It was 6 months ago that I moved to Galway, Ireland, for a 6 months internship sponsored by the INOV Contacto program. It was 6 months ago that I left the comfort of the house I had lived in for the previous 20-something years and moved to a completely new place. It was 6 months ago that I had the first of many pints of Guinness…
Those were 6 great months.
A lot of fun was had at the awesomeIrishpubs. Some travelling was done around Europe. A lot of people were met, and some became good friends.
Those were the good things, and although not everything was perfect, I really can’t point any especially bad experience. So the overall experience was very positive.
And that’s why I’m going back!
That’s right, I hadn’t made it official yet, but I’m announcing it now. The company where I did the internship offered me a contract extension and so I’ll go back to Galway for some more time.
It’s now time to rest, and I’ll be back in one week.
Quark Expeditions is offering to send one lucky blogger to the Antarctic Peninsula for two week's worth of freezing cold and penguins. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? That's why I'm participating!
Here's how it works... The one with the most votes by September 30 will be flown to Argentina in early 2010 to embark in one of Quark's expeditions to Antarctica. The winner will become the expedition's official blogger, and will have the responsibility of reporting the whole thing - the preparation, the expedition itself, and the return home. I think I'm qualified for the "job", and that's why I'm asking for your support.
Yes, you have to register to vote, but it's not that bad, it only takes a couple of minutes. You might have to check your spam folder for the confirmation email.
I'm gonna need thousands of votes to win this thing, so feel free to ask your family, friends and pets to vote for me. Also, sharing my link or a link to this post will be very much appreciated (just use the icons in the end of this post).
I understand how scissors can beat paper, and I get how a rock can beat scissors, but there's no fucking way paper can beat rock. Is paper supposed to magically wrap around rock and leave it immobile? Why the hell can't paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of college ruled notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they take notes in class? I'll tell you why, because paper can't beat anybody. A rock would tear that shit up in 2 seconds. When I play rock paper scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper I can punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, oh shit I'm sorry, I thought paper would protect you, you asshole.
Ryanair announced it will open its 33rd base at Porto. The base will have 2 new aircraft and 4 new routes. This represents an investment of $140 million (about €100 million) and will increase Ryanair’s traffic at Porto to 1.5 million passengers per year, which will sustain 1.500 jobs.
Basel, Eindhoven, St Etienne and Tours are the 4 new routes, and along with the doubling of flights to Paris Beauvais (to twice daily), Ryanair will be offering 50 daily return flights to/from Porto.
And to celebrate:
Ryanair celebrated its new Porto base, two new aircraft, 16 routes and 1.5 million passengers by releasing 1 million €9 seats for travel across its European network for travel in late August, September and October which are available for booking on www.ryanair.comuntil midnight Sunday (5th July).
Now what I want to ask now is: what about Lisbon?! Get those open minded flight attendants to the capital as well...
Much has been written about how bad the new Transformers movie is. A quick look at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (which, by the way, shows a 20% score) reveals true masterpieces of movie-dissing:
“They've managed to make a movie that is so incredibly bad that it manages to mark career lows for pretty much everybody involved.”
“Will insult your intelligence, hurt your eyes, and offend your sense of decency until you worry that your skull might explode while your brain trickles right out of your ears.”
“Transformers: The Revenge of The Fallen is beyond bad, it carves out its own category of godawfulness.”
“Performance-wise, the machines do tend to upstage the humans.”
“Bay’s most unrestrained and ridiculous to date. The male teenage cinematic equivalent of snorting cocaine off a hooker’s ass.”
That alone was enough to convince me I wouldn’t waste my time and money to watch it. Then I saw this clip of “Transformers 2 in 1 minute”:
I'd written a rather critical review of Transformers 2 on my facebook blog, which a few friends had read, and it seemed to divide opinion. I'd say roughly 70% of people agreed it was a terrible film, but then unbelievably 30% kind of enjoyed it. Unacceptable. I realised that reasoning alone would not be able to crush their ridiculous admiration for such a creative traversty.
So I set to work creating a youtube clip to rival the millions of dollars poured into the film, the hundreds of experienced technicians who spent years creating the explosive robotic battle sequences, and the unrivaled wisdom of the established script writers who weaved 3 hours of narrative gold from the Transformers universe. It took me 20 minutes.
Had enough? But there’s more! If you want to know more about the “plot”, just go ahead and read Topless Robot’s Transformers 2 FAQ. It’s hilarious!
Not everything is bad, though. There’s still only one reason to just barely consider watching it:
It’s not for her acting skills, though. And I don't think she has enough on-screen time to be worth the ticket price.
So, that brings me to the title of this post. After reading so many bad things about it, now I must see it, just to gloat at how bad it is. And at how wasteful was all the money spent on cinemas to watch it. Because if you thought that such bad reviews would drive people away, think again. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie grossed nearly $420 million (about €300 million) in just it’s first week! That's more than 3 Cristiano Ronaldos!! That means it already more than paid for the outrageous $200 million it allegedly cost to make.
