The Vineyards

In about 2h30 I am supposed to finally go fetch the damned paperwork. Then all I have to do is call my friend who works in the pulishing company and ask her for the address to send it to. Then I fill the paperwork, find an envelope and a stamp and take it to the nearest mailbox, 150m from here. On Monday it will get to them, and then or the day after they will check it to see if everything is okay. Then for some reason a countdown of 15 days begins. I have no idea why it begins, but it does, just to further bother me. Money is a very complicated issue – I do believe I should just get a lot of it and not have to worry anymore. Really, I mean it: someone should figure out how much I will make throughout my life, and give me the whole sum already. And I would work for free ever after, once I had put that money in some very profitable fund that would give a monthly salary on interest alone.

To conclude, 15 days after they receive the paperwork, hopefully, if the gods are merciful, the sky remains blue, the government remains stupid and I do not decide to become a zen-buddhist monk, the money should be in the bank account by me chosen, to disappear in the endless sea of red where vast shoals of hungry minus signs (Monetarium negativilis) devour any and every defenseless deposit (Monetarium hardworkis). Wheee! But I figured if I revise and proofread four thousand pages I will be able to kill all the minus signs. Now all I need is a publisher willing to revise the Holy Bible! But War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment and Lolita (and The Three Sisters for an extra bonus) would be good enough, too. And I promise to wipe out any stupid name translation, too! After reading about Bilbo Bolseiro who went to Valfenda, where Elrond lives, and after noticing the names in the subtitles in Harry Potter had nothing to do with what they were saying (good thing I do not need to read subtitles except for extra accented speakers) I came to hate even more the translation of names. And to think in Italy they translate even the authors’ name! In the name of Alice, who would want to read Luis Carroll or Guilhere Shakespeare of Francisco Bacon, or listen to anything composed by João Sebastião Bach or Ludovico de Beethoven? I make an exception, naturally, to Jorge Caminhante Moita, President of the United States, as long as they do the same and call our President Louis Ignacious “Squid” Smith.

When I grow up I want to read the last chapter of “Ulysses” out loud in front of five thousand people with the exact punctuation given to it by James Joyce. Now accepting donation of extra lungs.

Speaking of which, um pouco de Português porque não faz sentido dizer isso em Inglês.

Olhando o livro de Literatura de minhã irmã, Primeiro Colegial, eis que me trombo com uma conhecida injustamente mui repudiada por meus colegas pré-editores e funcionários públicos: Anarda! Rosa da formosura, Anarda bela / Igualmente se ostenta como a rosa; / Anarda mais que as flores é formosa, / Mais formosa que as flores brilha aquela. Mas o importante é que eu acreditei.

Keep walking.

Oh, of course, prior to oblivion, last night I managed to get my sister to see “One Pound Gospel”, from the Rumik World series. I had not seen it for a very long time (The Laughing Target is my favorite, I will have the manga someday). It is so adorable. As we used to say five years ago, “That is the most light anime ever.” Some minutes that do not change one’s life, and the entire plot revolves about a bit of too much food and two punches in the eye. That is great. Apex of simplicity. And the first time I saw an anime character yell “faito!”.

Indeed.

This Journal is far from interesting, is it not? All I have spoken of in the last many days is the book, the paperwork, the car, the Final Fantasy Tactics, and the money. And the worst of all, the one thing that could give it a bit of personality I am fatally unable to do: change the title to “Vineyards”. If I used Blogger, I could do it, but then it would be a “blog”, not a “Journal”, and I refuse to have a “blog”.

I dislike blogs in general, with exception of witty ones. In honor of friendship, I read a handful of depressed authors. The interesting part is two of these three are far more interesting when the authors are indeed depressed. Some people, when less than joyful, act like they have been locked up in Chateau d’If for years. But when not depressed their daily writing is so innocuous it parallels these.

Speaking of which, in the name of Apollo and Tanathos I swear never to post something saying I am depressed and I wonder where I went wrong and I wish I would die. And while in the subject, I swear never to post the lyrics to any song, no matter how fitting it may be at the time. And that reminds me of quiz-tests, about which I make no promises, but I trust your good senses that you will never want to know which Anime Neko or Anime Stereotype or Xena Character I am.

And that train of thought (image that crossed mind: “Magic Train” from Final Fantasy Tactics; I have to finish it before I am swamped) naturally leads to another kind of blog (broken link, removed), although mainly in Portuguese. My friends from USP are free to stay as far away as digitally possible from these (no big deal, another removed broken link), for they WILL hurt your delusional left wing ideals (including that one that claims saying “there are 54 million people in poverty in Brazil” before the elections then “we admit, there are only 28 million” after is perfectly normal).

The major problem in some of those, however, is the strong presence of Catholicism. Rome, from the sword to the cross, the massive mental leveling and domination did not change one bit. And at least in the time of the sword they had more fun gods!

Now that this post slipped across the lane to the other side of the road, I will manuever it back in position: car delayed until tomorrow morning, paperwork delayed until tomorrow afternoon, Final Fantasy Tactics going well (and I keep imagining Agrias with the voice of Ranma – the one thing preventing me from writing fanfic about it just to give her some actual voice is the obviety of such things).

Now taking suggestions on how to destroy the world in one shot (and/or guarantee a post-apocalypse worthy of great sci-fi writers).

It is a conspiracy, that is for sure.

Yesterday, the one useful thing I did was calling the schoolmate about the paperwork. It will be ready tomorrow. Other than that, I played Final Fantasy Tactics until I could not see the hordes of Chocobos following me anymore. So I went to bed.

