So I am out of Brazil

um... just my lame attempt at an update.

The problem with stupid people…

Stupid people… Why do I have a problem with them?

Is it because they do stupid things? I don’t think so, because I do many stupid things.

Is it because they say stupid things? I also say many stupid things.

Real stupidity runs much deeper than this I feel.

I am going to talk about people on the internet who demonstrate classic symptoms and traits of fucking morons.

There are many places you can find these morons, for example they are the type of person that (when people used it) used MySpace as a competition to get lots of friends, of which they will never have more of a meaningful interaction with than saying: “Thanks for the add”.

Now I am not going to pretend that I never added anyone that I had no intention of speaking to there. In fact I had an alias that was building up thousands of friends (I think she had over 20,000 by the time I got bored of it all), but there was some reasoning behind this, which I shall explain another day.

tHeR R dA TyPZ DaT FEeL Da NeEd To RiTE LiKe DiS. WhAt aLwAyZ cOnFuZ’D mE AbOuT DaT TeKniK WaZ Da AmOuNt O’ F-FoRt DaT WaZ REqUiReD 2 Do DiZ!

there are the people who like to write without ever using any punctuation it is way to much effort to press the buttons for commas and for apostrophes also they think that a full stop is totally useless but there is one piece of punctuation that they will use occasionally… the ellipsis… i know i am as guilty as anyone else for over use of the ellipsis but at least i know what its actual use is for and i will use it moderately correctly i am also trying to reduce my usage as i attempt to make my writings more coherent

The people who will respond to an argument by saying you mispelt that.

The peeple in an arguement who need to lern to speel

Grammar Nazis… You know who I mean. The person who will get all uppity, just because someone has said “your” instead of “you’re”.

Grammar idiots… they’re are thousands of them out their.

I just want to add, I have no problem with people having idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing or even the occasional error. In fact I don’t mind if people use all of the above techniques for destroying my ability to read and make sense of their thoughts, as long as overall it was worth my time and effort. Not being as efficient with a keyboard as some others is not a sign of a lack of intelligence; it is merely something that they could improve on in certain areas. No, the morons I am really talking about display a completely different special kind of stupidity.

Double Standards

These are the types of stupid people that really make my blood boil; people that have good educations but suppress everything that the libertarians they applaud worked for; the people who want sexual equality but then want to wrap women up in cotton wool; the self righteous types that are happy to victimise people that they think are wrong doers, unaware that they themselves are using their own prejudices as their defence; the people that always have an opinion on a subject, but will never substantiate their opinions; the people that are too close minded to ever look at something from a fresh perspective.

Others

And then there are those people that don’t fit into any of these categories… They are impossible to define… they just are stupid, moronic idiots!

Back to School

Ok, so I have been trying to think of a good subject to write about here, but have come up with nothing so far and thus am just gonna write until inspiration hits.. Well that is what they always taught me to do when I was at school and had to make creative writing... actually I think they said that I was to repeat the same word over and over, so if that happens, then you know that the inspiration fell....

Ah, but thinking of those magical days at school takes me back... I remember I was a little bit of a trouble maker back in the day, and this led me to occassionally having to do punishments such as "Bill's Wills", which was basically the will of the founder of the school that was not all that interesting . In fact it was written in olde english and was in fairly small print,.. and what you would have to do is write it all out underneath the lines... There were tricks to making these easier though. Like with any lines there are ways to make the task less cumbersome, but this was not what I enjoyed doing... I prefered to make my own story at points, usually about the prefect that gave out the punishment... I think I only got caught a couple of times and even got let off once because the particular prefect who was called Olly something and was the head boy of my school, found what I had written pretty funny!

Then there was the punishments from the teachers... Writing essays on the subject of their choosing. These subjects would range from the plain dull to the utterly mind-blowingly boring! Examples included "The sexlife of a drawing pin" (painful), "The density of a brick" (very stupid) and my personal favorite "The inside of a ping pong ball"... I can't remember the exact wording as it was over ten years ago that I would have drafted this work of art, but it went something like this...

The Inside of a Ping Pong Ball

In the Galaxy of the Chocolate Starfish there is a planet known as Ping Pong Ball. Now Ping Pong
Ball is very different to the other worlds you may know, it has a perfectly flat terrain, even more so than the Netherlands back on Earth, thus it creates a perfectly spherical globe. On the surface it also appears to be uninhabited too, but then it is often said that appearances can be deceptive. In fact Ping Pong Ball is one of the most densly populated planets in the entire universe! Many of the inhabitants are much like Human beings in as much as they have opposable thumbs and they like to eat chicken, but there is one very distinct difference: They have have have have have...

I think this is a point at which I would normally want to go down the route of vulgarity but remembering that I was going to have to give this piece of paper to a teacher in half an hour made me think again. But bums in place of their heads and vice versa is so tempting...

