So here’s my first post from Milan, where I arrived yesterday and had a few hours to look at the city with my personal guide, Entrances’s Little Susan (Susaninha de Entradas). We didn’t saw each other for more than 10 years. She is in first picture below:

Second picture (above) it’s me smashing the balls of some bull illustration somewhere in the Duomo’s mosaic floor, which they convince me it would bring me lots of luck doing so. I wait for my turn after a dozen of other tourists and do the ritual. I was not that convinced about the good luck thing but I gave it a chance. It would be harder to convince me if it was a real bull, specially in a public place. There was already a huge hole on the floor. The balls were not visible at all, and they told me they just did a restoration of the mosaics less than one year ago. Poor bull.

I am kind of exhausted at this moment writing a post in a less than 10 minute break between two sessions. Kind of exhausted because after arriving and dropping my stuff at the hotel, wired everything and left the laptop doing a never-ending data restore from an external drive (details below). Then was walking around the city with Susana and Gian-Luca (her boyfriend), shopping at Armani for some gifts for my niece and nephew, and arrived back to the hotel a bit late after eating almost 1 Kg of Susana’s excellent home-made lasagna. And lots of cheese and sausage before that. With beer. And she was able to force me to eat a huge bowl of fruit salad, after all that.

After the food overdose I had to recover data and reinstall everything since my mac laptop, the one where I had everything, decided to die Friday afternoon, and Saturday my company got this new one I’m using now since it’s weekend and the dead one has to be sent to apple. By the way, recovering data trough migration tool into a new installation from time machine backups doesn’t work that smoothly, so don’t trust it religiously like most mac users. Specially applications seem kind of erratic and I might have to uninstall and reinstall everything in order for them to behave normal. The one I need most (Flex) had to be reinstalled about 7 times before everything was OK. I was burping lasagna (silently) between every installation. The sessions for 360 Flex started quite early and to be able to get in time for breakfast (as if I wasn’t still digesting that lasagna) I had to sacrifice even more the few hours I had left for sleeping. Anyway, coffee does wonders. The giant pizza I just had for lunch is probably having a chat with the lasagna (and maybe the full english breakfast) since my stomach is doing odd noises randomly (very convenient for being at conferences).

By the way, for everyone thinking that programmers and computer geeks in general do not have any kind of sense of humor look how Koen engaged people before starting his session, against 3 in other rooms (click picture to read):

OK, there’s still one (long) session to go today, then I just wanna sort out some stuff online and get out for a Tiramisu, or two. Arrivederci (or whatever it is for goodbye in Italian).

[PT] Ontem tive uma curta visita, só de um dia, e em que eu estava a trabalhar. Mas deu para meter cerca de 30% da conversa em dia durante o almoço (pato à Pequim), e numa visita guiada (de carro) seguida de jantar (italiano, selecção de várias “pastas” de onde saímos quase capazes de rebolar). Ainda sobrou algum tempo para o gato e tudo, como se pode ver nas fotos. Felizmente, vou ter mais visitas para breve pois ela acabou de entrar para a TAP como assistente de bordo (já agora, parabéns) e vai andar a “aterrar” por aqui de vez em quando.

Printer Hacked! I’ve just found a PERL script that changes any HP network printer’s default READY message to whatever you want and I have it running in Terminal on my Mac.

For now the message is set as on the picture below. Let’s see how long it takes for someone to notice.

I have a few messages “waiting” to try later, like:

I AM WATCHING YOU,

CHECK ENGINE OIL,

NO TOILET PAPER,

LASER RADIATION PROBLEM
PLEASE STAY AWAY,

PLEASE INSERT MORE PAPER
IN TRAY 5 (which doesn’t exist)

PLEASE CHANGE
PINK TONER NOW (it’s a black&white printer)

THIS PRINTER WILL EXPLODE
IN ABOUT ONE MINUTE

and whatever comes to my mind, also accepting suggestions via this post’s comments (please).