Today was a bit more useful. I printed, under a lot of pressure, the 284 pages of the Manual of Standard Crew Operation for Boeing 737-600 to 900. That means printing 142 pages in A5, then organizing them one by one to put them back in the printer to print the other side, and staring at it until it is done to make sure it does not pull two pages at once during the second phase, which has ruined more than a few of my printed manuals before.

The car will not be ready until tomorrow, hopefully, but who knows. So I am stuck home, either way.

And now I took a closer look at my desktop, where I have many .txt files with random information that I may need soon. Windows replaced the Notepad icon, which is used for all the .txt files, with the icon for the Playstation emulator. It is very cute now, my desktop has seven PSX controllers that really stand out.

Given this blatant subliminar message and the fact I have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to watch anime with, what else is left for me other than playing more Final Fantasy Tactics?

“All Chocobos get ready, he is coming back!”

It is now 2h40 AM. Today, or yesterday for the puritans, the download of Azure Dreams reached its end.

And the worst of all, I did not touch a single PSX game the entire day!

The only good thing about today was watching The Count of Monte Cristo. However, I trace a parallel with a review I once read of Anna Karenina (the movie, of course): “It feels like someone is ripping pages from the book and showing them to you”. There should be a law stating you can never put more than 100 pages into one hour of movie. Then we would have Fatty and Tom Bombadil and his lady whose name in English I do not know but who is obviously far, far more beautiful than Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn combined (okay, maybe not Eowyn). And no one would ask why in the name of Elbereth Aragorn was carrying exactly four swords the perfect size for hobbits! Of course, there was no mention of Elbereth Gilthoniel in the movies, either.

I should had called the friendly schoolmate who will lend me the paperwork for me to get paid. I should had called him last week, really, but there was no point, since I did not have a car handy. So I decided to call him today, because the car would be ready today and/or I would have someone to drive me there. But the car is not ready today and everyone who could drive me there was busy the whole day while I did not play Final Fantasy Tactics or Valkyrie Profile or Azure Dreams. What a wasted day. The only good points are I caught up with those comics and got two responses for my cute letter about the Rangers.

Never the less, it insistently amazes me, even after over 24 hours, that whenever I move from one point to another, a Chocobo joins my party. I used to get heartbroken, but after expelling the 15th big chicken, it just does not get to me all that much anymore. “What is this I am feeling? I don’t want to leave. Is it sadness?” or “I protect you, you protect me. Isn’t that it?” or “Return home? I don’t have a home. I thought I would stay with you.” Heck, you were not with me a few moments ago, I am very sure I did not see you when we left Lionel Castle. Besides, you are level 7 and the enemies we are going to fight are level 27. Considering you are 15 levels under the party average, and we already have one Chocobo, one Black Chocobo and one Red Chocobo (which I did not know existed), all in rather high levels, I am positive we do not need you. And a Chocobo that joined us in the middle of the desert surely cannot be such a good companion.

Okay, I am done, apologies. Now I have to decide if I go to bed and wake up for lunch, or just do my best to stay up for the next six hours until breakfast, then another 18… Hmm. Tough choice to make.

Yesterday was a very good day.

For some silly reason, I woke up at 6h20 AM, very unusual. My father had to be somewhere far at 8h, so everyone was up already. We had breakfast, my father left, my mother went back to bed. I hopped into the shower, and when I came back I was zero zero sleepy. And it was about 7h20 by then, so I decided not to return to bed, which very often fails (it is not uncommon for me to turn left and right in bed for hours nowadays, I wonder what is wrong). And so my one and only problem for the whole day appeared: I had to decide if I would go on playing Final Fantasy Tactics or start Valkyrie Profile.

The morning was spent in Final Fantasy Tactics, as part of the afternoon. I was frustrated after a battle where the main hero (which I called Ainmeal, in homage to the savior of Loures) fights a demi-god character all by himself. Hah! As I said, “after” that battle. Everyone I spoke to and every walkthrough I read say this is among the worst battles in the game. No big deal for me. The problem, as I said, was after that battle: there is another one, which I found a lot more difficult – in spite of what everyone says (I am a fan of swords, mind you; no need to tell me it is much easier with Time Magic and Summon). Having lost, I stopped playing for the day.

Something I have to mention: I am a bit revolted with FFT. Among the myriad of swords and axes and guns and flails, the most powerful weapons for female fighters are the bags and purses that cost a fortune! At least the best armor is not a bikini, but Squaresoft could have lived without that one.

Gaming done, I started writing a long e-mail concerning the situation of Rangers in Temuair. It was sent to the few Rangers that are not the Praetorian Guard of Eduardo the Dull. I only hope they respond. 16 hours already and no response! It was so perfectly written that I am proud of myself and think they should get rid of Eduardo the Dull, Stilgar the Marionette, Erenthar the Null and Kivrin the Pointless just because I traced such a great course of action to drive the masses against them and wrote it so flawlessly and brilliantly. I should start a worldwide political movement against idiocy and pointlessness.

While writing that e-mail, I found a good friend online who pointed me to a great comic which satirizes 8-bit RPG. So I finished writing the e-mail and went to read it. Distasteful at some parts, but very funny overall. After reading lots of it, I was invited to watch Monsters, Inc., which my sister rented. Inocuous, but cute and funny.

By then it was close to 1h AM, so I ate something and tried to read more of the comics, but many days of bad sleep pulled me down. To Dreamland I went.

And today will certainly not be as good a day. It already started bad. Hopefully it will not be anywhere close to January 14th.