I hate Sunday nights

heroes is going downhill

ATTENTION! SPOILERS AHEAD!

The second season was worse than the first. The final episode was disappointing - I can see the director saying "we must end the season NOW, let's DO it". The villain cliche at the end was a bit too much - "I'm back! Mwahahah!". And the use of Clair's or Adam's blood to resurrect people sadly reminds of aunt May's multiple fiascos. And Peter Petrelli is getting closer and closer of being the new Superman - he's ultra powerful and super dumb.

Shame, I really liked that show.

name needed

So it happens that I needed a bit more life in my living room, and for that effect I bought an orchid. She's doing well (yes, I know that a flower should be an it, but it's such a feminine thing that I'll transgress my grammar and call her a she), as you can see here.

I'm hoping for the best in our relationship - she not only survived the first two weeks, but she's also flourishing more - a believable demonstration of happiness.

The next step is to name her, and I could indeed use some suggestions. Can you think of any good names for my orchid?

absurdistan

I didn't finish yet, but I had to mention this scene before I forget. Three Russian men are fighting in front of the American consulate in St. Petersburg. After the two bouncers repeatedly try to beat the fat rich guy and fail at it, they all fall to the curb, where one of the security guys says:

"You remind us of our country's dignity. They can punch Russia over and over again, but she will never fall. Maybe she'll slide down to the pavement as we have... you know, for a drink... But she will never fall."

thiago's 2007 concerts list

I've been to more concerts this year than in the rest of my entire life. Music festivals help a lot to increase the count, friends like Rodrigo too. Here's a list, so I won't forget (and you'll think I'm cooler):

• Seattle, WA
  • Camera Obscura
  • The Shins
  • Bloc Party
  • LCD Soundsystem
  • !!!
  • Menomena
  • Klaxons
  • Stanley Jordan
  • Arcade Fire
  • Arctic Monkeys
  • Magic Numbers
  • Simian Mobile Disco
  • Diplo
  • Digitalism
  • Natalie Portman's Shaved Head
  • Bonde do Role
  • Crystal Method
  • Nightwish
  • The Hives
  • Benny Benassi
• Redmond, WA
  • Wilco
• The Gorge (George, WA)
  • Dave Matthews Band
• Auburn, WA
  • Rush
• Coachella (Indio, CA)
  • Tokyo Police Club
  • Of Montreal
  • Arctic Monkeys
  • Felix da Housecat
  • Benny Benassi
  • Interpol
  • Bjork
  • Fields
  • The Cribs
  • Regina Spektor
  • MSTRKRFT
  • Kings of Leon
  • Arcade Fire
  • Red Hot Chilli Peppers
  • Tiesto
  • Fair to Midland
  • Tapes 'n Tapes
  • Explosions in the Sky
  • Kaiser Chiefs
  • Placebo
  • Paul van Dyk
  • Manu Chao
  • Rage Against the Machine
• Lollapalooza (Chicago, IL)
  • Ted Leo and the Parmacists
  • Jack's Mannequin
  • Against Me!
  • Silversun Pickups
  • The Black Keys
  • LCD Soundsystem
  • Daft Punk
  • Silverchair
  • Motion City Soundtrack
  • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
  • Regina Spektor
  • Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  • Muse
  • Blue October
  • Iggy and the Stooges
  • My Morning Jacket
  • Pearl Jam
• Bumbershoot (Seattle, WA)
  • Andrew Bird
  • Apples in Stereo
  • Art Brut
  • Gogol Bordello
  • Kings of Leon

Update (answering Moon's question): 55 different bands.

Update 2 (added a few that I forgot on the first post): 60 bands.

distance

Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are at any given moment in time. In physics or everyday discussion, distance may refer to a physical length, a period of time, or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two counties over"). In mathematics, distance must meet more rigorous criteria.

Math is hard: 11253km is rigorous indeed.

Then again, navegar é preciso; viver não é preciso.

back

Interesting. Looks like no one really went to the other blog I created. Even for a market as small as 7 readers, the brand appears to make a difference.

Alright then guys, you win. I'll keep posting here for now. I'm still using Windows Live Writer - which integrates surprisingly well (ok, maybe not that surprisingly) with Blogger. I guess to ask to transfer the posts from one blog to another would be a bit too much. Alright. Cool. The dude abides.

Stay tuned. Upcoming: the new Zune, my life with a plant and more of the same usual random s*it.

