Recycle/Rehash/Reborn

Our life is comprised of cycles. Many, many cycles. Very often, when we think we're near the point of stagnation and we feel invincible, it's just when we find out we're nothing in this world. And now we must just start everything over. Like a sawtooth wave, like a rollercoaster, like a druid from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. You retain your memories and abilities, but you start from level 1 again.

And it is also a time for rediscovering ourselves. To rebuild, to recycle. To make things worth for once and stop just pushing our carts around. Over the last months, my life has been through a transition. Reconsidering, rethinking, learning, teaching, sharing experiences and just realizing I still have a long way to go.

So, what does it have to do with this blog? Well, I'm currently pulling its plug. It's part of life. Good things we loved doing, but that we just think they seriously need some remodeling.

But no matter how hard we try, in the end, we're always the same thing as ever.

Goodbye.

The Great Mistake

Note to self: Do not ever press "Enter" while typing the title of your next post.

So much for stupidity, now that totally broke my concentration and stole my inspiration. Back to the Dreamcast, off I go.

The

Thanks, thanks, thanks

"What would you think if I sang out of tune?
Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
(The Beatles - With a Little Help From My Friends)

I wish I could be in a better state...but all I can do now is say "thanks" to everybody.

Coincidences, coincidences.

Today, while coming back home after an intense duel with a rebel EJB (Enterprise Java Bean), for no apparent reason, I remembered a song from an old ad...maybe from 1992 or 1993. It was a sort of an electropop thingy, with lots of synthesizers and kinda danceable. That music got stuck in my mind until I got home.

Then, after having dinner and starting my daily routine of transferring my files from my old pc to the new mac little by little, I was bringing some of my Jean Michel Jarre songs to iTunes, when I checked the iTunes store to search for valuable info to complete the tags...so I ended up hitting the page for the album "Les Chants Magnetiques", and decided to listen the previews just to see if knew any songs from that album...much to my surprise, the song I was "listening" to in the bus was actually Jean Michel Jarre's "Les Chants Magnetiques, Pt. 2"...I hope this does happen again! hehe!

Short Notes:
1. Happy Belated Birthday, ia-chan! I know you'll never read this, but oh well...at least you can't say I did forget it (which is kinda impossible to do, considering the amount of visual reminders).

2. The built-in Mac Mini speakers low frequency response is so crappy that they can make even Jamiroquai's bass totally unaudible!

Current 10-song Random List:

1. Jimi Hendrix - Purple Haze
2. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse Of The Heart (HAHAHAHA!)
3. Pearl Jam - Garden
4. James Brown - Papa's Got A Brand New Bag
5. Pato Fu - Água (Nóis mora aqui no puerão!!!)
6. Foo Fighters - Everlong
7. Bad Religion - All There Is
8. Bad Religion - We're Only Gonna Die (nothing unusual there, I think roughly 1/3 of my songs are now Bad Religion's)
9. The Police - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
10. The Cranberries - Ridiculous Thoughts

Save it till the morning after

19 days. So much has passed in the meantime. New computer, new workplace, new routine, new additions to my modest videogame collection, new abilities, new victories and new defeats.

And it all happened so quickly that I could barely regroup them in small clusters and write appropriate posts, so I think I'll have to write them a later moment, if possible. Oh well, what a disgraceful blogger I am, right in the moment when something actually happens, I just don't post anything!

Anyway, here goes the current shuffled iTunes playlist: (yeah, another new stuff, I stopped using good ol' Winamp for good)

1. Duran Duran - Save a Prayer
2. Beach Boys - Surfin' Safari
3. The Cranberries - Ridiculous Thoughts
4. Duran Duran - A Matter Of Feeling
5. The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby
6. Bad Religion - Raise Your Voice
7. The Police - Spirits In The Material World
8. Ace Of Base - Living In Danger
9. 10,000 Maniacs - More Than This
10. Soundgarden - Blow Up The Outside World

Ja oder Nein? Warum?

Ummm...
I wonder why Blogger is now giving me messages in German AND English.

Ich kann schreiben nicht mehr...

Tschüss! (or whatever do you spell it)

Sim ou não? Por quê?

Já fazem quase vinte dias que eu não posto nada. Não é a primeira vez que isso acontece, mas talvez seja a primeira vez que eu não procurei uma desculpa pra me justificar perante a mim mesmo. As vezes é falta de inspiração, as vezes é cansaço, as vezes é falta de fontes ou então falta de tempo.
Mas agora, eu simplesmente não sinto necessidade de me justificar, ainda que tenha motivos para tal...

Opa, acabei me justificando mais uma vez.

