Gunpowder Treason

And again, another gunpowder plot brewed under secret passages beneath the House of Lords, among courtisans of ancient keeps, where spirits and rage survive...
The 5th of november is passed by now... Explosions, bonfires and fireworks filled with roars the cold and gloomy night of this land, England, which I am allowed to see now. Fires and bonfires, yes, but no government blew up.

British pals spent their night in celebration of this event, but I guess in this epoque nobody intends to give away his easy life for a handful of freedom. Nobody's going to plot treason against the Kingdom.

In Italy for the first time we assisted the big awakening of the youth generation. Shall it be the first and last time they party together against the government, fighting for their freedom? We'll see.

Linguistics and Rebellions.

Munin è un corvo che vola alto nel cielo, appartiene a questa terra. Per questo, non posso ignorare i fatti che sono successi in questi giorni in Italia, e a Macerata.

Giovedì 23: seconda assemblea generale. Riempiamo l'aula assegnataci e così ci spostiamo nel porticato. Molti discorsi, il mio primo discorso alla folla, scambio di contatti. Successo. ORganizziamo un sit-in di fronte al rettorato per martedì.

Martedì 28: sit-in di fronte al rettorato mentre il senato accademico si riunisce. E' uno stand-in perché siamo veramente tanti. Il senato è spaventato dalla nostra presenza ed attende. Entriamo nell'edificio e rempiamo la scalinata e le sale, appendiamo il nostro striscione "non paghiamo noi la vostra crisi".

Poi ce ne andiamo. Osservati da una manipolo di Azione Universitaria e Obiettivo studenti (ergo CL) marciamo in gran numero. Questo è il momento che gli organizzatori aspettavano: usando la forza dei numeri, la marcia ci porta a pochi metra di distanza verso una classe vuota che riempiamo. Sembra spontaneo anche se non lo è.

Altri discorsi, altre decisioni. Una mia amica, con la sua linea poco indulgente non è applaudita dal pubblico - a differenza di tutti gli altri interventi che sono accompagnati da scrosci di applausi e urla.

Una votazione molto demagogica sull'occupazione, fatta valutando il rumore degli applausi. Anche se siamo ben lontani dall'unanimità.

Il preside di scienze della formazione viene a convincerci di uscire dall'aula. Fallisce. Passo la nottata dentro. Il rettore ci denuncia ufficialmente alla polizia.

Mercoledì 29

10:00 - riunione con studenti, professori, ricercatori, tutti tranne il rettore.

15:00 - Lezione all'aria aperta: non ci sono fondi? impareremo nelle piazze! Una magnifica lezione sulla 133 e sulle basi della democrazia e la sua caduta.

17:00 - Assemblea a Palazzo Ugolini per Lettere e Filosofia. Ottimi discorsi da professori e studenti, buona partecipazione.

19:00 - per qualche ragione molti che erano a Palazzo Ugolini non ci seguono qua. Ancora discorsi, un gran cartellone con gli articoli della legge che stiamo combattendo, per opporci alla disinformazione. Tutto sembra egualitario, trasparente.

Tolta la parola ad un paio di persone. Crisi della democrazia interna. Si dichiara la "notte bianca contro la Gelmini. In breve una festa reggae con il DJ, le canne, e la finanza in incognito. Me ne vado deluso e solo.

Questa è solo un breve, troppo breve riassunto.

Come mai questo paese è caduto così in basso? Perché tagliamo i fondi alla cultura e li aumentiamo all'esercito? Perché squade neo-naziste (o neo-cretine, per quello che conta) possono picchiare gli studenti, mentre la polizia guarda e ride? Leggere per credere.

E perché non mi suona nuovo, visto la storia del nostro paese?

Sarebbe lungo discutere come tutto ciò è accaduto nel nostro paese, specialmente confrontandosi con persone ancora incastrate in etichette politiche.

Tuttavia il professore Mercoledì ha dato delle interessanti cause per la caduta della democrazia:

- Globalizzazione

- Complessità della società

- Crisi della Comunicazione

Globalizzazione è una parola molto generica e non mi piace. E' sbandierata in maniera negativa ma significa anche tante cose buone.

E' chiaro tuttavia che decadi fa, l'economia di un paese dipendeva dalle sue risorse naturali e come venivano usate.

Oggi dipende molto di più da quello che gli altri hanno. E quanto costa.

Chiaramente la politica interna ha meno potere di quanto ne aveva prima.

Società complessa: oggi più persone si ritengono parte di una minoranza di quelle che si ritengono parte della maggioranza.

Migrazioni, religioni, iddeali sono stati mescolati, senza però creare sempre tolleranza.

Se "Tanto tempo fa" eravamo tutti italiani - o qualcosiani, per quello che importa - e contadini, ora ci uccidiamo l'un l'altro perché siamo italiani, rumeni, emo, nazi, punk eccetera.

Nessuno rispetta le minoranze, come gli omosessuali, pochi sembrano capire come la società funziona, richiamandosi ad anacronistici ideali cristiani o di "legge del più forte".

Stiamo usando le minoranze come capri espiatori.

Ma le minoranze si posso arrabbiare, e possono imparare a costruire le bombe.

Crisi della comunicazione: come aspirante linguista, devo dare un'ampio spazio a questo argomento. Per questo il post si chiama "Linguistics and Rebellion".

Abbiamo la concezione errata che la gente nel passato fosse brutta e stupida. Non erano più stupidi di quanto lo siamo ora.

Quando studiavo l'antico anglosassone, ho scoperto parole che non potevano essere tradotte in inglese moderno - né in italiano.

Parole che parlavano delle sfumature di esistenza, che rappresentavano esseri che strisciano tra il piano reale e quello dei fantasmi.

Creature e sensazioni che possono essere difficilmente descritte. Come "dawn-sorrow".

La gente parlava così nei tempi andati. Alcune di quelle parole non potevo tradurre, ma le potevo sentire dentro di me. Alcune no, ed ho sentito di aver perso una parte di anima che i miei antenati avevano.

Con quelle parole forse riuscivano a capire gli animali (in senso metaforico) e parlare ai loro dei. Le nostre lingue hanno perso tutto ciò. Le nostre anime l'hanno perso.

Sarò un naturalista, ma non un "antiquario", che crede che tutti i problemi vengano dalla nostra società e che nel medioevo non ne avessero.

Non è vero. Oggi l'alfabetismo è più alto che nel passato. Punto.

Nondimeno, credo che le lingue siano collassate nel tempo.

In Italia ci crediamo al sicuro da ciò: siamo discendenti dei latini, della gente del "Sermo Maiorum" e dei "creatori della cultura" (dimenticandoci dei greci).

Ma siamo dentro a questo crollo come tutti gli altri.

L'italiano moderno ha tempi verbali complicati. Ma quanti, tra voi, li usano regolarmente?

La linguistica è descrittiva; non nascondiamoci dietro ai libri: la lingua è quello che diciamo, ed abbiamo perso il congiuntivo! Ed il passato remoto!

E perché devo sempre mettere una foto nei miei post per destare un minimo di interesse?

Abbiamo ancora tutte quelle parole dal latino che ci fanno sentire intelligienti: "fisiologico, transitorio, imperscrutabile, ineluttabile (**** perdonami, non mi riferisco a te!)".

Tutte queste parole sono sempre usate nel contesto sbagliato, per confondere le cose, senza significato ma di abbellimento a parole brutte, come "guerra".

Fate un'indagine seria sul linguaggio televisivo e ve ne renderete conto. Quando un linguaggio perde la sua capcità di trasmettere messaggio, La lingua è morta.

Essendo la lingua la più importante interazione tra esseri umani, se la perdiamo, torniamo alle caverne.

La lingua si sta comprimendo. Ancora una volta, guardate la TV. Interviste che una volta in radio duravano 5 minuti, oggi durano 30 secondi sul TG.

La lingua è più lenta della sua evoluzione, quindi con questa compressione, parte del messaggio viene distrutto. Perso.

Quello che poteva essere un discorso, ora è uno slogan. Uno slogan non richiede ragionamento. A uno slogan si può opporre solo un vaffanculo o la violenza.

Parliamo sopra gli altri, interrompiamo - se questa non è la prassi in Finlandia ancora, chiaramente lo è qua - perdendo quindi lo scambio, perdendo il significato.

La caduta della democrazia può solo essere accompagnata dalla caduta della libertà di parola, vero?

Qualcuno disse che urlare, interrompere, litigare è vitalità. Non lo è. Negare a qualcuno il suo tempo per parlare è dittatura. Dittatura è morte.

A tutti voi: Salvatevi, salvate le vostre lingue! Prendetevi tempo per parlare! Non usate etichette per riferirvi a cose, spiegatevi senza urlare slogan!

Linguistics and Rebellions

Munin may be a crow flying high in the sky, but he is still a creature of this earth. 

I cannot avoid to witness what happened these days in Italy, and describe how did I take part in these wordly matters.

I could write a brief summary of what happened.

Thursday 23rd: second general assembly. We overcrowd the classroom and so we move outside. Many speeches, my first speech, exchange of contacts, freedom of thought. Success. We organize a sit-in for tuesday.

Tuesday 28th: sit-in in front of the presidency while the Accademy Senate is reuniting. It is a stand-in for we are in great number. The senate is scared by our presence outside and waits to begin. We enter the building and overcrowd the stairs and halls, hanging our banners with the motto "We don't pay your crisis".*

Then we leave. Stared by a bunch of rightwings and catholics, we march in great numbers. This is the moment the organizers have been waiting for; using the strength of numbers, the march brings us a few meters later to an empty classroom that we fill. It looked spontaneous but it was not.

More speeches, more decisions. A friend of mine, with her not-self-indulgent line is not clapped by the audience - all the other speeches were usually accompanied by exaggerate applauses and banging on tables.

The most demagogic vote: "Do you want to squat this place?". The shouting and banging on the tables in taken as a unanimous agreement; though I saw that for every person shouting there was one smiling or clearly disapproving. 

A teacher is sent there to convince us to evacuate the room. He fails. I spend the night inside; the "rettore", the big chief of university, calls the police. They didn't come.

Wednesday 29th: Morning reunion, with teachers, researchers, students, everybody but the Rettore.

15:00 Open air lecture: we don't have funds? well, we'll learn on the squares! A wonderful lecture on the 133 law, the theory of democracy, the fall of democracy.

17:00 Assembly at Palazzo Ugolini with teachers and students of Filosofia, Lettere, Lingue, Storia. Good words from the teachers, who denounce how this society is trying to avoid falling using scapegoats. The positive assembly has to be cut short: a mass reunion comes!

19:00 For some reason, though we marched allthogether, many many people who were in Palazzo Ugolini get lost and won't come to Scienze della Comunicazione.

More speeches, a big panel with the articles of the law 133 that we are fighting against - to fight disinformation. Everything seems crystal clear, equal and free. We share drinks and food.

Then it happens. A tall man with a stylish hat, who has been to almost all the events, takes the mic. He proposes, instead of another squatting of the same space, that is illegal...

He is interrupted. Angry shouts from the "leaders" - the lads and lass that have been more or less leading the whole thing, without ever calling themselves leaders - shout at him, surround him, until he resings the mic and exits the assembly.

With my friends I leave the assembly to eat. There is another "vote". A party against the law is decreed by the leaders. Few people are there squatting, but many come from the streets - we occupied without even closing doors... - looking for "the party". A DJ comes, with speakers and vinyls and everything. Everybody smokes weed, everybody. But not even alltogether.

I know that feasting is important as politics, that after the battle soldiers need to meet and relax around the fire. But this was different. It wasn't for our students. It was like the nearest disco, with drinks, with pushers, people from outside, not students, friends using the classroom as a bar.

Angry and disappointed, I go back home, alone.

This is very briefly what happened. 

How come this country has fallen so down? How comes that extreme right-wing squads are allowed to beat up students on the streets, while the police watches and laughs?

And why this is nothing new, for those who studied italian history?

It would be long to discuss the fall of this country, especially for those who aren't keen on its history.

The teacher on Wednesday said that the fall of our democracy is dependant on these three main causes:

- Globalisation

- Crisis of communication

- Complexity of our society

Globalisation is a generic word and I don't like it much. But it is clear that, if decades ago, the economy of a country was about its natural resources and how they were used,

nowadays it is much more about what the others have. And how much does it cost. Clearly internal politics has less powere than before and little awareness.

Complex society: nowadays more people believe themselves to be minorities, than in the "mainstream". Migrations, religions, ideals mixed, without always bringing tolerance.

If "once upon a time" we were all italians - or somethingelsians, for what matters - and peasants, now we slaughter each other because we are italians, rumenians, emo, nazi, punk and soforth.

Nobody seems to respect minorities, such as homosexuals, few seems to understand how our society works, and notice that we are just using minorities as scapegoats.

But minorities get very angry, and they may know how to build bombs. 

Crisis of communication: as a wannabe-linguist, I have to give a major space to this subject. And this is why the name of this post is

Linguistics and Rebellion.

We have the misconception that people in old times were ugly and stupid. They were not more stupid than we are.

When studying old english, I came to know words, that couldn't be translated in modern english. Words that were different shades of existence, that represented beings

that crawl between reality and the realm of ghosts. Creatures and feelings that could be hardly described. Like "dawn-sorrow".

People used to speak like that in old times. Some of these words I could not translate, but feel inside myself. Some I couldn't, and I felt I had lost a part of my soul and heart that my ancestors had.

With those words perhaps they could understand animals and talk to their gods. Our languages have lost that. Our souls have lost that.

I may be a tree-hugger, but I am not one of those "relic-huggers", those who believe that all the problems come from our society, because in the middle ages they had none.

That is just nonsense. Nowadays literacy and culture is more widespread than in the middle ages. Period.

Nonetheless, I believe languages have been collapsing with time.

In italy we believe we are safe from this: we are the descendant of the latins, the people of "Sermo Maiorum"* and the "creators of culture" (and thus forgetting about the greeks).

But we are inside this collapse as everybody else. 

Modern italian still officially has complicated tenses. But how many, among you, actually uses them? Linguistics is descriptive.

Let's not hide behind books: our language is what we say, and we have lost the congiuntivo! And many past tenses. And why do I always need to put a picture in my posts to have people reading them?

But we still have all those latin-looking words that make us feel intelligient. Such as "fisiologico, transitorio, imperscrutabile, ineluttabile (forgive me ***, I am not accusing you!)".

And these words are always used in the wrong context to make things unclear, to confuse, with no real meaning but embellish other uglier words such as "war".

Make a serious research on TV speech and you will notice. when a language loses its capacity of giving a clear message, language is dead. Being language the most important interaction among men, when we lose it, we are back to the caves.

Language is being compressed. Again, check TV. Interviews that used to last for 5 minutes on the radio, now last 30 seconds on TV.

Language is slower than this change though, so in this compression, part of the message was destroyed. Lost.

What could have been a speech, is now a slogan. A slogan involves no thinking. A slogan can be opposed only by "fuck you" or violence.

We speak over each other, interrupting - if this may not be true in Finland yet, it clearly is here - thus losing contact, losing meaning.

The fall of democracy can only be accompanied by the fall of freedom of speech.

Somebody said once, that shouting, speaking, interrupting, arguing, is vital. It is not. Denying somebody his time to speak is dictatorship. Dictatorship is death.

Our languages are collapsing, some slower, some faster. English is so deep in this collapse that some varietes and dialects of english barely make any distinction between past, present and future.

All the adverbs became "Totally", awesome became awful.

To all of you: Save yourself, save your language! Take your time to speak! Do not use labels to refer to things, explain yourself without shouting slogans!

English and Italian versions of this post are not exact translations.

* Sermo Maiorum= language of the ancients/masters

Memoirs

22-6-08 Weather: Rain

Midsummer went by. We missed the kokko (bonfire), we came too late, but we had great fun.

We played kroketti (croquet) on a "very heavy metal track" designed by Jaakko, and later on, an epic game of Carcassonne. We ate more meat than socially acceptable. 

We failed our bets on how many people would drown (see previous post) since the bad weather discouraged people from boating and so only one man actually drowned

There was no complete darkness during the night. Only a dark dark light and a blue sky. The moon was so big I thought it was a big balloon.

This morning we left for Lappeenranta, where we'll sleep at Henna's godmother's.

We watched "number 23" with Ville; it's rather creepy.

26-6-08 Weather: crazy

Lappeenranta is much nicer than the other finnish cities, which are usually functional but ugly as hell.

Lappeenranta has three nice churces, especially the orthodox one: tiny but filled with gold and treasures.

This country is completely queer. Bunnies frolic freely even in the capital and squirrels are all around. People collect used cans and bottles from the street and recycle them, so they get some cash. The sun shines at night during the summer, while in the winter it's rarely seen.

Lakes are everywhere; I would like to have a boat.

28-6-08 weather: "hot", 22+

Qua in Finlandia sono tornato in quel mondo fatto di incomprensione, comunicazione interrotta, parole spezzate e larghi sorrisi come unico medium interculturale. E' un mondo diverso e difficile.

In Irlanda potevo avere lunghe discussioni con chiunque. Il problema erano ogni tanto le parole troppo difficili; qua il gergo di ogni giorno è una sfida. Le persone vivono nel falso credo che la lingua sia il più semplice tramite di comunicazione, ed essa sia solo un modo per trasmettere fatti, informazioni. Invece, l'atto comunicativo stesso è un fatto, talvolta potente, talvolta creatore di fatti.

There are three keys to enter a society; language is one of them.

2-7-08 weather: warm

Se per sopravvivere è necessario muoversi, allora io vivrò a lungo.

Dopo una settimana a Lappeenranta ho passato una notte a Lahti. La giornata dopo -ieri- a sbronzarsi a casa dei genitori di Mikko. Lì ho passato la notte ed ora sono ad Helsinki. Lo zaino è sempre più vuoto, si svuota di tutto il superfluo, mentre la mente si riempie di novità. Se volevo girare il mondo, ci sto riuscendo. Non passo due giorni nello stesso luogo. Nulla è facile come lo era in Irlanda. Ma quella nazione è passata, la storia scritta. Passerà ancora molto tempo prima che io vi ritorni ancora.

L'estate finlandese regala emozioni forti, a differenza dell'inverno spento. 

Many days after: about Finland

Here we go with more written memories from months ago:

Few days before 14-06-08 - Weather:COLD!

Ireland today voted NO to Lisbon treaty. They changed history. Barely a million of votig Irishmen.

Now EU is on a crisis they say. Europe, where shall you go? Incapable yet of taking decisive action, strong decisions that we may need. Politics is nasty.

Yesterday I've been to Näsijärvi, which is a local lake surrounded by a forest (tottakai!).

 We went there between 10-11PM and it was bright. This finnish summer is incredible; and cold, right now. It has been raining every day since my arrival, after a "hot spell". It was awesome. The lake is very wide, the forest looks pretty much a Alpine forest, though with taller birches and wider landscape. This country is still weird though. With Ireland it was a matter of days and people. After I explored Dublin a bit everything became familiar. I could understand people speaking. Now everything is so foreign it looks like another planet. Time goes by. If the warm weather comes back...

14-6-08 | Weather: Warm

Most of Finns live in unattractive block of flats, usually grey; from the inside though, the houses are of the highest comfort.

Finnish breakfast is weird. The custom often mixes typical products - cheese, smoked ham... - with more exotic stuff such as tropical fruit, youghurt, cucumbers.

There is no way to stop the night sun to enter the room, so I had to get used to sleep with light outside and inside. Nonetheless, I love the never-ending days, in which the time of the day almost doesn't matter. Take a walk at 9AM or 10PM, it's the same.

20-6-08 Weather: warm/rain

Today I biked to the Vesijärvi lake. It means "waterlake" for no other word could reflect its brightness and clean water... in past times. Now it's black.

It's a nice spot though. Biking here is easier than in Italy, and nicer. Yesterday it was "normaali suomen kesä" (I beg your pardon if I made grammar mistakes) i.e. rain all day. We went to the shop to pile a few goods for Juhannus. Tomorrow happens to be midsummer: the longest day of the year. I find it a funny day to celebrate and be happy: after tomorrow, every day will be shorter. Besides, many people's Juhannus ends with little happiness: a bulk of guys die throughout Dinland for drowning, often by boating right after drinking.

Two milions kgs of sausages are bought by Finns only for midsummer, and there are only 5.4 millions people in the whole country. Make your own "average pro-capite meat" calculations. 

Tomorrow is a special day.

To be continued.

Now I hope somebody notice the nice "envelope pattern" in my latest posts

Munin says Hi.

The meaning of life - gaming part II

Me and gaming - top 5 boring stories

Being cynical, I must say, the first impression I got when I entered the world of gaming was that of an immense desert.

Very early in my childhood, I had people to play with: my parents, my brother, some friends, maybe at school. Soon after though, at lightspeed, I found myself alone. My parents had more important things to do, my brother grew up - and being an elder brother... - and friends... well, I didn't have many friends at school, and all of them spent their time by:

A - running after girls

B - harassing girls

C - beating up somebody

D - playing football

Me, I don't like football, nor any other team sports. And table games require a long time; very unfit to our modern time, fast time. Therefore, I concentrated myself on reading, computer games, and other stuff.

I embraced again the world gaming with other people only when I had already fourteen years and more on my back....

To be continued

Parentesi

I love mushrooms. Mushrooms are fun. They are a meme, they are deeply rooted in our imagination. Super Mario in mushroomland; the Peyote; Germanic Berserkr using Amanita Muscaria; the saying "to grow up as mushrooms"; and the smurfs live inside mushrooms!
Mushrooms aren't even a plant, no, not a vegetable. They are not in the animal nor plant kingdom. They are just mushrooms . They are mostly water, but still something living, something which is not water. And indeed they can be very good to eat, or very nasty and deadly. They are soft, have funny shape, with those big hats.
That's it. This post is completely pointless, nonetheless i wanted to write it.

The meaning of life - Gaming

Gaming has probably nothing to do with the meaning of life, or perhaps it's its real kernel. By the way, today I will not publish more of my finnish diaries, but write about... well, gaming, I guess you understood by now.





HOW, WHEN AND WHY DID I START GAMING

I am not a veteran, but I've been gaming for... 20 years?
I guess I figured out the concept of "playing" at, perhaps, 10-12 months after my birth, and I never stopped thereafter.
As a kid, I played with parents, with my brother and occasionally (rarely) with friends. But playing and gaming are different things. When have I started gaming? I cannot be sure what came first, wether the "adventures" with my brother, "Space Quest I", or Monopoly, but indeed very early. And why? I am strong and healthy (sort of) and I like hiking, climbing, swimming... no sports, but the normal stuff. Nonetheless, I admit that the mind gives me more pleasure than the body, and what better than games to stir the mind?
Backgammon is said to be 5000 years old, and therefore gaming goes along with civilization. Gaming is filling your afternoons with something different than hunting or mating or sleeping. Perhaps gaming is the most human thing.
In my 20 years of gaming, many things have changed. I did not notice at the time, but they happened indeed.

BAD POINTLESS SUMMARY ON THE HISTORY OF GAMING

Before the great war gaming was chess, cards, gambling, Go, Backgammon. Good stuff indeed, but games of chance and randomness, games for gambling, games for spare time.
After the war, we created the nerd. And nerds are the creators of many things we now have: Wizard of the Coast, Lord of the Rings, Microsoft, Linux, File Sharing, Google. But not only: nerds created gaming as "lifestyle".
Now it's 1974 and Gary Gygax (hope you are in a heavenly dimension, buddy) and Dave Arneson (the other one everybody always forgets) created Dungeons&Dragons. They created the Roleplaygame. And the world... didn't change, but geeks did.




ROLEPLAY I.E. MENTAL HOSPITAL

Many people ask me what a Role Play game actually is. I believe it is the highest accomplishment of humam mind abstraction. Abstract art or poetry are bullshit, compared to RPGs; Philosophy... you don't want me to talk about philosophy now, do you?
RPGs are about imagining that you are a character that you are not, and imagining this character in a world that does not exist, not painted, nor filmed, and in this lands, he fights creatures that do no exist and talks to people that do not exist, to save the world that does not exist, with clearly unreal weapons or spells. And this makes you happy. Now, is this mental? sure it is.
You might think that afterwards, gaming got even better, evolved, or just stayed as it is. I think it moved backwards. I realized it when, yesterday, I've seen D&D accessories named "D&D - miniature game"
Miniature game? What the fuck? Yes, miniatures and cards nowadays sell more than "imaginary worlds" and therefore, back we go.
What do gamers have today more than yesterday? More stuff, but not more spirit.
Yesterday there was Monopoly and Risk, today there is Monopoly, Risk, Carcassonne, Agricola, War of the ring.... etc.
And this is great. There is an entire world for gamers, for geeks. Board games, RPGs, Computer Games. All kind of games. And this is great. But I cannot stop thinking, that geeks have been transformed, from "socially different" to a commercial target. They analized geeks, understoof how they work and created something they can buy. Like Emos, Punks, Rappers etc.
And are they wrong? Geeks used to read books, to think more than act, to speak like Oxford teachers and such. Nowadays in geek stores I see only school kids and pre-adolescents with Magic cards.

ME AND GAMING = A 100% BORING STORY
Now, me and gaming. As I said, I've been in gaming for a while. What can I tell?
First of all, lack of gamers. When my parents became too busy for board games, I had only my brother. Then he became too old and I had to drop board gaming. I had been computer gaming since I was very little. Am I a very good gamer now? Indeed, I am not. I quite suck at games usually. I like the feeling they give me, I don't like the winning per se. I like the stories. Yes, for me computer games are essentialy movies.

And computer games were, at the beginning, activity oriented: they were based on doing something, i.e. driving a car or shooting monster. They were hard, but fun.
Then PC games evolved, and the trivial arcade, almost abstract ideas (is pong a simulation of tennis or an abstract game?) became, with the help of sound and image, simulations.
I don't have memory enough to describe the history of computer games, but when the internet came, I got randomly involved in RPG by Forums. That changed quite a couple of things....

See you in the next episode!

In the pictures: chess, D&D logo, Carcassonne board game

Memories from the repository

Hi again, after a long time!
After Finland, I "enjoyed" Italy with my beloved foreigner. I may describe Italy to you all, but this is not my task. I may tell you the feelings of such foreigner, as far as I know, but that is not my tasks. I may express my own feelings, but this is not your business.

As I said in other posts, when I don't post I'm not being lazy: I just prepare bigger posts! And so I'm going to "publish" the memories, i.e. publish here what I wrote on paper during my stay in Finland. Now plug you headphones and play Korpiklaani full volume, we're going back to the first day I left for the land of lakes....

10-06-08
Leaving is always the same. A restless night, an early morning, and with the most casual attitude, you say farewell. The day before is a singular one also. It's such a random day. Usually with good weather, a nice afternoon, a wonderful dinner. A "goodnight", something you forgot to do, and, as an everyday "bye" you say farewell; be it for a week, a month or forever.
That's leaving. Leaving is mystic, it's a religion. [...]
I had a weird dream. I left my old house in Dublin, and I brought with me everything: pieces of my closet, tables...
But something (as my Lego collection :| ) I couldn't bring with me. Back to Italy though I discovered that a weird warp portal was in the room upstairs, so that objects could be transferred from Osimo to Dublin effortlessly. [...] I can find nothing to feed the sense of loss, nothing to replace the Emerald. [...] Leaving is forgiving.

11-6-08
Qualche volta ti viene voglia di non fermarti, di prendere aereo su aereo e continuare a viaggiare.
[translation] Sometimes you want to go on, not stopping, to take the next airplane and keep on travelling.

14-6
I've been in Finland fro three days now. The world is so small sometimes. I've run into a small italian food shop. Inside it, nobody but a chubby, bald italian with rough, generous hands. He's been living in finland for 6 years now, with his finnish wife...
He made me nice discounts, offered us a coffee. It's hard to make a living here, he says. Well, no wonder. Italians can't really stand the cold, the silence... finns have bidet though.
And then I even saw Joni, the finn from UCD. I couldn't believe it. Dublin is the entire world, isn't it?
Sometimes in the evening I think I'll go out with Christian, or early in the morning I think about meeting Alice and Giorgia smoking in the courtyard. I still imagine to see kate waving at me through windows. That world is no more. Is it so difficult to settle down in this country, so hard to change homeland? Andrea did. He was alone, but smart and with a clear aim. Maß und Ziel.


20-6-08
In this long time abroad I've stopped writing and playing. Producing. I've been dull to the world but not to myself. I've produced myself. I'm increased, not in size but in capacity. My own world expanded.


There is much more! It will come, with time...

Journey

I made a journey, a most wonderful one, lasted one week.
But for me it was a lifetime, a life within life.
I was surprised from Frankfurt, I love that city!
I was again in Ulm and I loved it.
I was in Augsburg and Innsbruck and... well, not sure I loved them completely.
Then I was near Trento, in the dolomites, at the Taramelli hut.
Then I was back home, and I was so happy and content, that it gave me an energy pump for the life to come next.
That will be really boring, non-exciting. Especially compared to what I've seen and what I've done in the last year. Not to mention the fact that in other projection I could have been abroad.
Well, that's life and my decision. I belong to a place and I belong to people. No place belongs to me nor people do. Besides that, life is a continuous challenge even if you play at home. Working on ourselves is important. If we just focus on the outer world we miss the delights of our soul, we miss to fix the troubles of our soul.

Note: Innsbruck was very inspiring at night, in the inner city, but the rest of the city is a bit grey. Besides, people are really kind!
Ah yeah, I didn't mention, I traveled on my own. I met people, special people, but I traveled on my own. And I was looking for that, I love it. Me and myself...
I love to travel by train: you see the landscapes mutating, you understand the distances, and you can dig into history, imagining to live in fast forward the great migrations. Airplanes are maybe cheap, but they only bring you to a specific place, to the crowded places. With the train you can reach nearly everywhere. You can really say you're travelling.
I traveled for 2100kilometers which only 700km were made by airplane.

I discovered a lot during this trip. I learned about myself, and about life. Traveling is the occasion to put yourself into challenge, or observe yourself from a different point of view. That way you improve yourself, your life. You understand things that are not visible when you live in the everyday life. That's the important part of traveling, besides the fun. Exploring new places and meeting new people is partially true: we can do that always. Just we don't when we are at home, and that's a great flaw, especially if we declare ourselves "international people".