This is About to Change - Isso Vai Mudar

Quem é a Joni Mitchell brasileira?

2011-05-31T19:14:00.002-03:00

Ontem eu tava ouvindo o disco Blue, da Joni Mitchell pela milésima vez e comecei a me perguntar: quem é a Joni Mitchell brasileira? Pra quem não conhece Joni Mitchell é provavelmente a mais importante cantora/compositora dos últimos tempos (onde os últimos tempos voltam até os anos 60), a mais citada como influência por tudo quanto é cantora internacional, bla, bla, bla. Eu fiquei pensando em quem seria um equivalente brasileiro. Nós temos várias intérpretes fenomenais, e temos vários cantores/compositores fodas, mas não consegui pensar em nenhuma cantora/compositora mulher que fosse unanimidade. De quem eu tou esquecendo?

Cerveja mágica (ou congelador vagabundo)

2010-02-14T09:53:00.005-03:00

Esse dias aconteceu um negócio mágico comigo: numa quarta-feira eu tinha ido ao mercado comprar coisas pro jantar e, como quase sempre faço, comprei uma cerveja que não conhecia pra provar e adicionar à minha coleção. A cerveja em questão era uma Steen Brugge, uma Blond belga (blonds belgas disputam muito de perto com as Weißbier o título de minhas preferidas) super antiga e tradicional que eu ainda não tinha provado. Cheguei em casa, coloquei a garrafa no congelador (ela tava quente), fiz o jantar, jantei, e terminei dormindo e esquecendo da pobre cerveja no congelador. Na sexta-feira de tarde tava no trabalho e me lembrei: "Putz, deve ter explodido no meu congelador, que merda..." Quando cheguei em casa, já desiludido e certo de ter desperdiçado essa cerveja maravilhosa, uma surpresa mágica: não só ela não tinha explodido como ela não tinha nem congelado. Na verdade, ela estava na temperatura perfeita, e simplesmente deliciosa. Acho que uma foto fala mais do que 1000 palavras agora:

Não tem nada mais lindo que cerveja véu de noiva...

How can the record companies get it so wrong?

2009-11-08T10:31:00.004-03:00

I love music. I used to subscribe to eMusic, and I've actually written about it before here in this blog (but I'm too lazy to go find the post). I got hundreds of really good songs during my 1+ year with them, and discovered a few good bands I wouldn't have otherwise. I had to cancel my subscription though, when they, all of a sudden, started deciding all my favorite artists (from their catalog) should be US-only. Now, the bands that actually made eMusic worthwhile (Spoon, The White Stripes, The Clientele, etc.) were out of my reach, and they were adding a ton of more "mainstream" stuff that I would love to download (Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, etc.), but couldn't. So, even though for a series of reasons I was actually willing to pay for that music, they literally wouldn't let me. Torrents, their "worst enemy" have no country boundaries, though.
Fast forward a few months to this week. I read about "She and Him", a duo that looks really interesting, and I'm trying to find out more about them. I find their pretty nice website and MySpace page, listen to some of their stuff and decide I'm interested. I then notice there's a link to their record company's site, where they sell FLACs, mp3s, CDs and Vinyls. Since I imagine shipping their vinyl to Brasil isn't the sanest of ideas, I go for the mp3s of their first album: $8.99. Just as a sanity check, I go to iTunes and Amazon to see the prices: they cost $9.99 on iTunes and Amazon, so I naturally say "let's buy it from the source, and cut the middle man". So I create an account at the Merge Records website and start the process, only to then realize that they won't sell me the damn mp3s because I'm outside the freakin' USA. What the hell is the matter with these guys?!?! This is not a huge band with a 20-year-old contract signed in the '80s that they still have to honor. This is a tiny "independent" band that released their first album only last year, so I can only assume their contract is fresh. With an supposed-to-be-modern record company, so why the hell can't they get this right?? Do they really expect me to say "Oh, this isn't available for me yet. I'll wait to buy from these nice people in a few months when they decide to let me give them my money"?? What is so hard about understanding that the only thing not letting me buy the mp3s accomplishes is pushing me towards getting them from some other source?? Are they just plain stupid?!

I miss my blog (and all Lonely Planet books are freely available online)

2009-06-03T01:13:00.002-03:00

Weird title? Well, I miss my blog. I've been willing to get back on the horse and start posting again for a while now, but never get around to. So I decided to try a quickie: a couple of days I was browsing around the net, looking for info on traveling to India (because, duh!, I might be flying there soon). Then I remembered how useful Lonely Planet has been in the past, and I googled "lonely planet India", and boom, Google Books gives me the whole freakin' book!! Also, Lonely Planet's website is pretty cool as well, featuring the photo of the guy with some of the creepiest facial hair ever. Now after seeing that photo, I just have to go. So, on to the planning!! :-)

Alanis Morissette in Belo Horizonte

2009-02-04T12:22:00.004-03:00

Tomorrow Alanis is playing in Belo... who would've thought? Of course I've had my tickets for a while now, and I'm pretty excited about seeing her live again. Specially because now she's got long hair again! I had to admit I was slightly pissed when she cut her trademark long hair like a week before coming to Brasil last time around.
I saw the setlist form the São Paulo concert and it looks alright, not great...

SET LIST:
1.THE COUCH I
2.UNINVITED
3.VERSIONS OF VIOLENCE
4.ALL I REALLY WANT
5.THE COUCH II
6.NOT THE DOCTOR
7.NOT AS WE
8.HEAD OVER FEET
9.THE COUCH III
10.SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
11.PERFECT
12.MORATORIUM
13.YOU OUGHTA KNOW
14.TAPES
15.HAND IN MY POKET
16.UNDERNEATH
17.EVERYTHING
18.YOU LEARN
19.IRONIC
20.THANK YOU

There's 5 songs out of 18 (The Couch is just one song split up 3 ways) from the new record; 8 (!!!!!) from Jagged Little Pill (which only had 13 songs, by the way); 3 from Supposed Former Infactuation Junkie; 2 from the rest. That's a little sad... I know there are 3 or 4 must-haves from JLP, but come on!!! It's been 14 years!!! She's done some really good stuff since then (ok, maybe not on this latest album, but still), I wish she would sing some of the better songs from the post-JLP era; where's 21 Things I Want In a Lover? Where's Can't Not? Where's King of Pain? Where's Fear of Bliss, Excuses, etc.? And specially, where's Purgatorying (am I the only one who really likes it)?!?!?!?!

Purgatorying I

Purgatorying II

Purgatorying III

Watchmen, the movie

2008-12-17T13:34:00.005-03:00

When Zach Snyder was announced as the director of Watchmen, I was a little afraid: I'm not a fan of 300 (the movie, the comic is cooler but still no masterpiece). But he's been slowly releasing production shots from the movie, and they look so cool I'm actually getting excited about it (even though I did think 300 looked incredible, I didn't like his changes to the story). Take a look at these:

Who Can Guess The Country?

2008-11-25T22:47:00.002-03:00

I was going through some of my photos, and I found this hilarious sign. Any guesses about which country it came from?

Top 10 Singing

2008-11-18T22:48:00.020-03:00

Recently, Rolling Stone magazine continued their series of Top-Whatever lists with a Top 100 Greatest Singers of All Time special edition. I could literally spend hours discussing that list , but instead I'll write an alternate post: my Top 10 favorite singing moments. Keep in mind I don't have such broad knowledge about the subject, but I'll try to do my best. This is in "I remembered this guys first" order:

In 1995's Grace, Jeff Buckley is fantastic throughout the entire record. He has this unbelievably clear voice, that seems to be able to go as high as he wishes. It's funny 'cause I've heard a few live recordings of his, and I don't think he'd match up live to what he got on record. He was really cool live, don't get me wrong, but I just feel he was extra-inspired during the recording of Grace. And even though the entire record is amazing, my personal favorite is, without a shadow of a doubt, "Lover, You Should've Come Over" (Lilac Wine and Hallelujah are close seconds). I love how the intensity of the song grows and grows towards the end, and, well, the recording is perfect: his voice is amazing, the whole producing is just enough to not get in the way and suits the music really well. I've heard a few live version, but it's far from being the same.... maybe you had to be there to appreciate it, so it's real pity we can't be there anymore, since he drowned while swimming in a river in '97, with Grace being the only studio album he released before dying. Real pity.

The Beatles had many incredible songs, and as much as I love Twist 'n Shout, it probably wouldn't make my Top 10. But I always feel it's Ferris Bueler's (oops, I meant John's) best vocal performance. The story goes that (hopefully it's a true story), after a long time recording Please Please Me, his throat was pretty much fucked up. He just decided to go for one last song, and went for the kill: he probably had a sore throat for quite some time, but it's his rough voice and his screaming that gave life to the song.

I had a hard time picking a Led Zeppelin song. I knew Plant had to be here, he is probably my favorite Rock singer of all time. That's why picking one song was so hard. A short list of the runner-ups would be: Immigrant Song, Gallows Pole, Dazed and Confused, I Can't Quit You Baby, Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, and Rock and Roll. Those are all amazing tunes, but I had to go with my favorite Zeppelin song ever: Since I've Been Loving You, from III.

Joe Cocker probably has the title of best Beatles cover ever for this song. Also, I guess the fact that I grew up on Wonder Years, and can't help remembering it whenever I listen to his howls, didn't hurt his odds either :-). He carved With a Little Help From My Friends out of Sgt. Peppers, arguably one of the best songs in one of the best albums ever released, and made it his own, changing it around in so many ways it hardly sounds like a Beatles song anymore. He took a great song, and turned into an epic classic. It's just brilliant.

At first I intended to do this list only with rock songs. But then I gave up on that, as I decided to add this song: Elis Regina singing Chico Buarque's Atrás da Porta live. Elis is widely considered Brasil's greatest singer ever, and, in my humble opinion, watching her live performances should be enough to clear any lingering doubts of that...

Ok, I have to admit it: I like Whitney Houston. There, I said it. I like the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, as corny as it may be. But her voice is just otherworldly, I've never heard anything like it. And the other day I happened to catch the original version of I Will Always Love You (I didn't even know it wasn't an original, but I finally understood how it could not have gotten the Oscars), which is by Dolly Parton. It's weak, really, really weak. It's hard to imagine how they could get that song and change around so much that it became what we hear Whitney sing, it's amazing. And I know there's a lot of people involved in that (producers, musicians, etc.), but her voice makes most of the different. It's just beautiful. BTW, the original Dolly Parton is pretty easy to find on YouTube, like here.

Singing practically a capella, Janis delivered one of the best songs in this landmark album, Mercedes Benz. She sings like she is performing to a full stadium, but the bare sounds of something marking the beat and her deep, husky voice, keep in our mid that she is just singing alone in the studio.

Marvin Gaye is such a sad story... He was an amazing talent, certainly my favorite Motown performer, immensely successful in all kinds of genre: good ol' R&B/Soul, pop, politically inspired masterpieces (What's Going On), and the best cheating song ever released, I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Covered by loads of people, from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Marisa Monte, it's Marvin's version (which isn't the first, btw), that stands out. His clear, soulful voice is at its best and the song is just intoxicating.

There are two spots left and I can't decide who to give 'em to: on the one hand, there are too many candidates (Eddie Vedder, Freddie Mercury, Aretha, Ray Charles, the list goes on...); on the other hand, I think none has one song that stands out quite as much as the other eight that I mentioned here... so I'll stop my list here.

http://www.wehopewemadeituptoyou.com/

2008-11-07T12:34:00.000-03:00

Yes, you have. Thank you.

Dave Matthews and Ben Harper come to Brazil, together

2008-08-31T16:53:00.003-03:00

I wrote a few weeks ago that if I had to choose a band to watch live while I was in the US, it'd be DMB. Well, no need to soak about missing them back then, now they're coming to São Paulo, and, as if that weren't good enough, they're bringing Ben Harper along!!!! Anybody else going?!?!

Can you imagine seeing this live?!

Dorival Caymmi [1914-2008]

2008-08-18T19:12:00.002-03:00

Morreu o inventor da Bahia, deixando um estado inteiro órfão.

Dark Knight

2008-07-18T06:53:00.005-03:00

Walking back home from the movies tonight I must've thought of a few dozen ways to start this post. I've settled with stating that this movie will blow our mind away. It's really late and I'm lazy, so I'll probably not write as much as the movie deserves, but I'll say this: I probably watched both the best movie of the year and the best comic book-based movie ever made. It's that good. It's long, it's unbelievably tense, it's smart, it's disturbing, it's genius. Batman Begins was incredible, but Dark Knight is so much more! Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan are their usual, incredibly talented selves, as in the previous movie. Good ol' Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman are still there. But now there's so much more to it...
I'm sure you've heard this before, but Heath Ledger is simply uncanny, he just got the Joker. And I think "getting" goes a long way in describing this movie: the writer got the characters. The story in itself doesn't come straight from any one book that I know. But, somehow, he just got the characters: he was able to distill all the decades of Batman, Joker and Harvey Dent in an amazing, brilliant, two and a half hour long story. I'm in awe, and I definitely will watch it again, this time in IMAX, before I fly back to Brasil. Summer has been good to us so far, making up for last year: Indy, Iron Man, Hulk, Wanted, Sarah Marshall, Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E. But we got a clear winner: just go watch it and then tell me what you think.

If I could choose one band

2008-07-17T14:38:00.002-03:00

If I could choose one band (realistically, no Beatles or Pink Floyd here) to watch live while I'm up here in the US, it would Dave Matthews Band. Their albums are amazing, but from all I can gather they're even more stunning live. This is Dancing Nancies, from the concert they did in Central Park where he does an amazing intro to the song (the bartender bid). I love it when artists change their songs for live performances in a way that you actually believe it's showing a little bit more about how they're feeling at that specific moment...

By the way, "Dancing Nancies", as I recently learned, is idiom for transvestite prostitutes... Just for that, I think it's worth putting the lyrics here (after the video).

And so We Say,
And so We Say,
And So We Say,
Bartender Please,
I Know It's Late,
I Know Last Call has come and gone,
But Why Don't You Fill Me Up With One More Long, Long Drink,
And Then I Go Home,
C'mon Hook Me Up,
Bartender Hook Me Up,
Lock The Door, start countin the money If You Need To But,
C'mon, C'mon, C'mon, C'mon,
Hook Me Up,
Bartender Please,
Won't You?

I Wasn't Planning On Gettin' Drunk Tonight But,
It Seemed Like The Right Decision Tonight,
Luck Would Have It,
She Stood Me Up,
And Now My son,
Now My Son,
I Was Wondering If,I Was Wondering If,I Was Wondering If I Might Have Been Somebody Other Than Myself,
If I Could Have Been Somebody Other Than Myself,
Anyone,

Well Could I Have Been,
A Parking Lot Attendant,
Could I Have Been,
A Millionaire up There On fifth Avenue,
Oh Could I Have Been,
Lost Late At Night Somewhere In Central Park,
Could I Have Been,
a mistake,
Well Could I Have Been,
Anyone Other Than Me,
Could I Have Been,
(Oh) Anyone Other Than Me (Oh)
Could I Have Been,
Anyone Other Than Me,
Could I Have Been,
Anyone,

He Stands Touch His Hair His Shoes Untied,
Tounge-gapping Stare,
Could I Have Been,
A Magnet For Money,
Could I Have Been Anyone Other Than Me,
twenty three I'm So Tired Of Life Such A Shame You throw It All Away,
The Images Grow Darker Still,
Could I Have Been Anyone Other Than Me
And Then I,
I Look Up At The Sky,
My Mouth Is Open Wide,
Lick and Taste What’s The Use In Worrying,
What’s The Use In Hurrying,
Turn turn We Almost Become Dizzy,

I Am Who I Am,
Who I Am,
Well, Who Am I?
Requesting Some Elightment,
Could I Have Been Anyone Other Than Me,
And Then I'll,
Sing And Dance,
I'll Play For You Tonight,
The Thrill Of It All,
Dark Clouds May Hang On Me Sometimes,
But I'll Work It Out,
And Then I,
I Look Up At The Sky,
My Mouth Is Open Wide,
Lick and Taste What’s The Use In Worrying,
What’s The Use In Hurrying,
Turn Turn We Almost Become Dizzy,

Falling Out Of a World Of Lies,
Could I Have Been A Dancing Nancie, (ooh)
A Dancing Nancie,(I Could Have Been Anyone)
Could I Have Been Anyone Other Than Me
And Then I'll,
Sing And Dance,(La La La Hey La La La Hey La La La)
Sing And Dance,(La La La Hey La La La Hey La La La)
Sing And Dance,
I'll Play For You Tonight,
The Thrill Of It All,
Dark Clouds May Hang On Me Sometimes,
But I'll Work It Out
And Then I,
Look Up At The Sky,
My Mouth Is Open Wide,
Lick and Taste
What’s The Use In Worrying,
What’s The Use In Hurrying,
Turn Turn We Almost Become Dizzy

Mount Rainier

2008-07-01T01:35:00.003-03:00

A lot of really cool stuff has happened in this trip to the US, and I'm still hoping I'll get around to blogging about them sooner or later. But this weekend I did such a cool trip that I just had to get the photos online so I could share them here!!
These were all taken this saturday at Mount Rainier, a little over 2 hours away from Seattle. Amazing place!

Mount Rainier

Wanted

2008-06-29T15:34:00.004-03:00

Angelina Jolie is hot. Don't worry, I don't intend to just restate the obvious here, but it had to be said. Now that I got it out of my system, I can talk a little bit about the actual movie. I've been seeing trailers for this for quite a few weeks now, and it impressed me a lot. It looked so cool, may be even a new Matrix (only the "redefining what action looks like" part of Matrix, not the smart philosophical part). This, according to my good friend Diego, is the adaptation of a great comic book (as usual, the book is supposed to be less simplistic and all). The movie is great fun, it really is, it just fell a little short of my expectations.
First for the good things: have I mentioned Angelina Jolie is damn hot?! :-) Action sequences are awesome. That's it, but what else do you need, right?! (The ending is pretty cool too, but if I say anything about it, I'll probably spoil it.)
Bad stuff: story is simplistic and completely ill-explained. Also, it's just too much: there is no action sequence that is even remotely realistic, and a handful of them are so damn impossible that you're just seating there saying "What the fuck"?!?! By the way, they even use the Matrix trick of starting the movie with anmore-than-impossible action sequence that hits you in the face with a "people do impossible shit in this movie" warning. But, unlike Matrix, there is no plausible-in-their-universe explanation for why people can do such things, as here you're left with: heart rate goes abruptly up and everything slows down because they got some much adrenalin in their brain. Come on!!!!! There is not enough slow motion in the whole fucking world for that!!
Finally, that over-the-top unrealistic quality and the lack of any mildly interesting characters, aside from Angelina Jolie's and, maybe, James McAvoy's, is where the movie falls short. I don't think anybody will be remembering or copying this movie in a year or so from now, but it's definitely good, friday-night fun.

