FCHouse

Michelle “The Apprentice” leaves Sir Alan Sugar’s firm

Posted by Faby - 30/09/06 at 09:09:17 am

Michelle Dewberry, 26, after having defeated all the other contestants in “The Apprentice” BBC Tv program, has quitted from her prestigious job after only a couple of months, claiming that “her role has been completed“. Already? Wow!

If I remember rightly, in the grand finale she said to Sir Alan Sugar that “she has a lot to learn” from him, just to convince him to hire her, and this would be the result? Mmmhh… Odd, isn’t it? If I had the fortune to learn from a person so smart and experienced as Sir Alan, I think I would make the most from that incredible experience and it would have taken me more than a couple of months to digest all the tricks of the job…! However, she seems to be ready for being involved in anoher adventure, because she’s creating her own new firm, blessed by her prominent former boss who has promised to cooperate with her again.

Would you believe this is true? To be honest, I don’t. I reckon that, even though she is probably one of the most promising prospective managers, after her unespected pregnancy (unfortunately interrupted) after only a month from being hired, she she had become more a trouble than a real investment for Sir Alan’s firm. So, this is probably the best solution for everyone: she will work for him as an outsource and he won’t incur in “problems” with her as his employee. Deal! Nobody can really believe she could be so confident in her capacity to leave a job like that by her own will… Or perhaps, I can’t. Of course, she is very ambitious, but so much to be so inconsiderate?
Will we hear her name again? Who knows…? I wish her luck, hoping that her choice, if it really is, will be the right one.

Source: bbc

Memoirs of a Geisha

Posted by Faby - 29/09/06 at 07:09:34 am

Yesterday evening Carlo and I have watched “Memoires of a Geisha“… what a big delusion! As far as I am concerned, the decision of not going to the cinema for watching this poor quality film has been absolutely right and I am really very surprised to find out it has costed a fortune in terms of costumes and production, because, apart from the impressive photography, nothing else has come out. The plot has been superficially developed by the director who, in two hours and a half, has not been capable of giving life to fascinating characters like Geishas and explaining their role in the Japanese society of that time. As a result, he leaves the public with their ideas even more confused! In addition, the choice of employing some actresses of the cast, in my opinion, has been completely wrong: Ziyi Zhang, the grown up Sayuri, was absent, her face experssionless, her stunning beauty questionable and her charm didn’t exist at all; the acting of Michelle Yeoh was faultless, but she was surely too old to play the part of Mahema…

Continue reading Memoirs of a Geisha…

Think positive, think colored!

Posted by Faby - 22/09/06 at 12:09:05 pm

I think someone would think I’m completely out of my mind, but I can assure all of you that I feel really good instead!

For a “black and white” person as I am, as far as concerns my usual way of dressing, it’s really a big news for my friends to hear such a strange thing: THINK COLORED! Yes, I reckon that another turn of my existence could be a bit of red and light blue in my life, something I have ever adored, but almost never considered for my clothings, and now I’m wondering why…

Our little cosy flat is full of yellow and red, so that we have abandoned the usual black and dark blue so heavy to look at sometimes, and I believe we feel better this way. Even if for someone could seem a little “weird” to have such incredible bright yellow walls in the lounge, I can say this colour gives a touch of gaiety to the environment and the feeling you have when you enter this absolutely sunny and fair room, is cheerfulness!

And even if it’s raining like today, it doesn’matter, because here at home the sun is shining!!! :)

A good day to all of you!!!

“Five Months” ossia cinque mesi lontano dall’Italia

Posted by Carlo - 22/09/06 at 07:09:14 am

Piu’ di due mesi fa scrissi qualcosa sulle prime “Somme” inglesi… dissi che anche se era troppo presto per effettuare una valutazione del nostro trasferimento a Londra, credo che sia passata molta acqua sotto i ponti e che, dopo quasi cinque mesi di permanenza in “terra straniera“, qualche valutazione in piu’ sia corretto scriverla.

Quella che io ho chiamato “terra straniera” (per voi che ci leggete in italiano) e’ diventata “Casa”, quella in cui stai bene, quella in cui ti senti nel tuo posto. Si, dopo cinque mesi non ho timore di dire che a Londra ho trovato un bellissimo posto dove vivere. Non ho il timore di ammettere che, dopo aver analizato con calma circa 150 “days“, rifarei immediatamente il salto! Non mi sono scontrato con nessuna delle tremende difficolta’ contro le quali tutti mi hanno messo in guardia, e’ stato come infilare la mano dentro un guanto di pelle della misura perfetta. Si, Londra mi calza a pennello.

