From the UK to Porto we migrate

I'm finally going on a well deserved holidays, back home to Porto (that's in Portugal, in case someone less geographically gifted is wondering...). YAY!! As usual I expect it to rain, as in the 2 years I've been going there on hols, it always has to rain. Cold winter? Rain. Huge drought in the summer? Rain. But in the midst of seeing all those familiar faces again it doesn't really matter, so let it rain!

It's been 3 months since I last was "home" and so much has changed since my last visit. For starters, it'll be my first time there since this. But not all changes were this positive, unfortunately as (sad) recent events ocurred that'll change the life of people very dear and close to me (and I won't say more on this). Anyway, let's be optimistic for a change and believe that everything is going to be just fine! Oh yes it will!!

Of course, one of the things I'm most excited about is seeing my gorgeous niece again! She'll be 3 months next week, all grown up! I've decided I'll be the uncle who may be far away, but whenever he goes there takes lots of presents! (which by the way I still have to pack, somehow I always leave packing for the very last minute... )

Aww! Cute or what? Well, tomorrow I won't need any photos because I'll be there with her (but hopefully I won't have to change any diapers...).


I won't be posting much on the next few days (if at all), as I'll be busy trying to see everyone I miss here and catching up on everything (yes, that includes all the latest gossip!). And posting from my PC there would probably be an adventure in itself, as it's from around this time:



So, to all my friends in Portugal it's a "see you soon". To everyone else, wishes of a Happy Easter, lots and lots of chocolate eggs!

And I couldn't end this post without a little treat for all of you, could I? This is another new song from Mariah's new album E=MC² (the title obviously reflects Mariah's inner scientist, she's a true Einstein!) called Migrate that she performed just a few days ago (with T-Pain) on Saturday Night Live. I love this new song, can't help but to bounce to the awesome beat ;) Should be even better on HQ studio version, but we still have to wait a few more days for that. And after seeing this performance I am so taking a cane with me the next time I go out!

Enjoy the video for Migrate live at SNL by Mariah Carey and T-Pain:

For those of you with impeccable taste in music that would like to listen to this lots more times, here's the mp3: Mariah feat. T-Pain - Migrate (live @ SNL)

All the answers you'll ever need

What a deceiving title, huh? If only life's riddles were as easy as Professor Layton's.... (note: they're not). Anyway, remember those puzzles I posted yesterday? At least for these I could find the solutions, so here they are:






1) A glass jar holds a single germ. After one minute, the germ slits into two germs. One minute after that, the two germs each split again, forming a total of four germs. Continuing at this rate, a single germ can multiply to fill a whole jar in exactly one hour. Knowing this, how long in minutes would it take to fill the jar if you had started with two germs?
Solution: No, the jar won't fill up twice as fast, duh!! You only save the one minute that required the first germ to split into two. So, the answer is 60-1 minutes (or 59 minutes).


2) Mice are famous for their ability to multiply at breakneck speeds. The type of mouse we have here gives birth once a month, birthing 12 babies each time. Baby mice mature and can give birth two months after they are born. You picked up one of these darling baby mice at the pet shop and brought it home the day after it was born. In 10 months from now, how many mice will you have?
Solution : Only 1! The mouse can't breed with any other mouse to produce babies, now can he/she?!

3) Three identical-looking umbrellas are sitting upright in a stand. Assuming the owners don't check their umbrella's labels, what percentage chance is there that only two people will walk off with their own umbrella?
Solution : 0%! If two people walk away with their own umbrella, the third must have his/her own umbrella aswell!

The 7s, the 8s and The Nines

It's been a while since I haven't been disappointed by a movie. The last "offender" was Beowulf, which I'd heard and read great things about, but didn't do anything for me. And there's still something about human faces realistically done in CGI that creeps the hell out of me! So yeah, slightly entertaining but ultimately a disappointment.

What is really great is when you set out to watch a movie that you know nothing about and then it surprises you and grabs you from the opening till the end credits. This time was "The Nines", starring the ever-so-hot-has-to-include-shirtless-scene-everytime Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy ('Gilmore Girls') and a Hope Davis (don't know her from anywhere, but she was good).