Crappy movies

First, Beowulf. What a disappointment. I'm going to let Gaiman off the hook for this one, and assume he had diarrhea or something when he spewed out this piece of crap. It's hard to believe the same guy who wrote Sandman would come up with such crappy dialog (yeah, I know this is based on the book, but it diverges enough, and the crappiest dialog is exactly at those points). And, also, please can the "entire movie in 3d idea" for another five years, when you (hopefully) might have decent skeletal animations. At least it had some moments bad enough for people to laugh at (like the Austinpowerism on the nude scenes). Well, I didn't have too high expectations for this one. I went to the theater knowing I was wasting 10 bucks.

Then we come to "No Country for Old Men". Overrated, overhyped, overacted crawling-pace piece of shit. Typical Oscar movie, with characters whose sole purpose is to show off how oscar-worthy the actor is, entire scenes that are completely pointless except to show "crazy face #12", or "sad face #17". Dialog that, in an effort to pass naturality, just sounds like something noone would ever say in real life. Stereotypes and cliches abound (just because they're dramatic cliches, doesn't mean they're any better than action movie cliches). I sat through this one until the end, just because I didn't walk out of Mystic River, and I really couldn't decide which one is worse. If you're gonna do Oscar-whoring, have some dignity and at least do a good movie. Darjeeling Limited does its fair share of statuet prostitution, but in the end is still a fairly watchable (perhaps good) movie. "No Country For Old Men" just made me go home with $10 less on my account, and 2 hours less on my life.

yet another internet experiment

I decided to ride the new live services wave that is giving away @live.com accounts and created one account for me. It comes with a bunch of stuff, including a blog. So I created a new personal blog to experiment with. Check out Thiago's space.

This is what video games are all about

I'm not going to link anything on this post. If you want to know what I'm talking about, do yourself a favor and just play the games.

First, a post that is a few years late. Katamari is simply great. Graphics are for suckers, you don't need anything more than a few polygons and brick-like objects to make a great game -- just raw creativity, and the balls to release a game that's "just fun" in an age of "ultra-graphic epic adventures with twisting storylines". Somehow, Katamari brings back the early 80's arcade philosophy of concept games -- you come up with some innovative game mechanics, and develop your game around it. Everything -- graphics, storyline, controls, objectives -- is simplistic and fun. Slap on some completely insane dialog, a J-pop soundtrack that's as weird as possible, and you get the most innovative game since the first videogame crisis...

UNTIL NOW. Which leads us to...

Forget about the other games on the Orange Box. Portal alone is worth your 60 bucks. There will be cake at the end. It is quite similar to Katamari -- it's a concept game, simplistic, fun, and has a completely insane character giving you missions. But... the concept in which it's based is much more filled with possibility. By playing the game, you're really "thinking in portals". The physics engine is perfect, gives you almost absolute freedom, and every experiment you do with portals and gravity comes out as a whole new way to beat the levels. The physics insanity comes packed with dialog (or rather monologue) insanity. Your only interaction during the game is with an increasingly insane passive-aggressive UI. Imagine 343 Guilty Spark + HAL9000, and add lots and lots of passive-aggressiveness, and you're getting close to it. Four hours of increasing insanity, physics-bending action and humor, and then, at the end, the cake: the credits song. Best credits song ever. All in all, this game is the best at everything it does: the physics engine is fantastic, the gameplay is fun, every line of monologue is comedy gold, and you get cake at the end.

I really hope these two gems are a sign of a new golden age of video games. I love the visuals on Gears of War, the action in Halo, or the art in Bioshock -- but it's nice to see new life in an area that was almost forgotten -- Pure unadulterated FUN.

Oh, did I mention the cake?

blog action day

Having 27 minutes left in my timezone for the blog action day, I decided to spend a few seconds mentioning the best reason I have - being fond of objectiveness and rationality - to recycle: recycling is energy efficient. The energy consumption ratios are: 0.05 for aluminium, 0.3 for plastic and 0.6 for paper.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling)

my radio

I've created an Internet radio on last.fm featuring the music content I usually listen to. Check it out.

