Thursday, March 30, 2006

TWELVE BRITISH BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

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I was checking newsvine and found this article about the TWELVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD It’s a book written by Melvyn Bragg , about, yes, twelve (british of course) books that changed the world.

These are the ones the article cites:

TWELVE BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

Principia Mathematica (1687) by Isaac Newton *

Married Love (1918) by Marie Stopes

Magna Carta (1215) by members of the English ruling classes

Book of Rules of Association Football (1863) by a group of former English public-school men

On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin (READED)

On the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1789) by William Wilberforce in Parliament, immediately printed in several versions

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft

Experimental Researches in Electricity (three volumes, 1839, 1844, 1855) by Michael Faraday

Patent Specification for Arkwright’s Spinning Machine (1769) by Richard Arkwright

The King James Bible (1611) by William Tyndale and 54 scholars appointed by the king (READED)

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) by Adam Smith (READED)*

The First Folio (1623) by William Shakespeare

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Our first "Get ready for work" morning

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This morning was very special. Both watched as each other prepared itself for work. It was quite odd, but amusing to discover such trivialites as the order we clean ourselves, dress ourselves and how fast. We still had to test having breakfast.

We had had in a couple of days, stuffed events of a lifetime. I should keep a reality check, we won’t last unless we have the “in the middle” steps we circunvent in our fast race to get laid. How do you make such trivial questions as “What’s your favourite dish” when you had shared the greatest intimacy known to man and woman?

Lust won’t sustain us beyond our own limits for pleasure, at least we are a good match. And love withers with time in absence of it. The net we must create to sustain us when we rebound, must be strong if we want to last a lifetime. If that is what we intend to do anyways. Lifetime seems so, well, long, to be more an uncertainity I rather won’t care about. As Eleazar said “What’s meant to be, is going to be.”

Friday, March 24, 2006

Content

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I’ll be spending the weekend at Chiriqui, would be cool to document it and post it as an article. I’ll need to contact Alberto to see if he wants the outdoors section.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Let's see

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Well, my little brother quit his job and came asking for help to setup an internet startup, Again I must said, but it seems this time he’s real serious about it.

So, let’s see what magic I can’t do from all the info stored in my brain.

Monday, March 20, 2006

An open account in the bank of time...

Once a friend an I were driving late at night. The road was dark and it was rainning. I was scared because he was driving too fast. He then started to ran faster and faster, the cars passed by as a blur.
Then he stopped. "You felt it, don't you" he said.I knew what he meant.

I feel humble, I feel ashamed.God,If I could believe in youI guess I would askWhy you always spare me the worstNo matter how hard I try to be wrongBy what obscure means or designI'm being kept safe, in spite of myself.


The currents are shifting...
tic toc, tic toc, tic tocYou'd been granted more time

Intermission

So the dance begins...


If it looks like a trap, smells like a trap and feels like a trap. It probably is. Well, we already expected this, however, it's an elegant solution, I couldn't expect less from someone as smart. The foresight was just amusing, but we had other issues at hand, so let that thread run it course, don't waste time on it. Tinkering with fate wasn't meant for the faint of heart.


I wish I hadn't knowledge, nor wisdom,
I wish I had the innocence of a newborn,
the simplicity of a peasant.
The careleness of a drop of morning dew,
Hanging from a leaf, basking at the rising sun.


The currents are shifting,
but I'm barely aware of the pass of time.
The clocks tics,
there are more life threating issues at hand,
tic toc, tic toc,
our time is running out,
tic toc, tic toc,
what secrets are hidden within the soul of a god.
tic toc, tic toc.
I always suspected the purpouses of our designer weren't completely pure.
tic toc, tic toc,
game over?


Only humans believe in happy endings. We know better.


tic toc, tic toc,tic toc
The company of the gods and the concourse of the living are wondering what's going to be the choice of the newly born.


We know better. The currents are shifting...

How not to feel pity but have compassion.

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I’m still troubled by what D told me on saturday. I’m trying not to feel pity, but understand and forgive such a senseless act of one person to hurt another. I’m twice troubled and in pain, one, because it hurted D, and two, because the comment only could’d been made from two sources, two humans I had/has in very high regards, and henceforth, it seems, one of them, not having the same opinion for me.

Is the worst way of losing a friend. To realize there never were.

Well, the answer was a yes.

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Well, I proposed to D two days before scheduled. A bottle of wine, watching the city lights while the moon hoovered above us. Between hugs and kisses. Between silent whispers and sex, between passion and fear, between tension and relief. For instants I thought my poor old bed was going to exhale its last, but she standed by us until tired, we fell in each others arms, wasted.

Memory reconstructs the past very subjectively.

D is like a drug I can’t seem to have never enough, but as a drug, I have fears of what is going to be of me if I can’t have it anymore. We went to see Botero’s paintings yesterday at the MAC. I really can’t say who was more nervous, I had built so a strong failsafe system for myself based on the improbability of finding a human I could love that now those are as useless as an umbrella in the midst of a hurricane. Is not the fear to love, is the fear to be hurt, sometimes I just want to ran away, to shut it off, as I used to do, but just the glint in those eyes, chamaleonic in nature, eyes that change litterally in front of you, from brown to whatever shade of the caribbean sea that better reflects the thoughts that are running in that mind, and I stay, afraid, very afraid, but I stay, unable to look, unable to run, ashamed of my own weakness to break that spell. I hope we are doing the right thing.