As I already mentioned, I knew nothing about this movie, except for an image from it I'd seen a while ago and that for some reason really caught my attention (no, it wasn't Ryan shirtless!), as in "I gotta watch this". This was the image:

See, nothing particulary eye-catching, but it really spiked my interest, it just looked so tense! Without giving too much away, The Nines is a trilogy of back-to-back stories with unexpected links. Those links are what makes the underlying story, but I'll leave that for you to find out.

The three main actors play different characters, which might not be so different after all... For example, in the first chapter the Ryan plays a likeable TV soap star who has a nervous breakdown. He sets fire to his home, swallows a cocktail of bourbon and drugs, and ends up under house arrest to avoid prison. Then on the second chapter he plays a gay-TV writer, who dumps his best friend and main star Melissa (yes, she's playing herself the real life actress Melissa) to further his career. And it's all related. Confusing? Yes, and intentionally so. But it's never boring.

3-in-1

This movie kind of reminded me of Mulholland Drive and Donnie Darko. OK, let's not get carried away here. Although The Nines is without a doubt a very satisfying movie in a twisted kind of way, it's not quite on the same level as those. But if you liked those two movies, it is definitely worth a watch. Hey, if it's recommended by me...

Allow me to spoil you one of the surprises of this movie: Ryan Reynolds can actually act :)

Baby steps: Tulibu is without you

Remember this girl from the video I posted a few days ago?

Her name is Valentina and she's become a bit of a celebrity ever since her UNBELIEVABLE rendition of "Ken Lee" aka "Without You" on Bulgarian Idol. Her performance is always among the top-viewed videos on Youtube and now she's "performing" the song again!! It's amazing how the internet allows people to have their 15 minutes of fame.

Here is the new and (slightly) improved version of "Ken Lee":

Oh, bless her for actually trying to learn the lyrics! Still she manages to include some great lines such as:

When I gez aju zavateh
nay lechooo go

Ken Lee
ee libu dibu douchooo - (notice the subtle changes from the previous version)

Valentina, you're awesome and good luck on your international career. Don't ever change, we love ya! :)

Something for the weekend

Courtesy of Professor Layton:

1) A glass jar holds a single germ. After one minute, the germ slits into two germs. One minute after that, the two germs each split again, forming a total of four germs. Continuing at this rate, a single germ can multiply to fill a whole jar in exactly one hour. Knowing this, how long in minutes would it take to fill the jar if you had started with two germs?

2) Mice are famous for their ability to multiply at breakneck speeds. The type of mouse we have here gives birth once a month, birthing 12 babies each time. Baby mice mature and can give birth two months after they are born. You picked up one of these darling baby mice at the pet shop and brought it home the day after it was born. In 10 months from now, how many mice will you have?

3) Three identical-looking umbrellas are sitting upright in a stand. Assuming the owners don't check their umbrella's labels, what percentage chance is there that only two people will walk off with their own umbrella?

Dirty Dancing? Clean Dancing!

I come from a family where all the women from my mother's side are completely obsessed with cleaning (think Bree^2 - minus the funny side - and my mother was/is definitely the worst offender), which probably made me into something of a clean freak too. Even simple ordinary things like walking barefoot on a hotel room toilet and showers makes me very uncomfortable. Still, there's this rebellious side of me, gained from of years of oppression at home that makes completely untidy. This means that if you came to my flat you'd see lots of clothes, magazines, wires and other stuff lying everywhere, but on immaculately clean floors...

So yesterday it was time for another exciting evening doing my housework. But something was different this time, I had a smile on my face and did all that almost dancing. The reason for that? Well, keep reading... (note: it's silly)


I did my vacuuming...

Did my ironing...

I even did my Wii exercise :)

So, what was the big secret? This song!!

This is one of the first official dance remixes to "Touch My Body" and it's so danceable, I love it!

If you're in need of a good song to do your cleaning, work out or just shake your booty, here it is, for your downloading pleasure, it's the Touch My Body Seamus Haji Club Mix!

Download here

Four months later...

"Four Months Later..." is the title of the first episode of Heroes's second season, but that's almost the time it took me to start watching Heroes again :) But there I was, lazy Sunday afternoon, fairly excited about finding out what would happen to Peter, Niki and the gang after the exciting events of the season 1 finale. In fact, I was even planning on watching 2 episodes in a row, which is something I never do!