Lollapalooza vs Coachella (2007)

Coachella and Lollapalooza are two of the biggest music festivals in the US, spanning 3 days, more than 100 bands and focusing largely in alternative rock n' roll, a good amount of electronic music and a hint of hip hop. This year I attended both, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

Location

Coachella is set in the middle of a California desert, in a city named Indio, a few miles from Palm Springs and two hours by car from LA. No matter whether you camp (which I did) or you settle in a nearby hotel, there's nothing interesting around besides the festival. Also, being in a desert means two things: you'll need lots of liquid and the shows can go on longer (from noon to midnight) - there's no one to complain about the noise.

Lollapalooza is located at the Grand Park, the very center of Chicago downtown. From there, if you look East you'll see lake Michigan. If you look any other direction you'll see skyscrappers - impresssive ones. As I noted earlier, Chicago is a cool city, so there's stuff to do before and after the shows - which end around 10pm.

Crowd

In both festivals, the crowd is mainly composed of young people, most of them between their early twenties and early thirties. Everyone is either a music lover or friends with them, which is great. Coachella has a more mixed crowd (geography-wise), since no one really lives there. Lollapalooza's public (in my unscientific 10 people sample) comes mainly from Chicago - which is not a bad thing, since they seemed to be very friendly and open to conversation.

Organization

At Coachella there was a lot more pushing and trouble walking around. People at Lolla would excuse themselves through the crowd, and hardly push anyone. On top of that, there was beer everywhere, in contrast with an enclosed, crowded beer garden at Coachella. The physical disposition of the stages at Lolla is worse, though - they are placed along a strip - with the two big ones at the two opposite extremes, meaning you'd have to walk a lot to move between two mainstream concerts.

Music

Last, but not least, music.

Even having won in every other aspect, Lollapalooza lost here. Lollapalooza had amazing headlines - Daft Punk (think of lights and triangles in sync with electronic music), Muse (ending with Knights of Cydonia, thousands of people yelling "no one is going to take me alive") and Pearl Jam (with Vedder singing "Hey, Bush, leave the kids alone") - and a bunch of ok shows.

Coachella's headlines weren't so great (Bjork was for Bjork fans and RHCP was for RHCP fans), even though RAtM was perfect - fast and furious, exactly as they're supposed to be. Coachella really blew me away with their amazing selection of alternative music: Kaiser Chiefs (starting their show with an energetic "we're the world famous Kaiser Chiefs!"), Explosions in the Sky (ignoring the sun and dazzling the crowd with their guitars) and Arcade Fire (one of the best shows in my life - you should've seen the smiles on everyone's faces when they played "No Cars Go", closing a brilliant presentation - pure good music).

Overall

Coachella won because of the new music. As a music fan, I'm always happy to see new bands rising and showing how it's possible to create and inovate. Lolla was a close second, though. If you love music and you have the oportunity, I definitely recommend you to try both at some point in your life.

Wilco at Marymoor Park

[someone in the front of the audience yells something]
Jeff Tweedy: Who's an asshole?
[someone yells again]
Jeff Tweedy: Bush is an asshole? Ok.
Jeff Tweedy: Grass is green.

Chicago

I went to Chicago because of Lollapalooza (another post coming soon). I wasn't expecting much of the city, but I ended up positively surprised. They seem to have achieved a good balance between small and big town. The natural landscape - including the (now clean) Chicago River and the Great Lakes - combined with the work of a number of famous architects results in a very pleasant combination.

People were nice, open to conversation, crime is gone, and they have their own (great) pizza style - Chicago's deep dish.

(upcoming posts - so that I don't forget: Lollapalooza vs Coachella; EB games sucks; Stardust)

shower ideas (1)

I usually have great ideas while in the shower. I don't quite know why, I just think the water improves my overall thinking process. Ideas and decisions become much more clear in the water. Weird, perhaps, but true.

Here's one, for a more positive attitude towards life: most of your problems can actually be solved. Whining and complaining may be a good stress relief, but it usually doesn't solve anything. You solve problems. Stop sitting there and go make your life better.

recently on theater

Ratatouille is fun, but I expected more from the director, who directed The Incredibles. The plot is also fundamentally flawed: rats are disgusting, food should not be. A rat cooking is not the most exciting thing.

Live Free or Die Hard is excellent. In a plot more absurd than ever, Bruce Willis comes back to save the world from evil hackers. He's totally inept with technology and completely reckless. Shootings, explosions, jumping cares, you name it. Who cares for physics in an action movie anyway?

