Last day!

Hiya, folks!

As I have no access to pictures here, I decided to write a post here, but I hope I can post something in the Portuguese version too. Today is kinda last day of the year. The weekend will be dedicated to cleaning and packing, with some interruptions for a movie and maybe eat out with friends. No plans for Christmas' Eve, which could be very depressing for a Brazilian, but for some years I've "learned" not to care about this date. My family used to be huuuuuuuuuuge when I was a kid, we used to have between 20 and 30 people at home every year, but due to "shit happens" issues, it was reduced to a couple of aunts and cousins coming along. So mom & I got used to travel during Christmas - sometimes we were lucky to get a reasonable package that would include NY too - and forget about the date. Sad, but true: I don't give a damn about Christmas. For me it is either being in a house full of lively souls (can be a bunch of good friends, when you are away from home), shouting, laughing, eating, having a great fun, or travelling and preteding nothing is happening.

We are going with the latter. Gran Canaria, a warm(er) spot is waiting for us on the 25th and will be our home until the 1st. I'm assuming that these 7 days will be great. Of course that all pleasure has to be preceeded by some stress. There is no public transportation available on the 25th, how good is that? We will have to think about our war strategy to get to the airport - and hope that the fog will give a break by then. But after all the stress and trouble, we will have 7 days in paradise (well, personally I think Paradise is somewhere around the Pacific Islands).

Although I don't enjoy Christmas time, it doesn't mean that I won't wish you all a great time. It is a good time to think about the ones we love and miss, and be with the ones we love, and have fun, and have good thoughts and think about becoming a better person, and most all think about how lucky we are to have a great meal - especially if you are from Brazil, yummy, cod fish cake, turkey, pork, rabanada, farofa, fruits, and all those fatty food that we eat like there's no tomorrow. Well, there is a tomorrow and tomorrow we will eat more of those yummy food, because families usually cook enough food to feed a whole country.

I'll try to be back before travelling, but in case I can't, I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year's passage. I wish a bright 2007 for all of us! :-)

Today's fortune:
You will always have good luck in your personal affairs

2nd part

Ra, now I have to make another part for this videos, so I can have a trilogy too! Here is the second part of the video, with some considerations to take into account: 1) there is a bizarre cut in the beginning (sound system thingy). I'm sorry for that, my mistake, but I am also sorry for being too lazy to correct it now. In fact, the video is full of grotesque cuts, but I've learn how to avoid this too late. 2) This video was recorded on Sept. 25th-26th, which means it is OLD now and all the "i will", "didn't read/eat/listen yet" talk is old too!

Other than this, I hope you enjoy and give us some feedback, so we can always improve our services! :-D

Finally!

Sorry for the delay, folks, but here is the first video showing Lilian opening her presents. There is a second video to come, but that one will only be available next week, after she approves the content. Well, let's hope she does.

About the quality of everything, in my defense I can only say that I don't have a super duper power MAC, and I am not an expert in editting, unfortunately. I was trying to play a bit with Premiere, After Effects and Encore, but I couldn't do much. I think I'll need a lot of time before I can produce something decent. In the meantime, I have two projects: one is upload homevideos (yeah, those with this shitty quality) on You Tube and the other one is to try to create nicer videos for DVDs (this one being a long term project).

So, with nothing else to say, I'll leave you with the video:

I like to move it move it

My internet connection sucks... It is provisory, just until I get the usual one working, but still, it sucks. Despite it, I manage to upload a video on You Tube. Before advertise it here, I need Lilian's authorization, especially because it is a very poor version of a video I intend to make. Oh yeah, I'm training to become a videomaker. hehehe The 5-minute video was edited with Windows Media Maker, which is quite amateur. I am still experimenting with Adobe Premiere. The editing part is nor too bad, but I have no idea how to make some things, such as subtitles. Well, I'm not even sure if Premiere does such things or if I'll have to use After Effects, but I am quite excited with the idea of learning new stuff.

