Me & and the Enigma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?