the houser blog é o filhote da houser magazine, minha antiga página dedicada
aos que preferem ficar em casa por causa daquelas pessoas malvadas que ficam
no seu encalço quando você esquece de tomar seus remédios de tarja preta, e
às pessoas ditas normais que, simplesmente, não trocam o aconchego do lar
por coisas como sol, ar puro e o convívio com o restante da espécie. As
opiniões expressas neste site podem soar prepotentes, grosseiras ou
ranzinzas, então não se acanhe e escreva! Se for engraçado o suficiente,
vou postar sua mensagem para todo mundo ver.
sobre o autor
signo: aquário
paradeiro: Brasília
filme: O Império Contra-Ataca
tv: Looney Toons, Zim, Samurai Jack, Normais, 24 Horas, ALIAS, Smallville, Buffy, MALCOLM!, Bom Dia Brasil, Simpsons, Futurama, That 70's, SCRUBS, South Park, Saia Justa
ler: William Gibson, Nick Hornby, Gaiman, Bradbury, Gogol, Hunter S. Thompson, Barker, Lovecraft, VERÍSSIMO!, Lalau
hq: Batman, Lobo Solitário, Alan Moore, Lee e Kirby, Hellboy, Transmet, Estranhos no Paraíso
som: Smiths, Elvis, REM, Björk, BOWIE!, Iggy, Ramones, Dead Kennedys, George Clinton, James Brown, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Kinks, Beck
gosto: cozinhar, dormir junto, acordar junto, meninas se beijando, Bruce Lee, andar, café, calça de pijama
não gosto: dirigir, seca, fumaça, cigarro, drogas, gente burra, mocassins (IRC!)
1- Janet Jackson
2- Pixies no Brasil
3- Jô, tem um cel pra eu falar com você em SP? Não consigo pegar você em casa de jeito nenhum!
4- Eu não consigo parar de ouvir "Lowrider", do War
5- Eu redescobri Koko Taylor e me sinto iluminado
6- "Quem falou que a boca é tua, Neguinho?"
7- Experimente em casa: pão preto, pastrami, cream cheese, picles de pepino, alface americana, cenoura, azeite e limão. Cortesia da Houser Blog
8- O Chico César cantou peladão na Paraíba, e ninguém fez o menor estardalhaço. Viva o Brasil!
Estou meio ocupado com o trabalho então os posts serão mais esparsos por um tempo. Enquanto isso, fiquem com uma imagem do meu avatar, cortesia de Dookyweb.
21.1.04 5:07 PM The Book of Bunny Suicides (Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don't Want to Live Anymore)
Essa é muito boa. Vejam a descrição da Amazon:
"Rabbits. We'll never quite know why, but sometimes they decide they've just had enough of this world - and that's when they start getting inventive. The Book of Bunny Suicides follows over one hundred bunnies as they find ever more outlandish ways to do themselves in. From an encounter with the business end of Darth Vader's lightsaber, to supergluing themselves to a diving submarine, to hanging around underneath a loose stalactite, these bunnies are serious about suicide."
Falar l33t no Counter Strike é uma coisa. Isso aí já é retardamento.
VoxÊ tAmbÉm OdEiA KeIn FaLa AxXiM? FiCa PuTo Da ViDA pUxQuE NuM CoNxEgUe LeR NaDjIcA dJi NaDa? SeU mIgUxO oU mIgUxA fAlaUm AxXiM MaX vOxÊ TeIn mEdU dJi faLaH? SEUS PROBLEMAS ACABARAM-SE!
"Nossa campanha revolucionará a Internet neste país, atualmente assolada por mongolóides que dia após dia assassinam grotescamente a amada Língua Portuguesa e fazem dos seus textos leituras incompreensíveis.
Já estamos cansados de tentar decifrar o que pessoas desse tipo escrevem. Parece que regridem anos e começam a falar feito crianças burraldas (se é que existe criança que chega ao ponto de falar assim).
Pois é. Se você quer que a Internet seja um lugar mais intelectual, que possa oferecer algo de útil para seus filhos e filhas, abrace esta campanha de vez! Divulgue para seus amigos, seus parentes, pra todos que puder. Quanto antes pudermos acabar cOm ExXa bAbAkIxe melhor!
Ressaltando que não há nenhum tipo de ódio concreto para com as pessoas que fAlAm AxXim, mas sim com a maneira que elas iXcLeVeM."