The Chainbreaker

You probably received one already. Promises of a happy life, love, money and sometimes even God is involved in those nasty chain letters. Ya know, those mails you get from time to time asking you to forward it to a certain number of people or else your cat would die, you'll never get an erection again, you will lose your job, you'll find out your father is a drug dealer and you will be crushed by a baby blue '68 Ford Maverick GT V8 with 5 nuns inside.

But why do I hate that stuff so much? First, it is annoying. Many many people, for some reason send me that stuff. OK, I must admit I read some of them, and sometimes I even forward it to two or three people if it is something actually interesting (about only 0.001% of the time). But most of the time, I simply delete them, even though Gmail give me away more than 2 gigs so I don't need to delete all my crappy mail to receive actual e-mails (or more crappy chain mails), which leads to the second reason I don't like it, it's just a bandwidth waste.

You might think that a single e-mail wouldn't hurt that much, but consider this: You get a mail from someone. Then you forward it to ten other people. Each of those ten people forward to ten other people. Those people (who are now 100), send it again to more ten people, totaling 1,111 messages exchanged if it is propagated only three times. If that message were propagated seven times, there would be 1,111,111 people receiving the same stupid message. Let's say this message contains a small picture and some text, making it roughly 100KB in size. The total bandwidth spent would something like 105 GB, enough to clutter more than 50 Gmail mailboxes with all that crap.

And here comes the third and final reason: It's useless! I lost count of how many mails I got searching for that Maddie girl, and I probably bet people in Portugal and England get them on a daily basis. If it was so effective, people would probably have found her (or her body) by now.

Anyway, don't forget to not forward this to any person, or else your brother (or sister, father, mother or anyone else you care a lot (even yourself)) will lose his/her gallbladder, you might be attacked by a group of ferocious muay thai fighting ferrets, you just might get caught in the next Great Molasses Flood or maybe you'll just get hit by a random ICBM.

Arrivederci, Luciano!

"Dici che il fiume trova la via al mare
E come il fiume giungerai a me
Oltre i confini e le terre assetate
Dici che come fiume
Come fiume...
L'amore giunger
l'amore...
E non so più pregare
E nell'amore non so più sperare
E quell'amore non so più aspettare."
(U2 + Luciano Pavarotti - Miss Sarajevo)

I was never a fan of opera. But he's a guy I think I should at least dedicate a short post for (And I really can't think of anything to write, too).

Colocando os pingos nos is

De uns tempos pra cá, tenho percebido que a internet daqui de casa anda violentamente lenta. Então resolvi tentar entrar num desses sites que medem a velocidade de conexão.

Pois não é que demorou quase 2 minutos pra entrar na porcaria do site? Melhor benchmark que esse aí não existe.

(no title)

"I want to run
I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside"
(U2 - Where The Streets Have No Name)

Neither the streets nor the registries in the database I'm trying to retrieve data from have names. Isn't that beautiful? It's like when searching for criminals using nothing but a sketch... Isn't that beautiful?

超新星フラッシュマン

ちきゅうに　ピンチが　やって来る
でっかい　みらいが　危ないぜ！
ことくの　宇宙から　ＯＨ！今　こそ
かえって　来たぞ　ハガネの　たましい

おれたち　ハートは　いっしょさ　ＦＩＲＥ！
もやすぞ　いかりの
フ！フ！フ！
どうかせんっ

ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！
きけんの　いみなんて
ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！
忘れたの　さ
ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！ＣＲＡＳＨ！
何がを　言う　前に
ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！ＦＬＡＳＨ！
ぶつかるの　さ

かがやく　明日へ　ばくはつ　ＰＯＷＥＲ！
超新星フラッシマン！！

Nomes, nomes e mais nomes.

Mais um pra lista de apelidos: Bob.

Só não me perguntem o porquê.

Is there anybody out there?

It's dark. It's raining. It's 2 A.M. and I'm bored. Is there anybody out there?

No pain... no gain?

"Tell me what you see, tell me what you know
Is there anyone who lives a painless life?
If there is show me so"
(Bad Religion - Pity The Dead)

After staying at the same job for two months, I must say I'm still at the stage where we learn new stuff everyday. But well, I'm thinking that things are starting to get stable. Is it good? Maybe.

As we grow used to see the same obstacles, we immediately know how to jump past them, but on the other hand, it makes us shortsighted and unready in case something unexpected happens. Does it make any sense? For me it really doesn't, but what I really want to say is that unfortunately, I found out I work better when not following strict guidelines.

Bye bye, promotion!

Two-hit Combo: Adeus Guigomóvel + Hidden Treasures

Adeus Guigomóvel!