Alanis Morissette & M. Night Shyamalan

2008-06-25T02:58:00.004-03:00

I'm sure you've all asked yourself once or twice, what do Alanis Morissette and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan have in common. Well, rejoice, for now I'll tell you exactly that. Both of them came out of nowhere in the '90s (this is sort of a half-true 'cause Alanis was a teen pop diva in Canada, but she had been kinda of forgotten by them... anyway, bear with me) and took the world b assault: Jagged Little Pill, Morissette's 1995 sort-of-debut (again, teen pop diva) was the biggest selling album ever by a female artist and got mostly rave reviews; Shyamalan's sort-of-debut, Sixth Sense, was the surprise hit of the year, got a bunch of Oscar nominations, and made him the rising star in Hollywood.
Then came their follow-up works: Supposed Former Infactuation Junkie (probably my favorite Alanis album, not very popular opinion though), Unbreakable, Signs, Under Rug Swept, MTV Unplugged, The Village, So-Called Chaos. With each new release, less and less people liked them; I, on the other hand, was firmly believing they were still cool, as I mostly enjoyed all of Shyamalan's movies (except for that stupid ending in Signs... what the hell were you thinking, Nighty??!) and it would take a lot to get me off Alanis... and then came 2008.
I've been reading about Alanis' new album for a few months now, and ever since I came to the US, I haven't been to one movie and not seen the trailer for The Happening. This, I thought naively, was it: finally they would return to their former glory and I would be proven right. To be honest, I wasn't that excited about Alanis' album, but the trailer for The Happening was really cool, I really thought it would be good. Then came the bombs... Flavors of Entanglement sucks. The Happening is one of the worst movies of the year, the year of Speed Racer and Vantage Point!! What happened, guys?!?!
Flavors of Entanglement is derivative and electronic-y, which seems to be the way Alanis is headed since Under Rug Swept. Honestly, the only good song of the album is Not As We, a piano ballad where there is basically no room for the over-production that haunts the rest of the album. The thing I always loved about Alanis was her lyrics, but the music in this album is so uninteresting that I haven't really gotten interested in checking out the lyrics (well, except for Not As We, that is). And even though I'm pretty sure Alanis can still write, I don't think I'll be looking at those lyrics anytime soon.
The Happening is bad. No, strike that, it's terrible. There's not one really good thing about it. Well, Shyamalan can still direct (sort of), there are some chilling moments, but that's it. The acting is horrible (can that be the same Mark Whalberg from The Departed?!?!?). The script is a joke. I know why all those people are killing themselves: they saw the damn movie!!!
So there you go: what do Alanis and Nighty have in common? They both showed up with masterpieces and took the world by surprise in the '90s. Then they both grew less and less popular, but kept me as a fan while losing basically everybody else. And now, in june/2008, they've both lost me. Pity.

Victoria Williams' Crazy Mary

2008-06-21T00:51:00.002-03:00

Holy shit, just found out one of my favorite Pearl Jam isn't really by Pearl Jam!!!!! Now I definitely have to look for some other stuff from this Victoria Williams girl.

Damien Rice's B-Sides

2008-06-16T02:13:00.002-03:00

I kinda ran into Damien Rice's B-Sides the other day, while roaming around a Virgin Megastore (yeah, I love doing that... Virgin, Barnes & Noble, Borders... when are we getting those in Brasil?!!?! Well, at least we have Fnac). I immediately picked it up, seeing I'd read about it at some point but never really listened to it. It's kind of a mixed bunch: on the one hand you have three tracks that are songs from O: live version of Delicate, and instrumental and demo versions of Volcano. From this bunch, I'd say the interesting one is the demo, but just for the whole historic curiosity. On the other hand you have another bunch of songs that fit well in the whole O ambience, but aren't up to the standard of the album (and I can only assume were thus discarded). And then there's "Woman Like a Man". I'm fucking addicted to this song now, and the fact that Barra, the guy who is traveling around with me, now can't stop singing it isn't helping. It's a great song, I can only figure it wasn't in O because it really doesn't fit the mood of the rest of the album, being much more "nervous" (yeah, I couldn't find a better word! Listen to the damn song and pick an adjective you like!! Why do we have to do everything for our readers?!?!). Check the video below, and hopefully you too won't able to stop the damn "Woman like a man like a woman like a man..." in your head. Oh, I put the lyrics right afterwords, and if you have any ideas about what the hell he is trying to say, please share it with me, I'm pretty curious myself... and this video is of him singing the song @ BBC, so he cleaned up the lyrics... what exactly does "MUCKED inside out means"?? :-)

I need a piss,
I wanna hate,
Fuck it up, come.
My love,
Eat your meat,
Keep your teeth, run.
You lost me,
You cost me,
You taught me of me in the end.
We're bad,
What we do.
Stupid fools.

You wanna get boned,
You wanna get stoned,
You wanna get a room like no-one else.
You wanna be rich,
You wanna be kitsch,
You wanna be the bastard of yourself.
You wanna get burned,
You wanna get turned,
You wanna get fucked inside out.
You wanna be ruled,
You wanna be fooled,
You wanna be a woman like a man,
Like a woman like a man.

A woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, you like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, woman like a man, like a woman like a man, woman like a man
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
A woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, woman like a man
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
'Cause it really wasn’t worth the ride.

Need a hit?
Wanna wait,
Suck it up, cum.
My love,
Eat your meat,
Itchy feet, run.
You reach me,
You bleach me,
You teach me of things so familiar.
We're bad,
What we do.
Stupid fools.

You wanna get boned,
You wanna get stoned,
You wanna get a room like no-one else.
You wanna be rich,
You wanna be kitsch,
You wanna be the bastard of yourself.
You wanna get burned,
You wanna get turned,
You wanna get fucked inside out.
You wanna be ruled,
You wanna be fooled,
You wanna be a woman like a man, like a woman like a man.

A woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, woman like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Like a man, like a woman like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, woman like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
'Cause it really wasn’t worth the ride.

Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh

You wanna get boned,
You wanna get stoned,
You wanna get a room like no-one else.
You wanna be rich,
You wanna be kitsch,
You wanna be the bastard of yourself.
You wanna get burned,
You wanna get turned,
You wanna get fucked inside out.
You wanna be ruled,
You wanna be fooled,
You wanna be a woman like a man, like a woman, like a, like a man...

Like a man...
Like a man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man, man...
Like a man, man, man, man, man, man...
Like a man.

Like a man, like a man, like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, like a man, like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Woman like a man, like a man, like a man.
'Cause it really wasn’t worth the ride) (Really wasn’t worth the ride)

Whoa oh oh
Like a man, like a man, like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Like a man, like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
Like a man, like a man, like a man, like a man.
I’ll get a cheaper ticket next time...
A woman like a man, a woman like a man, like a woman like a man, like a man.
Oh.
It really wasn’t worth the ride.

J.K. Rowling

2008-06-09T20:32:00.003-03:00

Oh, and did I mention Harry Porter's J.K. Rowling gave a brilliant commencement speech this year, at Harvard? I know, I know, I can hear the "Come on!!! That lady who wrote Harry Potter?!?!!" cries, but she really surprised me.
God bless YouTube!!

Part 1:

Part 2:

And the full transcript:

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
I wish you all very good lives.
Thank you very much.

So, haven't you been going to the movies?!

2008-06-09T18:56:00.004-03:00

Oh, yeah, I definitely have!! I've been just too lazy to write about it.
First I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall and thought it was amazing (even though I could go with a little less of that guy-frontal-nudity stuff)!! Outrageously funny!!! I think we're finally having some new energy brought into comedies, as I hadn't seen since those long gone times when American Pie first came out (What?!?!!? Has it been 9 years already?!?!? Come on, I can't be that old!!). 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall... those are all amazingly funny movies from more or less the same group of people. Hopefully, there's still much more to come!!
Then it was time for Sex and the City and, well, it sucked. I mean, it's not all bad, I still had some fun... but it's long, pointless, and really, really predictable (at least on Carrie's storyline, come on!!).
Then I went to watch Kung Fu Panda last friday, which was pretty cool. I love Jack Black, and he is as funny as ever in this movie. The animation is pretty good, the movie is absurdly funny, but I can't shake off the feeling that Dreamworks is still lagging behind Pixar. Even though Panda was very, very funny, I don't think it's gonna be remembered as "one-of-the-greats" (Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, *maybe* Shrek). I'm much more excited about Wall-E, as I'm pretty confident it's set out to be a classic!!! Unfortunately, we're still gonna have to wait for some 20 days before we know...

Not that we're trying to influence where you should work or anything...

2008-06-01T19:18:00.001-03:00

Me & and the Enigma

2008-05-29T22:08:00.002-03:00

I was going through my pics from San Francisco and I remembered I should've posted this long ago!!! Everything's been so hectic I hadn't had time to sort through the (literally) hundreds of pictures, but here are we, I and the Enigma:

De Noogler Training @ Mountain View

For the not-cryptographically-inclined, the Enigma is probably the most mythical of all cryptographic machines, extensively used by the germans during WWII. They have one at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, which was so very cool. Actually, this museum is definitely worth the visit, with all sorts of cool memorabilia we've all heard/read about. They actually had the first video-game, Spacewar running on a PDP-1 (the computer form the '60s where it was first programmed). Very nerdy, very cool stuff!

Summer (or something like it) has arrived

2008-05-23T22:44:00.004-03:00

So, I was supposed to have written this a couple of weeks ago when I watched Iron Man, but never got around to: summer (in the US, that is) has begun again, and with it some interesting movies are coming out, thank God!! Iron Man was pretty cool, fun enough a good start to Marvel Comics' new role as a full studio. This week I watched Speed Racer in IMAX (oh, yeah, I'm in the US right now by the way), and it was proof that size doesn't matter; it felt like it sucked twice as much because i was twice as big!! But today was a glorious day, Indiana Jones is back!!!! And he's got it for some weird shiny crystal skull, apparently. Indy is a classic, never matched by any other adventure movie. This last installment has everything that made it so: incredibly talented people, fast pace, great sense of humor, great action scenes, incredibly impossible scenes and legends. If anybody had any doubts about Harrison Ford's ability to do it again, think again: he's still great as ever. Shia LaBeouf is a pretty worthy successor to Indy's charisma, and is pretty cool in his James Dean persona. And, well, Karen Allen is Marion, period (actually I wish she had a little more screen time and got to show off a little more of her personality, like she did in Raiders... but nothing is perfect). I don't really know if I liked Cate Blanchett's weird Russian chick, but it definitely wasn't enough to put me off. On the directing front, Spielberg proves himself once again: the camera travels around the scenes perfectly, showing us incredibly creative and beautiful shots. Well, I could talk all day about how cool this movie is, and about the few details I didn't like, but it would be boring and I would probably spoil some surprise for the few brave ones that read through to the end: just go watch the movie and enjoy it, you're gonna have a blast!!! Oh, and for the curious, I'm in Seattle right now, will do a post about that sometime soon... cheers, guys!!

Moving in, Once & some Led Zeppelin

2008-04-28T13:27:00.004-03:00

I spent last week "moving in" to my new place. I used quotes on that, because I've only moved like half of my stuff, there's still so much at a friend's place that I've been kind of afraid to even go there. But it's starting to look like somebody's home already, and I'm really loving it. It took so long that I was kinda losing hope already. Now I just need a TV and a DVD player (I already have a stereo and my turntable), because if I can't watch movies in it, it ain't my home!
This was, all in all, a pretty busy weekend: moving, went to see a Led Zeppelin cover band, we did some cooking yesterday at a friend's place (while we watched that shameful 5 x 0 Cruzeiro and Atlético game), I unbraided my hair (which took a whole lot more than I'd hoped and gave me the chance to watch half a season of Seinfeld while I did it).
One interesting thing about BH is the music scene: they have so many cool rock bands here, even though they are mostly cover bands. I've seen quite a few since I arrived, but at least three are really worth mentioning: Sgt. Pepper's Band, Gleison Túlio and the Led Zeppelin cover I saw last friday. The first one is a Beatler cover band that is actually one of the best in the world: apparently they've been to the annual festival they have in Liverpool and have been chosen as a Top 3 band quite a few times. They are simply amazing, it's uncanny. Gleison Túlio is an amazing singer/guitar player that desperately needs a better stage name. I saw him a month ago or so and he really blew me away, playing a huge spectrum of different stuff really well, singing, doing bass and percussion on his guitar... it's really hard to describe, but basically he uses loops (you record something and it keeps looping as much as you want) to record each separate instrument (all done on his guitar) and then sings and does solos on top of it. My explanation does not do justice to his show, it's just amazing and you should check it out when you have a chance. The Zeppelin cover band wasn't quite as impressive, but was really good nonetheless: the singer/bass player was amazing, everybody else was really good too, I just didn't love it more because they were more into the hard rock side of Zeppelin and completely neglected their more bluesy stuff (Dazed and Confused, Since I've Been Loving You, I Can't Quit You Baby, etc.) Who could've guessed, BH might actually be a cool place for listening to good music.
If I've been lucky with music, I can't say the same for movies: these have been terrible times for those of us addicted to the cinema. The only thing that seemed remotely interesting to watch last week was Once, which to me felt almost like Damien's Rice biography: a busker on the streets of Dublin and how meeting an immigrant who happens to play the piano changes his otherwise beat-up self into a somewhat hopeful person again. The story is not a simplistic hollywood-style love story, which makes it all the more interesting. For people like me, who love the aching singer-songwriter stuff, the soundtrack is pretty good, very Damien Rice-y; but, even I had to admit that they overdid it a little bit, too many too long songs, too much repetition... just too much. This makes the movie a little tiresome, but it was still worth watching: the cast is pretty good, the photography is weird, but in a good way (hand-held camera throughout the movie, which adds to the whole ambiance really well). All in all, a pretty good option in the lack of something better.

Dylan & Reeves

2008-04-22T19:48:00.003-03:00

It's been awhile, but what better way to get back to blogging than to talk about some movies I watched over the long weekend? :-)
Let's start with Bob Dylan's "unconventional" biography, I'm not there. To be totally honest, I was kind of under-impressed with it: I was expecting amazing, epic, timeless; all I got was pretty good. And, well, pretty weird too. The whole idea of telling the story through different characters representing Dylan's "personas" was really interesting, but the execution was a little too confusing for me, maybe I didn't know enough about Dylan to understand it all, maybe I just wasn't having a particularly smart day... But, confusing storytelling aside, the movie is very entertaining, filled with great music (how could it not?), with an amazing cast at the top of their game (kudos Cate Blanchet!!!), and, just to be sure I'd really enjoy it, the funniest Beatles reference!! Overall, it's a pretty good movie, real original, but just a little below my expectations.
Yesterday was a holiday, so what better way to spend it (in a beach-less city, I might add), then to wake up late, go to the movies and then go out for some beers? So that's what I did, pity nothing really good was on, so I has to settle for Keanu Reeves' latest flick, Street Kings. I don't like Keanu Reeves, he's probably one of the worst really famous actors out there. But, goddamnit, he is a lucky son of a bitch. He's been playing the same characters for a decade or so (except for trying out some Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing... hum, even I was embarassed for him on that one), but it seems to work with an unbelievably high frequency. This time around good ol' Neo has a slightly higher tendency to kill than usual, and he basically goes Rambo on a lot of sad bastards unlucky enough to be on his way (cheesy, hey?? Well, just so you get the feel of the movie :-) ). It's pretty cool to see Forest Whitaker try to yell some depth into the dullest character ever, but the best part by far was seeing Hugh Laurie (House, for the uninitiated) walking and not limping!!!! Now that was cool. The funny thing is, even with a lot going against it (lack of originality comes to mind), the movie is actually pretty good, some nice, forgettable entertainment, the kind Hollywood is so good at. Well, keep 'em coming.
On a sidenote, I finally have a home in BH!!! Will post some news/photos soon.

Springsteen and the Flight Back Home

2008-04-08T22:32:00.002-03:00

To end my trip to sunny (but a little cold) California on a high note I went to see Springsteen last saturday in San Jose. I wasn't much of a Springsteen fan before last year, only knew those songs that everybody probably does (Streets of Philadelphia, Born in the USA, Glory Days...). But then I read Rolling Stone's review of Magic and just had to listen to it: now Magic was probably my favorite album of 2007 and I'm a big fan of the guy. Luckily he was playing in San Jose, which is like 10 minutes away from Moutain View, so I had to go (even if the tickets were a little pricey). It was amazing!!! First of all, that guy can't be (almost) 60, it's impossible. He played for way over 2 hours with so much energy, it was really impressive. He played most of Magic and a lot of oldies too, and he'd always take requests, taking signs from the audience and playing the songs they asked for. He and the E Street Band sound just as good live as they do on the records, they know each other so well it's amazing (well, they have been playing together for over thirty years after all). And, to top it all, he did an amazing live version of my favorite song on Magic, the title track... it was really cool and I managed to find (bless YouTube!!) him doing something similar on another concert of this tour... check it out!

Psycho and Stanford Theatre

2008-04-03T20:59:00.003-03:00

There's this very cool, old-fashioned theatre in Palo Alto called the Stanford Theatre. It's a theatre from the '20s that got some attention in the late '80s and since then only shows old movies, with great decoration and ambiance (if you haven't noticed there is a guy playing a Wulitzer organ in the photo on the right... it's very cool, he plays before and after the movie, and he did a part Psycho's soundtrack!!!). The main hall is all decorated with old movie posters, and there's always some cool memorabilia related to the movies currently playing. Particularly this past week they had the last days of a Hitchcock festival, featuring Psycho and The Birds.
Now, I'm not really fond of The Birds... I watched it a few years ago but couldn't understand what the hell everybody saw in it. Psycho, on the other hand, is a timeless classic: not even the bad memories brought about by Gus Van Sant's "version" (basically, a frame-by-frame copy of the original with the expection of picking a bad cast, using color, and of a unnecessary scene of Bates jerking off). I watched it last monday. Psycho has grown old a little bit... the countless times we've seen the shower scene takes the edge off it, but luckily there's dozens of other scenes just as good, but a lot less exploited... Everything is top notch: Anthony Perkins gives one of the most memorable performances ever as poor, lonely Norman Bates... Hitchcock is at his best, orchestrating one memorable scene after the other... the soundtrack is amazing... even the black & white photography seems perfect!! It's an amazing, memorable movie, and it was really cool watching it in the Stanford Theatre (and getting to listen the guy wailing Psycho's soundtrack at the end!).

Quick Note

2008-03-28T22:45:00.002-03:00

A couple of quick notes:

1-) If you're thinking about watching Vantage Point, please DON'T! It's so bad it hurts, and it's giving 10.000 B.C. a decent run for worst movie of the year.

2-) One of the best nerdy jokes I've seen lately (from the nerdiest of all comics, xkcd):

News from California

2008-03-27T02:14:00.003-03:00

So I'm officially half way through my time in California and I thought it was time to post some news. I've been postponing this, hoping I'd get some pictures to put up here, but since my camera cable is still gone I'll have to go picture-less for the time being... :-) So, what's Silicon Valley like?! It's freaking awesome, kinda like a high-tech american TV suburb. Which is also the bad part: there's not much to do around good ol' Mountain View; I mean, there's great shopping, some movie theaters, fine restaurants and a couple of bars. Enough to go by for who's gonna be here for a few days, but living here probably leads to a very quiet life...

San Francisco, on the other hand, is awesome, and only an hour away!!! It's a gorgeous city, with a very beautiful coast, and very nice people. There's all the touristy stuff, you know, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the weird winding streets, Fisherman's Wharf... there's great shopping, of course, nice parks, restaurants, bars, everything!!! Up until 2am that is, because there's a very annoying (apparently state-wide) law that prohibits people to sell alcohol after 2am!! Do you believe that?!!?!

I've done some pretty interesting things already, and I will go into more detail when I actually get to my photos to post here, but I gotta say the coolest thing I've done was to bike on the Golden Gate bridge, that was awesome!!!! And yeah, it also made me realize I'm really, really out of shape... will have to work on that... :-)

Oh yeah, to finish off, since I don't have any photos to post (because I have no idea where I put my camera cable), check out this video: this is how I know we're all actually living in a sci-fi book some crazy dude is writing somewhere...

