malta (II)

malta (I)

sight from my hotel room. this was afternoon. by the time i'm posting this, i'm completely wasted. do never drink with americans or british. they don't know when to stop. really.

houston, we have a problem

a three-hour flight with a soddin' bastard, fat as a pig, snorling in virtual dolby surround 5.1 is truly a pain in the ass. i swear the pilot in his cabin with the door closed could hear the motherfucker snorling, for fuck's sake. i don't get it. if we have to turn off cellphones 'cause they interfere with the aircraft's systems, why didn't someone stabbed the man in his bloody throat? i mean, it had to interfere with something there.

the civilization missed the flight

in madrid's airport (well, at least in termonal 4 anyway), there are little glass lounges with tables and ashtrays where smokers can go and have a cigarrette. in rome, there is a great lounge, with comfortable couches, ashtrays, tables and even a cigarrette vending machine. both are very well ventilated.

what do we get at lisbon's airport? a stinky table at the further corner of the bloody terminal, with a couple of ashtrays. a space with no ventilation whatsoever, which allows the smoke to roam free all around. we are always looking at what the other countries do, aren't we? then we could start improving the smoking areas as well.

luck

with all the crap i put myself into, i'm one hell of a lucky bastard, no doubt about it.

hierarchy (II)

the top is seldom able to see - and to propperly understand - the bottom, and the bottom sedom sees the top as well. but there is a great difference between both instances. if one is at a skyscrapper's rooftop, one can see what's going on below - it's merely a matter of approaching the edge, look down and watch the street. on the other hand, someone standing on the street can't see shit of the rooftop - at best, one might be able to see who's staring from above, and only if one doesn't get blind by the sun.

hierarchy

when someone fucks up above, the bill is paid below.

of blood and honor

there was a story within the world of warcraft game that touched more than many books i've read. in the north of the desolated plaguelands, between a river and the mountains, there is a small cottage where an old man dwells, his only company being his noble horse. the man was tirion fordring, and he had been in a time long since forgotten in those dark days, one of the first paladins of the order of the silver hand. but we don't know this from the start, for he keeps his reclusive way until we prove we're trustworth. and then, tirion asks for help in a personal quest - to retreave some mementos of his old life, which include a portrait of himself with his wife and son, taelan, a symbol of lost honor, and a warhammer toy he crafted for his son when he was a child. then, tirion asks us to meet his son - who is now the highlord of the scarlet crusade, a fanatical horder that vowed to destroy the undead presence in the lands of lordaeron and everyone that carries the slightest ressemblance of a plague. we manage to get to taelan and show him the artifacts which make him renounce his rank and sets off to meet his father. but he faces the inquisitor isilien in the way out of the city of heartglen, and is murdered, which sends tirion into a killing spree towards the inquisitor. after isilien's fall, the aged paladin weeps on his son's dead body and vows to rebuid the order of the silver hand, so his death was not in vain.

but unanswared was the origin of the tale - why was tirion fordring alone? how could he and his son gone to such separete ways? what happened to tirion for him to leave the paladin ways? these questions are all answered in the of blood and honor book (more a shortstory if you ask me). the story takes place after the second war, when tirion fordring was the lord of mardenholde keep and ruler of heartglen. but an unexpected encounter with a weathered orc exile changes his life forever.

the story was written by chris metzen, the creative brain behind all blizzard entertainment's works. it's about honor and duty, and how the others must not be judged by what they seem to be. truly remarkable, the tale.

lick

in several ways, your personal efforts and your merit mean little. in the end, the ones who get all the acknowledgement are not the ones who did more than the others, but the ones who practiced the art of approaching the right people - and lick some asses too.

storm (II)

i love when the hell breaks loose. i really do. as unpleasant as it might be, it's always a nice opportunity to say things that would otherwise remain unspoken.

the way we say it is what we say

not rarely, people fuck up everything when they say something to us, and it's not because they are not right. rather, it is because of the way those things are said. i think i've written this here before, and that i'm probably repeating myself. but reality keeps shoving me situations like this in my face. i don't know, but some people should know this by now.

