This is the last time I write on this Journal - this Live Journal. On the day it completes 15 months, I announce its end.
The quote for this last post is by Kosh, from Babylon 5 - as is the quote for the first post. I had the choice of closing the loop or using Bilbo's "I regret to announce that this is the end!". But I like Kosh a lot more than Bilbo - the last quote is his.
The Vineyards, as I finally managed to title them months after their start, recorded a vast number of dead power supplies, my last few complaints about Dark Ages, my adventures into the realm of Playstation emulation (someday I will have the console... someday), one unpaid and one badly paid work - and the one that paid good I forgot to mention -, three cats, and one amazing change that could make one dance all night. I regret not having written more, but I am glad I wrote all I did (except that post about the radio, really... and that other about Matrix Revolutions).
Abandoning this is costly to me, I realize, as I struggle for a long time and fail to find proper words to conclude this ending. Abandoning this is also a bit unfair... The lovely rose garden recently planted on the other side of my fence seemed promising, but grapes for company the roses will have no more.
Ah, I am certain no matter how much time I spend here trying to write a worthy finale, I will think something is missing or badly written as soon as it is posted. I will skip the phase of spending hours here, then, and just post what I have.
My six readers, I sincerely apologize, and hope you can find another source of endless, evergoing texts about the most pointless of subjects. So no one can say I merely abandoned you to your own luck, I will mention you can start searching here.
And now I cheat Kosh and conclude with a quote from Loom, said by Fleece, leader of the Guild of Shepherds:
"Hail, and fare well."
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| Date: | 2004-03-22 20:53 |
| Subject: | "Take it easy!" |
| Security: | Public |
| Mood: |  complacent |
It is shameful for me to allow these Vineyards to go unwatered for so long, but this time - yes, this time - I have a reason for it. The majority of my six readers are already aware of it, but the proper announcement will not come for another few days.
These vines are not dead, no. In fact, I have a number of subjects I would like to write about. But most of my time has been taken lately; I hope the new season and the upcoming moon will change that.
If it matters, have patience. If anyone is reading this, after I go for so long without a post (and that after one post, after yet another endless period, and another), I must assume it matters, and I assume you will have patience. The bunches are almost ripe.
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This is probably the longest I have gone without posting. I weave no excuse, offer no explanation. Instead, I hope to make it up by fulfilling a promise I made long ago, and finally write about the origins of all names in here: each in "Etienne Suarven Lorneau", and the "Vineyards". Oh, yes, Suarven, middle name; few of you knew, fewer remembered.
Once upon a time there was a city called Dellin. It was a city built in SimCity 2000, when the game was young and everyone played it because it was the greatest achievement in simulation (not considering naval and flight, of course). Dellin was my little pearl in that game - I sat in front of the terrain editor one day and said "I will make a city to surpass all those I made so far. It will be huge, I will plan it to be huge from the start!". So I edited the terrain: plains, no mountains; seaside; river. And it started. The beginning was a bit hard, as I placed the industrial and residential zones too far apart because they would complain about pollution, and my citizens complained about that instead. No money cheat to aid me, I just kept going with what I had, bandaging a thing here, fixing another there, until it finally was on the right track.
Two questions need to be answered, then:
Why "Dellin"?
No reason. No, it has nothing to do with Delhi (or Deli) in India. I usually gave my SimCities names created from thin air. That was one of them.
What is the point of talking about Dellin?
You wait over 40 days for me to post again, and you do not have the patience to keep reading to see how it fits in the big picture?
With that out of the way, I continue.
Dellin prospered. I put a tremendous amount of effort into it. Kept monitoring police and fire department coverage all the time, never let a region without a hospital and a school. I had plenty of these 6x6 blocks (most of the city was 6x6 blocks) with one of each: police, fire department, hospital, school. Then I realized it was wrong, so I made other little blocks: school, college, museum, library, and a few small parks or subway station, because the library was not 3x3, so there was space left; and the police block gained large parks where there were schools. It helped a lot with pollution, and my citizens were very happy (although the secretary then complained there were too many schools, colleges, museums and libraries).
That kind of fine-tuning in a city takes hours, and in-game that means decades. It was then that I noticed a pattern. By that time, I had the Fusion Power Plant, the most advanced and expensive in the lot. It lasted 50 years. On the 50th year, if the treasury had enough money to buy a new plant, nothing at all would happen, and the 50 years count would reset; if the treasury did not have the money, the plant just imploded and left the city in the dark. On a settled city, with disasters turned off, that was really the only thing the player had to do after a while: make sure there was enough money for a new power plant after 50 years.
Dellin, being made from zero to be a metropolis, worked nice enough withot any interference. And in each of its five decades it accumulated enough money to replace the power plant, and have something left. So I did something unthinkable at the time: I left the computer on, running SimCity 2000 at the highest speed, and went away. "How can you leave a computer unattended!?" It was a revolution. I remember leaving it overnight once, it was unheard of. The result of all this time running by itself was a large sum of money accumulated after a few days, money enough to make the city double in size in mere minutes. Some more fine-tuning, and it was ready to be left alone for another few days, before facing another unnatural, sudden growth again. It was quite amusing, though, that thanks to my long periods of complete city inactivity, and the marvellous health care, more than 10% of the population was between 95 and 100 years old.
After a while, Dellin had everything a city in SimCity 2000 could have, and had enough money to buy the neighbors and grow further, if that was possible. A friend came boasting one day that his city in SC2k had four Archologies (huge self-suficient constructions housing up to 200,000 residents, very expensive); Dellin had more than half of its residential zones replaced with Launch Arcos, the biggest of the Archologies. It came to a point where it was no longer possible for it to grow; in fact, it was impossible to navigate through all those Archologies, there was no way to see what was below them. And very often planes would get trapped between them, so I had to destroy a few and put them up again. I had achieved my goal, but it had become rather pointless then.
I saved many copies of Dellin, should I want to gaze at my untouchable metropolis sometime in the future, or just unleash multiple disasters at it at once, just for fun. And so I set for another Sim City 2000 challenge, because games were very scarse those days: I would make a very small city.
What would a small city be like?, I thought. I imagined, then, it was a countryside city, with farms around it. No use - although in the original Sim City, if I am not mistaken, there was "Farmland", SC2k had no such thing. So I just made a beautiful terrain, and I would put a tiny city in the middle of it, and pretended there were farms all around. But what crops? Oranges, wheat? No - grapes. It was a little French town. So I needed to create, out of thin air, a name that sounded French. And so I came up with "Lorneau".
The little city of Lorneau failed miserably. In contrast to my "empires" in Civilization and other such strategy games, where I am everything but expansionist, in Sim City I simply did not work with a small city. I restarted Lorneau city a number of times, but never managed to go far. Eventually I gave up, and left Sim City 2000 aside, going straight into Ultima 8, which is the off-line game where I put the most of my time and efforts, ever. Sometimes, months later, I would look at SC2k again, destroy Dellin for fun, try to make Lorneau stable, but these game sessions never lasted. The name of my two special cities were always in my mind, no less.
Years went by, the age of modems arrived, and with it the age of online games. Nexus. From the same company, Dark Ages would come out. They were selecting people for the first beta phase - the Chaos Age. The intention was to get the best among the best; the form had many questions concerning one's experience as a roleplayer, both online and on pen-and-paper, one's knowledge of the universes and pillars Dark Ages would be based upon, et al. I was very frustrated, since the main subjects were unknown to me, except for H.P. Lovecraft, of whom I had heard of, and knew the style. But I chose not to apply for Chaos Age, and explained why to a friend who did apply, and did make it. She was very supportive, and told me to apply to the next phase; she would provide some texts to get me started on those titles I would need to know about.
It was indeed helpful, I read a lot about Lovecraft - but still not a word by Lovecraft. I noticed, at one point, that some texts compared Lovecraft to Edgar Allan Poe (a comparison I now find absurd). I checked the list of subjects for the beta test again; Poe's "The Raven" was listed there, along Lovecraft's "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath".
"One work from each", I thought. "I guess they are both as important in the game's atmosphere. But these works say Poe is better. And I noticed it is easier to find his texts, too; I will read Poe instead." For the whole month I read nearly everything by Poe I could find - starting, most unfortunately, with "The Balloon Hoax", because the title made me curious, and then starting back in alphabetical order, with "The Angel of the Odd", which is among my favorites up to now. "How to write a Blackwood article" and "Xing off a Paragraph" were very hard to understand, at the age I was, and having no idea what was going on - although "Blackwood article" was very funny. I just kept on reading, regardless, mainly because I was loving it, far less for the Dark Ages beta, which I had forgotten. My advantage, I believe, for not reading the classical, day-to-day Poe: Raven, Usher, Amotillado, Black Cat, Berenice, Morella, Telltale Heart, Rue Morgue. When I finally reached the "important" ones, not knowing they were the most famous, I could appreciate them for what they were, not for what I had been told. I am very glad I came to know Poe this way, and not led by anyone's hand.
"The Angel of the Odd" was joined in the list of my favorites by "The Cask of Amontillado" (see note above, bah), "Metzengeirstein" and "A Descent into the Maelstrom". "Maelstrom" in special fascinated me for some reason; I read it a number of times in a row, and noted each time I had some trouble reading the name of the isles mentioned.
I was reminded of Dark Ages some days before the deadline for the application for the second phase of beta test - Atavism Age. I took a look again at the list of subjects, and roleplaying advice. So I spent a month reading Poe, and never touched Lovecraft or Conrad. Shame? No matter. I filled in the form, making a point whenever possible that Poe was my favorite of all people mentioned (including Chris Carter, creator of "X-Files" and "Millenium"; I always found that amusing), so if I seemed to be talking too much about him it was solely out of personal preference (and to hide the fact I knew him twenty times better than any of the others by then). The final test in the application: write at least 50 words about Lovecraft, or what you believe the world of Dark Ages is like, based on all these influences. Something like that. Tough. I again resorted to the Raven breeder, and wrote 200 words of a comparison between Lovecraft and Poe - after all, before going into Poe, I did read a lot about Lovecraft, I had enough basis to write something convincing.
It was convincing enough - although my previous roleplaying experience probably had a much greater role in my acceptance to Atavism Age. It was very unexpected. It would be open in a few days. For a moment here I felt the truest form of nostalgia. It is gone, I continue with the story.
There were some pages of roleplaying advice, explaining the world of Dark Ages (Temuair) and the influences in it. For some reason I came to believe Temuair was just an imaginary portion of Europe, specifically of the British Isles - guess I misunderstood the part about "based on Celtic and Irish folklore". So, a Medieval Europe setting it was. That reminded me of a few movies, and in particular one I love dearly: Ladyhawke. I felt quite a lot like watching it, and so I did.
