The Diary Of John

Friday, December 26, 2003

Awww it didnt work :-(

This is Beagle 2, it was supposed to try to find evidence of life or life itself on Mars. They have been trying to get a signal from it but unfortunately they cant find it :-(. I was hoping that they would at least tell us something new about Mars. Still all hope isnt yet lost as they are hoping that its mothership will be able to make contact with it. More news when i hear it okay? :-)

posted at 5:00 PM by john |

Did you have a good xmas?

So how did your xmas day go? Did you all have a good one? How many of you went to see LOTR? lol. I will go to see it later with Roberta when she has time to go with me to the cinema. After all its not going to be a suprise for me as i already read the books lol. I'll be interested to see if they have made it as good or better than the other two previous ones though :-)

Anyway my xmas was just great. Spent xmas eve night with both Roberta and the family here too which was great although i was struggling to stay awake xmas eve night lol. I got a nice little bag thingy that will come in handy when i just want to carry small things :-). For me though xas day is really just an ordinary day as now my children are grown up and for me that is always the best part of xmas :-). Xmas day itself i got to suprise Roberta with her gift and i got the size right too hahaha. I was dreading that i got one too small or that she wouldnt like it etc :-) She told me that she loved it so i must have done just right then :-)

At the moment here its raining, luckily though i was back from downtown before it started. I went to Taco to get a pair of jeans. I love the jeans they sell there. they are well made and i like the denim material they use too. I was going to get some of their tee-shirts too but i didnt want to be there too lçong because of the rain so just got the jeans :-). I have some of their shirts that my students brought me for xmas and teachers day etc :-). I hope that it stops raining by tomorrow or Estancia will be a swamp lol

Talking of tomorrow, i am going with Roberta to spend the day with one of my students Gilson :-). He and his family invited us to go spend the day with them so it'll be nice to go visit his city although i was told its a bit dismal lol. Sunday i'll go to visit Robertas farm, i cant wait as i used to live right next-door to a farm in the UK and it was nice to get to see everything that happened during the year :-).

Ha ha my cell phone is sending messages again lol. All day it has refused to send one single message yet now its a rainstorm it decides to work, crazy or what ? hahaha :-)

I was reading on one of the websites about this thing called RSS and decided to check it out for my blogger site. Unfortunately though blogger supports it just for the pro part but this is a little confusing as they dont have blogger pro anymore. Wierd aint it? I was trying to find out if there was an easy way for me to use this RSS stuff without having to know loads of complicated html stuff but when i read up on a few sites i was soon lost lol. Hopefully blogger will osrt ot out soon as alot of people use RSS to find out about sites and updates too so it would maybe get a few more people to read my site about my mainly boring life hahaha. Maybe i'll email blogger with the new idea thing and see if they can say how long it'll be before we have to RSS stuff for the free people who have weblogs with them. When they reply i'll tell you what they say okay? :-)

Okay time for me to go and get something to eat here, im starving and i can smell dinner cooking :-). I dont know what we are having yet but it smells delicious :-)

posted at 4:42 PM by john |

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

New version of Wbloggar :-)

Well there is a new version of Wbloggar, i cant see a lot of difference though in the look of it. first thing i did was to test the spellchecker and it still crashes or locks up the program. I cant figure out why that happens. Never mind though, all i really use it for is updating my weblog :-). I recommend it to people that use blogger especially to a site thats not hosted on blogspot because it makes uploading pictures a breeze :-). Also there are lots of other fun things to mess around with too although i dont use most of them lol.

Well there is just a few minutes here until xmas day, i visited Robertas family this evening just for a couple of hours as tomorrow i will spend the afternoon there :-). Im not sure exactly what we will do there tomorrow, but i'll suprise Roberta with her present hahaha. I'll be curious to see what is happening in planaltina tomorrow on xmas day, lots of religious stuff i guess... In other words BORING hahaha. This word sums up all of Planaltina no matter what the day here :-). At the moment im starving as i have eaten very little today so that i can have dinner at mid night lol. They will need a whole chicken just for me lol