Well, I only watched one episode in the end, and why was that? To be honest, I was bored... Seriously bored. On shows like Lost or Alias, which usually end a season on a huge cliffhanger, the first episode of a new season is usually one of the best episodes. This one? A big, fat "meh".

First off all, where are Niki and Micah, arguably two of the coolest characters on the show? They'd better be back or there will be blood!

And don't even get me started on those 2 latin brothers... Yes, the girl may have awesome powers (seems like she fries people's brains), but at least for now they seem to fall into those horribly cliched poor latin-american stereotype of the God-fearing loving brothers, facing all kinds of adversities and people with all sorts of bad intentions, but still manage to remain pure-hearted... I really hope one of them dies.

Another ridiculous scene was with Claire, now hiding out in a Southern California high school. She has to face off with a gang of cheerleaders and let's face it, Mean Girls this isn't... Also, literally the first person Claire meets at her new high school also has superpowers... Yeah right... And that little girl Molly, how annoying is she??

The only thing that got me excited was the new character Takezo Kensei, played by the delightful David Anders. Well, to be honest, it wasn't the character per se, but more David Anders. As some of you might know, he played the wonderfully sinister and sexy Julian Sark in ALIAS.

He was definitely one of the coolest characters in ALIAS and I used to have a really big crush on him... Time will tell if it was more his character than the actor, but still he was always so evil and stylishly dressed while doing his bad deeds.... And he had the sexiest accent! Let's have a moment here and revisit Sark:

Also on the bright side, there's still Veronica Mars to look forward to. Maybe I'm being to harsh on Heroes, but I sincerely expected a lot more. And if what I'm most excited about are Sark and Veronica, maybe I should just watch ALIAS and Veronica Mars :) I hope you win me back soon, Heroes!

"Help me, Mars-won Kenobe. You're my only hope."

Every puzzle has an answer...

You can all put your thinking caps to rest now, the time has come to reveal the answer to the "1,000 times" puzzle. The puzzle was:

"The following is written on a piece of paper you picked up:
"_ is 1,000 times _ _" To turn this strange message into a proper sentence, all you need to do is fill in the three "_ " with a single letter of the alphabet. But what could the letter be? You'll need to use the same letter for all three _s."

What on earth can that mean? Well, think distances and abbreviations we use to represent said distances.... Km?? No, that's a "k" and an "m"... Figured it out already?

And the missing letter is....

Yes, "m is 1,000 times mm"!! "m" for meter and "mm" for millimeter :) Pretty obvious now, huh?

Sara was the one to get it right (I withheld her comment with the answer until now). Congratulations Sara, eternal glory is yours (or something like that). Enjoy the moment!

Tulibu dibu douchoo...

What title is that? Nope, I'm not drunk... And although that might look straight out of a text message I'd send after taking a sleeping pill, it's not that either. What is that?? Maybe another puzzle? Nope, that actually is the lyrics to Mariah's 1993 hit song "Ken Leee". Never heard of it? Are you sure? Take a look at this:

Oh, this just made me laugh so much! "Don't you mean Without You?" "No, it's Ken Leee" (awesome!!) I love these new lyrics to Without You:

Ken leee
Tulibu dibu douchoo - (bless you)
Ken leeeeee
Ken lee meju more...


English is so boring compared to this...

By the way, for those of you who haven't googled it (I'm looking at you Ligia...) here's a clue for yesterday's puzzle (answer coming tomorrow):

Hmm, what can that be? Hmm indeed! (lol, I can't keep a secret...)

A 1,000 times

I love puzzles and riddles and I hate puzzles and riddles. Let me explain: I love trying to solve the puzzles but the ones I get stuck on really make me furious and makes me wanna break things and I can't stop thinking about them until I manage to solve them. Even though I was aware of the risks I started playing this Nintendo DS game called "Professor Layton and The Curious Village" ( Note: Mr. Nintendo could you pleeeaese name the sequel Professor Layton and The Bi-Curious Village? kthanxbai).

