Swedish mystery writers

I've realized why I like Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson so much. I have some sort of affinity with their culture and I like everything Swedish. The picture above is one of the things I like. I wonder if I can get one at IKEA.

Hiatus

As everybody must have noticed, I'm taking a vacation from my writing activities. I will be back soon.

The Sounders suck!

Having lived in Brazil for most of my life, I know soccer (by the way, fuck soccer, I know football) Living in Seattle now, I'm actually trying to get excited about the Sounders, but man, they make it hard.

Yesterday I was watching the game against FC Dallas and I had to turn the TV off 10 minutes into the second half. It was an impossibly poor performance by both teams, in a level only displayed by amateur football in Brazil. The ball was mostly in the air, and the players were struggling to gain control of it all the time. Nobody knew how to open up space, and any player in control of the ball would promptly turn it over to the other team. Absolutely ridiculous!

This should not be called Major League Soccer. It should be called Double A Football.

Rest in peace, Rick

My friend's dad passed away yesterday. The man survived colon cancer and walked across America. At the end of his journey, the cancer came back. He had surgery to partially remove it and was contemplating life after colostomy.

After a month battling generalized post-surgery infection, he finally passed away yesterday at 8:50 PST. Rest in peace, Rick. I never met you but, knowing your son, you must have been a hell of a man.

Rick's adventures and the final battle can be followed here.

Japan champion of the 2009 World Baseball Classic!

I'm Korean and was yelling hysterically at the TV and, in the bottom of the 9th inning, I even thought we might have a chance, but Japan deserved every bit of it. 15 hits against 5, we were overmatched gloriously by their players. That the score was only 5 to 3 is evidence of the lack of luck by the Japanese hitters.

And to compensate for the huge difference in talent, we pitched poorly, made wrong decisions at the wrong moments and were too proud to walk a great hitter like Ichiro with 2 in scoring position, 1st base open and 2 men out.

It was a difficult game for us Koreans to watch. It felt like Japan had baserunners in every inning. It was pressure and more pressure on the defense and the pitcher. Nevertheless, we actually had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the 9th inning. But, had we won, it would have been a huge injustice to baseball. Japan deserved to win. They played better tonight and they have a stronger and bigger pool of talent to choose from.

But the 2009 WBC was interesting for these two teams. They played a total of 5 games against each other (Japan had 3 wins against 2 from Korea) and they only lost to each other. Every other game they played was kind of a blowout.

I guess it does say something about the evolution of the sport in those countries. Congrats to both and mainly to Japan, those motherfuckers.

Watchmen (2009)

I recently watched Watchmen and if the question in the movie had been "Who watches Watchmen?" the answer would have been "Every fucking body!". The theater was crowded and the lines were huge. I'm the one to blame for trying to watch a blockbuster within two weeks of opening day, but hey, I loved the comic book so sue me.

I've heard Alan Moore has disowned this movie ("I'm never going to watch this fucking thing") and understandably so. Other adaptations of his books have been less than thrilling (remember this and that?). But I have the impression he'd be happy with this one. This movie is the most faithful Hollywood adaptation of a comic book I've ever seen. Within the limitations of time and media, I felt like I was reading the book again.

The characters were very well cast and shown in the movie as I remember them in the book, specially Dr. Manhattan. The only difference I see is that the character of Nite Owl II is a little too fit and manly if compared to the book. Well, I guess we had it coming since he is the "hero" in the movie (at least he gets the girl).

So, in this perspective, the movie rocked. It's faithful to the book and the ones in the audience who have read the book will love it. The tension of a possible nuclear confrontation is present at every moment and the ending makes total sense (although a little different from the one in the book). I wonder how it comes across to people who haven't read the book. I imagine they will be able to understand the reasoning behind Veidt's scheme but they may not be able to feel it. I don't know if 160 minutes is enough to create the necessary atmosphere.

I'm back!

I decided to take a two month long vacation from writing in this blog, but I'm back and full of material. Now, if only my laziness allowed me to write...

Murphy says Happy 2009!

- Whenever I'm late for work all drivers around me start driving like assholes and it looks like they all work in ensemble to screw me over.

- Whenever I have a deadline to do something important (it goes back to my college years when I had to study for tests) all these interesting things keep popping up in my mind (like playing the guitar, watching an old episode of "Seinfeld" or simply looking for random information on random entries in Wikipedia).

- Whenever there's a good game on TV, my daughter starts acting up.

Those things kept happening to me in 2008. I hope they won't in 2009.