Diary 2007-08-29

So I ended up going out to Lux to check out the Tora Tora Big Band, as I had planned and it turns out that it was not really my cup of tea. You can’t win them all, I guess, I was so pleasantly surprised by the TGB performance the other day that this time I was a bit under whelmed. Not that they don’t play really well —they do!—, but it just wasn’t my kind of music.

So now I’m resting my hopes in Miosótis, who will play at Onda Jazz next Friday. I’m actually looking forward to going back to Onda Jazz, I really liked that place.

And then there’s September the first, Saturday. The day when everything happens, all at once!
First there’s the Red Bull Air Racing event happening at Porto.
Then there’s the Lydie Carell’s quartet at Onda Jazz and the Ben Stapp Trio at the Hot Club.
But me, I’ll be at neither of those, because that’s the evening I’m going over to Regaleira to attend the Mistério de Uma Noite de Pentecostes.
I was also trying to arrange a full day out at a faraway beach for that same day, until I realized what day it actually was and dropped it (I’m now planning it for Sunday, so I’m expecting rain for that day, but it won’t matter all that much as long as there are enough margaritas or morangoskas at the beach cafe!) :-)
Busy, busy!

Squash is in season again with people trickling in from their vacation and willing to play and we were actually lucky that the club we play at during our lunch break is keeping the courts open during August.

Oh and the geeks are definitely up to something, so expect to see some interesting news in the next few weeks or so.

In the mean time I’ve also been trying to finally come to grips with this python thing in order to lend a hand in the development of PyTalker. The lead developer kept harassing me to help out and so I decided to give it a try.
Which reminds me, if you speak Portuguese and you like the whole talker scene you can find me most days (during the day-time) at the jungle, most probably in the guise of either a white rabbit or a golden-brown squirrel. Come by and see if you can find “Gambuzino” around. I’m usually at the Clareira.

Diary 2007-08-21

Last Friday I went to Hot Club to listen to Sara Valente singing the songs of her new CD “Blue in Green”.
It was a pleasant evening, with some nice cool jazz. I think her voice isn’t quite there yet (maybe it is because the tour is just starting, maybe she was just not particularly inspired that evening or maybe I was just expecting too much), but I think it can get better. Also, the band was awesome and I find myself (surprisingly) admiring the work of jazz drummers more and more.
This was also an opportunity to finally see Nelson Cascais playing, after having read so much abot him, and I was really impressed with his talent (even if I don’t get the bass all that well —still have to grow into that I guess).

Then on the weekend I finally got to catch some nice sun in Alentejo. Not yet a solid beach weekend (or even day… or half-day…) but the temperature was high and the pool was refreshing so being a beggar for so long I can’t really be that much of a chooser.

Oh and I found out, to my utter amazement, that my dad (of all people!) reads this blog so “Hi dad!” :-)

Today I’ve become a (paying) subscriber of last.fm. Not that I couldn’t use the services they provide well enough with a free account, but they do give some interesting perks to paying subscribers and it feels good to contribute to something which I use so much and that gives me such a good experience.

In the mean while, the geeks are afoot with a new project which might just turn out to be a lot of fun (if we end up actually going forward with it). More on that later (maybe?)

Speaking of geek stuff, yesterday evening I had the pleasure of attending yet another one of Damian Conway’s talks, this time around it was about quantum physics, as applied to programming… Sort of…
The guys at LOG have (again) done a bang up job bringing Damian to Portugal and they were generous enough to allow access to this talk to anyone interested.
Always a very interesting (and incredibly funny) experience. If you are into programming (or science) and the opportunity ever comes along, I heartily recommend attending a talk (any talk) by Damian. You won’t be sorry!

Diary 2007-08-16

Finally, the second half of August is upon us. Not that it shows, the weather is miserable and even yesterday the day was mostly rainy. Really nice on a national holiday…

Anyway, I was still able to catch a little bit of sun late in the afternoon when I took a book with me to the beach (I like reading in the sand, even if I’m not actually “at the beach”) and I found myself having to take off the shirt as there was actually some sun there. Go figure…

Before that I made good use of the rainy day by watching (for the N-th time) Woody Allen’s Melinda And Melinda. Always a nice choice.
In fact I’ve been slowly going over my collection of Woody’s films and strangely enough it has been a rather effective pick-me-up. Who would have thunk it?
But then I still have a long way to go on that front (the man has quite an impressive filmography) and I’ve been picking the lightest films so far…
Also, I never did have all of his films and now I only have half of what I had, so I need to fill in the wholes. Ahh, consumerism…