Tive uma súbita vontade de andar de bicicleta. Ir trabalhar de bicicleta, ir ao mercado de bicicleta, fazer tudo de bicicleta. Esse sentimento é a convergência de umas coisinhas que aconteceram nas últimas semanas que me fizeram pegar meio asco de carro e querer dar umas pedaladas: um mês colocando gasolina em um Palio beberrão, a bicicleta do meu irmão de rodas pro ar na varanda pegando poeira, esse artigo da Analee Newitz e uma entrevista na CBN, mais memórias residuais de Goonies e E.T., de quando eu achava que alguém aguentava MESMO pedalar por 30 minútos de clímax cinematográfico em ritmo frenético, já que em 1985 eu ainda não conhecia o poder da moviola e das ilhas de edição.
Pior de tudo: é temporada de chuvas em Brasília, e eu estou de mudança: pra longe do tabalho, pra longe da casa da Jô, da biblioteca, da Kingdom e de outros lugarzinhos e coisinhas que meu preparo físico deficiente seria capaz de me "pedalar para".
A Joana passou anos praticamente me implorando pra andarmos de bicicleta juntos no fim de semana. Mesmo antes dela ter uma bicicleta. Compramos a bicicleta, andamos umas duas vezes, terminamos, voltamos, nunca mais pedalamos, e agora eu aqui, com desejo de bicicleta. Desejo DE GRÁVIDA! De mudar-de-vida e deixar esse mundo motorizado, apressado pra lá. Não é "andar de bicicleta no finde", é andar de bicicleta e pronto, como uma segunda natureza, uma extensão de meu corpo, uma escolha saudável, ecologicamente correta e economicamente responsável.
Que pode me matar, claro. Afinal, nada é perfeito.
Se você assiste ao Futurama, já sabe do que se trata. Se aida não conhece, clique aqui e submeta-se. Não resita. Tudo ficará mais fácil, mais tranqüilo... calminho... sim, mestre...
7.1.04 11:32 PM A originalidade é uma qualidade em extinção
Três anos atrás, quando li pela primeira vez "Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal" - emprestado pela Juliana junto com "A Câmara Secreta" e "O Prisioneiro de Azkabah" - algo me soou estranhamente familiar. Corri nas minhas velhas DC VERTIGO, cortesia da EDITORA ABRIL.
Um garoto magrelo de óculos - check!
Destinado a ser o maior feiticeiro de todos os tempos - check!
Tim Hunter. Livros de Magia. Do Neil Gaiman. Os fãs de "Sandman" que me perdoem, mas esse é o melhor trabalho com a sua assinatura. As histórias transbordam de uma coisa que fica ausente em momentos DEMAIS da história de Sonho - HUMANIDADE, ou vulnerabilidade humana, pra ser mais preciso. Os deuses e criaturas fantásticas de SANDMAN têm defeitos humanos, CLARO, esse recurso existe desde sempre na literatura, mas com exceção de sua irmã MORTE, todo mundo era, no geral, bem pouco simpático.
A verdade é que, se você não é um gótico depressivo suicida pseudo-inglezinho, SANDMAN não é algo muito fácil com o que se identificar.
LIVROS DE MAGIA vale muito a pena. É doce e assustador, e a constante dicotomia (puta merda, eu escrevi ISSO!?) entre quem É Tim Hunter e o que ele pode SE TORNAR carregam a história de modo fantástico. Sem contar que a Molly é a cara da Joana.
É Harry Potter para leitores maduros, mas ei, nada contra o menino-bruxo de Hogwarts! Ele ainda tem a sua hora e o seu lugar.
Será que o Gaiman recebeu algum tostão da J.K. Rowling?
1- Viajar mais com a Jô.
2- Fazer Ioga.
3- Voltar a desenhar, entrar para um curso, treinar, treinar, treinar.
4- Estudar mais.
5- Ler mais sobre contracultura, começar o livro com o Felipão.
6- Consumir menos, aumentar minha poupança mensal em 50%.
7- Postar mais no meu blog, postar mais em outros blogs.
8- Arrumar uma câmera digital. Ou um Palm. Ou os dois.
9- Consertar a fonte do laptop, consertar o leitor do dvd.
10- Visitar a obra do apartamento pelo menos uma vez por mês.
11- Não desperdiçar qualquer oportunidade de fazer um carinho na minha Joaninha.
12- Voltar a ser meu "better self", mais paciente com crianças, deficientes e estrangeiros.