Alright, it seems that this week will be a little bit busy, which is good. The bad news is that, besides being cold(er), it is also raining. I hate umbrellas - they were made to be lost on the tube. But I also hate to get wet in winter (unlike getting some rain in summer, which can be very nice). So, walking around can be a bit of a torture these days. On the other hand, with my new filmmaking project, it can also be inspiring! Anyway, let's see for how long I will be interested on that.

By the way - or should I say, changing subject? Whatever, Mauricio asked me on another blog (yeah, the third one) about my camera. In fact I have two, but digital compact ones, nothing really special. I have a Sony Cybershot 5.1 Megapixels that I bought about 2-3 years ago and this year I got a Canon Ixus 5.0 Mp. Comparing both, the Canon one is much better. The colors are more vivid and bright. I was told that Canon are the best cameras anyway. But mine is not a professional one, so, yeah, I would say that depending on your budget, go for one of those EOS SLR. hehehehe Cipri has a semi-professional one, I don't know the model, but it is an Olympus one and he seems happy with it.

There's a irritanting bug bumping on the lamp that is not allowing me to concentrate properly here. Besides, I am starving and starting to have a headache. I also have a little piece of wood under my finger skin. It doesn't hurt that much, but it bothers. If only I had a needle at home... Another thing that is annoying me is this thing I saw at the supermarket: potato flour? What the heck is that for, can somebody who understand about cuisine tell me? Ok, ok, I'm a lazy girl and I should just search online. Well, in fact, I need a dictionary, because I know it is used for
cooking, but so what. I need to know the equivalent in portuguese, because it looks so much like Polvilho. And if it is so, this is too good to be true! Polvilho, cheese bread. Hummmm....

By the way, I bought a book of bread recipes. If I don't succeed as a filmmaker, I'll open a bakery.

Post # 100! Yey!

After complaining so much that I was simply forgetting the things I wanted to write here, I finally got the cutest notebook to write down ideas and thoughts. Thanks for that, Maryam, great present! :-) Ok, the present is almost a month old, but I forgot to write about it here. I used it quite a lot yesterday, as these days things happened and I simply couldn't update the blog.

Tomorrow my life as a single-woman-for-12-days starts. Don't get me wrong, I am still commited up to the teeth and I am - as all good cancerians - very much in love with my bed and my home, so no crazy parties, drinking until I fall, back home at 3 am. What are my plans as a single woman in London then? First of all, I really hope I will be able to work a little on the videos I brought from Brazil. My poor laptop doesn't have enough space and I wrote to Santa requesting an external hard disk. My computer is going for a trip to NY and I borrow one that might have more space. Not sure yet.

The other plan is to go to some Christmas carols that are happening in the city. I've never seen one, I don't think we have this tradition in Brazil, and if we do, my family certainly doesn't have tradition of attending them. One will be this Sunday in Forest Hill and the other one will be on the 13th, a typical Romanian carol I was told. You know, need to straighten the ties between the two cultures.

I wanted to go out for some tourism too, but it looks like the weather won't help me on that. Today we had this weird - but cool - ice rain. I thought the windows were going to crash, due to the strength of the impact of the ice. And it was real ice, big chunks, like God crushed them for some drinks and dropped them on Heaven's floor.

Now some "old" stories. Last Friday we went to a club called Plan B, in Brixton, to celebrate Mariana's birthday. Very fun night, with good friends around. Great 'excuse' to go clubbing and dance a bit.

Mari reading a card, before opening her b-day present. Barny & friend chatting on the background.

Roberto and Cipri before and after some beers. Not much of a difference, innit?

It's hugging time! Barny, Cipri & Mari, being guarded by somebody I have no clue who could be.

Cipri, Guilherme & me: Brazilians rulezzzzzzzzzz (yeah, Cipri considers himself a Brazilian too; who am I to deny?)

Saturday, still a bit sleepy and tired from the party, we went to Islington to check on Honey, the sweetest cat in the world. I didn't drink that much on the night before, but for some reason I felt like having Marco's pistaccio ice cream. Maybe because it was very good? :-P