No need to tell the story of Ladyhawke here; anyone who does not know the movie should go out and rent it as soon as possible, or at least check IMDb for it (I provide no links tonight because... I do not feel like it). Important fact is, the male protagonist, former captain of the guard, was called Etienne Navarre.
"That is a good French name, for a good warrior!", I thought. I had decided I wanted a warrior, or whatever had to go face to face with the enemies with a sword in hand in Temuair - I had a long enough time as a healer in Nexus. And I decided he had to be French, because it was set in Europe anyway, and if I had to go along with the bestest roleplayers in the crop, I would better pick something they would not beat me too badly in - if I said my character was British or Celtic, as I thought everyone else would, I would fail miserably in comparison. So, French. And Etienne Navarre was a good French warrior.
But I do not think anyone has the right to take the name of a character and use it in another environment, another story. I would not use Etienne Navarre, then. But I liked that name, Etienne. So I needed another French last name to go with it. And the first thing that came to mind was the name of my little failed city, and its vast imaginary grape fields. Etienne Lorneau. Sounded fit.
Yet something was missing. It felt that way for a number of reasons. He surely had a mother, so he should have her family's name as well. He should, because I quickly grew extremely disgusted with the "I am an orphan", "I was raised by wolves", "My mother was a Succubus", "I am the son of one of the gods" stories that people created for their characters. I lost count of how many demigodly heirs to distant kingdoms never before heard of there were in Dark Ages and Nexus. So my Etienne had to have a human father, a human mother, both from recognizable parts of the world. And I was left with the problem of finding a middle name.
That was quickly solved when I remembered how grateful I was for Poe. I had both found a great writer, and used him mercilessly to get into Dark Ages. So it was fair that I paid my homage to him with that last name. But no, I could never follow the example of "Conrad Allan Faulkner" - that is just too obvious. I remembered the isles in Maelstrom; I opened the book, looked for them, and found the perfect middle name: Suarven. Because his French father had married a lady from the Nordic region. Etienne Suarven Lorneau it was.
Later I realized Temuair was not part of Europe, but a completely different world (even though it did look suspiciously like the British Isles set sideways); the cities in it, however, each represented a nation of Medieval Europe. "Which is France?", was my first thought. "Ah, Loures. The capital, that is perfect." Etienne, from Loures. And until the appearance of Valhalla Valis, the only Aisling born in Loures - and proud of it. Those few who had not been born in distant kingdoms, what did they have against Loures? Bah.
Unfortunately, there were no Norway, Sweden or Finland represented in Temuair. But the city of Abel had no defined representation, either. So I just settled for "his mother's family is from Abel", and they mysteriously have this Nordic family name in Abel. It is a big trade city, after all, it is bound to have odd names from everywhere.
Hey, that is all fine, but Etienne is a wizard, not a warrior!
He is both. No, he never subpathed, do not offend me. Truth is, he began as a warrior, but warriors always needed healers with them, and my social skills were (are) ridiculous, so I never could find a healer to go with me, and the silliest centipede defeated him each and every time. On top of that, on a 33.6k modem, in a country so poorly served in terms of bandwidth and internet backbone, it was extremely laggy (people said latency of anything beyond 200ms was unthinkable; I had never seen anything lower than 500ms). When the director offered everyone to change classes, I was quick to jump at the opportunity. If I wanted to get anywhere, I needed a class that hit from a distance (so lag would not be so huge a problem) and could stand on its own. Wizard it was, and wizard Etienne became. But he still has his sword, and his cousin Stella has always been very annoyed that he abandoned that path, especially because she decided to follow it herself, too.
Parentheses here. Stella was my little warrior - I wanted one, when my connection was stable a few months later (350ms, hooray!). So Marie-Stella Lorneau Navarre was created (or was it Stella-Marie? I never knew). I had to use the Navarre somewhere, no? Lorneau from her mother, sister of Etienne's father; Navarre from her father, former captain of the Lourian guard. Heh heh. Parentheses closed.
So we have the explanation on Etienne, Suarven, and Lorneau. But what about the Vineyards? Oh, quite obvious by now.
Lorneau was the countryside little city surrounded by grapes, in Sim City 2000. It was just logical, then, that the Lorneau family had vineyards! The Lorneau Vineyards, producing the highest quality wine in Ardmagh since Danaan 2934... or something like that, I forgot when the Danaan years end - but it was about two centuries before Deoch dating, and no one was sure of the exact year.
(I can stop here, yes? But I will not.)
This little story became well known among my friends. So, whenever Etienne got online, he "had just come from the Vineyards"; whenever he was gone for too long, he "had some troubles in the Vineyards". (The majority of these troubles were copied from the farming troubles of Constantin Lievin, from "Anna Karenina", which I read slowly through that early period.) When Etienne was leaving, he "was returning to the Vineyards".
It sounded just right, then, that if I was to use Etienne Suarven Lorneau's name in a place out of Temuairan sight, it had to be the Vineyards - that is where he always was when there were no Aislings around.
(Rumor has it, though, once or twice, another Aisling, a female monk, with long golden hair, was seen there with him, early evening, sharing a bottle of wine; neither of them ever commented on this rumor.)
But one day, in Temuair, those very few left who remembered him noticed he was gone. Was he locked in the Vineyards, a self imposed exile (or asylum?) from a land who took so much from him? Some believe he simply died, others that he could not bear being outshined and chose reclusion. A few believe he is studying the most occult of magic, in an attempt to someday destroy that execration people now call Temuair, and replace it with that of his memory. Or he lived happily ever after.
Personally, I would go with the "destroy Temuair" hypothesis.
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When I showed the Vineyards to Alck, mere months ago, he asked me when I had started it.
"January 1st."
"You started it on the first day of 2003? Why, some particular reason? 'New beginning', anything like that?"
"I started it on January 1st so I would not have to be bothered by remembering when its anniversary was."
"A perfectly practical and logical reason! I am proud of you."
"And I wanted it to be a Capricorn, too."
One year today. Of course, I started it on the late hours of January 1st, 2003, so technically it still has nearly a day to be one year old. But if I chose January 1st so I did not have to remember the day, I certainly will not bother remembering the hour.
In these Vineyards I recorded many things from 2003, but some important facts I simply wrote nothing about - or nothing specific, at least.
The first half of 2003 could have been filled with comments regarding the problem with a certain teacher in school. In fact, she threatened to sue me and some other students. Later she threatened to sue the other teachers. This cost me an entire semester - I failed both classes she gave, of course, and while it is the only red mark on my school history, I am not ashamed of it. And she was the final straw that led me to answer "Some people just deserve to die." in a certain question in the famous Dante's Inferno Test - and that is what probably had me sent to the Seventh Circle of Hell the last few times I took it. I was so happy in the Sixth...
There was a funny fact about this most unpleasant situation, at least. E-mail that I receive from teachers go into a specific folder with the teacher's name; her folder I named "Blob", due to her similarity with the main character of a movie of same name. Later I heard other students refering to her as "the Blob". It was very interesting to know I was not the only one to notice it.
In the first half I also had to do a most memorable research for school. In a rather unique situation, only myself and ruby took that class - all the other students fled cowardly from it, choosing another teacher for it. Little did we know that the class required a terribly big project to be concluded before the last class - a project that is not supposed to be carried out by less than four people. The teacher was very wary of it, and had little intention of letting us do it ourselves - we wanted little contact with all those freshmen from Marketing who had their own cliques formed. So we convinced her we could do it, basing our affirmations on our experience with that which became known in late 2002 as "Stoneheck".
As a group of seven, we came up with the idea of "Stonehenge British Rock", a site dedicated to reviewing British bands and singers. I remember at the time I created my own "pink frog"; maybe I will tell the story someday. The problem arised when the idea had to become reality: five members of the group fled to another group, who had an idea also created by me (but for which I got no credit; thanks, guys, for abandoning us, then taking my idea). So, only myself and ruby were left to put Stonehenge together - and it did indeed feel like we had to pile the actual rocks to get it done. We despaired, we worked into many nights, we begged people to write reviews for us, we made PowerPoint presentations that put many Flash movies to shame, we patched the backup html like there was no tomorrow so it would work should the main thing (not under our control) fail (and it did - our backup worked flawlessly). We were all alone, overburdened, but we did it.
Using that as basis, we got ourselves the first and last chance that teacher ever gave for two people to take a full research project by themselves. But we were smart: we picked a theme we could research easily. Manga. "The influence of Japanese comics in the habits of Brazilian youth", because everything made in USP needs a pompous title. Using solidified methods of meta-research and sample/universe extrapolation, as well as looking into very obscure books and academical works, we managed to put together a bibliography of about ten books, a research done with fifty people (all declared otakus), a final report of about thirty pages, and a very cute PowerPoint presentation with seventeen pictures taken from volumes one and two of the Chobits manga. Everyone was impressed. We still laugh about it.
Those two things were the greatest events of the first half of 2003, and I mentioned neither here. So for the second half I decided to at least give hints of such big things, even if not say them directly. The idea of making a polemical blog had completely gone down the drain anyway.
School had never been as busy as it was this second semester of 2003, but the only big thing I did was the book, which I did mention here. It is set in motion; perhaps it can be published in 2004. Everything else about school was extremely time consuming and mind draining, but unworthy of mention.
Still, this second half saw me doing actual work. Writer and proofreader for an advertising agency, as I said here. I got the job because of a beer. On my first day there, one guy left; on the second day, I noticed the phone listings on each of the desks had far more names than I had seen people in there; on the third day, I learned no one had been paid for two months. Second week, two more people left. Sixth week, three people were fired. On the eighth week, very happy that I never concluded the formalities (never signed the contract) and therefore was not an employee, I warned the boss that I had to leave because school was being very pressing at the end of the semester, and I could not just sit there playing Solitaire and reading King of Fighters and Evangelion fanfics all afternoon until someone needed something written. Two weeks later, three less people in there, I apologized, wished them luck, and left.
While it is true that working for free was not very pleasant, I was mainly annoyed at not having anything to do for many days, and then having to write Christmas cards for another number of days as if Christmas was two hours ahead. No one deserves to write the generic "Best wishes of prosperity and peace" text found in Christmas cards. Well, maybe some deserve - but not me. Anyone who writes "The Blue Flower and the Purple Butterfly" deserves a lot more than that.
But my little excuse was not entire untrue - school had become extremely pressing those last months of the semester. But on top of that, my afternoons were taken by something far more pleasant than Solitaire and Christmas cards. I tried my best not to mention it here, I tried very hard not to let it influence my writing, but I failed on both accounts. It was actually rather easy to spot - even one who never spoke to me would notice it by reading the archives from the beginning. I noticed that myself, yet I dared not say it; I decided to wait for a special event. I suppose the anniversary of the Vineyards are good enough an event.
