O Chato fala comvosco

(For the Portuguese crowd only)
Aqui está o chato a falar com todos vocês :) TÁ BRUTAL :D

Amon Tobin - The Killer's Vanilla

I was chilling out over a Martini @ a bar I quite like and this song started. My friend Patricia was with me and she didn't know who Amon Tobin was. I promised to dig my collection when I got home and find the name of the song. And here it is: The Killer's Vanilla.
When I was still in college, a complete pot head was all "dude... you have to listen to this... this freaks me out... it's like horror movies soundtrack mixed with drum'n'bass rythm". And that was when I first learned about Amon Tobin, a Brasilian DJ well know for his sampling skills. Some parts really sounded like horror movies, and others pure drum'n'bass... but the mix was well balanced and worked quite well! His later work is easier to listen, but I still think it's one of the most original musicians out there.

Jon Stewart on AF1 - Stephen Colbert on Torture

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Mistakes on a Plane
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Shepard Smith Swears
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Gay Marriage Commercial

Red Dwarf - Kryten lie scene

I was going through my RSS stuff and one article mentioned the British comedy show "Red Dwarf". I remembered some random episodes from my youth, and decided to watch it all from the start. It's very light to watch because each season has only 6 episodes, 25 minutes each.
The fun really picks up from season 4 onwards. The characters were so extreme during the first 3 seasons that they were just unlikable. Here is the start of the 4th season, with one of the funniest Kryten moments ever! It sure is hard teaching a robot how to lie :D

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

My last Woody Allen experience wasn't that great. I didn't like Cassandra's Dream... it's in my list of "movies never to watch again no matter what". This Vicky Cristina Barceblona was much lighter.
I always find interesting the randomness and craziness of artists, and I've gotten used to not trying to understand or justify it. This is a movie just about that, the relationships between the creative and non-creative, the creative and creative, the non-creative and non-creative.
I really liked Javier and Penelope roles, but I think Scarllet's performance was just too fake. And the not so known Rebecca Hall was great as Vicky. Penelope's Oscar is probably just. And Woody, you did great by not falling into the tragic ending every author who wrote movies about this subject keeps choosing. 8/10 and I'd definitely watch it again :D

If PacMan was real

Thanks Paulo!

The power of Google

Look out for Google Maps markers on the road!!

Jorge Palma - Casino de Lisboa - 19/04/2009

(Today's post is in portuguese, because it's for the portuguese crowd only :P)
Fui ver o Jorge Palma hoje ao Casino de Lisboa. 3º aniversário da casa, e nada melhor do que um concerto de Jorge Palma de borla :D Concerto simples, com apenas 2 musicos acompanhantes, um a tocar ora piano ora guitarra, outro a tocar acordeão.
Para se apreciar a sério um concerto de Jorge Palma, é preciso acompanhá-lo para o seu mundo... quem não acompanha, perde um concerto relaxado e bem tocado.
Como momentos altos, para além da "Encosta-te a Mim", ficou uma "Dá-me Lume" com um publico entusiasmado e uma "Estrela do Mar" tocada com piano e acordeão.
Deixo aqui um video antigo da "Estrela do Mar"

Blue Man Group

Today I went to see the Blue Man Group show. It was brutal! Laughed till my head hurt! :) I was one of the guys in the so called "Crappy seats" :D.

Didn't like the singers, but the musicians were awesome! And the interaction with the audience was great :D I recommend this show to anyone!

Scrubs + OutKast

I was watching this moment of Scrubs... and DAMN I KNOW THIS SONG... what is it?!?!? OMG it's Outkats's "Hey ya"! It's a sappy moment, but a great performance by Ted (Sam Lloyd). This show is the best I've ever seen at making covers of songs :) Foshizle!!!

Jimi Hendrix's "Like a Stone" cover

I've listened to quite a lot live recordings by Jimi Hendrix, and I still think his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival can't be beaten. I already knew his worldly famous "All along the Watchtower" cover of a Bob Dylan song, but I didn't know this "Like a Stone" cover.
It probably isn't as famous because it's impossible to mimic Dylan's atypical voice that made this song unique. However, I was marveled by the beginning of the video... Jimi is just having a good time and being a complete genius. Today's guitar genious should take a hint: it's not about how many notes you play per second!

PS: I add this extra video just to prove my point about the Monterey performance... here he is playing "Hey Jo". He's just that good! :D

John Stewart and Stephen Colbert rule!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cheney's Secret Assassination Squad
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Two great moments from the Daily Show and Colbert Report! :D

Portable Linux For Windows

As I have now linked my blog to my Facebook account, I'll start writing my posts in English. I'm going to refer to what can be considered an odd Linux distribution: a Linux that runs inside Microsoft Windows... who would have thought of that??? And what's the point?!?

