Still Strugglin'

Going through the storm.

2006-06-24T00:28:00.000-03:00

Yesterday, my Dermatologist told me a story about a colleague of hers.

They were both about my age (28) and had just completed their medical residency. My sweet, wonderful doctor decided to stay at our med school's Hospital doing research at the time, while her colleague started working in hospitals and clinics as a clinical Dermatologist.

Two years later, when she was 30, 31 years old, she found out that she did not want to be a doctor anymore. Perhaps she never wanted.
She fell into a deep depression and refused any treatment.
Then, she retired. She was just past her thirties and retired, simply putting an end to her professional life and never looked for any other option, neither in Medicine, neither in any other thing.
I have already had clinical depression, though not severe, but I was never resilient to any treatment. The same may be said about the disease that has been made me derelict (derelict as in 'not being able to exert my job', it's one of the definitions of this term), my severe atopic dermatitis / eczema (more about it here). I never stopped trying, even knowing that no doctor in the world can come up with a solution to control my condition or just make it go away. I resent the fact that it causes me pain every day and that all the money I had earned during my 2 years and so 'Doctor Carter' years, working as much as I could in two E.Rs as an Emergency Doctor, was spent in medical solutions, alternative or not, and psychotherapy with the best psychologists and psychiatrists (no, they didn't find anything wrong with me in the 'mental' field, my mild depression was before that), because I felt my eczema getting worse each passing day.
The point is, I never stopped fighting. And I feel really sorry for that lady, even though I have never met her.

I would like to shout: 'I am still standing, I am still STRONG!', but I would be fooling myself.

I am still standing. I am not strong like I used to be, but I do not plan on giving up.

And I would like to know if there's anybody out there who is going through or has gone through an incapacitating disease that we doctors do not know how to control, especially severe dermatological conditions.

Opera Web Browser on Nintendo Wii and DS Lite

2006-05-15T05:23:00.000-03:00

It's official: Opera will release versions of its browsers for Nintendo DS Lite and the upcoming Nintendo Wii console.

Check out some screens for the DS Lite Versions:

technorati tags: nintendo, ds-lite, opera, nintendo-ds, nintendods, wii

I want a Freeware Utility to...

2006-05-09T06:22:00.000-03:00

Check out this excellent link. Since I use a Mac I cannot say if it's very up to date or not.

Metal Gear Solid 4 trailers

2006-05-09T03:51:00.000-03:00

Me likes Playstation ;)

I gathered all the trailers Konami released about Metal Gear Solid for Playstation 3, including the one announced yesterday which is VERY funny:

This is the original trailer:

This one is awesome, almost a mini documentary on Metal Gear Solid 4:

Donations ;)

2006-05-09T02:25:00.000-03:00

People (mainly my dear, dear friends) have been very helpful to me since my friend showed 'the world' how I have been (unabe to word and etc).

I will always post updated donation values at my donation page at freewaremac.net.

Still...

2006-05-07T15:49:00.000-03:00

My admission at the hospital has not come up yet, and I really need it (if you want to see a really gross picture of me after a scratching crisis, click on the thumbnail to the right.

My dear, dear friend saw my state and started a campaign for me and raised some funds so I could pay up some debts and my meds, and I was so moved... Wish I could help her 'back', but I know I will when I get better.

If you want to help me, there are ways...

1) Using the paypal button at the right sidebar to donate anything you feel like;

2) Signing up to Dreamhost, Bluehost or IXWebhosting using one of these links (of course, if you need a website - anyway, x10hosting offers great plans for free, but the most advanced plans requires you to put their ads).

3) If you need a domain, please use this link for iDotz.net - I host my domains there (because they accept Paypal, and my only income comes from Paypal via Dreamhost) and I like their prices.

4) Well, if you need or know someone who needs a Portuguese / English translator or vice-versa, I can be your guy. I can also provide support for Wordpress installations, plugins and themes.

technorati tags: eczema, atopic-dermatitis, atopic, paypal, dreamhost, bluehost, ixwebhosting, help, translation, health, skin-disease

Blue Security Attacks... again.

2006-05-07T04:23:00.000-03:00

Well after receiving the following message 100 times today:

'Dear Blue Frog Member,

As a follow-up to our previous emails, and, as promised, we are stepping up in the fight against Blue Security.

The Blue Frog member email database has been compromised, and is currently being distributed worldwide to spammers and to the public. Attached to this email, you will find a zip file of the Blue Frog database, which includes your own personal or business email address(es). If you have not uninstalled Blue Frog yet, we highly suggest you do so now in order to avoid your involvement in this war any further.

Leaving your email address on the Blue Frog list is a risky choice, as we will uphold our promise not only to increase your spam by 20 times the amount you are receiving now, but to continue to make this list publically available as well. Also, as the Blue Frog member database is updated, we will find more creative ways in which to use it, and frequently release it to whomever we wish.

Blue Security, Inc'

I am putting up a banner here, soon I'll place it in the sidebar:

Why do popular websites seem to bring out the worst in people?

2006-05-07T00:12:00.000-03:00

Take a look at this article I posted at my Newsvine page.

It generated interesting comments.

What are your impressions about that?

technorati tags: newsvine, digg, blogging, comments, flaming

Can Anyone Make Money from Blogs?

2006-05-07T00:00:00.000-03:00

An excellent read if you are planning to do that (I have had very limited results, been trying for 6 months due to inability to work as a doctor):

Read the full article @ Performancing.com.

technorati tags: adsense, blogging, problogger, money

Testing Flock

2006-05-06T21:24:00.000-03:00

This post is just to test Flock Web Browser's blog posting feature.

technorati tags: flock

Angry Again

2006-04-24T05:56:00.000-03:00

Ill be leaving for the hospital tomorrow, my disease is making me crazy again so I need some time to 'rest'.

Anyway I will be away for 10 or 14 days... Hope I get at least a little bit better.

See ya ;)

A Better 'Better Digg Blookmarklet'

2006-04-17T03:12:00.000-03:00

A reader, Arphen Lin submitted this bookmarklet that, for convenience, opens digg's page in a new window when you click on it:

So, drag this new one to your browser toolbar:

digg it!

Technorati Tags: digg, digg.com

Can you believe this?

2006-04-15T18:28:00.000-03:00

'The most striking thing from this article may be that 20% of Americans think that the Sun goes around the Earth. Of course, fully 50% of the world's population believes that, so this is not terribly surprising.'

Oh, the humanity... lol.

This is from an NY Times article that is now paid, but luckily somone has copied it to his weblog.

Roller Coaster

2006-04-15T11:33:00.000-03:00

36 hours awake. This sucks big time. I tried to sleep 5 times since I woke up 'a long time ago', but those damn scratching crisis will not let me.

They make me bleed and hurt and get tense and et cetera.

But you know? It's funny in a way. I read psychiatric studies about personality changes.

Simplifying a lot, what called my attention in that article was the analysis of personalities of people who were whiny and complained about everything in life and then something really good happened to them (in one case, winning the lottery). At the same time, people who were optimistic and cheerful who suffered something just awful, like losing a leg, being disabled, contracting HIV and the like.

After the initial shock on both 'extremes', with the exception of drastic attitudes like one or another not being able to handle the shock of his now greatly severed condition and committing suicide... After a period of 6 months, the whiny, depressive people who got great things that happened to them continued to be whiny, pessimistic, et cetera. The people who were cheerful and optimistic, after their initial shock (6 months later too) continued to be themselves. Of course maybe a little shaken up by their new limitations, but still optimistic about life and in a much more positive attitude towards themselves and life itself than the depressive, whiny fellows who had great things happening to them.

So I guess people's essence do not change if they do not have clinical depression or have any other accident during their adaptation period. That's how, I guess, manage to still help people and give them medical advice, support my large quantity of friends and always be tender with the people I love - even though in some ways, my case is worse than an accident, because I have no idea (nor any doctor in the world) when and if I will get better and be able to work again, or even get out of home more than once a week, since most days I am so hurt physically and so freaking ugly that I just do not want to (or cannot, sometimes) do anything I wish I could be doing. Like exercising, or working, or even traveling somewhere quiet to change my room and bedroom and TV and Playstation 2 and internet routine.