In the meantime, the company of the gods and the concourse of the living watch the events unfold.

Never feel pity for humans. Pity regards its objects not only as suffering, but weak, and hence as inferior.

Compassion, on the other hand, is the truly mark of the divine.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

A mountain town minutes away of a big metropoli

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We went to Avila Magica (Caracas funicular) and then for about USD 2.00 a 4×4 car took us to Gallipan.

You can find there flowers, fruits and marmalades sales posts. It’s cold and the views are incredible.

My pictures of Gallipan

A wonderful weekend...

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Past weekend was one of the greatest experiences I had had. It was full of nice surprises, excellente company, laughs without end, too much entheogenics, a wild and vivid nature, sun, sea, people, everything mixed with a sense of freedom I hadn’t had in a long time. The pleasure to enjoy life for the sake of life, to enjoy people for the sake of them. To wander, and learn and share ideas, a listen to different viewpoints, different experiences, differents loves.

I always going to be grateful for that weekend.

Jorge's Portuguese Green Soup ("Caldo Verde")

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This one was showed to me by a venezuelan friend of portuguese descend:

2 glasses of Red wine
3 potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
3 small sweet peppers
2 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
A handful of Brocoli leaves rinsed and julienned
Ground Meat
Salt, white pepper, black pepper
Olive oil
sliced Portuguese or Spanish sausage
Bacon

First take a sip of wine to get in the mood.
Put the oil, chopped onions and the sweet peppers in the pan and cook them for about 3 minutes.
Add the meat, salt, white and black pepper. Stir.
Scrap the leaves, fold them very thight and chop them in small cuts.
Add the water, the chopped leaves, the bacon, chorizo and the sliced potatoes to the mix.
Let it simmer.
Remove the potatoes, smash them and add them again to the soup.

Add red wine at the end.

Share it with a friend.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Pesto sauce

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cloves garlic

2 cups fresh basil leaves

3 tablespoons pine nuts (pignolia)

1 dash salt and pepper

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese grated

El Jarillo is an offshot town from Colonia Tovar

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Settled by two german brothers from Colonia Tovar. It’s much alike Colonia Tovar but not as crowded.

Try Bergland Restaurant

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Try the Goulasch soup there! It’s amazing!

Life is accelerating again...

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I’m losing my grasp. D is an ocean of tranquility. I wish I could stay there.

Got the Chinesse CD

Thursday, March 02, 2006

I'm marking it as completed until I can travel to England.

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There’s no Rugby tradition in my country, Panama. So, the other day, walking down the Boulevard in Caracas I found a EA Rugby 06= game for PC, is not the real thing but it’s as close as I can get to the game.

I swear once I go to England I’ll try it at least once and cricket too.

Remember to Call Jonathan and Jackie

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I need to figure out what’s the best time. It’s like 700 bolivars a minute here. Guess would be expensier in Panama.

I can't believe I finished

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It’s amazing, Java is such a great language I hadn’t issues at all permeating David’s logic and making the necessary ammends for it to work as Victor wanted.

Now I’m in second phase and Victor had started to get creative. That’s a problem. I want to go back home!

Working on it...

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I’m trying to work 2 hours a day, jumping from one course to another.

The software is called Tell me more, by Auralog, it’s great! A nice interface, sometimes I feel it a littled dumbed down, but it’s ok once you learn to use it, some stuff is not pretty obvious if you are a seasoned computer user since things are not where you use to look for them. The game where you must arrange words to form a sentence using your own speech is great, is my favourite one. The crosswords requires at least you had memorized the words in the dictionary. But a great product. I can’t seem to find the Chinese CD :-( yet.

Italian: Near completion
French: Need to learn more grammar so things can make sense
German: My pronunciation is sooo baaad, grammar is ok
Arabic: I can’t seem to pass by first level.
English: Completed.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Of enlightened frogs and men

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I’m having a strong headache since yesterday, can’t identify the cause and it’s killing me. Anyways, It’s been almost a month since I came to Venezuela. Everything is ok, I got to see my old friends and make news. I went to Fat Boy Slim’s Carnival Concert on the Poliedro de Caracas, it was great! I danced until 3:00am.

Carnival weekend passed aways without too much hassle, a night out with some friends where I ended consuming too much spice for my own good.

I'm wondering if my headache can be traced back to that.

Anyways, this headache had been so persistent I was dreaming I was sort of an enlightened frog atop a water lily teaching the sutras while wondering about the terrible headache I was having.

I should stop consuming entheogenics, there should be another way to keep myself alive

Alia using the Digital Watercolours

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This is a picture of Alia, I cloned it and using the match colours used the Digital Watercolours brushes on it. At the end I added the paper texture.

A pastels portrait of Bear Jr.

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I started this one using colour pencils, then added the pastels layer and finally light and texture effects using Painter IX.