Portugal über alles: Although I like electronic music, I am hardly amused by that 'bleeding edge', nearly unlistenable, that resembles some clueless, untalented teenager playing around with the latest audiowarez. So it's not surprising that only today I decided to listen to the compilation CD included on an amusing 'Christina Ricci' special issue of the FAQT magazine, which I had dusting for quite a while. And yes, most (if not all) of that CD is rubbish, die-hard masoquistic electronica like Kid606 or David Kristian, stuff that is fashionable to recommend to others, but no one actually likes it. However, something captured my attention: Track one, by someone called 'V/VM', is just a fucked up-version of a song by SOME PORTUGUESE CROONER (I can't really tell who, they all sound the same), stuff we call 'pimba' because of its utter crapness. Of course, the clueless V/VM credited it to a spanish crooner, but trust me, the difference is obvious. Portugal über alles, indeed.···

Oh, yes. Caffeine indeed does wonders. I had quite a few webdesign problems I couldn't solve lately, layouts that weren't quite working, navigation concerns, CSS worries et all. And as always, the miracle fix: Thinking about it away from any computer, on a nice coffee shop with good background music, using a pen and some paper. It does wonders indeed. Now, let's get to work.···

Portuguese football: Sporting beat Benfica 3-0 yesterday, and Benfica lost its last chance of a place on the UEFA Cup. Which, despite the fact I'm a FC Porto fan, is quite sad, because Benfica used to be Portugal's greatest club, and I will miss see them losing against some lowly Lithuanian side. Also, Porto had a close match against Braga but eventually won 3-2, which means the championship isn't over yet. Nice.···

If there was hardly any doubt Bush II's Florida election was in fact a coup d'état, then take a look at this comparison between facts concerning the Florida election and facts concerning CIA-sponsored coups in Guatemala and Chile. Today I was watching a documentary on the History Channel about a similar coup in Iran during the 50s, so it gets even scarier. Although I live in Europe, that's not quite the example I expected from the 'world's strongest democracy'. Link found in The Null Device.···

Keeping up with my 'sex on vacations' theory, today is my friend Ricardo's birthday. Alex organized a diner party on a good chinese restaurant, still celebrating his birthday (as more people are available on weekends), and later we picked up Ricardo to have a few drinks celebrating his birthday. We first went to Agência, which was crowded, so we went to the Ribeira outdoor cafés (as the weather is starting to warm up nicely). But something really pisses me off: Porto is the second largest city in this country, and if you count the Greater Porto area it is at least a 1.5 million people metropolis. At this scale, this city (which has Europe Cultural Capital status, for sake!) should have a lot more places to go out and have a few drinks, it should have a lot more 'alternative' places. But no, it seems to be crowded everywhere, and it's quite annoying that the 'alternative'/'underground'/'whatever' scene consists of always the same people. Which would be nice, if there was a real sense of community, but instead everyone seems to be a posh pseudo-intellectual marxist type, cynic critic-phobic, slave to the latest trend, wearing expensive 'casual' clothing. Yes, I am pissed.···

Portuguese football: That's 'soccer' for those of you who think a sport without ultra-violence isn't worth watching. Well, looks like Boavista won once again, and is quite close to winning its first ever championship. Which is quite sad for me, as I am one of those pesky FC Porto fans who are used to winning. But even sadder, is how such a mafia-sponsored team can clinch all those 1-goal victories with blatant help from the referees and even the opposing players — and at the end protest at the referee's decisions, to turn a previously fixed result into a dramatic victory, against everyone.···

Yestarday I went to the movies again, Gus van Sant's Finding Forrester this time, a movie that would have been a Wonderboys clone if it wasn't for a slower, more serious story, and the introduction of the pointless sports-related dramatic sequence (at least it was basketball, not stupid baseball or that wrong type of football). Overall, I found Wonderboys a more enjoyable experience, and Micheal Douglas better than Sean Connery. Anyway, despite the standardised pseudo-moralistic message at the end (about copyright, which made the blatant car manufacturer advertising look pale in comparison), Finding Forrester does have a lesson: That most artists make stuff because the enjoy it and that's it. Critics and other parasites are always making stuff up, always misjudging the artists' intentions. For that lesson, and that lesson alone, Finding Forrester is another movie worth watching.···

I'm starting a new exhibition on We Are Unreasonable People, a few proto-goth images I created/bastardised for a production that was never finished. They are not my usual style, but I am so happy with those pictures I had to exhibit them.···

The Monocromatica website has been updated yet again. Now that's a lovely logo! For those who don't know, it's a portuguese electronica record label run by a fellow blogger of mine at Cafeína. He has some nice music there, and a few MP3s to download, so I recommend it.···