Another cool trip

2008-03-15T09:59:00.003-03:00

These have been hectic days and the first thing to be neglected was this blog (well, actually the second thing to be neglected... the first was my masters :-) ). But now I got an hour or so to spare in Houston Intercontinental Airport, so I'll post a few updates. First things first, I'm very much in love with my job right now; working at Google has proven to be everything I'd hoped for, fun, challenging, and full of opportunities. Moving to Belo Horizonte has been an interesting experience too. Even though it's the best place I could think of to live in right now, it's a great city with a lot of interesting things happening, concerts, good restaurants, good bars, very nice people, a very nice place indeed. The only thins is it's hard to find an apartment there, but hopefully I'll take care of that problem soon.
Now for the news that's probably going to run this blog for the next few weeks: I'm spending three weeks in Moutain View, Google's main headquarters. Mountain View is a little town in the Silicon Valley, near San Francisco. It's gonna be a great chance for meeting people and learning A LOT for more experienced googlers and it's gonna be an amazing opportunity to travel a little bit around, after all God (or whoever) did invent the weekend! Right now I'm in Houston, Texas, waiting for my connection to San Jose, some 30 min. away from Mountain View. This weekend is probably gonna be spent in SF, walking around town and seeing the sights (Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge, all the hills and buildings... I'm pretty sure there's plenty to see), and partying in town (there's a Blind Boys from Alabama concert today too, we might go to that).
Next week we'll probably go to Vegas, either drive (roadtrip!!!) or fly, specially because Cirque du Soleil has a special show in town inspired by Beatles song (how the help could I miss that??). Then there's one weekend that we don't know yet what to do and on our last weekend here there's gonna be a Bruce Springsteen concert saturday night (also my grandma's birthday, hopefully I won't forget :-) ) before we catch our flight back home on sunday. We might do some wineries saturday before the concert, but nothing is certain yet... who knows what might happen, I'm just sure it's gonna be grrreat!!!!

A very bad year for movies

2008-03-06T17:48:00.006-03:00

Hey, it's been a while, right?? Well, life's been crazy lately, haven't found an apartment yet, new job's been very demanding (end of quarter), I've been back and forth from Salvador more often than usual... oh, yeah, and my masters (similar to this blog) hasn't seen much action... but, one thing's still the same: I've been going to the movies! And, well, I've been mostly disappointed, with a few noteworthy exceptions. So, for starters the best movie of 2007 is Tropa de Elite, hands down (and kudos to the Berlinale for recognizing that!). I've seen most of the Oscar nominees, and they're no competition whatsoever. Actually, 2007 was such a bad year that any of the 2006 Top 5 would be the best movie of 2007. Both No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are very good movies that will be forgotten in a few months. Juno is cute, but no Little Miss Sunshine. The comedies were pretty good, though... Superbad and Knocked Up are awesome!! Finally, the movie I enjoyed the most was Across the Universe,
I guess hundreds of people must've thought of making a movie musical with Beatles songs; if they hadn't, it should've come to them after Moulin Rouge! came out. That's exactly what they do here, they use 35 Beatles songs to tell the story of the '60s, of Jude and Lucy, Max, Sadie, Jojo and a bunch of other names right out of the songs we all love. Their use of the songs is amazing: some are obvious but very well done, some are surprising and some are amongst the most moving things I've seen lately (the gospel version of Let It Be is really amazing). The only one song I didn't enjoy so much was For The Benefit or Mr. Kite, but I guess 34 out of 35 is pretty good, right? :-)
The movie tells the story of Liverpool-boy-but-America-bound Jude and Ivy League-bound girl Lucy, who meet and (yeah, you guessed it!) fall in love. They happen to move to NY during one of the most complicated (and fun) moments in recent American history (late '60s, Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination, Psychodelia) and we live it all through their lives and the Fab Four's songs. If you're a Beatles fan you're gonna have the time of your life. If you're not a Beatles fan, well, you should just rethink a whole lot of things now, shouldn't you?

"Spider Pig" or "Porco Aranha"

2008-02-09T13:56:00.000-03:00

I thought always the brazilian voices for The Simpsons were better than the american ones... but they changed Homer a few years ago and it's never been the same... so, what's better nowadays, Spider Pig or Porco Aranha???

American Gangster

2008-01-30T10:27:00.000-03:00

I seriously think that, after The Godfather's, only Martin Scorcese should be allowed to make gangster movies. There it is, I said it. I doesn't matter how talented the people involved are (and you don't get much better than Denzel Washington, Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott); it doesn't matter how good the story is; it doesn't matter how much money goes into the production, how many awards it gets... it always feels like it's lacking something. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good movie; it's just not good enough to stand up against Casino, Goodfellas, The Departed, and so on... it's the story of Frank Lucas, a nice fellow with a tendency for sudden fits of rage (he's specially fond of banging people's heads against stuff) that became the most successful drug dealer in the US during the Vietnam years. It's also the story det. Richie Roberts, the most honest cop ever, who is gonna spend the better part of the movie trying to catch Lucas (actually, he first has to find out who Lucas is...)
The movie is a bit too long and still manages to have kind of a sudden ending... it's weird. Some parts of the story aren't really clear and I think that there isn't enough violence and tension to keep the mood for 157 minutes. Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe are both very good, as we've come to expect, but this isn't a carrer-high for any of them. We've seen they play this before.
All in all this a very good movie; just not the classic I was expecting. And since last year's The Departed is still fresh in our memory, I think American Gangster is gonna have a tough time this awards season.
On a sidenote, a very promising thing to come out of this movie might be the "unofficial soundtrack" released by Jay-Z; apparently he watched the movie and got so inspired he just had to write an entire album about his own experience as a street hustler.

My 2007 Musical Favorites...

2008-01-22T10:25:00.001-03:00

2007 was the year I stopped being so lazy and started looking for new music. I really listened to a lot of new (for me) stuff and found I liked a lot of them. At least three or four of these "new" bands are now amongst my most-listened. I was wondering whether I should talk about the stuff I discovered in 2007 (even though most of it has been around for quite some time), or the stuff that actually came out last year. Being lazy as I am, I chose the latter basically because it's less to write about :-)... I might come back and do the other later on!!!!
Let's start with the Best Album of the year... here, I have three very strong contestants:

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, by Spoon
Icky Thump, by The White Stripes
Magic, by Bruce Springsteen

I'll have a hard time choosing a favorite. Icky Thump is probably the most irregular of the three: it has some pretty weak tunes (I don't really like Conquest and a couple other), but it also has some of the best songs of the year: Icky Thump, 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues and Rag and Bone. Spoon's album is a lot more regular, it's one of those albums that you just listen from start to finish without ever feeling like skipping. But there's not really any song on the level of 300 M.P.H... Magic is an amazing record... like Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, there are no weak tracks; it also "tells a story" through some really amazing songs, at least three of which (Gypsy Biker, Girls in Their Summer Clothes, and Magic, not to mention the catchiest of all, Radio Nowhere) can go head-to-head with Jack White's best any day. So, there you go, it wasn't so hard after all:

Magic, by Bruce Springsteen
Icky Thump, by The White Stripes
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, by Spoon
Who You Are, by Cary Brothers
Sky Blue Sky, by Wilco

Some albums may not be in my list simply because I haven't had the chance of listening to them. Others I did listen to and couldn't see what the fuss was all about: specifically, why the hell did everybody love M.I.A., Arcade Fire, and LCD Soundsystem, respectively numbers 1, 4 and 7 in Rolling Stone's Top 50 Albums of 2007 list? It's beyond me... too much electronica for my taste... actually, I might give M.I.A. another shot, it did sound different enough to deserver a few listens... Arcade Fire is interesting, but definitely not great... and LCD, well, I would say that they really suck... but since everybody seems to love them, I'll just say that "they're really not the kind of music I like"... I'll come back later for another post on My Top 5 Songs of 2007...

cheers

Two Books

2008-01-12T14:14:00.000-03:00

Well, since my search for an apartment (unfruitfully) continues, and I haven't been able to go to the movies lately, I'll take a few moments to write a little about a couple of books I read recently... The first one is The Act You've Known for All These Years: A Year in the Life of Sgt. Pepper and Friends, (em português) whose title is pretty self-explanatory... it's a great book about one of the most creative and weird periods of pop music. Beatles, Bob Dylan, (Syd Barrett's) Pink Floyd, Beach Boys (well, Brian Wilson really), Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young... those were amazing times... basically Clinton Heylin writes about that year when the world's greatest bands were fighting to see who would come up with the next big breakthrough (you know, after Rubber Soul, Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, Pet Sounds...) in pop music, and would set the pace for everything that was to come. Acid is, alongside the aforementioned artists, the main character of the story of the rise (and fall, sort of) of psychodelia. For me it was really cool to get to know much more about one of my favorite musical periods ever. One of the best parts of the book is that, even though Heylin pays the deserved respect to everybody involved he does look at everything with a critical eye... this is no ode to Sgt. Pepper's... it is a serious, fairly unbiased analysis of the environment in which it came to be... oh, and he suggests soundtracks for each chapter, which is pretty cool too!!! :-)

When I came to Belo Horizonte, one of the first places I went to was (of course) the nearby mall. There I went into a bookstore and two books caught my eyes: a fairly short book by José Saramago that I'd never seen before, 1993, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (em potuguês)... I don't really know why I got interested in the latter... I didn't know the author, had never heard about the book, and didn't contain any clues as to what the hell it was about. But it wasn't an expensive book, so I trusted my guts and bought it anyways (I bought 1993 too). I actually do that quite often and I usually end up enjoying the book. This was no exception. It's not an amazing book, that's true. But it's pretty enjoyable. The fact that it's from the perspective of a 9-year-old, and the lengths the author goes to to make sure you don't forget that, is sometimes annoying: like "mispronunciation" of some words, repetition of certain sentences, stuff like that. It's not meant for children, though, no way! There's not much I could write about the story that wouldn't ruin it for you because if you don't have at least a little suspense in the beginning it will be hard to read it all... but if you like little fables that try and tell really heavy stories with a light mood you'll definitely enjoy this... I guess that was the whole point, because the theme in itself has been touched on by so many people before (and yes, with so much more talented) that were it not for the whole fable thing, it would be hard to justify why the hell do we need another little sad story on the matter...

Belo Horizonte

2008-01-06T09:04:00.000-03:00

OK, I've been neglecting this blog for quite a few weeks now... bad, bad, bad! Some updates are in order. First of all, I'm happy to announce I'm already in Belo Horizonte, my new home for the foreseeable future. I'm living in a flat/hotel right now, and desperately looking for an apartment. The hotel is nice enough, unbelievably close to my job, like less than 5 minutes away. The job is amazing: the environment, the people, the perks, everything is great. And, well, the job in itself is really cool too, even though it'll still take me a few weeks to get up to speed and actually do anything useful at all. Until then, it's basically reading, watching lectures and doing exercises. But I'm completely loving it!!!!
Now, going a little back in time, the last couple of weeks of the year were really nice back home in Salvador; a lot partying, family and old friends. It was a nice little break before starting off here in BH. I made a big mistake though: I should've gone back to Campinas for my car before coming to BH; now looking for apartments is a real pain in the ass. I'll probably end up renting a car to do it. I need to find an apartment, pronto!!!! The thing is, my job is in a pretty expensive neighborhood. If I wanna walk to work I'll either have to take a tiny, one-room apartment or spend the best part of my salary on rent. The alternative is to live 10- to 15-minute drive away and pay less than that for a pretty cool, cozy apartment. I guess that, as much as I wanted the convenience of walking to work, I want a nica home even more, so I'll be looking for apartments mostly on other neighborhoods (therefore the car is so much more important!!!).
Unfortunately I haven't really taken any pictures yet, but I will soon. I'm really enjoying the whole experience, and January is gonna be a hectic month since I'll go to Salvador twice and to Campinas once... oh, yeah, and I have to finish my master thesis.... oh, yeah!!!, and I have to get up to speed with all the stuff I gotta learn before I can actually do any useful work... wow!!!!
Wish me good luck... ;-)

My Last Days in Australia

2007-12-10T22:03:00.000-03:00

This is long overdue, but I finally got over my lazy ass to post about my last few days in Sydney. It was a mix of some very dull moments and some very interesting ones. I guess there are basically three very interesting things to talk about from these last few days in Sydney: first and shortest of all, if you are ever in Sydney and are a fan of chocolate (specifically, Lindt chocolate!!) go to Darling Harbour and look for the Lindt Café!!!! It's in one of the most pleasant spots in Sydney (Darling Harbour), and the chocolate is, of course, amazing!!! You can actually have a Lindt-chocolate Milkshake (not at all overpriced, by the way), and I'll tell you it's the best chocolate milkshake I've ever had. They also have all sorts of other delicious chocolaty things worth a try, by do not forget to try the milkshake!!!! I wish I'd taken a photo... :-(

The second thing worth mentioning was the Powerhouse Museum. It's supposed to be "The Hippest Museum in Sydney" and, even though I haven't been to any other, my guess is that it is. It's a pretty unusual museum with expos on fashion, music, Aussie history, science... whatever you want, they probably do it!! It's pretty cool, albeit a bit too busy; I saw expos on the history of design, australian music, history of the steam engine, evolution of artificial inteligence and success stories of aussie "inventiveness". All of them pretty cool, even with a layman's introduction to the Turing Test (which was pretty surprising, pic on the right)... they even had an expo on Lady Di, but it cost something like $4 to get in and I already had my share for the day...

The third, and coolest of all, was the walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach, two of the three big Sydney beaches (the third being Manli, which I'd already been to the first time around). If you're ever in Sydney, drop anything else for this walk!!! (well, maybe not the Opera House and Circular Quay area, but you know what I mean...) It's awesome!!!! It's a pretty long walk, though... and after a certain point you kinda get sick of it, it all gets a little repetitive... so, if you're not up for the whole mileage of the walk, just do the first half, it's definitely the better half!!! Bondi is a pretty nice beach, even if a little touristy and crowded... too many surfists!!!! Right next to the beach, at the very beginning of the scenic walk, there's one of the coolest pools ever, basically in the ocean (hopefully you can get it from the photos!!). Pretty cool, hey???
Basically the walk is a pathway right by the ocean. Maybe the photos will give you a good idea of what I mean. Well, just don't miss it.

What I Read in Oz

2007-12-03T02:12:00.000-03:00

Tou de volta em casa, então vou voltar a postar em inglês...

I'm back home! After a wonderful month in Australia (hopefully you've seen the photos), I'm back in Campinas and eager to post about the books I read while I was there. Well, I don't know about you guys but I need a book when I'm traveling: there's just so many different situations when you feel like reading something good that I'm sure I'll be constantly regretting it if I don't bring any good book with me. With that in mind, I bought a book before leaving Brasil: Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. I'd tried Joyce before (Finnegan's Wake, if you are curious), with very little success. But, I don't know why, I thought this would be easier. Well, it sure is easier, but not quite easy enough. The thing is, a good travel-book has to be "easy-reading" too, in the sense that it shouldn't require too much concentration to get through: definitely I'd made a bad choice this time. Consequently, my first couple of weeks in Australia were pretty much bookless. When I got to Adelaide though, I got a pretty cool gift from my dear hostess, a book called Down Under, by Bill Bryson. Bryson has one of the best jobs ever: he basically goes on a trip and then writes a book about it. And he is a pretty good writer too, very funny, very enticing. He also does his homework pretty well, talking a lot about Australia's history, fairly superficial but interesting opinions/analysis of its current situation, some unusual (but really interesting) destinations. It's the perfect companion for a guy who is backpacking through Australia and I wished I'd bought it before I went; I might've changed some of my plans based on his experiences: I think I'd probably put visiting the Outback higher up on my priority list. I quite enjoyed the book, and may even buy some of his other books, just gotta figure out what's my next destination.... :-)
By the time I was flying back here, I'd almost finished the book so I knew that I'd need something to get me through the endless flight back home. So, everything kinda fell into place when I was walking around Sydney, the day before my flight, and I wandered into this cheap bookstore after seeing Slam, the new book by Nick Hornby on the window. Nick Hornby, for those that don't know it yet, is one of my favorite author's, having written such gems as High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch and A Long Way Down. I just had to buy it.
First of all, a word of warning is in place: this is a book about a teenager written for teenagers. Even though its topic is pretty serious (teenage pregnancy), I am, by no means, its target audience. Having said that, I found it a pretty enjoyable harmless reading; it's not brilliant and it's not up to the standard of his previous books (always keeping in mind, I'm not the intended audience here). I don't know if it's already been too long since I was a teenager, but Sam is a really annoyingly silly, Tony Hawk-crazed, very "teenagy" guy, whereas Alicia is this centered, well-balanced, unbelievably pretty girl. He is in fact so childish that you just get pissed off most of the time reading the book (since its told from his perspective, knowing what he thinks sometimes is just irritating). But it is a pretty interesting book about a pretty rough subject, with intricate , well-developed characters (Sam and Alicia, for example, change quite a lot throughout the book). And it feels quite realistic too. It was an enjoyable book overall, just below his previous work because of the whole "teenage-book" thing.

Written to the sound of A.C. Newman, Badly Drawn Boy, Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley...

Por que voce vai comer McDonald's quando vier pra Australia

2007-11-27T04:02:00.000-03:00

da
A Australia tem umas coisas interessantes, monetariamente falando: algumas coisas sao estranhamente caras aqui. Comer eh razoavelmente caro. Beber (alcoolicos ou nao-alcoolicos) eh impossivelmente caro. Mas o McDonald's, Deus o abencoe, eh barato. :-)

Vamos fazer algumas comparacoes de precos: a primeira coisa a dizer eh que, antes de vir pra cah, eu paguei R$1,78 para cada AU$ (dolar australiano)... ou seja, a proporcao eh mais ou menos de 9/5. Vamos lah entao:

Voce nao consegue comprar uma cerveja, equivalente a um chopp medio no Brasil, por menos do que AU$5,00 em bares/boates. As vezes, em algum Happy Hour, vc consegue algo melhor; mas, via de regra eh entre AU$5,50 e AU$7,00.
Um cafe (espresso) custa entre AU$2,50 e AU$3,00
Uma garrafa de agua de 600ml numa loja de conveniencias custa uns AU$3,00 (o mesmo que uma coca ou sprite)
Voce nao consegue pedir um prato, de qq tipo, por menos do que AU$10,00
Uma bola de sorvete nao custa menos do que AU$4,00
Um sundae da McDonald's custa +-AU$2,50

Agora, sabe quanto custa a promocao (pequena) do BigMac (ou McChicken, Quarteirao, etc.)??? AUS$5,45!!!!! Pqp, eh barato demais!!!! +AU$0,50 pra promocao media ou +AU1,00 pra promocao grande... eh imbativel!!! O unico jeito de comer por menos que isso (e ficar satisfeito) eh cozinhar... entao, a conclusao eh de que se voce vai fazer mochilao pela Australia sozinho (oq tira completamente o, jah quase inexistente numa viagem como essa, tesao de cozinhar), voce vai comer muito McDonald's...

Mudando completamente de assunto, Havaianas realmente eh um sucesso mundial!!! Voce as encontra em todo lugar aqui na Australia pra vender pelo "justo" preco de AU$25,00!!! E eles tem varias "havaianas alternativas" tambem, inclusive que alegam serem marcas brasileiras (das quais eu nunca ouvi falar)... rpz, o publicitario que bolou esse reposicionamento da Havaianas para produto cult eh um genio!!!!