To finally make the obvious a fact: as I had given so many mornings and nights in semesters past, I wanted to give those afternoons to ruby. ruby, without a capital R, just to make my dear friend Donnie laugh - the irony of life is surpassed by no writer. The same ruby from early March, 2001, that made me first think of the phrase "Beautiful eyes..." the moment I saw her, and has it echo in my mind each time I see again those blue spheres that cursed me. Patience I had. I would lie if I said I simply waited - it is proven right here that I did not - but my hope never faded, and though I at times walked other fields, I always came back. Until, after a great turmoil, my waiting proved to have been worth it - ruby became my girlfriend.
But although I would love to make a post solely about that fact, and go on to mention the other ironies involved, especially those relating to movies we saw together, this is the anniversary post, and I would have to get rid of all the mentions of everything else, and change the opening quote... So a post specific to this end will have to wait. My apologies.
Well. The Vineyards are one year old. As with nearly everyone who starts a blog - or a Journal -, I did not expect it to last more than six months - and it nearly did end a number of times, after three weeks, two months, five months... But I picked January 1st so I would not have to remember its anniversary - I guess I did expect it to last at the very least one year, or I would have just picked any other day. Here is to it, then, the first year of the Vineyards, filled with many dead power supplies, yet lacking so many things - some of which I now include. One year. Time to prepare the soil for the next season. I wonder what the bottles of Lorneau 2004 will taste like...
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On January 1st of this year moments from gone, I started the Vineyards. It was a good year to start it, for 2003 was indeed a memorable year, deserving of records. I dare not say it was the best year for me ever - there can be no comparison between this year and anything prior to 2000, they are in completely different levels.
I will not try to make a summary of important events. Not yet, at least. That would make null the point of many posts in which the greatest quality (or fault) is the moment's view, the "live coverage"; analysis a posteriori are too easy to make. To deepen the value of these posts, I decided now to explain each of the quotes that serve as titles to them - or at least say where it came from. This, I concede, will be an analysis a posteriori (yes, I love the term). But I actually suppose it is better this way. I hope this little endeavour is of some value to the foolish academics who will one day scrutinize this Journal to sediment a profile on me - and then write long thesis that no one other than their peers will read. That, of course, assuming such academics are Brazilian; otherwise, they will write unauthorized biographies that everyone will read.
As said Aristotle, then, "Let us start, as is natural, with the first things."
Jan 1st - "And so... it begins"
The first quote had to be from Babylon 5. Kosh says it to Sheridan. I have no idea why or when, but it engraved itself in my mind - as with most things Kosh says throughout the series. I had to start somewhere.
Jan 2nd - "AM or PM?" "Very AM."
From Apollo 13, which I had watched in the previous October (and USA Channel announced every 20 minutes since May 2002). From those initial days where I believed I should write daily. Probably after being until near sunrise in Dark Ages, I posted that as if to say "I am still here. Are you still here?", as Justin would put it. Justin is, by the way, the one to blame for all this.
Jan 2nd - "C'mon lads, he's had enough, let him go."
The first quote from Loom, which will be a constant. This is from one of the Shepherds patrolling the forests. I believe I remember each and every line from that game. This one was good here: the day started very bad, then I paid for it; once paid, sun was shining again: I got a freelance job offer. I had enough, they let me go. Life is simple sometimes.
Jan 3rd - "Let's try that again, shall we?"
Loom again, from Bobbin Threadbare: one of the lines he says when a draft (spell, for you uhappy souls who never played Loom) fails. I wrote the entire post, and saw a little problem in it; edited it, and it disappeared. I tried again.
Jan 3rd - "Close your eyes, Bobbin, but keep your ears open! Here descends the Third Shadow."
Loom yet again, said by Hetchel when she confronts Chaos (or "Choas", heh heh). First post in Portuguese, and first political comment, on the government that had just started. I still agree with that quote, and will certainly agree for another three years.
Jan 3rd - "Why are you here? Do you have anything worth living for?"
Kosh again. And again, no idea when or why. For those who have no idea what the post is about, since it is in Portuguese: a journalist, founder and keeper of a site I particularly like, wrote about blogs, stating they served only as a place for everyone to speak about nothing to no one. Truly, at that point I only did not stop and wipe out the Vineyards out of respect for Justin, who went out of his way on the first day of the year to give me the code to start them. First post to have a comment, too - by ruby, no less, who knows these vines better than myself. She suggested I mentioned the Vineyards on a friend's blog, to get more readers. A great irony, then, that his blog has been long dead, and my grapes still endure.
Jan 4th - "But... That is unbelieavable!"
You will forgive me, but this is one of the quotes I have no idea where I took from. It seems to relate to Alice in Wonderland somehow, but I really do not know. In this post I say I wanted to read that once I was done with Dante. Not surprising you will find it that I never finished Dante. School got in the way of my education.
Jan 6th - "Oh my! Aren't you sweet little things!"
King's Quest VII, by Valanice, about the hummingbirds, or whatever they were, in Etheria, or wherever that is. I am not sure why I used this quote (and I do talk about it in the post, too). The "sweet things" probably are all the movies I rented and the one I bought. Inside this post there is a twisted quote from American McGee's Alice, spoken by the cat.
Jan 8th - "Ash on my tomato!"
By the heavens, need I say it is from The Fellowship of the Ring? Nothing special about this one; I watched the movie, used the quote. Simple.
Jan 11th - "Well! It's about time, you lazy idiot!"
Loom, by Master Edgewise of the Guild of Blacksmiths. From when I thought three days without a post was a long time. Heh heh heh...
Jan 13th - "I have freed hellish forces, and now the price must be paid!"
Alone in the Dark, the original, the most Lovecraftian: in the letter left by Jeremy Hartwood to his niece Emily, inside the piano, in the loft, where he hanged himself. My memory sometimes fascinates me. My complaint about spam mail. Nothing grand.
Jan 17th - "Please hurry, Alice.We are very late indeed!"
American McGee's Alice, the Rabbit. Another post on the lack of posts. Bah.
Jan 20th - "No time to chat, the day is fading!"
"...Come, Valanice, let's do some trading." King's Quest VII, the rat in the desert, who spoke only in verses (I tried that once or twice) and traded anything for anything else (but Valanice never accepts his offer of "blue mold" for her daughter's golden comb). I was busy with that freelance work, thus the quote. And this post is very important: it mentions the first death of a power supply.
Jan 21st - "Oh, look! A jukebox!" "...D-7."
Some episode from Monk. Adrian Monk is investigating a crime (of course) and the key witness/suspect is a lady who reminds him of his late wife Trudy. He takes her to dinner where he used to take his wife; she notices the jukebox, he whispers to himself, "D-7", she chooses D-7. Cute scene. And this post was about music, so it worked.
Jan 21st - "Ve bzeat 'im, you ans mee..."
That is supposed to mean "We beat him, you and me...". It is what Scotty says to his bottle of whiskey after he gets a very resistant alien passed out. Star Trek, original series. I used nothing alcoholic, but I finished that freelance work - ahead of time, too. I am good.
Jan 22nd - "Everything about this world has been a torment."
"The Bitter Suite", Xena's first musical episode, said by Xena to Gabrielle. I know nearly all the lines for that, too. A very fitting title to the post where I say I am not going to get paid anytime soon because the government cannot take 20% of it, and where I explain how the adorable currency and import system and taxes work in this miserable country. Perfect, no?
Jan 23rd - "Hyaaahhhaahahahaha!! Moeru moeru!"
Tenkuu no Escaflowne, the series. Dilandau says that a numer of times. Yes, that is a literal transcription: he has the most hysterical and maniacal laughter I have ever seen (but of course, I did not see many others). It is in Japanese, and means "Burn, burn!". One has to love him upon seeing him torch an entire city while screaming that and laughing madly. A good quote to use when you want your CD burner to work.
Jan 24th - "A futile maneuver."
By the Borg, sometime in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never watched any episode with the Borg, no way to know for sure. It refers to the last line of the post, really; no reference to the post itself. Although one could say the "futile maneuver" was everything that Justin made me do and that did not solve anything...
Jan 27th - "We will have a wonderful day!"
This was said by a Mickey Mouse bot... in front of a hotel... in a Duke Nukem add-on... but I cannot remember its name, which I believe is a good thing. A quote to talk about a good day. That is all.
Fine... I indeed do not know the name, but it was something like "Pantyhouse Inn" and everything that was not an enemy was a naked woman. Happy now? But it caused serious problems with the game's engine, so I had to get rid of it and reinstall the game ten minutes after launching it (and getting bored).
Jan 28th - "No, no, that's not right!"
Bobbin Threadbare of Loom, again when a draft goes wrong. After a good day, a bad day. Nothing interesting.
Jan 29th - "If you can prove it, it means they screwed up somewhere along the line."
Conspiracy Theory, of course. On a day everything (even the Notepad icons) were screaming for me to play more Final Fantasy Tactics, what else could I use as title?
Jan 30th - "Why do you pursue me to this deserted place?"
American McGee's Alice, by the old unnamed man. A reflection on the purpose of this Journal, and the state of blogs I read. Very unkind post, which I regret. It granted me a link on one of the blogs I mention, too - I am glad that link is gone now, that blog has become unreadable. In fact, I refer to it some months ahead.
Jan 31st - "Pahu pahu pahu!"
Chobits, that is what Sumomo says when she is happy. I had the empty, dumb belief that I was going to get paid soon. Hah. But it was a good time, none the less.
Feb 3rd - "Somebody set up us the bomb."
Zero Wing, a game for the Genesis - in case anyone still wonders. No need to say anything else.
Feb 5th - "Please make a selection."
System Shock 2, the machines that sell everything say that. Given this post is about four subjects, I thought it was fair to let the reader choose what to read. I doubt anyone did it.
Feb 10th - "I'm doing the radio today."
The West Wing. Never watched an episode of it, but the quote is from there. A post about radio. I hate it, I regret writing it. ruby suggested that I erase it, but I cannot. Hiding the past does not change it. Profound, eh?
Feb 11th - "You are NOT just going to waltz through here without us seeing you!"
Loom, the workers polishing the Scythe, in the tower of the Glass City, home of the Guild of Glassmakers, founded by Lucent Bottleblow, maker of the first Scrying Sphere, which was stolen by a dragon in the year... hmm... 7332, I think. Not sure why I used that in a post about a bad movie (which was aired again two nights ago, imagine that!). Probably because those twelve chicanos of the duas manzanas were trying to take over Brazil - they would truly have to waltz through everything unnoticed to reach their goal. Discreet as a carrier parked next to Manhattan.
Feb 11th - "I am Miss Information and I will be your guide today!"