... Onde diabos Lorde Sauron ia pendurar O Anel quando conseguisse ele de volta? Tipo... ele é um OLHO? "A red, lidless eye", como diz no livro? Será que ele ia usar O Anel como um bambolê gigante?
8:36 PM Eu não posso carregar O Anel, Mestre Frodo
(... mas posso levar o senhor nas costas!)
E depois a gente troca! É CLARO que eu sei que O RETORNO DO REI é uma estória sobre lealdade, amizade e a incorruptível teimosia do bom hobbit Samwise Gamgee. Mas também É CLARO que eu não pude deixar de achar a relação entre Frodo e Sam MUITO gay, TODAS as vezes que li a Trilogia do Anel. No cinema, na noite da estréia, a platéia imatura se esbaldava em insinuações homoeróticas direcionadas à nossa dupla de heróis verticalmente prejudicados - e aí você tem que fazer aquela pose de sério: "Não é nada disso, é uma demostração de amizade profunda, pura e masculina, igual ao TOP GUN".
Que, por sinal, é o filme mais bicha de todos os tempos. Não que tenha nada de errado com isso! It's a gay, gay world after all.
Mas e "O Poderoso Chefão"? Taí um filme macho, mesmo com homem beijando homem na boca. POR OUTRO LADO, assisti outro dia a "Fugindo do Inferno" (The Great Escape, 1963), com o Steve McQueen, que é um filme "de homem" bem bicha. Só pelos lances do Charles Bronson (rest in peace) e seu companheiro, que passam o filme inteiro enterrados num túnel, já dá pra sacar o subtexto. Um pusta filme, mas bicha. Não que tenha nada de errado com isso! "Enterrado", talvez, mas não errado.
Homofobia gratuita à parte, agradeço ao pessoal que deixou boas festas e tal, precisando apenas esclarecer: o problema não é dinheiro, é TEMPO. Tempo DEMAIS pra gastar a merreca que continua a mesma =)
22.12.03 10:12 AM Postando tudo até a última ponta!
Eu tenho que continuar postando. Postando pra manter o blog vivo, postando pra Joana ler no Canadá...
Este Natal acabou comigo. eu já estava endividado em novembro! Mas valeu a pena... é só saírem minhas férias, e o Ronan não atrasar o pagamento das traduções. Dá pra cobrir o cartão, pagar meu imposto de renda e ainda sobra um troco pro café. Do jeito que as coisas estão, só começo a receber de novo em março. Maldito TAC, maldita ABC. Bendita poupança.
Do Guardian UK - Quando a parte final da trilogia "O Senhor dos Anéis" estrear na próxima semana, os lucros da franquia serão alavancados em vários bilhões de dólares - e marcarão o triunfo definitivo de todas as coisas geek.
There is a key scene in the forthcoming film American Splendor in which our nerdish hero Harvey Pekar accompanies his still-more-nerdish sidekick, Toby, to a showing of the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds. Toby, it transpires, is a devoted fan of the movie, which he interprets as an exercise in self-empowerment and a clarion call to arms. Harvey is more circumspect. Appraising the film's cast, he dismisses them as "preppy Ivy League nerds. Not real ordinary slob nerds like us".
The irony here is that American Splendor is everything that Revenge of the Nerds pretended to be and wasn't. The winner at this year's Sundance festival, the film offers a salute to your bona-fide "slob nerd". Its stars are a motley collection of dysfunctional file clerks, twitchy comic-book artists and "self-diagnosed anaemics" who emerge victorious over the bastions of mainstream cool (as represented by MTV and the David Letterman show). In its wry, warts-and-all fashion, American Splendor celebrates the cult of the downtrodden, the sensitive, the occasionally malodorous. It's the movie that assures us that yes, it's OK to be a nerd.
Out in the wider world, the revolution is already underway. Over the past decade, those cultural phenomena that we once filed as geeky minority pursuits have become our masters. The internet now boasts a global community numbering 679 million. Video gaming pulls in more annual revenue than Hollywood. For its part, the film industry seems increasingly in thrall to the comic-book movie (Spider-Man, Hulk), the sci-fi epic (The Matrix, Star Wars) and the wizard fantasy (Harry Potter). Next week sees the release of the final instalment in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, awash with elves and hobbits and surely the most monumental nerd-fest of the lot.