a friend (I)

it would be somehow unfair for me to say that l. was the best friend i ever had, especially nowadays. life has forced us to go separate ways, something we knew seven years ago, during the high-school, when every morning and every night we sat side by side in the bus. we simply didn't care about it back then. and why should we?

we still don't care about the distance. our friendship is one of those rare relationships that time cannot erase. we might be months without talking to each other, without seeing each other at all. but when we finally get together, we both know it will be like it used to. we'll still have the same intuition we always had, that makes us think the exact same thing about whatever happens around us. we still have a lot to talk about, and more important, we can still enjoy each other's company in silence, when sitting in her car at late night in somewhere far away, quietly smoking a cigarrette. of course, while distance brings a lot of talking when we meet, it also implies that we're not as present as we used to be, giving room to other people to know us better, to get closer. hence the reason why i can't say l., whose dark red hair hides an original bright yellow, is not my best friend. but that our friendship is the best i have with a girl, well, no doubt about it.

travel

a university teacher i had on my first year asked me once to do a small presentation to the class about the reasons why i had chosen to study journalism - and to become one. most of the stuff i said was sheer non-sense, and i wouldn't say it now because now i know better, and in the meantime realised being a journalist isn't as good as i thought it would be. ironically, one of the things i thought it would be merely a romantic dream (in the literary meaning of the word romantinc, mind you) became ral surprisingly fast - travelling. three months as a temporary, unpaid journalist allowed me to visit the riviera twice, and will allow me, just before it is over, to go to malta an italy. those trips were not touristic tours, when one has the time to see everything around and stuff like that, but still - they've represented an unique opportunity to go out, meet new people, taste a bit of different cultures. and more important, those treks allowed me to dream on leaving all this one day, never to return.

to write about not writing

a friend told me not long ago that someone who writes (me, in this case) should do it even when one lacks the inspiration, the state of mind to do it. how? well, she said that if one cannot write new stuff, then one should rewrite what was already written. the reason was the practice, the discipline. the writing process, she argues, must be disciplined, and one who writes must be able to do so even in the most uninspired moments. what is important is never to stop.

i see the point, but the fact is, sometimes the state of mind doesn't allow me to do a decent rewriting. and i suck at it. i really do. i mean, i can do it, all right, but not immediately. if i wrote a chapter of a novel yesterday, i can't go on and rewrite it today just because today i can't produce a brand new chapter. the main problem about rewriting is that everything we wrote is still red hot in our minds, and it gets hard to detect errors and lacks of coherence. it takes some time and some distance from what we wrote to be able to do a good revamp of whatever we have written.

the best thing to do (at least for me) when the inspiration lies six feet under and the mind is clouded is to write precisely about that - the lack of inspiration and the blank state of mind.

storm

seldom are things as they seem to be. there is always a catch. it's like a contract - it's all clear, but what really matters is what is written in tiny letters. what no one ever reads.

anyway. lisbon is under a beautiful storm, with lightning bolts traversing the never-black city skies. it almost makes my day, really.

this bloody country is really the end of the world, i tell you.

dial-up

nowadays i do never know what to do when someone i don't want to talk to calls me on the phone. cellphone, that is. the first thought is to ignore it, and let it ring to oblivion - not much of a problem for me, since my cellphone has never any sound or ringtone activated, only the vibration mode. but people tend to keep trying to call us as long as they can, and it gets rather annoying to have a phone ringing or vibrating on your pocket or wallet. i could rejet the call, it would be as simple as to push a key stroke. but the thing is, today's phones are so modern and all that i really don't know what information do they give about the call - whether it failed or was terminated or disconnected, i really have no clue.

which is ironic, since lack of connection can generate an unintended connection - the fact that someone know that we rejected the call leaves us defenceless, with no excuses. if you ask me, this is the most serious invasion on my privacy. no one has the right to know if reject their phone calls or if i simply don't listen the phone ringing. we must all be able to lie if we want to keep relatively sane, don't we?

anyway, the best option is to take off the battery. drastic, i know, but doable. the pain is, some phones (like my own) do not keep track of the calendar and clock if i remove the battery. oh well. how i miss the old days of dial-up phones, when no one was avaliable everywhere...

