Fernando Valente's weblog

Well, I made a lot of plans for last week. It’s part of my plan to become a “super power” in one year. Well, let’s see the progress so far:

Guitar – I started learning from scratch and I must say I learned a lot. I changed my learning method. I’m learning theory first, instead of songs. I will keep studying theory and once I finish it, I will start learning how to play some songs. I will buy another guitar as soon as I have money because mine doesn’t seem to be working very well.

My melatonin arrived yesterday. I toke one pill and, wow, I slept like crazy. After one week, finally I had a good night’s sleep.

BTW, the Melatonin I bought is from Optimum Nutrition. It’s a great brand.

Today I started  going to the gym. I was training at home and, seriously, the gym is MUCH better. Just got back from there and my muscles are totally annihilated. The investment is really worth it. This way I will get big more quickly. Also, when ya go to the gym you think twice before skipping a day. I mean, you’re paying for it, spending your precious and hard earned money. The money ya had to sweat and die for. Of course you will do your best!

Ya know those movies where the character’s life is fucked up and they say that it cannot get worse and suddenly something bad happens? Too bad it exists outside the movies. My life is a big piece of shit since a couple months ago. Yeah, that was bad, but yesterday it got even worse. And I didn’t even say anything. When I got home I toke my wallet from my pocket and when I was putting my hand in my other pocket to take my iPhone from it, well, there was no iPhone. I really got desperate when I couldn’t find it. Maybe I already toke it from there and didn’t notice it? I checked all over the place and that was just not the case. So I opened my iCloud account and Find My iPhone was not able to locate anything. I said “DAMN!”. In a minute it found my iPhone. Shit, it must have got out of my pocket in the buss considering the place it was. So I ran to the bus stop and waited for the bus. After 2 buses, I found NOTHING! So I went to the civil police department and told them my phone was missing and that I was able to find it using Find My iPhone. They said they could not do anything and told me to call the military police. Brazil is one of the most expensive countries to live and the one who has the third highest taxes and what we get for that? NOTHING! So I got home and tried to locate it again and no luck. Waited a few more hours and no luck. The only thing I can think of is that someone found it and turned it off.

Today I had to get a new cellphone. I couldn’t afford another iPhone as they are very expensive here(in fact, Brazil has the world’s most expensive iPhone). My options were limited to 2 Android phones with 2 inch screens and a BlackBerry. I ended up getting the BB as it would be nearly impossible to type on those phones. Seriously guys, now I understand why Research In Motion is about to face a bankruptcy. This phone just sucks! I mean, those guys don’t really know what usability is. The keyboard is just to small. A touch screen phone is MUCH better.

I still have a very small hope of finding my iPhone. I will call the bus company on monday to see if they know anything. In case they don’t, I will just give it up and call every single Brazilian carrier and inform them the phone IMEI so no one will be able to active it on their networks. I just hope I will have money to buy another iPhone soon.

Visit http://americancensorship.org/ and show your support.

I still can remember when I first heard about Steve Jobs. That was in 2007 when I was reading a Wikipedia article about Apple. Rest in peace, Steven Paul Jobs.

I still remember that day. I was a 7 years old that just got out of school and heard the news. I didn’t even know what the World Trade Center was. In fact, I didn’t know how big that terrorist attack was and its effects.

So, after almost ten years, the responsible for that shit was killed. And he was the winner. Yes, he did. He died, but he did. He wanted fear, US decadence and a lot other stuff. And he got it.

A few days ago Steve Jobs resigned. As a geek, there’s no way I can’t say anything about it. Believe in me or not, I’m glad he did it. Steve was such an amazing CEO for many years, but at the end, he was beginning to screw up! Lion is a big joke, and so is the “post-PC era”, that killing DVD/CD/Blu-Ray stuff and the Mac App Store. Apple became very evil, they acted just like a patent troll. Suing people for a foolish reason isn’t right in my opinion. Now I think there’s a chance the Mac will survive. I also think there’s a chance Apple will stop suing people just like if its life depended on it.

