bitful

The British Sign Language sign for the Wal-Mart-owned supermarket chain ASDA is a double pat on the buttock (or on the hip, as the bum officially lies outside the designated area for signing), from the series of ads where at ASDA you 'pocket the difference'.
'Americans threw out just shy of three million tons of household [...]

I am not a designer, never been and never will be. Working on the web, however, I have often indulged in the pleasure of pushing pixels around a page.
However, with time the pleasure has turned into frustration, and the real satisfaction is now mainly derived from playing around with data to make it do what [...]

Com'è andata ieri sera?
How did it go last night?
Literally: 'How (he/she/it) is gone yesterday evening?'

I am waiting with bated breath for my friend Oliver to report back from his date with an Italian last night. I hope he had a chance to impress him with some of the Italian phrases I have been posting here [...]

In a proper manner; correctly.

Yahoo! has announced that it will support OpenID. What can this bring to the average web user?
In terms that I hope are not oversimplified, OpenID lets you log on several websites with one single set of details. You do not spread out that single set of details to all the websites (that would defy the [...]

Vuoi vedere la mia collezione di farfalle?
Do you want to come up for a cup of coffee?
Literally: '(You) want to see my collection of butterflies?'

Yes, you read that right. The lamest excuse in the book to ask your date to come up to yours takes an interesting and, let me say it, rather academic turn [...]

Having a somewhat salty taste, especially from containing a mixture of seawater and fresh water. Distasteful; unpalatable.

I use Outlook extensively, and not only for sending and receiving messages. It is a repository for all commitments, reminders and notes. Surprisingly enough, I never bothered to look into shortcuts, until the other day, when I accidentally hit three random keys together and a 'Move Item to' window popped up.
A quick search returned this [...]

Every now and then life's great tapestry reminds me of the reason why I left Italy and settled in the UK.
My eyes reacted badly to a new pair of contact lenses the other day, so I wore my glasses to work (I am so vain that I normally would not be seen dead in them).
Nobody [...]

Abbracciami, baciami… e chiamami!
Hug me, kiss me… and call me!
Literally: 'Hug-me, kiss-me… and call-me!'

Today we are going to learn how to give orders (or, for those of you who have some knowledge of grammar, the imperative).
First you take the verb as you find it in the dictionary, i.e. in its 'to …' form:
To hug = [...]

A collision followed by a rebound. To collide and rebound; glance.

Andiamo da me o da te?
Your place or mine?
Literally: '(We) go at me or at you?'

My mate Ollie has requested some Italian phrases he can use with his date on Friday.
I hope he'll get to use the sentence above and have a great time.
But as it's a Gaydar hookup and his man might not have [...]

Withered, dry. Having little or no liquid or moisture.

Dov'è la mia cintura nera?
Where is my black belt?
Literally: 'Where is the my belt black?'

Dr B. was looking for his Ju-Jitsu black belt this morning (he's training tonight) and could not find it. He tried to ask me where it is in Italian but was missing a couple of words. He then said he found [...]

To slobber; drool. To behave in an obsequious manner; fawn.

Devo proprio continuare?
Must I really continue?
Literally: '(I) must really continue?'

This morning I realised this latest attempt of mine to teach Dr B. Italian was going well, when he turned around in bed after checking the Italian category in Bitful and asked 'Dov'è la prima frase di oggi?' (Where is the first sentence for today?'). Attaboy.
So [...]

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account last week:

Musical Minifigs - a photoset on Flickr
Lego minifigs inspired by bands, musicians, and composers.
Free Barcode Image Online Generator
I used this to print out my Tesco Clubcard barcode on a tiny strip of paper that I cellotaped to the outside of my wallet. The [...]

Promoting peace; conciliatory.

Just a quick update on Dr B.'s progress in learning Italian with my new method. He seems to follow regularly, asks a few questions but most importantly feels that what I'm doing is helping him learn.
Today he was very disappointed because there was only one phrase in the Italian language post this morning. I told [...]

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Dr B. is working from home all weekend on 24-hour call, and I am keen to make his life as easier as possible.
Last night, being a Friday, I knew I could stay up as much as I wanted to and finally play around with my computer (it [...]

An adolescent youth.

I've been playing around for a bit with Jiglu tonight.
Jiglu's tagline is 'Tags that think', and that's exactly what it does: it automatically tags your content and displays tags as cross-referenced links.
All you have to do is register your URL, install some code (I used a ready-made WordPress plugin, but there are versions for Blogger, [...]

Ti piace Harry Potter?
Do you like Harry Potter?
Literally: 'To-you is-liked Harry Potter?'

I cannot quite put my finger on why I have enjoyed reading all seven Harry Potter novels. I can see why they have such mass appeal, yes, but I thought I was immune to that. Plus, magic and wizards and shit? Yawn. A book [...]

Supermarkets pay farmers as little as 3 pence per chicken. And all male chicks, unsuitable for the egg industry, are killed and turned into pet food. These are just a couple of the facts Jamie Oliver talked about in the first ten minutes of Jamie's Foul Dinners. We recorded the rest but could not bear [...]

The act of coming or going out; emergence. The right to leave or go out: denied the refugees egress. A path or opening for going out; an exit.

Lavora anche di notte
Dr B. works at night too
Literally: '(he/she/it) works also of night'

Every few weeks the company Dr B. works for requires him to be on call for a four-day stretch during which colleagues and clients can call him at every hour of the day or night for support. This means he needs to [...]

Affectedly or ostentatiously learned; pedantic.

I normally do not do anything on a school night, but
Ieri sera sono uscito
Last night I went out
Literally: 'Yesterday evening (I)-am gone-out'.

Last night we went to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to see Zoe Lyons' one-woman show. She usually comperes the weekly comedy night there (BrouHaHa), which we went to a few times, so the idea [...]

Great noise or excitement; uproar.

Hello dear technically-inclined reader, I wonder if you could help.
I have been using email as my main means of capturing and storing information. Started with Outlook, switched to Gmail for a while (loved the tags and no-directory structure) but then went back to Outlook when I got an HTC Tytn II that syncs with [...]