Anyway, I kinda hope I am right and never succumb to it, even though I have had a hell of a night and spent most of it crying (not from sadness but from pure pain). Fortunately the pain has gone, the insane scratching too, and maybe I will be able to sleep soon.

Well, as I always try to think... Rise and shine, Love, no matter what.

A Better Digg Bookmarklet

2006-04-15T11:17:00.000-03:00

I've made a better digg.com bookmarklet that automagically adds the page's title to your posts. I had found one very alike to this one but I did not remember where so I 'remade' it.

Well, just drag this to your browser toolbar:

digg it!

And you will finally have a Digg bookmarklet that copies the page's title. Much better than the ones I've seen around.

Cheers!

Web 2.0: Image Sites List

2006-03-18T15:42:00.000-03:00

Well those are not sooo 2.0 but worth a shot - especially FlickrLicio.us ;)

23hq - Store, share manage photos. http://www.23hq.com/

Clipmarks - Clip share pics online. http://clipmarks.com/

Danbooru - Upload, tage share images. http://danbooru.donmai.us/

Dropshots - Upload share photos video. http://www.dropshots.com/

Flappr - Search pictures; Flickr mash-up. http://bcdef.org/flappr/

Flickr - Upload share photos. http://www.flickr.com/

Flickr photo finder - Find publish photos. http://www.wynia.org/experiments/phpflickr

Flickr* - Manage share your photos. http://www.flickr.com

Flickrfling - RSS feeds Flickr mash-up. http://www.nastypixel.com/prototype/cms/myfiles/pages/flickr…

Flickrlicious. Share Babes on Flickr. http://www.flickrlicio.us/

Flyinside - Create, publish share virtual photo tours. http://www.flyinside.com/

Fotki - Upload, share, print photos. http://www.fotki.com/

Fotoflix - Upload share photos. http://www.fotoflix.com/

Fotolia* - Buy sell images. http://www.fotolia.com/

Fotolog - Create map your photolog. http://www.fotolog.com/

Glendor - Job finder; map mash-up. http://www.glendor.com/

Groupr - Groups photos from Flickr groups. http://groupr.200ok.net/

Illhostit - Host your images. http://www.illhostit.com/

Istockphoto - Buy sell images. http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php

Jellybarn - Upload, edit, manage, share your photos. http://www.jellybarn.com/

Ondergrond~ - Upload photos of public art. http://www.ondergrond.org/

Phlog~ - Upload share photos. http://phlog.net/

Photobloggr - Find tags on name; Flickr mash-up. http://photobloggr.com/

Photobucket - Upload, publish share photos. http://www.photobucket.com/

Photomap - Add photos to locations; multi mash-up. http://photomap.mozdev.org/

Picturecloud - 360o view on your pics. http://www.picturecloud.com/

Pixagogo - Upload, manage share photos. http://www.pixagogo.com/

Sharpcast - Manage your mobile photos online. http://sharpcast.com/

Shutterbook - Store share photos. http://www.shutterbook.com/

Shutterfly - Store, share print photos. http://www.shutterfly.com/

Slide* - Upload share photos. http://www.slide.com/

Slidestory - Publish stories with photo slideshows. http://www.slidestory.com/

Smilebox - Pimp up your photo presentation. http://www.smilebox.com/

Smugmug - Store share photos. http://www.smugmug.com/

Tagworld - Store share photos. http://www.tagworld.com/

Tickr - Flickr desktop ticker. http://www.stuffonfire.com/2006/01/tickr_for_flickr_10_v6.ht…

Zooomr. Search photos in many languages. http://beta.zooomr.com/home

Zooomr~ - Find photos make friends. http://www.zooomr.com/

Zoto - Upload, photoblog share. http://www.zoto.com/

And wait, there's more!

Colorblender - Color picker matcher. http://www.colorblender.com/

Colorcell - Find beautiful color combinations. http://colorcell.uneven.org/

Colr* - Play with color photos publish results. http://www.colr.org/

Colrpickr - Color picker. http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/

Epassportphoto - Upload, manipulate, download your photo. http://www.epassportphoto.com/

Flashpaint - Draw share pictures. http://www.flashpaint.com/

Flowermaker - Design flowers. http://www.zefrank.com/flowers/

Gliffy - Draw share diagrams. http://www.gliffy.com/

Imageeditor - Edit your images online. http://www.imageeditor.net/

Photostack - Manage images (Ajax). http://www.photostack.org/

Picasa - Find, edit share photos. http://picasa.google.com/

Picturecloud - 360o view on your pics. http://www.picturecloud.com/

Pixelgroup - Draw anything with others. http://blog.outer-court.com/pixel/

Pixoh - Edit pics online. http://pixoh.com/

Pxn8 - Manipulate publish your photos. http://www.pxn8.com/

Rasterbator - Creates rasterized images. http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

Smilebox - Pimp up your photo presentation. http://www.smilebox.com/

Textorizer - Image2Text. http://textorizer.whatfettle.com/

Webimager - Capture screens upload them to Flickr. http://phpspot.net/php/flickr/

Tiltomo - Search for similar photos. http://www.tiltomo.com/

Technorati Tags: flickr, flickrlicious, web20, web2-0, ajax

Web 2.0: Search Engines List

2006-03-18T07:00:00.000-03:00

Update: I found out I did not find the list in a forum, but in Bob Stumpel's Blog. Thanks for reminding me, Bob (so that I can give you credit), I wanted to keep a list of 2.0 sites for a Brazilian project of mine

A very useful list I found a while ago on some forum and copied to my computer, I had not even remembered it until I found it today. Here it goes:

1000tags - Tag cloud based search. http://1000tags.com/

Adaction - Search me. http://elsewhere.adactio.com/

Ajaxwhois - Results while you type. http://www.ajaxwhois.com/

AskAlexia - simple UI+ajax+speed. Now only available with web and image searches. http://www.askalexia.com/

Alexa - Contribute to ranked search & stats while you surf. http://www.alexa.com/

Ambedo - Bookmark, tag & search. http://www.ambedo.com/

Audioclipping - Search content of audio & video streams. http://www.audioclipping.de/

Bashr - Wikipedia, Flickr & Delicious mash-up. http://www.bashr.com/

Blogdigger - Search blogs. http://www.blogdigger.com/

Blogpulse - Search blogs. http://www.blogpulse.com/

Blue - Find & share. https://www.blue.us/

Browster - Search & browse instantly. http://www.browster.com/

Cloudee - Aggregates news per term. http://www.cloudee.com/

Clusty - Cluster results in folders. http://clusty.com/

Collaborativerank - Search & rank. http://collabrank.org/

Dhoondho - Search all content on the web. http://www.dhoondho.com/

Digitalmediasearch - Search media. http://www.moworks.ca/search.aspx

Dipsie - Deep search. http://www.dipsie.com/

Ditto - Search images. http://ditto.com/

Domainsbot - Domain searcg & suggestions. http://www.domainsbot.com/

Doubletrust - Google + Yahoo mash-up. http://sushil01.securesites.net/~ashish/doubletrust/

Egosurf - Search yourself, get ranking. http://www.egosurf.org/

Exalead - Unified search technology. http://www.exalead.com/

Factbites - Search results in sensible sentences. http://www.factbites.com/

Feedster - Search for feeds. http://www.feedster.com/

Filangy - Current search. http://www.filangy.com/

Fintag - Finds LSE stocks. http://www.fintag.com/

Gadabe - RSS metasearch. http://www.gada.be/

Gahooyoogle - Google + Yahoo mash-up. http://www.gahooyoogle.com/

Geourl - Location 2 URL directory. http://geourl.org/

Google - Search & adwords. http://www.google.com

Googleblogsearch - Search blogs. http://www.google.com/blogsearch

Googletoolbar - Social search. http://www.google.com/tools/toolbar/T4/index.html

Gravee - Searches sites & blogs; fair rev share on ads. http://www.gravee.com/

Hakia - Meaningful results. http://www.hakia.com/

Healthline - Contextual search for health information. http://www.healthline.com/

Iamsearched - Are you googled-notification service. http://www.iamsearched.com/

Ibegin - Local search. http://ibegin.com/

Icerocket - Search blogs & web. http://www.icerocket.com/

Instantdomainsearch - Ajax domain search + suggestions. http://instantdomainsearch.com/