I don’t hate Steve Jobs, but I must say he was stupid as a person. Anyone who has seen Pirates of Silicon Valley knows what I’m talking about. I must recognize that when he was Apple’s CEO, it has created amazing stuff I use everyday, like my iPhone and my MacBook. About his health condition, at the same time I think he is paying for what he did, I wish him the best.

Found a home

I’m so sad I’m writing this post. But yes, I’m going back to Rio next week. Everything started when I went to Campus Party back in January. I was going to stay in a hotel, but I’d struggle to pay for that. So a friend of mine asked if I didn’t want to stay in his boyfriend’s home. I saw nothing wrong on that and we quickly became “friends”(you will understand why the fuck the word friends has the quotation marks soon). So when I moved to São Paulo, I’d share the apartment with him and a friend of his. It’s something very common here because people can split the bills, which are pretty expensive. When I arrived at SP, the first thing he told was that 2 more people were going to live with us. 5 people in such a small apartment totally disrespects the physical laws. So I just didn’t know what to do. I looked for an apartment to rent, but I found nothing.

At the same time, things didn’t go quite well at my work. My boss didn’t think I was good at programming because of my age. A friend of mine had recommended me for the job. That same friend helped me a lot in the beginning when I was about to get fired. To me, he is a very special guy because he did so much for me and I will never forget what he did. If someday I ever get rich, I will surely remember of those who helped me. Thanks Heinar, you’re an amazing guy. I will never forget what you did.

A few time later I got my boss to trust me and almost everything was fine. I started also behaving strangely(maybe because of the problems I was having, I was just so nervous and could not think). But I really learned a lot about society after that. I really really did and I’m very thankful for this.

Getting back to the apartment stuff, I wasn’t able to find anything. The first good news I heard was that my dad’s friend had a apartment here and he wouldn’t mind letting me stay there. That sounded like music to my ears(in fact, that sounded like a Michael Jackson song lol). But the bad news came a few time later. My dad’s friend has asked a friend of his to take care of the apartment and he had rented it. But I’d just have to wait 2 months and I’d have a place to stay.

I moved to my great grandaunt’s home temporary. I tried hard to find somewhere to rent, in case anything went wrong. But I wasn’t able to find something that fitted in my salary. After some intensive research, my dad talked to his friend and asked a few details. The problem was that the condo costs were over R$1,800.00. I could rent an apartment with this money, so of course I said “Thank you so much, but I cannot afford it”. He tried to help me and I’m thankful for that

I started to look for something to rent, but I couldn’t find anything. Everything was just so expensive that, well, I just CANNOT afford. My grandmother told me she would come here if needed to help me to look for a place to live. I work 8 hours per day and I just can’t spend so much time looking for a place to live. And, there’s more. I can only look for a place to rent in the weekends, which is very hard. For a some time, I thought I’d be able to find it by myself, but I ended up saying “Yes”. WHY!?!?!?!?!? Why the fuck I did this?

As soon as she came here, my great grandaunt’s children told her I needed to get out of her home ASAP, as her health isn’t very well. I cannot say I disagree with them, because she isn’t really doing well. My mom told my grandmother “Try to find something which will not require a contract”. In Brazil, we have to pay a 30% fee in case we break a renting contract. She took this very seriously… She kept ignoring anything she found that required a fucking contract. And yes, I’d have more time if she stayed where she was.

There are many people here which will rent rooms in their homes. I kept telling her to not look for this kind of stuff because it’s dangerous as hell. Did she listen to me? NO, SHE DIDN’T! She also found some apartments which didn’t require a contract. The only one available was at a neighborhood called Liberdade(“liberty” in Portuguese). It’s one of  the most dangerous neighborhoods in São Paulo. Crackheads invaded it. If they see you have something they find interesting(like a watch or a t-shirt), they will simply shot you and take your stuff. Then they will sell it to buy more crack. They don’t even ask you, they simply kill you. When I told her about this, she kept insisting on that. What the fuck!? I wonder what happened to her brain. Really, I don’t want to put my life under risk. Not really.

So, I ended up finding nothing and I will get back to Rio in next week. Everything seemed so perfect, but a lot of stuff went wrong. I really hope I could change this, but I cannot see anything happening anytime soon. I will just quit my fucking job and getting back to that crappy city. What a crappy life