An old board game...

I don't like playing cards very much, I don't know games like poker but only some easy ones I learnt when I was a child (in my childhood I used to play cards with my maternal grandfather).

This year, I played, after a very long time, an old board game called Hero Quest, it was like coming back to my past when I played it with my friends.

I found this kind of games appealing and a funny way of spending your free time, unfortunately now I haven't got any free time to spend on it.

I can't forget the pleasure of choosing your plastic miniature (dwarf, elf,..) with their eye catching shape, challenging the "game master" and the sound of rolling dices.
I think this kind of games are much better than playing alone against a stupid and motionless machine like a Pc. If a day I have some sons I will encourage them to play board games with real dices and touchable challengers. What do you think about?

Thank you Zsofia for her corrections

Dumps? Not in my backyard !

Napoli has been facing a dirty and demeaning situation since last summer, I'm speaking about the rubbish spread everywhere due to the dumps lack.
The emergency has become so strong that the European Commission has alerted Italian government to possible fines if Naples will not get out of its rubbish.
At the moment the Campania region government (whose Naples is the capital city) is looking for places where to build a temporal dump, and as you can imagine the people who live there refuse the building of any dump even for a short time, and I think they are right because we need an effective solution, we mustn't put it off anymore.
In the meanwhile the rubbish heaps grow day by day and the people frustrated by unbearable stench have got to torching the rubbish pile.

Who is responsible for this upset situation?

The mayor of Naples, Rosa Russo Iervolino, says I haven't the power to sort out this problem and pass the ball to her friend and region president Antonio Bassolino who has been saying nothing, Where is Antonio ?
I read some articles (mostly by BBC journalist) and no one of them mention the word criminal organization.
Behind all, there is the criminal organization's paw which, for a longer time , has taken over the rubbish collection system.
An example in Naples there was a dismissed petrol station whose fuel cisterns were completely
full of rubbish, it isn't a fantasy story.
I'm laughing and crying at the same time...In the rest of the world the people are discussing "the going in green"... what a shame

FireFox tools for our English

How many times have you made a spelling mistake?
It could be lots of times, after you posted your comments or wrote a mail and so on.
In this case, a tool provided by FireFox (FF) could be very useful: Dictionary
To add it to your FireFox, you only have to click on the world "install" of chosen dictionary and let FireFox install it, then you need to restart FireFox.
The dictionary checks the spelling of the words and when they are wrong written it suggests possible solutions (right click on the word and it will appear some possible corrections , look at the picture below, I wrote "word" badly)
From now on your spelling mistakes will be fixed for ever :)


Another utility that can help us, but has nothing to do with the spelling check, is Backwards, the developers state the following features:

*Translate an English word into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional or Simplified Chinese when mouse cursor hovers over it.
*With one click, remember all context of the word, such as URL of the page and the paragraph which the word belongs to.
*Get Pronunciation of the word with a flash.
*Write a note for the word.
*Search more explanation of the word with one click.
*Review all words and context collected on a build-in page.

I add that the translation function is a bit shallow but useful to get, just in time, the gist of the unknown word and it is easier to use, indeed you need only to place the pointer near the world that you desire to translate.
At the first use, you have to point out which language to put the English words in.

1. Go to Tool (FF' s tool bar)->Add-ons.
2. You'll find Backwards-> click on "option" button.
   
3. Choose the language in "Dictionary".

If it seems not to work you need to enable it, you should find a little grey cross in the right low corner of FF (take a look at the snapshot below), double click on it, the cross turn into green from that point on Backward is enabled but sometime it could disable on its own and you need to click on the cross again, instead by turning the cross from green into grey you can disable it when, for example, it's annoying you .


Backwords has a helpful feature that allows the user to make a note of the meaning of the word and check it in the future, you have just to click on, respectively, the red cross and the "B" letter that appear when you place the pointer near the word.

For the series "Delicacies from Naples", now on air : Struffoli !

Last time I spoke about Baba, which I called the "King of the sweets" now I'm going to write about the little princes of the sweets, Struffoli.

They are homemade sweets cooked only at Christmas time and their recipe is easy and needs few ingredients: eggs, honey, flour, strong liquor (e.g. limoncello).
After making the dough, you shape it in little balls which will be fried.
At the end of the process you'll get little gold tasty balls that you'll wet with hot honey and dust with colored confectioners' sugar.

The rumor says that their origins are Greek and their name means "cut as little balls".
Listen to me, after you pick the first Struffolo, you will not be able to stop eating them and sooner or later you'll pick another one, another one yet and so on.... your fingers will be covered with honey and you take pleasure in licking them...I love them

Thank Zsofia for correcting me

My little Presepio

We start decorating the inside of our houses on December 8th with the Christmas tree and objects with Christmas motives, but for us, I mean the people of Naples, it's very important to
show in our houses the Presepio (Christmas nativity).

Naples is very famous for its long Presepio manufacture tradition, we have an area in the city centre, called S.Gregorio Armeno, dedicated to the developing of the Presepios, there you can see and buy every kind of Presepios you want, little, big, with lights, with an artificial river with classic and new characters...
Some people, here, who are good at shaping woods, make their Presepio on their own.
When I was a child, helped by my father, I made some marvellous Presepios that I rebuilt from the beginning every year .
This year, my father had a very original idea... He developed a small and nice Presepio into a coconut skin which symbolizes only the holy family, the nativity, look at the photo, he added a little light into the coconut too!!.
So you can understand how creative the people are here.