director's cut

everyone makes movies. some pretend they don't, but they do, oh yes they do. something happens, and our mind instantly reclines itself on the director's chair and shouts "action!". the one we call doesn't answer the phone - then one is bound to be avoiding us. we try again, and the phone was disconnected - oh, dear lord, now i'm sure, one's avoiding me! but why? there must be a reason. could it be that thing i did? or that other that i didn't do? and if i do this, it might lead to that. or to the other that. someone we know walks by our side on the street and says nothing - one is pissed, what the hell could have happened?

it's funny, in a way. in the process of making the entire movie on our heads, we always cast aside the most simple explanations. one haven't answered our phone call 'cause one was not near the phone, and as we kept trying it ran out of battery. happens all the time, and all the time we discard this logical explanation. we can be walking on the street and do not look at what's around us, so we might well not notice a known face walking on our side - this happens so easily.

simple explanations simply does not appeal to the little directors that live inside our heads. they don't know the kiss philosophy, i guess.

kiss (a different one)

i had this marketing teacher at university whose the best principle he knew about was the k.i.s.s. philosophy: keep it stupidly simple. and guess what, he was right all the way. we should really keep things simple. as simple as we can. so simple that they can become silly. that way everyone will understand.

the same teacher also told me once that "if someone doesn't understand what you said, it's not one's fault, but yours, for not making yourself clear". well, while my own experience thaught me that some people simply don't bother to understand a damn thing, i generally agree with my old teacher again. and it's funny: if sometimes one isn't clear not even for one's self, hoo can one expect others to understand what one says?

quoth the raven:

the strong do what they can. the weak suffer what they must.

unknown

kiss

and the lovers. how can we forget the lovers who kiss as if it was the first time, or the last time, before the long farewell or after the endless waiting?

this is brilliant. period.

(free translation by myself; really crappy, especially if we compare with the original text)

some things belong to the past

it was nice, albeit strange, to return to the place that has been a very part of my life during the last years. life have taken its course, and what i used to do is now done by new enthusiastic faces - faces whose first day there i still remember, people who, in a way, i introduced to a new reality. a reality where i used to belong, but no longer. time is merciless, you know.

derail

i felt as if we were two strangers, me and you, accidentally together in that train. it's funny and somewhat sad how we have derailed that way.

to learn

it's funny. now that i'm working i realise that four years (well, three and a half) in university haven't prepared me for the 'adult life' at all. somehow i feel i've learned everything but what really matters. now that i think of it, i guess my teachers were so bloody busy trying to make great journalists out of us, when we're all supposed to start with the basics.

above and below

the example always has to come from above, not from below.

(lack of) communication

if people don't tell us clearly what they expect us to do, how are we supposed to do it? wild guess? sheer luck? divine illumination?

(ir)responsability

and there are people who find it weird that i fiercely oppose the way european union works:

a two-day discussion in dresden, germany, about restricting and banning violent games has led to wider support for plans for a unified system across europe, reports the associated press.
european union justice and home affairs commissioner franco frattini told reporters that he, along with germany's interior minister wolfgang schaeuble and justice minister brigitte zypries, had encouraged member states "to prevent, to ban violent video games."´
frattini, who also called for a ban on the horror game rule of rose, wants a unified ratings and restrictions system across the eu's 27 countries put in place. he said, "the protection of children cannot have borders."
he added that it was important to raise awareness about the sensitivity of the issue and increase and encourage measures to be taken in a practical way by police authorities, especially on age-checking issues.
luxembourg's justice minister luc frieden joined the debate, calling for the eu to take action by saying, "access to children should be cut off. we have to ban some games."
he proposal for a unified ratings system was backed by germany, britain, greece, finland, spain, and france.

this was taken from gamespot discussion forum, and generated a massive heat among its users (and most likely among the entire european gaming comunity). i mean, this is just plain stupid. all right, there is videogame content that shouldn't be avaliable for children, but to ban those games it so take the most extreme step - by doing so, no one will have access to those games, which included the ones they were targeted to. obviously a game like resident evil is not aimed for eight year old children.