Transformers is cool. I can barely remember my childhood days watching it, so they didn't have a lot to spoil. Bumblebee is not a beetle anymore, but I guess that didn't make a huge difference. The movie is filled with cliche, which I found funny - "now it's between you and me, Megatron!" And the girl, Megan Fox, is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Ocean's 13 is better than 12 and worse than 11. The scenes with Brad Pitt and George Clooney reprovingly looking at each other are worth the movie.

Live Earth is live now

Live Earth is an initiative by Microsoft Live, sponsoring shows throughout the entire planet with the objective of raising attention to environmental issues. All the shows are being streamed via the website. I just checked out Australia and Japan presentations and the quality is quite good.

the Flower and the Storm

Once upon a time, a very delicate flower grew alone between some rocks. It was a little flower, but its sadness was immense - it didn't want to be alone. So, one day, a terrible windstorm came nearby. The flower asked: "Storm, will you take me with you"? The storm kept approaching. The flower said again: "Storm, will you take me away from those rocks"? The storm then saw the flower, and reckoned it was a beautiful flower, and was afraid of destroying it. The storm slowed down, and when its first breezes touched the flower, the flower said: "take me"! The storm twisted around the flower, turning and turning, fascinated. It then saw the flower would never resist, and tried to go away. In its effort, it took a petal off. The flower stood there, shaking and hurt, watching the storm to grow darker in the horizon.

déjà vu

He went to a French restaurant with his two friends, a Brazilian couple. She ordered a steak, his friend got the duck and he got the rabbit. They shared a bottle of red wine, ate and had some dessert. They walked half a block north to the next intersection, found the "Russia House" and climbed the stairs. They sat at the old wooden chairs, looking to the streets through the round windows. He's got a "shot" of Vodka, which turned out to be a martini glass full of it. He drank it, his friends drank their stuff and everyone left. He walked, searching on his phone for "clubs". On his right there was some movement, and the phone agreed. He walked in there, showed his ID, browsed around the bar for Her and gave up. He pushed some people around and ordered a Long Island. They returned a wrong credit card and he was still sober enough to recognize it. He got his card, walked around once again and decided to go home. Took the wrong right. Followed some people around a traffic circle. Followed other people towards a bar. Showed his ID, entered the bar. The bar looked strangely familiar, he made a note to write about déjà vu. He intuitively found the restroom, which was positioned similarly to that of the other bar. He saw those two girls he saw earlier and figured they must have walked to the same place. Then he sat down for another drink and saw the same waitress. And the realization finally came: he went back to the same bar. Realizing he was too drunk to do anything other than sleeping, he drank some water and stumbled towards the exit. Asked where the subway station was. Walked there. Sat on the escalators. Got out of the metro, where some Virginian people asked for a bar. Joined them, and after much effort got a tequila before 3am. Stumbled back home, grabbed his laptop and wrote something. Slept sitting there, woke up two hours later. Finished his tale only the next day.

NYC 3

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is full of, well, modern "art". While I appreciate the abstractions that still resemble something real (like Picasso or Miró), the "nonobjective painting" annoys me. However, their huge three-paneled water lilies redeemed them entirely. If you want to cool me down, just make me look at Monet's later life paintings.

Little Italy and Chinatown didn't quite impress me. The first at least looks good and has a lot of restaurants that look nice; the latter is too dirty and too crowded for me to really appreciate it (and I like São Paulo's equivalent for it (Liberdade) much better). However, I didn't spend a lot of time there and might have missed a lot of stuff.

I watched The Phantom of the Opera on Brodway and enjoyed it. Although the music sounds more impressive on a CD, it was still pretty good live. And the scenarios are very well done, the best I've seen on a theater so far.

The subway is dirty but overall efficient; the city's rythm is crazy (even worse than São Paulo); there's an impressive number of beautiful women on the streets; there's food for all tastes and budgets; the traffic sucks; the nightlife is very intense (and yes, you can find places to party until dawn).

The city felt like a mix of Paris and São Paulo - no one treats you very kindly, it's beautiful, huge, fast and there's always something going on. If you like cities, NYC is a must see.

NYC 2

The American Museum of Natural History is just too cool. In three hours I barely had time to see "Cosmic Explosions" and skip through the dinosaurs and the biodiversity hall. One could easily spend multiple days trying to absorb that much information.

The Grand Central Station makes one want to take the train there everyday; the New York Public Library is the most impressive library I've ever seen; the Statue of Liberty is no big deal; the Manhattan skyline is beautiful, specially when seen from the south of the island.