From the great animated series Histeria!. Really, what the blazes are they doing to these children..?
Feb 15th - "What? What evil is this?"
Loom, Edgewise, when the last blade of the ten thousand the Guild of Blacksmiths have to forge gets twisted. "A witch's curse has twisted the final blade." What evil is this indeed, that makes people go out in their absurd manifestations against anything coming from the United States? A witch's curse has twisted their minds, I am sure.
Feb 16th - "No, no, that's not right!"
And here I realize I used this one twice. I will never forgive myself, even if this post deserved this quote. "Communist greetings" ex inferis, you miserable cursed leftist playboy!
Feb 23rd - "Stop! Stop! Stop!"
Curse of Monkey Island, a verse in the "A Pirate I Was Meant to Be" song. Because no one can take three posts bashing the dumb left in a row.
Feb 25th - "What have ye done to me sheep!"
Loom, the Shepherd who watches the flock - after Bobbin makes all the sheep green! Because I was given my big sheep that day. It sits in my bed all day, looking at me.
Mar 3rd - "My feet hurt... with destiny!"
A line from "Torg's Dream Fighters", a parody of bad plot and translation in fighting games, from Sluggy Freelance. A post about King of Fighters and other fighting games had to have a line from there.
Mar 3rd - "You killed my fish!"
Same applies.
Mar 5th - "It's too much."
This one may be wrong, because I saw the movie a long time ago, but it should be from Dances with the Wolves, when the indians (yeah, indians, no damnable politically correct "native American" junk here) are drinking coffee, and they put sugar in it. For a post revolving around the word "excessive".
Mar 10th - "Do you comprehend what you have done!?"
Loom. Chaos says it when Bobbin rips the fabric of reality apart. He sounds really desperate then, I love that part. And Puppy sounded more or less like that after I finished showing him all the games I had just given him. Heh heh heh.
Mar 10th - "No! Can it be stopped?"
Loom again. Bobbin, when Hetchel says "the Pattern is failing of its own accord". But I do not want to talk about it.
Mar 12th - "I believe this may be significant, captain."
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. First mission, "Demon World", said by Spock. Anyone want the full dialogue? I still remember it, too. Fitted nicely for a post regarding "The truth about the Landless Movement".
Mar 17th - "Beautiful eyes..."
An angel in the form of a girl passes by the main character when he is walking back home; he only sees her eyes, and thinks that. Before he thinks of anything to say, she is gone. The irony: she was in a mission; sometime later, she fails it. Because of that, she is forced to stay on Earth - as a cat. Later she transforms back into a girl, and then an angel, but spends some time in the catgirl stage... What in the world can be more beautiful than such a sequence? And to think it is forever bound and doomed to be in the dating-sim game "True Love"... Such a shame.
Oh, in any case, that was precisely what I remembered when that Valkyrie passed by - that scene in the game. It was funny, because on early March of 2001 I thought of the exact same phrase, and that was before I played the game.
Mar 21st - "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards..."
That is from Lord of the Rings, no idea where - I did not notice it in my translated version. "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." From that comes the most overused parody in the history of nerddom: "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.". Again, I am not sure why I used this quote. Perhaps it relates to the other Lord of the Rings quote in the post...
Mar 26th - "He is back!"
More Shepherds from Loom, again one of those patrolling the forest. This one was just to say I was posting again after a period away. Why I made such a big noise about it is beyond me - it was not the first time I went for five days without posting.
Apr 2nd - "It's dawn."
First scene of Loom! Bobbin observes the sky atop a mountain. The sun is rising, the last stars can still be seen. Beautiful scene. And it was indeed dawn when I posted that - the sun was beginning to rise, and if I remember I went outside to try to catch a glimpse of it before posting.
Apr 11th - "We Are Right. W.A.R.!"
To talk about the war in Iraq, I could not remember anything from Platoon, Apocalypse Now, The Thin Red Line... I had to remember something from Dinosaurs (that sitcom that had Baby and his "Not mamma!", "Gotta love me!", etc). There was an episode where the bipedal dinosaurs were arguing with the quadrupedal ones over what was right, to walk on two or four legs. The bipedals came with a slogan to their campaign: "We Are Right", or W.A.R.. Fantastic.
Apr 16th - "What kind of dining set defines me as a person?"
My favorite quote from Fight Club, and it had to be from this movie because the post was supposed to be mainly about this movie. But I believe one can make a metaphorical parallel and relate my displeasure about Reader's Digest with it - after all, among the many Reader's Digest products, they do have dining sets.
Apr 27th - "Nothing dead here."
That is the name of a chapter in Sluggy Freelance. It served to remind the reader that I was not dead, after over ten days without posting, and to point to blogs that did seem dead - and one of them now indeed is...
Apr 27th - "The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."
That was said by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux. Polzonoff had a good idea, among the many he has all the time. It deserved the quote.
May 6th - "That side of the pattern is no longer in our reach."
Loom, said by Lady Cygna Threadbare (who was a swan at the time) after Bobbin tears the fabric of reality apart. Because the t.A.T.u. girls are in no one's reach...
May 7th - "I am an angel, sent by God."
A personal favorite! This is said by Monica on every episode of Touched by an Angel. Then she glows in orange and people start believing in God (in a very Christian sense, no less). Her accent is the best - if not from the British Isles, it has to be like hers. In any case, this line was cute for the religion bashing in the post, especially that horrid Holy Roman UFO Catholic Church part.
May 20th - "It broke again. Can you fix it?"
From X-Men: Animated Series (not Evolution - the one from the mid-90's). Said by Jubilee on the first episode, when she takes her CD player to the mall to get it fixed - she kept frying it with her powers. Losing the third power supply made me feel that way.
Jun 11th - "It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike."
Said by Calpurnia. Felt just right for a time when I did not post for twenty days because I did not feel I had to say anything. "This is obvious, why should I bother and bore them by explaining in all detail?"
Jul 20th - "Well! What have we here?"
And again... Loom! The dragon, after mistaking Bobbin for sheep. Tee hee hee. A return after a long absence. I did not post for so long because I was pacing myself by ruby's old blog. Once I realized she had abandoned it again (40 days later) I came to the conclusion I should stop doing that. But at that point I was completely uninspired, and writing had fully fallen out of habit - putting together this little post felt very much like looking for sheep and getting a Weaver instead.
Jul 20th - "Gotta catch'em all!"
The major slogan for the Pokémon series looked just right for my "capturing songs" post.
Jul 21st - "Guten Tag, Elftor!" "Hey, take that back!!"
For a post about my hatred for the German language, what better than someone saying "good day" and being answered with "take that back!"? Elftor is always a pleasant reading. Of course, I am being forced to swallow all these posts about the German language now... Silly world.
Jul 23rd - "Any questions?"
I think this is the name of a chapter or episode in one of the many webcomics I read, but I cannot remember... A post filled with questions, serves it right. Even the quote is covered by doubt.
Jul 25th - "Yo te voy a matar!" "What did he say?"
A post where I complain about dubbings and subtitles in anime I download had to have this quote as title. It is from an episode of Jag - the two main characters are kidnapped by Colombian terrorists. Problem is, I saw it dubbed. And what is worse, they dubbed even the terrorists, so they spoke some very broken mix of Portuguese and Spanish. "Yo te voy a matar!" "Que foi que ele disse?" "Disse que vai nos matar." Mas não era óbvio!?
Jul 26th - "Taking the emulation scene seriously..." "...nowhere."
That is the opening phrase of OverClocked, a webcomic now long dead about emulation. Worked nicely for a post about emulators.
Jul 27th - "Release!"
For a post about Digimon, I used a quote from Cardcaptor Sakura. Maybe because it was two animes, maybe because I was finally "releasing" the information that I liked a grandly commericial series. I will never know.
Sep 5th - "Quoth the raven"
One quote, from myself. So I quote Poe's Raven when the Raven is quoted.
Sep 9th - "We are Siamese if you please."
A post about "cats", the first verse of the Siamese Song from Lady and the Tramp. So many other sources of cat quotes I could have used, I later realized...
Sep 28th - "Grow up, young lady - that's what they will say"
King's Quest VII, "A Land Beyond Dreams" song, by Rosella; first verse. It refers to multiple things in this post, but two stand out: the fact I got a job, and that "but maybe it will be, soon". But that is another subject entirely, of which I would rather not talk about here.
Sep 29th - "Lime is alright in public, but not lemon."
Alck once tried to join a MUD. He had no idea what he was getting into. He read that line in the rules, and did not know what it meant, so he asked me. I laughed very hard that day, and that line was stuck in my head forever. For those who do not know, lime and lemon are two levels of, let us put it this way, roleplaying (although it can be used in other environments, such as anime). Lime is limited to soft erotism; lemon's limit is one's imagination. Alck was rather embarassed to have asked that. In any case, seeing that the post mentioned "Lemon Tree", that was the first quote that came to mind. If it had any other meaning at the time? Be not so indiscreet!
Oct 1st - "That was a rhetorical question."
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. McCoy says it at the end of a mission, but I cannot remember which. And the entire post is meant to end in a question no one can answer. Fits.
From this point on, the quote did not encapsule the entire symbolism anymore; many posts ahead need the song for a complete understanding.
Oct 4th - "And the man trembled in the solitude; - but the night waned and he sat upon the rock."
Song: Thanatos - If I Can't Be Yours
Silence, by Edgar Allan Poe. This post is meaningless. Find a relation between the title and the text if you like, but know I planned none. All the meaning is in the quote and the song. It was an incredibly lonely day - the only day I did not write "Nyo" on the stall while showering.
Oct 10th - "But why is the rum gone!?"
Song: Breech - Charms
Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean (if you did not, watch it). The song here only leads to the mention of the champagne, and it shows I finally gave Thanatos a rest. The rum, because it was about a drink, of course! And the wine was gone, if not the rum. The wine was gone! How can one celebrate alone when the wine is gone!? Why was the wine gone!?
Oct 11th - "There are no coincidences in this world."
Said by Mizuki-sensei on the final episode of the second season of Cardcaptor Sakura. Because the Vineyards needed a break from cryptic posts that never get explained, and surely Z'ha'dum was no coincidence.
Oct 13th - "You know the Amazon ways, and yet you are not one of us."
I will not explain this one. It would require a post of its own.
Oct 15th - "For we shall win through, no matter the cost!"
Song: Debbie Gibson - Lost in Your Eyes
The quote is the final statement of Arcturus Mengsk in his inauguration speech, as he became leader of the Humans, at the end of the first campaign in the original Starcraft. The days would not end, and that damned book would tear the heart of me, but I would win through, no matter the cost! The song for this post could have been "I Will Survive" (Gloria Gaynor, or even that version from Man on the Moon, "I will survee"), but Debbie Gibson is low enough. And what does the song mean, then... Well, remember early March, 2001? Yeah.
