E a concorrência continua a aumentar… Arriscaria mesmo a dizer que temos aqui um exemplo prático da conhecida lei da oferta e da procura: é notória a progressiva redução do periodo laboral.

O modelo de marketing, esse, persiste.


Although I respect peoples right to smoke, it does annoy me when I get back home after having a drink with friends at some bar and all my clothes stink to nicotine. Some bars are worse than others and, when possible, I try to dodge the real bad ones. Luckily, nobody at work seems to smoke which is a good think because it saves me the need to ask them not to do it there – as I respect their right to smoke, I expect smokers to respect the ones who don’t wish to be passive smokers. The 72m euro campaign with shocking images promised by the european commission seems to be lost into oblivion (or did I miss something?), so while we wait for it, I’ll leave a short story I find particularly funny that happend sometime ago.

Like any other mediterranean bloke, Portuguese people are avid coffee drinkers and university students are no exception. It’s usual around the universities to find a big concentration of places where people park to have their after-meal espresso cup. It’s possible to find a wide range of places for all tastes and wallets, but there’s one which is particularly looked for, probably because of the owner charisma and his sympathy and service with the costumers.
Once, there were a couple of girls waiting to be served and, meanwhile, were smoking and using the previous clients coffee cups to put their cigars ash. The owner, didn’t find this very amusing so when he brought their coffee request, he served it in two ashtrays and left, without saying a word. They did the same seconds later after paying, and my guess is that they didn’t return there so soon neither used coffee cups has an ashtray.


algumas notas sobre o meu primeiro dia de estágio:

  • a piada do dia:
    – qual o concelho com mais portistas?
    – o conselho de arbitragem;
  • apanhei um colega de trabalho a fazer uma pausa entre duas linhas de código, para praguejar silenciosamente todos os insultos que lhe vieram à cabeça em tempo útil; parece eficaz, meio segundo depois voltou impávido ao trabalho;
  • imediatamente ao lado da porta do local de trabalho, é a porta de um café – perfeito para as injecções de cafeína que o ofício exige;
  • é frase feita, cliché, lugar comum mas… há coisas que nunca mudam. o meu primeiro dia de trabalho num emprego tem sempre um efeito de onda em mim – passo o dia a crescer, a crescer. no fim do dia, desmorono, sem ninguém para apanhar os pedaços.

Today, early in the morning when I was leaving my building, I noticed something new on the elevator wall. Just above the buttons, someone posted a small cartoonish sticker of a perplexed woman with a thought balloon saying: oh my god! this city sucks!. At first this made me smile, but then it stroked me how much my opinion about Braga has changed in this last 5 years – a lot.
Until I was 19, I lived in a city called Oliveira de Azeméis which now I only visit sometimes on weekends. Although being an average size Portuguese city, my parents house is in a small village about 3km apart from the core city, meaning, it’s a very very small and quiet place, where everybody knows everybody and any outsider feels observed like an alien. Yes, that small.
Not being much of a traveller before coming to Braga to study, the city amazed me quite a bit. It would be to expect that I would have some problems to adapt to a bigger city, plus all the responsibility and all, but that part was quite smooth for me actually. What amazed me most was the city size and the amount of choices and offers which was way bigger. With it’s 150.000 inhabitants, Braga is the 3rd city in Portugal and one of the youngest in Europe which is kinda strange when one knows about the strong religious legacy the city has – it’s ridiculous the amount of churches in this city. Anyway, being able to live 100m from the university campus and for a relatively low price was a luxury I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in a city like Porto or Lisbon.
Returning to my home town never crossed my mind again since I moved out. I was quite pleased with Braga, until I moved to the Netherlands for 6 months. Cities like Utrecht (where I stayed), Rotterdam and off course Amsterdam, putted a new meaning in the word big for me. When I returned to Braga, I’ve found myself picking on people for saying something was too far away – it’s easy to get used to this, you can trust me on this one.

Returning to the this-city-sucks sticker, I don’t think Braga sucks, at all. I surely don’t see it with the same eyes I saw before, but I still think it’s a neat city and that I made a good option to come here to study. But now, it’s just not enough.
I don’t think it’s (only) about the size of the city, really. I truly believe that, like most exchange students, I got addicted to travel. Not travel per se, but to live and really getting a grip on other cultures, places, people, ideas and ideals. I think Sarah describes this very well:

“To be constantly so completely outside of your comfort zone, to be forced to make a life for yourself from nothing, knowing no one and to be surrounded in constant unfamiliarity is tiring but sublimely exhilarating. It sounds both cheesy and obvious to say that it changed my life forever.