what i wonder is, where is the individual responsability in this story? if children have access to violent videogames, who is to blame? the producers? the game stores, who sell them freely to everyone? or the parents, who don't give a fuck about what they children do as long as they stay quiet? i'd go for for the last two answers.

even if a child has money of his or her own, it shouldn't be possible to buy games like that. same than what happens if a teenager goes to a drink store to buy a bottle of vodka: the shopkeeper will ask for the id, and if the teenager is under 18, there will be no vodka. if a game is meant to be for players above 18, why do a 12 year old kid gets it? game stores should be far more restrictive. i mentioned a drink store as example, but a videoclub would fit here just as well: under 18, there is no porn.

and, obviously, parents should pay more attention to their children. they should know what they do and what they see and what they play and all that. and don't come and tell me that today's parents have no time and all that crap. if they don't have time to watch over their children, they why do they have them in the first place? parents must be present. they don't need to play with their kids, but they must know what they play and control the games that they get access to. and if the parents decide that his 12 year old son can play a game rated above 18 years old, then it's their responsability, and their responsability alone.

but no, this can't be done, there is no such thing as responsability any more. it's way much better - and easier - to ban the violent content. "access to children mist be cut off", says the prime-minister of luxembourg during a fascist delirium. they start by doing this and the pandora's box gets opened. then movies can be banned, then books, then comics, and a lot more things. because it is easier to forbid that to act in a responsible way. go for it, european union. reveal your totalitarian heritage. our leaders in brussels really do one hell of a job making fools out of ourselves.

one of the gamespot forum's users, someone that answers by the alias "darthkalo", wrote something that sums this all up perfectly: there is nothing worse than someone telling you how to live your life, especially when they really don't care about you. indeed.

cannes (I)

young talents

still about those literary chain posts that some blogs have been posting recently. one book that has not changed anything at all on me was eragon (and eldest), by christopher paolini. i mean, i like fantasy literature, and if i were a religious guy i'd have an altar of some sort at home praising tolkien and philip pullman. but even though paolini has written a very nice story, it is disappointing in many ways.

i believe it comes from something i've called "the young talent syndrome". nowadays there is this tendency in the publishers, and everyone is looking for young people who like to write (sometimes these so-called young talents have no clue about writing, but still) to make them world wide best sellers. which, in my opinion, is a serious mistake. not saying that paolini is a bad writer - he is all right, without being brilliant. but someone who becomes a published writer at the age of 16 (and even 22, for what it's worth) lacks many, many things.

being the first, experience. life experience. let's take, for example, the main love story in paolini's saga, between the young rider eragon and the proud elf arya. i haven't read the last book (it's not written yet, as far as i know), but so far it seems to me something so platonic and so boring. it's not even tragic, for god's sake. but it doesn't come as a surprise. i mean, the guy has 16 years old. what does he know about love? about hatred? about mismatches, about improbabilities and impossibilities? and what has he read already? no matter how much we like to read, it's quite unlikely that, at the age of 16, we've read enough with enough attention to understand some ideas and concepts. i'm not telling that i know all this stuff from the beginning to the end. but i'm only 22. there's still so much to read and to learn and to feel.

the storyline itself is no big deal. it's simple, and okay, simple is good. it's not hard to follow. it keeps the reader close to the book to a certain degree. but it also lacks the epic dimension that is everything for a fantasy tale. i mean, it's too simple. it's always clear where lies good and evil (it's not so obvious in tolkien, and even less obvious in his dark materials trilogy by philip pullman). the heroes seem to fall too much in the old stereotypes (with the exception of the big bad guy, king galbatorix, who is always present without showing up - this is the best feature of the books so far). the conversion of eragon' brother to the darkside is not new as well - and i bet the guy will come back to the light before the end, whether he lives or dies.

