The Vineyards

Last night was interesting.

There was a big thunderstorm, so Asgaard was off for another two hours again, which has become very rare. It was shut down because in the last thunderstorm I lost one of the two 256 Mb DDR chips in it – I had no intention of losing the second one, given the first is not replaced yet. It impressed me how long WinXP takes to shut down – maybe it is related to it being on for days in a row running a few dozen different programs.

The gates of Asgaard closed, I went for “dinner and a movie” – TV in the kitchen. The movie at the time was “The President’s Man”. In the first 20 minutes, a group of… something invades a… building and kidnaps the American First Lady, who was in there. Later it is explained what is going on.

They were a group of terrorists (“Movement of Popular Libertation” or something) trying to overthrow the Brazilian government to cause a power shift in the area. Okay then. Like a bunch of guerilla chicanos could take over Brasilia – especially considering they were attacking in Rio de Janeiro. Maybe if they amassed forces from the whole country and invaded both Houses during a session to raise the congressmen’s salaries and killed everyone in less than 10 minutes then proceeded to the main building, killed or disabled the other five thousand people in there in 15 minutes and locked everything up tightly enough so the army cannot get in they could have something in their hands – a double-towering building with two bowls in front. That is not exactly what you need to cause a political shift harsh enough in South America. That is probably why they chose to kidnap the wife of the President of the United States (who sounded a lot like Vladimir Putin, “I will not deal with terrorists”) in Rio de Janeiro instead. You see, kidnapping someone is big news, especially if the crime occurs in Rio; the government would be happy to hand control over to “Santiago” (the leader of the guerilla of chicanos) to have her returned. Because, obviously, Brazil has no police force at all: whenever something goes wrong, we pray that Washington sends Chuck Norris here to parachute from a B1 bomber (flying at Mach 4) to save the day.

Of course, then we have American marines going after this Santiago guy. In his base in the middle of the jungle, where everyone speaks Spanish. Is that the same group who kidnapped the First Lady? If it is, where did they find a piece of Amazon forest in Rio? Or did they catch a plane back to Manaus while Mr. Norris was returning in his flying parachute to Washington? Why do they speak Spanish? Why do they teach 13 year-old kids “Una manzana, duas manzanas”? Or were they Colombians all along? Maybe they figured taking over Colombia had no effect in the world (which is already proven) and went for something bigger. Either that, or they are part of PSTU. Or PCO. Dear President Putin of the White House, may I get some marines here to wipe out PCdoB, in special that waste of oxygen and protein called Aldo Rebello? Thank you.

After the half a dozen tough marines (who were all in their 20s, tall, handsome, with blue eyes) wiped out that force that was powerful enough to take over Brazil to disrupt the politics of South America, we turned the TV off and went to watch the lightning, now that the storm had gone a bit away. That was among the most beautiful things I ever saw. You do not know a thunderstorm until you see it in the tropics.

Hoje, seguindo uma longa corrente de pensamentos, acabei chegando à musica do Café Concreto, que fez minha irmã rir por alguns minutos. E disso brotou um momento nostálgico sobre a Rádio Bandeirantes de outrora (claro que é de outrora, ou não seria nostalgia).

“Essa meia hora do jornal Bandeirantes Gente é um oferecimento de Café Seleto. Na hora de tomar café, é Café Seleto.”
“MIAAAAAUUUUUU!!!!”
“O café de hoje vai para Fulano de Tal, de São Paulo – Oh!, seu Fulano – que escuta o Pulo do Gato desde criancinha. Bom dia, Fulano.”
“Chuta para esse que toca para aquele e vai em direção ao gol bateu! … Defendeu o goleiro! Bandeirantes informa o tempo e o placar do jogo (tan tan taaaan, tanaran tan taan tann) Trinta e seis minutos deste segundo tempo, dois para o Nyonyo, zero para o Pahupahu!”
“É isso aí, e o trânsito continua complicado aqui na Trabalhadores, se você vai pegar a estrada hoje, vá por caminhos alternativos.”
“Conhaque é Preside-ente!”
“You are the Dancing Queen, pretty and sweet, only… Eeehhh, pois é. Abba! Fez muito sucesso na sua época… e ainda faz… Abba. Dancing Queen, The Winter… The-Win-ner-Ta-kes-It-All. É. Super Trouper. Agora vamos ouvir…”
“Essa meia hora do Jornal da Bandeirantes é um oferecimento de Palácio dos Enfeites. Para decorar a festa de seu filho, Palácio dos Enfeites.”
“É verão! Bom sinal! Já é teeeeempooo… Férias de verão na Rádio Bandeirantes!”
“bbzzzzzerrrsstss… Porque hoje… é sábado!”
“A senhora Fulana de Bairro Longínqüo reclama dos buracos. Aê, regional de Bairro Longínqüo, tome uma providência. Boca no Trombone! FUÓ!”
“Termina aqui o Jornal do Meio-Dia. Apresentação…”
“Essa meia-hora de Me-mó-ria! foi um oferecimento de Tres Brut de Marchand. Não importa onde você vá, vá de Tres Brut de Marchand.”