Jookster - Search, rank & share. http://www.jookster.com/

Kinja - Search blogs. http://www.kinja.com/

Kosmix - Verticle search. http://www.kosmix.com/

Kratia - Search, vote & rank results. http://www.kratia.com/

Lexxe - Meaningful search. http://www.lexxe.com/

Linkput - Results with suer input. http://www.linkput.com/

Liveplasma - Search & find other things to your taste. http://www.liveplasma.com/

Lumrix - Ajax wiki search. http://wiki.lumrix.net/

Makidi - Search for people (?). http://www.makidi.com/

Meevee - Search, upload, share, review & vote tv content. http://www.fuzzbo.com/

Musicmap - Search & find other things to your taste. http://www.dimvision.com/musicmap/

Mybigriver - Find while you type; Amazon mash-up. - http://www.mybigriver.com/

Nextaris - Social search. http://www.nextaris.com/

Omgili - Search discussion forums. http://www.omgili.com/

OPMLsearch - Dedicated OPML search. http://www.opmlsearch.com/

Pico - Search multimedia. http://www.blinkx.com/press/2006/20060307.html

Podzinger - Search podcasts. http://www.opmlsearch.com/

Prase us - Page rank based search. http://www.prase.us/

Prefound - Search what people already found. http://www.prefound.com/

Previewseek - Byebye Google? http://beta.previewseek.com/

Pubsub - Search + profiled alerts. http://www.pubsub.com/

Qtsaver - Micro content search; Google & Yahoo mash-ups http://qtsaver.com/

Qtsearch - Search for content in Yahoo & Google. http://www.qtsaver.com/

Qube - Search engine aggregator (client). http://qube.qelix.com/

Quintura - Search engine with visualized context terms (client). http://quintura.com/

Qwerky - Search strange site names. http://qwerky.stellify.net/

Qwika - Search wikis. http://www.qwika.com/

Releton - Google + Yahoo + maps & routes. http://www.releton.com/

Retrievr - Search images by sketching. http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/

Riya - Face recognition based photo search. http://riya.com/

Rollyo - Create search agents. http://rollyo.com/

Seekum - User ranked search results. http://www.seekum.com/

Snaket - Clustered search. http://snaket.di.unipi.it/

Suckingfish - Save, collaborate on & publish search results. http://suckingfish.com/

Surfwax - Multisource search. http://www.surfwax.com/

Swicki - Search with user input. http://www.swicki.eurekster.com/

Tagnautica - Search Flickr. http://www.quasimondo.com/tagnautica.php

Talkdigger - Search & discuss results from blogs & web. http://www.talkdigger.com/

Technorati - Find what people are saying. http://www.technorati.com/

Vast - Car search. http://www.vast.com/

Vivisimo - Clustered search. http://vivisimo.com/

Watvindenwijover~ - Find & vote for information. http://watvindenwijover.nl/

Who-isit - Whois, ping, check link popularity http://whois-it.com/

Whonu - Discover/search content (more) intuitively. http://www.whonu.com/

Wikimatrix - Find & compare your wikis. http://www.wikimatrix.org/

Wink - Folksonomied search. http://www.wink.com/

Yellowbook - Yellow pages aggregator. http://www.yellowbook.com/

Yoono - Search, exchange & share information. http://www.yoono.com/

Yubnub - Search & share search commands. http://www.yubnub.org/

Zigtag - Search, save & share results. http://www.zigtag.com/

Technorati Tags: web2.0, ajax

How to Receive Flickr comments on your pictures by e-mail

2006-03-17T05:48:00.000-03:00

Since Flickr they doen't seem to want to enable receiving comments on your photos by e-mail, I had to find a way:

1) Get your Comments RSS or Atom Feed Adress at the Recent Activity Page; it's something big like http://flickr.com/recent_comments_feed.gne?id=43163360@N00&format=atom_03 (this is the feed for the comments on my pictures).

2) Create an account at FeedBlitz;

3) Go to New Feed;

4) In 'Feed or Blog URL', enter your feed address, leave the other fields blank;

5) You're done! You are automatically added as a subscriber to this feed and you will receive comments on your pictures once per day.

Hope this helps! :)

Technorati Tags: flickr, atom, feedblitz

Affirmation

2006-03-12T01:51:00.000-03:00

Man, why did Darren Hayes have to end Savage Garden and entered a sucky solo career? I love the band.

I especially love this song because it sums up everything I believe in in a few simple sentences:

I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy
I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe forgiveness is the key to your unhappiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love 'til you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

(Affirmation - Savage Garden)

Back...?

2006-03-12T01:31:00.000-03:00

Well so much for my 'relief' week.

My Atopic Dermatitis is back again, theoretically the shot I applied myself lasts for 21 days, but I knew (don't ask me how, I just knew) that my eczema, severe as it is, would only be held back 1 week, tops.

Now I'm not sooo bad but I might get to that stage again soon. Hell, even had to refuse an invite to go to the cinema with my friends. Last week I went with three girls from College (well now they're doctors like me) and saw the famous/infamous Brokeback Mountain. I loved it, I've had my share of alternative parties so that I don't feel uncomfy about seeing two guys kissing each other (though the idea of me doing it makes me thing 'ewwww'). I loved the movie because it transmitted the idea of love, pure love between two people in a way only my second favourite movie of all time, The English Patient, did, IMHO. My favourite movie of all time is Vanilla Sky, but for more personal (self identification) reasons, not for romance.

Anyway, hope I manage to get through it all over again. I know I will, I just hope I handle it the best I can.

For anyone interested in Atopic Dermatitis / Eczema in terms of its effects on people's quality of life, I have posted a great article about it here. Don't worry, you can understand it, just skip the medical yada yada part ;)

Azn Sensazns

2006-03-10T18:53:00.000-03:00

Who needs the Backstreet Boys when you got da fantastic Azn Sensazns?

Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein

2006-03-09T04:27:00.000-03:00

I received this by e-mail. Dunno if they're all from ol' Albie, but some of them are very enlightening.

* "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
* "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
* "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
* "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
* "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
* "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
* "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
* "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
* "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
* "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
* "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
* "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
* "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
* "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
* "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
* "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
* "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
* "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
* "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
* "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
* "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
* "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
* "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
* "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
* "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
* "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
* "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
* "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
* "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
* "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
* "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
* "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
* "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
* "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
* "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
* "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
* "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
* "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
* "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
* "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
* "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
* "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
* "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
* "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
* "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
* "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
* "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
* "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
* "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
* "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
* "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
* "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
* "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
* "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
* "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
* "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Copyright: Kevin Harris 1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)

Nobody's Home - (half) acoustic by Avril Lavigne

2006-03-05T05:18:00.000-03:00

I love this song, and she may be a poser but I like her voice. A lot, by the way.

And I'd hit her ;)

Extreme Days.

2006-03-03T01:50:00.000-03:00

I used a shot of a potent corticoid (which dermatologists hate in atopic patients like me, but what do they know about how much an eczema patient suffers? I did not, neither as a doctor myself neither when my Atopic Dermatitis was already a *major* annoyance in my life, and it wasn't 10% as bad as it has been now) so I could give myself a break from this stupid disease. I was going crazy scratching myself all the time. And I lost my girlfriend too - because she could no longer stand my suffering and not beng able to go out with me and stuff. But she helped me out so much and I will be always grateful for that.

So my face is all clean and beautiful today ;) - Much better than before:

But I know this will last for a few days only (and possibly come back worse, a common side effect of using this medication), so what to do in the meantime?

- Relax, relax, relax;
- Watch a lot of soccer games (Yay! My team, São Paulo, the current world champion, won yesterday!);
- Get outta this freakin' home in the weekend;
- Stop telling myself that I should be actively seeking ways to make money on the net (because it's the only way I can try nowadays) and give myself a break and blog for fun (It's much better to blog for fun in blogs I like to write on like freewaremac than thinking about Adsense and all those things - I may be new 'round here, but I have Brazilian Portuguese blogs since 2000).

I'd like my Atopic Dermatitis / Eczema Forums to take off... I don't understand Goooooogle. How can that page have a PR of 4 when nobody but me posted there?

Go figure.

