So here I am again, bashing Apple. In the last few days everybody and his brother was talking about how cool the iPhone is and how they can’t wait to buy one because it’s sooo hi-tech and yadda yadda yadda. Actually, you just have to look at the specs to be deluded:

• Cingular only
• no UMTS
• battery life just 5 hours talk
• 135 grams
• no camera zoom

Ok, there are nice sensors, a multi-touch screen and a neat user interface, but at the end of the day who cares? Since I have a phone in my pocket 16hours a day the most important features are small size, light weight, battery life, audio quality. I’m sorry I can’t trade my own comfort for any UI, however cool it is.

This device is going to be sub-optimal both as a phone and as a computer (no QWERTY, 3.5″ screen). It’s like a tablet: that useless mid-size that makes everybody unhappy.

Of all the spam I received in my life, this is definitely the nicest. A mere few hours after I posted Caipirinha, a cachaça producer posted a comment with their recipe and a link to their web site. They have to have a robot connected to gogle alert and automatically scanning blog posts. Since this site is mostly useless, I decided to approve that comment even if it was spam, just removing the URL to avoid google bombing. At least this blog can be useful to somebody to promote their product.

UPDATE: there was no robot, there’s real people scanning the internet and posting comments! OMG, this is a lesson on marketing 2.0!

Caipirinha is basically the national drink in Brazil. Ice, lime, cane sugar and cachaça is all you need to make a good caipirinha. Because of it’s simplicity everybody can make a decent caipirinha but you need real art to make a very good one. They drink it at any hour and in any occasion, before eating, during eating, after eating, always. Sometimes they prefer vodka instead of cachaça (in that case they call it caipivodka aka caipirioska) or different fruits (e.g. strawberry instead of lime).

Olha que coisa mais linda mais cheia de graça
É ela menina que vem e que passa
nun doce balanço, caminho do mar…
Moça do corpo dourado, do sol de Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que un poema
é a coisa mais linda que eu já vi passar…
Ah! Porque estou tão sozinho
Ah! Porque tudo é tão triste
Ah! A beleza que existe
A beleza que não é só minha
que também passa sozinha
Ah! Se ela soubesse que quando ela passa
o mundo sorrindo se enche de graça
e fica mais lindo por causa do amor
por causa do amor
por causa do amor…

This song was written in 1962 by Vinicius de Moraes and Antonio Carlos Jobim. They were regulars at the Veloso Bar, in front of which this tanned stunningly beautiful girl was frequently strolling on her way from school to home. Today that bar is called A garota de Ipanema, in Rua Vinicius de Moraes. In front of that there’s a live stage bar called Vinicius, and more stunningly beautiful girls. Last Monday I’ve been there attending a bossanova concert. A mustn’t miss it.

I’m on my flight back to Europe and I feel saudade already. In the last ten days I’ve been in a place very different than the one I live, a place where angels jog on the beach and guys surf all the time, while the Christ Redeemer looks after them from the top of Corcovado, a place where people get hit by a bala perdidas while they drive on the highway crossing favelas, a place where extremely poor and extremely rich live side by side and 2.5M people can amass on the same beach for new year’s party without incidents, a place where lots of people can’t read but have no problem voting with an electronic ballot system, a place where prices are written in installments (e.g. 4x19R$) but people get crazy for shopping, a place where window cleaners work hanged on a rope but drink anti-oxidant matte.

Happy new 2007 from Copacabana! Yesterday was a rainy day in Rio de Janeiro and people fought saudade by visiting shopping malls. I was too tired for that, so I spent the day recovering some lost sleep and having some rest. At night, everybody finally decided that – rain or not – they had to go to Copacabana to attend the biggest beach party and fireworks show ever.   So did I.

Finding a taxi was a hard challenge, and even then you had to bargain on the price cause they were asking 2-6 times the normal fare. Everybody was assembling on the beach and there was a big traffic jam, but still somehow ordinate. People were mostly wearing in white, cause they say this brings you luck. Lots of gorgeous girls (oh man!) drinking caipirinhas and dancing samba on the sand while all the several kilometers long beach was entertained by the same music played on a stage in front of Marriot hotel. A dozen big cruise ships were in line in front of the beach, to participate to the party. Rain was still falling but nobody really cared.

Only strangers carried a champagne bottle and at midnight I understood the reason: the fireworks started and everybody was so impressed that almost forgot to drink the champagne or even kiss other people around. After the fireworks some people had a sip in the sea while most of them got their feet wet jumping waves and throwing flowers in a ritual exercise.

After a while everybody started to walk to Ipanema where the Black eyed peas where beginning their concert. The flow was very ordinate but when we arrived to the other beach it was so crowded we couldn’t stand it.  We had to give up.  Great night anyway.