E obviamente não posso em sã consciência deixar de fora a mais universal das memórias de qualquer brasileiro em relação ao rádio, não se limitando à Bandeirantes:

“Tan tann taann tan taaaannnn…
Em Brasília, dezenove horas.
PAAAAANNNNNN, PAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN, PANANAAAAANNNNN…”

Sinto-me como se tivesse oito anos de novo.

Que horror.

This should have been three or four posts, but that would be cheap. Read on, skip some parts if you will, there are three or four subjects thrown into it (even some in Portuguese!).

Consider the situation: first days of vacation, I am asked to go somewhere “real quick” because I am the only person who can go and the store will close very soon. It was about 5h30 PM then, plenty of time to go, do what needed to be done, and come back before 6h PM to watch that important episode of Inu Yasha. So I stopped at the red light, when it got to green I turned left. I was going to stop a hundred meters ahead. The street where I was has the preference, ie, cars in crossing streets have to stop and wait for me to pass. And, again, I had left from the red light 50 meters before and was going to stop 50 meters ahead. I look, I see no danger, I keep going, I get thrown to the left. The guy in the crossing street, under a big STOP sign, hit my car on the right side. After 30 minutes of debate that led nowhere, names and phone numbers exchanged, I continued on, having to hold the wheel a good 40 degreed left to make the car go straight. I reached the store, and with great difficulty, made it back home at 6h40 PM. That happened on a Friday. Only on Monday anything could be done. A few days later the car was taken for repairs, which took 35% longer than we were initially told.

The result of that was spending most of my vacation trapped home, depending on buses (no thanks) and favors. Only a few days ago the car was back, yesterday it was fully available. So I decided to “go to the movies”. I had no idea what was being shown, I just wanted to go. I was ultimately frustrated in that field, seeing as I had planned to go see that movie where Nicole Kidman plays a Russian girl the Saturday after the car crash. And so I went.

I arrived there at 3h50 PM. I had no intention of waiting more than 20 minutes for a movie. So I had the options… The Thornberries, 4h; Femme Fatale, 4h. Everything else started after 5h. So Femme Fatale it was.

It is not a movie, mind you. It is an excuse to show a scene of lesbianism and the protagonist in “various levels of undress”, as pointed by a reviewer in IMDb. Hormone high boys would love it – if it was not rated higher than they can see. Girls would love Antonio Banderas if his best scene was not his portrayal of a gay. So it was two hours of girls in lingerie and small clothes or no clothes at all.

Maybe I should had gone for Thornberries.

Hah hah!! Yeah, right.

Nickelodeon has this amazing ability to make the ugliest cartoons in history, and that in face of things like Cow & Chicken and Ed, Edd and Eddy.

Before that, we again went to the military post (why military? Why not civil police?) to retrive the report on the car crash. It is interesting: we have to go there, get it, then we go out, find a photocopy shop, copy it, and in half an hour we must bring it back to the post. Why do they not print two copies? Because they are military, and because the government pays with or without our complaints. Upon arrival, we noticed the closed gate. Padlock and all. No need for comments. At the other entrance there was a soldier. “It is closed, did it move somewhere?” “No sir, today we have a meeting, so the colonel told us to close it. It will be open tomorrow.” But we only find that out after going all the way there, of course. If it was a store that depended on their sales, I wonder if they would do it. But they are military, and the government pays with or without our complaints.

Oh, this is an interesting conversation I had last night on ICQ.

Him:
That’s why I don’t bother with movies during vacation. That Xuxa movie is STILL there up to this fucking day. It disgusts the fuck out of me. :P

Oh, today my highly intelligent maid commented about “That game where you have to kill people.”
“which one of the two thousand?”
“No, I mean the one where you kill REAL people.”
“Russian Roulete?”
“No, it’s a 3 letter word. RPG I guess, do you know it”
“Of course, I PLAY it…”
:)

Me:
Gods… :)
Oh, excuse me a moment, I need to wipe the blood off my floor, I was playing FFT this morning. :))

Him:
It’s amazing how gullible those people are. She didn’t doubt for a moment the information she got from the media. Her eyes got wide open when I said I played it. “Does… does your mother know that???” was all she said. :)