Oct 24th - "At a time like this, it's positively indecent that you don't need a glass of port."
From My Fair Lady, of course. The entire long post is permeated by that. That was the day when I achieved a victory much similar to Black Mage's in his debates. Not very lasting, though, I must say.
Oct 25th - "You know, there used to be a little respect mixed up in my hatred for you... but not anymore."
The death of yet another power supply was awarded a quote by the beautiful warrioress/goddess/spawn of hell/angel Callisto, from Xena.
Oct 27th - "Cars don't behave. They are behaved upon."
Song: Frank Sinatra - It Had to Be You
That is from "Driving Miss Daisy"; it is a post about how to nearly wreck your car, after all - and if I remember, that line is used after she wrecks hers. It was a silent day because that victory from above was not very lasting. But the song may state otherwise.
Oct 28th - "Even if I had an army around me, I'd still notice you were missing."
Song: Frank Sinatra & Bono Vox - Under My Skin
That quote is from the Xena episode "Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards". It had to be from that episode, because it was about a dream that takes place in Athens. And that was the only good quote I found in the entire episode! But I concede, it fits nicely, although my eyesight may prove it wrong... The song was there because I felt like listening to it. It had no other meaning then.
Nov 9th - "It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong."
This was said by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was supposed to apply both to the movie and to the situation in which it was watched. Later I realized the situation was not completely wrong, per se. But I already regretted writing this post either way.
Nov 16th - "These blue-vein'd violets whereon we lean / Never can blab, nor know not what we mean."
The special post, only one marked as private. Two verses from Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis". I said enough.
Dec 12th - "I'm sorry, friend. You've no manner of luck at all."
Pirates of the Caribbean: the prisoners escape the dungeon through the hole made on the wall by the Black Pearl's cannon. Captain Jack Sparrow, in the other cell, cannot escape. One of the prisoners tells him that. No direct relation to the post; I just ran out of luck that day.
Dec 24th - "(And at Christmas you tell the truth)"
I had to have a line from Love Actually in my Christmas post. And it had to be from the scene with the signs. It just had to be!
Dec 31st - "The year of pain, and the year of joy."
Song: Frank Sinatra - It Was a Very Good Year
It began with Babylon 5, it ends with Babylon 5. This is part of the opening speech for the 4th season. "It was the year of fire, the year of destruction, the year we took back what was ours. It was the year of rebirth, the year of great sadness, the year of pain, and the year of joy. It was a new age. It was the end of history. It was the year everything changed. The year is 2261. The place is Babylon 5." But just those two phrases are enough. 2003 was a year of light and darkness, pain and joy, and many other different antagonisms. Very unique, very memorable in many senses. Very long, and very fast. As the song says, it was a very good year.
Happy New Calendar Day to all of you.
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Christmas is near. I hope no one turns the TV on until the 26th, or beyond - the 3rd of January is the better choice.
But before I point to something cute for this Christmas, I want to say something I know you have all been waiting for!
On the night of December 21st, another power supply died.
Yay! Hooray! Hooray! Hoopla!
Christmas is each year less meaningful. In fact, should something absolutely wonderful not had happened a few minutes ago, I would have posted what I was writing before, which had zero zero to do with Christmas. It was not good at all, and I am glad I lost the mood to finish writing it.
One of the prettiest things I remember from my childhood (Oh no, he's going to talk about his childhood!) is the Christmas special episode of Snoopy. I am not sure if it is called Snoopy anywhere but here - the world knows it as Peanuts. But on the very old VHS tape where I have it, the label says "Snoopy's Christmas", in Portuguese, so it is Snoopy for me.
Knowledge of that is necessary to understand why tears were brougth to my eyes when I came across the Christmas strip for 1999 in Sluggy Freelance. (And why it just happened again.)
And just to keep it for posterity, here is a card I made to those friends I know share a taste for Blode, from rathergood.com. I infringed the copyrights all by myself just to wish them a Merry Christmas!
Those who did not get wishes of Merry Christmas from me, please understand that it was merely because I hate doing so by phone, e-mail, ICQ, et al. I like doing it personally, and by card (wheter physical or eletronic, and I strongly favor cards I make myself somehow). Given I only had time to create one card, no one who did not fit in the Blode fellowship received it. Apologies, maybe next year.
But, as I was saying up there, Christmas is less meaningful each year. All I am looking forward to in the next few hours is the food. And the third episode of Lord of the Rings, which will premiere on December 25th here in the Uncivilized Lands. At least it is not dubbed... But really, why premiere so long after the rest of the world, and on December 25th, no less? Why not add an avant-premiere on December 24th, 10h30 PM, just the cherry on top. And, in the name of all gods, may they not decide to include "a 15 minutes break to go to the bathroom and buy popcorn" in the middle of some important scene, as they did with the two Extended versions they were awarded the gift to show. Whoever says such a break is a good thing certainly prefers fullscreen movies, dubbed, with commercial breaks. Done pouring some hate into this post. I had to, it is a Vineyards post!
Nothing else to say, I will go with the cliché. Merry Christmas.
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It looks like luck cannot be multiplied, only divided.
If I had to be at the airport before 5h30 PM, I imagined it would be good enough to leave home at 3h PM. Two hours to get there in the middle of the afternoon sounds good enough. It was not. Never have I seen more traffic going that way at such a time. Never, ever. When I saw the first sign saying "Airport" it was 4h40. And the sign said "10 Km".
That was one of the four signs I saw in a long time. So rare they were that I was led to make a wrong turn - and, the irony, as I travelled at the wrong road, I saw a sign about fifty meters ahead, on the right road, pointing to the airport. Why in the name of one hundred thousand gods was it not fifty meters before?
Signs became even rarer after that, as I crossed at high speed desperately hoping for a way back. I found one, about five kilometers ahead. Fortunately it led straight to the entrance I was looking for - perhaps if I had taken the right road I would have arrived at the wrong end of the airport. I doubt it, but I prefer to think so. And so furiously I was driving that I made it to the parking lot at 4h55.
It is a good thing our GRU is not as big as De Gaulle or that thing in Brussels that goes on for two miles - because, naturally, I went to the wrong of the two wings. I wonder if it is usual for people to be running around madly in airports, because no one seemed to pay much attention to me - or I was not paying much attention to them. All I wanted was a sign pointing me to the international check-in counters. Air France specifically. And so I found one, and so I ran even more madly. 5h05 it was when I saw the long line with luggage bearing the French company's logo. Hope! At last! And it was still time.
No, it was not. I looked and looked and looked again and again and again, but did not see the one I was looking for. The clerk explained to the elderly Europeans with too much money in their hands that, once the check-in was complete, they would go to the first gate on the right. "Thanks!", I said to the lady, who probably did not understand it at all. Two guards stood by that door. People carrying luggage would show them their tickets and be allowed inside.
I remembered "Love Actually" at that moment, and a few other movies. "Make a run for it?", I thought. No use, the door was too small, and I was not sure where I had to go, they would catch me and drag me out and into some questioning room before I could regret it. Ah, the cell phone! It might be on, aye. I tried. Once, twice, seven times. Nothing.
"I can't enter if I'm not going to travel? Not even not carrying any luggage and no passport and no nothing? Isn't it obvious that, if I do somehow board that plane, they will send me back the moment I touch European ground? I just want to say goodbye!"
So close. So terribly close. So infinitesimally close! But, apparently, a few minutes too late.
That was unfair. I did not deserve that. We did not. I tried my best, I did all I could, I ran like never before both on the road and in the airport. In vain. No fair, no fair at all.
Now I write this, in the second greatest sadness I can remember facing, while a big Air France plane begins to cross the Atlantic, filled with elderly Europeans who receive in euros and were spending in reals while on their vacations here - and among them someone holding Saramago's Cave, probably worried about switching planes, and thrilled about the four weeks ahead.
I just wanted to say goodbye...
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I had a post planned, its structure was perfectly clear and it would be a nice piece of text cohesion taken to the limits, if I could do with it what I hoped to do.
It was going to be in two languages - English and Portuguese, of course -, more or less one paragraph in each. In English I would comment on the movie I saw last night, "Matrix: Revolutions". In Portuguese I would entwine comments about the situation which unwrapped outside the screen while Neo's story was bring wrapped up, and afterwards. Naturally, I would make it cryptic, so it would only make complete sense to those present last night. With luck, though, I would make it have a parallel sense, so people would think it was just personal comments on the movie: "In English he writes about the technical side, in Portuguese he gives his personal opinion". If I indeed could do that, I would be very proud.
But I completely lost the will to undertake such enterprise.
Curiosamente, me lembrei do poema "Pneumotórax", de Manual Bandeira. Especificamente, do verso "Uma vida inteira que poderia ter sido e que não foi". Uma vida curta, vá lá, mas uma vida, no less. O que me preocupa no momento é que eu não deveria, pra usar um cliché, ficar remoendo o passado. Mas estou certo de que há uma explicação muito razoável pra isso: quando me deparo com um momento em que o futuro não parece promissor, automaticamente retorno ao passado para culpá-lo. Ora bolas, se o passado fosse assim, o futuro seria assim, e eu não precisaria me preocupar. Downward spiral, nunca, nunca funciona, nunca tem boas conseqüências.
As antigas regras não mais se aplicam. Agora me lembro do episódio final de Evangelion, "Take Care of Yourself" - episódio final original, não "My True Heart For You", incluso em "End of Evangelion". Shinji é colocado em seu próprio mundo sem regras - ele fica lá, flutuando, completamente desconfortável. Então alguém adiciona um limite: o chão, a primeira regra. Ele não pode mais flutuar, tem que andar. Mas é mais fácil, não são necessárias muitas decisões - as dimensões possíveis para onde ir se reduzem a duas, não mais três. Regras têm essa fortíssima utilidade: definem o caminho a ser seguido (talhando a liberdade - para muitos, um preço muito alto; para outros, um alívio).
Regarding "Matrix: Revolutions", I was so frustrated by Reloaded that I expected it to be much worse, so I was pleasantly surprised. Not that it is a very good movie, oh by the gods no, it is not. But it is far, far better than the previous. And any movie that makes such huge references to anime deserves my respect. It has mecha, it has Ohmu. "You see Ohmu everywhere!", said a friend. No, I only see Ohmu where there is Ohmu, and in Matrix: Revolutions there is Ohmu - and in Starcraft there is, too (confirmed by Blizzard, in the name of all gods!). As a bonus, a cameo appearance by Lavos. E eu pensava em Cólera do Dragão toda vez que a água subia durante a batalha final.