... toasted cheese sandwiches instead of eyes. Although having toasted cheese sandwiches doesn't seem like such a bad thing, alot of dog like creatures attacked them and ate their "eyes" which left them blind. So, totally without vision, how did these Ping Pongites lead normal lives? They rely entirely upon their ESP... Afterall they were from another planet.

Although there are no mountains or rivers on Ping Pong Ball (in fact the inside of the planet is as featureless as the outside), the inhabitants manage to survive upon the constant source of moisture that hangs in the air. They call this the "Sweaty Pit Effect" and it was thought to be caused originally by some big fat guy, they called King Salty Water, that never stopped sweating. It was later discovered that this was not true and King Salty Water later renownced the throne.


The "Sweaty Pit Effect" was answered after the boffins of the planet managed to develop space travel. It was on one of these journies that conclusive proof of the effect was presented, and this lead to the writing of the book "The Official International Table Tennis Rules". In this book it is explained how the Gods use the planet as a device for their games, and by the sheer athleticness of their sport it leads to much perspiration. This moisture enters their atmosphere via a small hole that is situated at one of the poles of Ping Pong Ball. It is also through this hole that the inhabitants were originally able to embark on those intergalactic voyages to locations such as "Net of Dispair and "Bat of Chinaman".

There are many sceptics of the Gods, including probably the most prominant dissident who goes by the name of Jesus. Jesus claims to be the son of God, but has been unable to demonstate sufficient skills playing the game of the Gods, which leaves most people unsure.


So, After about an hour of writing as wittily as I possibly could I would be all ready for showing this work of art to my teacher... and although I never expected him to grade it, I did expect him to at least skim read it...

Mr. Banks, I would just like to let you know that I am holding you responsible for me not following my dreams to become a creative writer, journalist or an author, even if I did hate english and writing!

... but he read absolutely nothing. Not one word. He just screwed the bit of paper up and threw it in the bin!

My literary classic (well for a 14 year old it wasn't too bad) was wasted, only for me to know of my genius.

For the next blog:
Stupid people and why I don't like them

Future subjects:
Carrier Pigeons.

He's Back

This is the first one of these for a while.
I plan to do one of these at least once a week.

So, this is just a little re-introduction.

Join me!

I think I know why I got a bit bored of writing these and it was because no-one ever responded to me, so... to make me have a bit more interaction, please MAKE COMMENTS.

Make em' rude, make em funny, or just make them exist. PLEASE...

Mob Wars

There are a big load of losers out there in the world of online cyber games...

Most of them play Mob Wars on facebook applications.

:o)

Learning Brazilian Portuguese

Rio de Janeiro definitivamente é uma muito legal cidade! Eu amo aqui.

I really think that Rio de Janeiro is the most friendly city I have ever been to. It is always given a bad reputation that in some ways is due for its crime, but if you are sensible and self aware, I think the majority of problems can be avoided.

Anyway, I have a few pieces of advice for "A Cidade Maravilhosa".

Learning the Language... It all depends on how much you want to spend on learning and how self motivated you are to learn.
There are hundreds of language classes available here, some look more reputable than others. I have never used these, but I hear they are reasonably expensive (at least by south american standards)
Other options are to find an independent teacher. This is possibly the best paid option as you will reap the benefits of one to one interaction, whilst making sure that the money actually goes to a person who needs it (i.e. the teacher) and not a big company.
I use a book that I bought from a shop here named "português, um curso para estrangeiros". It is hard work, but if you buy a dictionary to translate the tough words, it will progressively improve your language skills.

The fourth option is come here and make friends. Learn at least a little Portuguese before you arrive, and soon you will have lots of new friends. Brazilians love to meet new people from other countries, and are always impressed when someone has bothered to learn their language too. It is not globally widely spoken and for many it may not be the best language for most to learn. Big Kudos for this.

And the best option by far is to incorporate all of the above ideas!

If you really want to stay in the home of a Brazilian, make some Brazilian contacts first. they may be able to point you in the direction of people interested in this too.

I use a website called http://www.couchsurfing.com, which is based on building trust as a community and meeting other like minded travellers. If "couchsurfing" seems a bit too far out for you as a concept, do not dismiss the website completely. the Rio de Janeiro group is a great place to meet other locals and travellers in the area, and can help in arranging meetings, for coffee/tourist activities/dancing/drinking etc.

another place to check out is http://gringoes.com, I don't know much about it, but it could be useful as it has a lot of information from people going to/living in Brazil and other south american countries.

I hope some of this might help!

Abraço
Matt

when i was young

when i was young i drank
when i was young i took drugs
when i was young i smoked too much
when i was young i fucked the wrong girls

but i am still not old