Game of Rome: An Introduction

Not unlike a certain popular book/television series, Rome has had its share of power-grabbing and competing families. While many began their ascent to fortune and fame in the outlying Italian provinces, their ultimate goal was often control of the papacy and the Eternal City. Of course, we all want a permanent reminder of our glories; while the Italians couldn't upload photos to facebook or post their random topics/thoughts to a blogging service, they did the next best thing: commissioning their artists for tombs, chapels, monuments, palazzi, and churches.

But what's the point in building something if you can't show who was responsible for the Glorious work? While today's big donors get a dry "John Q. Private Wing" sign over the entrance to their funded projects, Renaissance artists and architects were a little more creative in tying their designs back to the family or individual that made it possible.

Every family was associated with certain symbols that were as good as the family name itself for identification. The Stark direwolf. The Lannister lion. Oops, that's GoT. The Barberini bees. The Chigi mounds. While one of the easiest ways to claim ownership was to put up a shield with this coat-of-arms over the new project, there were many other ways to tie in the benefactor's identity. At the end of the day, a church may come off as more of a blatant advertisement for someone's glory than merely a place of worship.

So on our last vacation back to Rome, we tried to make it a point to catch the (sometimes not-so-) little details proclaiming the generous donors that made Rome's rebirth possible. As I sort through our photos, I'll post some examples and link to them below...

Space still available! Contact Ss Luca e Martina today!

And we're still here...

I suppose I can't let an entire calendar year lapse on the old blogspot account! Most [ok- all] of the updates this year were on our parallel site this year [meyermatteson.blogspot.com] for good reason. But we do have some honeymoon travels yet to be properly documented, so in 2013 have hope.

I knew that Cheez-It's presence was a good omen

We did manage to make it out to see some Irish football, catching them in the cold, grey [and wet] October skies narrowly defeating eventual Pac-12 champ Stanford. And Notre Dame managed to run out a little win streak through November- we'll see if they can eke out another one over Alabama in a week!

I almost did another Bears post earlier this season, but it would have basically been cutting and pasting from previous Bears entries. This just in: Lovie Smith is out. I must admit, it improves our offensive line about as much as all of their previous offseason moves have.

And thanks to a bust of an Apocalypse, 2012 will now always be remembered for Gangnam Style. I actually saw the Gandalf parody first, so please enjoy. See you next year.

Rockin' Around -2k11

Tony and I got the layout up this past weekend- and it's a little scaled back. Only room for Santa's Village, the farm, and the manger. But most of the holiday trains are out, and even the trolley managed to make an elevated appearance! The [relatively] new snap-together Lionel tracks are a breeze compared to the old days- I may have to make the switch myself one of these years... Not getting cotton-snow stuck in the wheels is more than worth it.

On a slightly random tangent- let's call this 'Analogies Gone Awry." If you're a Sports Radio listener you've probably heard this rant from Coastal Carolina's David Bennett. I understand the old cliche of dogs-versus-cats, but the way he gets to it here is just... hilarious. And that was before I saw the video version. "Cat in the house?!" Enjoy.

Kinected

Another holiday season is upon us, although we've managed to avoid the white stuff so far. It was another great Thanksgiving... man those four-day weekends are nice. And although their employees may not enjoy it, the nation's largest retailers began rolling out their sales on Turkey Day.


Cassie and I decided to gift ourselves a little early this year and pick up the year-old Xbox Kinect device. While I was wary for a long time about it just being Microsoft's lame attempt at grabbing some of the Wii's action, recent word on the street had been that developers were starting to really take advantage of the hands-free voice-activated opportunities the Kinect provides. Videos are popping up all over for non-gaming uses [although I don't see myself training for surgery anytime soon].


The Kinect was being discounted nearly everywhere for around $99, and we saw that Target was even throwing in a free Wipeout 2 game as well. Who doesn't like Big Balls? However, after we got back from Thanksgiving dinner in Hampshire it was only 8:30. Target only opened at midnight... but we saw that Walmart opened at 10. Game on.


Due to a lethal stampede several years ago, Walmart no longer shuts its doors prior to opening for Black Friday. So when we rolled into the store around 9:30 the main aisles were bustling. Walmart decided to hold off on the larger electronic sales [TVs, game systems, computers] until midnight, so people were gravitating towards the bigger 10pm deals [video games and Blurays for under $20] in bins near the grocery.

We got in a relatively short line near the glass cabinets in electronics, and just people-watched as 10 crept nearer. Around 9:50 people began tearing into the plastic-wrapped endcaps despite Walmart employees being all over the place. The sound of crumpling plastic spread like wildfire, and soon folks were grabbing the liberated cheap-bedsheets by the handful. Classy. Finally the 10pm sales started [only one kid got punched at the previously-mentioned video game/movie bins] and our line began to creep forward, one customer at a time.


We got up front, told the guy what we wanted, and walked away with our Kinect and Wipeout 2 [to be pricematched]! Huzzah! While waiting to check out up front, a lady one line over saw our Kinect, and asked if we would be interested in an extra Dance Central 2 she had grabbed in the rush... heck yes! Cassie wins! When we got up front, we were told that they couldn't pricematch the Target deal until midnight [when Target opened]... so yes we spent an extra hour in Walmart on Thanksgiving. Exciting times, let me tell you.

Kinect v2.0

The Kinect is pretty cool. We do have to move my futon to maximize the playspace, but it's worth it. The "Kinect ID" memorizes your face at different distances/angles to automatically log you in to games [so you can just step-in/step-out]. The sensor also uses infrared light, so it certainly feels as if you're being eyed by a Cylon sometimes.