NYC 1

The Central Park is huge, nice and clean. There was a bunch of people there enjoying the spring, sitting on the grass, tanning, strolling, biking, skating, playing frisbees, eating hot dogs or ice cream cones. It's easy to get lost (I thought I was going south and ended up on Fifth Ave (east)), it's easy to enjoy.

The Guggenheim Museum is interesting. I'm not a big fan of modern art, but I can expend some time trying to figure out the value of some of their so called art. I noticed it's not random, there's a certain pattern to it. I guess that's something already, huh? Besides that, they have a cool post-impressionism section and a few Picassos.

The Empire State building is crowded. Never, ever go there on a weekend. I had to endure 90 minutes waiting in line to get up there, plus some more 45 minutes to get down to the street level. The night view is cool, NYC is beautiful from up there, but I (and everyone else leaving the elevator) was very glad to get out of it.

The Times Square is a place for tourists. A huge crowd from all parts of the world occupies the street, leaving little room for one to walk. The lights are quite impressive and it works pretty well as a symbol of the modern city life, but it gets old quickly. I am told that New Yorkers tend to avoid it.

to the East!

I'll be flying from Seattle to New York in 3 hours. I'll spend 5 days there, then 4 more in Washington DC. I've never been to any of them, so let's see. Laptop and camera in the bag; pictures and comments in a few days.

Be Safe

The Cribs have released a new album - "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever". I listened to it twice already and I like it.

I found these "lyrics" really interesting. This song (which sounds more like a reading than like a song) is called "Be Safe":

"One of those fucking awful black days when nothing is pleasing and everything that happens is an excuse for anger. An outlet for emotions stockpiled, an arsenal, an armour. These are the days when I hate the world, hate the rich, hate the happy, hate the complacent, the TV watchers, beer drinkers, the satisfied ones. Because I know I can be all of those little hateful things and then I hate myself for realising that. There's no preventative, directive or safe approach for living. We each know our own fate. We know from our youth how to be treated, how we'll be received, how we shall end. These things don't change. You can change your clothes, change your hairstyle, your friends, cities, continents but sooner or later your own self will always catch up. Always it waits in the wings. Ideas swirl but don't stick. They appear but then run off like rain on the windshield. One of those rainy day car rides my head implodes, the atmosphere in this car a mirror of my skull. Wet, damp, windows dripping and misted with cold. Walls of grey. Nothing good on the radio. Not a thought in my head.

Lets take life and slow it down incredibly slow, frame by frame with two minutes that take ten years to live out. Yeah, lets do that.

Telephone poles like praying mantras against the sky, metal arms outstretched. So much land travelled so little sense made of it. It doesn't mean a thing all this land laid out behind us. I'd like to take off into these woods and get good and lost for a while. I'm disgusted with petty concerns; parking tickets, breakfast specials. Does someone just have to carry this weight? Abstract typography, methane inconvenience, linear gospel, Nashville sales lady, and torturous lice, mad Elizabeth. Chemotherapy bullshit.

The light within you shines like a diamond mine, like an unarmed walrus, like a dead man face down on the highway. Like a snake eating its own tail, steam turbine, frog farm, two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun, hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blowjob, deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories, movements, the movie unfeeling, unreeling, about to begin.

I've seen your hallway, you're a darn call away, I've hear your stairs creak. I can fix my mind on your yes, and on your no. I'll film you face today in the sparkling canals, all red, yellow, blue, green brilliance and silver Dutch reflection. Racing thoughts, racing thoughts. All too real, you're moving so fast now I cant hold your image. This image I have of your face by the window, me standing beside you arm on your shoulder. A catalogue of images, flashing glimpses then gone again.

Every clear afternoon now I'll picture you up in the air twisting your heel, your knees up around me, my face in your hair. You scream so well, your smile so loud it still rings in my ears.

Imitation. Distant, tired of longing. Clean white teeth. Stay the course. Hold the wheel. Steer on to freedom. Open all the boxes.

Open all the boxes.

Open all the boxes.

Open all the boxes.

