March 10th, 2013
The Bitch is Back!
With.. Your Song 
As I promised, here is the video of Elton John saying goodbye and playing Your Song in the Porto Alegre , Brazil, Concert.
March 6th, 2013
Elton John Concert – Porto Alegre, 05/03/13
Bellow are pictures of Elton John Concert’s last night.
Elton John is awesome, polite, lovely, sweet, professional, educated, a classy showman, a gentleman who knows how to treat his audience. I was delighted by his presence and by his live performance. I almost cried when he played “The One” solo, and “Your song”.
His sparkling blue outfit was spectacular and I really wish I could use it for my friend’s wedding because it is just as good as any party gown.
I recorded a huge video of him playing “Your Song” and signing autographs but the video is too huge and needs some shrinkage before uploading.
Also, I’m uploading a ton of photos to Flickr!
Footnote that has nothing to do with the show: Hugo Chavez finally died and pardon my cruelness but I couldn’t care less because he was a leftist moron who only spoke shit and, as a leader, did as much shit as he spoke; and Chorão, a brazilian musician from a very popular band (whose popularity, if measured in ‘USA band scale of popularity’ would be “Green Day”, that is, he was really popular) was found dead in his apartment today also!
March 2nd, 2013
Bancada Evangélica lidera comitê de direitos humanos
Sempre que eu penso que nada pior pode surgir das entranhas podres da política brasileira, lá vem mais um petardo ainda maior e mais nauseabundo. Dessa vez a bomba é a seguinte: os seres evangélicos abjetos que ocupam um lugar no congresso nacional e que se auto-denominam “bancada evangélica” vão liderar a comissão de direitos humanos da câmara. Sim, esses são os mesmos seres que alegam ser os bastiões da moral e guardiões dos bons costumes. É, bons costumes, sabe? Como por exemplo propagar o ódio a gays, negros, aborto, mulheres, sexo, contracepção, qualquer outra religião que não seja a deles próprios, enfim, todas essas coisas erradas e imorais. De fato, no Brasil nada é tão ruim que não possa piorar. Brasil é que nem usuário de crack: um caso perdido.
Bancada Evangélica Deve Presidir Comissão de Direitos Humanos
November 29th, 2012
Happy Thanksgiving
Last weekend we held a small thanksgiving feast – prepared by my lovely hubby Cary – and even though we don’t celebarte thanksgiving in Brazil, we even had Black Friday. We had turkey, blueberry pie, special gravy, mashed potatoes and yummy stuffing!!
We found out that there’s peanut butter in the public market here, which is just a couple blocks down our place, so my husband is very happy as you can imagine
My sweetie feline Mistofelis had a bad diarrhea but I’m so glad he’s competely recovered!!
I’m watching American Horror Story: Asylum. I must confess I hate psych ward – but I’m LOVING AHS Asylum. Psychiatric hospital were and still are a place for the nightmares. Hardly any other theme has more potential for horror and suspense. I’m liking AHS better than the Walking Dead. The Walking Dead is lost within its slow story and uninteresting characters – issues that could have been solved in a three lines dialogue are lasting for the entire season. Killing Lori was a mistake, Michonne is annoying and poorly written, Merle is a pain in the ass. None of the character’s behavior has any logic or makes any sense. They really should review certain things in case there s next season.
My reading is uber slow and I’m so behind my new year resolution of reading 10 books in 2010. Aprox. 12hrs of work per day and I get home and pass out in bed. There’s french class I’d like to dedicate to a little more. I’d like to excersice, do something else. I read medical periodics but that does not count as reading. I’m pretty tired to be honest.
October 27th, 2012
007 Skyfall – plus ordinary life updates
…is one of the best 007 films ever, if not the best (I’m still thrilled by having just watched it 2 hours ago, and my previous favorite was Casino Royale). The opening sequence graphics are stunning, the theme is a classic Bond style masterpiece in Adele’s great voice. Javier Bardem’s character is really outstanding and almost outshines Daniel Craig, as good as Craig is himself! Loved the references and jokes about old Bond movies, the final sequence at the Skyfall mansion is memorable, the finale was a surprise, dark but very, very good!
I cannot wait to see this film again!
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In todays trip to the mall we happened to notice they’re selling Windows 8 Pro for just 269 Brazilian Reais (1 Real = 50 US$ cents), so it is, as we say about very cheap things here in Brazil, “Banana Price” close to what former Windows versions were priced (600+ Brazilian Reais at least)! I’m waiting however. Don’t wanna be the first to find out the first bugs! 
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We’re also following the new season of The Walking Dead and it all looks good so far. Good to see most characters growing some balls and doing some killing instead of just whining around! Lori however is still a growing pain in the ass!
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A few weeks ago a tragedy happened in my life. My smartphone suffered sudden death by drowning in the toilet. I was smartphoneless for about 10 days. That was good for me to confess and accept the sad truth: I am a smartphone addict. Using a stupidphone almost drove me nuts. I have an iPad but it’s Wi-Fi only so it wouldn’t always do the tricks. So there I was having an espresso with my husband but I couldn’t check-in on Foursquare or tweet about how awesome the coffee was, of post a tweaked picture of my espresso to Instagram. I could not update my Facebook status and see people liking my espresso and commenting about my irrelevant and mondane drink!! I also couldn’t keep in contact with my friends by instantly sending them endless messages about some personal, stressing but not less mondane issue, that in the “old times” (or 12 years ago) would have to wait until we met in person or made an expensive cell phone call (mind that talking on cell phones was not and is still not cheap).