i'm looking forward to read the last book, because despite everything i kinda liked the story. but i can't help but feel that it would be so much better if he had published it at the age of 36 instead of 16. i really do. it has no underlying layers. no depht. it lacks what made me feel that the lord of the rings (even the hobbit), the northern lights and the snow queen were not children's literature in any way. they really weren't (and that's the eternal mistake). a child, a teenager, is not ready to understand the deepest layers of meaning that tolkien conceived or the questions placed by pullman, even though they might find some gags amusing and the epic battles outstanding. could a child understand the desperate heroism of the riders of rohan when they charged against the armies of mordor in the plains of pellenor? could a teenager understand the religious issue that drives the entire trilogy written by pullman?

i think not. but they wouldn't find difficult at all to follow eragon's adventures. and that's exactly my point.

to improvise

as a matter of fact, i'm pretty worthless when my ability to improvise goes on a strike or decides to take some holidays in a far away beach somewhere.

post-it

i should know it by now, but it seems that somehow i never learn. it's all about priorities, and the way our memory works. obviously, if you delay something you've got to do about something you've seen, you won't remember it all when you finally get it started - and then, it all goes shitty as hell. someone please write this inone of those yellow post-it thingies and stick right in front of my eyes.

mind crap

some days are just crappy, you know? i mean, it's not that they're going wrong all the way since you wake up. you might get up, have a nice breakfast and go out under a nice sunny day and all. but somehow you can't help but feel completely lousy. ideas come and go way too fast for you to follow one - or they do not come and go at all. you sit down and think at everything you gotta do, and you simply can't do it, because there's no way you can set your mind for it. things that in any other day you'd find quite easy to accomplish become tasks worth of nothing else than a god's might. nothing connects to anything, nothing makes sense with any bloody thing. you don't know where should you start, let alone where the heck it is supposed to be over. and the question that remains is what are you supposed to do when you feel like that.

to fight

as long as we still have hope, we shall fight for our live. if ever comes the day when all the hope is taken from us, then we shall fight to get it back. or die trying.

comment box (I)

some things are truly priceless:

communism is the closest economic system from the homo erectus and its descendants. for them, ecomony is a kind of zero-sum game: if one wins, another one loses; once the game is distributed it can's be killed again; there is no possible life outside the tribe, or the clan.

now recently came a new economic system - the capitalism - which shows that every one can win without anyone losing. such a system is, obviously, against the human nature. any primitive man would know it. communism is a system that appeals to the primitive man we all have inside of us.

(said by some guy named joao p; not me, mind you)

this is wrong all the way. the reason why communism failed all the way was precisely the fact that it is against the human nature. human beings prize things like freedom, property, possession. we like to own things, be those things a piece of land, a house, a pencil or some hot chick (even though in this case it is not clear who possesses who). communism is the denial of all that. everything is from everyone. one decides what is best for everyone. and the proof is, all communist attempts were based on force, and kept by strenght of arms.

another pearl from the same clam:

if it is only an utopy, then why shall it be fought so fiercely and with so much hatred? about freedom, reality is quite different: there is no freedom as long as there still is exploitation.

(said by roberto)

exploitation? in capitalism? sure. there is exploitation. the difference is, there is also choice. i work in some place, and i trade my work for an ammount of money i think it is fair; if i don't find it fair, i can try and negociate. if it doesn't work, i can leave and find another job that suits me better. the problem with the industrial revolution (and nowadays with china, for example) was that there were many workers for few job assignments. so one couldn't really deny a job because one wasn't paid enough, because there would be someone who wouldn't care about that. china faces the same situation nowadays. those who work in factories are underpaid and their life conditions suck balls, all right. but it would be far worse if they were back to the rice fields. so they chose to go to the factories. we've all been there some years ago, but memory is in short supply in the twenty first century, it seems.

in a communist system, what would i do? i would work like a fucking slave for a "common good". hell with the "common good". i care about my own good. and if i do it, and if everyone does it, we'll be working towards that "common good". read this for further explanations.

besides, if i get paid for my work, i can pay for the work of others. it's called 'trade', and it has several millenia of existance.

it was not Nice, but it was nice as well

nice, cannes.... who the hell cares? photos got crappy, but perhaps not crappy enough to let one or two out in here. blame the camera, of course, and never the n00b reporter here.