'Extreme ways are back again
Extreme places I didn't know
I broke everything new again
Everything that I'd owned
I threw it out the windows, came along
Extreme ways I know move apart
The colors of my sea
Perfect color me

Extreme ways that that help me
Help me out at night
Extreme places I had gone
But never seen any light
Dirty basements, dirty noise
Dirty places coming through
Extreme worlds alone
Did you ever like it planned

I would stand in line for this
There's always room in life for this

Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Then it fell apart, it fell apart
Oh baby, oh baby
Like it always does, always does

Extreme songs that told me
They helped me down every night
I didn't have much to say
I didn't get above the light
I closed my eyes and closed myself
And closed my world and never opened
Up to anything
That could get me along

I had to close down everything
I had to close down my mind
Too many things to cover me
Too much can make me blind
I've seen so much in so many places
So many heartaches, so many faces
So many dirty things
You couldn't believe

I would stand in line for this
It's always good in life for this'

(Moby - Extreme Ways)

Stockholm Syndrome Video

2006-02-27T02:36:00.000-03:00

Take a look of this great animation I found that someone made using one of my favourite songs:

'This is the first (thing I remember)
Now it's the last (thing left on my mind)
Afraid of the dark (do you hear me whisper)
An empty heart (replaced with paranoia)
Where do we go (life's temporary)
After we're gone (like new years resolutions)
Why is this hard (do you recognize me)
I know I'm wrong (but I can't help believin')
I'm so lost
I'm barely here
I wish I could explain myself
But words escape me
It's too late
To save me
You're too late
You're too late

You're cold with disappointment
While I'm drowning in the next room
The last contagious victim of this plague between us
I'm sick with apprehension
I'm crippled from exhaustion
And I dread the moment when you finally come to kill me

This is the first (thing I remember)
Now it's the last (thing left on my mind)
Afraid of the dark (do you hear me whisper)
An empty heart (replaced with paranoia)
Where do we go (life's temporary)
After we're gone (like new years resolutions)
Why is this hard (do you recognize me)
I know I'm wrong (but I can't help believin')'

(Stockholm Syndrome - Blink-182)

Dogs With Lasers!

2006-02-26T08:17:00.000-03:00

What's *way* cooler than regular dogs?

Dogs With Lasers!

Retarded Animal Babies

2006-02-23T23:11:00.000-03:00

One of the best Flash series I've ever seem.

Warning: The content is EXTREMELY gross, obnoxious and all of the ugly words you can think of.

Link: Retarded Animal Babies.

Metal Gear Awesome

2006-02-23T23:05:00.000-03:00

A very, very funny animation based on Metal Gear - Click here to watch it.

WTF?

2006-02-23T10:06:00.000-03:00

Why are the Japanese so God damned weird? I descend from them and from Netherlanders (I am pretty sure this is not the correct word but I don't know how to call a person from Netherlands in English).

UPDATE: Hey I guessed right! w00t!

But, back to the point... Watch this freakin' video:

Making money from blogs.

2006-02-23T00:38:00.000-03:00

I have always wondered how to make real money from blogs, now that I have been confined to my home for almost a year (yeah yeah, severe case of Atopic Dermatitis, God damned disease).

I guess you just have to find a niche and blog about it. Or make a really popular site. One of the few guys who live off (very well, I should add) a single blog here in Brazil has one stupid, stupid blog with tutorials like 'how to make an account at blogger', 'how to add music to your website (urgh! WTF?)', a section of wallpapers, animated gifs, and all he blogs about are funny links like 'Make your custom South Park character' and stuff like that. And he earns money because everybody goes to the guy’s site, so he put a script for Mercadolivre (Brazil’s eBay) that shows products from his site. And he lives off comissions that he earns from the sales within his affiliate link.

But, as far as useful content for anyone who is remotely familiar to blogging, it’s close to zero. But since he has a GPR (Google PageRank) of 7, you search Google for, let's say, Digital Camera (in Portuguese, of course, our language here) and you get results from his website MORE than from the official Mercadolivre site (which is the most popular auction site here - http://mercadolivre.com.br).

I guess luck is a factor too. I was never able to generate more than USD 200 in a month (not from Google Adsense) and never got much traffic, but I’ve had blogs (in Portuguese and English) that, for no apparent reason, got PRs of 4,5 in a matter of months. But my content is not 'for the masses' like this guy’s, and the niche thingie is not that hot here yet (that’s the reason Orkut is so popular among Brazilians, most people here like sites that they can find all kinds of stuff like in Orkut communities instead of going to a specific forum about, for example, Playstation 2. they prefer to use the Orkut communities (which are half-assed forums, with no search functions, no mail notificications, et cetera) for this subject and all others they are interested. And meeting people of course, I've had several great experiences from meeting people I found in Orkut or who found me via my Brazilian blog (though I take care, I never met a friend, male or female, or a girl exclusively for making out without at least two or three months of long MSN chatting and phone conacts as well).

Have you had success from making money from blogs? If so, how (not asking for specific details) and which country are you from?

Dreamhost Promo Codes

2006-02-11T14:47:00.000-02:00

Dreamhost has just quadrupled their Disk space and octupled Bandwidth allowance! Check out their incredible plans clicking here:

And use the following codes to get discounts (in the fifth page of the signup form, valid for all yearly and bi-early plans):

DREAM80 - save $80 off any 1 or 2-year plan (I get $17).
DREAM85 - save $85 off any 1 or 2-year plan (I get $12).
DREAM90 - save $90 off any 1 or 2-year plan (I get $7).

So, imagine having 20 GIGABYTES of space, 1 TERABYTE of bandwidth and the whole unlimited domains and subdomains package, including full PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails support and et cetera paying less than 40 dollars for a whole year if you use the DREAM80 code. A little more than 3 dollars per month.

Why all those codes? Because I have a sad story and could use some help (I'm a 28-year old doctor who has not been able to work this whole year - or even get out of my house - because of a severe case of Atopic Dermatitis, also known as eczema). You can see my story in this blog. I guarantee that if you search on google images for 'atopic dermatitis', you are likely to be impressed with the state these people's - and mine - skin can get.

Nevertheless, I hope the codes are useful for you.

How to increase your Adsense revenue with 6 simple steps

2006-02-08T10:34:00.000-02:00

1) Find the right place - Most website visitors read content that is in the middle of a webpage. As a result, the best place to put your Adsense block is in the top part of the page, at the beginning of your web content. You want to weave the Google Ads into your web content to give the appearance that they are extra links which expand on the information of the page.

2) Use the Large Rectangle -With Google Adsense, you have the option of picking different ad formats. Most of the time people opt to use the Leaderboard (728x90) or Wide Skyscraper (160x600) style ads. Unfortunately, this is the wrong choice, because both look like blatant advertisements. Instead smart webmasters have found that using the Large Rectangle (336x280) yields the best amount of click-thrus.

3) Ditch the border - Many people experience a sharp increase in Adsense revenue when they changing their border. What they change is very simple…they get rid of the border on their Adsense blocks. This is another way to make the advertisements look like useful web content.

4) Adapt the font - Whenever you write content, it should be the same font size and style as your Google Adsense block. This will help make it appear that the advertisements are a natural part of your website.

5) Match the colors - In addition to changing the fonts, you also should match the colors of your website. For instance, if your content is written in black, and your hyperlinks are blue, then the Adsense blocks should also be the same color. Again, this helps the advertisements appear to be normal web content.

6) Don't have too many distractions - On a webpage, it is important to give web visitor a limited number of options. By having too many links and graphics, the web visitor might go to a section that doesn't help increase your profits. While it is important to inform and entertain your web visitor, it is also vital that you monetize your site. So if the main focus of your site is to earn an income through Google Adsense, then get rid of all non-essential links and graphics.

Web Hosting Tips for Beginners

2006-02-08T10:11:00.000-02:00

1. If you see a host advertising 20Gb of Space and 500Gb Bandwith for $4 a month you know there's a catch in most cases. You can sometimes pick up "Genuine Bargains" but in alot of cases these sort of deals are not worth the trouble, for instance you may find a super cheap host, but take into consideration their uptime Guarantee and other features such as Support Systems. Use your common sense.

2. Also please do read your host's terms of service - many low cost hosts have you cornered in a 12month contract!

3. It's always a good idea to pay monthly rather then yearly, at least until you rely on the host enough to pay a full year.

4. If you are considering a reseller hosting plan, make sure you go with a half-decent company and make sure their servers are located in good data centers.