One thing that’s definitely nice about the second half of August is that some of the places around here start to open up after the vacations and so life starts to seep into the smaller music (mostly jazz) venues.
Speaking of which, just yesterday I had a really nice surprise when I went to see TGB playing at the Lux Jazz Sessions.
Now I had read a few good reviews of their music and so I was expecting something interesting (and of course the whole concept of a band consisting solely of a Tuba a Guitar and Drums is interesting enough to begin with), but I must say I was really blown away by what I saw and heard.
Their original work is very good (parts of a few songs reminded me bit of that Fishermen Tittot’s sound I’m so fond of) and the… well, I’m not calling it “covers” because they’re so much more than that, so the adaptations of songs from other bands and artists are just so much fun to listen to!
Also their execution is practically flawless and in a small space such as the one in Lux, we were so close to the band that we could feel the joy they were having while playing and it was just fantastic to be there and to be able to share that moment with them. I’ve definitely become a fan of TGB.
Can’t wait to go see the Tora Tora Big Band playing there next Wednesday!

The worst part of it still being August is that even the few friends I had left around here are now going away for their vacations, so now I don’t much in the way of company (or even squash partners at that).
But it will end soon enough, all this “vacation” folly. It will! :-)

Letting Go

Originally posted here.

O Costureirinho da Guia

Hoje foi um dia estranho.

Este ano ainda não consegui fazer praia.
Por uma razão ou por outra tentei poucas vezes e daquelas que tentei, fui corrido de lá pelo vento brutal e acabei sempre na piscina.
A excepção foi ontem à tarde em que ainda consegui uma horita ao final do dia e que me soube incrivelmente bem.
Claro que hoje estava todo lançado para passar a manhã toda na praia, mas claro que com o tempo horrível que esteve de manhã tive de arranjar um plano B.
Então lá peguei na máquina fotográfica e fui passear por Cascais a ver se ainda me lembrava como se fazem fotos. Ainda não vi o resultado.

Mas de tarde dei mais um passinho na minha independência (como diz a minha mãe) :-) e lá aprendi finalmente a pregar botões e coser aquelas partes de lado das calças cujo nome já se me varreu (se calhar não prestei assim tanta atenção como devia, mas eu juro que ainda me lembro como se faz isso: ponto à frente, ponto atrás, etc.).
Não é que eu não soubesse pregar um botão se fosse necessário, claro que sabia —e ele jamais caíam de novo—, mas agora sei fazê-lo sem deixar uma batata enorme de linha por trás do dito botão.
E meias! Aprendi a coser as meias quando se esgaçam na ponta ou no calcanhar.
Já tenho o meu kit de costura e tudo. Tão prendado que eu estou…

E mais ainda, coloquei finalmente o suporte para o chuveiro na casa de banho do quarto.
Dois meses, dois! que eu levei para fazer isso e é uma daquelas coisas que se usam todos os santos dias.
Fiz mil e uma coisas na casa desde que me mudei para cá, mas pendurar a porcaria do chuveiro levou todo este tempo.
Sou mesmo um tipo estranho…

Ah e quanto ao título, lamento mas é uma private joke, só mesmo para ver se uma certa pessoa lê isto aqui (e se se vai acusar mesmo que leia). ;-)

Notas soltas sobre a amizade

Os amigos não se declaram, demonstram-se.

Na amizade, como em muitas outras coisas na vida, as acções falam mais alto do que as palavras e são infinitamente mais importantes do que estas.

As desculpas manhosas matam a amizade. Quando é “não” é não e pronto. Os “nãos” não estraga uma amizade, mas as desculpas manhosas, essas sim, são incrivelmente corrosivas.

Perder um amor é f… tramado, mas perder uma amizade verdadeira é incomparavelmente pior.

E tenho dito! :-)

Zeitgeist - my content from other sites

I’ve just put online a new page on the site with a kind of zeitgeist of the content I am producing around the web.

Isn’t this just sooo web 2.0-ish?

The design isn’t all there and the page sometimes hangs if any of the providers of the badges are slow or completely off (del.icio.us has been acting up just this evening as I was putting the page together), but then that’s why I put everything on this single page instead of sprinkling those elements across the whole site on sidebars or something along those lines.

And now it’s late and I’m calling it a day.