually come up in everyday Italian speech (it's mostly used in books nowadays) I thought it would be safe to put it aside until I learn the other tenses well, or until I suddenly decide to become a paleontologist. But a funny thing happened in Italian class: I recognized the passato remoto. Not all the forms mind you, but at least one of the more common forms (third person "are" verbs) just sounded like they were in the past tense. It was at that point that my teacher revealed that the passato remoto was more heavily used in some regions of Italy than others and that, in particular, Sicilians are well known for using the passato remoto in everyday speech!

Apparently, learning Sicilian from an early age gave me kind of a watered down understanding of passato remoto which doesn't actually help me use it. (I know, because I tried). Thanks a lot, Sicilians. Now I've got to learn your complicated super-duper past tense or I won't be able to understand you all. That's just perfect. I mean, pluperfect. I mean passato remoto. He's a borg cube.

Italy Fun Facts

Last time I went to Italy I took Lisa along for the first time. All my relatives liked her but almost invariably they would comment on her weird (to them) name. Almost always they would follow up by asking "does she have blue eyes?" It was explained to me that in the 60's there was a popular song in Italy called "Lisa dagli occhi blu" (Lisa, with blue eyes) and it seems to be the Italian cultures single contact with the name "Lisa".

Anyhow, with the help of Youtube, here is the song they were all talking about.



Update: Via IM Kevin asks "What about the Mona Lisa?" Answer: In Italy it's not called the Mona Lisa. It's "La Gioconda".

Update: Hilarious. Apparently the song was so successful they made a film about it. Here's the synopsis:

Mario, a young professor of nuclear phisics, inflames a pupil of his. Unfortunately her father is in financial dire straits and the girl is about to marry a not very nice but very rich guy. Luckily enough her butler discovers a painting in the household by Michael Angelo which will pay for everything.