Me:
Why think when you can leave the media to do it for you? =p
You should had invited her to play with you. ;)
At the very least, show her “Monica na Terra dos Monstros” for the Genesis and yell, “See? It’s MONICA! That’s an RPG! Anyone killing people in sight?” :)

Adorei os jornais de hoje. Heloisa Helena continua sendo oposição; ela é minha anti-heroína favorita, Joana D’Arc Rouge. E chamaram o Palocci de neo-liberal e ele ficou bravo. Heh heh. Mas nada se compara à semana passada, quando os moradores da primeira cidade do Fome Zero, atendidos por seis programas do governo anterior, disseram que não queriam mais comida, eles queriam era água e estrutura (não superestrutura). O mundo é tão divertido quando ideologias contrárias às suas têm sua invalidade (e invalidez) comprovada.

Colegas USPianos voltaram de Porto Alegre, comentando a ótima palestra da filha do Che Guevara, aquele que ajudou o Fidel Castro a fazer de Cuba o que é hoje. Fidel tinha trauma de padre, então proibiu a comemoração do Natal. Isso é um exemplo de livro de gramática de primeiro grau em Cuba, traduzido pois minha memória não é muito boa em espanhol.

Exercicio 1: Separe sujeito e predicado e classifique o sujeito quanto ao tipo (simples, composto, oculto, etc).

a) Fidel é nosso pai.
b) Devemos tudo à revolução.
C) Che e Fidel são heróis do povo cubano.
…

Lavagem cerebral do início ao fim da vida.

Uma das histórias que se conta: dois homens tinham um burro, colocaram cestos de carga no animal e entraram cada um de um lado; pretendiam chegar a Miami assim. Deram com o burro n’água, naturalmente (cliché!). Imagine, entretanto, o desespero de uma pessoa para tentar atravessar uma grande porção de água salgada dentro de uma cesta montada num burro. Naturalmente que são apenas dois ingratos que não conseguem compreender quão maravilhoso é o regime socialista. Hasta la vitoria siempre!

I strongly dislike literary analysis.

That must be specified, or I will appear to be contradicting myself. I do like explanation on poetry (I said poetry, not “And this / Is / Because we can never make a decent rhyme so we counterbalance that by making one verse two letters long and the next one / A whole paragraph.”), and I like teachers that come up and say “See here how the narration was flowing, but then this character comes in the middle of it to say something? That is a technique used today in movies, and he was using it way back then! And you can see here that this old guy is the author himself, and in one line the young lady was avenged.”.

What I dislike beyond the comprehension of any petty academic is the bland analysis for the analysis, “mental masturbation”. “O emprego da coisa-personagem na obra euclidiana.” “A releitura deciana do escrever machadiano.” Antonio Candido (no specific quotes needed here).

But I stray far from my original intent, made obvious in the title.

“In A.D. 2101 war was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It’s you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha ….
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every ‘ZIG’!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move ‘ZIG’.
Captain: For great justice.”

I had to, did I not?

On to my point.

Why did “All your base are belong to us” become the cult sentence? Why not “Somebody set up us the bomb.” or “You know what you doing.” or “You have no chance to survive make your time.”? Or even the subtle “Common sentence !!” or “Scream.” (the punctuation!)?

“You have no chance to survive make your time” has much greater impact on certain occasions (eg, Quake Deathmatch) than “All your base”. Or in face of any sabotage or anything that goes wrong, “Somebody set up us the bomb”. And “How are you gentlemen !!” as a greeting in any text based environment. Even “What you say !!” has a lot of personality on its own.

But for some reason, “All your base” was chosen as the greater representation of SNK-glish. And that in face of Samurai Shodown’s “Victoly!”, even. Of course, many people have no idea where it comes from; for most it is just a funny sentence overused everywhere.

Returning to the point of two paragraphs above, perhaps the fate of this sentence was decided by the complete uselessness of it in everyday life. “All your base are belong to us.” You cannot use it anywhere without seeing you hammered it into the situation to make it fit. It makes very little sense in any environment other than game set in space where one faction conquers the bases of another. Perhaps it was this absurdity that made it soar above the others.

Whee, that was a great analysis, no? Indeed, the first part of this post has nothing to do with this at all. But I had to say something to that extent sometime.

WASHINGTON – With the recounting done, it is confirmed George W. Bush is the new President. On this matter, a Democrat said, “Somebody set up us the Bush!”.

Falando nisso, um amigo deu tradução melhor ao nome do mencionado presidente; embora não seja literal, aceita-se a licença poética em prol da melhor representação da figura: Jorge Moita Ambulante.

I need a Vorpal Blade to protect me from the Doorknobby of Many Pages.