5.Make sure you check whether or not your host provides a control panel - preferably cPanel - unless you are an advanced user, you will find it very difficult to manage your hosting account.

6. Make sure the host has a secure billing system before entering your card details!

7. Make sure there site is completed if you are ordering via their URL (no missing images and links, for example).

8. Do not host with companies who have a free Url Address (such as .tk .free domain). It may sound absurd to some of you, but I have seen it.

9. Search for reviews on your "to be host" www.google.com is your best friend when doing this - a good search string to use is [name of host] problems. It's not always good to use [name of host] review because lots of review sites are bastards who affiliate with the host companies and promote them by putting up glowing reviews in professional-looking websites.

10. Make a whois search query on their domain name via www.whois.net- type in your hosts domain name into the search box followed by the extension.
Be sure to check the following details or certainly take them into consideration:

- See if the domain is registered with a email address and avoid hosts with public email addresses like host@hotmail.com or adamsmith@hotmail.com - you get the idea.

- See if the whois data looks "Genuine"- for instance, if the domain is registered to "Jack Black" and the address is "12345 Hollywood Boulevard", you know that it's unlikely that's their real address.

11. If the host provides a phone number, check it and see if it works.

12. Send the host a random pre sales question and see what their response time is like. More than 24 hours is unacceptable, my host answers me in 30 minutes to 1 hour via e-mail.

I use Phatservers, their support is great and speed is awesome but they provide little space.

Dreamhost is a nice option if you want a host with a lot of space and bandwidth, and you can use the code DREAM85 in their 5th page of signup to get 85 dollars of discount, and their speed is decent too (one of my sites, Meiobit, is hosted there because it requires large bandwidth and lots of space) - but to get the discount, you have to pay an year in advance.

One of the options in the middle is IXWebHosting (yes, this is an affiliate link) - they offer cheap prices, decent space and bandwidth and they are also well rated.

PS3 titles listed for Oct. 1st and ready for pre-order

2006-02-02T19:20:00.000-02:00

GameStop has begun to take pre-orders of PS3 games, with all 32 titles currently listed priced at $59.99 and stamped with a Pre-Release ETA of 10/1/06. No word yet on console pre-orders.

(via Joystiq)

Seamonkey (ex-Mozilla) 1.0 released

2006-02-01T13:23:00.000-02:00

Project Seamonkey arrives at 1.0 version. It's a community effort to keep the Mozilla suite of browser, email client, irc and html editing alive.

Download it here.

Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 available for download

2006-02-01T06:51:00.000-02:00

Ok, it's been available for awhile in the torrents, but now Micro$oft has released it officialy. I have no idea what its improvements are because I'm a Mac user, but anyway, get it here. Requires WinXP and SP2.

Click on image to enlarge:

How nerd are you? Do da test!

2006-01-25T17:01:00.000-02:00

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is: Somewhat nerdy. I mean face it, you are nerdier than about half the test takers.

Not again....

2006-01-23T18:30:00.000-02:00

Will the Mortal Kombat parodies ever stop?

World of Warcraft at Level 60 Gameguide

2006-01-23T17:46:00.000-02:00

If you're bored 'cos you reached level 60 at WoW and don't know what to do with your ultra-powerful character anymore, read the new guide released by Gamespy, it's very good.

Link: WoW at Level 60 guide.

Technorati Tags: warcraft, mmorpg, world of warcraft

Microsoft remains pathetic

2006-01-06T00:00:00.000-02:00

Microsoft's patch to allow Xbox 360 gamers to play Xbox1's Tom Clancy games fugged up Halo 2 widescreen, then they tried to fix it with another patch and it killed backwards compatibility for all games.

Reminds you of some OS?

Read: Patch renders Xbox games unplayable on 360

Two great Firefox extensions from Google

2006-01-03T20:33:00.000-02:00

Just too good to ignore:

- Blogger Web Comments for Firefox - see backlinks from other sites on the blog you are viewing and make a post on your own blog (if it's on blogspot) without getting out of the page.

- Google Safe Browsing for Firefox - alerts against possible phising and spoofing pages while you are surfin' da Web.

PS: The last one is available just for US residents. To install it if you are outside, go to kproxy.com and enter the URL http://dl.google.com/firefox/google-safebrowsing.xpi.

Nintendo Revolution Teaser

2006-01-03T19:44:00.000-02:00

Ok, it's nice, creative, I liked it a lot.

But if this is a sign that even Nintendo is adhering to the 'radical MTV-skater gamer' image that the lame Microsoft has done with the Xbox 360, the gaming world is doomed.

Update: people were doubting this so I asked my friend (who sent me the pic) where he got it. So he showed me the source - check it out.

Dragon Quest VIII (Playstation 2) Review

2005-12-13T09:45:00.000-02:00

I found DQ8 to be a bit of a contradiction: it requires you to dedicate yourself immensely to the game, but the combat system is so simple (for a hardcore RPG game like myself) that it gets boring sometimes. I can't play it for hours and hours straight like I did with FFX and Shadow Hearts 2.

I loved this game, really, from beginning to end. The graphics are unmatched, the overworld, the music score, The game is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, and IM#O the 1st person view has the only purpose of you admiring all the character design by master Toriyama and also gazing at the beautiful scenery.

But all this has been told already. My gripes are:

- Bad Menus, too unpractical to equip weapons, exchange items with your pals, using the Alchemy Pot (a great add on BTW), etc. FFX and even Kingdom Hearts both have much more intuitive menus and interfaces, and we're talking about games from 2001 and 2002.

- Combat can be boring, though the monster's AI is not bad, it's too slow paced and archaic, just like other DQ games - nothing that pumps your adrenaline like FFX-2 and Shadow Hearts 2. Very slow paced too.

- Too many repeating dialogues. Every time you screw up at the Alchemy Pot and a number of other situations you have to go through the same dialog sequence like 'Try again, next time you may get it right etc).

- Leveling up takes AGES.

- No epic storyline, although the game has a lot of great story bits with decent in game cutscenes, it is nowhere near cinematic stuff like aforementioned games, in which you anxiously wait for what will happen.

- I didn't like the church guy calling me 'poor lamb' every time (j/k)

Don't take me wrong, I found DQ8 a FANTASTIC game and if those were major gripes it wouldn't get an 8 from me. The characters are loveable, even King Trode, who seems like an annoying little monster at first, shows he is wise and compassionate, and you end up liking him a lot.

IMO, DQ8 is a great game for beginners to the RPG genre (if they are willing to dedicate themselves so much for this game) and for veterans who can go over its small shortcomings. There's no game until now that has ever made me feel like I was inside a Cartoon. There's a bar brawl in the beginning of the game and your character just watches it. That time I really felt I was inside a Cartoon of the best quality. I also loved the monsters' design and their attacks, and the sound effects are awesome.

I recommend everyone to buy this game. Seriously.

Graphics: 10 - the best use of cel-shading ever, and with Toriyama's art it makes the graphics absolutely outstanding.

Sound: 9 - excellent score and voice-acting, but the soundtrack gets repetitive because youspend so much time walking on the overworld.

Gameplay: 7 - Archaic menu system and battles. Character control and camera, on the other hand, are spot on.

Replay Value: 10 - with a 100 hour quest and different endings, how could it not be 10?

Overall (not an average of the values above): 8.3

Another Blog

2005-12-12T19:42:00.000-02:00

Check out my new blog, I ocasionally post the best freeware I find for Macintosh (99% is Mac OS X, sorry Classic fellows):

freewaremac.blogspot.com

....

2005-12-06T23:36:00.000-02:00

Listen to my story.

My podcast feed.

Which Chinese Mythological Being Are You?

2005-11-18T20:55:00.000-02:00

You are Long-wang!

Mythological Background: Yes, the dragon represents everything you think of when you think of a dragon - fearsome and invincible. Also, it is greatly respected just because of that fact. The dragon has a very protective aspect to it.

Even Jupiter reminds you of intense smashing power. The dragon is almost always surrounded by rain-bearing clouds and fog; and the appearance of its constellation always signals rainfall and lightning.

It's also a symbol of authority worn by the nobility and the imperial class.

Japanese Name: Seiryuu

Test: Which Chinese Mythological Being Are You?

Vampyr

2005-10-26T05:43:00.000-02:00

Almost got back to work these days.

Then I fell again.

Skin got worse. Infection.

