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

Tic

It's not just because she's my sister that I loved her voice. Text by Rodrigo Vianna.

updates

• I moved from Redmond to Seattle. Commute is worse, but every other aspect of my life is better. I wasn't born to live in the country; I need skyscrapers, people on the sidewalks and night life.
  
  
• Snowboarding is fun, but painful.
  
  
• Babel, Iñárritu's latest movie, deserves all the attention it's getting at the Golden Globe. Two words: intense and intelligent.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Dreamfall can hardly be called a game: it's an interactive story. I spent more time watching the cutscenes than actually taking any actions. That said, the story is truly amazing. It talks of a beautiful girl who can move between two worlds (a somewhat futuristic Earth and a fantasy world, Arcadia) through dreams. The art and the soundtrack are also quite impressive.

The game is the first part of a duology. I can't wait for the second part.

And what do you think of the climate around here?

Yay for rain records.

Update: Oh, and for those who think we're still far from that 15-inch absolute record... We're taking care of that.

Windows Vista viral campaign

This is the best Microsoft ad I've ever seen.

quickies

Ha, probably I need a better translation for the Portuguese "rápidas".

Full Metal Alchemist - After a long time away from the Japanese Animes, I found out a quite amazing one. The 51 episodes are addictive and the final movie is a wonderful piece of fantasy. Thumbs up.

The Name of the Rose - Either my expectations were too high or the English translation wasn't that good. It's an "ok" book. Raquel (who loves that book) now can kill me.

iWoz - Steve Wozniak's (first PC's engineer and Apple's co-founder) autobiography. It's interesting to see how he struggles to explain "what it takes to change the world" and fails at that. In the end I felt it's all about talent (genes, education?), timing (sheer luck?) and passion ("The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing"). I liked the book, though. Wozniak seems to be a happy dude.

I want to be extraordinary.

The Dresden Dolls

Yesterday I randomly ended up in their concert here in Seattle. Randomness is my friend.

They are original.

Qui-Gon Jinn

It will be a hard life. One without remorse, without regret, without reward. A path will be placed before you - the choice is yours alone. Do what you think you cannot do. It will be a hard life, but you will find out who you are.