As the same friend irreverently pointed out, someone replaced the software for the Sentinels with Rollercoaster Tycoon. But the sheer number of them as they invaded the hangar had me laughing. The obvious, obvious cliches were very bad, but that glorious "Mr. Anderson" compensated each and every phrase spoken by Trinity.
My opinion remains that Reloaded should have been released in OVA format, with only 45 minutes. But if Reloaded had not been so bad, I would probably have hated Revolutions. In spite of Lavos and the Ohmu.
In regards to that talk of rules e o resto que está em português, lembrei-me da expressão "andando em ovos" - mas na verdade estava procurando um equivalente em português para a expressão "walking in unknown grounds". Mas a relação com ovos foi interessante, pois me trouxe à memória uma frase de Tyr Anasazi, da série "Andromeda": "For someone who is trying to make the universe's biggest omelet, you're too afraid to break a few eggs".
Esse post ficou uma porcaria, tem zero coesão. Mas gostei da quote de título, ela se aplica a ambos os assuntos. Nem toda a estrutura original foi perdida.
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It was a warm early evening in Athens - about 6h PM, local time. We were hungry, so we followed upstairs into a nice little restaurant. Very cozy, had a familiar feeling to it. The owner, a pretty lady in her mid-thirties, greeted us in Greek and in a broken English. She looked a bit tired, but happy. Her husband came from the kitchen to greet us as well, said he always liked to be visited by foreigners. Very friendly couple.
The house was higher than most buildings nearby, and the terrain was inclined. Because of that, we could see the sea from the window by which was our table. I picked the menu and browsed through the names in Greek, following them by the English translation by their side. It was fun decyphering the Greek characters. I love Greek and Russian (Cyrillic, that is) mainly because of the different characters.
Among the very pleasant patrons who formed the group I was a part of, there was a friend proud of his Greek origin, with whom I always wanted to have a certain conversation. He pointed to a name in my menu. "This is the true Greek Salad, much better than whatever you ate back home that was called Greek Salad. This will even beat your favorite Caesar Salad." So that is what I ordered, curious about his certainty. Then I chuckled at the problem with the lamb, the order of the pretty lady who sat across the table from me. "Ternero!", the owner insisted, in Italian. "Lamb!?", she asked. They were saying the very same thing, yet could not comprehend each other. The friend of Greek origin intervened and solved the problem.
My salad arrived, I waited for the other dishes to follow before eating. Then I asked the friend of Greek origin that which I had wanted to ask for a very long time: "Why are you a communist?". I must say he is the only person I know is very smart who claims to be a communist. I was always very curious about that. The lady across the table giggled at the question and made a small disapproving motion with her head, but more in the sense of "You are impossible!" than anything more serious.
The friend of Greek origin was surprised by the question, but found it funny. "No one ever asked me that." "No worries, I will not try to change your mind. I am truly just curious." I looked out the window again, noticed how the color of the sea matched the eyes of the lady across the table - at least for that moment. She noticed me looking and smiled. It marvelled me it was still so sunny outside in spite of the time. It also marvelled me that we were eating so early - I always refuse to eat early.
So he started. "You see, I believe..."
Then the bell rang. Twice. And twice more. And I heard clapping. And the bell rang again. And more clapping. And calling, "Hey, at home! Hey!" More ringing, more clapping, more calling.
Athens crumbled, the Mediterranean vaporized, the Greek Salad turned to ashes, the pleasant company vanished. All that was left was my pillow, the clock, and the ringing, the clapping, the calling.
"Package from Reader's Digest to..."
"Yeah, yeah. Hand it over, let me sign.", said a very sleepy and ultimately angry me.
I will never forgive Reader's Digest.
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What a very silent day.
No, that needs rephrasing.
Oh, how silent I am today, and how that allows me to hear what little silence there is in the world around me when I look past all the noise.
I had never noticed that, how one can disregard the noise and focus on the silence. Maybe it is not possible, and I am just delusional today. Probably. Fact is, it is delightful.
One noise I cannot by any possible means disregard is the power supply's fan. Of course. They are building a new circle in Hell filled with power supplies to torture people like me for eternity. But I was away from it for most of the time here mentioned, so it is irrelevant for the issue at hand.
While driving I heard it the clearest. When I could reach the 5th gear, and the engine noise became inaudible, all there was left was the sound of the tyres against the pavement - the other cars seemed all quiet today. A very distant echo in my mind murmured some songs that troubled me a bit. It is amazing how I always remember songs fitting to most situations, unwillingly. Bad songs, too. And in this case it was two songs, even. Two bad songs. One for each side of the issue.
What issue?
Eh? What do you mean? We got hundreds of tons of carbon monoxide and other polluting materials being dumped daily on the atmosphere, killing millions of beautiful purple butterflies, and you come to ask me what issue? Pfaw!
Driving is very interesting. Going from one point to another can be completely trivial, ultimately frustrating, or glorious.
It is glorious when the fifth gear is in, the only noise is the tyres against the pavement, and for one brief moment the car ahead is unimportant. It is not a vehicle with a person behind the wheel - it is a target. Maybe the kamikaze pilots felt a bit like that. It is great. For one moment, seeing the car ahead and imagining the target get closer and closer and then the tremendous wreck that would result from the collision, and just pushing the accelerator a bit further down, that is glorious.
Of course, this moment needs to be very short, or I would not be here at all. But a mere second is enough to make the whole process of going from point A to B a pleasure - a very sadistic, unnatural, dangerous, devious pleasure. It always makes my days better.
Today was made better, but no less silent.
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It is necessary to let it be known that, on this very day, at approximately 7h45 PM, the fourth power supply to be in Asgaard left the land of the living.
Naturally, this happens on a Saturday (when not a Friday evening).
Fortunately, I still had the last one, that did not fully die - it only started making stupid noises and letting out a strong smell of burnt plastic and metal. Nothing serious, as you can see, only a minor risk of death by poisoning and/or fire. But it is 300V, so it will not live long.
On Monday I will have to solve this one more time. But I cannot go downtown and purchase the very expensive Zalman box of 400V with ball-bearing fan - the American thingie, made by people who do not get freaked out when you say "I leave my computer on for more than four hours straight".
No, I will have to call the same guy I called every time since then and say once again that yet another box died. "For the sake of all gods living and dead, tangible and intangible, good and evil, tell me truly, I implore, do you have one single power supply that will not die on me within less than six months? Tell me, tell me, I implore!"
And he will say, "Nevermore". Because in Brazil there is this monopoly of Troni products of extreme low quality because users are far too dumb to know better. So I will invest even more in a box that I know will die very soon, and will make a tremendous amount of noise before death, and cause me huge headaches.
This comes to crown a very dull Saturday. It makes sense, even: after two days of unparalleled grandeur, a dumb day follows. Balance must be kept.
My hatred right now knows no boundaries. But I am in fact sad. Four. Four boxes that die so young. Because the disgraced company that makes them knows it is in a comfortable position providing the least in quality for the populace of this ridiculous country.
Forget the sadness. It is just hatred, indeed.
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Bed? Bed! I couldn't go to bed!
My head's too light to try to set it down!
For a very long time, my favorite radio station was Alpha FM, 101.7. And I always thought funny how it would confuse me when I looked at the radio, which is also a clock, when it showed 10:17, and I thought it was 101.7. At that time, I used to sleep quite earlier, so the situation was common - I turned the radio on, it showed the station, then switched back to the hour and nothing changed: from 101.7 to 10:17.
Sometime later I noticed I had a tendency to look at my watch at school at 10h17 in the morning - just three minutes before the break was over. I never planned to, I just looked casually and 10h17 it was.
That all intrigued me. I came to like 10h17. Nearly every day, completely by chance, I would see it twice on the clock - morning and evening. So I created a silly superstition around it - seeing it in the morning meant good luck; seeing 10h16 or 10h18 meant bad luck. I just liked to think of it that way - there were not even coincidences to back that up. But the number became meaningful: 10h17, 101.7, 1017, and finally, October 17th. Nothing of importance ever happened on any October 17th, though.
Sleep? Sleep! I couldn't sleep tonight.
Not for all the jewels in the crown!
Some time ago, a friend asked me, "What do you think of girls with braces?". My answer to that was unimportant, to be honest. He later revealed what he meant by asking that - he wanted to know if I knew a band called Whale - specifically, a song called "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe", and its video.
"No, I never heard of that, why?" There was no particular reason, in fact: he was just commenting on it after seeing the clip with an awful quality in some site whose name I forgot. "But surely I can find it."
"No, you can't. I've looked everywhere and never found it. It's impossible. It's very old, it can't be found, it is not available online. You can't find it."
"I just did."
Truth be told, that is surely the rarest file I ever looked for - on Overnet I could find only two sources, and they seemed to show up once every two weeks, for a few hours - and I would fall in their endless queues and not see a single byte of the file before they left. On WinMX I found three sources, but the file is four times bigger, and the people who have it are not too fond of remaining online for long periods either.
But I had been challenged; it would take me endless nights of listening to the stupid multiple noises of the broken power supply, but I would get that file.
I could have danced all night,
I could have danced all night,
And still have begged for more.
Thursdays are usually bad days. When I did not have access to a second car, I needed to wake up at 5h30 AM to be at school before 7h, or I would get a fine (certain license plates cannot be on the road from 7h to 10h AM, and from 5h to 8h PM, on a given day of the week - mine was Thursday). With that, I had to wait in the car for one hour, until the class started, at 8h. Fortunately that is solved, I can finally drive the other car. But that was never the only problem.
This semester's class for Thursday, I refer to as the class about nothing. Supposedly it is about the publishing market, its workings, rules, perils, taints. But we just spend ninety minutes listening to the teacher weave some story about the troubles she had to publish her book, after we copy some numbers that are mostly meaningless. Thursday's class is a true waste of time.
I could have spread my wings
And done a thousand things
I've never done before.
I have two copies of "Grave of the Fireflies" in VHS, both fansubbed - one in English, one in Portuguese. The English one has rather low image quality. The one in Portuguese was very good - but in the name of the art I lent it to a teacher, who liked it so much he showed it to the entire school. That one tape was in his hands for a good few years, and the gods know how many times it was played, and how many people saw it. My greatest achievement in the spreading of anime, but it cost the tape all but its last breath.
I'll never know what made it so exciting;
Today I woke up and checked Overnet and WinMX. Nothing to be proud of in Overnet, but WinMX showed a source for the Whale's video, and with a low number in the queue. "Very good, never seen so low a queue place. I hope it actually starts downloading today. But still, so big a file, I doubt it will ever download the entire thing."