Changed day to night, became a vampire.

Hardly been seeing my dear girlfriend, wonder how she is feeling with all that.

Living the nights is so fucking lonely, my companions are my Mac and my Playstation 2.

Bank manager calling almost everyday asking when I will be able to 'balance' my account.

I feel like the most useless human being in the planet.

'Hey dad look at me
Think back and talk to me
Did I grow up according to plan?
And do you think I'm wasting my time doing things I wanna do?
But it hurts when you disapprove all along

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't pretend that
I'm alright
And you can't change me

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

I try not to think
About the pain I feel inside
Did you know you used to be my hero?
All the days you spent with me
Now seem so far away
And it feels like you don't care anymore

And now I try hard to make it
I just want to make you proud
I'm never gonna be good enough for you
I can't stand another fight
And nothing's alright

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect

Nothing's gonna change the things that you said
Nothing's gonna make this right again
Please don't turn your back
I can't believe it's hard
Just to talk to you
But you don't understand

'Cuz we lost it all
Nothing lasts forever
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect
Now it's just too late and
We can't go back
I'm sorry
I can't be perfect'

(Perfect - Simple Plan)

INXS is back!

2005-10-15T19:23:00.000-03:00

I always loved this band and their new single is great, Pretty Vegas.

No, Michael Hutchence did not resurrect, the new vocalist is JD Fortune and he seems to fit right in based on their single.

Eczema and Atopic Dermatitis Forum

2005-10-11T15:54:00.000-03:00

I put up a forum for sufferers of this terrible disease, parents and everybody who wants to know and contribute somehow, with advice, by sharing experiences, etc.

It's located at eczema.kioshi.org and it uses the easy and pleasant Vanilla forum system.

2005-10-01T16:31:00.000-03:00

'I won't be told anymore
That I've been brought down in this storm
And left so far out from the shore
That I can't find my way back, my way anymore

No I won't be told anymore
That I've been brought back in this storm
And left so far out from the shore
That I can't find my way back, my way anymore

No, I..
No, I...

Forgive that they teared down my soul
Bless them that they might grow old
Oh, and free them so that they may know
That it's never too late

So many times that I've seen life before me
I searched and found the way to choose to the end
I found a way, to know, why it had to be
Mired in denial and saw all the rain

If we ever find it true
Love will have its way to choose
Three more to tame
We can be ever

I won't be told anymore
That I've been brought down in this storm
And left so far out from the shore
And I can't find my way back, my way anymore

No I won't be told anymore
That I've been brought back in this storm
And left so far out from the shore
That I can't find my way back, my way anymore'

(Madagascar - Guns n Roses)

No guarantee.

2005-09-22T11:40:00.000-03:00

Today I will be admitted.

Maybe it's the best, this year was almost a blank page in my life. Except for all the pain and the suffering, of course.

Unfortunately it is not the kind of internation with limited time or that guarantees that it won't come back anymore. Or even of a satisfactory control of the disease in the near future.

So I am not overly optimistic or enthusiastic about spending time in the Hospital.

If you are curious, search for 'atopic dermatitis' in Google Images.

Comatose Life

2005-09-22T01:37:00.000-03:00

No one's gonna bother me anymore
No one's gonna mess with my head no more
I can't understand what all the fightin's for
But it's so nice here down off the shore
I wish you could see this
'Cause there's nothing to see
It's peaceful here and it's fine with me
Not like the world where I used to live
I never really wanted to live

Zap him again
Zap the son of a bitch again

Ya live your life like it's a coma
So won't you tell me why we'd wanna
With all the reasons you give it's
It's kinda hard to believe
But who am I to tell you that I've seen
any reason why you should stay
Maybe we'd be better off without you anyway

You got a one way ticket
On your last chance ride
Gotta one way ticket
To your suicide
Gotta one way ticket
An there's no way out alive
An all this crass communication
That has left you in the cold
Isn't much for consolation
When you feel so weak and old
But is home is where the heart is
Then there's stories to be told
No you don't need a doctor
No one else can heal your soul

Got your mind in submission
Got your life on the line
But nobody pulled the trigger
They just stepped aside
They be down by the water
While you watch 'em waving goodbye
They be callin' in the morning
They be hangin' on the phone
They be waiting for an answer
When you know nobody's home
And when the bell's stopped ringing
It was nobody's fault but your own
There were always ample warnings
There were always subtle signs
And you would have seen it comin'
But we gave you too much time
And when you said that no one's listening
Why'd your best friend drop a dime
Sometimes we get so tired of waiting
For a way to spend our time
An "It's so easy" to be social
"It's so easy" to be cool
Yeah it's easy to be hungry
When you ain't got shit to lose
And I wish that I could help you
With what you hope to find

But I'm still out here waiting
Watching reruns of my life
When you reach the point of breaking
Know it's gonna take some time
To heal the broken memories
That another man would need
Just to survive...

(Coma - Guns n Roses)

...

2005-09-21T14:03:00.000-03:00

Tomorrow I will be admitted to the Hospital, this thing is getting worse every day.
Just when I started two new projects, an eczema / atopic dermatitis forum and gravatars.com. Hope I'll be able to update them in while I am there. Have been having such terrible nights, opening wounds at my body all the time, maybe it's the right time. My girlfriend arranged things for me.

Wish me luck.

Can't login to Orkut via Opera?

2005-09-14T11:36:00.000-03:00

Just use this address and you will be all set. I did not even need to use a google account to login this way.

Get $80 off Dreamhost web hosting!

2005-09-14T10:58:00.000-03:00

Dreamhost is the best web hosting solution I've found, with attractive prices even without discounts. Now you can get $80 off any 1 or 2 year package via my promo code, since now they allow members to refer other people with big discounts!

1) Go to Dreamhost
2) Choose any 1 or 2 year plan (monthly plans have a 50 USD setup fee, not worth it!)
3) Use the promo code DREAM80 when signing up, in step 5
4) You're done!

Their starter plan has 4800 MB of space, 120Gb of monthly bandwidth, unlimited mySQL databases, PHP, Perl, CGI support, Ruby on Rails, 600 emails, 3 domains (with 1 free!) and 15 subdomains. And their prices are awesome.

I don't really know how long they'll let us users give discounts, get yours as soon as you can.

Google Blog Search

2005-09-14T09:46:00.000-03:00

Google has released its blog search tool, and looks great so far, with related blogs showing up in the results and a lot of options in advanced search.

It indexes posts very quickly too, 1 hour in my case.

Really worth taking a look.

I will post a more in depth review comparing it to Technorati, but its advanced options are really good, and they seem to have different purposes someway.

Read other reviews:

Pronet

Blogherald

Problogger

$tre$$ed Out

2005-09-13T01:11:00.000-03:00

As you all know, I need money. Seriously.
I don't know what to do anymore. Did some Wordpress theme design (I like it but not that much, put Google Adsense all over my pages, Brazilian and English, became affiliate of other sites, sold copies of gadgets which I imported from Amazon that people without international cards can't get here, like World of Warcraft (this game really sells here). Nothing really helped me a lot, with all the fuggin expenses on meds and the bank loan that I have to pay every month. I got like 10 dollars outta Google Ads and my sites combined have 500-1000 page views, seems nobody clicks in them. Well I do know that I never click on ads when I surf the web.

Maybe setting up a Brazilian version of the Urban Dictionary? I love that site.

Wish I had brilliant idea like the Million Dollar Home Page dude. Now THAT was pure genius.

Ok another try: Send me One Million FREE Guaranteed Visitors

All The Lonely People

2005-09-13T01:01:00.000-03:00

I love Thrice's version of this Beatles' song:

'Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice at the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.
Sits by the window, wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door,
Who is it for?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear,
No-one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there,
What does he care?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.

Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.
No one was saved.

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
All the lonely people,
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?'

(All The Lonely People - Thrice)

Reminders

2005-09-11T12:04:00.000-03:00

Two links to remind me of things I tend to forget:

My Myspace.com profile.

My Amazon wishlist ;)

I Still...

2005-09-09T13:46:00.000-03:00

...suffer so much from this stupid disease.

I´m afraid my great relationship may end because of this. We were to travel last weekend, did not, I was bad (just for a change).

She´s going to the Dermatologists´ scientific Journey tomorrow and I didn´t want to see her because I´m all fugged up, at the time we talked I did not even remember that.

