Links. And here are the best links I blogged during 2004. That's right, a year of blogging in a simple list. In fact, if you don't like tedious stuff, don't check this site until December 31st 2005:

- Bollywood for the Skeptical, inc. MP3 files. (film, mp3)
- NAILS (webdesign, webtoys)
- The Grey Album (music, illegal art)
- The R1 Project (photo, tech)
- Prisioners of Uqbaristan (literature, sci-fi)
- Identity Kit Series (photo, art)
- Big Bad Mecha Monster (bizarre)
- Tricks of the Trade (hints and tips)
- Spamusement (cartoon)
- Mozilla Firefox (software)
- Eurobad '74 (bizarre, kitsch)
- Today in Alternate History (blogs, bizarre)
- Pause Online (flash, music, videos, flash music videos)
- The Syndicate of Super-Heroes (cartoon)
- Newsmap (flash, news, visualization)
- Untitled Project (photo, photoshop)
- Pencil Carving (strange hobbies, exploding brains)
- Calendar Reform Proposals (chronology)
- Uncle Patrick's Advice to Children (comedy)···

Photo. Just to liven this weblog a bit with pictures, here are my four favourite photos among the hundreds I took during the last twelve months:


Estádio do Dragão: Yashica Electro35 GX @ f:11 — Agfa RSX-II 200


R. Sta. Catarina: Yashica Electro35 GX @ f:1.7 — Agfa RSX-II 200


Museu Serralves: BenQ1300 digicam


Lamps, Pátio das Sereias: BenQ1300 digicam···

Books. It took me a large chunk of the summer to read through Kim Stanley Robinson's entire Mars Trilogy, but I found it worthwhile. I've also enjoyed Chris Ware's comic book The Smartest Kid on Earth. And that's it for 2004's five-star books.···

Film. My five-star ratings for 2004, in reverse chronological order:

- Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries
- Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes
- Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill vol. 2
- Sylvain Chomet's Les Triplettes de Belleville
- Woody Allen's Anything Else
- Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation

Meaning, the first half of 2004 was pretty good, the second half was a bit disappointing, with only that Che Guevara biopic standing out. Still, there are a few four-star movies that stand out as honorable mentions:

- Shari Berman and Robert Pulcini's American Splendor
- Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent
- Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers
- John Crowley's Intermission
- Paul Morrison's Wondrous Oblivion
- João Canijo's Noite Escura

That's right, a watchable portuguese movie, and a pretty good one. Just for complying with the basic stuff such as having a sound quality that enables you to understand the dialogues it would deserve a honorable mention, given what happens in other movies (I'm looking at you, Costa dos Murmúrios). As for worst film of the year, I, Robot manages to be even worse than Paycheck, The Terminal and Troy.···

Best of 2004 time. Everyone's at it, so why not? Let's start with music. Here's a list of my 7 favourite records of 1994 2004, in no particular order:

- Massive Attack: Protection
- Portishead: Dummy
- Beastie Boys: Ill Communication
- Underworld: Dubnobasswithmyheadman
- The Future Sound of London: ISDN
- Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works II
- Autechre: Amber

Erm. I'm old. I know.···

It just hurts to look at my to-do list for the year 2004:

To finally finish the remontage of the 'Zero' documentary.
Done, actually. Feedback, though, was mixed, and bigger authorities said the first version was better, even though I prefer it now.

To do a documentary called 'Colors'.
Raw material sits on a couple of backup DVDs. Will be done in 2005. Hopefully.

Untitled fiction, the Final Project at film school. Want it blue, out-of-focus, and with a lot of voiceovers.
Done. Somewhat blue, in deep focus, and all voiceovers plus the corresponding images were cut from the final edit. They just sounded shallow.

To finally pay a visit to my friend in Coimbra.
To finally pay a visit to my friend in London.
I should have written a generic 'get out of town' so I could say I did it.

Train or car trip to the new Eastern European EU members.
Yeah right.

To finally code Thought Recorder, the CMS I've got drafted on paper and which will replace the old mess I've got powering this website.
The old mess is alive and kicking.