We have some pirate films here from the fair to watch over xmas, i'll watch the Finding Nemo one but Shrek i wont bother with as the portugues dubbed version isnt funny at all. They cant seem to translate the crazy sense of humor of the film very well, probably because they dont understand how american and english people could have such a wierd sense of humor lol. Luckily Roberta says she likes that im a little crazy, is this good or bad to be a little crazy i have to ask myself hahaha. Im lucky though that the other film is in english. I was told that its very very funny so i'll borrow it to watch with Roberta and her cousin :-)

Okay time for me to get offline here, For all of you that read my crazy weblog have a good xmas okay and dont go getting too pissed ;-)

posted at 8:38 PM by john |

Things not to do during LOTR - Return Of The King

1. Stand up halfway through the movie and yell loudly, "Wait... where
the hell is Harry Potter?"

2. Block the entrance to the theater while screaming: "YOU SHALL NOT
PASS!" - After the movie, say "Lucas could have done it better."

3. Play a drinking game where you have to take a sip every time
someone says: "The Ring."

4. Point and laugh whenever someone dies.

5. Ask everyone around you if they think Gandalf went to Hogwarts.

6. Finish off every one of Elrond's lines with "Mr. Anderson."

7. When Aragorn is crowned king, stand up and at the top of your
lungs sing, "And I did it.... MY way...!"

8. Talk like Gollum all through the movie. At the end, bite off
someone's finger and fall down the stairs.

9. Dress up as old ladies and reenact "The Battle of Helms Deep"
Monty Python style.

10. When Denethor lights the fire, shout "Barbecue!"

11. In TTT when the Ents decide to march to war, stand up and
shout "RUN FOREST, RUN!"

12. Every time someone kills an Orc, yell: "That's what I'm Tolkien
about!" See how long it takes before you get kicked out of the
theatre.

13. During a wide shot of a battle, inquire, "Where's Waldo?"

14. Talk loudly about how you heard that there is a single frame of a
nude Elf hidden somewhere in the movie.

15. Start an Orc sing-a-long.

16. Come to the premiere dressed as Frankenfurter and wander around
looking terribly confused.

17. When they go in the paths of the dead, wait for tense moment and
shout, "I see dead people!"

18. Imitate what you think a conversation between Gollum, Dobby and
Yoda would be like.

19. Release a jar of daddy-long-legs into the theater during the
Shelob scene.

20. Wonder out loud if Aragorn is going to run for governor of
California.

21. When Shelob comes on, exclaim, "Man! Charlotte's really let
herself go!"

My friend Rosana sent this to my email, i thought that it was really funny lol. I hope you guys like reading it too :-)

Well this morning i am still apparently having cell phone problems. It's very strange as i seem to send messages to TIM phones no problem but Roberta and her mums phone i just get these terrible error messages. The thing that i dont get is that i can send a message and get an error saying it failed but that the date for the failed message is a week ago.. wierd or what? I'll just have to wait and see if they come to Planaltina today as then i can go to their place or they can ring me from a land line.

Im supposed to be shifting a load of sand this morning but im the only one here and have orders not to try to put the dog into his house on my own. He can get a little crazy sometimes lol. I wanted to have it done by 11am but i dont think that i will manage to get it done now as its already 9.30am and the pile of sand is huge. I'll just have to grow another set of arms and legs i guess lol.

Xmas day is tomorrow and i still havent been to get any fancy wrapping paper for roberta's present. I'll have to try to rush and get some later on or just get one of those cutsy box type things that they use here. For me though xmas is just really another day, a very expensive day but after its gone things will get back to normal i hope. Well we will have to suffer all of the drunken people that wander around on xmas and new years day but we can hope it will pass soon right?. Drunken people, i hate being around them! There is nothing worse than having to listento bullshit spoken by a drunkard, and have you noticed that they automatically become experts at everything possible and can also take on and beat anyone in a room? Very sad, they need to get a life instead of looking for one in the bottle of a beer can

Okay i had better try to get the dog in his pen and make a start or nothing will get done here..

posted at 6:44 AM by john |

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Just doing a quick post here lol

I'm waiting for the tv to be free so i can watch a video and the computer was jumped online for a little while :-). I just messed with the Livejournal site and found out that you can sign up for free so i played and to be honest i dont see how its better than the stuff i already use. The Livejournal client is basically crap and has not half the features of either the Blogger website or the Wbloggar client. I wouldnt recommend it to anyone..