E mais uma vez, o medo de perder tira a vontade de ganhar, como já dizia Galvão Bueno (ou será que era o Lula? Sei lá!). Mas enfim, depois de dar uma olhada em alguns dos possíveis candidatos a Guigomóvel, acabei me decidindo pelo Tempra. Tava inteirinho, só precisava trocar um difusor do ar-condicionado (25 reais o original) e uma pecinha da porta que prende os botões do vidro elétrico, que tavam presos com durex. O carro aparentemente nunca foi batido e o motor tava inteiro, algo difícil de se imaginar em se tratando de um Fiat com 11 anos de uso.

Enfim, foi só assinar a tal fichinha da financeira, onde me fizer trilhões de perguntas para saber se eu poderia ter crédito pra comprar o tal carro. "Há quanto tempo você está no seu emprego atual?", "Sua casa é própria ou alugada?", "Pra que time você torce?", "Qual a cor da tua cueca?", e por aí vai... e de tanta pergunta, acabou que não saiu o crédito lá na hora. Mas daí o coroa da loja disse que ia ver em outras financeiras se ia conseguir, mas como já era sábado de tarde...só ia ter a resposta na segunda.

E daí eu pus-me a pensar, passei horas frente a frente com uma HP12C, um PC jurássico, uma Bic cristal e um sem-número de folhas de papel A4 calculando juros, rendimentos de poupança, simulando apólices de seguro e consultando o valor das peças do carro. Conclusão: A cada três meses que eu adiar a compra do tal Guigomóvel, eu economizo de 1200 a 1500 reais no valor total do carro (entrada + financiamento, considerando-se o valor do Tempra). Creio eu que não vai fazer muita falta.

---

Hidden Treasures

Registering into any online service is a bit like getting a credit a card: It's way too easy to get one, but it takes a long and enduring quest to get rid of it. But thankfully, most of the online stuff we use don't send bills to our homes asking for a monthly fee or something like that. So, we just abandon them.

I really lost count of how many blogs, webpages and other stuff I started, but abandoned shortly after starting them. I remember my first blog was written in Portuguese, hosted in a swiss domain, which means I got lots of spam in French, German, Italian, and the spammers' lingua franca, English. Then, I got another blog in Portuguese, this time, hosted in Portugal. At least the spam messages were in a language I could understand this time. Then, there were lots of others "miscarried" blogs and webpages in every major (and a few minors) known hosting sites.

Why the hell am I posting this? Well, I just happen to found one of those old blogs again, hosted here in Blogger, and which I really didn't remember that it existed. But well, it's just the proof that I needed that people are stupid and repeat the same mistakes over and over again!

Você é o que você dirige!

Todo mundo diz que você é o que você come.
Todo mundo diz que um cachorro reflete a personalidade do dono (e vice-versa).

E um carro também diz muita coisa sobre o dono. Quem nunca ouviu falar de coisas tipo "carro de tiozão", "carro de madame", "carro de playboy", "carro de boleiro", entre outros? E é engraçado. Sempre que a gente vai comprar algo relativamente caro, a emoção por vezes toma o lugar da razão, quando justamente deveria ser o contrário. Mas isso tem lá seu lado positivo: se fosse diferente, todo mundo andaria naqueles Ladas quadradões, feito na União Soviética.

Mas enfim, toda essa frescurada é pra marcar a busca pelo Guigomóvel I. Pré-requisitos? Ar condicionado, direção hidráulica e que saia por menos de 15 mil.

Candidatos (até o momento):

- Fiat Siena 1.0mpi 6 marchas 99/99. Ponto forte: Manutenção relativamente barata. Ponto fraco: Manutenção relativamente constante.

- Peugeot 306 1.8 16V 98/99. Ponto forte: Já vem com kit gás. Ponto fraco: Não vem com porta-malas.

- Volkswagen Parati 1.8 CL 98/99. Pontos fortes: Porta-malas escandalosamente imenso, Motor 1.8, Bancos de couro. Pontos fracos: Só 2 portas, Necessita urgentemente dum jogo de pneus R15.

- Fiat Tempra Ouro 2.0 16V 96/96. Pontos fortes: Completississímo, Motor quase três vezes mais potente que o próximo candidato. Pontos fracos: Um jogo de amortecedores custa 600 reais, 100 reais de gasolina por mês só pra ir até o trabalho e voltar.

- Peugeot 106 Selection 1.0 2000/2001. Pontos fortes: Consome METADE da gasolina do Tempra, acabamento decente pra um "popular". Ponto fraco: Perde pra uma tartaruga manca numa disputa de quarto de milha.

- Volkswagen Gol 1.0 16V 99/99. Pontos fortes: No dia que eu quiser me livrar dele, é só estalar os dedos, peças disponíveis em qualquer buraco. Pontos fracos: É um Gol, ou seja: preço do seguro lá nas alturas e acabamento horrivelmente horrível!

- Ford Mondeo 1.8 16V 96/96. Ponto forte: O carro é simplesmente gigante. Pontos fracos: O carro é simplesmente gigante, peças caras demais.