Next time someone gets in the printer cubicle, which I can see from my desk, I’ll try to start a dialog:
HELLO, “WHATEVER_NAME”
I NEED YOUR HELP

PLEASE HELP ME
I AM BEING MOLESTED BY “NAME”

UPDATE:

I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.5 and the process didn’t went as smoothly as expected. Please bear while I am fixing some plugin issues. The blog might look weird meanwhile (as if it looked normal before).

Just a late-night cut and paste video of the best (or worst) moments of the big weekend.

For this Easter micro-holidays, comprising Friday to Monday, I had Erica and Andrew (top-left picture) as my Canadian guests (they are living in London now). We had an abusive cheese raclette for lunch-dinner, since their flight arrived quite late, and finished the day in a lazy way (well, we couldn’t move anyway) watching the full season 4 of The Office (US).

Saturday, we left Geneva really early in the morning towards the Jungfrau region, after Interlaken. We arrived to our hotel in Stechelberg, dropped our stuff and took the cable-car up to Gimmelwald, were we planned to stay but the mountain hostel was fully booked. After the typical knocking at the locals doors to buy Cheese (from Esther) and dry Sausage (from Erika). We walked around Gimmelwald, stopped in some panoramic-view-bench and started eating… more cheese (bottom-right picture). Heinz, the cat (we named it like that almost 2 years ago) appeared as usual in the same spot while we were eating.

We took the other cale-car up to Mürren, where after a short walk and thousands of pictures we rented some sleds and moved further up to Almendhubel, taking the funicular train. First day we only sledged once (the slope is quite big) and got enough bruises. There was some trampoline randomly in the middle of the snow (top-right picture) so we stopped and waited for 3 kids (aged 6 maximum) to get out of there, complaining to their grandparents that “that was not for adults to play”. Well, after they kindly leave, the “adults” gave it a try. It was quite fun as the pictures might show and the video will for sure, as soon as I find some time to cut the best-of for the weekend.

Back to Stechelberg, in the valley, we get drunk at the hotel. Licor Beirão with snow works very well (middle-left picture). For dinner we eat until we are almost able to roll. The food at Hotel Stechelberg is outrageously good as usual. There’s accordion swiss country music until late but we are back to one of the rooms, drinking more.

Sunday started kind of early, with me defrosting the car with some good 3cm of snow on top (middle-right picture). After annoying Erica and Andrew knocking on their window we had a (40% cheese) breakfast that would be almost enough to feed 4 families for a week. We check out and get to the cable-car station to go back to Gimmelwald-Murren-Almendhubel and go on the sleds again for a few times. After collecting some more bruises (specially Erica) we eat some more cheese and stop for a coffee. Instead of taking the cabe-car from Mürren to Gimmelwald, we buy an extra plastic bum-sled (sku). We go downhill on our bums trough snow, ice, asphalt and even wooden stairs. My jeans get a huge hole and end up looking like some Village People’s outfit (bottom-left picture), with the difference that I have underwear. Some tourist films us on the last slope just using a hill as shortcut.

We drive back to Geneva completely exhausted. We have cheese fondue for dinner. And chocolate fondue with fruits for dessert. We rest a bit on Monday morning, to have an abusive Röstis lunch with cheese and sausages and more cheese. Afternoon is spent boiling in Lavey les Bains SPA, between Jacuzzi, Whirlpool, Sauna, Turkish Bath and whatsoever. After we are cooked, in zombie mode, we get back to Geneva but driving on the other side of the lake, to stop in Evian and have 2 huge pizzas (more cheese) in my boat. We head to the casino afterwards and quickly back to Geneva (none of us won anything, apart from awareness that gambling is stupid).

Today we were planning to have roasted Peking Duck (at a great Chinese restaurant close to my workplace, but ended up changing our minds to something lighter (I wonder why) and ended up having sushi.

Andrew and Erica are leaving in a few hours and are now doing the last shopping for tons of Rösti, Cheese and Chocolate to take to the UK. They bought a raclette machine after lunch time. Click the mosaic on top to see a picture selection. Video will be coming soon on the next post.

