Feeling Fantastic in Florence

What a great time we had on Sunday.

My first time as the main organizer of the event, and while it was a crunch at the end, the final result was fabulous.

Thanks for all the compliments, everyone.

I'd like to especially thank my brother, Jordan, who volunteered two days of his vacation to help out with setting up and breaking down!

Just cleaning up my Google Reader subscriptions, and I thought I'd post the feeds I find interesting for design and web technologies.

 This looks like a good time, and something that Firenze Live has also been working on.

The guys from Switch seem to really be active, from rap and hip-hop at the Casa della Creativita' to organizing sporting events -- what don't they do?

I really like this image, as I think it really captures the essence of Carolina's character in her Talking Heads monologue.

We started rehearsals yesterday, and as always, it's exciting to see what sort of character will develop.

On musicroom.com, if you're a Windows user (or Mac, I think) and don't mind installing a plug-in, you can view and download legal copies of sheet music for a reasonable price.

Great idea!

Except I'm one of those silly people that use open source software -- so no Windows, and no sheet music.

Reading their fine print, it seems this silly practice is in place to keep nefarious evil pirates from making copies of legally purchased sheet music.

The S. Lorenzo market was closed today due to a strike. Apparently the recent tax hike for the use of public property didn't go down well with the folks who work the open air markets in town.

They're offended -- robbed, they say, by the city in an underhanded scheme to extort money out of honest laborers already suffering through the economic crisis.

Give me a break.

Mi dispiace che mi chiamano solo quando c'è qualche problema.

Ieri, ore 17 -- sto tornando dai nonni.  Chiamata da un numero che non conosco.  La Repubblica, che vuole sapere che cosa ho da dire su un ragazzo americano caduto dal quarto piano perché ubriaco.

E io che c'entro?

Ma purtroppo, c'entro.  Come tutti noi che vivono a Firenze.  Abbiamo tutti una responsibilità verso questi ragazzi -- una responsabilità che purtroppo spesso va a farsi benedire.

The Talking Heads production (taking place every Sunday April - June and again in the fall) is a challenge -- an exciting one.

These monologues present a challenge from a theatrical point of view -- they were written for television, and they are great fun for the actors. What actor doesn't LOVE being all alone onstage.

I have to thank Vanessa at the British Institute and Emma at AngloInfo for turning me on to such a wonderful series of monologues as Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads".

I've been collaborating with a group of professionals -- designers, marketing experts -- basically a loose confederation that works together on projects.

It's a great idea, and I'm happy to have become their guy for building web sites (of course, with Drupal).

As you do in a budding relationship, we've discovered a point of diversion.  Not quite a point of contention, but certainly a differing of opinions on a very basic aspect of our work -- how we get paid.