Mais uns dias em Cairns e a volta para Sydney

2007-11-27T03:48:00.000-03:00

ra minha sorte, o tempo abriu e os meus ultimos tres dias em Cairns foram maravilhosos: a balada continuou boa soh q durante o dia tinha muito sol, lagoa (na verdade uma piscina bem grande) e, na sexta-feira, eu peguei um barco pra conhecer a Grande Barreira de Corais. Bem, na verdade eu tinha ido jah a Barreira na terca-feira com John, pra Fitzroy Island, mas nao acho que aquilo contou muito nao: o tempo tava horrivel, nao dava pra ver nada, a gente nao teve muita orientacao... enfim, nao considerei muito aquela primeira ida. Dessa vez, no entanto, a Barreira foi tudo que prometeu: eu fiz inclusive um mergulho guiado, o que foi fantastico!!!! Agora, com certeza, vou fazer o curso quando voltar aih pro Brasil!!!!!

Meus primeiros diasem Cairns foram broxantes: o tempo tava uma merda, eu tinha acabado de me despedir de uma galera massa que tinha continuado a excursao pra Alice Springs (meio do deserto da Australia, oq tinha me deixado com uma pontinha de inveja). Oq salvou um pouco eh q a balada em Cairns eh boa, especialmente um lugar para mochileiros chamado Wool Shed. Mas, p

De Adelaide para Cairns

2007-11-19T00:40:00.000-03:00

Aproveitei mais uns dias em Adelaide, o tempo tava maravilhoso, sol brilhando, praia todo dia, andei de caiaque no sabado, fomos pra uns barzinhos de noite (nao tenho foto de nada disso, por isso tou contando meio as pressas :-) )... domingo seis horas da manha tava de pe pra pegar o aviao as 8:00... por volta das 11 pousei em Cairns, extremo nordeste da Australia, a cidade mais turistica com acesso a Grande Barreira de Corais. Como o tempo em Adelaide tava maravilhoso eu, por algum motivo idiota, achei que isso se estenderia a Cairns: ledo engano... encontrei um tempo mega-chuvoso, bem feio por aqui... aparentemente a estacao chuvosa acabou de comecar e deve durar pelo verao inteiro... fazer oq, ne?? Fiquei meio em duvida sobre oq fazer... curso de mergulho, soh snorkelling, mergulho guiado (nao precisa do curso, um instrutor fica com vc o tempo todo)... conheci entao um brother ingles que fez rafting por aqui e ia viajar amanha pra Fitzroy Island, uma das ilhas que fica na barreira... viagem de um dia mesmo, pega o barco de manha cedo e volta a tarde... a ideia de rafting me pareceu interessante, nunca tive a vergonha na cara de ir em Brotas depois de sete anos de Campinas.... gostei da ideia e comprei o pacote: vou fazer rafting daqui a uns 30 mins., passarei a tarde no rio. Amanha de manha pego o mesmo barco que ele e vou pra Fitzroy Island... chegando lah decido oq fazer: se quero soh fazer snorkelling, pagar pelo mergulho guiado, fazer umas trilhas na ilha, ficar relaxando na praia, lendo... seja oq for, vai ser massa... dah pra alugar umas cameras a prova d'agua pra tirar fotos do mergulho!!!!! Acho q vou rachar o aluguel com John (o brother ingles): vem a camera (10 Megapixels!!) e um cartao de memoria de 2Gb... ou seja, com um pouco de sorte (o sol tem q aparecer pelo menos um pouco), amanha vou colocar uma cacetada de fotos por aqui... :-)

A proposito, John fez Bungy Jump ontem... aqui eh um dos pontos mais populares pra isso na Australia... eu pensei bastante na ideia, mas nao tenho coragem nao... fica pra proxima...

E, como eu havia prometido anteriormente, algumas fotos da balsa de Manli Beach pra Sydney no por-do-sol... bjos e abracos!!!!!

Sim, eu tou em pelo menos uma dela... :-)

E a grande campea....

Fim-de-semana em Sydney

2007-11-16T07:48:00.000-03:00

Voltando pro início da viagem, depois de sair Wollongong eu passei o fim-de-semana em Sydney com Carla e Barbara. Eu e Carla não tínhamos nada reservado pra Sydney e Barbara, como já falei, tava lá pela empresa. Ela tinha um quarto de hotel reservado e descobriu que o quarto dela tinha duas camas de casal; o que ela fez? Chamou a gente pra ficar no quarto!!! Uhuuuu!!! Hotel 4 estrelas, e de graça!!!! Saímos então pra jantar num restaurante tailandês muito massa, o preferido do cara que escreveu pro Lonely Planet. Infelizmente não tenho fotos dessa noite, tão nas máquinas delas, então vou postar as fotos do dia seguinte: café da manhã num café irlandês, Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Jardim Botânico, Rocks Market...

Eu sei que a foto não tá das melhores, mas é a única que eu tinha... comemos "Scones", recém-saídos do forno... delícia, com um pouco de manteiga e geléia e chá irlandês. Não tem jeito, eu não sou um cara pra chá... por mais que todo mundo diga "que delícia de chá!!!", eu não entendo o fascínio...

Depois disso, fizemos o passeio turístico obrigatório pela cidade... pena que nesse dia o tempo tava meio chuvoso... mas ainda assim tirei boas fotos...

No domingo, as meninas tinham que ir embora, então fomos à Opera House pela manhã, e depois eu fui pra praia de Manli, encontrar com Amanda (a brasileira que eu conheci no avião e que vai morar os próximos meses em Sydney). O tempo estava bem melhor, assim como as fotos!!! O tour da Opera House é super legal, vale a pena ver como ela é por dentro, mas não deu pra tirar fotos das partes interessantes... mas tenho mais do que suficiente de fora pra compensar!!!

Pra ir pra Manli você pega uma balsa em Circular Quay, ao lado da Opera House e da ponte e tem uma vista linda da cidade... por exemplo, um ângulo alternativo da Opera House...

Aqui, estamos eu e Amanda em Manli...

Eu ainda tenho um monte de fotos desse domingo pra postar, especialmente porque eu peguei a balsa de volta pra Sydney bem na hora do pôr-do-sol e as fotos ficaram lindas!!!! Mas eu tou com preguiça de escolher o que colocar online então vou deixar pra próxima vez pra não fazer mal-feito... beijos e abraços pra todos!!!

Adelaide

2007-11-14T20:00:00.000-03:00

Sydney, eu passei o fim-de-semana por lá, com Car Eu vou dar um mega-pulo na narração da viagem pra poder falar do que está acontecendo agora: Adelaide. Basicamente, depois de chegar emla e Barbara, fiz uma viagem de ônibus "turística" de três dias entre Sydney e Melbourne, conheci um monte de gente massa, reencontrei Alysia e Lorraine (duas amigas minhas da Alemanha) em Melbourne, passei uns 4 dias por lá, aluguei um carro com dois amigos que conheci no ônibus e viemos dirigindo até Adelaide (chegamos na terça-feira). Eu ainda vou postar detalhes e fotos de todas essas etapas, mas como tou ansioso pra falar de ontem (quarta-feira), vou pular tudo isso temporariamente e falar um pouco de Adelaide. A cidade é menor do que Melbourne e Sydney, mas mantém o mesmo tipo de estrutura geral: um centro muito massa e bem estruturado, ótimo transporte público, e todo mundo morando em subúrbios bastante afastados: até parece filme americano dos anos 70, bem estilo Wonder Years. É meio pé-no-saco isso, porque você basicamente tem que pegar carro/ônibus pra fazer qualquer coisa, mas aparentemente morar no centro é proibitivamente caro.
Bem, chegamos em Adelaide na terça por volta das 18hr. Dan e Elske (meus companheiros de viagem, inglês e holandesa) ficaram num hostel e eu encontrei com Nerissa, mais uma amiga minha da Alemanha, pra poder explorar a hospitalidade dela. Voltamos pra casa dela, conheci os pais dela, e saímos pra jantar numa região da cidade muito massa, meio afastada do centro, na beira da praia: Glenelg. A praia é super bonita e a gente chegou bem a tempo de pegar o pôr-do-sol (horário de verão...) e comer uma comida tailandesa muito gostosa.

Ontem (quarta-feira), eu fui conhecer de fato a cidade, biblioteca, museus, prédio do parlamento, a universidade... tudo bem bonito, na região norte da cidade, que aparentemente é a parte mais bonita mesmo da cidade. Depois, o ponto alto do dia: show do Muse!!!!!!! Uma das coisas que me deixa mais puto de morar no Brasil é que basicamente ninguém vai fazer show aí. Só mega-bandas como U2 ou Rolling Stones se dão ao luxo de passar no pobre do Brasil em suas mega-turnês mundiais... e mesmo assim é sempre pra tocar em estádios e tal... seria difícil uma banda como Muse, boa pra caralho mas não tão famosa como um U2 da vida, ir para o Brasil... eu assisti ao show deles num lugar muito massa, estilo Credicard Hall... eu não conhecia muita coisa deles, mas ainda assim achei o show muito do caralho, muito impressionante... só música foda, uma produção fantástica, enfim, valeu cada centavo... assim que eu conseguir, vou postar dos vídeos que gravei do show no YouTube e atualizo esse post pra apontar pra lá!!!!!

De Wollongong para Sydney

2007-11-14T02:33:00.000-03:00

Continuando com a minha saga Australiana... Vamos viajar de Wollongong para Sydney!!! Eu conheci uma americana (Barbara) e uma espanhola (Carla) na conferência [ambas na foto acima]: Barbara estava lá a trabalho, pela empresa onde trabalhar; Carla estava apresentando um artigo, como eu. Barbara tava com um carro alugado e ia pra Sydney sexta à tarde, e eu e Carla pulamos no barco e pegamos a carona dela. Tem uma estrada massa de Wollongong para Sydney, que vai margeando a praia e fomos por ela: a estrada é muito massa, pena que o tempo não tava dos melhores. Algumas fotos da estrada... é, eu sei que não apareço em nenhuma... eu provavelmente apareço nas fotos das máquinas delas, mas ainda preciso pegá-las...

Multilingual - Algumas Fotos, Some Photos!!!!

2007-11-08T19:42:00.000-03:00

Eu sou o pior blogger da historia, eu sei... mas finalmente eu vou atualizar meu blog semi-abandonado... e dessa vez com fotos!!!! Ah, e com post multi-lingual!!!

So, I am the worst blogger ever... but I'm finally posting a fewe photos of my first few days here in Australia, let's see what you guys think!!!!

OK, minha viagem comecou com um longo voo de Buenos Aires ate Auckland... infelizmente,, eu soh conheci o aeroporto de Auckland, mas logico q eu tirei algumas fotos!!!!

So my trip started off with a pretty long flight from Buenos Aires to Auckland, of which I only got to see the airport... but of course that didn't stop me from getting a few pictures in NZ-soil!!!

Aqui estamos eu e Amanda (paulista muito gente boa q sentou do meu lado no voo e virou minha amiga, vai morar seis meses em Sydney pra aprender ingles) no terminal principal do aeroporto, pagando mico de turista... mas era um terminal tao legal q eu nao resisti... :-)

This is me and Amanda, a very nice brazilian girl I met on the flight over to Sydney.... she's gonna live there for 6 months doing a language course... she's in a house right in Manli Beach... tough life, hey!?!?

Essa foi minha primeira vista (apesar de bem ruizinha, tirada do aviao e tals) de Sydney!!!! La estao a Opera House e a Harbour Bridge... mas nao se preocupem porque melhores fotos virao!!!! :-)

So this is my first (kinda crappy) view from Sydney. The Opera House, The Harbour Bridge... you know the drill... but no worries, better shots are coming!!!!

Depois de pousar fui direto pra Wollongong.... agora tou percebendo q nao tirei muitas fotos de lah, nao quanto deveria... mas essa foto do campus da universidade eh bem legal, mostra o quanto era agradavel lah, eu passei bastante tempo deitado por essas gramas aih... :-)

So, apparently I didn't take nearly as many pics in Wollongong (where the conference actually took place) as I should've... but still there are some nice ones... this one is from the uni campus, which is unbelievably nice... I spent some nice times just lying around in this grass... :-)

Chegada na Australia, primeiro dia em Wollongong

2007-10-31T01:22:00.000-03:00

Aviso: Acentos nao funcionam por aqui, entao vai ser sem mesmo...

Quando falam que a Australia eh longe, eles nao estao brincando. A viagem demora, demora, demora... aih demoramais um pouquinho e voce pousa na Nova Zelandia. Aih voce sai do aviao, passa pela checagem de passaportes de novo, tira um monte foto "pagacao-de-mico" pra depois provar pra todo mundo que esteve na Nova Zelandia (e q eu nao vou poder mostrar agora pq ainda nao sei direito como vou transferir as fotos pra esse computador tosco que eu tou usando aqui), decola de novo uma hora depois e, depois de mais tres horas, voce chega em Sydney.
Sobrevoar Sydney eh aquela emocao: a Opera House, a ponte, a sensacao de que finalmente vc estah chegando... eh tudo muito massa! Eu pousei entao por volta das 11 da manha do dia 30/10, horario local. Depois de fazer a imigricao sem maiores problemas (a galera, apesar de detalhista e tal, eh muito amigavel) e me despedir da Amanda, uma brasileira gente boa que veio sentada do meu lado no aviao e vai passar seis meses estudando em Sydney (e q vcs poderiam conhecer se eu conseguisse colocar nossa fotos pagando mico no aeroporto de Auckland aqui), mochila nas costas, peguei meu trem pra Wollongong pra parte "profissional" da viagem.
Cheguei 3 horas da tarde em Wollongong e mais 20 min. andando, cheguei no albergue: muito bom, arrumadinho, serve tambem de moradia pra uma galera da Universidade de Wollongong. Por volta das 4 sai pra explorar a cidade, andar na praia, essas coisas... a praia daquie eh basicamente identica as praias do Brasil, mas a agua eh fria pra caralho. Os australianos realmente curtem esportes, andar na praia, etc... a cidade eh super agradavel, bem q Campinas podia ser assim... pra quem conhece, parece Barao Geraldo, soh q mais seguro, mais limpo, mais arejado, casas sem muro e com a praia a no maximo 5 minutos de distancia... ou seja, nao parece nem um pouquinho com Barao Geraldo...
Outra peculiaridade: as moscas aqui sao um pe no saco. Pra todo lugar que voce anda tem mosca pousando em voce... e elas sao bem mais corajosas que as brasileiras, voce tem que realmente tentar bater nelas pra elas voarem... mas daqui a pouco elas pousam de novo de qualquer jeito... eu sei oq voce tah pensando: eu tava precisando de um banho. Nao que isso nao fosse verdade, mas mesmo depois de cheiroso, continuou assim... aih eu percebi que nas camisas das pessoas andando dah pra ver sempre 5, 6 moscas pousadas... bizarro, ne???
Bem, alem disso, as pessoas sao muito, muito amigaveis mesmo... todo mundo fala com voce, te trata bem... muito massa mesmo. Dei sorte e no meu quarto tem um brother que trabalha na universidade e ja me disse que vai me levar (de carro) pra conferencia... hehehehehhe o dfoda eh que quando eu disse q era brasileiro ele insistiu ate a morte pra eu aparecer num jogo de futebol deles aqui amanha a noite... coitados, imagina soh a decepcao deles... :-)

bjos a todos, espero poder colocar fotos nos meus posts aqui em breve...
Rafa

Switching to Portuguese for a little while...

2007-10-31T01:20:00.000-03:00

While I'm here in Australia I'll post mostly in portuguese, because I want my mom to be able to understand... I hope all my (imaginary) non-portuguese-speaking readers can enjoy the photos... :-)

Australia!!

2007-10-25T15:44:00.000-03:00

Yeah baby, I'm going to Australia!!!!! I can finally say that, short of a lightning bolt falling on my ass, I'm flying to Australia this Sunday. I just got news today that my visa application got accepted, I've had my ticket for a couple of weeks now, now it's just a matter of waiting a few days and BAM!!!!, Australia it is!!! Naturally I have quite a few plans already: there is this conference I have to attend and there's some people I'm visiting. Let's see what I already have:

I land in Sydney Tuesday, the 30th of October. Go straight to Wollongong, where ProvSec 2007 (the conference I'm attending) is taking place.
The conference is actually on the 1st and 2nd of November, so that will give one day to explore the town and see what's up. Then there's a couple of days of working and then, on the 3rd, I'm back in Sydney.
now the doubts begin: I'll outline what now is "Plan A" and then talk about my douts... I should spend the weekend in Sydney and then monday morning catch a bus tour to Melbourne: that takes 3 days and I should be in Melbourne wednesday evening, 11/07. Below there is a Google Map of the bus route (both this part and the part from Melbourne to Adelaide).

View Larger Map

Then I should be in Melbourne 'till the weekend, a good 4 days to get to know the city. Here I should meet some nice friends from Winterkurs '06 who I haven't seen in quite a while and who'll be kind enough to put a roof over my head!!! :-)
Then it's time to be off to Adelaide. I'd like to do a roadtrip (still following the route on the map above), people say this road by the sea (the Great Ocean Road) is awesome and I 'm one to love roadtrips... but I'm still to find some company and I don't think I'm up for it alone... so I might just take another bus tour here... well, anyway I should be in Adelaide around the 14th... and count on the hospitality of yet another WK'06 friend to put up with me! :-)
once again, should stay there 'til the weekend and this time I'll go across the country to Cairns (all the way up on the northeast), see the Great Barrier Reef. I'm still thinking about how long I should be there, don't know if I should take diving classes or just snorkel around (the problem is that diving classes would cost me around 2 days of the trip... that's A LOT)...
After Cairns, probably around the 25th, I fly back to Sydney. Then I still have 3 days to kill over there before I catch my flight back home, on the 29th...

So, does that sound like a plan or what?!!? :-) I'll be sure to take a shitload of pictures and try and post here as often as possible... so, is there anything fundamentally amazing I'm missing here??? Anywhere I should go??? Anything "not-so-interesting" I'm wasting my time on??

Hairspray [Movie]

2007-10-23T14:36:00.000-03:00

I've already seen a few movies I'd like to talk a little about since I last posted. Let's see if I get to talk about all of them this time. First of all, there's Hairspray. This movie musical is just sheer, old-fashioned fun. The best part is that it isn't that silly kind of comedy... it's actually a really sarcastic (thus, funny) criticism of a big part of american society. It takes place in the '60s, the beginning of the end of all the segregation between black and white people. Basically it follows Tracy's story, a chubby teenager that dreams of being a dancer on a "cool kids" TV show in Baltimore. As in any musical, the soundtrack is of utter importance, and this one gives a lot of fuel to the movie: funny, bright, cheerful songs about some dire times; songs about pride of being black and/or fat (the two groups of people that fight against discrimination in the movie). When you're first introduced to the nicest kids in town they sing:

[The nicest kids in town] throw off their coats
And leave the squares behind
And then they shake it, shake it, shake it
Like they're losing their mind
You'll never see them frown
'Cause they're the nicest kids in town
...
Nice white kids
Who like to lead the way
And once a month
We have our "negro day!"
...
So every afternoon
Drop everything
(bop-bee-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, bee-ba)

Who needs to read and write
When you can dance and sing?
(bop-bee-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba, bee-ba)

Forget about your algebra
And calculus
You can always do your homework
On the morning bus
Can't tell a verb from a noun
They're the nicest kids in town

When I heard that song I immediately got excited and thought: OK, this is gonna be good. And good it was. This song sets the tone for most of what's to come; not so subtle, very sarcastic critique of a society about to be swept by a big wave of change. Just great!!! I couldn't not mention one particular song, , that goes something like:

...
but i won't ask you to be color blind
'Cause if you pick the fruit
Then girl, you're sure to find...