The downside is that I am now addicted to that feeling that you can only get from being immersed in an environment where every mundane daily chore of life (mailing a letter, getting $20 out of the ATM machine, buying a pair of shoes, finding the equivalent of Mr. Clean to mop the floor) is a challenge, and every completed chore feels like a great accomplishment.”

That’s what spices (my) life and that’s what really gets me going. Like plugging into a different voltage – the extra motivation I lack most of the time.

Now a bit of reality check – it seems that I’m stuck on Braga for the next 6 months (on a row) to do my internship. I had took an offer to do it at Philips in Eindhoven, but somehow, after waiting two months to start it, I ended up with nothing more than a deception, turning things harder for me. Nonetheless, my current plan is to do my internship here (I’ll start next monday) meaning in November I’ll finally graduate. Meanwhile, I’ll be looking for a job abroad to work for a year or two, after finishing my internship. If not, I’ll move to Lisbon or Porto hoping I’ll satisfy my addiction there, for a while anyway.

Note: by the end of the afternoon, the sticker was gone…


Ainda o meu post sobre o assunto não arrefeceu e já a minha caixa de correio foi prendada com mais exemplares da curiosa vertente publicitária do charlatanismo.
E, como a concorrência é feroz, recebi logo dois de uma assentada e com eles, novidades. Tenho o prazer de vos anunciar que o mestre kaba foi promovido nas últimas duas semanas de astrólogo medium africano para ilustre espiritualista e cientista (ver imagem anterior).


(clique para aumentar)

Mas as novidades não se ficam por aí… Para quem, como eu, achava que existiam demasiadas semelhanças nestes panfletos – o mesmo formato, no mesmo tipo de papel com as mesmas dimensões, pois surpreendão-se: agora também têm a mesma morada – aparentemente agora o mestre astrólogo camara partilha dos mesmos cómodos que o m. kaba.
Ficam as perguntas: será que o m. astrólogo camara é um aprendiz do m. kaba? Que terá acontecido entretanto ao m. bangal? Não percam os próximos episódios desta palhaçada, porque eu, também não.

Mais alguém recebe destas preciosidades, ou é apenas aqui na zona? :-|


Do you remember this numbers from Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine?

Number of gun deaths:

  • Japan: 39
  • Australia: 65
  • United Kingdom: 68
  • Canada: 165
  • France: 255
  • Germany: 381
  • U.S.A.: 11,127

Although there are claims that this data might be slightlybiased, one would expect that after the accusations and facts given on this picture, americans would steer away from the problem, right? Sadly, no.


Talvez não seja assim em todo o país, mas a zona onde vivo é bastante pródiga em publicidade não endereçada – do mini ao hiper, da loja de roupa para criança às lojas de artigos de bricolage, recebo todos os dias um pouco de tudo. Há sempre aquelas que se destacam pelas letras garrafais a dar-me os parabéns ganhou! responda já e ainda poderá ganhar este mundo e o outro como bónus! ou faça já uma fantástica excursão ao caminho de santiago de compostela a preços especiais!. Claro que também recebo correspondência dos seguidores alexandrino como o professor karamba ou o mestre cambai e é neste tipo de panfletos que reparei num pormenor que resolvi destacar.


(clique para aumentar)

Estes são são epenas dois exemplares que tinha à mão – já caíram na minha caixa de correio vários muito parecidos a este par. Tenho inquirido sobre o assunto e já foram formuladas várias teorias sobre estas semelhanças. Ficam aqui as melhores:

  • trata-se de um template do word distribuído pelo sindicato
  • talvez um caso grave de personalidade múltipla
  • fazem parte de um programa de protecção de testemunhas que constantemente lhes muda a identidade
  • frequentaram todos a mesma cadeira de publicidade no curso de charlatão avançado?
  • são capazes da reencarnação instantânea (disponível em pacotes de 4 saquetas)

Serão bem vindas quaiquer outras teorias com que queiram contribuir com vista a esclarecer este grande imbróglio.


Quem é que não esboçou um sorriso quando ouviu falar pela primeira vez da operação apito dourado? Há que admitir que há originalidade na escolha dos nomes das operações da PSP pois este é apenas um entre muitos. Senão vejamos, já houve a operação mãos limpas (também no futebol), operação sirene oculta, operação trabalho limpo (e as outras, como são?), operação fechar os olhos (a minha preferida) e agora mais recentemente a operação chip-out.
E não é só cá no burgo que se fazem destas preciosidades, também há algumas importadas com piada como a operação ajax, operação justiça infinita e a operação tips (em busca da gorjeta perdida?).
Por tudo isto, queria sugerir aqui a criação de uma nova licenciatura, a LEÃO – Lic. em Eng. de Alcunhas de Operações. Desta forma dar-se-ia o reconhecido valor aos carolas que passam o tempo a inventar estas coisas para nos entreter.