but before i go:

some time ago i posted the lyrics of sleeping satellite, a great song by tasmin archer. it's the only song i know from her, and it has a curious story behind: i first heard the song almost a decade ago on the radio. have heard it a couple of times, but could never catch its title or its author - so i couldn't really download it or buy the cd. then i made a deal with my friends: the one who could give me the name of the song or its singer would get some free drinks on me (i'm still in debt, now that i think of it). well, it worked out after three years - when it comes to free drinks, no one forgets but the one who has to pay.

anyway.

a little research on tasmin archer in the wikipedia, and i've found the following entry:

tasmin archer is an english soul/pop/rock singer, known for her soulful voice. her first record, great expectations, spawned the smash hit, sleeping satellite, a philosophical song about the moon landings, which reached number one in the united kingdom. subsequent singles and albums were less successful.

the thing is, the song ain't nothing to do with moon landings, the apollo space program or even the outer space - my opinion, of course. it's all about a need of escape, a desire to risk everything and run away from the world we know so well in order to find something new. what we have bores the crap out of us. but we're affraid. it's in our nature to be affraid. and it takes a risk - we have to sacrifice what we have for the adventure we need. it is a choice, basically - to sacrifice or not. if we do, we might rush ourselves and fail miserably; if we don't, we will blame ourselves for never having the guts to follow our dreams.

of course, this is my interpretation.

Nice (II)

half of my wish is about to be granted. the return half, mind you. not going to stay, at least this time. will return soon, and hopefully, with some photos.

the end game

we might break up, all right, but it isn't broken right in the moment we break up. it takes some time for us to understand that it is really over. it takes a while for reality to smack our face. and when it does... we are free to despair.

the world might well be about to end

when we think that nothing else can surprise us, we catch up with reality. and then we get the most unlikely of the love stories, people we know going on the t.v. (i shouldn't be surprised by this any more, i mean, here in this stinky hole named portugal going on the telly is the meaning of life for everyone), and someone we thought smart writing as if she had twelve years old. funny world, this one.

on hope

you see, i do not know if it will be worth it. i don't really have a clue about it. i mean, after all the trouble we've put each other through, how the hell are we supposed to know if this time we'll sort it all out, if this time it will finally work as intended? i don't, and i don't think she does. the thing is, it might be relatively easy to lose everything but hope. it's always so hard to lose faith. sometimes we want to - we really do. it'd make life so much easier..! but in the end, we all hope for the best, even when we try to make ourselves believe that everything was said and done. and that's what drives us, beyond all possible reasoning.

monkey

we do things and we don't know what the hell for. in the desperate crusade for answers we get all we need, and hope. hope, for crying out loud. it defies all odds, all rules of probability. and then we wait. we wait and wait, endlessly, until that right moment when we can't wait any more, when we can't get a hold on ourselves anymore. and then we do the unthinkable, the forbidden. what denies all logic, what proves us as irrational, as being completely out of control. some people seem to believe we're driven by our logical mind. bullshit. we try to. but in the end, when despair takes us over and we no longer care if we make or break, we cast the logic aside and embrace the shadows of the feelings.

we might have left the monkey, but the monkey has never left us.

routine

we keep complaining about routine, but we sorely miss it when it is gone.

socks and stockings

my good friend érica is against stockings, nightgowns and sexy lingerie during winter. it's cold outside, or so she says. in one thing we agree: a good blanket while on the couch watching a good movie in those cold rainy days is priceless. but a sexy lingerie now and then for those special nights coming from nowhere is a great asset. i mean, i'd not mind be surprised like that by a girl. i really wouldn't. surely she wouldn't feel cold for much more time. the satin sheets, though, are a bit old school, even for me.

anyway, welcome to my links!