Continue reading “Five Months” ossia cinque mesi lontano dall’Italia…

Disney try to break the DRM rules!

Posted by Carlo - 21/09/06 at 08:09:39 am

This morning, reading some news, I was amazed by what I read: Disney will release the new Jesse McCartney album without DRM!

Well, it IS a good news, for more than one reason I will try to explain later on, but the point that shocked me was not the fact that someone has released a DRM free album, but that the one who did it is Disney! Disney is well known for its restrictive ideas (time limited DVD, something like “…this DVD will autodestroy in 5 seconds…“).

Well, why is an album without DRM a good test for the major? In my opinion I think that DRM is only a waste of resource and freedom. The majors invest millions of dollars to find an uncrackable protection for their music and films, but they are usually mocked by the first teenager who look at this multimilion technology with fun, cracking it in some days. Who do you think pay for the millions of dollars spent to invent new short-lifed DRM? The customers! Now, the customers are the first to blame the major for the high prices, and they also have to pay something more to grant them the possibility to limit the customers’ freedom to access what they buy.

iTunes 7 has been released with a new DRM, that has been cracked in some hours. I think the frustration of those poor developers who spent days and days creating the new technology, only to be witness of its failure in few hours.

Disney, yes Disney, I was loosing the point. Normally an album is usually cracked few hours before its release (if not before it) and the “thieves” start flooding the unprotected copy of it through P2P. So, the major that produced that DRM-ed album can see its work and its money flooded in some hours, without counting the fact that a lot of customers will try NOT to buy a DRM-ed product again (they don’t work wherever you want, even if you had paid for it!)

Disney is probably start thinking that they will not be able to stop these “thieves”, and that the DRM as it is today is not good enough to fight a war lost at the very beginning. They will release the new album without DRM on Yahoo, in order to see what will change… Maybe they will understand that the piracy level will not increase, but they will understand that without releasing the new DRM technology they had saved millions of dollars. Then they could also think that, removing that amount of money from the price of a CD, more people will buy it, without downloading from the P2P network.

Will they be SO sharp to see all this, becoming the first major open itself to the idea that being greedy does not pay?

…a good move from Disney: they should get a point in my personal “praise list“, only for the fact that they are thinking that remaining in the “Dark Side of the Force” is not a good thing… not for their visibility and neither for their money!

By the way, does anyone of you know who Jesse McCartney is?!?!?

Think Different

Posted by Carlo - 19/09/06 at 12:09:12 pm

This is one of the most beautiful adv ever produced. It is Deep, it is Brilliant!

Think Different!

Time doesn’t clean up Friendship

Posted by Carlo - 18/09/06 at 09:09:34 pm

Long long time ago I had a Friend. A stubborn idealist like me, whom I met incidentally once and than for years, moving for half Italy for him. He has always been someone I’ve never fogot, even in these three long years of silence since the last phone call.

People change, the idealist teenagers grow, but sometimes we feel ourself looking back, finding that everything has changed, but respect and  friendship.

Today I’ve found an article he wrote, so I decided to send him a mail, to get in touch again. Now the distance is far more than 500 km, but real things never dies.

Welcome Back, Michele…

PS: you will never believe it, but now I work in West Smithfield, where your long gone hero, Wiliam Wallce, has been killed.

You want it, you have it: the internet Sex revelation

Posted by Carlo - 17/09/06 at 08:09:42 am

Surfing the net night and day, there are things that cannot pass unnoticed, things that our eyes caught, even if we aren’t looking for them. I am talking about Sex, about the breasts, bottoms and penises that jump out of your screen at every pop up, at every received spam.

Yes, internet is a revelation for sexual appetite. Sex is everywhere, hidden in a small window that calls you, exposed in a full screen photo that screams “Free Sex“. Wow, this is amazing! Come on, I have seen naughty girls calling me, telling me that they are unsatisfiable, that they could bring me in the land of pleasure for hours and hours, showing me the sexual nature of the world as it is, without veils.

Now, getting home every day I cannot find a horny housewife waiting for my body. What a shame!

Pamela Andersson’s boobs are bigger and rounder than those I can see, they seems to be a perfect pillow for my head! Maybe some plastic surgeons did some little finishing touches here and there, but look at the result, Machiavelli has been the first to tell that it is correct! However the baywatch pin up is not perfect, no, definitely not. I don’t like her face, with those enormous lips. No, no… too fake for me. I can find thousands of better lips in some “free porn, instant access, horny girls“. I just have to choose, Marie is better that Alicia (that is literally eating me with her gaze, I love the way she looks at me) but I can choose anyone. Yes, I can!