So, here it is the saddest part of the addiction: I was so afraid of being smartphoneless again that I actually acquired myself not only one, but two new phones… you know, a spare one in case some bad accident happens again (one can never be too careful!!). It was 10 endless days until the two phones finally arrived, together, in my mailbox. One cannot imagine the joy and relief I felt when I held my 2 new babies (Sony XPERIA S LT26i running on Droid Ice Cream Sandwich and Sony Ericsson XPERIA Mini Pro SK17i on Gingerbread)! As embarrassed as I feel for being so ridiculously addicted to my gadgets, I really hope I won’t lose them again any time soon!
As gadget addicted as I am, I’m still “old style” with typing (not to say clumsy) and prefer qwerty keyboards to touchscreen keyboards, hence my latest acquisition is a Bamboo stylus. I’m having a much better relationship with my touchscreens now that I have a stylus!
October 12th, 2012
LIST OF PLACES TO BE VISITED, THINGS TO BE DONE, BASED ON MUSIC…
4. Nowhere Fast – that’s from Streets of Fire original soundtrack (that one may seem easy, but try doing that with current traffic jams and without getting a speed ticket!)
5. Hidden Place – Bjork (ooh yes, that one is easy, just needs to be in the very right moment!)
6. Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd (advantage: it’s a state, plenty of counties at your choice!)
7. Graceland – Paul Simon (…hey if even poorboys and pilgrims with families are going to Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee…)
October 9th, 2012
List of Places to be Visited and Things to Be Done Before you Die, Based on Music
Blogworthy? Not sure. However…
1. Take the “A” Train (Duke Ellington)
2. Float down the Liffey (nevermind I can’t swim. I already floated down the dead sea, but that would require Radiohead to re-write the song) (Radiohead)
3. Get to Oceanside (and lay your muscles wide…) (The Decemberists)
… (neverending list!)
June 22nd, 2012
Uncharted 3 For PS3 (and others)
I’m so disappointed with certain aspects of most PS3 games (that we own. Yes, we still used the PS2.)
Mostly we’ve been playing (solo and co-op) Uncharted 3 and (solo) Child of Eden. I’m extremely pissed off at the fact that in most couch co-op modes it’s not possible to save a game. PS3 auto-saves it, says the manual. But no, it doesn’t. Once you ran out of lives it’s game over and back to the beginning, and you have to re-do everything you did the last fucking hour all over again – which really makes me rethink playing these games again, since I really could be doing something more useful of my time. How – and why – do these folks are so tech wise and creative to make up all these funky 3D imagery with cinema quality sound, and yet they can’t make the game savable? WEAK.
P.S.: do NOT under any circumstances buy PS3 controllers of the brand “Integris” or “Integris Brasil”. I lack words to describe their ultimate crappiness. Don’t buy ANYTHING from Integris. Buy the original, please.
May 19th, 2012
Random updates…
-No, I didn’t make it to the Bob Dylan concert 
– but he’s played here before and I’m sure I’ll get the chance again.
-A few days back we watched “The Thaw”, a sci-fi B movie starring Val Kilmer. A climate scientist tries to warn the world about the perils of global warming by reintroducing dormant, deadly parasite back in the world. I have seen many bad movies in my life, but I have never ever seen a former great cinema star decline so vertiginously like Kilmer did. He seems to star exclusively in very bad B films (worse than average). How does one go from playing Jim Morrison and Batman in the movies to TV only, 90 minute bottom-of-the-gutter badly scripted films? Decadence sans elegance!
-Here’s the first 30 minutes of “Rabid” (1977) by David Cronenberg: a young woman suffers a terrible moto accident. A person watching with binoculars from the roof of a plastic surgery clinic nearby witnesses the accident, and, instead of calling 911, she shouts out loud to the plastic surgeons inside, who promptly get in the clinic’s green ambulance and rush to the accident site in order to help the woman. Arriving there, they determine that the woman has massive internal bleeding, but her blood pressure is “stable”, and they are able to perform a series of plastic procedures that ultimately heal the woman, even though “her body remains in shock” after the procedure, as we are told by Dr. Keloid, the clinic’s owner (yes, he is a plastic surgeon and he’s called “Keloid”). In order to better access the woman’s health, Dr Keloid has the patient “removed to town in order to get an ECG.” And so it goes… Honestly, how did someone approve that to be ever written at all? Stay away from this one, unless it’s for the giggles, and don’t let yourself get fooled by it’s 6.2 rating on IMDB. This movie is a steady 3.0.
- “The Midnight Meat Train” (2008) with Bradley Cooper was a very good surprise. The right measure of extreme gore and spookiness, good actors that don’t take themselves too seriously and know they’re doing a terror film.
April 7th, 2012
Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner Concert
On March 11th my husband and I went to see Mark Farner’s (from Grand Funk Railroad) concert at Bar Opinião venue, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. I’s always great to see great musicians in small venues. You get to see and listen to everything so much better. General enjoyment level rises 200%. Mark masters his guitar and sings with the same energy as the old times: age has not deteriorated his voice and talent. It was an awesome concert.
Now I’m on the hunt for a Bob Dylan ticket. If I get that, there’s only Paul Simon left on my bucket list.
This is a video recorded from Mark’s concert:
Grand Funk Railroad’s Mark Farner in POA, Brazil