- Mitsubishi Lancer 1.8 97/97. Ponto forte: Vai ser difícil achar um igual na rua. Ponto fraco: Onde diabos eu vou arrumar peça pra esse bicho?

- Chevrolet Opala Comodoro 4.1 89. Pontos fortes: Motor 4.1, Ultracompleto. Ponto fraco: Bebe mais álcool que o Boris Yeltsin, o Zeca Pagodinho e o Lula juntos.

- Citroën Xsara Break 1.8 16V GLX 99/2000. Pontos fortes: Porta-malas enorme, Motor equilibrado, ABS e Airbag de série. Pontos fracos: Coisas de carro importado, tipo peças caras, suspensão dura, desvalorização acentuada, etc. etc. etc.


Pois é... dez carros, dez perfis. Será que minha crise de personalidade é tão braba assim?

TOC TOC DJ

É engraçado, muito engraçado mesmo.

Desde pequeno eu sempre tive uma obsessão em por as coisas em ordem. Quando eu tinha meus cinco, seis anos, eu percebia que de vez em quando, sumia alguma das minhas revistinhas em quadrinhos, mas eu não conseguia perceber exatamente qual. Daí veio um sinal: comecei a escrever números na capa das revistas. Como tudo tem que ter um critério, numerei-as em ordem cronológica. Pegava cada uma das revistas, olhava a data de publicação, ordenei-as todas (na época eram só 64) e comecei a escrever os números. Depois, de tempos em tempos, contava tudinho e via se faltava alguma coisa. Depois desse dia, raramente alguma coisa sumia.

Depois vieram os cartuchos de Master System: primeiro vinham os de embalagem de papelão, depois os de embalagem de plástico quadriculado, depois os que tinham escrito "Master System" em vermelho na parte de cima, e por último, os que vinham na caixinha azul, todos ordenados por ordem cronológica de compra.

Mais adiante, os CDs e suas diversas arrumações. Nacionais na primeira prateleira e Internacionais nas inferiores, agrupando os cds por banda ordenados pelo ano de lançamento do CD, procurando colocar bandas de estilos parecidos uma perto da outra, sem colocar CDs de uma mesma banda em prateleiras diferentes...e depois vieram diversas variações, mas sempre respeitando os princípios da indivisibilidade, da cronologia e da afinidade sonora. Funcionava tão bem que eu conseguia pegar o CD certo literalmente de olhos fechados.

Quisera eu ter disposição pra fazer o mesmo com a minha escrivaninha!

Globalization?

配送は日本国内に限らせていただきます。

The expression above means: "Sorry, we can only deliver in Japan". Where is the free movement of goods and capital? Where's the drop of barriers? Why do everybody tries to blame the "unfair" competition from imports for their own incompetence?

And why the hell do I always have those eccentric wants? *slaps himself on the face*

OK, back to work.

I'm only happy when it rains

I wonder why it always rains during holidays...but for me, who enjoys staying at home and relaxing most of the time, it is not that bad. It gets less hot, more comfortable and it makes the green things greener and it gives a whole different paint for the city.
I only hate when it rains when I'm going to work...but it always stops as soon as I get there.

Eight Days A Week...

...is not enough to get some rest!

É incrível como as coisas são. A gente bate ponto todo dia, acorda de manhã bem cedinho, dá uns tapas pra acordar o galo, toma café, pega busão, e fica lá, agüentando todas as agruras de um ambiente de trabalho mais ou menos amigável. Depois a gente vai lá no restaurante, comer e falar bobagem, só pra voltar logo depois e continuar batendo cabeça. Chega o fim do dia, a gente volta pra casa, come, assiste o jornal e dorme...e no dia seguinte, tudo se repete!

Entonces, vem a pergunta: por que diabos tem tanta gente no shopping numa segunda-feira às quatro da tarde? Será que ninguém trabalha nessa cidade? Ou descobriram algum jeito maneiro de sobreviver sem precisar dar duro e não me contaram?

Enfim, hora de dormir.

Sync Sync Reboot

It has been one year already. In that period, many things happened, but at the same time, not really many changes. I moved to another place, I finished school, I became part of the workforce. Could be something very significant for some people, but in my humble opinion, it's just the natural flow of things, you plant the seeds and pick the fruits later, if possible.

This blog has seen me mumbling, complaining, writing nonsense or about stuff that I never thought I'd share with someone (although I rarely get any readers these times) for a whole year. I think it was about time to give it some brand new clothes, and possibly a lot of changes in the near future (if my ADHD lets me do so).

Well, one year runs fast... and twenty three run even faster, but I think I'd spare little GATW of that...for now!

