Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Tomorrow morning I'm headed to Germany for the week for work. I'll be back on Saturday. I will have my laptop with me but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update the blog...

Milan Pictures Posted

The wife and I went to Milano a couple days ago on our anniversary. Click the link below to see pics...

Milano Photos

WTF?

Isn't anyone going to wish us a happy anniversary?!


October 26, 2002



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I Hate Everybody

The past week or so has been pretty tough for me. I've really learned how much people really do suck. I've always operated under the thinking that I usually try to see the good in people until they give me a reason not to. However, a couple people have taught me lately that that's no way to go through life. Nay, trusting people is apparently not smart, even when they supposed to be your friends.

So from now on, I hate everyone until they give me a reason not to.

The X Man is a genius.

As I've mentioned in past posts, I'm often floored by how fast the X Man picks things up. Almost everyday he surprises me with something new that makes me say "When the heck did you learn that?!". Not to mention that he spends quite a bit of time upstairs and the neighbors are constantly telling me how impressed they are with his intelligence.

So last night before bed, the wife had the X Man on her lap and was showing him alphabet flashcards. On each card was a letter and a picture of something that began with that letter. I was watching out of the corner of my eye and was astounded to see that he knew almost every single one. Even the words he couldn't pronounce (Like 'Xylophone' for X), he still got pretty close on. In fact, some of the words he even recited in Italian as well as English.

My little guy is a bilingual genius. We're gonna be rich.

I'm Wired

I'm finally wired at the house, went online last night for the first time. Never will I be without a sports score again...

BTW, our new phone line is also working. If anyone needs our new phone number, email me and if I deem you worthy, I'll give it to you.

Florence Pics Posted

We took a trip to Florence a few weeks ago and I finally got the pictures posted. Click the link below for the Florence page, and near the bottom you'll see the link for "More Florence Photos":

Florence

You are all a bunch of perverts.

I'm always interested to see how people are finding my blog. Statcounter will list what they call "referring links", which basically tells me if someone came to my site from another link.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a growing trend. I've suddenly started receiving over a dozen hits a day from people who did a google image search for one of two things:

"dancing girls"
"s**shop"

As some of you may recall, I went to Amsterdam this past spring to hang out with some friends. When I did my Amsterdam recap , I posted a picture of some girls dancing on a bar as well as a picture of one of the aforementioned shops.

Now normally I'd be happy for any traffic that my humble little blog receives. But I'm not sure how I feel about getting hundreds of visits each week from people looking for pictures of dancing girls and such. It kind of creeps me out.

A new decanter and a big disappointment.

So Saturday night was one of the biggest college football games of the century. My beloved Notre Dame took on the hated USC Trojans. Nobody gave ND a chance to win but I had faith. We wetn shopping during the day and I bought myself a new decanter. Before the game I put it to good use by decanting a bottle of 1998 Bordeaux Superieur and letting it breath for about two hours:




The game came on at 9:30pm here so I wasa bit juiced up by the time it started:


USC scored first and things were looking bleak:


However, the Irish pulled even, then took the lead. They were outplaying the defending champion and undefeated Trojans well into the 4th quarter. An upset looked imminent. I could not control my emotions and even started feeling a bit cocky because I had told everyone from the beginning of the year that Notre Dame was going to do it:



Then disaster struck. Notre Dame had USC pinned deep in their own territory on 4th-and-freaking-nine. All they had to do was stop them and the upset of the century would have been a reality. But instead, Matt Leinart completes a 61 yard pass - on 4th and 9! - and USC scored the winning touchdown with a mere 3 seconds left in the game. I have not felt so disappointed since the ball went through Buckner's legs in '86. I was devastated:

The X Man is Kalbo

So I get home from work last night to find out that Virginia cut off all the X Man's hair. But I have to admit, it looks very cute:

(Click on image to view full size)








Rik

Kids really do learn fast.

There are fewer things in this world that I hate more than mosquitoes. I have an almost supernatural hatred of them. Being woken up in the middle of the night by a mosquito buzzing in my ear is surely one of Dante's levels of Hell. I am constantly getting on the wife about leaving the bedroom door closed because that's about the only way to keep them out of the room. But she leaves many other doors open during the day so there always mosquitoes in out house.

Whenever I see a mosquito in the house, I will hunt it down with reckless abandon. I cannot rest easy until I know that it is dead and thus will not be biting me in the future. So zealous am I in my hatred of these pesky insects and such is my immense joy at killing one in the house, that after doing so, I usually exclaim "Take that bitch! Yah!".

"Mosquito" was actually one of the first words that the X Man learned how to say, although he pronounces it "gee-to". He always looks so cute when he says "Gee-to!" and slaps himself on the arm. So imagine my surprise the other day when he clapped his hands together and yelled "Gee-to! Bish!".

Guess I have to watch what I say around the house from now on...

Back in Business

OK, things are getting back to normal now. I'm still not sure what was causing my technical issues, but they seem to have worked themselves out whatever they were.

Here's an update - after more than 5 years in my place, I've finally decided to get a phone. I've always avoided Telecom Italia like the plague because so many people have problems with them (unreliable service, hidden fees, etc). But I recently discovered that my little town now has ADSL availability and I've been wanting to go online at the house so I decided to take the plunge. My phone line should be activated any day now and then I should be online within a week or so hopefully. I've invested in a new Toshiba Satellite laptop and a wireless router so I don't have to deal with cables and such. The X Man would mess with the cables for sure. Wireless is the way to go - imagine not even having to crawl out of bed to check the sports scores; genius!

So anyway, the guy was supposed to go to the house yesterday to hook up the phone but - big surprise! - never showed up. Hopefully I'll be online there soon which will make it easier to update the blog.


Rik

Good News

It looks like my technical issues may have only been temporary. The blog should hopefully be back online with updates next week so stay tuned.

Until then, here's a picture of me and nice glass of Brunello di Montalcino to hold you over: