molto freddo

So I went out back yesterday afternoon to see how the level in my home gas tank is doing. Keep in mind that my home gas tank provides energy for the following: house heating (yay, radiators), hot water, cooking, and clothes dryer. Well, I was a little annoyed to find that the needle on the gauge was below the tick mark indicating "completely devoid of any fuel whatsoever." So I called and scheduled a delivery, but the earliest I can get it here is Wednesday. Meaning yesterday, today, and tomorrow were, are, and will be very cold days in my house. I figure I can suck it up and wear extra clothes if that's what it takes to ensure that I have hot water for a shower in the morning. Just two more showers to go....

"Let them eat snake!"

So in church today, Father Rick was going over the US Catholic guidelines for fasting and abstinence during Lent. (You may recall that Ash Wednesday happens to fall on the day after Mardi Gras...what a wierd coincidence.) Anyway, he was telling us what we can't eat on Fridays: "no meat, and in the US, meat is defined as beef, veal, pork or poultry. Fish, eggs, and milk products are okay. And you know, so technically are reptiles. So I suppose if you wanted to have snake for dinner every Friday during Lent, you could." Yummy.

Oops...our bad

Damn submarines just running amok out there.

At least that sort of thing is understandable as to why it could happen. This, on the other hand, is completely incomprehensible to me. Anyone else understand?

I lasted longer at Harvard than this guy

At first I wasn't sure if I should be happy or upset that Larry "women suck at science because they're dumb and should be in the kitchen cooking" Summers is quitting as President of Harvard. And then I realized, I just don't care either way. I kinda wish he'd waited another year and a half, though, so I'd be able to apply for the job.

Torino 2006: Been there, done that, got the T-shirt

...and the polo shirt, and the hat, and the scarf, and the gloves, and the refrigerator magnet, and a bunch of pins, and the cologne, and the commemorative bottle of (surprise) Italian wine. Seriously, the Olympics are awesome. They should hold them every year.

Friday afternoon following work, we stuffed 11 people into a 7-person camper and drove for about 10 hours to get to Torino. The drive was made more fun by the board games and beer that, it turns out, we WAY overstocked on. Better too much than too little, right? Saturday we went to the women's curling match, where I twice missed my chance to profess in person my undying love and devotion to US women's curling team skip Cassie Johnson. The US-Italy match ended early (the Italians conceded the rest of the match once they were down 11-3 in the 6th frame), so we stayed to watch the other two matches in progress (UK-Norway and Sweden-Japan). As I was intently focused on the grace and athleticism of one of the Swedish players, Cassie walked right by in front of our seats and I completely missed it until she had already gone by and was out of shouting distance. So to drown my sorrows, a couple of us got up to grab some beers, and I missed my second opportunity for a marriage proposal when she apparently walked back by our group and chatted with them for a couple minutes. Damn the timing. On the bright side, according to a friend back home, our group did make it onto NBC's broadcast of the event. Which we richly deserved, because we were the loudest, most supportive group of Americans there, aside from the friends and family of the team. We had three American flags for 11 people...that's a people-to-flag ratio of less than four, which I think is pretty darn good.

Sunday morning I took the coldest shower of my life at the campground. It was pretty ridiculous. We left and parked the R/V at one of the park-and-ride places just outside the city and took the shuttle bus in. (It was actually a very well set-up transportation system. There were about 8 or 9 giant park-and-ride places around the city; parking was free and we paid 5 euro for unlimited use of the shuttle buses and all the other buses in the city for 24 hours. And the trains for the events outside the city--like curling, for example--were pretty frequent and very clean. I want to move to northern Italy.) We wandered around Torino for a couple hours and bought some souveneirs. Meanwhile, it started raining and so we got cold and wet, which we stayed for pretty much all day. Continuing our quest for TV stardom, we randomly came upon the piazza where NBC is filming the Today Show. We managed to get front row spots, and I'm pretty sure we got on TV (although we only had one American flag with us then). We were right behind one of the segments they were filming, and the guy with the crowd cam wandered by us a couple times. During one segment, they were showing how to make cappuccino and one of the guys in our group yelled, "Put some whiskey in it," causing the cooking lady to say, "yeah, let's put some whiskey in it." So at least he got to be heard on national TV, if not seen.

Exhausted from our brush with fame, we took the bus up to the hockey stadium, outside of which the Olympic flame was burning. Looks a little too much like an oil refinery for me, but I suppose it's still pretty cool. Then we went to the hockey match between those international hockey powerhouses Slovakia and Kazhakstan. It was actually a lot of fun--we had top row nosebleed seats, so we could be obnoxious and loud, and it was a good game, too. We were pretty evenly divided in our group between Kazhakstan and Slovakia. And one confused guy in the group, not realizing which game we were going to see, panted the Czech flag on his face before the game.

After the game, we went back to the city center and wandered around some more. By this time, it was snowing rather heavily. We found the Olympic megastore, and by the time we got there we were soaking wet. I had leather fleece-lined gloves which, between the rain earlier that day and the snow that evening, had become soaked. So I did the only logical thing: bought a pair of nice, dry team Italia ski gloves. I was thinking about buying some dry Olympic socks, too, but since my shoes were soaked it wouldn't have lasted for long. Left the store and wandered by the piazza where they were doing that night's medals ceremony. Unfortunately, you needed advance tickets to get in, and we weren't able to get them. We did stand outside for a bit where we could see the big screen, and then they brought out Whitney Houston to sing. So we left. We went to a nice restaurant and had, of course, an absolutely delicious dinner.

After dinner, most of the group went back to the RV, but three of us decided to slog through the snow to go hang out at a pub we had seen the previous day. It was absolutely insane--packed full, and every single person in there was either American or Canadian. And it seemed like every other person there was in some way affiliated with the Olympics--"Jennifer Rodriguez is my sister," "I'm the travel coordinator for the ice dancing team," "Bode Miller's brother went to school with me," etc. Of course, they could have been lying, but they were all very friendly. It was just one big happy American party.

Of course, after staying out most of the night, the three of us had a rather rough time of it on the trip back this morning, but it was well worthwhile. I figure I may never get the chance to go to the Olympics again, so I wanted to get the most out of my experience. And if Olympic groupies go to the bar until the wee hours of the morning, well dammit, that's what I'm going to do, too.

The whole trip was an incredibly fun experience. People everywhere from every country were friendly and talkative, and just happy to be out supporting their teams and their countries. A nice dose of the real "Olympic spirit," not that cheesy stuff that NBC tries to sell. I'm planning on trying to come back to as many Olympic games as I can; Vancouver in 2010 is totally do-able, as will be the Summer Games in London in 2012. Don't think I'm making it to Beijing in 2008, but hey, you never know...

This weekend's goings-on:

11 people
a 7-person R/V
6 hours of driving
US women's curling
Kazhakstan vs. Albania hockey
Turino 2006
the Olympics. Be there.

There will probably be some jail time somewhere in there, I'm sure.

They should make a reality TV show out of this.

Hmm...Army goes to Iraq. Army has a problem retaining experienced officers who have served in combat. Raise your hand if you're surprised.

You know, the Army does have this "blue to green" program going, where if you're an officer in another service (the Navy, for example...hmm...), you can transfer to the Army and keep your same rank and seniority, and usually get some kind of bonus. Interesting thought. Only if they give me an infantry company, though.

Oh, wait. I don't like the thought of getting randomly blown up either. I forgot.

It's funny because it's true.

Made a pot roast tonight for dinner. So, in honor of that, here's a little pot roast trivia. All of the following statements are true except for one; see if you can identify it.

a) Should've bought some potatoes and vegetables today, since the point of having a pot roast is that you cook all that other crap in with it so you have something other than a big chunk of meat and the baked beans you thankfully happened to have in the cupboard.

b) If you cook your pot roast with even a little bit of vinegar, your whole house will smell like vinegar.

c) Turns out women are impressed by a guy who can cook (or who claims to be able to cook) a pot roast, despite the fact that it involves little more than boiling a giant chunk of cow muscle in whatever random crap you have in your cupboard.

d) Karl Rove loves the pot roast his mom used to make.

e) If you happen to be out of regular olive oil and all you have is the olive oil bottled with the hot peppers and so you use that, it adds a noticeable but not unpleasant nip to your roast. (You can also put this in your baked beans.)

f) Vacuum-packed beef has a longer half-life than Sm-149.

I just heard the best country music song ever. The title says it all:
"Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money."

Story of my life.

Well, except the part about the horses.

Bird flu has finally arrived here. Fortunately, Napoli is known for its great seafood dishes and not so much its bird recipies. Come to think of it, I don't think I've had a single poultry dish at a restaraunt since moving here.

Our office is trying to resurrect an old office tradition of all the JOs going out for Wednesday night dinners to some random Italian restaurant out in town, picked by whomever volunteers, on a more-or-less rotating basis. So tonight I stepped up and picked out a place, and about 11 of us showed; not too bad a showing, really. It was at a steakhouse right up the street from my house that's supposed to be really good. Unfortunately, the crowd was not too enthusiastic about engaging in the full-on Italian meal experience of antipasti (appetizers), primi (pasta), and secondi (meat). We had the antipasti, but then everyone just went for either pasta or the (very, very good) steak. This sort of annoyed me and one of the other guys and his wife who were there and are leaving shortly, so they're trying to maximize their Italian experience. I mean sure, it's a lot of food, but you don't have to eat ALL of every course. It also visibly annoyed our hosts at the restaurant; I think they thought that we didn't think their food was good enough. However, they were extremely good about rolling with it and catering to our random American whims. And when they brought out the (really f-ing fantastic) steak, they also brought out ketchup and mayonnaise, and we all felt like jerks.

Anyway, the point of this is: if you come out to visit me, and I take you for a good Italian dinner, just get all the damn food I tell you to get and like it. It's not the damn Olive Garden, okay?

On a brighter note, aforementioned short-time guy and his wife gave me a heads-up on a Neapolitan cooking class they're going to on Friday; I think I may sign up for this one. You know--give a man a fish, vice teach a man to fish...

Today was tax day in the household of the Italy Hodges. (Okay, the Italy Hodge, singular.) I love tax day, except that I get less and less money back every year. This year's isn't even enough to buy a kayak, although it is enough to buy a nice color GPS, especially when combined with the hypothetical Super Bowl pool winnings that I hypothetically got today. (Before you criticize me for frivolous spending when I should be saving for law school, please remember: I have to buy nice toys now while I still have an income. Think of the children.)

Of course, the cheap-ass state of Connecticut (or, as we natives call it, "Connectaxthehelloutofmeicut") isn't nearly as generous as the federal government, having refunded me a mere $29. And that was just because I checked the box in TurboTax next to "I have a nice smile." So hopefully I don't get audited.

Posting from work today. Why? I installed Norton Internet Security 2006 on my computer on Friday, and it's so secure, I can't connect to the Internet anymore. Can't even talk to my wireless router or my stereo box. Then I go to try and change the firewall settings and it tells me I don't have permission to change those settings. If I don't, who the hell does? And of course, the help file has nothing in it to help me, and I can't connect to the web site for tech support because, hey, it's on the internet, which I can't see. So I figure, hey, there must be a phone number I can call. So I search the help file, and sure enough, "if you would prefer telephone support, please call the tech support number shown on...our website." So I figure, hey, I'll just uninstall and reinstall. Well, when I go into add/remove programs, Norton Internet Security doesn't even show up. I tried to uninstall the one Norton program that did show up, and it wouldn't let me. If I can't fix it tonight, I'm going to blow up my computer.

In other, less annoying, news, found a decent jazz club in Naples the other night. Unfortunately, the friends we met up with to go there after dinner said it was "right up the street and around the corner." After a 45-minute walk straight uphill, we disagreed. It was a nice place, though.

And in a vote of confidence for the American way of life, we didn't have to come into work until 1 p.m. today so that we could all stay up and watch the Super Bowl (which started at 12:30 a.m. our time).

Update: I can access the internet again. Not sure what I did, but I think it involved turning off all my security settings and posting all my passwords on a public website. I can neither uninstall nor reinstall any Symantec (i.e., Norton) products on my computer. I'm going to bed shortly, but when I get up I'm going to write to the nice people at Symantec and ask them WTF is going on.

Also, if there were hypothetically an office pool for the Super Bowl in which I had been hypothetically participating, I would have won a hypothetical $250.

So these two pictures pretty much sum up the phrase, "party at Chris' house Wednesday night." As you can see, it was a very classy affair. More classy pictures at http://chrishodge.shutterfly.com/action/.

For the record, last night I went to bed at 10. It was incredible. I never knew I could feel so awake in the morning.

I entertained guests at my house last night. I managed to get almost two hours of sleep before getting up for work. And now I'm in the last hour and a half of a thirteen-hour watch, and I'm dragging. Imagine that. The last two weeks have taught me the actual meaning of "party like a rock star." Now if only I had the leisure time and cash flow of a rock star, I'd be set.