I think it's really a useful distribution for the following motives:
- it's portable, meaning you can have it in your thumb drive and take your Linux OS wherever you want.
- it's useful when you're at work, locked out from a Linux PC due to bureaucracies.
- it's an excellent distribution for those guys that want to run some open source tools that are not available in Windows, and don't want to have to have to reboot and change to Linux just for that.
- it's an excellent way to introduce Linux to new users.

I'm a sucker for the music player Amarok. I was very happy when I found out that Amarok was being released for Windows... but the version I tried out was buggy (it's not oficially supported) and was lacking most of the features I wanted to use (I LOVE the play random and favor least heard feature). And, as you can see in the picture above, here I am running Linux's Amarok on my Vista laptop.

"Hey isn't it confusing?? Both systems working at the same time?" No, it's quite simple actually. The Ubuntu distribution being run does not have a Desktop, and can only be seen as a simple menu bar at the top of the screen, from where every application/configuration tool can be launched. Every resulting window is then opened in Windows using XMing.

"So what do you get?" A Ubuntu system inside your Windows. What do I have to pay? A performance hit, there is some overhead involved in the process. However, I must admit some surprise, it works faster than I expected when I was reading about it.

"OK... I've read this far, I'm interested in giving it a go... where do I get it and what do I need to know?"
1 - Check out Lifehacker's post about this. There's a small guide on how to run it from Vista/XP and a link to the site where you can download it from. LINK TO LIFEHACKER'S POST
2 - Credits to Mr. Rui Pires for this one -> LINK TO HIS BLOG. I was having problems adding new programs as downloads were failing too often. Rui remembered to check the server from which Ubuntu was trying to download stuff from. Turns out it was a not so good server. To change it, here is the How To sequence:
(1)System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager ->123456
(2)Settings -> Respositories -> DownloadFrom -> Other -> Select Best Server (will ping every server and pick the best one)
(3)Reload
And that's that, you are ready to start installing any program you want by clicking Applications -> Add/Remove programs
3 - This one is on me. You'll start with access to your typical C:\ hard drive. Good way to share your files between environments, not as good if your music collection is not stored there for example. I immediately navigate to /dev to mount my other partitions... no such luck... didn't find them anywhere. So I remembered reading about soft links in Windows environments in Lifehacker. So, once again, I dived in my archives, and here is the holy post: LINK. So, I created soft links to the folders I wanted to access in C:\, and can now access my music collection from Amarok running in Ubuntu over Windows :D (as you can see in the pic).

It has been a long post, if you read it this far then you are a geek... I'm not cof cof... and it's not denial... cof cof. Anyway, this little Linux adventure has shown me a couple of things: how really cool can Linux get, how nice it is to have Linux geek friends and how great a blog Lifehacker is for us geeks!

Bat for Lashes - Siren Song

Musica muito bonita mesmo :)

The truth about Twitter

... NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS! hahahaha

Sometimes, this is soooooooooo true

Comics

Raul Perez - Exposição no CCB

Dei mais um pulo até ao CCB para ver a exposição de arte moderna. Estava completamente mudada. O andar de baixo tem 2 exposições de fotografia interessantes, mas que não me cativaram por aí além. No entanto, por baixo do vão das escadas está a entrada para uma exposição de pintura de Raul Perez. Pintura bem marada e interessante :D recomendo que vão :) só fica lá até dia 12 ;)

Handsome Furs - I'm Confused

Não conhecia este projecto paralelo do Dan Boeckner, o vocalista dos Wolf Parade que eu gosto. Esta é uma musica totalmente 80s.
Saltem os primeiros 40 segundos de video, é uma bozina extremamente irritante... n percebo quem é que no seu perfeito juízo usa isso na abertura de um video... é mesmo a pedir para se saltar para outra musica... enfim, hei-de investigar o album.

Macacos do Chinês - Plutão

Não é comum hip-hop desta qualidade em Portugal. As beats estão bem à frente do restante main stream português. Para além disso não respeitam muito as "regras" do estilo. Merecem o destaque que aqui lhes dou :)
PS: o teledisco está muito bom!

Into the Wild

Não estava à espera de muito deste filme. Está muito bem filmado com bons planos e o pormenor da escrita no livro por cima da imagem. A história em si vale por ser veridica e o pormenor de mostrarem uma foto real no final deu uma sensação de "bolas isto aconteceu mesmo assim!".
Não é um life changer para mim, mas acredito que alguns quarentões tenham agarrados nos kayaks e partido para o Alasca.
Nota especial para a banda sonora. Se já achava o CD do Eddie Vedder interessante, mais respeito tenho ainda pela obra dele. Funde-se com o filme muito bem e fica aquela sensação do "apropriado para o momento". 7/10