Times Square midday: newspaper buildings, news headlines going around, you watch as they go, and hope that some good comes. Those tree shadows in the park they're all whistling chasing leaves. Around six pm, shadows across cobblestones, girl in front of a bathroom mirror she slowly and carefully and paints her face green and mask like. A portrait. A green stripe. Long shot through apartment window, a monologue on top but no girl in shot. The light within you shines like a diamond mine, like an unarmed walrus, like a dead man face down on the highway. Like a snake eating its own tail steam turbine, frog farm, two full closets burst open in disarray, soap bubbles in the sun, hospital death bed, red convertible, shopping list, blowjob, deaths head, devils dancing, bleached white buildings, memories, movements. The movie unreeling, about to begin.

That was great
Yeah? Mine were alright. Wasn't my best one but who cares?
That's the spirit... "

etc

- Shrek the Third is decent, but not as good as the previous ones. I give it a 7.

- the White Stripes' newest single (Icky Thumps) sounds promising.

- Brandon Flowers (The Killers) lost his voice on their last show in Denver (allegedly due to a bronchitis crisis); 8 hours previous to the scheduled time they also postponed Seattle's presentation by one week, meaning two things: (1) I won't see them (because I will be out of town next week) and (2) neither hundreds of other alternative music fans will (because the new time conflicts with Sasquatch). Bleh.

Starcraft 2

www.starcraft2.com currently redirects the user to www.blizzard.com, which shows a list of all games published by Blizzard along with their year of release. The list ends with a big question mark. Guess what? Yeah, baby. We will be saving the universe once again. En Taro Adun!

(19-May-07) Update: Blizzard has officially announced Stacraft II. The above mentioned website now contains a variety of media material, including screenshots, artwork and videos. My initial impression was disappointment - after so long, I was expecting a lot more innovation. The screenshots showed a new 3D engine and pretty much the same game. Still hopeful, I went to watch the cinematic trailer. Those 4 minutes changed my opinion entirely; after watching it I was cheering in front of my PC. Blizzard did a perfect job of reminding me that the original formula was fantastic, and that keeping it could only lead to another great game.

Hell, it's about time.

Elevator

Tension, suspense, drama... and lots of ennui in the thrilling debut of Weekend Productions.

deserted cities thoughts

I watched "28 Weeks Later" yesterday. As its prequel, it features amazing takes of these post-apocalyptic, deserted, abandoned cities. Vanilla Sky's scene where Tom Cruise finds himself alone in the middle of Times Square also comes to mind. I find these scenes terribly appealing.

When I was younger and more rebellious, I liked those because they represented a start from scratch, a new chance to do things "right". Today my beliefs in "right" or "wrong" are less radical, and I see that having everyone else killed is likely not a best bet. Still, the empty streets have a deep impact on me. I figured why: it's about humanity.

Have you ever wondered what is humanity's goal, what is it we really care about as species? It's survival. And being all alone on the remains of the civilization is all about that. The survivors carry the immense responsibility of keeping mankind alive. They carry not only the genes, but also part of the knowledge we accumulated over thousands of years. If left alone, would you be able to help rebuild the planet? Would you truthfully teach our past history and myths? Would you build bridges or electricity generators? Would you cook, sew, medicate, repair, create, govern? Which values would you choose, which culture would you create?

These thoughts appeal to my innermost humanity, they make me feel responsible for and part of a greater entity. Each of us carry all the human generations in ourselves, and that's what should guide us and keep us together. "Humanity" is the ultimate moral value.

coachella magic tunnel

AdSense added...

... for the sake of experiment. Let us know if you hate it.

coachella!

Backpack is ready: tent, sleeping bag, soft clothes for the desert, a white towel, a spreadsheet with the list of all bands and a bunch of mp3 to make choices on the flight to LA. Yay!

Against the war

Answering my sister's requests, the result of a lazy Sunday afternoon: my friend and I went to see a "protest" against the war here in Seattle. When we finally got there, most people were already gone. The scattered crowd which remained there was enough for a somewhat funny video. Comments in Portuguese.

camera by me; video and sound edition by Hermann; comments by both of us

Google Offers Free Wireless

Haha!

Farewell

(free translation of Cecília Meireles' poem: Despedida. Suggestions for improvements are welcome.

to a friend who reminds me of her)

For me, and for you, and for all that
that is where others will never be,
I leave the angry sea and the peaceful sky:
I want loneliness.

My path has no signs nor landscapes.
And how do you know it? - they will ask me.
- By not having words, by not having images.
Not a single enemy and not a single brother.

What do you look for? - Everything. What do you want? - Nothing.
I travel alone with my heart.
I don't walk lost, but unfound.
I carry my way on my hand.