Peter Jackson,
Pin-up para a nova geração
All of which raises some frightening implications. Could it be that there are more nerds today than there were before? If so, shouldn't we attempt to make friends with them sharp-ish, before they start bludgeoning us with plastic light-sabres or introducing viruses into our PCs? And then there is a further, more troubling possibility. Just what constitutes a nerd these days anyway? Might you conceivably qualify as one? Perish the thought, might I?
According to the Collins English Dictionary, a nerd is something you emphatically don't want to be. It defines the term as referring to "1) a boring or unpopular person" or "2) a stupid and feeble person", both of which sound a little harsh. Most likely the definition is a hangover from the old days, when the nerd was relegated to the library and only emerged to have sand kicked in his face or get a wedgie. Times have changed.
One might trace the rise of the nerd back to the mid-1970s, when Woody Allen pioneered a new breed of movie hero, who was at once unabashedly wimpish and unaccountably attractive to women. Running parallel to this came the rise of the movie brat, as spearheaded by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg: nebbish film school dweebs who remade themselves as enviable Hollywood billionaires. More recently the internet generation found their own poster boys in the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Lynn Bartholome, of the Popular Culture Association, has argued that the rise of the nerd "has a lot to do with the computer revolution, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Those guys were quote-unquote geeks, and for baby boomers, they've now got what's important - prestige, money and power."
These days, the takeover is complete. In the meantime, the nerd has replicated and sub-divided to the extent that it's tough keeping tabs on him. The fantasy junkies who thrill to Lord of the Rings and role-play games form one obvious tribe. Yet so do the sci-fi aficionados who have graduated from Star Trek conventions to the sleeker, trench-coat fashions of the Matrix movies.
Your standard comic-book buff divides into those who've hitched their wagons to Marvel's high-concept superhero antics and those who appreciated the more esoteric stylings of artists such as Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth).
Distant cousins to this group are the animation nuts who worship at the temples of The Simpsons and Pixar. And then you have the video kids: street-savvy, pop-culture omnivores who dig up Japanese Manga and obscure B-movies and find patron saints in Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino.
The trouble is that there is a great deal of movement between these tribes, and a great juggling of different enthusiasms. Could it be that a nerd is defined not so much by his specialist genre than by the nature and intensity of his interest?
It's Tuesday lunchtime and business is booming at Forbidden Planet's flagship shop on London's Shaftesbury Avenue. In this hothouse environment the customers come and go amid the plastic figurines, replica swords and Boba Fett helmets, asking directions to the "miniature daleks", the "Buffy dolls" and "anything to do with Space 1999".
I came expecting to find a row of Identikit nerds. I leave with my prejudices confounded. Bewilderingly, the Forbidden Planet punters run the gamut of age, dress-sense and ethnic background. More worrying still is the dawning revelation that the ones who do fit the nerd cliche all look rather like me. Wandering Forbidden Planet, I find myself part of a crowd of scruffy, myopic thirtysomething white boys who've grown a bit broad in the beam from too much sitting and snacking.
This is borne out by the first person I approach. Tim is 32 and a big fan of the costumed do-gooders of the Justice League of America. Despite this, my opening gambit ("are you a nerd?") elicits a chill response: "Be careful who you're calling a nerd, mate. You ought to go look in the mirror." Clearly the N-word still carries a stigma here. For men like Tim, perhaps, it evokes the ghosts of old playground torments. It was the insult bellowed at him by school bullies who wanted to flush his head down the toilet, or make him eat a cigarette butt.
Downstairs in the comic-book section, 36-year-old Steven Lewis admits to being a geek, but not a nerd. He explains that there is a crucial difference. "Nerds are highly intelligent but they have no social skills whatsoever. You can't hold a proper conversation with a nerd. Geeks are very intelligent too, but a geek can hold a conversation, and have a girlfriend and an active social life. So I freely admit to being a geek. I have no problem with that label at all."
He defines a geek as "anyone who is interested in genre fiction and has very particular taste, definite likes and dislikes. Maybe we have something of a trainspotter sensibility as well." Steven's geek-passions range from graphic novels to The Matrix to Marvel to the art of Edward Gorey. He works as an education officer and estimates that he spends "maybe £30 a week" at shops such as Forbidden Planet.
Elsewhere, Alan Creasey is up from Tunbridge Wells with his 10 year-old son, Jamie. "I don't need Jamie as an excuse to come here, because I've always been into this stuff myself," he confesses. "We share a lot of the same interests, actually. He likes the comics, the figures and the cards. Maybe I'm a bit more into science fiction than he is." Emboldened, I ask Alan if he would consider himself to be a geek or a nerd? "Well, neither," he replies. "I think words like that are a bit rude and old hat, frankly. There's no need for them nowadays."