What can be done? I thought about becoming a virtual bum and make a site like ineedmoney dot something but it would be too lame.

Yesterday I was fixing a Mac Mini (what a beautiful little thingie) at my friend´s marketing agency and I started to scratch and bleed like hell. I don´t even wanna go out while I´m prone to that, just went there because he asked me to.

So here I am. A doctor, a Wordpress webdesigner (see my last work) once in a while, someone who can barely get out of home and is suffering and make everybody around suffer too. Damn atopic dermatitis. Damn eczema, damn scratching my skin till it bleeds.

I suck. Big time.

´Sometimes I fall
And I feel like
I don´t know the way.

Say if you can it´s ok
Just like you said
Way then.´

(Just Like You Said - Seal)

The Battle for Wesnoth

2005-09-09T12:54:00.000-03:00

I´m kinda addicted to this great freeware game, The Battle for Whatnot Wesnoth. If you like turn based strategy games, you must see it. Very cool, really.

Besides, there are versions for Linux, Mac, Windoze and it has internet multiplayer too!

Link here.

Flash Earth

2005-09-09T12:52:00.000-03:00

Take a look at this website, Flash Earth. A flash based interface that lets you alternate between Google Maps and MSN Earth images.

Link: Flash Earth

And that´s where I live, one of the buildings southwest of the little circle in the middle ;)

My Flickr page.

Urban Dictionary Stuff

2005-09-01T07:58:00.000-03:00

That´s gotta be the best definition I ever saw on Urban Dictionary, one of my preferred sites:

Pedestrian face-off

An awkward situation in which two pedestrians, who are on a collision course with each other, are repeatedly unsuccessful in averting one another. As one person moves to their right, the other person moves to their left and vice versa. Each time they attempt a new maneuver, the frustrated pedestrians find themselves confronted by their counterpart. To the casual observer, these two people may appear to be dancing, but in reality, they both just want to get on with their lives.

These encounters are far less common in Europe – especially in Germany, where the government enforces pedestrian decorum through a stringent "bear right" policy. Pedestrian face-offs have been known to last upwards of ten seconds.

Randy: I just had a pedestrian face-off that lasted a good 15 seconds. In the end, we came to the mutual agreement that both of us should step to our right.
Dina: Wow, 15 seconds?! That's gotta be a world record or something.

Google Talk released

2005-08-24T06:20:00.000-03:00

In their plan to take over the world, Google released their Instant Messenger, Google Talk. You can get it here.

As we all know, Google despises Mac and Linux users for some reason, so if you want to access Google Talk with an Apple computer, you'll have to use a Jabber enabled client (like Adium X), set up a Jabber account with your Gmail user and pass, at server talk.google.com port 5222 and check 'TLS encryption' - that's it, you're done. No voice chat like in the official Windows client though :(

Now for something really impressive

2005-08-22T05:53:00.000-03:00

Among the things the fabulicious Internet shows us that we would have never seen things like that otherwise, are videos like LINDOMAR, the Brazilian Sub-Zero - yeah, go figure.

So what?

2005-08-22T05:06:00.000-03:00

So what If I have been sick and unable to work for almost 5 months now?

So what if my car was stolen just in this time of need?

So what if I am taking bank loans to pay previous bank loans?

So what if I had to learn a lot about Wordpress and PHP so I could (try to) get some jobs and earn some money off the net, since the economy here's been so down, nobody wants to pay sh*t for translations (and I'm a damn good medical and literary English-Portuguese translator)?

So what if I am bleeding a lot now after a severe scratch episode, the third one today?

I will solve my problems, even if my atopic eczema goes on and on. I just know it.

And what makes me believe this is one fact only: I have found love. Except for one girl a long time ago, I could never hold my interest in someone for more than 1 week, 1 month tops. And now I've found my love.

There is so much truth in the popular old sayings. I get impressed sometimes.

By the way, Aug. 4th was my birthday - here's a pic of the party.

Secrets Blogs

2005-08-06T05:19:00.000-03:00

If you don't know them yet, you surely should go check'em out:

- Postsecret

- Grouphug

Happy (Birth) Day

2005-08-04T03:33:00.000-03:00

28 years old.

And the three first ours of my birthday were the best of the last two years, maybe more.

Genuine happiness.

I had forgotten how it was to feel like that.

'Everyday, a shade of blue
You won't believe
What I'm going through
It just feels like I can't afford to let myself go
No, oohooo no...

Everyone is just the same
They touch me
But I can't say

There has been no one brighter than you
I can't deny these things that I do
Feels like the world's at stake 'cause
I have been waiting
I have been waiting for you

Heavenly, that's what you are
You're burnin' me like a shining star
How am I supposed to be that king without you
Ooohooo...it's true yea

Everyone is just the same
They love me
But I can't say

There has been no one brighter than you
I can't deny these things that I do
Feels like the world's at stake yeaaahh...
I have been waiting
I have been waiting for you'

(Waiting for you - Seal)

All The Lonely People

2005-08-03T15:07:00.000-03:00

I am tired.
I am so fuckin' tired.
I hate being sick and not being able to work and all that.
I hate the fact that I have worked 2 years and a half in an almost insane rhythm and spent everything I earned in psychotherapy, regular and alternative medications, only to see my disease getting the better part of me and getting progressively worse. Now it feels like it's been a completely worthless fight.
Now I am making bank loans to pay my previous loans' monthly fees. Is there a more pathetic situation than that?
To add to the beautiful scenery, my parents have completely abandoned me to my luck (or lack thereof). I never asked them a single cent after I graduated (2002) and now, in my darkest moment, they just don't care.
My father didn't die this year because of me. Because I saved him, I was awake when he had his 'strokes' and both times he would've been dead by the morning if I weren't a doctor and awake at 3-4 AM because of all this itch scratch eczema thingie I've got going on. Not that I expected eternal gratitude (I think it was the least a son could do), but I never expected such indifference from my state. Such abandonment. Makes me wonder why I spent so many years of my life trying to prove my 'value' to him. It's just like a movie cliché: the more the father is indifferent to the son, the more the son needs to prove himself. So lame.

And, as dreadful as it may sound, today I told my parents I don't want to have lunch with them tomorrow (my birthday), I don't even wanna see them. And I told them I didn't like them. That maybe this feeling would go away if I got myself up again, recovered enough for me to work and pay all these fucking debts, and stayed away from them for 3 to 6 months. But right now, I don't like them and I can't do anything about that. And I tried so hard not to feel like this.

Luckily I am in love with a wonderful woman and she loves me too, and it all happened so fast.

And she gives me so much strength. She renews my will when I am about to break. And she makes me want to be the person I am when I'm with her all the time. The same person I lost long ago, sometime in 2001.

Apple 'Mighty' Mouse

2005-08-03T15:01:00.000-03:00

So Apple has finally decided to enter the 90's (yes, the nineties) and released a stupid mouse with a stupid name and no ergonomics... But now with more than one button and a scroll wheel (ball?)! Weee!

At least the design is pretty, as are all Apple products (except for that horrible eMac computer), though I think I liked Microsoft's Philippe Starck mouse series better, they also have great design and horrible ergonomics.

But, seriously, there's no way to compare this 'mighty mouse' to a Logitech MX series or to my own Intellimouse Wireless Explorer.

And yes, I am a loyal Mac user.

One day at a time.

2005-07-26T15:57:00.000-03:00

Today is one of these dark days.

Days that remind me I have I very limiting disease.
Days that remind me that it may be long before I am able to work again.
Days that remind me of my capacity to withstand all the pain.
Days that remind me I will have more of these days.

Days that make me feel less like myself and more like a living disease.

Motorola PEBL V6

2005-07-26T14:08:00.000-03:00

According to rumours, Motorola is about to release its next fashion phone, the PEBL V6, in 30 to 60 days.

There's a pre-production unit review with lots of pix at Mobile-review.

Nice Things Happens to Nice People... Sometimes.

2005-07-24T17:05:00.000-03:00

Finally a good surprise, had too many unwanted ones lately (car got stolen, friend died, saved my father from death 2 times last month - and last time he would've woken up dead if I weren't awake at 4am due to my eczema itch-scratch problem and didn't hear him fall in the bathroom - had to take him to the E.R. immediately).