If I was a book, I surely wouldn’t like to spend all my life in a bookshelf, dusting and waiting to get outdated. But nowadays, that seems to be the common case, if not onto a stack of them or into a card-box at some dark corner. Sure, it’s better than being burned, but isn’t much better either. And if I was a book, I would want to be read, of course, plenty of times, not just by a single person but by several, learning what were the parts of me that would make them sigh, cry or simply smile. I would have special attention to which sentences would make them pause or read over and over again, like if they were trying to understand and memorize something extremely important. Getting dust on a bookshelf looks a even darker destiny, when one things that a book can for instance, enjoy the wonders of falling on a reader chest that just felt asleep while reading it – being a dream appetizer can only be something great. Oh, and I would like to travel, to travel as much as possible from reader to reader, sharing the underlined sentences and notes some other reader did, like if it was a bonus story. The book story. And this is pretty much what the bookcrossing movement is all about, from a book point of view :-).

My keenness for books has increased since I’ve become a bookcrosser, not so long ago. Although a relatively small country, Portugal is one of the top 10 countries where the movement is more active and thus, meetings take place on a regular basis. Last month, I’ve had the chance to participate on my first bookcrossing meeting, here at Braga. It had place at Café Vianna and had the participation of a few Spanish bookcrossers who got dazzled by the amount of churchs Braga has. The event was relevant enough to get covered by one of the city newspapers – something that was a surprise to everyone. Books were exchanged, talked about and above all, everybody had a good time. There are some photos of the meeting here.

Speaking about bookcrossing meetings and photos, I’ve noticed that there wasn’t any group at flickr for bookcrossing pictures so I’ve created one so that people can post their pictures of books, bookcrossing meet-ups and such.


Lil’P was sometimes asked if he was a royalty member because of his long name. His five long names were always subject of smiles when filling in forms and people always asked which was the weird country where one could have such a long name. Asking if people really wanted his full name also raised eyebrows so there was no escape from it. But there were a lot more cultural differences, some more peculiar than others.

Something that got lil’P confuse right at start, was the cheek kissing. While he was used to give two, one in each face – something he believe to be a standard anywhere – Dutch gave three. At first, it didn’t seem to be a big problem, actually it was a good extra, but that cultural aspect was about to become more tricky than he initially thought.
Assuming that only Dutch had differences on the cheek kissing, was his first mistake. Although Italians gave two as lil’P, they start with the left cheek – something lil’P found to be awfully confusing and counterintuitive. Almost as confusing as the ones who only gave one kiss leaving lil’P floating on the atmosphere; probably the same feeling Dutch must have when waiting for a non-existing third kiss.
So, what to do? Well, if it was Netherlands, then everybody should give three, just like Dutch, that seemed like a good solution. There, problem solved! Or maybe not – then he found out that some German don’t kiss at all and may see it in a offensive way. Things got even worse when he realized that some French guys even tried to kiss other males on the cheek which made a lot of people uncomfortable. Actually, even within the same country people could act in different ways regarding cheek kissing, so lil’P ended up, like most people, trying to do his best on those initial seconds when knowing someone new, trying to evaluate their movements the best way he could and act accordingly. If things went wrong, it was a good quick-start subject of conversation anyway.

Living with a bunch of foreigners was one of the best parts of it all. Soon the kitchen became a international meeting point where people spent a big part of their time hanging around, knowing each other better. After everybody got over the fact of be living in a place with a name that most foreign couldn’t pronounce correctly – Oranjerivierdreef, people started assimilating the gastronomic differences – finding a common taste was a challenging task in the first days, but soon they started trying other things and having some good (and sometimes very bad) surprises. Lil’P kitchen skills weren’t that good but apparently his Portuguese typical way of cooking rice with fried onion seemed to surprise everybody which wasn’t very hard to do since most people confessed not to know how to cook edible rice without a rice cooker anyway.
Shopping was also sometimes tricky but there was always a German around to help avoiding later surprises like the classics meat&sugar or reinventing the sour-milk concept. Everybody seem to got addicted to the Dutch vla pretty quick as the kitchen fridge soon became a display of all the varieties: vanilla and chocolate seemed to be the most popular flavours, but caramel, stracciatella and tiramisu also had some fans.

But the kitchen wasn’t just a place to cook and hang around – it was also where everybody could show their artistic skills. The building was very old and nobody really care what happened to the walls, as long it didn’t offend anyone, so the kitchen walls soon turned into a canvas. Some more artistic than others, everybody had the chance to express themselves on the walls, in particular, everybody had fun adding items to the things we love and things we loathe about life lists.

(to be continued)

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