Behind the desk, sales assistant Spring (baseball cap, beard, piercings) says that business is good. "There are certain brands that will sell to anyone: anything to do with Marvel or DC Comics, or Lord of the Rings," he says. I mention that I've noticed many more women shoppers than I would have expected, which seems to explode the cliche that nerdism is an exclusively male preserve.
"Yeah, I think that's changed in the last two to three years. We've now got lots more products that cater to the female market. There's the Goth section, with the Living Dead Dolls, because dolls are always going to appeal to girls. Or some of the more cuddly monster models. And then there's Lord of the Rings, which women seem to respond to as much as men. Lord of the Rings crosses all the gender and generational boundaries. It's just so massively marketed and well conceived."
When they are not buying Goth dolls or miniature Daleks, evidence suggests that the nerd likes to go to the cinema. This year's highest-grossing film is set to be Finding Nemo, a comic account of fretful, neurotic fish, animated by the boffins at Pixar and voiced by Albert Brooks (previously one of Hollywood's great supporting nerds).
So what is the nerd pound worth? The fact that The Matrix and Lord of the Rings movies have pulled in $1.5bn and counting seems a good ballpark figure to begin with. Moreover, their success seems to hint at a sea-change within the industry as a whole. "There has been a huge shift in the market place," reckons Paul Dergarabedian, president of the US box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. "Blockbusters have become very sophisticated versions of what were once seen as exploitation movies: martial-arts films, fantasy films, science-fiction films. All of which people loved, but which were decidedly B-movies that were not aimed at mainstream audiences."
Nick Hunt, reviews editor at Screen International, thinks that this has a lot to do with the directors themselves. "We are witnessing a new synergy," he explains. "There's a new breed of film-maker who has more sympathy to this kind of material than your typical bunch of Hollywood suits. You have Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino, who has been described as resembling the Marvel superhero The Thing. Peter Jackson is your obvious example, in that he even looks like your typical fan-boy. There's a whole generation of film-makers who grew up in the golden age of the 1970s comic, and I think that there's a natural progression from comic strips into movies, because the visual language is so similar."
But the fans play a major role too. In the end, it's hard to overstate the impact of the internet on this new world order. It has been argued that fan sites and chat forums have legitimised the nerds, giving them a voice and making them an important demographic to be catered to.
When embarking on their Lord of the Rings trilogy, backers New Line assiduously courted the Tolkien fan sites, keeping them appraised of fresh developments, lavishing them with sneak previews of the script and flying Harry Knowles (founder of Ain't It Cool News) out to the shoot in New Zealand.
"We reverse-marketed," explains Gordon Paddison, New Line's senior vice-president of global interactive marketing. "We had to get to the fans first. They are our evangelists." Over at Marvel studios, there is a similar respect for the web user. "I used to hate the internet," studio chief Ari Avad recently confessed to USA Today. "I thought it was just a place where people stole our ideas. But I see how influential the fans can be in building a consensus. I now consider them as film-making partners."
In popular parlance, at least, the image of the internet user shares much with the image of the nerd, suggesting a cerebral, solitary enthusiast with a sophisticated palate. In terms of marketing, however, US web users are seen as the perfect demographic, in that they tend to be non TV-watchers with an income over $60,000, "pre-marital interests" and a strong brand awareness. According to Yankee Group analyst Rob Lancaster, "technology users are a great group for marketing products to because they're very loyal to products and their interest is heavy. They get very passionate."
The genius of a franchise such as Lord of the Rings, however, was in broadening its following. Having begun by soothing the online fanbase, it proceeded to break out of its pigeonhole and make converts of us all. Surveys show that films like Rings, the Matrix trilogy and Harry Potter appeal to all four demographic "quadrants" (young male, older male, young female, older female). "My dad is highly excited about seeing the last Lord of the Rings," admits Nick Hunt. "But before that I don't think he'd ever seen a sci-fi or fantasy film in his life."
Adam Dawtrey, European editor of Variety, attempts to put this in context. "In 1999 fantasy was still considered a relatively small earner. With Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, it has become vast. It's not that there are more spotty teenage boys around, it's simply that we've all become more like spotty teenage boys. There's been a trend in popular culture towards legitimising child-like or adolescent pursuits. Previously, we were supposed to grow out of stuff like that. Now that notion has broken down."