The blacker the berry
The sweeter the juice
I could say it ain't so
But darlin', what's the use?

The darker the chocolate
The richer the taste
And that's where it's at...
...now run and tell that!!
...

Come on, that's just awesome!!! :-) Besides all the great music and sarcasm, the cast is really good too. The girl they found to play Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) is perfect: just about with the right "chubbyness", charisma, smile, voice and dancing skills (for the part, that is)... and what can one say about John Travolta playing her 300 hundred-pound mom?? Just brilliant!!!! It's not often you get such a plain fun movie addressing such important topics... I don't know how they did it, but it's an amazing mix of great music, great cast and relevant storytelling... unless you're seriously prejudiced against movie musicals you should try and watch this.

Blue [Album], by Joni Mitchell

2007-10-19T09:45:00.000-03:00

I guess the most obvious thing to say about Blue (and believe me, quite a lot of people have said it already) is that the songs in this Joni Mitchell masterpiece are as comfortable in a pop music record as they would be in a poetry book (and a really good one, in case you were wondering). Always present in any decent list of the greatest albums of the century, Blue is usually the best rated by a female solo artist. This is a true singer-songwriter masterpiece: simple, beautiful arrangements, confessional lyrics, a brilliant, distinguished voice... The story goes that Joni wrote most of the album while traveling through Europe, taking a break from the biz after her first few records made her a pretty famous singer. She sings of love ("My Old Man"), infactuation ("Carey", "A Case of You"), hopeless romanticism vs. a more pessimistic view ("The Last Time a Saw Richard"), the blues (well, "Blue", "River"), homesickness ("California", I guess "River" fits here too) and the pain of giving a child up for adoption ("Little Green", which she actually did, by the way, when she was 20 something years old)... this is very personal, very beautiful work of art... she's said that, around this time in her life (1971) she had basically no defenses and thought that she should always show herself to the world as she truly is... and it shows...

Interestingly enough, the first song I ever heard from this album was River, and the only thing I knew about Joni Mitchell then was that Alanis Morissette considered Joni (one of) her biggest influence, musically speaking... there was this TV show I liked, called Ally McBeal, and it was always filled with good music (specially Barry White!!), and in this particular episode Ally asks Robert Downey Jr.'s character to sing a song for her (it's near christmas, I think) and he sits at the piano and sings "River" beautifully... it was a beautiful scene and I just had to find more about that amazingly sad and melancholic song... the second big contact I had with songs from Blue was through Legião Urbana's rendition of "The Last Time I Saw Richard" (Legião Urbana is a brazilian rock band, by the way... gone since mid-'90s, but probably the best we've ever had), which just struck me as so amazing and Dylan-esque I was really surprised when I found out it was Joni's. Guess I should have taken the hint and gone and bought the bloody record, but I didn't: not until Rolling Stone put it as number 30 in their "500 greatest album of the century" edition, the highest ranked album by a woman; it wasn't only the position in itself, but the review was quite enticing (for my taste). So I finally got the album and gave it a good listen with the lyrics at hand (the lyrics are really important here, in case you haven't picked that up yet): simply amazing.

The title track, "Blue", is one of the greatest of the record, in my opinion... it shows every important trait of the album: sadness, melancholy, truthfulness, emotion and simplicity: it's basically her, her music and her sadness.

Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey blue, here is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in
Well there're so many sinking now
You've got to keep thinking
You can make it through these waves
Acid, booze, and ass
Needles, guns, and grass
Lots of laughs, lots of laughs
Everybody's saying that hell's the hippest way to go
Well I don't think so
But I'm gonna take a look around it though
Blue, I love you

Blue, here is a shell for you
Inside you'll hear a sigh
A foggy lullaby
There is your song from me

Other song that always catches my eye is "The Last Time I Saw Richard"... just beautiful.

"The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
and he told me 'all romantics meet the same fate someday
cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark cafe'...
'You laugh', he said, 'you think you're immune, go look at your eyes
They're full of moon
You like roses and kisses and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise they're only pretty lies?
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies'
...
Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights with the TV on
And all the house lights left up bright
I'm gonna blow this damn candle out
I don't want nobody comin' over to my table
I got nothing to talk to anybody about
All good dreamers pass this way some day
Hidin' behind bottles in dark cafes
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days

Can her optimism/romanticism beat Richard's pessimism?? By the way, I found the version by Legião Urbana on YouTube:

My birthday

2007-10-16T11:55:00.000-03:00

Sunday was my birthday!!! Yeah, a little older now... what can you do?? My parents came to visit and saturday we had a little celebration at a very good bar here in Campinas. It's a pity it was a long weekend, so many people were away and couldn't be there (well, not such a pity, since that's gonna be enough reason to do some more partying!!!). Here are a few photos from the occasion: http://picasaweb.google.com/rafael.castro/MeuAniversRio2007. I'd really like to thank everybody that remembered the day and sent me messages, gifts, nice happy thoughts, anything at all!!! It was a really great weekend and I hope that eventually I get to celebrate with everybody, in person!!

Donnie Darko, Mad World & Gary Jules

2007-10-10T15:15:00.001-03:00

Donnie Darko is probably one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. The time-traveling, sci-fi tale of a guy and his giant, slightly-psychotic, imaginary bunny friend (if that's even a worthy depiction) is an instant classic of cult movies. If you haven't seen it, you should. But, even if you don't like the movie, you gotta love Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fears' Mad World. I didn't really pay attention to the soundtrack when I first watched the movie, I didn't use to be big on soundtracks. But so many people told me how great it was, I just had to go back and give it a listen: it's awesome, and this particular song is just unbelievably beautiful. Gary Jules' voice is amazing, and simplicity of his version of the song just adds to the whole sentiment of the song: when he sings

"And I find it kinda funny,
I find it kinda sad,
The dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had."

he really sounds like the type of guy who would feel like that... it's great. So, after some digging around I found out he releases his albums through CD Baby, which is just great. So you can buy the (DRM-Free) mp3's, you can stream his stuff from the website or you can buy the actual CD. Being in CD Baby means that most of the money actually goes to him, which is kind of reassuring, specially after all the news about the RIAA going on lately. If you still don't know the song, watch the video below. If you like it, check out these albums at CD Baby, you can listen most of them for free and see whether Mad World was just luck. :-)

Tropa de Elite [Movie]

2007-10-08T13:58:00.001-03:00

I have only one thing to say about Tropa de Elite: Fuckin' Awesome!!!!! I don't remember the last time I was this blown away; I seriously think it's the best movie of the year so far, and a definite candidate to hold the crown all the way through. It tells the story of a captain of Rio de Janeiro's special ops division who's having a baby and wants to quit the force but first has to find and train a worthy successor. It's raw realism in depicting the urban war in Rio is shocking, and to know that it's actually based on a (n apparently very badly written) novel by a former captain of the special ops just enhances it's effect. The cast is amazing, and Wagner Moura, I'd say along with Lázaro Ramos, Selton Melo, Rodrigo Santoro, is definitely firming his position as one of the most important actors of his generation. The movie is violent, funny and real, it's a slap in the face of many, many people.
By now everybody's seen Cidade de Deus (City of God) and the comparison is unavoidable: I honestly don't know which is the better one: it'll take a few days and another go at Tropa de Elite before I can make up my mind. Tropa de Elite is that good.

Another point for not living in the US

2007-10-06T11:54:00.000-03:00

Just a quick note on a story from the NY Times on how Bush says interrogation methods aren't torture. The fun part is that he won't disclose exactly which interrogation methods he's talking about, all people know is that the CIA is authorized to use them. Conforting, isn't it? I loved this quote in particular from Bush's press secretary:

“I’ve had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information,” Mr. Fratto said. “And I could tell you that every time I’ve dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information.”

RIAA and trials for online music sharing

2007-10-05T11:06:00.000-03:00

I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of days ago how we thought the world (well, at least the western world) had reached a peak of freedom maybe a decade or so ago and that now everything is going down the drain. The Patriot Act and the DMCA (not to mention Bush's reelection) have literally made me not want to live in the US for as long as I can foresee. Software patents (hell, patents in general) already spread to Europe. In Germany it's now against the law to host or write any program that could possibly be used to hack another computer (yeah, that's right, anything that could possibly be used, how the hell are you supposed to define that?? How the hell are you supposed to be a network security engineer when all the programs you use on a daily basis (to defend from attacks) have suddenly become illegal?!?!). And now, the RIAA won their first trial case against mrs. Thomas.
Let me paint you a picture: Jammie Thomas, a middle-age mom, was accused by the RIAA of sharing music files back in early 2005 through KaZaA (everybody remembers that spyware-infested program, don't you?). She is an avid music fan. She owns literally hundreds of CD's and DVD's. No real evidence of her distributing any of the music was presented; she was found guilty on ground that making the songs available was already copyright infringement. The "evidence" presented against her were a username that coincided with her e-mail address, the IP address used to share the files (which, as anyone that knows anything about how the Internet works knows could be forged and is by no means evidence of identity; heck, if it were why the hell would we need half of the cryptographic protocols we study?!?!? I'd go back to Salvador and sell coconuts at the beach....). By the end of the trial she was ordered to pay US$9.250,00 per song (out of a possible US$150.000,00, so one might say that she actually got lucky)!! She was charged with sharing 24 individual songs, so that amounts to US$220.000,00.
It's easy to have sympathy for her, right?! After all she's a mom, a formerly good customer who spent thousands of dollars on products by the same guys who sued her; she was convicted for sharing 24 songs... how many "illegal" songs have you listened to in the last few years?? Downloaded, shared?? She is supposed to pay US$220.000,00 in damages, it'd probably take hr quite a few years to even see that kind of money, let alone being able to pay it up. But take all that sentimental bullshit aside: if it were a single 25-year-old millionaire who got sued for
the exact same crime, it would still be very wrong to get this outcome.
I know customers don't usually care about the practices of the companies whose product they buy. Later on, they bitch and complain when they see something unfair: "Oh My God, how could they do that?? Sue a mother for US$220.000,00 because she shared 20 something songs..." They could and did because it's cheap for them and it's a win-win situation: at the very least they scared a whole lot of people from sharing music on the web. And what if they lost?? So what, lawyers come cheap to giant industry conglomerates, they are expensive for us, who have to defend ourselves. So, what I'd like to see happening is a boycott on music sold by members of the RIAA. Music in the US nowadays is mostly shit anyways, but they still have some good stuff on their catalogs; don't buy it. Buy independent music that is just as good (or even better). Put your money to good use and try to stand up for something: not the legality or morality of sharing music, but the immorality of their scare-tactics.

More information on the case here, here and here.
List of Record Labels members of the RIAA.

Paying what you want for music

2007-10-03T14:18:00.000-03:00

Maybe you haven't heard about it yet, but Radiohead is releasing their next album, In Rainbows, in a few days and people can pay whatever they want for it. Yeah, that's right: you can download the album from their website for whatever price you feel is fair (of course there's some sort of "base price" or "transaction fee"). Magnatune, an online music store for independent artists, has been doing something similar to that for quite a while: their suggested price for albums is 8 bucks, but you can pay anything between 5 and 18 bucks... and, the best part is that, according to their statistics, people pay around 9 dollar on average... cool, isn't it? But that's a very small scale label/online store with basically no famous/mainstream artist (which doesn't keep them from being really good, check this out for example)... I have no idea what's gonna happen when Radiohead (arguably one of the biggest bands in the world for over a decade now) tries it... but it's gonna be mighty interesting to see.
I think everybody agrees that the model we have today (and that's been there for quite a few decades now) is dying... file-sharing, cheaper equipment, near-zero distribution costs (through the net, that is)... the future certainly looks grim for big record companies... but is pay-what-you-feel-like a plausible option?? Is it best fit for big, famous acts like Radiohead, or independent artists like the ones in Magnatune's catalog?? The next few weeks will tell us a great deal about it all... by the way, the most you can pay for Radiohead's new album is 99 pounds... interesting to know they put a limit there...

Wonder Years of the '00s??

2007-10-02T13:09:00.000-03:00

I grew up on a regular dose of Wonder Years, the amazing TV series that let us all follow Kevin Arnold's life and cheer for him and Wendy to end up together. I still get a shiver every time I hear Joe Cocker's version of With a Little Help from My Friends (in fact, I stopped writing for a few seconds to look for it and am currently listening to it as write this post). I really loved this show and I think many/most people my age also loved growing up in the '80s/'90s with that beautiful image of the '70s that Wonder Years gave us. But, most of all, it was Kevin's problems and mishaps that caught us the most: his life, were it not for the silly limits of time and space was exactly like ours (or like we wished ours was like, sometimes). Wonder Years was a huge success, spanning 6 years and basically becoming one of those shows that'll always be in people's memory. A few years later, around 1995 a show called My So-Called Life introduced a 13 year old girl called Claire Danes to the world. I won't say MSCL was as amazing as Wonder Years, but it was a close call; it was more raw and in tune with the not-so-'70s-like world of the '90s, drunk teenagers, gay classmates, quite a different feeling towards parents than what Kevin & co. had. It only lasted for 13 episodes, so I guess there's no frame of comparison in terms of success between the two shows, but I really liked MSCL too and it felt, to me, as the Wonder Years of the '90s. Now, there's a chance we're seeing the soon-to-be Wonder Years of the '00s: Aliens in America.
The show premiered yesterday really, so this is a very premature statement; even so, I really liked what I saw and I'm confident this is gonna be one of the most successful new shows of the year (not that I know what else is out there...). It's about this really geeky kid, Justin, who's obviously picked on on a daily basis at school. His mom has the great(!!) idea of hosting a foreign exchange student in order to boost his popularity in school, thinking that they'll get a blond, great-looking athlete of a kid. Instead, they get a pakistani muslim kid, probably the only thing that could make Justin even less popular. It's probably not going to be as attaching as Wonder Years was, specially because we're meeting a Justin who's already 16 years old, unlike the little kid Kevin Arnold was when Wonder Years started. But I really liked the writing and acting on the show; and I loved the sense of humor of the show, the one thing lacking from MSCL (the show was a little too melodramatic). There is a 4-minute preview of the show up on YouTube (what isn't up on YouTube?!?!?), so check it out and see if you can find some way of watching the pilot. It's really worth it.

São Paulo x Boca Juniors

2007-09-27T18:58:00.001-03:00

Wow, two posts on one day?!?!?! Yeah, you could say I'm procrastinating... yesterday we went to the Morumbi to watch the football match between São Paulo and Boca Juniors (Argentina): it wasn't really for anything important (one of the South American cup, not the important one (Copa Libertadores da América), the other much less important one(Copa Sulamericana) ). But it doesn't matter what it's for: playing Argentina is always good and beating Argentina is specially satisfying. And beat them we did!! I took a few pictures, it's a pity we didn't take any with everybody in it... but this is how the stadium looked like, pretty packed for a game that had nothing special to it... probably because São Paulo is in such a great phase that people just want to come see them play... guess it's gonna be a pity next year I'll only get to see them when they come to Belo Horizonte and beat Cruzeiro or Atlético Mineiro... and I'll have to pretend not to be supporting São Paulo, after all I don't wanna get beat up or anything... :-)

Records of the Month, September - Pt. 1 [Music]

2007-09-27T14:03:00.000-03:00

The month is coming to an end and I suddenly I realized that much of the stuff I've been listening to lately, according to last.fm, I didn't use to just a few months ago... so I started wondering how much new music I listen to, say every month, and that gave me the idea of doing this little sum up of what's the new stuff I've heard to this month... let's just hope I can remember everything:

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, by Spoon
I think that in the last couple of days, from every 5 songs I listen to, one is from this amazing record. I first got to know Spoon through their previous album, Gimme Fiction and, as much as
I liked that record, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is miles ahead. First of all, I love records that you can hear without ever feeling like skipping a track. Don't Make Me a Target is a great opener, catchy but by no means representative of all that is to come. After that, you get an avalanche of perfectly handcrafted songs all very different from each other, the best sort of Indie Rock you're bound to find out there... from the tension buildup of The Ghost of You Lingers, through the funky Don't You Evah, to the catchy-pop-sing-along The Underdog, it all just shows these guys are good, very good indeed... this is a very serious candidate for best album of the year in my opinion, and certainly already has a place in my Top 5!

Samba Meu, by Maria Rita

Maria Rita is one of the best things to have happened in Brazilian music for a while now. This is her third record, and the first one to depart from the sort of jazz-band-formation that was the staple of "Maria Rita" and "Segundo". In this album she sings exclusively sambas, by mostly unknown composers and she's done an amazing job of finding really talented people to write songs for her. Her voice is sweet as always, it's a delight to hear. She's certainly amongst the most talented Brazilian singers out there, and it's specially gratifying to notice that they are all rediscovering samba in full strength (Marisa Monte also released a samba-only CD last year that, interestingly enough, had a track composed by Adriana Calcanhotto; Ana Carolina always has sambas in her CD's, and her last outing with Seu Jorge is full of them).
I actually bought this CD "by accident": I didn't know it was coming out and was, as I often do, just roaming around FNAC, drooling over all the stuff I couldn't afford (yet!!!!), as I saw the CD. Naturally, being a big fan and all, I bought it right away and wasn't disappointed. It didn't take much to win me over, I admit, as I love samba, and I'd have a hard time judging whether this album is brilliant or just "very good". I guess it's very good. I say that because the fairest comparison I could make is with Marisa Monte's Universo Ao Meu Redor, and I gotta pick Marisa's record over Maria's... I guess all the songs in Samba Meu sound too much alike, I'd have a hard time picking out more than 3 or 4 that individually caught my attention (keep in mind this is just a first evaluation, as I listen to it over and over, that might change), whereas with Universo Ao Meu Redor, I instantly fell in love with 3 or so songs, and could tell most of the other apart easily... songs just sound more distinctive than in Samba Meu and, for me, that's very important... but, on the other hand, you could actually say it's a good thing if they all sound alike because they all sound good!!! :-)
Here's her talking a little bit about the record (in Portuguese), and singing one of the songs as sambas are meant to be sung!!!

Some other interesting videos from YouTube:

Rodrigo Bittencourt, the original composer of Samba Meu, showing off a pretty raw version of the song.
Samba Meu, now in Maria Rita's version
O Homem Falou
Num Corpo Só
Trajetória

I actually intended to write about quite a few more records I listened to this month, but I don't wanna make some giante post that nobody's gonna be brave enough to read, so I'm gonna stop right here and come back for more some other day.

