A contributor that will remain anonymous sent me this brilliant piece of corporate comedy. I’m publishing it as I received it—I just changed the names to preserve the involved party’s last shred of dignity.

Enjoy.

This website has always been a field of experimentation, which hasn’t always had a positive effect on the way it looked, worked, or on the freshness and interestingness of its content. In the past few months I’ve tried to come up with ideas on how to make it better, by keeping eyes and ears open to what content-conscious designers were doing. I’ve been especially inspired by Craig Mod’s journal, which is by design more a collection of essays than a blog.

Ten years ago I graduated from the University of Bologna. As a form of celebration, today I decided to copy the original video to my computer and extract one minute and twenty-two seconds of me trying to explain what made sense of my thesis. And repeating the word “musical” a lot. And moving my hands—I claim it’s because that way I could hide how shaky they were.

After waiting something like ten hours for my turn, after everything was over my vision seemed clearer, the air warmer, Bologna cleaner. I’d forgotten.

But see for yourself.

I’m realizing more and more how much I miss random walks when I’m at home, as opposed to when I’m traveling. And it’s not just the possible vacation time I’m missing. Of course I miss having nothing better to do than just walking with a cup of tea in my hands, but there is more to that: the mere idea of disengaging from more regular, desk-based work seems to boost my creativity. But the secret, I think, is to exploit this boost soon—possibly as soon as I get back to my apartment.