This cultural blurring is reflected in a new lexicon of marketing spiel, spotlighting such emergent consumer groups as the "kidult" or "adultescent" (whose age ranges from 25-35), the "middle youther" (35-45) and the "silver surfer" (internet users in their dotage).
Playmate toys recently revealed that the largest market for Simpsons merchandise came from those aged between 18 and 35. In recent years the cartoon's creators have slyly acknowledged this breed of adult fan in the shape of the Comic Book Guy, an overweight, pony-tailed malcontent who scoffs "breakfast burritos" and is given to complaining in clipped tones that last night's show was the "Worst. Episode. Ever". It's a safe bet that a good many Simpsons buffs snicker at the Comic Book Guy without quite twigging that they are, in fact, laughing at themselves.
Alternatively, one could argue that the Comic Book Guy harks back to an obsolete image: the "boring, unpopular" loser of the Collins English Dictionary or the bespectacled stripling of a thousand Gary Larson cartoons. In years to come, such stereotypes may prove dangerous. Because if you class everyone who uses the internet, or digs Star Wars, or plays a video game as a nerd, then you automatically risk offending a community that numbers in the hundreds of millions.
In the past decade, this once-derided minority has mutated and metastasised. The unloved school swots of the 20th century have blossomed into the alpha group of the 21st. They have gold cards and chat rooms and a whole rash of "pre-marital" (and sometimes post-marital) interests that demand satisfaction. They have dictated the mainstream and spirited us all along for the ride. I am reminded of the circus performers' chant at the end of Tod Browning's 1932 classic Freaks: "One of us. One of us."
Back in Forbidden Planet, I run across Debra, a trainee barrister who is scrutinising the Living Dead Dolls in the Gothic section (£23.99 for the regular model, £47.99 for the deluxe porcelain edition). Debra is in her late 20s, articulate, well-turned-out, and obviously affluent. "Who cares if I'm a nerd?" she shrugs. "I'm a nerd and you're a nerd and most people you meet out on the streets have a bit of the nerd about them. We are all nerds now."
O que é pior que morte, destruição e a queda da civilização?
"Que tal o fim do rock'n'roll?"
Essa é uma das primeiras - e dolorosas - constatações do jovem Yorick, o último homem sobre a face da Terra.
Yorick e Ampersand
Em um mundo sem Bowie, Iggy e Jagger, resultado de uma misteriosa doença que varreu todos os homens - praticamente a metade da população do planeta - de forma quase instantânea, a situação de Yorick e seu macaquinho Ampersand (o único outro macho de que se tem notícia) fica ainda mais complicada quando passam a ser perseguidos pelo governo americano, as forças armadas israelenses e uma gangue de auto-denominadas Amazonas.
Algumas querem matá-lo.
Outras querem protegê-lo.
E outras querem seu sêmen!
Acredite, o que pode soar como a definitiva fantasia masculina é na verdade uma ficção científica adulta tocando de leve o terror, no melhor estilo "Além da Imaginação". Sucesso de público e exaltado pela crítica "séria" (ou seja, fora do mundinho dos gibis), "Y - The Last Man" é o melhor quadrinho dos últimos tempos.
Os links para download (pelo e-mule/e-donkey) estão aí do lado. Baixe e divirta-se!
"Eu não sei se vocês sabem" mas, atendendo a pedidos da editora Panini, Blogger, Kit.net e outros realizaram um raid que tirou do ar os gibis escaneados disponibilizados em sites como Rapadura Açucarada e Immateria, trazendo muitas vezes lançamentos que nunca vão chegar no Brasil a não ser através das mãos de mafiosos, digo "importadores". Além disso, os caras se davam ao trabalho de traduzir tudo. Tá bom que a tradução não era das melhores, mas serviu como um meio de ampliar exponencialmente o público de quadrinhos no País.
Isso, claro, serviu de incentivo para a Gente Brasileira recorrer à sua inesgotável criatividade e dar um upgrade na pirataria, passando a compartilhar os arquivos através de redes p2p como e-donkey e e-mule.
In your face, suckers!
Com essa decisão, os figurões das editoras dão um tiro no próprio pé, já que agora não têm nenhum controle sobre o conteúdo veiculado nessas redes paralelas. Se antes o que acontecia era, basicamente, o empréstimo e escambo de gibis do mesmo jeito que eu faço desde 1986 - sem qualquer pretensão de lucro direto ou indireto - agora passa a ser pirraça, vingança e anarquia. Uma trinca atraente e imbatível. Eu tô nessa.