Knocked Up [Movie]

2007-09-25T10:45:00.000-03:00

This weekend I went to the movies to see the surprise hit of the season, Knocked Up. With the atrocious translation to portuguese of the title (something like "Somewhat Pregnant"... what the hell does that mean anyway??!! You're either pregnant or not!! It's not like being somewhat hungry...) and all, it was pretty hard to convince anyone to come with me at all, but I guess since we were late and there was almost nothing else to watch I got lucky and everybody settled for Knocked Up. I really didn't know what to expect: on the one hand, something told me, perhaps how silly that guy looks, this was going to be a pretty silly comedy; on the other hand, it was a huge hit (yeah, even with critics) and was rated 7.9 in IMDb, which is unbelievably high for a comedy. So we went and I think that even my grumpy-hate-silly-comedies friend liked it (yeah, Nanda, that's you!!!). First of all, it's not that silly at all, it actually gets somewhat serious approaching the end... I won't name names, but there was some crying going on around me!! :-) Basically, the story is about this amazingly beautiful girl, who just got her break as an on-camera reporter and goes out to celebrate. She meets this very charming, curly-haired guy and, well, after a few drinks gets pregnant. Most of the jokes are about their (very different) worlds clashing, and you get some pretty good laughs off it all. Of course, he's gonna grow more mature and all that shit, and that's when the movie gets more serious. I shouldn't tell more about the story, don't wanna ruin it for anyone, but Paul Rudd's characters (the girl's brother-in -law) is just awesome, and some of the best scenes of the movie are due to him. It's definitely an unusual, worthwhile comedy, written and directed by the same guy from 40 Year Old Virgin, and with two of the four main actors. Keep an eye out for Superbad, already out on the US but far from it here, it's by quite a few of the same guys!!!! Who knows, may be we're seeing a (well overdue!!!) renewal of the whole comedy scene...

Closer [Movie]

2007-09-22T12:47:00.000-03:00

A couple of days ago I put a quote here, saying it was from one of the best-written movies of the decade, a movie that I love!! The movie is Closer, and it's written by Patrick Marber, adapted from his own play (also called... yeah, you guessed it, Closer!!). I was blogging about it 'cause I finally bought the DVD last week, and watched it over again... it's an awesome movie, anyone who hasn't seen it should definitely give it a shot. I've already mentioned the script, it's a character-driven impressively well-written drama, with dialogues that will leave you wondering for quite some times... it's really raw, with people so fucked-up you're left wondering whether you know people like that, or who knows if you're a little bit like them too... another great quote from the movie is

Dan: I want Anna back.
Larry: She's made her choice.
Dan: I owe you an apology. I fell in love with her. My intention was not to make you suffer.
Larry: So where's the apology? Ya cunt.
Dan: I apologize. If you love her you'll let her go so she can be happy.
Larry: She doesn't want to be happy.
Dan: Everybody wants to be happy.
Larry: Depressives don't. They want to be unhappy to confirm they're depressed. If they were happy they couldn't be depressed anymore. They'd have to go out into the world and live. Which can be depressing.

Then there's the direction. Mike Nichols is a genious. I mean, he actually has more bad movies ('80s and '90s) than really good ones (his first few movies, and Closer); but he's still an amazing director... The performances he gets from each of the four main actors in this movie is unique: I've never seen any of them nearly as immersed and convincing as in Closer. Specially Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, nominated for the supporting actor/actress Oscars (why the hell "supporting", I mean if there's a main character, it's definitely Alice), for whom I cheered a hell of a lot, but not enough to turn the head of the Oscar-voters... Portman's performance is specially meaningful because she is a great actress that needs good directing... she's given us great performances (such as this one, V for Vendetta, Garden State) but anyone who's seen the new Star Wars trilogy (and who hasn't, right?) knows that she needs good directing and that George Lucas is no good for that.
All in all, a movie that is so well-written, brilliantly directed and enacted couldn't go wrong. It certainly is sort of disturbing, really raw at times, but is a worthwhile experience, a peek into a very pessimistic view of relationships and how unexplainable and unavoidable people's behavior is sometimes...

Little pearl of a quote...

2007-09-20T12:23:00.000-03:00

Dan: Didn't fancy my sandwiches?
Alice: Don't eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish piss in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don't eat children either.

This is a quote from a movie that I just love... probably one of the Top 5 best-written movies of the decade... anyone knows what it is?? Come on, I even left the names of the characters there... just don't Google on it 'cause it's not fair!!! :-)
I'll probably post about it on the next couple of days, but if anyone knows what's the name of the movie, comment on it...

Movies on Sunday

2007-09-17T11:16:00.000-03:00

Yesterday, being a Sunday and all, I woke up pretty late, had a lazy lunch and watched a movie, The Good Shepherd... later on, after some goofing around, I went to the movies and watched I Pronounce You Chuck and Larry... it was a pretty eclectic Sunday, movie-wise... pitty none of them was particularly good... The good Shepherd is a loooong drama about the "birth" of CIA, so it starts right before the US gets into WWII (when Matt Damon's character is recruited) and goes until the Kennedy era... it's a solid movie. Robert DeNiro is actually a really good director, and the cast is good too... but the movie is just too damn slow and confusing... I'll admit: I didn't get the ending at all... of course I won't discuss it here, if you want to know about it, you too have to go through the 3-hour-process of finding out, but if anybody out there got it, please let me know... I have quite a few questions I wish someone could answer...
As to I Pronounce You... what can I say??? Well, If you've seen any Adam Sandler movie at al you know the drill (except for 50 First Dates, I love that movie!!!!) it's pretty much same ol' same ol'... pretty funnyy at times, dull some other times... stupid ending (that Goddamn "Dead Poets Society"-effect again!), but good enough for a Sunday night overall... if you like that sort of silly movies, that is...

Marvel Movies

2007-09-14T09:58:00.000-03:00

OK, so yesterday I wanted to watch a movie and have some pizza, so I went to the video store. The thing is I stumped my foot really bad, and walking around the video store forever (as I usually do) really hurt. So after a few minutes of not finding anything good I hadn't seen yet, I saw The Ghost Rider... I know, I said something good, right?? But, let's face it: I'd have to watch it eventually anyways, so I just thought "what the hell, I'll take it!" I had very low expectations for this movie (as would any sane person), but even then it was bad. It's an ugly movie, the effects kinda suck, the action scenes look like cartoon (which is sort of what they are), and it is stupid as hell. I mean, I won't even go over the shred of a script that it has, it's just not worth the trouble... but I gotta mention one quote, so you know just how stupid it is... at one point of the movie, Johnny Blaze (who sold hist soul to the Devil and thus got the whole plot of the movie going by being turned into the Ghost Rider) says: "He may have my soul, but he doesn't have my spirit." Come on!!! That's just embarrassing...
So, even though I wanted to blog on this stupid, stupid movie, I didn't think it deserved a whole post of its own. So I decided to do a quick and dirty retrospective of Marvel Comics-based movies which became really huge business in the last few years... OK, even though movies and cartoons based on Marvel characters have been made before, only in 1998 did things begin to get serious with Blade. I mean, I don't even think they themselves took stuff like Nick Fury or Captain America seriously... but Blade rocks, and it showed everybody that the house of X-Men, Hulk and Spider-Man could maybe compete head to head with the house of Superman and Batman (which was going through a really rough period in the '90s too, with the whole Batman & Robin fiasco...) Well, a couple of years after Blade, in 2000, we got to watch X-Men, and, well, the rest is history... two more X-Men, two more Blade, three Spider-Man, two Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra and this Ghost Rider thing afterwords, Marvel Comics actually got enough money to start its own studio and, from now on, is gonna make movies about their characters by itself (well, at least the characters that aren't already sold to other studios as most of the aforementioned). So, if they steer away from fiascos like Ghost Rider, Marvel is bound to become a pretty strong force in the movie-making business, with as of yet unexploited characters such as Iron Man, Hulk (let's face it Ang Lee, your Hulk sucks), Captain America, Avengers, Dr. Strange, and many many more...
So, to end this (already pretty big) post, my rank of Marvel movies so far:

Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man and X-Men 3
X-Men 2
X-Men
Blade (1, 2 and 3)
Spider-Man 3
Fantastic Four
Daredevil
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Hulk
Elektra, The Ghost Rider

And I'd say my threshold is Daredevil: anything below that isn't worth the price of admission.

Bourne [Movies]

2007-09-13T11:29:00.000-03:00

So, last Tuesday I finally watched The Bourne Ultimatum. I'd heard wonders about it, which includes it getting 10/10 from Set magazine (the biggest movie magazine in Brasil, albeit a not very good one) and it being rated 8.5 in IMDb as the 20th best movie ever to include "action" in its genre (the list includes movies such as The Matrix, Fight Club, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, Apocalipse Now, The 7 Samurai and The Good, the Bad and th Ugly). So I had my hopes very high for this one, specially since the first two Bourne's were pretty cool. A couple weeks ago I re-watched both The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy, just to be sure the whole "Bourne dilemma" was fresh in my mind. And there I went. First of all: God bless Paul Greengrass, he really is an amazing director (well, at least for action/thrillers). He really has a unique style, the camera is always moving, and very nervously so. And the best thing is he perfected that technique in the third part of the trilogy: what was a little sloppy and annoying in Supremacy (I mean, it was pretty hard to understand any of the fights), was perfectly done in Ultimatum. Second, you have to praise the cast, specially Matt Damon; his presence holds the whole thing together. And I even liked Julia Stiles in this one!!! All the fight scenes are really impressive and raw, and the fight between Bourne and Desh is as good as any I've seen, reminding me a little bit from the very beginning of Casino Royale (but in full color). In the end it's movie about Bourne's quest for knowledge of himself, and when he finally gets it (in series of pretty shocking flashbacks), he must fight to cope with it all. Besides being one of the best "action/thriller" movies I've seen, it's a great movie period. It's so seldom you see a true trilogy that actually makes sense and finishes on a top note that it's refreshing. And in a year as weak as this one has been, it's probably on my Top 5 list so far.

Back in Campinas

2007-09-11T10:51:00.000-03:00

Well, after two weeks of "almost vacations", I'm back in Campinas. These were two pretty cool weeks, the first in Rio for a congress (as I posted before) and last week in Salvador for some well-deserved (well, at least much-expected) rest. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I should have, but Rio is as beautiful as ever, take my word for it. We stayed in a pretty cool hotel, in Leme (right next to Copacabana). Actually, Brasil's national volley team was also there. It had a pool on the top floor, with an awesome view!!! Check it out...

(I know I'm kinda blocking the view, but you can get the idea... :-) )
So, Rio was really great, partying in Lapa, going to the beach, actually doing some work and attending some great lectures... just fantastic!!
Then saturday, september 1st, I went to Salvador for the week. This first weekend we had great weather, I spent the whole day on the beach, just drinking and relaxing... terrible way to spend a week, hey!?!? :-) Unfortunately it rained a lot during the week, so all my beaching was restricted to these first couple of days... I did get a pretty cool picture of the sunset, though... check it out...

I actually took that one with my cell phone... and I used to wonder why the hell people would want cameras on their phones... well, there you go! That's in Itapuã, by the way... so if you ever listen to "Tarde em Itapuã" (An afternoon in Itapuã, that is), you now have an idea of what Vinícius de Moraes was talking about... ;-)
The whole week was pretty nice too, saw lots and lots of people I hadn't seen in a while, did some beer drinking, watched a pretty good old movie (On the Waterfront, more on that on a later post), and some bbq-ing... that was pretty cool too, specially for all these people from school I hadn't seen in a year or so...

SBSeg 2007

2007-08-28T08:24:00.000-03:00

Well, I arrived in Rio last saturday to attend SBSeg 2007, the national conference on computer security. It encompasses a few different events, amongst them the one that interests me the most, the Workshop on Cryptographic Algorithms and Protocols (WCAP). Being a Workshop, there is no actual presentation of original work, so if you are publishing something it's probably on SBSeg, not on WCAP. But usually a handful of quite impressive lecturers come to speak at WCAP, and it is always a nice opportunity to hear what they have to say. It's pretty hard trying to keep yourself up-to-date without being able to attend almost any conference at all because they are so damn far away, so it's nice for a change that something actually goes on around here. So, this year, we were supposed to have five speakers: Carlile Lavor (UNICAMP), Paulo Barreto (USP), Michel Abdalla (ENS, Paris), Benoît Libert (UCL, Belgium) and Claude Crépeau (McGill University, Canada). The main topics were pairing-based cryptography (Michel and Benoît) and quantum computing/post-quantum cryptography (Carlile, Paulo and Claude). Unfortunately the very competent people of the travel agency that made the arrangements for the international speakers never mentioned to prof. Crépeau that he'd need a visa to come to Brasil, so he never made it here, which is a real pitty because I feel his talk would've been really good. On the first day we had lectures by profs. Carlile, on the basics of quantum computing, and Paulo Barreto, on a few of the available options for doing cryptography in a way suposed to be resilient to quantum computers (after all, the two main "hard problems" underlying most of modern cryptography, namely factoring and the discrete log problem, can be solved easily in quantum computers). That was really interesting too and it seems to provide quite a few interesting research opportunities. The next day we had lectures by Benoît Libert, once again by Paulo (filling in for Crépeau) and Michel. Benoît and Michel both did pretty interesting suveys of the most significant results in provably-secure pairing-based cryptographic protocols (which is sort of the theme of my master thesis, so that was specially cool for me). The last day had more talks on pairing-based protocols and more results, most of which I wasn't aware of. But I'd say the best part of the conference wasn't the lectures in themselves (even though, I finally can say that I sort of understand what the hell quantum computing is all about), but the people you meet and the opportunity to discuss various things with such well-known and respected researchers. That was really amazing, and I gotta admit it felt a little frustrating to not be going for a PhD right away, because this would've been a great chance to work something out... but, I mean, who's in a hurry?!?! Of course I'd get hesitant being here and being so into it all, but I'm still pretty sure I made the right choice by working next year, specially since I had the opportunity of working somewhere I'd always dreamt about... but I gotta admit the prospect of going somewhere like ENS and working in such an amazing crypto group kinda made it all a pretty hard decision.

The Simpsons [Movie]

2007-08-23T15:47:00.000-03:00

OK, The Simpsons used to be the one exception to the rule about never dubbing stuff: I don't know where the hell they found the guy, but whoever did Homer in portuguese was just freakin' hilarious, far better than the original guy!!! I didn't quite understand why, but they got someone new to do it for the movie and it's not the same. That aside, the movie is pretty good, maybe like a good Simpsons episode, not one of the best though... I don't know why the hell these cartoon scriptwriters can't live without that dull part of the movie where everything kinda gets screwed up for the main character and he's forced to realize how wrong he was the whole time, repent and live happily ever after (in this particular case, all this happens in Alaska, which doesn't help shaking off the whole dullness of the moment)... and if they really need it, why does it have to be so mind-numbingly boring?!?!!? Those lonely walks, sad song on the background... it's like wasting 10 minutes of the damn movie... and Simpsons is no exception to that rule... it starts off great, maybe for the first 40 minutes or so it's the funniest thing... then, it kinda gets stuck for 15-20 minutes, and almost manages to recover (but not quite) by the end... sorry, but in my book South Park did far better than the Simpsons on the big screen... (even though, South Park too had the whole repent scene, but it takes like a minute or so...)
It's still pretty funny, much better than your average comedy... but after "18 year in the making", I kinda expected better from these guys...

Just to finish off on a good note, here's a pretty cool version of the title song... you reckon this guy

Poses, by Rufus Wainwright [Album]

2007-08-15T11:04:00.000-03:00

Rufus Wainwright is yet another great artist I discovered thanks to Nick Hornby: after reading his 31 Songs (and, of course, listening to all 31 of the songs), my Top 5 emerged naturally, and One Man Guy was amongst them. I'd never heard of Rufus, but now I just had to find a way to know more of his songs... Poses is the album that has "One Man Guy", and it's one hell of an album. First of all he has a beautiful voice, which is of course of utter importance. All the songs in this album are so beautifully arranged, ranging from a flurry of instruments and voices in "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" to the simplicity of One Man Guy, with her sister harmonizing with him in a way that , in the words of Hornby, "will make you believe that God exists". He was really good to pick the songs he'd cover: One Man Guy (originally by his dad, Loudon Wainwright III), and Across the Universe (by the Beatles). Both are really good in his rendition, but the whole harmonizing in One Man Guy is really amazingly beautiful... and the lyrics... well, he has that sort of intelligent sarcasm that's just captivating... in Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk he sings:

"Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
there are just a couple of my cravings
everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
a little bit thicker
a little bit harmful for me
...
and then there's those other things
which for several reasons we won't mention
everything about them is a little bit stranger
a little bit harder
a little bit deadly"

For those of you unaware of it, Rufus is gay. Which actually makes him covering One Man Guy even the more interesting...

"People will know when they see this show
The kind of a guy I am
They'll recognize just what I stand for and what I just can't stand
...
And they'll recognize I'm a one man guy
Always was through and through"

Which at first seems like an ode to faithfulness... but then he sings...

"I'm gonna bathe and shave
And dress myself and eat solo every night
Unplug the phone, sleep alone
Stay away out of sight
Sure it's kind of lonely
Yeah it's sort of sick
Being your own one and only
Is a dirty selfish trick"

Beautiful (OK, it's much better on the record than in this live version)... this is one great album that is both lyrically and musically brilliant... let me just finish with some quotes from Greek Song...

"You who were born with the sun above your shoulders
You turn me on you turn me on
You have to know
You who were born where the sun she keeps her distance
You turn me on you turn me on
But so does she
...
You who were born where you shiver and you shudder
You turn me on the girl is gone so come on
Lets go"

From Russia with Love [Movie]

2007-08-09T17:08:00.001-03:00

So this is my first (guest) post on Demian's blog. As my Hesse-inspired friend wrote, we've started a James Bond marathon (a marabond if you will). From Russia with Love (1963) might be considered one of the best Bond films but I wasn't terribly enthusiastic after watching the movie.

Yes, I do agree that the plot is better devised and enacted than Dr. No's. And yes, Daniela Bianchi, the Bond girl, is definitely a better actress than... oh wait, Ursula Andress (Dr. No's Bond girl) shouldn't even be considered an actress, so no comparison here. Apart from this, I don't know... Dr. No was the first film of the series, so there's an inherent charm to it. We forgive everything because it was the first, it started an era, it created an industry. It defined Bond. However, I didn't end up with the same fondness for From Russia with Love. I found the action scenes choreographically (is this a word?) poor, I didn't like the oh-so-stereotypical portrait of Turkey and the gypsies (should I say travellers?), I didn't like the casting, and I was quite fed up with those cliché Bond lines that seemed too excessive, including the ending scene. But then again, I might have been in the wrong mood.

Of course there are good things about the movies, and the second in particular: the opening scene that's a distinctive feature of James Bond's movies, the gadgets we all love, the spy story that captivates so many of us... and, ha!, the famous hand petting the cat that Mike Myers perfectly mimics in Austin Powers. Ok, I admit I don't have much to write. It was an ok film and I'm tired of writing about it. Let's wait for the next movie.

One interesting note: Tatiana Romanova's (Daniela Bianchi's character) voice was dubbed by another woman.

One odd note: while I was watching the film I wondered if Margaret Mead had the opportunity of watching the first Bond movies, or reading the novels. Weird thought.

Who knew they could do that??

2007-08-08T15:43:00.000-03:00

Does anybody have her phone number?