I surely love authority. Imagine you own a car you only drive at night, when the public transport system is almost absent. Imagine that normally you would take the bus, but today you needed to take the car downtown because you were carrying cameras and other equipment. Imagine that, frustrated with the lack of parking (as your city is a giant contruction yard and the city hall removed almost all parking spots), you end up leaving your car on a illegal spot, yes, but on a quiet street with almost no traffic, without annoying anyone. Imagine that city council workers decide to fine everyone in the damn street, while other people are leaving their cars unattended on central avenues' bus lanes. It seems quite a good idea for the Council to make easy money, as big traffic felons tend to annoy the officers with excuses. I was already feeling jilted enough, when I was told that Rem Koolhaas's Auditorium had yet another delay, yet another financial hole. It seems the City Council is trying to make the sensible and honest citizens pay, by stalking them in the most stupid of ways (for God's sake, was jaywalking ever a crime in this country?). Portugal has always been one of the most tolerant countries, now they expect fines to finance the real crimes of corruption and incompetence. Sad.···

If you are wondering about the title: Yes, I do have a Toulouse Lautrec poster on my bedroom.···

Tonight I went to watch Wonderboys, a film starring Michael Douglas that has been on the theatres for quite a while, but I had forgotten about. Anyway, I must say that this is so far my favourite movie this year, an absolutely delirious combination of comedy and drama (not surprisingly something quite hard to do right), a movie full of content with absolutely incredible details (such as the policeman forgetting to handbrake). It might abuse comic relief, but I surely love it!···

I had quite a nice time tonight, I went to Agência with a a few friends, so that along with Alex's other friends we would celebrate his birthday. Agência is quite a nice place, I tend to like it more everytime I go there, it's a lounge with a big table (to hold lots of drinks) and assorted designer chairs and sofas (early 70s style), and an ambient drum'n'bass soundtrack to boot. Afterwards I drove my friend Maria home, as she lives a bit far out of town. I really enjoy driving in the Via Norte with no traffic (except for a few bloody street racer types), listening to a few tapes containing older songs by Gus Gus (such as Gun or Polyesterday), or pre-millennium-tension Tricky's Christiansands, which remind me of the time I spent in London the year I finished high school. Good memories indeed.···

Today is Revolution Day, another pointless national holiday that celebrates the coup that 27 years ago ended a fascist dictatorship and eventually, after a long power struggle between the communists and everyone else, gave origin to today's democracy on that little rectangle on the west end of Europe, better known as Portugal. Which was nice at the time, but nowdays it seems to be a holiday only a few military and left-wing poets care about, while this country is slowly being transformed into an European undemocratic corporate bureaucracy.···

Ever wondered what was Coca-Cola's secret ingredient? Well, now you can drink your own home-made Cola, which may taste similar to the real thing. Via Memepool.···

I have spent 75euro in a couple of CDs and a few magazines. I ordered them from Safety in Numbers, a New York record shop, which most of the money I spent was due to taxes (on both sides of the Atlantic) and shipping fees. Anyway, I don't mind paying such overwhelming taxes for these records, both from Aussie label Surgery Records, as they are quite worth it. Initial Release is a very nice 2CD compilation, enough to keep any good electronica fan happy; and Love Like Life in Miniature by Super Science is an absolutely wonderful record, a Boards of Canada-ish blend of pop and i.d.m., so far my favourite this year. Highly recommended.···

It's Alex's ('ziggy' of Cafeína fame) birthday. Happy birthday, you limey! Anyway, I wonder why many people's birthdays (me included) are during April or May... Oh, I see, they don't have TV sets on those summer resorts' hotel rooms!···

FreeWeb is an easy frontend to Ian Clarke's Freenet Project, an encrypted alternative web that seems immune to censorship. Nice. However this still looks like a geek tool, and most people will continue to eat delicious shit sandwiches (term courtesy of Microsoft). Anyway, I can't help feeling sympathy for .free domains. Remember: Free speech is a basic human right.···

Looks like the Katastro.fi website has been redesigned. It looks nice, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed after such a long wait. It just takes too much space, and I use 1280x1024. I just hate fullscreen browsing, I'm much more of a windows person <G>.···

So I decided I should start 'blogging. In fact, almost a year ago I decided I should start blogging. I invited a few friends to 'blog along and the result was Cafeína, a sucessful 'blog that is starting to look more like an e-zine, rather than a typical weblog. Trouble is, it's in Portuguese (of the European variety), so 90% of the world's population can't read it. So here's IF/THEN/ELSE, in standard BBC English so everyone from Jamaica to Australia (even in the U.S.!) can read my stupid rants.···