Here comes the neighborhood

Restaurant became a pentecostal church.
Another restaurant became two bars, a grocery store and a Hapkido dojang.
Pizza parlor became a bar.
The bar became another bar.
Supermarket became a Baptist Church.
Empty lot became a 10-story building.
An old house became a 10-story building.
Old grocery store and another old house will become another 10-story building.

Conclusion: Soon, there will be nothing but bars, churches and 10-story buildings around here.

It Was Forty Years Ago Today...

"...Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile
So may I introduce to you
The act you've known for all these years
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band!"
(The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

It is kinda difficult for a 3 year old boy to understand all the things that make a record to be simply being considered the greatest ever (not only by me, but by gazillions of music publications around the world), but I can pretty much say it have been getting me hooked for the last 20 years.

From the start, I always thought there was something different with that album. The cover, the inner sleeve and the funny cut-out page. I didn't even had to listen to the album to get impressed with it. But I didn't want to just look at it, so I put it in the record player and played it! And I lost count of how many times I did it, almost all the songs were violently catching and even though I couldn't understand a single line, I tried to sing it nonetheless.

However, it'd take me more than a decade to find out what was all that stuff about. Reading about the making of the album is just like having a crash course on sound engineering for every music enthusiasts, especially the more technically inclined ones. Leslie speakers? Lennon not only used it for his Hammond Organ, like everybody else did, but he used it with his own voice, to sound like he was singing on the top of a mountain (in his own words). Direct Input? Macca was probably the first to use it to record bass sounds, something that almost every band does now.

And there's also all that things that people like to ponder about, like the hints that Paul would be dead scattered among the album, the subliminal messages that could be heard if the album was played backwards, the controversy surrounding the personalities portrayed (or that were supposed to be portrayed) on the front cover and of course, the pinpointing of what lines of the lyrics were actually inspired by drugs (I'd say all of them).

But indeed, Sgt. Pepper's is one of those albums you just can't live without...at least I can't!

"I've got to admit it's getting better
It's getting better all the time
I have to admit it's getting better
It's getting better since you've been mine!"

Ugly Duckling

I've never thought The Sens would lose the Stanley Cup to a team that was originally created by Disney to promote a movie.

But indeed, congratulations to the Anaheim Ducks for winning their first NHL title.

Mais la prochaine année, la Coupe sera notre! Et j'espère qu'on se rencontre avec les Red Wings dans les finales!

What the hell I'm doing here?

"But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here"
(Radiohead - Creep)

All of us surely felt like that sometime in our lives... but some just feel like that everyday. But anyway, I doubt I will ever be able to settle down somewhere... but I know what I want to do with my life, but I simply don't know how to get there, and I'm afraid of failing.

Pitchbending

BlogEntry newentry = new BlogEntry();
newentry.Title = "Pitchbending";
newentry.Text = "I must breathe C#, I must eat C#\n";
newentry.Text += "I must drink C#, I must dream of C#\n";
newentry.Text += "And for me, about less than a few weeks ago,\n";
newentry.Text += "C# was just one semitone higher than C,\n";
newentry.Text += "But I think it's probably many octaves higher! .)";
Blog gatw = Blogger.Blogs["Gui Against The World!"];
gatw.Post(newentry);
return void;

Dressed to Kill

During my whole life I always wore jeans and t-shirts. Even during the harshest winters or the melting summer days, I was there, donning my (old) funky t-shirts and my (fully-patched) jeans. And it seemed I would endure until the end of my days wearing them.

Probably, it was something related to my former convictions, since in my head, sporting expensive clothes was a means of ostentating luxury and trying to impress people visually rather than by other means.

But then, I saw the other side of the coin. In this modern world we are living, everything happens so fast that it starts to get superficial... and in places where having connections has a stronger weight than being generally competent, that is even more true! (OK, this last sentence doesn't fit well here, but I SO needed to say it!)

Then, even against my own will, circumstances forced me to totally renew my wardrobe. T-shirts out, Shirts in. Tracksuit out, Business Suit in. Sneakers out, Oxford shoes in. I never bought so many clothes in a single day, I must admit I felt really guilty at first even though the individual pieces of cloth were not exactly expensive.

But then I started wearing them on a semi-daily basis, and it seemed the whole world was changing for me. Store salesmen/women started to service me better (although I still refuse to be called "Sir"), I started attracting looks from girls on the street (although I still don't know if it's awe or fear, probably the latter) and it seems I'm having an easier time making myself heard.

But well, they're only clothes... nothing more than clothes. I might be wearing suits, but I'm still riding buses, still eating instant noodles and still not complaining I don't have free time.

中々分かりませんですよ！

私は２年前から日本語を勉強していますが、まだ何も分かりません。だから、私は大へんあほんだらかもしれません。
先生は「あなたはいい学生んです、いっしょけんめい勉強すると、早く上手になります。」と言いました。時々、私はみなさんがばかいるとおもいます...