Ok, good face, exploding breasts… what’s missing? The belly, yes. This one seems a little breadstick… yes, it’s perfect for the puzzle! Then I can add a beautiful, soft, mandolin-shaped bottom and a pair of legs that creates the envy in a boom and the art is done!

I have choosen.. “Giselle, the super naughty housewife“, ready to give me pleasure in every moment of my life, even when she’s not with me… Continue reading You want it, you have it: the internet Sex revelation…

Wedding with surprise!!!

Posted by Faby - 16/09/06 at 12:09:00 pm

It could seem the plot of a grotesque comedy, but it has happened for real!! Main characters: the bride, 28 years old, the groom, 31 and his lover, the best friend. Location: Valtellina, Italy.

How many times, as women, have we dreamed about our wedding day? We prepare to wear nervously our beloved weeding dress, concerned about appearing beautiful, while, at the same time, we are thinking about a thousand of other important things: flowers, lunch, make up, guests… Because everything, that day, must be perfect: it’s our day! Breathe and relax… everything will be fine.

The bride in question must have thought the same that morning, while trembling she was walking along the nave towards her soul mate. Yes, because, even if the couple has been living together for 3 years, the emotion to say “yes, I do” it’s enourmous.

Finally, after the celebration, the bride and the groom could relax and enjoy their reception with friends and relatives! Wine, good food, smiles, photos, practical jokes, toastes, speeches … everything was going absolutely well. Nothing to worry about. There has been no odd and embarassing scenes taken from “Four wedding and a funeral” , untill the bride wanted to go to the toilet to check her make up. She was looking at her image reflcted by the mirror in front of her, while, suddendly, she heard lamenting voices coming from the male loo. Worried about somenthing bad could have happened, she came closer to the door to better listen to what was going on inside. One of the two voices was familiar, too familiar… so, she took courage and got in the male toilet. And SURPRISE!!! What she saw was definitely astonishing!!! Her husband was flirting with his best friend, a man!!! In that precise moment she realized that the man she had just married was gay and she had never got a clue!

None knows what has happened after that tremendous revelation…the only certain thing is that the two men escaped from the back door of the restaurant, followed by the bride’s angry, sicilian family… Probably they are still on the run!!!

Sometimes, I’d to say, reality overtakes fantasy!!! Congratulations and… future male children!!!

Source (Italian):Tgcom

Sul fuoco cosa buttiamo, Acqua o Benzina?

Posted by Carlo - 16/09/06 at 02:09:49 am

E’ notte fonda e non riesco ancora a dormire, quindi mi guardo attorno per vedere le notizie che mi perdo nel Metro del mattino e negli altri pomeridiani gratuiti di Londra e cosa mi trovo? Mi trovo il Papa che fa la sua Buona Azione, l’Opera Pia e Caritatevole: prende un bel fustagno pieno di benzina e lo getta sul fuoco dello scontro Est/Ovest! Mi trovo il presidente della nazione piu’ potente al mondo che dichiara candidamente che la Convenzione di Ginevra e’ carta straccia. Andiamo Bene…
Il Muro di Berlino e’ caduto quasi 17 anni fa, non esiste piu’ la Cortina di Ferro e’ acqua passata e la Russia Comunista non e’ altro che lo spauracchio di qualche politico a corto di idee, ma il Mondo Occidentale ha bisogno di un Nemico per vedersi Grande nel confronto. Oggigiorno questo ruolo lo ha preso una religione, l’Islam. Sembra che ci sia il bisogno endemico di avere il cattivo di turno per sembrare piu’ buono, migliore, ma a volte non ci rendiamo conto che questo e’ profondamente offensivo per coloro che non hanno le nostre radici, per coloro che non hanno le nostre impostazioni mentali, per coloro che, nel bene o nel male, sono diversi da noi.

Non sono qui per difendere l’Islam o la Chiesa Cattolica, ma penso semplicemente che in un momento della storia delicato quanto quello che tutti noi viviamo, sia necessario, prima di tutto, un po’ di Buonsenso; buonsenso che il Papa non ha dimostrato nel suo discorso di Regensburg, almeno a mio parere. Non metto in dubbio che il Benedetto XVI sia una persona acculturata, in grado di citare persone che non ho mai neppure sentito nominare, ma nel farlo il pontefice si e’ dimenticato che sul fuoco bisogna gettare acqua, non fuoco. Questo fuoco brucia su tutte le donne e su tutti gli uomini, anche quelli che credono nel Dio che lui ama. Queste persone sono i ceppi che ardono, l’amore per loro avrebbe dovuto fargli dire parole meno acerbe. Che qualche musulmano di troppo (e coloro che lo sono e non si sentono parte in causa non me ne vogliano) sia portato all’estremismo, non vi sono dubbi. Il fatto che la parola “Jihad” sia ormai conosciuta ovunque e’ segno che la si e’ usata troppe volte, anche a sproposito.