(oh, and old socks rule!)

child inside

in some ways, we remain children forever. the same way we toss away a toy when it loses its sense of novelty, we cast aside people we know when they can no longer give us something new. when they can no longer surprise us.

always

never know. never want. never wish. never sleep. never dream. never wake up. never drink. never smoke. never fuck. never see. you or the others around you. never care. never care to. never care about. never tell the useless or the meaningful. never cry. never smile. never cheer. never fall from grace. never be graceful. never fight. never run after, only away. never try. never fail. never understand. never assume you can understand. never hate. never love. never feel a damn thing: oh, never - nevermore.

told me a friend once

i really hope that f. will stay with me like forever, you know? i mean, now both of us are in the university and all, but that won't be forever; and after we're done with school, it's is much harder to find someone to love. i mean, it's not impossible. but it's harder. when in school you're given the opportunity to meet so many different people that eventually a couple of them, at least, will catch you eye. it makes relationships much closer. but once we're out of here, it's gets harder and harder. friendships are seldom the same, and half the girls able to make your heart beat faster will be commited or even worse, married. i'm not saying by any means that's impossible, not at all; i'm merely saying that's the odds are rather against you.

by the way, this friend of mine (who would leave university soon after) and f. are still together, and are supposed to get married soon.

so much for the fucking good morning

some days are simply a royal pain in the ass.

feel in the dark

it is so easy not to feel in the dark, in a (conscious or not) self-imposed dark. for when all the lights go out, every single feeling surfaces and drag us deep into the darkness. and then... only despair remains.

spin. dizziness. fall.

farewell, my love.

space dementia

h-eight ... is the one for me.
it gives me all i need,
and helps me co-exist
with the chill...

you make me sick
because i adore you so.
i love all the dirty tricks
and twisted games you play
on me...

space dementia in your eyes
and peace will arise
and, tear us apart,
and make us mean-ing-less again...

you'll make us wanna die.
i'd cut your name in my heart.
we'll destroy this world for you,
i know you want me to
feel your pain...

space dementia in your eyes
and peace will arise
and, tear us apart,
and make us mean-ing-less again...

muse, space dementia, origin of symmetry#3

quoth the raven:

you can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. you may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write 'fuck you' right under your nose.

j.d. salinger, the catcher in the rye, 1951

tide

i'd go to the beach - any beach, as long as it was empty - and would lay down by the wet sand in the water line. all day. i'd just stay there till the tide came up and surround me. and i'd still stay there as the same tide went down, back to the dephts of the blue sea as the sun traversed the sky. there would be no thoughts, pain, no tears. no fears. merely a dead body staying unmoved as the world was passing me by.

disappointments

they come and go. all right. but sometimes they're useful. damn useful. for exemple, when they help us excluding some possibilities. right now i'm no longer thinking about following that way. i might be a little sore for it, all right, but it would've hurt much more if i had walked that way heads on. so now it is no longer a lose-lose situation. i'm merely drowning in some damn fucking hell.

yada yada yada

distance wipes the weaker passions and ignites the stronger ones, just as the wind lights off a candle and turns a campfire into a wildfire.

this is my free translation from some unknown author. i ask my readers to tell me who wrote this bullcrap, and then to lend me a pump action shotgun to blast his or her head off.

six-six-six

the goal of this blog will be to reach 666 posts 'till october the 18th. i think satan would be a glorious way to celebrate its second birthday.

so far, i've written 504 posts in a total of 687 days, with an average of 0,73 posts per day. not bad. to reach my goal, i'll need to write 162 posts in 43 days, which means an average of 3,8 posts per day. ok, it will be tough. see my point? mathematics always ruin it all.

a book that changed my life (I)

you know those chain thingies that are rather popular on e-mail (usually telling some bullcrap and then warning that some evil would happen to you unless you forwarded that e-mail to a number of people; in other words, electronic curses - the portuguese government must be proud, this is a real technological shock) and, recently, in sms too? well, they're quite fashionable on blogs now, but i assume, they are quite cool on blogs. and useful, especially for those days when you feel as if your head have been flushed down the poo-poo chair, for you can't think of anything to post. anyway (digressions, digressions). there's one now, about books that changed one's life, and books that didn't. ten of each. easy to find in some of the most popular portuguese blogs. surprisingly enough (cough cough), no one has passed me the chain - oh, the wonders of being anonymous! - but i'll chitchat a bit about it. but not ten at once - i don't even think i've had ten books changing my life already.