I'm waiting to see if Roberta is going to text me so that i can call her too. My cell phone has been having a few problems with sending messages to her, i dont know why it is like this as the other week it was working just fine. Now i cant get alot of my messages to send :-(. Hopefully though i'll get to ring her later on which'll be nice. I think though maybe she will be busy with preparing stuff for xmas day as there is only one day to go here. For me though xmas day is really just another day, of course when my kids were younger it was a lot of fun but they are grown up now so for me just having the tree up is more than enough lol.

Just checking my cell phone here, the battery is past flat hahaha. Man it needs a weeks worth of charge here just to put some life into it again :-). I need a car battery instead of that little thing thats shoved into the back of my phone hahaha. It would be a bit hard though to carry it around i guess, wouldnt be a mobile phone anymore ;-). Anyway its charging now so hopefully by the morning it'll have some life in it lol

Im trying to send text messages to Roberta again but no luck :-(. I wonder what the problem is, i thought that i had figured out what it was because the inbox on the cell phone was full but it seems to be something else now instead. I am going to ask ask TIM cell company what the problem is with my cell phone, i pay loads of money per month for it and it never works :-(. Cheap crap that they charge a fortune for and half the time it never works :-(. Soon it will be better for me to use a fire here and send smoke signals lol

Anyway i guess i'll go try yet again and then get something to eat as i am starving and then watch my video if the tv is free. I'm going to watch Red Planet. Its an old film but i havent seen it yet plus its dublado, guess it will help me practice listening in portugues right? lol

posted at 6:09 PM by john |

Today went xmas shopping.. well sort of hahaha

In the UK they have freezing conditions and they are saying that maybe 2,500 people will die because of the cold weather snap they have there at the moment. A couple of people 80yrs old died the other week because the gas energy company cut off their gas supply leaving them without any heating fuel whatsoever :-(. Can you believe this bullshit?, talk about profit taking the place of human life. My parents are both fine though as all of my brothers and sister live at home so i dont have to worry there. Of course here in Brasil its going to be blistering hot i think for xmas day, in fact im sitting here with sweat running off me just typing away on the keyboard lol.

This morning i journeyed to Plano Piloto to waste a little time as Roberta is back on her parents farm until tomorrow. It gave me time to get her something for xmas, nothing huge but just something for her to open on xmas day :-). I wont tell her about it as it'll be fun to see if i manage to suprise her or if she will guess that i will pull some stunt like this. Shes seems to know me alot better than i thought. lol. I'll not put what it is here just incase Roberta manages to get online lol. I'll go pick some cutsy wrapping paper up tomorrow before she arrives here so that when i go to her Grandmothers house xmas day afternoon it will at least look half-decent :-)

I spent a few days hunting around for some Post-Its. In the Uk you can get them just about anywhere but here in the arse of Brasil - Planaltina i couldnt find anywhere that stocked them. the first place downtown that i went to had a rack full of them lol. Roberta is helping me to learn portugues hopefully a little quicker so i want to use them to mark places, grammer or things that i dont understand or too add notes where i need to remember things etc. It amazes me how hard it is here to find such simple things as these Post-It things here hahaha, still Planaltina is 30km from the city so i guess that may have something to do with it. I know where to go now next time i need some although i have a bulk supply to last a few weeks lol. Roberta is going use some of them to help her mum to learn english too i think, good job i brought loads of them :-). She told me that her mum wants to learn english so that she can talk english with me, isnt that nice? :-).

I have to go to the video store this evening to take back the film i rented the other night, i want to watch the LOTR - The Two Towers again before we watch the new film on friday maybe just to refresh my memory :-). If i had time i would watch both of the first films again but this near to xmas i just havent got enough time to do all the things that i want now hahaha. Its either that or i am finally getting old and slowing down ;-). I cant wait to see how they bring the story to the end, i am hoping that it'll be the best of all the trilogy, it probably wont win an Oscar though as we all know how fixed they are right? :-(

Oh maybe if the CCAA school get the internet fixed both me and Roberta will have a sort of joint weblog, i dont know yet if it will happen but if it does i'll post the link on here okay?... right off the guzzle Pepsi and get to the video store :-)

posted at 2:40 PM by john |

Sunday, December 21, 2003

I need more coffee!!!!!