I wasn't really expecting any kind of love life for months now, since I am damn fugly and somedays invalid because of my severe atopic dermatitis. Then a friend called me and I got out with her. And we made up ;)

I never got so anxious before a date, because I simply DO NOT DATE when I am with my face full of scratch marks and with this *lover-ly* reddish coloration (I avoid taking pictures too when I'm like this). Actually I never had this pre-dating anxiety thingie in my 'normal' state.

But it was really great. She'd seen me affected by this fuggin' disease before and she understands it almost perfectly (she is a Dermatologist), besides being beautiful, charming, very intelligent and hella funny ;)

I'm not well today but I can only be thankful for having spent two great nights with her so far. And my friends, who encouraged me (actually they annoyed me to death) not to cancel the date, deserve a lot of credit too.

Just hope it works out :)

'Then the rainstorm came, over me
And I felt my spirit break
I had lost all of my, belief you see
And realized my mistake
But time through a prayer, to me
And all around me became still

I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Through the rainstorm came sanctuary
And I felt my spirit fly
I had found all of my reality
I realize what it takes

'Cause I need love, love's divine
Please forgive me now I see that I've been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Oh I, don't bet (don't bend), don't break (don't break)
Show me how to live and promise me you won't forsake
'Cause love can help me know my name'

(Love's Divine - Seal)

Webmail reviews

2005-07-24T16:59:00.000-03:00

PCMag did a review on the main webmail services, now that there are more competitors around, the relatively new Gmail and the newer AIM Mail.

My fav, Yahoo! Mail, which I pay for the Plus services (19.99 USD/yr, attachments of up to 20Mb, 2Gb storage, ability to receive and send mail from your other POP3 accounts), got the best marks.

Check 'em here:

June 22 PC Mag reviews:

AIM Mail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail.

Net charity

2005-07-24T16:39:00.000-03:00

If you are feeling charitable and want to help, click once a day in each of these links:

http://eptv.globo.com/nutron/index.htm
http://www.bebaleite.com.br/scripts/doeleite/
http://www.thehungersite.com
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com
http://www.thechildhealthsite.com
http://www.theliteracysite.com
http://www.therainforestsite.com

The first two are Brazilian, the first one is to help get rations for dogs and cats which were caught in the street and are being mantained by a charity non-gov. animal protection institution, the second one is to donate 50ml of milk with each click to poor children (you gotta on click the pic where it's written 'Clique Doe Leite' in red - BTW 'Obrigado' means 'Thank You' in Portuguese).

And man, after all the charity thingy you must be tired, so do like me and have a blast with the latest Strong Bad Mail. I laughed my @$$ off with this one, click on the pic to go there:

Bloglines

2005-07-24T16:34:00.000-03:00

If you use the magnificent Bloglines (a site for you to see all the new posts or blogs or news sites you subscribe to - check out my page @ BL for an example - and to see what the coolest sites to read in da 'net are, since *I* subscribe to them ;), you can susbscribe to this humble (cough cough) weblog by clicking this nice button below:

The news scare me.

2005-07-17T10:53:00.000-03:00

I don't know why people read the newspaper everyday, I think they just want to get themselves (more) depressed.

I read it on a 3-5 day basis (depending on my skin condition, will to do active things, many days this stupid condition makes me wanna stay in bed all day because of the itch-scratch-bleed-pain cycle or surf the good ol' net) - but fact is, everytime I read it, it makes me sad:

- My soccer team (São Paulo) won the South America cup, effectively being classified for the FIFA World Club Championship. Cool huh? Yeah, but after the game a LOT of fans caused rampage and vandalism in my city's most beautiful avenue, Av. Paulista.

- One Corinthians (another big team here) fan was killed by two other Corinthians fans just because he was going to the game with some São Paulo-supporter friends. The two guys just got off a motorbike and shot the poor fellow twice for being 'aligned with the enemy'.

- One daily worker was yelled at and then ignored by our MAYOR because he complaint that his daughter's daycare center is now closing earlier than in the previous administration. The mayor called him, in loud voice, an ally of the party of the previous one (even though the worker guy said he always voted for the actual mayor) and then turned his back, completely ignoring him, in front of the press.

- The most prestigious luxury store in my city and the whole Latin America (sells every fashion brand you can imagine at ridiculous prices, Gucci, Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna, etc) was recently discovered to have owners who seemingly like to practice tax evasion as a regular hobby.

And that was just yesterday's paper.

I guess if we had a scandal like the Watergate one, which generated movies and all kinds of discussion for years among American people, it would get at most a note in the newspaper here.

Today's paper is right beside me, but I think I'll just read the Car part and maybe the Sports one.

Optimus keyboard

2005-07-17T09:56:00.000-03:00

Man just take a look at this Optimus keyboard thingie. It's a KB with an OLED screen in each key, to be released sometime in 2006 as they say. Link to the product is here.

It'a a total geek and hardcore gamer's dream.

WoW

2005-07-15T21:43:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I had my first contact with that World of Warcraft game on a friend's PeeCee (Mac user here).

Sure it's marvelous, but it saddened me so deeply after I came back home.

Because, in these past months, those five hours were the best of my recent life.

The reason is that it let me 'get out' of my existence, leave my pain for a lil' time, since MMORPGs like that game absorb you completely.

Sad, isn't it.

Journeys

2005-07-15T20:07:00.000-03:00

We are always in a neverending journey.

A journey is meant for you to find out who you are.

Your purpose, your personality, your pleasures.

But within this utmost journey, there are several smaller ones.

Some of them are full of joy.

Some, on the other hand, are filled with pain.

Both types are intrinsically linked.

Because you must remember the good journeys when you are on a bad one.

So that you will not break, you will not succumb, not give up.

And also, you must recall the bitterest moments when you are living your dreams.

So that you will savour and value them properly, as the good moments deserve to be.

What matters is not what happens at the end of a journey.

But what happened to you and how you changed during it.

Buffy 'Lover's Walk' Episode Quotes

2005-07-13T21:22:00.000-03:00

Spike: What do you know? It's your fault, the both of you! She belongs with me. *I'm nothing without her*.

Buffy: That I'll have to agree with. You're pathetic, you know that? You're not even a loser anymore, you're a shell of a loser.

Spike: Yeah. You're one to talk.

Buffy: Meaning?

Spike: The last time I looked in on you two, you were fighting to the death. Now you're back making googly-eyes at each other like nothing happened. Makes me want to heave.

Buffy: I don't know what you're talking about.

Spike: Oh, yeah. You're just friends.

Angel: That's right.

Spike: *You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. LOVE ISN'T BRAINS, CHILDREN, IT'S BLOOD. BLOOD SCREAMING INSIDE YOU TO WORK ITS WILL. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.*

I know how it is (Warrior's Lament)

2005-07-10T21:24:00.000-03:00

I know how it is to face a yearlong battle, against yourself and against others.

I know how it is to emerge victorious from your inner conflicts after such a long time.

I know how it is to feel hopeless in the middle of the night, and scream for somebody who is not there and will never be.

I know how it is to have your yearnings completely denied all this time, and how cold and uncaring you can become during this private hell.

I know how it is to be completely exhausted when you get over such a long period of continuous challenge and suffering with no time at all to rest.

I know how it is hard when you have to contain the pain within yourself, because nobody else can help you.

I know how torturing it is when you have to accept the fact that you have lost the battle, even when you deserved to have won.

I know how it is to feel like a tired, yet stronger, warrior who has come back from a long and lonely war.

And I know how it is when this loneliness strikes you so deeply sometimes, to a point that you'd wish that anybody would come to comfort you.

I am very, very tired. I have been fighting too much, too hard, for too long. Take my hand and lead me home. Or, take me anywhere.

(by me)

Yiiipe!

2005-06-25T21:21:00.000-03:00

Oh, life has been just wonderful these days, mate. Been livin' the dream, ya know.

My friend died, I wake up bleeding every day, I haven't been able to work in the past 3 months because of this disease and I just found out my car has been stolen.

And it had no insurance since I always left it in the garage or parking lots (and it was a sports car so insurance was VERY expensive - and who the FUCK steals old sports cars these days? No resell value, no demand, no advantages).

But for some stupid reason my mother parked her 17-year old car in my garage so I left mine in my street.

Nobody had stolen a car in my street in FIVE years.