At long last, Timur is reunited with the PC and Adobe Illustrator. This drawing is an idea of the video game he is designing. One part of the game takes place in The Universe Museum: some creature (naturally, created by a villain) takes control of the clock and then you have to fight it.
The tree in front represents life, the red atom represents matter, the goblet represents water, the black orb represents space and the clock represents time.
I bought this limited edition Veiga Serantes Albariño (bottle no. 0457 — of one thousand?) in Marumba. And it was a nice bottle of wine. At 13%, it is a bit stronger than Oro Valei, although twice as expensive, so probably not the best value bottle of vino blanco. The search for truly great Spanish white wine continues...
Last night, I watched this film on Spanish telly, without any subtitles, either English or Spanish. I can’t say that I followed all the dialogue, but when you see the movie for the fourth time it’s not that important. What is important then? I don’t know. This time I paid more attention to the beautiful score by Alberto Iglesias. I was expecting the film being re-edited for television (as many features shown here are, and rather heavily), but it was shown in its entirety, except for the end credits.
Sex and Lucía is not exactly an erotic movie, but the love scenes between Lucía (Paz Vega) and Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa) are both funny and touching and as erotic as could be.
Last night, or rather in the small hours of Sunday morning, I watched Zelig once again — this time, with Spanish subtitles (which amused me a lot). I find the protagonist of this “mockumentary” more touching and, well, more believable than other Allen’s characters.
The clip below contains one of my favourite scenes in the movie, viz. the escape of Zelig and Fletcher from Nazis on the airplane upside-down.
Zwei fanatische, idiotische, amerikanische Dummköpfe, kriminelle Schweinehunde, die Zelig und Fletcher heißen, ruinierten in einer wichtigen Rede unseres Führers Adolf Hitler den besten Witz...
Das ist fantastisch. Absolutely brilliant.
I bought this amazing piece of kit seven years ago and it is still alive! I even have a few gigabytes of its (40 GB) disk space left. Back in 2004, this was probably the best gizmo of its kind. Granted, even then it did not look as sexy as iPod, but it can do so much more. Most of my music there is in OGG format. It also is a surprisingly good-quality dictaphone. There is a (still unreleased) recording of a bass/drum/guitar trio (eventually becoming a duo as the drummer left the building) in the basement of my old workplace. (When I grow old and famous, I may want to release it to raise some cash.) Also, from time to time I used it just as a portable hard disk that it is.
And here’s a problem: where to get a replacement when (or, better, before) it crashes? iHP-140 is not available in shops any longer. According to Wikipedia, this player is discontinued and succeeded by iRiver H300 series, which is also unavailable. Most of affordable MP3 players for sale now have no more than 8 GB memory. In the meantime, I hope it does not die a sudden death just before my Zumba class.
Things are positively improving here. After finishing our kilo of Maragogipe and half-way through a kilo bag of Lavazza (bought via Amazon!), I was relieved to find that now we have the source of quality coffee beans in Corralejo. They could be found in the Marumba store in C.C. El Campanario. During our last visit there (yesterday, to be precise), I bought a bag of Costa Rican beans and a bottle of this delicious rosé from Catalonia. Try it if you can find it.
This beautifully told story is set on Bougainville, the Melanesian island of which very existence I was ignorant until now, during the 1990s civil war. I loved the book, but be warned. When the “redskin” soldiers appear in the village for the first time, you know it is not going to end well. Still, nothing prepares you to the horrors of their final visit.
My favourite chapters are the ones where Mr Watts, the only white person in the village, invites the parents of the children to come into his classroom and “share what they knew of the world”.
 | ‘There is a place called Egypt,’ she said. ‘I know nothing of that place. I wish I could tell you kids about Egypt. Forgive me for not knowing more. But, if you care to listen, I will tell you everything I know about the colour blue.’ ‘Some islands have beautiful names for different winds. My favourite is the wind that is known as “gentle as a woman”.’ Gilbert’s uncle, a big man, round as an oil drum, black as tar from toiling out at sea, came to speak to us about ‘broken dreams’. He said the best place to find a broken dream is on the wharf. ‘Look at all those dead fish with their eyes and mouths open. They can’t believe they are not in the sea and never will be again.’ ‘At night the blimmin’ dogs and roosters chase after dreams and break them in two. The one good thing about a broken dream is that you can pick up the threads of it again. By the way, fish go to heaven. Don’t believe any other shit you hear.’ |