10am here at the moment and i am downing loads of coffee here and panetone too or whatever its name is lol. Its a nice morning here at the moment, not too hot and a coolish breeze although i am sure it will get alot hotter later on this afternoon. Today though i will visit the Zoo i think with Roberta, will be alot of fun as they aree sure to have loads of animals that they dont have in zoo's in the UK. Well i hope that they do anyway lol.

This morning i'll have lunch with Robertas family before we got downtown, i wonder if i'll meet any of them that i havent yet met?. We spent the day in Plano Piloto yesterday, was nice to get to spend the day together just wandering around. We didnt get to see the movie we wanted to see either, it was only showing at park shopping and the metro apparently doesnt work on the weekends and getting buses is a pain in the arse lol. Still going to the zoo should be a lot of fun, after all i'm a little crazy and Roberta says she likes me a little crazy. Hopefully this is a good thing right? hahaha.

I was hoping that my brother would send me some more photos from the UK this weekend but nothing has arrived yet. Still he could be working up until xmas eve so maybe thats the reason why? Im sure i will get some sooner or later. I have some photos of me and Roberta but dont have a scanner to scan the pics and all of my students are on vacation now so it might take a while before you get to see any new photos lol. I will see how much it costs to have my photos put onto a cdrom, probably very expensive here as they try to exploit everything they can here to get rich quick. I'll check it out today if i get time this afternoon.

Lord Of The Rings - Return Of The King will be here 25th dec but i wont bother going this day as one i will be at Robertas Grandmothers to meet everyone and plus it will be very difficult to get tickets. I'm not sure when we will go yet but i think its going to easily be the film of the year. It probably wont win in the Oscars though as they tend not to give the award to films that have done well in the box office. Well apart from that terrible Titanic film with that bloody De Caprio guy who cant act but we all know that it was fixed right?..

Oh phone hang on okay?

Hahaha it was Roberta wanting me to take some photos we took at a students pizza party to her house so her family can see them all :-). I have to find a nice frame for one of them so that she can have it in her room :-). I like her family alot, they are alot of fun and make me always feel welcome :-)

Sounds like everyone else is getting up here, i can here alot of people talking now. I was the first one awake at 6.30 this morning, i couldnt sleep any more so just filled Robertas phone with text messages instead hahaha. I always wake early, no matter what time i go to sleep i am still awake early lol. Its a pain sometimes though especially when i want to have a lie in and i cant hahaha. Let me get some more coffee here before they drink it all ;-). Okay all sorted now, this afternoon i will just drink water i guess at i am sure that i will get really hot. Judging from the sky now even with the breeze it will be a beautiful day (Of course i'll be with Roberta so its bound to be a beautiful day hahaha). I'll just have to stuff myself full of ice cream instead, after all its dirt cheap here if you dont buy Hagen Daas which is really really expensive here and tastes terrible. I swear people just buy it so they can tell their friends they have eaten it whether it tastes good or not. Some people have more money than sense i reckon.

Awwww got a text message from my TT2 students thanking me for helping them last semester with their english. I liked alot all of my students in my groups in Sobradinho but i wont work under the conditions they have there. I'll go and visit them sometime though just for fun and to piss of the cleaner and secretaries there. Aparrently Regina (The Scrubber woman) told everyone that she was going to throw a party after i left, be a little hard for a person who gets R$200 a month. what would they eat at her party???.. a cup of water and one pao de queijo? hahaha!!! She should get a life instead of being such a sorry sackk of shite. At least im free, just like Mr Smith hahaha. Some of the students though are going to study in Planaltina though which'll be great, they can meet Roberta and have fun with my other students :-).

Funny i usually write just about my school stuff, seems that the last few posts are more me though, oh i cant have this.. Talking about myself?, my god whatever next? hahaha. Could be setting a bad example to myself right? ;-)

Okay time for me to go post on a few other weblogs while i have access to a computer. Enjoy your weekend gals and guys :-)

posted at 7:20 AM by john |