2:48 am

I hear people chanting. I hear my mom using the washing machine. I hear my brother playing Dragon Ball Z: Sparking NEO!. I hear car horns. I hear loud music. I hear the wind and the rain.

That's why I prefer sleeping during the day.

Que Caribe que nada!

Eu nunca fui um grande leitor de livros, realmente não me lembro de ter lido nenhum livro que não seja didático, técnico, de receitas ou de RPG nestes últimos 2 anos. Mas em compensação, eu sempre fui um devorador de revistas, guardo pilhas e pilhas de revistas antiquíssimas, algumas com valor sentimental extremamente elevado, outras por sua relevância histórica, ou pelo simples prazer de abri-las e ver como era a vida em 1989 (ou qualquer outro ano a partir daquele).

Mas a minha verdadeira paixão são as histórias em quadrinhos, embora em cada fase da vida elas tenham vindo num formato diferente. Primeiro, foram Disney e Turma da Mônica, depois, Marvel e DC, já neste milênio vieram os mangás, e agora, tirinhas!!

E dentre estas tiras, a que me mantém sem vida social no momento é a fantástica "Piratas do Tietê", do Laerte. Certas vezes, me faz lembrar de "Hagar, o Horrível", outra das minhas favoritas, pelo fato de ambas serem críticas do modo de vida atual, utilizando-se de elementos metafóricos, como piratas e vikings. Mas as semelhanças param por aí, enquanto que Hagar era um saqueador bobão de bom coração, o Capitão é simplesmente malvado, cruel e tudo o de ruim que se pode imaginar nesse mundo!!

Enfim, recomendo a todos que leiam os Piratas. Senão tiver no jornal, acessem o site oficial, ou melhor ainda: procurem pelos livros de bolso da série, eles foram lançados no começo desse ano pela editora L&PM, de Porto Alegre, e podem ser achados em qualquer livraria decente e até mesmo no Wal-Mart/Bompreço/Big/Nacional, seja lá o nome que ele tiver aí por vossas plagas.

We were a happy family!

Thanks to external pressure, my inability to read Traditional Chinese and my own stupidity, I ended up killing about 80 people and a few dogs and cats tonight.

But they were no actual living beings, just characters from that The Sims 2 game thingy, but I'll still miss them. I saw them being born, learning to walk, going to college, marry, having kids, turning old, becoming lunatic scientists, eating grilled cheese, dying, being ressurected, turned into vampires and a lot more.

I send my condolences to the Nagy, Sem-Braço, Patitas, Frolund, Pepino, Choi, Šimić, Seminova, Goldenarrow, Tchê, Furreca, Sakurai and Bisco families, you will be missed.

The most ironic part of it was that I was already planning to restart the game again. I really hate when somebody messes with my plans, even if the outcome is the same!

Desserviço Público II

Eu acho incrível como neste país, existe uma disparidade enorme entre os diversos serviços públicos nos diversos entes federativos.
Quando fui tirar a carteira de motorista pela primeira vez, madruguei no Detran e só saí com os papeizinhos de lá quase meio-dia. É uma via sacra, entra na fila, pega um requerimento, preenche, entra em outra fila, apresenta os documentos, volta pra fila, pega uma guia de pagamento, entra na fila do banco (o gargalo do sistema, 1h45 de espera), paga a guia, volta pra outra fila, apresenta o comprovante de pagamento, pega mais uma fila (pequena, mas ainda fila), tira as fotos e a impressão digital...e pronto! Ao menos demoraram só cinco dias pra sair a carteira.
Já o passaporte também foi fichinha, já que o serviço sujo eu fiz quase todo aqui em casa, preenchendo montes de fichas com números de documentos que eu sequer sabia que tinham números, juntando os caquinhos da certidão de nascimento e decifrando o que diabos quer dizer CSM/OAM. Até a guia eu paguei online, veja só!
Depois dizem que nada funciona neste país...

Moving Pictures

I've never been so idle in my whole life. During the last 18 years of my life, I've been studying. Even when I was on school holidays, I had something else to do. But now, it seems that having too much free time is starting to get bored. Bored of sleeping, bored of waking up, bored of music, bored of games, bored of everything!

Then I thought doing something different could help. My new hobby is watching movies, something I didn't do often. I must admit, I missed most movies everybody in the Earth watched, and I haven't gone to a movie theatre since 2003 (and I can count on my fingers of a single hand the number of times I went to one this millennium). But it's always time to get back on the rails.

In the last 2-3 weeks, I've been watching at 2 movies per day, although I've seen a few of them before. Most of the are of really debatable quality, for sure, yet others were true classics, and a few ones made me sleep in my couch...no more insomnia!

