Possible new Job Adventures

I know i am working in Italy and having a gret time with the sun and cheese and wine, but I have to plan for the next coming project and this one sends me to Angola and from what i can gather it is a shithole of the first order, so i have been casting around and I have found a nice little job working back with my old company for a whole year in Australia in Darwin, this is something i cannot turn down even if the money isnt as good, So I am planning to get all the paperwork finished soon and leave here on the 1st of Spetember and go directly to Australia with my work permit in my passport an a new camera with which to take millions of photos with, good on yer mate, throw another shrimp on the barbie

Professional Beggars

I am shocked to see so many beggars from the eastern European countries here on every street corner and set of traffic lights, every cripple from Romania must be here, I personally hate the sight of them and never give them money, there are also many professional beggars that feign crippleness, I have seen 4 guys using the same technique for looking like a cripple, they must have a cripple school in Romania showing them how to look pathetic and in need of money, I have read that they are run by criminal gangs and get only a portion of what they get, the technique they use is to put a shoe on wrongly, by walking in it while the show is actually on the side, so it looks like the foot is broken over, this is crazy anyway, and then they use a tiny walking stick that means they have to stoop over to walk again this is crazy, so i have sen 4 guys walking like they have a funny foot and a short walking stick, this is an insult to all cripples and they should be shot for this horrible scam they are perpetrating on the gullible public. They even have young girls just walking up and down the lines of traffic with not being a cripple, sometimes they pretend to play the accordion, hopelessly playing the same 4 notes in random order, it makes me sick, i hate beggars as they are preying on the good nature of normal people, you dont see any Italian beggers as they would rather work than beg, they should be all arrested and removed back to their home country. Sorry it is just a rant today

Famous Quotes

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television."

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
-- The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957


"But what is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us,"
-- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
-- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take t he leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out,"
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,"
-- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, France.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

"The super computer is technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
-- Professor of Electrical Engineering, New York University

"I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
-- The head of IBM, refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found Xerox.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
-- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,"
-- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

And last but not least…

“We’ll take no prisoners!”
-- George Armstrong Custer - Custer’s Last Stand 1862.

Latest Weekend Tour

This weekend i decided that we should travel to the ancient city of Siena, I have been asked by so many locals if I have been that I thought I have to go and see what it is like. I knew it was about 200 Kms and would take me about 3 hours across country as i wanted the slow trip via the small towns. It was far slower than i expected for the simple reason that the sign posts are non existent and require some interpretation. as the closer you get to your next destination the signs for that place disappear. It was a nightmare of minor proportions but added at least an hour to the trip for lost detours to surrounding villages, some of which were worth the trip actually, anyway we arrived at the said town of Siena and it was a slight disappointment as normal as Florence actually spòoils you with its magnificance, the Duomo was very nice and the town square was also quite nice but overall a let down as we had invested so much time with it, i could have driven to Venice in the same time. One benefit was that we found a cinema that had Harry Potter playing so i managed to squeeze the visit to see the latest must see film as well as going to Siena so all in all a good sunday was had

The Duomo




The Duomo and bell tower




Me and Little Tinker

My Evolving Italian Beard

Isnt it strange that something as a goatee beard can take a life of its own and after some minor comments about how i looked like a coffee shop poet, this is something i couldn't cope with, i know it looks strange on me so it had to change, i have trimmed it mercilessly and now it occupies only the edge of my chin and it is horrendously white , which i knew it would be though, and now my wife says it looks nice and rugged, this is Ok but it takes some getting used to having an itchy thing that i have now started playing with. how i will cope with it as the summer drags on i am not sure. i have even started letting my hair grow longer, i could be a full hippee in 4 months time. I haven't started smoking weed yet but i am eating an incredible amount of fruit and pickles, not sure why.

My Local Town

While we are living in Italy i had decided that we must try and see everything that there is to see in this part of the country as it will probably be the last time we can ever have such an amazing chance to see so much. so our local town near here is Pisa, well you have to go and see the bell tower that is so goddam famous, the town itself is nice and old but the architecture is pretty boring so i had already decided to not bother with a long walk into the centre , mixing with all the American and Japanese tourist that throng this part of the world. The drive for me is even on local roads, not even a highway to get stressed on, we drove along the coastal road and it was very nice looking at the mountains behind the coastal strip and after an hour we could see the Dome of the Rectary and Bell tower, so we parked about half a mile away to avoid all the nasty parking stuff around the church and then walked in, the day was sunny and warm and it was nice to see it but for me the second time isnt nowhere near as good as seeing it the first time, i feel bad for not thinking things are great anymore, am i becoming a grizzled old fart, or am i spoiled with seeing the greatest things in the world, and comparing everything to them, i think that is the problem. we went home after wards and carried on with reading out pirate version of the Harry Potter Final book, its Ok but many repetetive phrases are used to my annoyance, Arching eyebrows are boring after reading it 20 times, later dudes and dedesses.

Here i am posing with the little tinker