Frio, bolas!

Partly Cloudy, -7°C
Feels Like -16°C

e aqui o meninó a ir de bicicleta ver o jogo do benfica. Tudo por uma bifana e uma bica bem tugas! Fica-se mesmo muito cansado.

Noutras notícias, fiz esta semana a minha primeira sopa. Grande!

Of cucumbers and men

What was over my bed at a winter school in Durham...

I totally agree.

Cartoons II

Cartoons I

Chicago Arts Institute

Chicago Arts Institute
Originally uploaded by pmdcsb.

That's Samson right there. And that's Jesus in the background. The museums here are good, but unlike in the UK they are not free. Something we could all learn from the old brits.

And they have a ridiculous small amount of naked art here. Puhleeaaase!!

Ten years ago today...

fiz o exame de álgebra linear com o Rui Loja Fernandes. Ele pôs corações no enúnciado.

Hoje, montes de casais com balões ridículos (mas que balões não são ridículos, como as cartas de amor do outro) a dizer I love you, restaurantes cheios, mas ninguém, ninguém a beijar-se. Será ilegal?

Ode to the unknown neighbour

Oh neighbour, my neighbour
thanks be to thee
in the name of all us leeches
who suck your internetee!

You are generous, and everywhere
in every building and every house
you give away your precious bits
to us, who don't paid our share!

Everyone has a neighbour,
who dutifully provides
internet with speed and glamour

Now my turn it is to be
the neighbour whom my neighbours leech
ungratefuls, and unbeknownst to me!

Music genome project - hit of the week!

The scientific approach to music. Starting from 1 song, they search for music with similar properties (rythm, lyrics, etc) which you select, one by one. Then they search again for music, but with more information about what you like. So it builds iteratively a network of songs, and you sample music you never heard of, from the farthest regions of the music universe. Welcome to Pandora.com.

I vote this the find of the week! (obrigado Ana Rita). There's a catch, though... it's only for USA residents, nhahahahahaha. That's one good point about being here. And also, 10 inches of snow in Boston...

Mumbles and rumbles

Skip if you are in a good mood...

On the wall, there is a ad on breast cancer, 2 women have run a marathon and are celebrating it. For those of us who fail to see the obvious connection, people here (and in the UK) pay to run the marathons, and the money goes to eg. cancer research. The image of the women runners is of a collective catharsis due to the triumph of good will: if you really want, if you really feel it (and run for it), you'll beat cancer. All is really needed is feeling good, and feeling good together. Because everything, and especially feelings, must be public in America.

The "running for cancer" events are actually major contributors for cancer research, not to mention the diversion, hope and actual catharsis they bring the thousands of people who do it every year. But, though it's quite harmless here, the idea that public and collective feeling-goodness will solve things is dangerous elsewhere. And in the States, it is everywhere.

It is dangerous in two ways: by putting good-feeling in place of actual thought and fact, and by demanding it to be collective and public. We no longer are asked "what do you think?" but "how does this make you feel?" and "Shout it out!". We all know that complex ideas rarely make it in the public marketplace, so only the simplest idea survives: cultural relativism. The crazy ideas going around in the States, from creationism to conspiracy theories to the new fashion of social coaches, are really amazing.

And how does relativism gets along with the drive for being public? It turns out that anything you do outside the norm is suspicious. Try smiling at a baby, or drinking a beer at lunch, or telling a non-pc joke. Witness the incredible enforcement of the (rather incredible) laws on sexual harassment. Not to mention the hypocritical anti-tabagism... So everything done collectively is imposed and any show of personality is suspicious.

The man of the future is being made here. Fit, passive-agressive and perfectly bland.

Lounge I

I'm sitting in an airport lounge and half the people are doing business on their cell phones (and many others are on their pcs...). They don't talk to their darlings or families, as people would in portugal, instead they do busingess, as if they were in wall street. Clearly, the lounge is an office away from the office. Doing business is like building a house, it may be fun for the people doing it, but is mindboggingly annoying if you are hearing it. Thank God no cell phones are allowed in planes! There's no way these guys manage to be cool in their real lives!! Pfff...

Bible scenes

Textos impressionantes da bíblia.

Job:

Has not man a hard service upon earth, and are not his days like the days of a servant?
Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hireling who looks for his wages,
so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
When I lie down I say, `When shall I arise?' But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.
My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, and come to their end without hope.
Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.


Song of songs:

How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better isthy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices! Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

Awake, O north wind; blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.

Groundhog day

Foi ontem, o Phil viu a sombra e temos mais 6 semanas de Inverno.

Isto e' uma grande treta. E se nao esta Sol, quade a sombra? e depois, em 6 semanas estamos em Marco, e' obvio que ainda vai estar Inverno. Mas os camponios divertem-se e ate' se fazem filmes. Porque e' que ninguem faz um filme sobre o galo de Barcelos? Tipo Dernier jour d'un condamne', repetido todos os dias... Well, a questao em Boston e' saber se o Verao chega de rompante em Junho ou se vamos ter alguma Primavera antes. Por enquanto nao tem estado frio, o que e' pena porque chove. Frio e neve e sol, e' o melhor enquanto nao chega a Primavera.

Ah, ia-me esquecendo! (tretas, que os blogs podem sempre ser editados depois sem o publico saber... isto e' que e' manipulacao da informacao) Mas como dizia, meus caros comentadores, adoro-vos, sao optimos e unicos, mas: i) anonimos nao vale! ii) e so' com uma inicial nao chego la'... toca a por duas iniciais, ou entao uma referencia obliqua a uma gelataria em paris, ou um parque em Londres ou 'a pasta de dentes que usam... Para coisas mais pessoais, ja sabem o meu email pessoal ;) En attendant, beijinhos e abracos a todos.

wondrous Bronte

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be. [...]

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading
- it vexes me to choose another guide -
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding,
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.