To register a new domain which will replace 'asseptic.org', preferably with at least six months of coexistence.
I found out there are better ways to spend money.

To get a job after the summer.
In the meantime confirmation came my course would become a four-year MA degree, so I'm currently in the fourth and final year.

To get a girlfriend.
No comment.···

Sometimes, when I feel a bit stressed, I like to paint. Perhaps it's the act of actually building something in the analog world, perhaps it's the poisonous chemicals released in the atmosphere, but I feel soothed after a short session painting, normally over and over an already existing painting. Lately I've been covering some old canvases (in which I thought I could mimic Jackson Pollock and shortcut to success) with spray paint through stencils — making the stencils being digitally assisted of course, given that I'm such an inept draughtsman.···

And then, bloody hell: millions of people are there killing themselves over some stupid issue like who owns some old ruins in Jerusalem, and then a cosmic finger nudges the bottom of the ocean a bit and hundreds of thousands die in coastal areas over thousands of kilometers in the Indian Ocean. It's in times like this you realize religion is futile, Nature is God, and Nature doesn't care about right or wrong, good or bad. You try praying to Nature and still you'll get hit by lightning, cold wind, giant asteroids and rubble ejected by an exploding volcano that will block the sun during decades. That's Nature, a bad motherfucker killing people at random since the dawn of time, because that's the nature of Nature — being somewhat random. And in a few billion years the Sun explodes and that's it. Compare that to Jesus' magic tricks such as showing up in a stain in the wall! Nature is random and people will die from Nature's own existence, but there's no existence outside Nature, period. All other killing is therefore futile, killing for some fictional god such as money, booty, an elephant or that fairytale creature that resembles Santa Claus but wearing a white toga is, at the very best, shallow.···

All over the web people are mentioning this article about the mayor-philosopher of Bogotá, Colombia, who put in practice radical policies to improve life in that certainly uneasy city — such as using an army of mimes to ridicule people out of certain behaviours. I'm all for this kind of radical policies. Many problems in our cities are mindset problems, and most kinds of traditional approaches to mindset problems are either too slow, too ineffective or too of both. And I think there's a whole realm of fun possibilites for dealing with problems derived of civism and mentality. Humour does seem much more effective than school or police.···

Scary stuff: EPIC 2014, a Flash movie documenting Google's process of world domination until 2014, in which mass amateurization plus AI editors lead to a media-dictatorship of the media-proletariat. Google-Amazon being Media-Soviet Supreme, of course. No need to post that image again.···

I'll be shooting hi-def at school in January, so here's a couple of HD links: Highdef Magazine, downloadable in PDF; and a few rants, raves and tips on HD by a pro director of photography.···

Portable Firefox has its space in my keychain drive.···

It's that strange time of the year, the week between Gift Exchange and the Get Drunk Eve. There wasn't much to the Christmas loot: the inevitable fountain pen, chocolates, a pair of trainers, a couple of DVDs, a pair of bedroom slippers (no embarrassing underwear, thank you!) and some books — here's a big DON'T of Xmas presents — do not attempt to offer a film student books about movies — or books about architecture to an architect — unless you really know what you're doing, or else chances are you're just giving a stupid, pictures-only, shallow and very expensive glossy waste of forest trees. Also, I got cash. Problem was, LG got me a broken DVD burner for Xmas, therefore I had to spend the cash I got on a new Sony burner as I had a few gigs worth of raw documentary interviews to backup somehow. So, although I dislike Sony for their marketing strategies I went for quality (my old Sony CD burner is still at work at dad's office), and shitlisted LG next to Philips as my experience with these brands has been dealing with stuff that drops dead just after the warranty expires.···

After the boiled codfish, boiled eggs, boiled potatos and boiled cabbage meal (Portuguese are weird), after the giftwrap paper is torn and more embarrassing underwear is revealed — I don't known about the rest of the world, but in Portugal there's this thing about old aunts offerring crap underwear for Christmas —, after a few old men are somewhat drunk and go home, I'm really looking forward to a slow weekend. Have a Merry Gift Exchange!···