Dr. No [Movie]

2007-08-08T14:11:00.001-03:00

I am starting, together with a couple of friends, a James Bond Marathon. We intend to watch all 007 seven movies in the next couple of weeks... I just hope I can survive it. I haven't really seen any of the 007's before Pierce Brosnan came along in Goldeneye, so this should be very educational. We started yesterday with Dr. No, the first time ever on the big screen a martini was asked "shaken, not stirred". This was in 1962, with an appallingly young Sean Connery accompanied by a bunch of hotties that are probably grandmas nowadays... but, what the hell, they looked pretty good in 62, I must say... specially that Taro chick and, of course, Ursula Andress... OK, but what about the movie? Well, it's kind hard to analyze it... it's a pretty good movie, that's for sure. And even though by now you've seen it all about a hundred times, you still gotta give credit where credit is due... Sean Connery is awesome, more cynical than I thought possible... all the girls are incredibly bad actresses, except maybe for Moneypenny... I mean, horrible actresses... but Connery more than makes up for it, he certainly takes over anytime he's onscreen (nothing like, for instance, that 007 movie with Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry where I would constantly find myself wondering "Bond, who?")...
The whole movie feels 45 years old many times, you're hard pressed not to laugh when "The Dragon" appears... Dr. No is not really the scariest of villains, I guess that somewhere along the next couple of movies they learned that, even though the big villain (Dr. No in this one) should be surrounded in mystery (and he is), you need a very nasty-looking goon to be on the movie from the beginning and antagonize Bond... and the closest they get to that is a pretty lame attempt (whose name I shouldn't say to avoid the risk of spoiling it for you guys)... but it's almost all there, everything that made Bond the icon it is, the women (I remember him sleeping with at least 3 different chicks, not counting the ones that wanted to but he unfortunately didn't have the time to do...), the weird villains, the world-domination plans, the not-killing-Bond-until-he-finds-a-way-to-escape, everything Mike Myers so brilliantly makes fun of in Austin Powers... but it's certainly a worthwhile movie, it's pretty cool to see where it all started and how good it was since the beginning... let's just see if I actually last the whole 21 movies... wish me luck!!! :-)

Smells Like Teen Spirit, by Tori Amos [Music]

2007-08-06T10:37:00.000-03:00

So, what do you make of Tori's version of this classic?? Is it another victim of what I like to call the "Caetano Veloso" syndrome, when people think that just by taking a song and then singing it slowly and "with feeling" it suddenly becomes more poetic and meaningful (not that Smells Like Teen Spirit even needed this on the first place)?? Or is it actually good??

Yamandu Costa + João Bosco

2007-08-04T10:13:00.000-03:00

I guess my next post on brazilian music could be about João Bosco...

The Sun sets after the rain... [Photo]

2007-07-28T18:14:00.000-03:00

We had quite a few rainy, very gloomy days here in Campinas the last couple of weeks... but when the Sun came out to say hello, this is what it looked like... worth the wait?

Sometimes It Be That Way [Song]

2007-07-25T12:33:00.000-03:00

Another one from my big book of great lyrics... Jewel is one of my favorite singers, such a nice voice and such a great writer... and really fits my taste for (acoustic) guitar-driven music... Pieces of You is one of my most-played records ever, and I really liked her follow-up too, Spirit. Somewhere shortly after that, she kinda got off-track, and her next records got worse and worse, finally coming to 0304, which is a giant-sized piece of crap. Thank God she got back on track with Goodbye Alice in Wonderland, which is a wonderful record, not yet on par with Pieces of You, but good enough to give us hope... :-) but, none of that is really the point here, because this song isn't in any of these records. I don't exactly when she wrote this song, but I first heard it in a bootleg sometime around the release of Spirit. And I was amazed!!! It's such a wonderfully written song!! It's easy to find on P2P networks (eMule, and others), it's usually referred to as "Bob Dylan Story", because in this particular version she tells a little story of how she'd played with Bob Dylan and he heard this particular song and asked about the lyrics... and she, naturally, was all excited over that... anothes live version of the song was later released on This Way, but I don't like it that much, it's slower, lost a lot of the energy of the "Bob Dylan" version, and has slightly different lyrics... so, here it is:

Night with its shattered teeth
Attempts to speak
My pen is present but
Courage left via the sink
And I'm sorry
I snuck up on you
From behind
I'm sorry not all
My love letters did rhyme
And I'm sorry that
Jesus died for my sins
And I swear to God
It won't happen again
And I'm sorry
If it was my swerve that
Tempted you to sway
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

And Romeo was
A very nice man
He said
"Jewel, I don't think
You quite understand"
And I'm sorry if you had
To explain it like this
I'm sorry I was a point
You were destined to miss
And I'm sorry
I spoke to you irreverently
Down in the hollow
By the old olive tree
And I'm sorry
If my heart breaking
Ruined your day
Oh well
Sometimes It be that way

I said
"Oh well, I got nothing
Left to sell
This love was a bell that
Rang unheard in the air
I was bound to find out
That you didn't care
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

And Aphrodite with
Her neon lamp
Kissed Neptune
They put her face
On a stamp
And I'm sorry
I used it to mail
A letter to you
I'm sorry I'm glue and
The rest bounces off of you
And I'm sorry not even
This jet's metal wings
Could get across
These simple things
And I'm sorry
If I ever sang
Your name in vain
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

And Goldilocks
Well she knew three bears
They all ate oatmeal
And tiptoed upstairs
And I'm sorry
I never got to
Find you like this
Sleeping like a baby
And swaddled in bliss
And I'm sorry for
All the times
I forgot to imply something
In between the lines
And I'm sorry
If I caused you pain
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

I said
"Oh well, I got nothing
Left to sell
This love was a bell that
Rang unheard in the air
I was bound to find out
That you didn't care
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

And shadow's long fingers
They dance on the wall
Electricity chases
Its tail in the hall
And I'm sorry
If my arms to you
Were just empty rooms
I'm sorry
I never could comfort you
And I'm sorry
St. Petersburg is
A miserable town
And I'm sorry
If I am bringing you down
And I'm sorry
If I caused you pain
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

And flame licks the air
With its silver tongue
Night has many hands
But I have just one
And I'm sorry
I walked in on you
Unexpectedly
I'm sorry
I never served you
Camomile tea
And I'm sorry
I didn't always have a match
That could start
A fire big enough
For your heart to catch
And I'm sorry
If it was my swerve that
Tempted you to sway
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

Wow, huge lyrics!!! First of all, I love the whole energy of the song, it's really fast-paced, and her Jewel's voice is fantastic. But since this is all about the lyrics, let's talk about that... I love the slight sarcasm that comes with almost every verse, such as:

And I'm sorry
If my heart breaking
Ruined your day
Oh well
Sometimes It be that way

or even,

And I'm sorry
I walked in on you
Unexpectedly
I'm sorry
I never served you (both)
Camomile tea
And I'm sorry
I didn't always have a match
That could start
A fire big enough
For your heart to catch
And I'm sorry
If it was my swerve that
Tempted you to sway
Oh well
Sometimes it be that way

I tend to like these songs that sound a little bit like chanting, I don't know how to explain... and the lyrics to this song are a very well written, sarcastic way to describe a break-up... I just love it!

Jimi playing acoustic

2007-07-25T09:46:00.000-03:00

Before I come to a proper post, I just wanted to share this video I found on YouTube of Jimi playing the acoustic version of Hear My Train a Comin', one of my favorites. It always amazes me how "full" his guitar playing is, even on an acoustic... I really don't get people that say he sucks on acoustic, for me he's just amazing... and he's really into the song... ok, just watch the damn video and tell me what you all think...

Music in Brasil

2007-07-19T12:09:00.000-03:00

One thing I thought was somewhat weird was how, in Europe, people didn't seem to know much about Brazilian music. Even classic stuff like Tom Jobim seemed to be unknown to most. And the other interesting thing is how us Brazilians don't know much about our own contemporary music. Since most of the stuff that actually gets any attention from the media is worthless shit, it gets kinda hard to find the good stuff, and we're kinda stuck with listening to Chico Buarque forever... I'll try and post, from time to time, on some of the amazing music being made nowadays here in Brasil and, with the help of YouTube, I think I'll be able to find some really nice material. Let's start with Yamandú Costa.
Yamandú is one of the most amazing (acoustic) guitar players I've ever heard/seen in life, and certainly the best I've seen live. It's not only about the speed, even though he is the speediest sun-of-bitch I've seen not using a pick to play. He's got taste. The first time I heard him playing I thought: it's so amazingly impressive, but it doesn't sound like he's showing off, you know? Not like it does with many virtuosos... it just sounds good, it's amazing... and it's just mind-blowing!!
He plays all kinds of stuff, but I guess I like it the most when he plays "chorinho", which is a typically Brazilian rhythm... let's see what YouTube has to offer...

This is he playing a chorinho by Ernesto Nazareth.

This is he playing in some documentary...

That's from his DVD, he's playing a very popular tune from the '60s, called "Disparada". Of course it's his particular version of the song, though... :-)

He and Hamilton de Holanda play a very brazilian version of a tune by Astor Piazzolla...

He and Armandinho (an amazing (electric) guitar player from Bahia!) play a beautiful chorinho...

A chorinho by Baden Powell (one of the greatest brazilian guitarists of all time, certainly gonna be mentioned in the future).

The Clientele [Band]

2007-07-15T23:22:00.000-03:00

I've discovered quite a few interesting things since I subscribed to eMusic. One of the best things I discovered there, even though admittedly I should've known about it already, was The White Stripes. I guess the other band I've gotten more fond of is The Clientele, which, btw, I don't think I have to apologize for not knowing about before: even the more reason to write about them. They make these sort of dreamy pop songs, really interesting, really distinctively sounding. The first album I got from them was Strange Geometry, released in 2005 (but I only downloaded it a couple of months ago). It's an amazing album, really melancholic, every song dealing with some kind of failed relationship. I'd say my favorite is the album opener, "Since K Got Over Me".

I don't think I'll be happy anymore
I guess I closed that door
But every night a strange geometry
Since K got over me

There's a nice video of them playing this on YouTube, I embedded it on the end of the post; it doesn't sound all that good, but I guess you can get the idea. Maybe it's best to visit their page on Last.fm (here) and listen to bits of their songs. This is a very evenly balanced album, you won't feel like skipping any of the songs, they sort of blend in together, and the whole thing sounds like analyzing all the failed relationships and unattainable loves you've had (or not) throughout your life... only it all feels like a dream... like floating around all these memories... OK, maybe I overdid it a bit, that's how it feels to me, you probably won't get the same feel for it... but it's a record worth listening to, definitely... who knows how it'll make you feel?
After a few weeks, I got their new album: God Save The Clientele, and as much expectation as I had built up from Strange Geometry, I didn't get disappointed. Where Strange Geometry is melancholic, even sort of "rural", I reckon God Save The Clientele is sunnier, which for some people apparently ruined it. Well, for me, it didn't. It's still dreamy, but it's a little like dreaming of sunnier, happier memories... at least that's what it sounds like, I must admit I haven't yet payed much attention to the lyrics (they're kinda hard to find online)... It's a great album, and specially interesting for me is the fact that they didn't repeat themselves that much. I mean, you still only need a couple of chords to tell this album is from the same guys that made Strange Geometry, but it's not the same, it doesn't sound old, they shifted their focus a bit, and the result is very interesting and very fresh.

A nice day for sports (in Brasil, that is)

2007-07-15T22:57:00.000-03:00

Winning is good. Beating Argentina is just extra fun!! Brasil is football champion of the Americas today, after beating Argentina 3 to 0. Well, technically we were the champions yesterday too 'cause we'd won the last time around too, but that's just a detail. Oh, and it was against Argentina too... :-) It's even more fun 'cause we didn't play with our main team and Argentina did, so they were widely considered big favorites. Even better, then!!! :-)
Even more impressing is that we won the volley world league. Twice: under-20 and overall. Both against the Russians. The impressing thing is that it's the seventh world title for us, FIVE OF THEM IN A ROW. Yes, that's right: it's the fifth time in a row that Brasil wins the world league. And the game wasn't even broadcast on freakin' television!!! That makes no fucking sense: OK, I know we are the football country and all that shit (even though we got our asses kicked in the World Cup), but come on!!! How can you not broadcast the finals of the world championship when your country has already won four times in a row and is a big favorite for the fifth... it's just stupid, that's what it is...
On top of that we got a few medals on the Pan American, including our first gold, that came for Taekwondo... congrats!!

But somebody please tell the guys that decide what's worth broadcasting on TV (open TV, that is... I don't have cable) that, when Brasil is playing for the sixth title in a row (eight overall) in the next world league, WE WANT TO WATCH IT!!!

Pixar

2007-07-03T11:10:00.000-03:00

This past weekend I went to the movies to watch Ratatouille, the new cartoon by Pixar. I, as most people, have gotten used to expecting a lot from Pixar. These guys have made no mistakes so far, it's unbelievable. So, for the sake of nostalgia I decided to do a quick tour back through the great releases they've given us these past 12 years. First thing to notice, they released 8 full-length movies in 12 years. Apparently it takes them about 3 years to write/produce/release one of their cartoons. So, at any given time they must be seriously working on at least two of them, likely more. And at the beginning they could not afford to be wrong and release flops, 'cause it would take them up to two years to release something again and they'd have serious problems surviving that far (now that they're owned by Disney and have accumulated so much cash from past releases, I don't think that poses a threat anymore). Just an interesting fact: Pixar was founded by Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO in the mid-80's after he had gotten "fired" from his own company. They did a lot of short-length cartoons and R&D until they finally released Toy Story in 1995 and made history. Please, if you haven't watched that, go rent it right now!!! It's a classic!! They've released so far:

1995 - Toy Story
1998 - A Bug's Life
1999 - Toy Story 2
2001 - Monsters Inc.
2003 - Finding Nemo
2004 - The Incredibles
2006 - Cars
2007 - Ratatouille

It's a pretty impressive lineup. None of those raked in less than 150 million dollars in the US alone. To form the Top-10-cartoons-since-Pixar-came-along list, I'd only add Shrek (1 & 2, never the third!!!) and Ice Age (yeah, I know that makes 11 cartoons, but bear with me...)

The only one that I don't think is that good is Cars, which is only so-so. I'd say Ratatouille is better than Cars, maybe as good as A Bug's Life. Well, that's saying a lot since apparently the only guys who matched Pixar at their best are doing stuff like Shrek the Third now... yeah, I really didn't like Shrek the Third... it's a waste of a great franchise!!!!

So, why are they so successful? Is it the eye-popping animation?? Certainly it helps a lot, Ratatouille is so far beyond anything else I've seen from other production companies that its embarrassing (they actually showed the trailers for a couple of other computer-generated cartoons when I went to Ratatouille. It is literally embarrassing.). But I guess it's the storytelling that really makes the difference. The main character of the movie is a freakin' rat that wants to become a chef in Paris!!!! Have you ever heard anything more absurd than that?!?!!?!! But if you have the least bit of fantasy in you, they find a way of taking you through this crazy journey up to the point where you catch yourself wondering if it's actually possible for a rat with a super-heightened sense of taste to become a chef at a French restaurant. And that alone is worthwhile... :-)

Just for nostalgia's sake, here's one version of their best shorts... I guess you can't post the original on YouTube, so people apparently change the soundtrack and do it anyways!!

Misheard Lyrics

2007-06-30T10:47:00.000-03:00

There's this thing on YouTube now, where you take songs with incomprehensible lyrics and just make a video with what you understand the guy's saying. The first time I saw this was with the hilarious version of Jaspion's theme song in portuguese, "O Cara Tossiu". It's fucking hilarious, but if you do a search on YouTube right now for "misheard lyrics" hundreds of videos will turn up. I've seen a few of them, and they're mostly shit... but there's at least one that everybody should see: Yellow Ledbetter, by Pearl Jam. It's especially great because, as much of a mumbler as Eddie Vedder usually is, in this song he breaks records. I mean, I really think there are no official lyrics to this song, every time he sings it he does it differently, and he mumbles A LOT!!!!! So, here's some random guy's take on Yellow Ledbetter!!!

Icky Thump [Album]

2007-06-26T13:53:00.000-03:00

A couple of weeks ago I opened the daily e-mail I receive (and usually ignore) from the NY Times and decided to look through it and see if maybe something interested had happened. I was surprised to learn that The White Stripes were releasing a new album, and that it'd gotten pretty good reviews. So, I rushed to eMusic and there it was: Icky Thump. It was the high of my newfound White Stripes fever and I just got the damn thing. The thing is, my expectations for this thing were quite the opposite of when I got Elephant: I already thought Elephant was an instant classic and couldn't expect anything less than that from the new Stripes... and I'll admit I was disappointed. I mean, the album is pretty good, but I was expecting classic. I was expecting an opening like Seven Nations Army, brilliant, surprising twists like "In the Cold, Cold, Night", or "You've Got Her in Your Pocket", loud music all over the place, an occasional Zeppelin revival, and an endearing closer "Well It's True That We Love One Another". And that was just not fair.

Realizing the unfairness of my judgment I decided to give it another chance and postponed writing it off... so now, some 10 days later and after listening to it for the 6th or 7th time, I think I finally got it: it's damn good!! It starts off weird, I'd say... Icky Thump is a pretty unusual track but it grows on you... somewhat following the structure of Elephant, they go on to shift a little bit to ballads, White-Stripes-style ballads, that is... then, they go over to some spanish-guitar-flamenco inspired tune that is just great!! The album goes on like this, sometimes surprising, sometimes loud and heavy, sometimes Guns 'n Roses-y ("Rag and Bone"??), The White Stripes are never less than fantastically fun. And they are occasionally simply amazing. I guess the bottom line is this is a great album, daring, but that doesn't have enough really genius-like moments to go face to face with Elephant. That's OK, most (great) bands go their entire careers without having anything nearly as good as Elephant. And most who do get there, get satisfied and stall. At least we can rest assured that's not happening to the White Stripes.

Thumbing My Way [Song]

2007-06-20T21:19:00.000-03:00

This is another one for my Big Book of Great Lyrics: Thumbing My Way, by Pearl Jam. Well, let me start by saying that Pearl Jam is my favorite "present-day" band. Period. They've been my favorite band for quite some time now, almost a decade. And this is definitely amongst their best stuff. I didn't actually hear Thumbing My Way for the first time in Riot Act, I listened to it on Live At Benaroya Hall, a great, mostly acoustic, live album they released a few years ago. And I just loved it!! First of all, about the title: it took me a while to figure it out, and I didn't get it by myself (thanks, Riss!), that what he means by "Thumbing" is hitchhiking: you know, like you stick your thumb out to try and get a ride. Now that I know that, it seems pretty obvious from the lyrics, but it eluded me for quite some time...

I have not been home since you left long ago
I'm thumbing my way back to heaven

Counting steps,.. walking backwards on the road
I'm counting my way back to heaven

I can't be free with what's locked inside of me...
If there was a key, you took it in your hands.
There's no wrong or right,... but I'm sure there's good and bad
The questions linger overhead

No matter how cold the winter, there's a springtime ahead
I'm thumbing my way back to heaven
I wish that I could hold you... wish that I had
Thinking 'bout heaven

I let go of a rope,... thinking that's what held me back
And in time I've realized,... it's now wrapped around my neck
I can't see what's next,... from this lonely overpass
Hang my head and count my steps, as another car goes past

All the rusted signs we ignore throughout our lives
Choosing the shiny ones instead
I turned my back,... now there's no turning back

No matter how cold the winter,.. there's a springtime ahead
I smile, but who am I kidding?
I'm just walking the miles,.. every once in a while I'll get a ride
I'm thumbing my way back to heaven

Thumbing my way back to heaven
I'm thumbing my way back to heaven...

For me, it's about the end of something really important and the doubts it brings along. The first couple of verses tell us that the singer broke up with someone, and since then he is lost, adrift... a verse that always gets me is

I can't be free with what's locked inside of me...
If there was a key, you took it in your hands.