The memory flew off my face.
Flew my love, my imagination.
Maybe I'll die before the horizon.
Memory, love and the rest where to be found?

I leave my body here, between the sun and the earth.
(I kiss you, body of mine, all delusion!
Sad banner of a strange war...)

I want loneliness.

Zodiac sucks.

300 rocks.

Pratchett's notes on physics

I'm currently reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld. The mere fact that I hadn't done so in 25 years is an unforgivable character flaw. Anyway, aside from all other objects of his sarcasm, he seems to have a special warm place in his heart for advanced physics... So, here are a couple quotes from the books I've already read, to share the wisdom.

"While I'm still confused and uncertain, it's on a much higher plane, d'you see, and at least I know I'm bewildered about the really fundamental and important facts of the universe." Treatle nodded. "I hadn't looked at it like that," he said, "But you're absolutely right. He's really pushed back the boundaries of ignorance." They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.

[Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites]

The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles -- kingons, or possibly queons -- that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.

[Terry Pratchett - Mort]

IM making a difference

new layout

I'm experimenting a new layout here. If you read this blog every once in a while, would you be so kind as to leave a comment saying whether you like this better than the other (or that you don't care)?

changes

Gondolin was converted to English, since Renato, André and I were already writing in English. If you see reminiscences of Portuguese somewhere in the template, please let us know. No, we're not translating old posts to English - arbitrary estimates say that only about 7.2 people read this blog regularly.

We also got rid of the Haloscan comments. They started to put ads even in the RSS feeds and I finally got sick of them.

On the Radio

Regina Spektor, proving simple can be very good:

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

Coachella

From Wikipedia:

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (also commonly referred to as simply Coachella) is now a three-day annual music festival (2-day until its 2007 edition) held at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, California. The event features many genres of music including alternative rock, hip hop, and electronica.

I already got my concert tickets, airplane tickets and a tent. Yay!

Carioca

I've just bought Chico Buarque's latest album Carioca and I must confess I'm kinda disappointed with both the lyrics and the music. Anyway, I know that may change as I get more used to the new stuff --- that's what happened with As Cidades, for example.

Below, the lyrics of my favourite song from the new album:

Ela Faz Cinema
(Chico Buarque, 2006)

Quando ela chora
Não sei se é dos olhos para fora
Não sei do que ri
Eu não sei se ela agora
Está fora de si
Ou se é o estilo de uma grande dama
Quando me encara e desata os cabelos
Não sei se ela está mesmo aqui
Quando se joga na minha cama
Ela faz cinema
Ela faz cinema
Ela é a tal
Sei que ela pode ser mil
Mas não existe outra igual

Quando ela mente
Não sei se ela deveras sente
O que mente para mim
Serei eu meramente
Mais um personagem efêmero
Da sua trama
Quando vestida de preto
Dá-me um beijo seco
Prevejo meu fim
E a cada vez que o perdão
Me clama
Ela faz cinema
Ela faz cinema
Ela é demais
Talvez nem me queira bem
Porém faz um bem que ninguém
Me faz

Eu não sei
Se ela sabe o que fez
Quando fez o meu peito
Cantar outra vez
Quando ela jura
Não sei por que deus ela jura
Que tem coração
E quando o meu coração
Se inflama
Ela faz cinema
Ela faz cinema
Ela é assim
Nunca será de ninguém
Porém eu não sei viver sem
E fim


PS: I've decided to post to this weblog in English too, so I can practice my writing a little bit... Corrections and suggestions are welcome.

etc

Long Islands are not your friends, specially if they come in groups.

The Pan's Labyrinth is finally being shown here. I liked it a lot, even though I feel I may have missed some of the references.

Children of Men is also pretty good. It's specially interesting to see how our projected fears are now leading to a quite different dystopia then what we saw in the last century in 1984 or Brave New World.

cold

Back to Seattle (coming from two warm weeks in Brazil), having fun with the snow and ice:

1) After one of the worst days of snow here, traffic to get back home is awful. To take advantage of the carpool lane, two friends come to my office so we can go together in my car. On their way out, someone asks:
"Does your friend have a 4x4?"
"No, he has courage"

2) In the morning, the radio plays the weather forecast music; the DJ starts the program yelling:
"Global warming my ASS!"

3) http://youtube.com/watch?v=BQuwyURdymc