By the way, I've had a few rolls of film scanned, therefore the Imagelog is now fresh after a three-month hiatus (I could have posted images taken with my digicam, only I'm using it exclusively to grab tiny video clips now, because of a weird documentary I'm working on). More streets of Porto, therefore, shot with the Electro 35.···

And another one for the Holiday season: Destructoterapia (site in Spanish) — a service in which you pay to smash up old cars with heavy tools. They say it's 'antiviolence' as stress relief, but I don't know about the 'anti'. But sure seems nice. Although I don't think it gives you the same kind of instant satisfaction as smashing an old keyboard against a metallic post in an abandoned car park and watching all the plastic keys and bits fly instantly. Ehrm...···

Since we're on a Palahniukesque mood, what about this tribute to psychotic salarymen? NAILS are a series of amazing and somewhat upsetting interactive Flash animations by Han Hoogerbrugge. In a grander, but not so imediate scale, check also Hotel, an interactive tale / graphic adventure by the same author.···

I wouldn't be surprised to see this featured in a Chuck Palahniuk novel: Low Prices on Apocalypse! We Have Devastation and Much More! Searching for Misfortune? Find It! Those sponsored links that come up after a Google search can be so much fun, as this Boing Boing post proves.···

Take that, you defending cowards!
FC Porto wins the European — South American Cup (thus practically becoming World Champions), after beating Colombian side Once Caldas 8-7 on penalties, following a 0-0 extra time draw in one of the most annoying football matches ever. Alex caps it quite well — teams that defend for penalties deserve to lose. AC Milan did it against Boca Juniors and deservingly lost last year's Cup, but some people will never learn.···

It seems everyone in the Cafeína Board of Directors is getting a personal weblog. Via Maria's new Traffic in the Sky, the UK Top 40 Date Engine enables you to discover which single and album were number one at any date. Embarrassingly enough the number one single on April 6th 1979, my date of birth, was Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive, while the number one album was Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits Volume 2.···

I wonder if anyone really exists with a name as cool as that spammer in today's title, Horseman K. Eugenics. Given how disinspired I am for writing post titles, I might start grabbing the somewhat useful part of spam. As proved by this.···

Oh yeah, that meme. Open your entire music folder, shuffle the playlist, be honest about the first ten results, feel less hip. Results, therefore:

- DJ Danger Mouse — What More Can I Say
- Haendel — Sarabande (from the Barry Lyndon soundtrack)
- Jack Johnson: Bubble Toes
- Joanna Newson: Peach, Plum, Pear
- Beastie Boys: Crawlspace
- Sam the Kid: Fogo Sem Chama
- Sneaker Pimps: Splinter
- Tears for Fears: Sowing the Seeds of Love
- Yann Tiersen: Summer '78 (from the Goodbye Lenin soundtrack)
- Spektrum: Interference (Radio)

It started off nicely with something from the infamous Grey Album, but the jump to classical music (thanks to Barry Lyndon, speak of the devil!) was a bit abrupt. Jack Johnson is one of those friends' recommendations I ended up listening now for the first time — but liked it. Joanna Newson is excellent (think acoustic and humble Björk), and then more hip-hop from the Beasties and Portuguese wünderkid Sam The Kid. Sneaker Pimps are nice, Yann Tiersen a virus in everybody's playlist, Spektrum is that band I once saw live that may become something extremely good if they drop the abuse of electro, and as for Tears for Fears, I had no idea I had it, although I can't say I dislike it. Hm, and with that there goes my hipster karma down the drain.···