[PT] Há uns dias, andei no Flickr com um amigo a vasculhar fotos da terra onde ele cresceu, mais pecisamente, Beira, Moçambique. Confesso que me chocou um pouco bastante ver as fotos do “antes”, altura em que a cidade florescia e as do “depois”, ou seja agora, em que está completamente degradada. No meio de algumas fotos aleatórias, outras pouco politicamente correctas de senhoras ou casais em passeio, muito chiques em carrinhos (num carril) a ser empurrados por negros e ainda outras de placards de publicidade jurássica da coca-cola, houve uma foto que me chamou a atenção e me fez desatar a rir nem sei bem porquê:

[PT] OK, aqui vão, logo de seguida três pérolas do meu podcast de culto, Laboratolarilolela, responsável por aleatórios momentos, que me apanham de surpresa, e em que colegas ou pessoas no eléctrico duvidam seriamente da minha sanidade mental. E quando consigo parar de rir desalmadamente, lá ficam estas maravilhas incrustadas no cérebro, durante semanas.

Das últimas edições, estes três obras de arte deram cabo de mim, quase tanto como a da Ninfa Artémis. Ora aqui estão elas: Não aconselho ninguém a tentar comer ou conduzir enquanto ouve as seguintes músicas e não me responsabilizo pelo que possa acontecer nesse caso!

Élvio Santiago: Orkut…
> Terrível! Fica na cabeça durante semanas meses.

Heavy-C: Corno…
> Bastante profunda. Com côro e tudo no refrão.

Mark Dennis: Diz à Li(s)sa…
> Quase tão dramática como as de Graciano Saga.

Mais uma vez parabéns a Nuno Markl e equipa pela arte de dissecar música popular alternativa portuguesa. Quem encontrar as letras e quiser contribuir, por favor deixem-nas num comentário a este post.

This weekend I finished designing a logo for an ONG. This was my contribution to this organization, briefly described below. I am talking about the Forum for Youth Advocacy. Unfortunately I couldn’t dedicate too much time due to my job, but it was a good nostalgic exercise since I am abandoning more of the design field and dedicating more to the software development side (heavily on Flex now). My friend Erica is the founder and co-director of FOYA. The head office is in the UK, in London. We worked/volunteered together in the International Peace Bureau (Geneva) when I arrived to Switzerland and I wanted to contribute with something as soon I knew she was going ahead with this initiative. I wish I had more time to dedicate.

P.S. > Please do not make any confusion with Radio FOIA or with some popular Castro Verde’s junkie :)

Click the logo to enlarge

Small intro about FOYA:

The Forum for Youth Advocacy (FOYA) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) aimed to engage youth in peace and development. We work to empower marginalized youth to realize their full potential, and build peace within themselves and their communities. Our work focuses on protecting children in armed conflict, engaging youth in peace building, raising HIV/AIDS awareness, and working with civil society for the inclusion of youth.

The history of FOYA is a story of commitment and dedication to peace and development. Created in November 2007, FOYA focused on bringing together committed individuals to create positive change in the lives of youth and marginalized people in Uganda. Today, we are working in Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Cyprus.

If you want or know someone interested in contributing the website (I should be contributing on that too) will be available soon at http://forumforyouth.com

Just a photo I found funny from last weekend. I ended up cooking too much Japanese Curry and Sushi for my birthday dinner and tat was good news for Shift (the cat) in the end. He doesn’t like tuna fish (normal for cat that likes to shower and to sleep in a glass fruit bowl I guess), but it seemed to be OK with all these treats. Next day he was meowing with a “where’s my fancy food?” tone, obviously, and took a while to get back to his normal cat food.

Zubi was the victim again this morning.
While she was away from her desk for a few minutes:

• I stole her bowl of cereals with banana slices.
• I took a picture of the real cereals (from the top).
• I printed the “paper cereals” and cut them out.
• I put them in an empty bowl (with spoon and all).
• I place the fake cereals in the same place where the others were.

Result: When Zubi gets back to her desk to continue her tasks and breakfast, it was priceless to see her face (for 20 seconds or so), trying to figure out what was wrong, with kind of an “am I getting insane?” expression. Eventually after a few more seconds she looked at me and it was impossible to disguise my guilty face.