As I drove to school, I had some troubles with dumb drivers who refuse to let go of their place in line, no matter how much in advance I give a signal that I need to move to their lane or I will miss my turn. Such a bother. "Bah, bad day for driving, Thursdays are always bad days for driving." Finally I got into the lane where I needed to be, and immediately the traffic stopped. "Bother, bother." Then I noticed the plate on the car ahead of me. The number was 1017.
Why all at once my heart took flight.
I got to school a bit late, rushed to the classroom - the teacher had not arrived yet. Very soon a secretary came to tell us she had called and apologized: she could not make it today, we would have no class about nothing this Thursday.
With that, we waited around for a while, then I went to have lunch with a friend.
As usual, we passed by the big bookstore. And in there I saw what I never expected to see within the territory of this country: "Grave of the Fireflies", in DVD, for sale. Imported, of course, but still never expected. I did not buy it, but I hope to, soon.
I got home, looked at WinMX. The download of the video had actually started. It was going very slowly, but after about a month it had finally left zero. If it held on for another few hours, all would be grand.
I needed to deal with some issues, and they were nicely dealt with. Took a few hours, but all went well. It should prove most useful in the next few days.
Having the few hours passed, I looked at WinMX again. The download was complete. I had proven to be able to find the unfindable, and to have the patience to wait for it to arrive, through fire and rain, day and night.
(Patience, aye, aye.)
I only know when he began to dance with me
"Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor."
The day had been good enough. It would be impolite to ask for anything else from such a generous Thursday.
But I was given something else.
And I found it most regretful that I was out of German champagne to celebrate, for it certainly has greater worth than a cancelled class about nothing, a "Grave of the Fireflies" imported DVD, and a very rare download that reaches its end.
I had a very good day. The night may fall now.
I could have danced, danced, danced... all night!
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Days go by.
They lack something. Picture the original game "Sonic" for the Genesis - at the end of each level, you would run across a sign with Dr. Robotnik, that flipped around and became a sign of Sonic. It is impossible to picture Sonic without those signs at the end of each level. A level without a sign is not a level from Sonic. That is how days have been feeling lately - Sonic levels without the sign. They just pass, and move on to the next, and feel incomplete. So much it is so, that I still believe we are in September, early days of October at most. Days are not getting concluded, they are never making it all the way there. They collapse near the finishing line. But they never happen again; they are left behind and replaced with another one that will not make it all the way there.
I need to publish a book. Soon. Let me rephrase that. I have an original, by someone who is not me. I have read it, at last, and need to make it into a book. But I had not been able to talk to the author since days immemorial (from when days did pass, and life was simple). This week I finally got his e-mail, and contacted him. And suddenly all problems revolving around the publishing of this book are gone, including the greatest of them all - he is not from Rio, as I was led to believe. At least I believe now he is not from Rio. I will not be surprised to learn he is my neighbor, too. Which means I can finally start to get this thing done, and then tell everyone that I, and I alone, braved the barren fields of fiction, and published a book of short stories - while all the others dared not go beyond the academical books, and the pictures, and the poetry. "These are too hard," the teacher said. "I want to!", I replied, "This may be the sole opportunity ever for me to publish something based solely on personal taste. I will do it."
Maybe this will put the sign back into the end of the levels. I hope so. If that does not, I will have to use the second plan, something I was saving for the case I could not contact the author at all: write my own book.
Or rather, put together something that resembles a book. In the most holy name of Apollo, if any guy can put together a bunch of ridiculous "poems" with no metre or rhyme (and reason) or feeling or quality and have it published under the school's label, surely I can do that as well. The only problem is that I would need another 19 poems or so (9 if I make them all as long as I plan to) and maybe - maybe - include one or two of those three tales I mentioned a few days ago - probably "Ambulance" and "Shutdown". I doubt I would have the stamina for such a project, though; as a result, it would not fill up my days, and it would result in nothing. But I would have a book with my name on the cover and twice inside, and I would forever remember it was written during those days that never ended.
Let the days end. I want days that end. Being outside of passing time is devastating.
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Once upon an aft'noon dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a...
I could not find the word to finish that verse. What came was not a tapping.
What did happen, however: I was at work, with little to do, so I decided to read blogs. I could not find some that I usually read at home, so I followed links from those I did find. Among the links I followed, one blog I had not visited in a long time. But it was confusing, boring; the author seems to try to emulate another author, and it bothers me - he fails.
So maybe I did nap for two seconds there - although I doubt it. Truth is a song came to my mind, a song I have not heard in a very long time: John Denver's "Dreamland Express". It reminded me of something, and that brought an odd sensation. That moment I knew I could add one more item to my list of epiphanies.
(I love the word "epiphanies". I thought it was the name of an episode from Xena, but it is actually from Babylon 5. I was a bit frustrated by that. I probably made the confusion because the Xena episode I thought was titled "Epiphanies" marks the first appearance of a character called Ephiny.)
Epiphany it was - I believe it helped that I was a bit hungry. "Butterflies in the stomach." What in the name of a tall peach tree could that possibly be? - it troubled me a few weeks past. And precisely then, with that boring blog on my screen and the silly song in my ears I realized what it was.
But immediately "Dreamland Express" was replaced with "I Told Him That My Dog Wouldn't Run". Two passages of it came crashing at the same time, but I knew they were not to be taken together; rather, each one should apply to a different event, two weeks apart. "This would be all there was." "Thank God when the sun goes down I don't blow it."
For a moment I was troubled with those two verses, and what devious trick of mind was being played. This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing. Pessimism overcame me; I did my best to shake it off. "Think not of it; think not of anything," I reminded myself - wise words.
End of relevant episode.
With a clear mind, I remembered a mention of Jung from the morning. I always liked Jung more than Freud. I remembered, too, that I read a passage about the Symbolism, a literary movement of a single book. And it occurred to me that the elements from those few seconds - the two songs, the epiphany, the Xena episode - all wrapped up in a tremendously complex system that I just had to put down to paper - or, in this case, bits. So, here be it.
Diversas notas de rodapé serão necessárias para explicar esse post quando algum tolo pesquisador cheirando a mofo de academia resolver decifrar o autor deste Journal. Imagino, já, as letras de ambas as músicas, com alguns versos sublinhados; o nome do episódio de Xena, e sua importância na série e para o autor; e um comentário (fatalmente incorreto) sobre a quote que abre o post. O interessante é que, de fato, para tal fim, este post é dos mais significativos.
"Decifra-me e/ou te devoro."
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In "Lord of the Rings", Moria was called, in the language of the dwarves, Khazad-Dum. In the mines of Moria, the greatest battle of the first book (and movie) takes place. In it, the fellowship faces the Balrog, a great demon of the ancient world. Deep in those mountains they also lose Gandalf, their leader and guide, who falls into a great abyss and supposedly dies. In the second book Gandalf reappears, and tells the group he was in a place where each day was an era, et cetera.
In "Babylon 5", the homeworld of the Shadows was called Z'ha'dum (pronounced "Za-Ha-Dum"). The Shadows were one of the two Older Races left behind when the other races left the universe, a million years before. There is no major battle in Z'ha'dum, as far as I remember; there is, however, great destruction, when a White Star ship filled with bombs is flown into the planet's core and detonated - later it is said the whole planet was destroyed, in fact. Sheridan, captain of Babylon 5 and leader of the forming Army of Light, jumps into the pit with the White Star (not inside it, mind you) and supposedly dies - that is the season's finale. The following season, Sheridan is alive, and is told he is trapped "between the 'tic' and the 'tac'".
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5, the ultimate source of information about the series on the web, has only this to say regarding this coincidence: A parallel to Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" is possible: Gandalf fell into the pit at Khazad-dum with the Balrog, died (as Sheridan will, according to Kosh) and was reborn as Gandalf the White, an even more powerful figure.
Straczynski was certainly not afraid of being accused of plagiarism - but I truly would not do that, absolutely. These are all obviosly not coincidences, but I see them as good references - much as most RPGs in the world have dwarves and elves.
The reason for this post? I am tired of pondering about the meaning of vesper the evening star in accordance to the view of the essay authors who consider the poetical art divided in two poles of conception and construction consecrated through tradition. In other words, I hate Antonio Candido with ultimate passion (and his parallel Bosi, too). Thus I needed a moment of break to ponder on truly important things - and my background music gave me just that.
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Years ago, there was a time when AudioGalaxy was the best way to download Mp3 files. It was a great service, and not only did it allow trade, it also hosted files for artists trying to get into the market. One day I noticed a nice band described in their main page, and downloaded the two songs available from them. The band was Breech, and the songs where "Charms" and "Awful Spill". I was impressed - no, I was in love. That very week I ordered their CD from Amazon - it cost only U$ 5,95 at the time (fair, since it only has 27'30 of audio). That was one of the longest odisseys in the history of imports - it took this CD three months to arrive, and the one I ordered with it was here six months after I ordered them.
"Breech" is probably the best album in its style, in my collection. I showed their songs to two people, and both liked them as much as I do - actually, one of these cases happened precisely two minutes ago. I am no good at spreading memes.
In fact, I only remembered to mention the album to a second person because I was listening to it, after so long. And I was listening to it for a particular reason. In "Charms" there is a verse that goes like "I realize tonight, two beers and one cocktail later, that you've been that dead now for three months". I remembered that line tonight, three beers and one champagne later.
The champagne was an unusual case. It was afternoon, I skipped work today - oh, really, I can play Solitaire at home without getting insulted. I needed white wine - no, really, I did need white wine right then. In honor of King, partially - although I believe she prefers red wine. But I wanted white. As I hope you know, white wine must be served cold. I looked in the refrigerator for my always present Riesling - and found none. None, none! What bothers me the most is that I know there was at least one bottle in store somewhere - then why was it not cold? Well, there was a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator, but not Riesling. I chose not to open it when I noticed a smaller bottle of what I thought was white wine nearby. I find these small bottles funny and cute - they hold exactly two glasses. I looked closely at it, and all signs pointed to white wine - but it was written in German, so there was no way I could tell for sure. Let me end this paragraph, it is too long.
The label was in German, and naturally I understood nothing in it beyond the "21%", which is obvious. "German, eh? Fitting!", I thought. I would remember to offer my first toast with it to all Valkyries and Norse Gods represented in the Cycle of the Ring (or rather, "Der Ring des Nibelungen") - the other toasts had their subjects already. So I opened the bottle, and it acted like a bottle of soda. I poured it in my glass, and there were bubbles.
"I opened a bottle of German champagne," I shrieked, upstarting. I wanted anything but champagne. Champagne is no good for toasting alone, in the name of Bacchus! I wanted wine! Wine! But it was already open, and the only thing to do was drink it. So it was done. Champagne has never been among my favorite, but it was not bad - I just wanted something else, that was all.