Ecco allora che le parole “Mostrami pure ciò che Maometto ha portato di nuovo, e vi troverai soltanto delle cose cattive e disumane, come la sua direttiva di diffondere per mezzo della spada la fede che egli predicava” (Imperatore Manuele II Paleologo) nonostante siano una citazione colta e indice di sublime intelletto storico, non diventano altro che offese per coloro che, forse, non hanno la nostra stessa elasticita’ mentale. Forse a loro non e’ stata insegnata la nostra cultura (e questo non significa che la loro sia inferiore, anzi) e forse il dotto cristiano avrebbe dovuto pensare un pochino di piu’ al rispetto dell’attualita’, piuttosto che alle sue citazioni storiche di un tempo oramai andato. Perche’ non ha professato il suo Amore per il Prossimo? Per quale motivo non abbiamo sentito qualche parola incoraggiante? Non sto mettendo in dubbio la veridicita’ delle sue parole, sto semplicemente dicendo che a volte la ragione dovrebbe prevalere sul puro nozionismo. A casa di un ustionato non terro’ una cattedra sulle molotov. In un momento storico come questo non cerchero’ di rivangare le divergenze religiose, ma cerchero’ di appianarle per il bene dei miei discepoli.

Cazzo, ma se ci arrivo io, per quale motivo non lo capisce lui? Il problema, probabilmente, sta nel fatto che sono io lo stupido, sono io quello che non capisce, perche’ nello stesso momento storico c’e’ un altro illuminato (no, forse illuminato proprio no) come George W. Bush che prende lo spauracchio del terrorismo per evitare che i prigionieri godano dei diritti descritti nella Convenzione di Ginevra. “Si tratta di regole “troppo vaghe”, che hanno bisogno di essere precisate” e’ riuscito a dire, come se il fatto che siano vaghe significa che non portino con se’ la correttezza. E poi, io saro’ pure ignorante, ma se uno precisa che l’Articolo 3 della Convenzione di Ginevra e’ vago, a mio avviso significa solo che sta cercando di arrampicarsi sugli specchi per fare dei suoi prigionieri quello che gli pare e piace. Mi sembra di essere proiettato nuovamente in uno dei film dei Pirati dei Caraibi, dove si ripete all’infinito che il “Codice” non sono altro che delle “linee di massima, non delle vere e proprie regole“, in maniera da utilizzarle quando e come si vuole. A che punto siamo arrivati? Non siamo altro che dei pirati da quattro soldi.
Il 43simo presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America si ferma poi a precisare che non incontrera’ il Presidente della Repubblica Islamica Ahmadinejad, nonostante questo abbia chiaramente detto di volere un confronto chiarificatore. Chiaro, gli USA sono senza nemici in questo momento e questo e’ un problema bello grosso, forse perche’ la gente sta cominciando a stufarsi del “terrorismo“, un po’ come la storia di chi grida “Al Lupo, al Lupo!“. Inoltre, sinceramente, vorrei veramente sentire un dibattito tra quei due, per il semplice motivo che, a mio avviso, non tutte le notizie ci arrivano cosi’ come sono state dette, ma vengono gestite ad arte. L’America e’ brava nell’urlare piu’ forte e sa bene come rendere visibilita’ ai suoi Martiri Involontari. Vorrei proprio vedere un dibattito pubblico sul problema che affligge milioni (se non miliardi) di persone. Credo che sia una cosa che i nostri governanti ci debbano, quantomeno per giustificare il terrore che vorrebbero farci provare nelle nostre vite.

Bene, dopo aver guardato il fuoco ravvivato da queste due figure di spicco, immagino che il mio essere stato prolisso mi abbia reso l’unico lettore di queste ultime righe… fa nulla, queste sono le cose che sento, le cose che provo e il dispiacere che porto con me nel guardare quanto Malato sia il nostro modello comportamentale. Non fa nulla se saro’ il solo ad aver parlato cosi’, ad essermi letto e ad aver provato a riflettere come Acqua quando tutti sembrano piu’ interessati a giocare con la Benzina. Non fa nulla perche’ ho la coscienza pulita, non mi sento un agitatore o un estremista come altri sono senza credersi tali.

Io sono io e vedo il mondo attraverso quello che i miei occhi filtrano. In questo caso mi piacerebbe trovare un altro Mahatma Gandhi, perche’ Dio solo sa di quanto ne avremmo bisogno in questi giorni.

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Carlo Nicora is at home in London.