i've written about this down here, but it's always worth talking about this book. it's the tale of two brothers from an aristocratic family - urza and mishra - who are sent to the archaeologic dig site of a well known researcher, tocasia. urza, born in the first day of the year, is calm, quiet, apparently weak but very intelligent; mishra, born in the last day of the same year, is fierce, reckless, strong but clever on his own way. while uncovering the secrets of an ancient civilization known by its technological progress, the thran, the brothers unveil a strange mechanical artifact holding a brilliant stone. accidentally the powerstone shatters in two halves, each brother keeping one. and that is is te beginning of a cold silence between them that would separate them and force them to wage war on each other - a truly devastating war that would change the world of dominaria forever.

i read this book back when i went to high school (seven years ago), and it marked the beginning of my personal process of world creation. it brought me to the fantasy world of literature, and opened wide the doors of my imagination. now that i think of it, if it wasn't for this book my life would be so different nowadays. i wouldn't have played magic: the gathering for so long. i wouldn't have played starcraft, warcraft, world of warcraft. probably i would have never started to write science fiction and fantasy, and therefore wouldn't have read tolkien, pullman, vinge and so on. more than that (and that's what the label "magic: the gathering hides many times), it's a truly remarkable story very well written by jeff grubb.

| grubb, jeff, the brother's war (1998), wizards of the coast (paperback edition) |

quality of life

quality of life is to get home after a bloody day of work, sit on the bloody couch, turn on the telly and having the meaning of life, by monty python, just beginning.

a lose-lose situation

sometimes we get so stuck that either choice we make, either path we take, will end in defeat. for sometimes we have no option other than to wage a war that we know we can't win.

the atom bride theme

it's always nice to have someone calling us on the phone while on a middle on a show of this band that we so like, right when it's playing that special song. it might seem silly, all right, you hear nothing but a deafening sound and you are barely able to make out the music, but still. it's nice. no kidding, it's really nice.

what would you do?

imagine you have the most regular life you can have. you have this work, from 9 p.m. to 16 a.m., with a lunch break around noon. you live in a rented house, and you pay all your bills by the end of the month. you have this girlfriend or this wife (or boyfriend or husband, it's up to you) whom you like and all. you live in a routine. and you know it, and deep inside of you you feel a need for something new. a desperate need, that have been crawling in the dephts of yourself since long. and then the opportunity arises, but not without a cost. it will have you shaking the very foundations in which your life is built upon. and without a promise of success. you don't know it will be worth the cost it demands of you. it's a shot in the mark, with a high chance of not hitting the mark. it's a giant leap that you take without knowing how you're going hit the ground.

what would you do?

the hell are the others

indeed, they are. and not only the hell is the others we know, but also the others we don't know, but who lurk around in the shadows.

summer change

in what concerns change, the end of summer is usually more important that the end of the year (read the 31 of december). some relationships faded away, others bloomed as if it was springtime. some people went away, changed their jobs, gone missing in action. happens to all of us, in one way or another. anyway, i did a little summer cleaning on the link bar on the right. some links were removed, for the linked blogs were long since updated. and i added something new - a link for the myspace of a good friend of mine, rodrigo, who is a most talented musician. take a look at his web space and listen to his songs - it will be really worth the time.

imaginary people

i've always imagined things that never existed. i mean, situations and people. it might seem something ordinary, all right, but i've always imagined them as if they were real - with a level of detail and complexity that some of my real acquaintances lack in many ways. those imaginary situations with imaginary people, if real, would be able to tear down a part of my current life and start it over again. maybe that's the reason why i keep creating them - as if i'm trying to escape a reality that chokes me in many ways. the trouble is, what if one of those people, of those imaginary people, were to became real, right in from of my eyes? with the power to destroy me in order to raise me from the ashes? would i be ready to take the fall in order to set me free? or would i merely run for cover within my boring existance, waiting for it to go away?

imaginary people should remain in my imagination. they're bound to create one hell of a mess if they jump into the reality.

betrayal

there's one thing i can't stand, my friend. it is betrayal. now you give me a reason, if only i needed one at this point.