Cassie is slicing Fruit like a Ninja currently, so I think you could say she enjoys it. There are ways to video chat via Kinect, as well as post in-game action photos, like yours-truly dominating on Kinect Adventures. Good stuff- can't wait to see where the games go from here!

Look ma...

Hallowed Ground

Tales from the domestic journal...

Fall's in full swing. Hit up a farmstand today, and although it was too late pick some apples in person, managed to snag some baking apples, a mini-pumpkin, and a ziploc bag full of popcorn kernels. By the time we got home, a cold rain was falling.

So tonight probably should have been Halloween, since the majority of my trick-or-treating memories involved 50ish degrees and a light drizzle. Going house-to-house somewhere between a fast walk and a slow jog, the plastic pumpkin bucket giving way to a simple pillowcase in my later years. Attacking neighborhoods one-by-one, trying to figure out how to loop back and hit both sides of the streets with the least amount of backtracking. Trying to remember where we got those king-sized candy bars from last year...

Just watch out for those nasty caramels.

A Decade

9/11. September Eleventh. Ground Zero. Flight 93. Let's Roll. Bin Laden. Al Qaeda. United We Stand.  Patriot Act. Airport Security. Threat Levels. War on Terror. Homeland Security. A few of the short names that have become a big part of our daily lives in the past ten years. Over a third of my life has been since 09-11-2001; my entire adulthood. Since everyone in my generation [and older] has an answer to "Where were you on 9/11?"... here's mine.

It was a Tuesday morning. I was a freshman at the University of Notre Dame, and since my first class wasn't until 10:40 I was sleeping in my dorm room at O'Neill Hall. At the time, Indiana did not follow Daylight Savings Time, so during the summer South Bend clocks matched up with Chicago. When the rest of the country 'fell back" in the fall, we would find ourselves on New York City time. We were still on Chicago Time when our dorm room phone began to ring just after 8:00 that morning. I managed to get down to the phone from my lofted bed, and it took a few seconds to recognize my mom on the other end. She said something about planes crashing in New York and to turn on the TV.

ND didn't have cable in its dorm rooms, but our rabbit ears managed to pull in the local stations pretty well. I'm not sure what channel I got to first, but by then both of the World Trade Centers had been hit and all the channels were streaming footage of the New York skyline. No one had any idea at this point what was going on. Then there were reports of a bomb going off near the Pentagon. Soon it was confirmed to be another airliner. What the hell. It was impossible to leave the television. Airports being shut down. Around 9 the South WTC tower fell; can you believe this? Within half an hour the North tower had joined it in rubble. Flight 93 reported missing. And through it all, just replay after replay, new footage of planes and buildings and smoke and dust. People running. Slow motion. 'Experts' being phoned and questioned.

Around 10 I called Father Bullene, our 10:40 frosh Drawing class professor, to ask if class had been cancelled because of, well, everything. He told me that he planned to have class as usual, and that he had not heard anything from the University. So I managed to get outside and over to Bond Hall, and as soon as I was there we were told that all classes were being called off for the day. On the way back I had to stop by the Rockne athletic center [don't know why] and while waiting near the front desk [with a nearby TV on] I remember talking with the girl there about the date "9-11" and if the [by-now-reported] terrorists picked the date because of its significance of "Dialing 9-1-1" in emergencies. There were a lot of "why?" questions being thrown around.

I got back to the dorm, and now nearly everyone in my section [3B!] was crowded into the section's TV lounge [only place you can get cable] and quietly watching CNN. We sat there for an hour, then went to South Dining Hall to get the grab-n-go lunch, and returned to eat it in front of the TV.

ND's Basilica

Notre Dame held an outdoor Mass that afternoon in South Quad, setting up an altar near the flagpole and stringing out speakers to the west. I remember the Basilica's bell tolling slowly, like when it holds a funeral. ND is along the landing pattern for South Bend Regional airport. If you've been on campus, you know a lot of planes drone overhead. This afternoon, the sky was quiet. Blue, no contrails.

After Mass we headed back to the dorm, watched some more TV, and began chatting on Instant Messenger. I remember starting a chatroom through AIM and inviting a lot of people from my buddy list on it. Just a lot more questions. Some saying what the terrorists deserve [someone mentioned pushing them off the Sears Tower while on fire]. I first remember getting teary-eyed after reading an article covering the world's response to the attack on the U.S.A. American flags being paraded through the streets in Europe, Africa, Israel, Asia.

By the next morning, many of those short phrases above had begun to wind their way into our lives. The U2 concert that was scheduled for the following week was pushed back to October [and NYC police and firefighters would be there]. Airports would become the focus of intense security overhauls. The WTC site would smoke for a while, then lights would shine into the sky. Stories of heroes on planes and in buildings filled newspapers.

A lot has happened since, and we've accepted the new realities of travel and personal safety. I can't say terrorism didn't cross my mind when considering spending this Sunday at the Bears home opener. That's the way it is. We'll always remember that Tuesday morning.

From worldpittsburgh.wordpress.com

Been Here Before?

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.


The 12 colonies fleeing their rebellious robots? No. I'm talking about Da Bears. And I feel like I may have already written a post ~12 months ago harping on the fact that Chicago's NFL franchise has a way of keeping things just interesting enough to drive one crazy. Not unlike the South Side baseball organization.


This year will be tough in the NFC North with the Packers looking set to defend their crown and reports of the Lions actually being competitive this year. Then again, despite giving up sacks like a White Castle Drive-Thru, last year's Bears won the North and made it to the NFC Championship Game. Hopefully the team stays healthy and gets a few balls bouncing their way.


So say we all.