Then the singer starts to try and convince himself that everything is going to be ok, that he'll be alright without her, that he'll find his heaven again, but apparently the best he can come up with are these common sense, cliché quotes like "No matter how cold the winter,.. there's a springtime ahead", and gives us a little insight into what actually happened

I let go of a rope,... thinking that's what held me back
And in time I've realized,... it's now wrapped around my neck
I can't see what's next,... from this lonely overpass
Hang my head and count my steps, as another car goes past

That's another part of the song that I really love, describing this very real, sort of complicated scenario for a break-up... and later on finally adds, perfectly describing the hopelessness of the whole situation...

I smile, but who am I kidding?

He realizes there's no shortcut back to the place he wish he could be, the place that now he believes he was at... and, even worse, it's his fault he is not in this "heaven" anymore... eventually, all he can do is give in and try and live with the fact that it's gonna take a while to get over all this and all he can hope for is some help along the way...

The White Stripes [Music]

2007-06-15T20:15:00.001-03:00

This is sort of yesterday's news (well, actually 2003 news) but The White Stripes rock! Of course I'd heard of them before, and of course I'd heard one or two of their songs... but I'd never paid attention and I missed out on the opportunity of enjoying Elephant... this is definitely one of the best albums I've heard for quite a while... and it kinda got me by surprise: I got it from eMusic (mp3 at a fair price and no DRM, just fantastic) and put it on my iPod to go to the gym. I was blown away, and I've heard the entire album quite a few times since then... it starts strong and heavy with "Seven Nation Army" (probably their best-known song?), goes louder, then delivers a Burt Bacharach cover ("I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" , then the sweet Meg White-sung ballad "In The Cold, Cold Night", then Led Zeppelin comes back from the dead in "Ball and Biscuit"... when it all ended with "Well It's True That We Love One Another" it just left me wondering where the hell I was four years ago and how could I miss all this... just fuckin' amazing!!!

The Landlord [Skit]

2007-06-11T18:25:00.000-03:00

After watching Stranger than Fiction I've become sort of a fan of Will Ferrel's... and then I saw this on YouTube... it's just funny as hell!!!

An Odd Weekend

2007-06-10T23:30:00.000-03:00

The truth is I watch far too many movies to have the patience and time to write about all of them. I really wish I did write about them, but I don't. Especially because most movies I watch aren't that noteworthy: not too bad, not (in the timeless words of Joey Tribbiani) the best-thing-since-sliced-bread, just some quality 2-hour entertainment. As the addict I know I am, I need it. But I do like to write about the movies that are noteworthy: and how often do you watch in the same weekend the best and the worst movie of the year (so far)??

Let's start with the worst movie of the year. I know it's only June, and whenever you say "It couldn't get any worse", it does, but I seriously doubt I'll watch anything worse than Premonition in the movies this year. There are only two good things about this movies: Sandra Bullock's tits. That's it. And, I'm sorry to say that, they're far from being enough to entertain anyone for 96 minutes... the movie is dumb, dull, annoying, and it makes absolutely no sense at all. I actually checked my votes on IMDb, and, as I suspected, the last movie that had annoyed me as much as this one was Catwoman (yes, I did watch it), and that's saying A LOT!!! Please, even if you are desperate and there's nothing else on that you haven't watched, go see something you've already seen. It's better than wasting your money on this. It would have certainly ruined my mood, were it not for the beers I drank afterwards... :-)

Now, the good news: Stranger Than Fiction. It's actually old news, but I hadn't watched it yet: I was traveling when it opened in Brasil and it only arrived in video stores this week. This movie is what people should aim at when they start writing scripts. It's certainly the kind of movie I wish I could write. It's brilliant, poetic, funny, moving, beautiful. Everybody is on the top of their games: the script is amazing (why the fuck wasn't it nominated for the Oscar??!!?!?!), each and every actor is perfectly cast and just amazingly comfortable in their characters, it's well directed, it's got a pretty cool soundtrack... just a combination of wonderful qualities. I don't usually tell the stories of the movies I write about, but I'm gonna make an exception with this one: it's about a guy who suddenly starts to hear in his head a narration of his own life. And, surely, he starts obsessing about it when he learns some troubling news about his future. If that's is not enough to enthrall you, well I'm sorry... maybe you should go watch Premonition: who knows, you might like it!

Anna Begins [Song]

2007-06-08T14:21:00.000-03:00

So, I guess everybody has a big book of great lyrics. Maybe its unwritten, but it's there, at least for everyone who really likes music. So I'm gonna start writing about mine, one song at a time. I've always been more touched by lyrics than melody. I really agree with people that say that a tune catches your attention because of how it sounds but you will listen to it over and over again only if the lyrics gets to you. And I'm gonna try and pick a few of my favorite lyrics to write about here. Let's start with Anna Begins, by Counting Crows.
First, a little context: this song is in the August and Everything After album, the one with Mr. Jones, certainly Counting Crow's most famous song. This album came out in 1993, and it's one of my favorite '90s album. And Anna Begins is my favorite tune on that album. I put a link to last.fm, sadly they don't have the whole song on-line but to hear to a piece of it, just press the play button.

Here are the lyrics:

My friend assures me, "It's all or nothing."
I am not worried
I am not overly concerned
My friend implores me, "For one time only,
make an exception." I am not worried
Wrap her up in a package of lies
Send her off to a coconut island
I am not worried I am not overly concerned
with the status of my emotions
"Oh," she says, "you're changing."
But we're always changing It does not bother me to say this isn't love
Because if you don't want to talk about it then it isn't love
And I guess I'm going to have to live with that
But I'm sure there's something in a shade of grey,
Something in between,
And I can always change my name
If that's what you mean

My friend assures me, "It's all or nothing."
But I am not really worried I am not overly concerned
You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself
To make yourself forget I am not worried
"If it's love," she said, "then we're going to have to think about the consequences."
She can't stop shaking
I can't stop touching her and...
This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes her away and Anna begins to change her mind
"These seconds when I'm shaking leave me shuddering for days," she says
And I'm not ready for this sort of thing

But I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
I'm not going to bend, and I'm not going to break and I'm not going to worry about it anymore
It seems like I should say, "As long as this is love..."
But it's not all that easy so maybe I should
Snap her up in a butterfly net Pin her down on a photograph album
I am not worried I've done this sort of thing before
But then I start to think about the consequences
Because I don't get no sleep in a quiet room and...

The time when kindness falls like rain
It washes me away and Anna begin s to change my mind
And every time she sneezes I believe it's love and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

She's talking in her sleep
It's keeping me awake and Anna begins to toss and turn
And every word is nonsense but I understand and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

Her kindness bangs a gong
It's moving me along and Anna begins to fade away
It's chasing me away
She disappears and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

The song basically has three "acts" in which the narrator becomes increasingly aware that what is happening between himself and "Anna" is indeed love. He seems at first unworried. Later he notices that she is starting to think that it's love and

"If it's love," she said, "then we're going to have to think about the consequences."

They knew from the start that their relationship had no future. Finally he becomes painfully aware of what it all means, that he does love her

It seems like I should say, "As long as this is love..."

and that there is no solution.

Her kindness bangs a gong
It's moving me along and Anna begins to fade away
It's chasing me away
She disappears and
Oh lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

It's so sad, and intense and real... and it's apparently based on Adam's own experience while backpacking somewhere (through Europe, I assume... do people even backpack somewhere else??)... he actually fell in love with someone, but they lived too far for any kind of relationship to be feasible between students with no money at all... and later when he become famous and made this song about her, she was already married with a whole other life... well, time doesn't stop even when maybe it should.

When Nietzsche Wept [Book]

2007-06-05T23:40:00.000-03:00

OK, this long overdue post on Nietzsche is gonna start with a confession of sorts: I admit I was really prejudiced against this book. I don't really know why, probably the title and the whole thing just seemed a little bit corny... I thought it was just some cheap way of capitalizing on Nietzsche's name. I certainly wouldn't have bought it. But my mom gave it to me, so I thought "hey, what the hell, I'll give it a try!". And a try I gave. Only after having already loved it did I find out it's written by a professor from Standford who certainly knows what he's talking about. And since I've always really enjoyed reading Nietzsche, but hadn't done so in a while, it was really good to shake the dust off of a few of his books.

First off, a piece of advice. If you can get your hands on Nietzsche's autobiography (of sorts), called Ecce Homo, I really think you should read the first couple of chapters beforehand. They are called:

Why am I so wise
Why am I so intelligent
Why do I write such good books

(Well, that's a free translation, I don't know how the actual English version goes.)
I guess from that you can take a little perspective on who Nietzsche was and what he thought of himself (certainly no self-esteem problems there). After that, it's gonna be a little easier to appreciate and understand Irvin D. Yalom's portrayal of Nietzsche in his book. It's really something amazing. After a slightly rocky start, while the whole plot is being set up, the last two thirds or so of the book are just inspired. It's all about the dialogs, and Mr. Yalom is certainly very good at that. And, as long as I could tell being no expert, it's really accurate regarding Nietzsche's general philosophy. It's probably the best and easiest way to be introduced to it.

Nietzsche, in my opinion, is someone to be admired. Not necessarily believed in, or followed: but most certainly admired. His relentless search for "truth", each one's truth that is, is nothing less of inspiring. And he wrote powerful words. I couldn't help but get a weird feeling of getting analyzed along with Nietzsche and Dr. Breuer (the two main characters in the book). And couldn't help but feeling many questions answered and many thoughts challenged or confirmed in a brilliant way. I can't think of anything better to be read, absorbed, reread, and then discussed over a few beers with great friends.

The Zimmers - My Generation

2007-06-01T11:03:00.000-03:00

Campaign that started as a documentary about the way England treats its old citizens, and ended up turning them into rock stars!! :-)

Is Microsoft back at the innovation business, or is it just a huge iPhone?

2007-05-30T13:54:00.000-03:00

Well, you be judge of the new product Microsoft is planning to release in the next few months... it sure looks cool, even though I'm not so sure how willing I'd be to just put beer cans and coffee mugs on top of my new fancy US$10.000,00 coffee table... is it really a good idea?? is it just a blown-up iPhone, or is Microsoft actually back at being revolutionary and inventive??

mp3, iTunes, standards and taglib

2007-05-29T14:58:00.000-03:00

I have a somewhat large mp3 collection. And, specially since I got my iPod, I really like it all to be organized, correctly tagged, with Album covers, all of that. I use iTunes to manage my collection and perform all these annoying tasks, specially because it's supposed be trustworthy and compatible with the iPod. The problem is I work mostly on Linux, so whenever I'd come to the lab and rip a few songs from my iPod to listen on Amarok most covers would get messed up. It would recognize correctly about half the cover and just gray out the rest. Weird, right? Specially because it worked perfect on the iPod. So I grabbed pytagger, which I'd hacked around a bit because of another tag-related problem I'd had before, to try and find out what was going on. I ended up with this little script to extract the cover art from .mp3 files (it creates an AlbumArt.jpg file on the dir of the mp3 file, note that it doesn't replace the AlbumArt.jpg file if it exists!!!). And they got extracted just perfectly well. But the AlbumArt.jpg files weren't enough because, even though Amarok would recognize them as the album cover, it would still use the messed up version when specific songs were being played. Damn!!! So I dug a little deeper to find the problem: taglib was reading the wrong size for the image. That's why it would read only half of the image or so. The id3v2 2.4 specs say that the size should be written using synchsafe integers (with the most-significant bit always set to zero), and taglib abides to that. Apparently, iTunes doesn't (and neither does pytagger)!!! So, all my mp3's (that have id3v2 2.4 tags) aren't compliant with the standard. Thanks a lot iTunes! Since I wasn't about to retag ~6000 mp3 files, or risk not being compatible with my iPod, I hacked taglib to do the wrong thing and act like iTunes. Find the file /taglib/mpeg/id3v2/id3v2frame.cpp, in the taglib source dir and change the line


  d->frameSize = SynchData::toUInt(data.mid(4, 4));



  if (d->frameID=="APIC") 
    d->frameSize = data.mid(4, 4).toUInt();
  else
    d->frameSize = SynchData::toUInt(data.mid(4, 4));

It's a horrible hack, but I'll have to live with it until something changes (either iTunes gets fixed, or I downgrade all my songs to id3v2 2.3 or 2.2, which would probably be the best solution). Hope this actually helps anyone facing the same problems I was.

The iGasm, just priceless!!!

2007-05-25T10:08:00.000-03:00

Ok, that's the new iGadget out there... I don't even know what to say... just hilarious

But it's actually serious, and Apple is suing them because the ad is too similar to the iPod ad...

American Idol 6

2007-05-24T11:05:00.000-03:00

OK, yesterday season 6 of American Idol ended with a blast, and 17-year-old Jordin Sparks was the winner. I didn't actually watch the show, but I read about the finals being yesterday and got a little curious, because it seemed the race was pretty tight. So, I went to our great friend YouTube and basically watched the performances from the Top 6 to form an opinion. I think it was really fair up to the Top 3. They were all really good, but I think that the best one was Melinda Doolittle, who didn't make it to the great finals. Eventually, it was a battle between the best entertainer (Blake Lewis) and the best singer(Jordin), as Simon put it. And Jordin came out on top.

Since I actually spent some time seeing the performances, I selected 4 from each singer (best song first) to put here... check 'em out!

By Jordin Sparks:
- I Who Have Nothing
- Broken Wing
- I Am a Woman in Love
- This Is My Now (actually, didn't like it so much... but it's interesting to compare with Blake's version.)

By Blake Lewis:
- You Give Love a Bad Name (Awesome, I guess this performance is what actually got him all the way to the end)
- This Love
- This Is Where I Came In
- This Is My Now (Once again, just to compare)

By Melinda Doolitle :
- I'm a Woman
- Nut Bush City Limits
- Trouble is a Woman
- Mend a Broken Heart

OK, I'm gonna put more than 4, 'cause they're all great, and not at all similar, as other contestants'!!!
- I Believe in You and Me
- Have a Nice Day
- As Long As He Needs Me
- Sway
- For Once in My Life [Her Audition!!!!!!!!]

* Keep in mind that I didn't actually watch the whole season, so I may have missed something really good... in that case, I'd love some new pointers...

Fracture [Movie]

2007-05-24T10:37:00.000-03:00

Fracture, Gregory Hoblit , 8,5/10

It is so seldom that I'm actually (positively) surprised by a movie, that I always try to write a little bit about it. Yesterday (cheap ticket day) I went to the movies with a couple of friends to watch Fracture ("Um Crime de Mestre" in portuguese). It had a lot of stuff going for it, actually... pretty good cast, with Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling; very cool trailer, interesting premise... and a pretty good director, with at least two noteworthy movies: Fallen, and Primal Fear (well, actually Fallen falls a little short of what it could've been... but Primal Fear will always be the movie that put Edward Norton on the spotlight with that amazing performance!!). So, in retrospect, maybe it surprised me because I expected too little of it. But, whatever the reason was, it was a great surprise... one of the best thrillers of the year, hands down! Great performances, great plot, almost flawless script (but hey, who's perfect right?!), holds the tension 'till the very end... it's a really great movie, worth watching any time (not only on the cheap ticket day!! :-) )

Why do I hate (auto)biographies? And the one I didn't hate...

2007-05-16T17:26:00.000-03:00

OK, so I've tried reading biographies: actually, the whole concept of a biography seems appealing, you admire someone and want to read about their life, how they got to be who they are. But, for some reason, I really don't like reading biographies. I've tried (auto)biographies of great people that I admire, Gandhi, Che Guevara... of important, relevant people such as Winston Churchill, or just of great writers such as José Saramago and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I haven't actually got to finish any of those: and I don't usually start a book and leave it before finishing... so, why don't I like them?? And why do I love this one in particular: Ecce Homo, by Nietzche.

I guess I don't like biographies because they usually go into so much detail about the dullest things... what do I care if Che Guevara had a flu when he was 11? I guess it's really hard for the writers to really set apart what's interesting to a ley person from what's only relevant to scholars and such... or maybe I just haven't found anyone famous that I was that much interested about... so I probably hate biographies because I can't get past the first few chapters of any of them... it's so damn dull!!! Where they were born, their uninteresting family problems, schools, bla, bla, bla... One of these days I'll just try starting from chapter 8 or something and see where it goes from there...

OK, the post is too long already, guess I'll talk about Nietzsche some other time...

My Grandma's Balcony

2007-05-13T22:39:00.000-03:00

By the way, this is the view from my grandma's balcony...

Hair update.

2007-05-13T21:41:00.000-03:00

So, just to keep some kind of a track record, this is how my hair looked like a couple of weeks ago:

That's a picture I took in Rio, at the hostel we were. After that, I I've already redone these braids a little differently, but the funniest picture is the one I took with no braids... my hair is huge!!!!

Tomorrow I'll take some pictures of how it looks like right now (no, I'm not walking around looking like that on the right).

On the coming of death

2007-05-12T22:29:00.000-03:00

It's funny how many books used to be written simply about some fact, feeling or concept, and how it would affect someone, or people in general. Nobody does that anymore, I guess because all the great topics have already been taken, and quite wonderfully written about. I'm writing all this to talk about two books I just finished reading: The Death of Ivan Ilitch (Tolstoi) and The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death (Victor Hugo). They both deal with the approach of unavoidable, inexorable death: in the former caused by a mysterious ailment, in the latter by human stupidity, arrogance and intolerance (well, more objectively by the death penalty). They are both wonderful novels written by two genius, arguably the best their respective countries ever had to offer. Both near contemporary, well at least they shared a century. Both are opinion-makers, they don't write merely for the beauty of writing: they want to pass along their ideas. But each pushed by very different reasons.
Tolstoi puts his own ghosts in his writing, by facing the fear of death and, worse yet, of life wasted. He harshly criticizes what was believed to be a "good" life by his fellow russians, a decent life indeed. The slow decay of respectable judge Ivan Ilitch into despair and almost-inhumanity caused by the certainty of death-to-come is a horrible and disturbing thing to read about. But most disturbing is his ultimate realization and evaluation of how he lived his life.
Victor Hugo is also harsh in his attack on death penalty. He describes the last days of a dead-man, for after the sentenced is pronounced he is indeed dead. He is a nameless convict. Hugo doesn't go for the easy solution of creating some sort of bond between the reader and the convict by describing him as particularly nice, or wrongly accused. No, he is guilty. Of what, we don't know, but certainly of something awful. The only shred of humanity in him is his daughter, the 3-year-old girl orphaned by each and every french person that allows such cruelty to go on. I don't remember seeing such a well-crafted, beautiful defence of something that ultimately shouldn't need defending, as this novel, together with the impressive 1832 preface (that, luckily enough, was reproduced in my edition of the book) Hugo wrote. And I recommend that everyone that ever stopped to think about the fairness and morality of the death penalty read it.

For free, at the Project Gutenberg (well, in the original french)
The edition I read, in portuguese: (Livraria Cultura).

Ilhéus and free WiFi

2007-05-12T22:21:00.000-03:00

So, I came to spend mother's day with my mom at my grandparent's place. They live in Ilhéus, a very nice town in south Bahia (will post pictures later, but Google is your friend). Like any other geek MSc. student with a lot going on at the same time, I missed Internet (actually, I didn't miss it yet, since I just got here... but I knew I was gonna miss it pretty soon). But, after dinner, while everybody was watching the soaps, I came out to the balcony to work on some stuff I had to write. Well, since optimism is one thing I have a lot of, I just start looking for WiFi networks on the neighborhood... found three of them, and guess what?!?! One of them was open!!!! God bless unsecured, free WiFi net access!!!!