Anyways, there's four I'd recommend people to try sometime:

- Tais-toi! - It's a frenchy comedy with Jean Reno and Gérard Depardieu. It's basically a story of a hot-blooded guy who wants to avenge the love of his life (Reno) who meets a totally crazy yet gentle dude (Depardieu) who gets both in trouble all the time.

- Scarface - A classic. If you ever played the Grand Theft Auto videogame series (especially GTA: Vice City), you'll feel at home. Only drawback (for people who got short attention span like me) is the running time, almost 3 hours of movie.

- Cop Land - It's a movie with Sylvester Stallone, although he hardly shoots people in this one. The plot revolves around a small town near New York City where almost everybody is a cop. Besides Stallone, there's a heavy load of top actors in this movies, including Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta and Robert Patrick.

- Back to the Future III - You've seen this before. Christopher Lloyd accidentally sends himself back to 1885 and Michael J. Fox has to use the DeLorean time machine to bring him back to 1985.

Livro Aberto

Há pessoas que dizem que suas vidas são um livro aberto.

Pois a minha também é, apesar de eu ter cortado várias páginas fora, escrito outras num idioma que ninguém mais conhece, enquanto outras eu simplesmente rabisquei por cima.

I Survived Easter!!

...mais les Habs sont dehors des séries, quel dommage!!

Malhando o Judas!

Quebrar tradições é a minha especialidade. Ano passado, eu esqueci que era sexta-feira santa e comi meia perna de lingüiça da colônia. Achei que Deus ia lançar um raio sobre a minha cabeça e eu ia virar torresmo. Esse ano, eu acabei estreando o George Foreman Grill em plena sexta-feira santa (e olha que aquilo funciona mesmo).

Herege de carteirinha, cá vaí uma piadinha meio boba, mas que sempre vem à tona nessa época do ano:

Jesus e Moisés estavam batendo uma bolinha num campo de várzea na periferia, quando Jesus Cristo chegou pra Moisés e disse:
- Sabe aquele gol que o Pelé não fez?
- Qual? - responde Moisés.
- Aquele do meio do campo, ele tentou várias vezes mas nunca conseguiu. Hoje eu vou tentar fazer um desses - fala Jesus.
Moisés, achando graça, retruca:
- Ora, se nem Pelé que é o Pelé não fez, porque o senhor, que nem é tão bom de bola assim, iria conseguir fazer?
- Eu consigo, passa a bola pra mim que você vai ver! - responde Jesus, confiante.
Moisés dá um passe curto para JC, que pega de primeira por debaixo da bola, que passa longe da trave e acaba caindo numa lagoa atrás da trave.
- Viu? Eu disse que não ia conseguir! Nem Pelé conseguiu! - ri Moisés.
- Da próxima vez eu consigo, vai lá pegar a bola pra mim. - fala Cristo.
Moisés balança a cabeça, mas vai até a lagoa buscar a bola. Chegando lá, Moisés faz as águas se abrirem e calmamente vai buscar a bola. Retornando ao campo, Moisés põe a bola no chão.
- Vê se acerta dessa vez! - diz Moisés, passando a bola.
Cristo recebe a bola, domina e dá um forte chute de direita, mas novamente a bola passa por cima do travessão e vai além da lagoa.
- Dessa vez eu não vou pegar! Desiste! - diz Moisés.
- Tá, pode deixar que eu pego! - resmunga Jesus.
Jesus Cristo parte em direção à lagoa e atravessa-a andando sobre a água. Neste exato momento, passa um sujeito pelo local e indaga Moisés:
- Quem aquele barbudo lá na lagoa pensa que é? Jesus Cristo?
Moisés responde sorridente:
- Que nada, ele pensa que é o Pelé!!


Se eu não postar mais nada até domingo, é porque eu fui malhado em algum lugar por aí.

Writer's Block, Part Deux

It has been more than a month since I've last posted something. At the same time, there's so much I want to write yet I don't feel like writing at all.

I'm going to stop here, the meds are kicking in already.

"I got alot to say
I can't remember now"
(Ramones - Got Alot To Say)

"Every day it's a losing battle
just to smile and hold my head up high"
(Mike And The Mechanics - Over My Shoulder)

"I found the simple life ain't so simple
When I jumped out, on that road
I got no love, no love you'd call real
Ain't got nobody, waitin' at home"
(Van Halen - Runnin' With The Devil)

"Have you ever been at some place
Recognizing everybody's face
Until you realized that there was no one there you knew?"
(The Offspring - Have You Ever)