Foi uma boa desculpa pra eu largar o Kazaa e aprender a usar programas de gente grande. Aos pouquinhos, vou ajudar a turma colocando aqui os links para meus downloads.
3:11 PM Big whoppers (parte 2) Trechos no novo livro de Michael Moore, originalmente na Salon.com
No. 2 Whopper With Cheese: "Iraq has chemical and biological weapons!"
In his October 7, 2002, address from Cincinnati, George W. Bush offered up this freshly cooked whopper: "Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?" Then, just a few months later, Bush added the cheese: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Who wouldn't want to bomb that bastard Saddam after hearing that? Then Secretary of State Colin Powell went even further -- he said that the Iraqis weren't just concocting chemical weapons, they were doing it on wheels!
"One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents," Powell told the United Nations. "We know that Iraq has at least seven of these mobile, biological agent factories." He went on with such specifics that ... it had to be true! And on Wednesday, the official responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Powell claimed the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his U.N. speech.
But after invading Iraq, the U.S. Army couldn't find a single one of these "mobile labs." After all, with so many palm trees to hide them under, who could blame our army for not uncovering them? We couldn't find any of the chemical or biological weapons either, even though on March 30, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had said on ABC's "This Week," "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." Oh, okay, that's clear! Now we'll find them! Thank you, Madhatter!
Finally, on June 5, 2003, George W. Bush declared: "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities, which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them."
That whopper lasted about a day. An official British investigation into the "two trailers" found in northern Iraq concluded "they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist." That was it. Tanks to fill up balloons! Weapons of mass balloonery!
No. 3 Whopper With Bacon: "Iraq has ties to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda!"
Just hours after the attacks on 9/11, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had already figured out who was responsible, or at least, who he wanted to punish. According to CBS News, Rumsfeld wanted as much information as possible about the attacks, and told his fact-finding team to "go massive. ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not." He already had intelligence indicating a connection to Osama (whom he called "Usama"), but he wanted more because he had other goals in mind. He wanted intelligence "good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the same time. Not only U.B.L."
W.A.B.O.B.S!
I say Osama, you say Usama ... and Rumsfeld just says the magic word "Saddam" and before you know it, everyone else was saying it, too! Retired Gen. Wesley Clark has said that he received phone calls on September 11 and in the weeks after from people at "think tanks" and from people within the White House telling him to use his position as a pundit for CNN to "connect" 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. He said he'd do it if someone could show him the proof. No one could.
During the buildup to war in the fall of 2002, Bush and members of his administration kept repeating the claim, keeping it uncluttered by specifics (also known as "facts") so it stayed nice and simple and easy to remember. Bush circled the country at campaign stops for Republican congressional candidates, inseminating the minds of the American people with the bogus Saddam/Osama connection on a continuous loop.
Just in case we missed the point, Bush continued to hammer it home in his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003: "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda," Bush insisted.
Immediately following the address, a CBS online poll found that support for U.S. military action in Iraq increased.
A week later, on February 5, Bush's claims were echoed by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his lengthy address to the United Nations Security Council. After detailing what Powell said were Iraq's numerous failures to comply with weapons inspections, he moved on to the Saddam/Osama connection: "But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder."
But the meat of the administration's "evidence" had already begun to turn rancid. During that same first week of February, a British intelligence report leaked to the BBC said there were no links between Saddam and Osama. The two evildoers had tried to form a friendship in the past, but it had turned out like a great episode of "Blind Date" -- they "hated" each other. According to the report, Bin Laden's "aims are in ideological conflict with present-day Iraq." On top of this, the al-Qaida poison and explosives factory Bush and his team claimed Saddam was harboring was located in northern Iraq -- an area controlled by Kurds and patrolled by U.S. and British warplanes since the early nineties. The north of Iraq was out of Saddam's reach, but within our own. The base actually belonged to Ansar al Isalam, a militant fundamentalist group whose leader has branded Saddam Hussein an "enemy." A tour of the base by a large group of international journalists quickly revealed that no weapons were being manufactured there.
But none of that mattered. The president had said it -- it had to be true! Yes, this whopper worked so well that, in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, polls showed that up to half of Americans said they believed that Saddam Hussein had ties to Osama bin Laden's network. Even before Bush had served up his 2003 State of the Union address, and Powell had presented the Saddam-Osama "evidence" to the U.N., a Knight-Ridder poll found that half of those questioned already incorrectly thought that one or more of the 9/11 hijackers held Iraqi citizenship. Bush didn't even have to say it.