My friend Joana invited me to be a guest blogger at her new Estrada Nacional, and I immediately accepted because I'm cheap, even though I often don't have the time for my own blogs. But it suits my needs for irresponsible blogging, so maybe some interesting stuff will appear over there. Anyway that got me thinking about Cafeína and how it grew and grew and got so many features and became some kind of sacred glossy magazine unconfortable to write in. Bloated, and with a format. So, having a Sunday afternoon with not much to do, I did a little cirurgical intervention. Off with the glossy looks, off with that fanzine feeling which I'm getting more and more convinced is great for paper but bad for daily internet use. Again, that site looks like a weblog, and I even offed the litle topic icons. Now, let's hope it starts picking up karma again, and looking more like a home rather than a cold designer office.···

An article about Stanley Kubrick's famous Barry Lyndon lens, still the fastest lens ever at f/0.7, an aperture which should be physically impossible. (via Kottke)···

The other day I went crazy spent €12 in a single roll of film, a 'professional' 50ASA Fujichrome because I needed some good slides for a large projection in a set piece in a documentary I'll be shooting. Problem is, the photo lab I took the precious roll to will get my personal recommendation as Worst Photo Lab Ever. It seemed like a good deal — €10 to get the slides developed and digitized (thinking, they'd do a better job than my crappy scanner). Well, not only they ruined the film, leaving it with a weird magenta tint, stains and scratches, they gave me a CD containing... 540x360 JPEGs (what kind of size is that!?). Wow, that's useful. So. Shitlisted.



Somehow, the only good image to come out of this debacle is a photo I had mistakenly overexposed. Playing around with the controls of my old, not-really-meant-to-scan-slides scanner, I got the image to look old and charming. I guess it takes a glitch to cover another glitch.···

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp, a lesser-known cubist painter, decided to play a prank and enter an inverted urinol, under the pseudonym R. Mutt, in an art exhibition. Nowdays historians consider it the greatest turning point in the History of Art, a fact confirmed in a recent survey that puts the Fountain as the Most Influential Work of Art Ever. I agree. I can't say it's good or bad — once and for all, understand art and not-art have nothing to do with being good or bad, but here's a piece that forced a paradigm shift in aesthetics of unprecedented magnitude. So big, that Duchamp himself didn't understand it retired as an artist a few years later to become a chess player. The thing is, the 'prank' was just the last drop, the change was inevitable, if it wasn't an urinol, it'd be someone else's toilet. Decades ahead of 'conceptual art', the Fountain forced philosophies to adjust, art to be redefined in a broader sense. It paved the way for much good art that would have been impossible to accept otherwise: Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, conceptual art, installation art, appropriation and sampling; while at the same time being the root of many evils: counterfeit conceptual art (meaning: that art that behind a semantic barrage is devoid of any real concept), the excesses of post-modernism, artists without a path and a process taking shortcuts. We all owe that to the pissorium.

As a note, Malevitch's 1915 White Square would be my second choice (I don't think Picasso's Demoiselles and Warhol's Marylin the article quotes are that influential) because it's still painting — the Fountain has greater taking-the-piss value.···

I am starting to get convinced that there are two kinds of economists: those who practice a clueless pseudo-science and are as reliable as garden-variety horoscopes, psychologists or old-fashioned weather men; and then there are the real sinister ones, Doctor Strangeloves of social sciences, who know the whole economic system is fundamentally flawed and the Greater Depression is a matter of when, and then say "zat iz interesting" and "zon't give ze vörkers a raize". Therefore, I was going to write a magnum-rant called "Why we're all doomed". However, I'm not feeling pessimistic enough for that anymore: the Portuguese President decided to throw the Prime-Minister and the whole Coalition out of the window, meaning earlier elections in which the Socialist Party will surely get an easy win without needing to try hard (last week's polls suggested they'd get 45% of the votes), as this right-wing populist government was decomposing quite fast. And it'll be fun, because if you thought recriminations between ministers in office were bad enough, I can hardly imagine what will happen now that they all lost their jobs. Quality television, I expect. But it was good to see there is still a limit to how bad you can get, even if the threshold is quite low. And that the person I voted for President still has a bit of spine left after all. And no, I do not intend to vote for the Socialist Party in the upcoming elections: even though I like the thought of having Peter Bling-bling out of the office I'm not going to help a Tony Blair get absolute majority.···