Professor Layton (which I keep calling Clayton, don't know why as the only Clayton I "know" was Blanche's gay brother on The Golden Girls - such a great show that was, and to include a middle-aged non-stereotypical gay in a sitcom during the late 80s was really ahead of its time, but I digress) is a top-hat-wearing fellow who loves puzzle-solving. He has heard word about a mysterious village containing a special puzzle revolving around an object called The Golden Apple. Travelling with his young companion, Luke, he enters the curious village to discover a town populated by people obsessed with puzzles, and a lot of peculiar secrets.




You have this morbid and sweet story, involving murders, kidnappings, evil characters, mysterious towers and hidden treasures, as a framework for a collection of superb brainteasers and puzzles. I'm really addicted to this game (although sometime it makes me wanna smash my DS) and after showing it around in the office today, I thought "Why don't I share one of this puzzles on my blog?". So here it is! This puzzle is everything a puzzle should be: clever yet slightly frustrating, with a seemingly impossible answer that when you finally get it is just seems so obvious:

"The following is written on a piece of paper you picked up:

"_ is 1,000 times _ _"

To turn this strange message into a proper sentence, all you need to do is fill in the three "_ " with a single letter of the alphabet. But what could the letter be? You'll need to use the same letter for all three _s."

Any thoughts?? Feel free to send your answers/questions using the comments. I'll reveal the answer to this riddle in a couple of days. And remember what Professor Layton always says (with a posh british accent): Critical thinking is the key to success. (Of course one could also say "Google is the key to success" but where's the fun in that?)

The Earth, the Stars and... The Moon

No, this post will not have anything to do with astronomy or even with a Calvin Klein perfume ad. February is gone, and March is here already. Should I be looking forward for this new month? Well according to Maya not really, as my card for March is The Moon... Should I be paying attention to what she has to say? Let's look at what Maya said for February and what actually happened:



Love
Maya said: Recent relationships tend to evolve in a very favourable way, although it is advisable to not create expectations. Take things slowly and be patient. Everything happens for a reason.

I say: Don't know about this one... It was at the very beginning of February that I met G1, and for a few days, things did evolve quite nicely, until I was dismissed! Maybe she was right and I expected too much out of him, when clearly we weren't on the same page (and I wasn't patient at all...). I'll give this one to Maya, I guess she was right.

Money and finances:
Maya said: There won't be any complications in this sector, everything will be under your control.

I say: 100% wrong on this one. As of now, because of all those complications with my phone and the change of address, I am blacklisted, so I won't be able to buy anything on credit and things of that nature until I resolve everything with Orange... Yep, the bastards have now officially told me that to them I am committing fraud and that there are very suspicious things about me and this whole process. Yesterday I went to the shop where I got the phone, was given a new number to call, but have to wait until tomorrow. So Maya, nothing is under my control.

Overall:
Maya said: February will be a very happy, auspicious and dynamic month!

I say: 70% wrong. Yes, the first week or so seemed to bode well, it was really was a happy period: lots of things going on, was having fun (with and without G1), had my review at work and got a nice pay rise! But from then on, everything went spiralling down.

So my dear Maya, on last month you were:

I sincerely hope she'll be wrong for March too. As I've told you, my Tarot card for the month is The Moon, not good at all. Here are a few highlights:

Overall:

The month of Gemini is strong on emotions. Gemini is very sensitive in March, which will make some situations and events meddle with his heart and sensitivity. Because of that, Gemini will have difficulty in analysing the events that surround him.

Love:

Your life is now under evaluation, whether this situation is created by you or by whom he is close. In situations of duality, unknowns or dissatisfaction, it is absolutely necessary to take a firm position: either yes or no.

Work:

Try to remain vigilant and disciplined, as the cyclical influence of card XVIII of Tarot, the Moon, is disturbing, leading to dispersal, distraction and risks of errors or imperfection.

Health:

In his health nervous system presents some instability, which is not surprising due to the emotional instability of the month.

Oh dear, things will definitely not be easy this month... Maybe this is all a bunch of crap (after all she was mostly wrong in February) but as crazy as it may sound, she usually gets things right. Anyway, whatever happens, I'll keep you all updated (unless of course I get arrested for fraud...):