3:08 PM Big whoppers (parte 1) Trechos no novo livro de Michael Moore, originalmente na Salon.com
What is the worst lie a president can tell?
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
Or ...
"He has weapons of mass destruction -- the world's deadliest weapons -- which pose a direct threat to the United States, our citizens and our friends and allies."
One of those lies got a president impeached. The other lie not only got the liar who told it the war he wanted, but also resulted in huge business deals for his friends and virtually assures him a landslide victory in the next election.
Sure, we've been lied to before. Lots of lies: big lies, little lies, lies that brought us down in the eyes of the world. "I am not a crook" was a lie, and it sent Richard Nixon packing. "Read my lips: No new taxes" wasn't so much a lie as a broken promise, but it nonetheless cost the first Bush his presidency. "Ketchup is a vegetable" was technically not a lie, but it was a good example of the Reagan administration's whacked view of the world.
As the lies that led us into the Iraq War started to unravel and be exposed, the Bush administration went into survival mode with their only defensive maneuver: Keep repeating the lie over and over and over again until the American people are so worn down they'll scream "uncle!" and start believing it.
But nothing can hide this indisputable fact: There is no worse lie than one told to scare mothers and fathers enough to send their children off to fight a war that did not need to be fought because there never was any real threat at all. To falsely tell a nation's citizens that their lives are in jeopardy just so you can settle your own personal score ("He tried to kill my daddy!") or to make your rich friends even richer, well, in a more just world, there would be a special prison cell in Joliet reserved for that type of liar.
George W. Bush has turned the White House into the Home of the Whopper, telling one lie after another, all in pursuit of getting his dirty little war. It worked.
His whoppers are available in all shapes and sizes and configurations. Allow me to present to you the tasty menu the Whopper-in-Chief served up special just for you. I'll call them "The Iraq War Combo Meals":
No. 1 The Original Whopper: "Iraq has nuclear weapons!"
There is no greater way to scare a population than to say there is a madman on the loose and he has (or is building) nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons he intends to use on you.
George W. Bush laid the groundwork for scaring us silly early on. In his speech to the United Nations in September 2002, Bush said with a straight face that "Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a nuclear weapons [sic] is when, God forbid, he uses one."
Soon after, on October 7, Bush told a crowd in Cincinnati, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. ... Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." How to sway the American public from its initial reluctance to go to war with Iraq? Just say "mushroom cloud" and -- BOOM! -- watch those poll numbers turn around!
In addition to uranium from Africa, Bush said the Iraqis had "attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Frightening stuff. Imagine how much more frightening if it was actually true. Joseph Wilson, a senior American diplomat with more than 20 years of experience, including positions in Africa and Iraq, was sent to Niger in 2002 on a CIA-directed mission to investigate the British claims that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake uranium" from Niger. He concluded that the allegations were false.
The White House ignored Wilson's report and instead kept the hoax alive. When the administration persisted with the fabricated story, one official, according to the New York Times, said, "People winced and thought, why are you repeating this trash?" The documents from Niger were so badly faked that the Niger foreign minister who "signed" one of them was no longer in the government -- in fact, he had been, unbeknownst to the British or American liars who made up the story, out of office for more than a decade.
The aluminum tubes "discovery" also turned out to be a fictitious threat. On January 27, 2003 -- the day before Bush's State of the Union address -- the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El-Baradei, told the U.N. Security Council that two months of inspections in Iraq had produced no evidence of prohibited activities at former Iraqi nuclear sites. In addition, El- Baradei said, the aluminum tubes "unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing centrifuges."
According to reports in the Washington Post, Newsweek, and other publications, the assertion that the tubes could be used for nuclear weapons production had already been questioned by U.S. and British intelligence officials. U.N. inspectors said they had found proof that Iraq planned to use the tubes to build small rockets, not nuclear weapons. And the Iraqis were not trying to buy the equipment in secret -- their purchase order was accessible on the Internet. But Mr. Bush didn't let facts stand in the way of his tough-talking State of the Union address to almost 62 million viewers on January 28, 2003: "... Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," he stated. "Imagine those nineteen hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes."
On March 16, Co-President Dick Cheney appeared on "Meet the Press" and told the nation that Hussein has "been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
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