The picture above (click it to enlarge) was taken after I got her back the real cereals (at her right side). She is “eating” the fake ones.

Just right after last post, I reminded myself of something the cat ALWAYS does when I go to the toilet. I almost forgot this because now it is kind of normal. So I took the camera with me before… taking a crap. I know these might not be the ideal pictures to share, but I couldn’t avoid sharing them.

OK, so, apart from sleeping in a fruit bowl (made of glass), my cat uses my pants and boxer shorts as a bed (more hammock) every single time I go to the toilet. It’s only for a few minutes but he’s able to sleep like that sometimes. It’s automatic. As soon as the pants are down, here he goes. And if they are not on the floor, he complains and gets mad, almost as much as when I close the bathroom door. Interesting part of it, when I have guests, he does the same. And most of they know already they have to either keep the door open or close it only after the cat is in, otherwise the cat will be screaming (and scratching) at the door like someone is spanking him. Same applies for shower. He doesn’t get inside, but stays the whole time at the bathtub wall, and you get a cat shadow on the curtain (psycho style, but without the knife).

Here are the pictures I took yesterday (click to open larger version):

A few friends asked me why did I stop posting cat videos, Some even asked if the cat was still alive, so here it goes: he’s alive and weird as usual. Theses are just 3 slightly odd things he does that I happened to have on video. In case you are not aware, amongst other not-very-normal things, this cat sleeps in a glass fruit bowl (yes, cold and hard.. everything cats love, right?).

Here’s the video compilation.
WARNING: Ninfa Artemis (means outrageously bad portuguese music brain torture) as soundtrack!

To run a little bit away from the UPS crappy mood… I am posting a stupid funny video (with a very silly music). Enjoy!

! This is part II of this post, please read it first.

[EN] How could it be that all this surreal situation could get even worst? How could this gift my friends were waiting for (for over a week) gets even more bad surprises?
With a new very bad surprise: more than 100 EUR charge, or no delivery! What? Exactly that. So, apparently they charge for being retarded and moving back and forth because they are not able to find locations or even ask for directions. How nice is that?

How can you charge for something that was already paid? And, even if so, you would charge the sender, not the recipients! Of course I did an international bank transfer to my friend immediately to cover that. We are talking about a value that’s a quarter of the average Portuguese salary. Better yet, the goods plus the (useless) delivery service plus taxes costed slightly less (90 cents) than those 100 EUR. In the end, I payed double the goods’ value thanks to the amazing guys monkeys at UPS.

Read the rest of this entry »

* Tradução Portuguesa mais abaixo!

[EN] My patience just reached its limits today so yes, I really have to rant about this. I am getting mad with incompetent people, specially for a service paid as premium. This is about UPS. Sincerely, I never had a single problem with them in here (Switzerland) but obviously they are everything but serious in Portugal. Yes, I had more than one (more than ten at least) extremely bad experiences with them a few years ago when I was still there. And guess what? Things didn’t evolve at all. I am filing a complaint on their site. In the US headquarters one, since if I complain to the Portuguese one, I am sure my rants will end up filed… in the recycle bin. As everyone else’s. I am also pointing this post in the complaint and will post the reply here (if I get one, which I hope).

The story: I decided to buy something online (for a gift). Everything went smoothly on the website, where I ordered stuff before several times and everything always arrived quickly, to Switzerland. But I kind of started having that weird feeling as soon as I saw UPS as the international shipping method. That’s because I needed it shipped to Portugal. I proceeded. With some irony I told the recipient in messenger after she gave me the address details, that with luck it would take 2 days from US to Portugal, then would get stuck for a week or so. Guess what? Everything went smoothly (even with Germany as an intermediate stop) and as expected before the tracking starts showing PT (Portugal). Then the circus begins. And as far as I can see my estimate was beaten, since the goods did not arrive as yet of today (day 8). Let’s see how lucky we are and if it does not take another week (or more).

But what the %*£¢ is happening? Portugal is smaller than any US state. Is UPS in Portugal using donkey pulled vans? Let’s do some quick analysis:
Read the rest of this entry »