Milagres Acontecem

Liguei hoje pra central de atendimento da minha operadora de cartão de crédito só pra comunicar uma mudança de endereço. Eis que durante a gravação, ouço a seguinte frase:
"Digite 7 para cancelar o seu cartão"
Depois de pensar por 1/4 de segundo, pressiono a tal tecla 7 e ouço aquela famigerada mensagem "você será atendido em instantes, por favor aguarde". Pois já me preparei psicologicamente para ficar a tarde inteira preso no telefone até a ligação cair, e já comecei a sentir falta do telefone antigo que tinha viva-voz.
Mal deu tempo de pensar quanto que ia sair um telefone desses e sou atendido por uma moça com um carregadíssimo sotaque pernambucano, que perguntou meus motivos pra cancelar o cartão e tentou me convencer a mantê-lo, mesmo morando no exterior e sem parentes próximos pra controlar a fatura (não que eu vá pro exterior, mas eu tinha que dar uma justificativa mais ou menos convincente).
Vendo que não ia dar jeito, ela pediu pra que eu confirmasse alguns dados pessoais e me pediu pra ficar esperando na linha. Três ou quatro minutos de "Quadros de uma Exposição" depois, ela me responde que o meu cartão está novamente bloqueado e que se eu quiser mudar de idéia, posso reativá-lo nos próximos seis meses. E isso tudo em menos de 15 minutos.
Confesso que fiquei tão bobo com o atendimento que pensei em reativar o cartão na hora mesmo.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

During my whole life, my mother always criticized me for keeping too much stuff "nobody uses" at home. My videogame magazines from the early-90's, comics from 1986~1994, craploads of old RPG books, old videogame cartridges, VHS tapes containing cartoons, music videos, Formula One races and series from the late 80's (which were only thrown away because they were pretty much destroyed by fungi) and the most criticized section of my "junk" collection: my vinyl records.

Despite the obvious quality and practicity improvement of CDs over LPs, I still listen to them regularly, after having fixed my turntable myself (which is interestingly being sold on auction sites for twice the price I paid for them in 1999 (yeah, 99!)). People often tell me to re-download them on the Internet, but some of the vinyls were never released on CDs, or they're just way too rare or obscure that I could never find them. Not to mention I think LPs are more "interactive", as you have to pick up the record, place the needle on the right position, turn the record to the other side and pick up the needle again when it starts "jumping". There is also the coolness factor: a lot of people have The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but how many people do you know that have the vinyl version that comes with a page of cut-outs including a moustache, stripes, badges and other Sgt. Pepper's related stuff?

Other than that, those records are part of my life, as they were with me practically from the day when I was born. It's my history, the origins of what I am now, everytime I listen to them or even only looking at them triggers some nice memories, such as a 5-year old me asking for James Marshall's LPs at a record store, or playing Genesis' Seconds Out album at 45 rpm and recording it on a cassette tape (yeah, I still have those too).

In an era when CDs are being quickly disappearing and being replaced by songs in "non-physical media", it seems that I'm walking backwards again... yeah, I have Michael Jackson's Bad vinyl too!

Many names, same old crap

Nothing is more interesting than having a fully translatable name. If I ever marry an Icelandic woman, I'll call my son "Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmurson". No one will be able to pronounce it, so we're all gonna call him "Junior".

Cara de um, focinho de outro

Olá mundo, ainda estou vivo.

Graças à minha aversão às folias momescas e completa falta de capital, acabei por ficar em casa sentado com cara de bobo vendo a chuva cair e vagando por perfis de moças bonitas no Myspace. Eis que deparo-me com um daqueles coisas do tipo "mande sua foto e descubra com quem você se parece". Há um par de anos, um site bobão me disse que eu pareço com o Tim Burton, o Russell Crowe e até o Jackie Chan!
Decidi testar a tecnologia mais moderna e mandei uma foto recente pra lá. O resultado aparece logo abaixo:

O resultado é no mínimo engraçado. Acho que eu deveria arrumar um bico de Julio Iglesias cover enquanto não acho um emprego decente.

Maleato de Dexclorfeniramina II: A Batalha Final

Quatro dias de tratamento e ainda vivo. Ainda não deu diarréia, constipação, insônia (muito pelo contrário) e muito menos aquele monte de coisinhas com nomes complicados. Por outro lado, passei os últimos três dias sem conseguir parar em pé e comendo meio grão de feijão por dia.

Um dia isso passa.

Maleato de Dexclorfeniramina

Eu sempre gostei de ler as bulas dos remédios antes de tomá-los. Mas dessa vez eu me arrependi:

"Efeitos adversos: Podem ocorrer sonolência discreta ou moderada, vertigens, hipotensão, náusea, vômito, azia, diarréia, constipação, poliúria, dificuldade de micção, boca seca, ataxia, sedação, agitação, tontura, zumbidos, fadiga, euforia, nervosismo, insônia, sudorese, tremores, perda de apetite, diplopia, cefaléia, leucopenia, agranulocitose, urticária e choque anafilático."