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.