The day went by in a silly way, spent mainly in downloading and listening to remixes from OverClocked Remix. Truly, it was far better than playing Solitaire and/or reading fanfics all day at work! Then night fell. "Are you going out tonight?", I was asked. Why would I, I considered. I was short on money, having spent more than I planned to during the day, and had no company. The one place I could visit was my friend's restaurant, although I was sure I would not get another job this time. But I did want to talk to him, no less; off I went.
Troublesome it is to be a friend of the owner; more troublesome still to be a friend of someone who is a friend of everyone else. I sat down with my beer and had endless minutes to ponder on the situation. I like thinking over beer, but somehow that beer, which I find so good, never tasted worse. Besides, people singing in the karaoke were particularly bad tonight - so bad that I nearly went up there and gave it a shot myself, just so they would learn! There was one good song the entire time I was there - New York, New York. Frank Sinatra is always good, always good.
As I said, the beer was awful. "Maybe it is just the first one", I thought, and ordered another. No better. "Fine, but it is too early to leave." I still had hopes, so I asked for another beer. Gods, what lack of luck, still no good. I stood up and left, mere minutes after I arrived, much to everyone's surprise.
Of course, all was not bad; beer is not too good, either, for toasting alone, but I paid homage to a number of things with each sip. And at the end it brought me the thought of "three beers and one champagne later", which led to Breech - and now I have a second soul who likes it.
Sum this to a good morning, a delightful lunch, and a pleasant afternoon, and we have a very good day.
(Just so people do not think I only write to complain about power supplies - I do the trivial, too.)
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The fan in my power supply box is making funny noises.
Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!!!!!
I am cursed. These power supplies will probably drive my sanity off faster than anything else. Given the irony of life, I am likely to suffer an accident and get hooked to life support machines, and then I die because the machines' power supply boxes all fail.
And my CD burner will only recognize a CD in it in one out of each fifteen attempts, more or less. And when it does, it will only record at 8x, when the maximum is 16x. And it keeps failing and retrying during burning. But HP's support site enjoys being cyclic and not telling me where I can take it for repairs.
But hardware problems are not the subject I chose today.
I have three ideas for fiction texts. Short stories. The first one that I thought of was "Wind Chimes", the most fantastic one (fantastic in the sense of "fantasy realm"). It would only make sense in Portuguese, though. The second story should be titled "Shutdown". When I first thought of it, it depressed me instantly. I was in fact scared. But to fully reach that effect with a story I would need to do some research and put a lot of effort into it, and probably rewrite it a few times, which I hate doing; therefore, "Shutdown" is not coming out anytime soon.
The third idea is what has been echoing in my mind the most lately. "Ambulance", it dawned on me while driving back home from work one day, when an ambulance came rushing by, I made way for it and noticed I would go through the same street it did. It would, however, need a tremendous psychological side to it to even touch what I want it to be. Therefore, "Ambulance" is the hardest of the three: I keep thinking about it all day and get nowhere.
All in all, these three stories are unlike anything I have ever written. "Dream Debris", "Fireflies", "Elise", those were easy, linear, obvious: I just created the characters, put them in that long gone world of Temuair and said "go, do what you must"; there was next to no intervention from myself - and where I did meddle, it shows, for the quality of the narrative drops - really, two suicides? crying for three days and nights? lesbian incest? "I did it for love"!? I thank the gods for "Four Far From Formidable Fables", which were short enough to prevent me from ravaging them.
"Wind Chimes", "Shutdown" and "Ambulance" could be nowhere near the Temuair three. They are closer to real literature, the kind that I have not read enough of to do it myself. Poe, Salinger, Machado de Assis, all masters of short stories. I have not read nearly enough of them. It is a shame, a shame.
Yet this goes on, unchanged. Maybe soon I will have another idea to archive and regret not putting to paper.
By the way, I am tired of listening to "Thanatos - If I Can't Be Yours", the ending theme of "The End of Evangelion". Yet I can find the will to play no other song. This should not be so.
But the night waned and he sat upon the rock.
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Hoje escrevo em português.
Cheguei em casa pensando em falar sobre o paradoxo de um botão de elevador. Antes de fazê-lo, por hábito, dei uma olhada nas páginas que visito com freqüência (hábito, freqüência: redundância).
O Alexandre Soares Silva falou hoje maestralmente sobre Buffy e Angel. Eu precisaria assistir quatro vezes mais episódios do que vi para comentar à altura, então fico apenas com o simples "muito bom". Merece um elogio maior, mas é no mínimo muito bom.
O Polzonoff tem dois textos hoje. Sobre o Papa, nada digo. Já o outro texto, sobre o triâgulo lampertiano, vale a leitura, mais pela forma que pelo conteúdo - adoro ver um jornalista que não soa como jornalista. Especialmente considerando que a maior parte dos jornalistas com os quais trombo pelos corredores do departamento seriam os primeiros a citar Chomsky, não importando o assunto.
Voltemos à figura central desta página, aquele que queria escrever sobre o botão do elevador. Por pouco não desisto - face a esses dois textos, como poderia eu riscar umas dez linhas em português sob um título em inglês e chamá-las de "post"? Mas pensei melhor, e decidi fazê-lo. Na pior das hipóteses, esse post fica como caminho aos outros dois.
Ponto-e-vírgula.
São Paulo, Zona Sul. Apenas uma avenida separa os Shoppings Morumbi e Market Place. Algum tempo atrás, existia um semáforo nessa avenida. Ele foi retirado ao término da construção de uma bonita passarela que hoje une os dois templos.
Essa passarela, em respeito às minorias deficientes, foi projetada de modo a não ser sacrificante para usuário algum. Possui escadas de degraus largos, e elevadores grandes. Dentro dos elevadores, ao lado dos botões, a função de cada um é descrita em braile.
Os botões não são muitos. T para térreo, S para o nível superior,um para manter a porta aberta, e um para acender as luzes.
Sempre me perguntei: por que o botão de acender a luz tem código braile ao lado?
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Today, I decided to vary in my background music as I drove to work. Instead of the usual anime songs, or the classical songs which held a dear place for a few days, I took one of the old neglected CDs in my small collection. Unknown to many, "The Best of Peter, Paul and Mary". That was the wisest thing I did all day.
When the first song, "Blowing in the Wind", started playing, it felt like five years had gone back. The only reference to the recent past I could find to relate with that song was the use I made of it in my Quest for the Cap of Danaan, that beautiful piece of gameplay that was usurped from me. I remember precisely, the Jester said "The answer is floating in the drink!". The Jester and the Beggar in Astrid made me laugh at my own writings for half an hour the day I put that huge marvel together.
It was impressive, I note, that after all this time I still remember all the lyrics, not only to that one, but to the following, "Too Much of Nothing" - which I never truly understood back then - and to a number of others, like "Early Mornin' Rain" and "Day is Done".
But of course, I only have this CD in my collection because of one song. "Lemon Tree". Perfect. Not the song - the idea, the situation. "Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet. But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat." Beautiful analogy in its context. Fortunately I put it back into the past later today; I need no relation between the present and "Lemon Tree".
"Leaving on a Jet Plane" was odd to hear. I knew it was on that CD, but I always remember it with John Denver - and always followed by "Goodbye Again". Besides, the last time I heard of this song was in a blog I used to read, now long gone (thus no link), where it served as frame to a pictured situation which much resembled the song's own. I found it interesting then, mainly because I believed nobody else knew the song at all, but that was all. I found it interesting today, because that was the first fact I associated with it.
The apex of past revival was reached with "For Lovin' Me". I always considered this the theme song of the relationship between an innocent young girl called Laya and a devious heartbreaker called Faulkner, Conrad Faulkner. He broke her heart twice, so foolish she was. I remember the first time well: white wine never tasted as bad as that day. If I ever, ever have the courage, maybe I will write about the misadventures of lady Laya Landale, the Poet of Scorpions. But I need a whole lot of alcohol to have that kind of courage. Back to the point.
It was funny that in the stupid mixture of present and past that erupted from the CD, the wrapping up song would have to be "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right". From a very selfish point of view, that could be the closing theme to a recent chapter in my own life (what a terrible, terrible expression - chapter in my life; argh, argh) - for future reference, it involved polar bears. And, no less, I see a parallel to that chapter forming before my eyes - not only a simple parallel, but something much bigger. Time will tell how much of a parallel it remains once it extrapolates the original.
I used to say "Time will tell" a lot. When time did tell anything, it was most often not in my favor. So I stopped using the expression.
Tonight I wonder which CD the gods will put in my hands tomorrow. But I am seriously thinking about hopping back to the safety of my Inuyasha or Kenshin Op-Ed collections. I believe I have enough past for this page of the novel.
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Now, to explain the third cat.
I have a friend who has a restaurant. On Fridays, it opens at night for a happy-hour, with karaoke and drinks. One Friday, late July, I felt like having a beer, so I paid him a visit. We talked a bit. He mentioned he had started working.
"An advertising agency. Fun stuff, I'm learing Illustrator and Corel, I draw a lot, the people there is fun."
"Sounds like a nice job! Don't they have an opening for a writer and proofreader?"
I asked for no particular reason. Probably "male bonding" - I learned the term this week. What I could not expect, however, was what he answered me.
"Actually, yes, there is. Our writer left just today, and there are no candidates in sight. Want to give it a try?"
And then people wonder why I have this firm belief that I am the central character in a novel. How in the blazes of Muspelheim does one get a job like that? I went to have a beer, and just that day the writer left the agency where my friend started working two weeks earlier. Few days later I was there proofreading ad folders and creating beer concepts. And that is what have been taking my afternoons, lately.
No need to get into details of my work, though. I said I would explain the third cat (adorable female cat, that is). Two weeks ago, a girl started working there. Without a doubt the cutest girl I have ever seen.
(Dramatic pause to add consistency to her cutesy.)
And so I wrote that post about the three cats.
Three days later, she stopped working. I have not heard from her since. I am left with Mewsette and Sagwa again. Bah.
Of course, later I realized the writer of the novel in which I am the main character just made a mistake. It was not yet the time to introduce that particular character. The scenario was not ready yet.
But maybe it will be, soon.
In any case, she had a funny idea of me. She had a firm belief that all students of USP are psychotical. "All that elegance and tranquility, I am sure anyday you will come into office with a gun and shoot us all!" No, certainly not. Destroying beautiful things is not a pasttime of mine.
However, I do concede, I enjoy greatly to see Iori's many Desperation moves in King of Fighters 2002, especially his maniacal laughter. Same goes for Whip's HSDM, Vice's adorable laughter as she hits her opponent against the floor multiple times, and a myriad of other rather devious presentations of psychosis.
That is all for now. I need to write about three tales sometime soon, but the subject is too diverse from these. In any case, my purpose is fulfilled, the third cat is explained - and gone.
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