All Fizzed Out

My liver would look as though it had been pan fried

After writing about my lack of fizz yesterday, it’s Thursday and I have just put the last bottle of sparkling mineral water in the fridge, which means I have drunk nine litres since Monday.

I’m so glad it’s not alcoholic, because I’d be giving my liver a real bashing.

About the photo two posts back of me doing ‘Santa’ in front of the BBQ, I don’t ‘do’ Santa, the ‘Ho ho hos’ are beer induced.

OMG, now what?

The one time in my life that I played Santa was at my son’s kindergarten. One of the kids toward the end of the ordeal looked me straight in the eye and “You’re Brett’s dad!”.

Never again.

The floods I mentioned yesterday, have been catastrophic.

Image – ArarunaOnline

My ex rang me earlier to tell me that the street she lived in in Austin (a sub-suburb of Rio interior) has been badly flooded and many houses destroyed  or badly flooded destroying everything.

Neighbours that I knew in the area are homeless.

This photo gives you an idea of the severity of the floods in the region.

Uruguay has legalised marijuana. The first country in the world to show some sense. The war against drugs is not winnable, other methods need to be looked at for a solution. My opinion is that drug addiction should be treated like alcoholism, it’s a sickness, you shouldn’t be jailed for being sick.

Britain is looking at changing their law to make it easier to criminilise ‘Legal Highs’, synthetic drugs. Stupid bastards, legal highs only exist because you’ve made everything else illegal. Once you make these illegal, they will make more synthetic drugs that’ll kill even more people. Wake up and smell the coffee, you’re all arse-about-face.

I got a badge from WordPress, 1,ooo Likes on my Things that Fizz & Stuff blog, cool.

I have just discovered via The Guardian, that the Russian Winter Olympics being held in Sochi are being questioned. Sochi is sub-tropical.

I thought they were ‘Winter Games’…

Yet, here you see a lovely beach scene on the Black Sea.

Doesn’t look very much like Winter Olympic weather to me.

Just enough time to squeeze in a nap before class.

Later.

Life Needs some Fizz

I sometimes buy this brand

Life without a little effervescence can be very dull and boring. It’s he fizz that puts the adventure component into ones life.

Last week at the second biggest supermarket in our region they were completely devoid of fizz. My particular fizz is sparkling mineral water. They had plenty of Coca Cola and other poisonous substances, oh, they’d never run out of them. But of those of us who drink only water (or beer or wine) there’s not enough profit in selling mere water.

Perrier and Evian were on the shelves but I refuse to pay those prices, so I went without until my next visit to the other supermarket.

Now I have fizz!

So refreshing. But the last two days have been so hot (40°C) , I have drunk three litres per day and my stocks are dwindling.

Reprieve today, we had heavy rain overnight. But the rain in the city has caused big problems; much of Rio is flooded. The centre of Rio is inundated, with traffic at a standstill; and many of the outlying suburbs have been hit catastrophically.

All the major highways in and around the city are flooded, the metrô (subway) has closed many stations. The mayor has asked people to stay at home because buses have stopped.

The Cookie Monster

Cookie monster has become real.

It has bee revealed that the American and British spy agencies are tracking cookies among their other email and communications spying. This means that all PCs that have cookies installed can be spied on.

Google is necessarily miffed about this, because more people will turn to programmes that neutralise cookies, therefore robbing Google of their profit-making capabilities. I am looking at doing this.

The world is becoming a very unsanitary place.

All this is supposed to be protecting the world from terrorism. But the agencies cannot name any blocked terrorist threat that was thwarted by this information gathering… It’s all bullshit!

It’s all about governments wanting total control.

The rain has started again, and I have work in just over an hour. Must think about something to eat; or a nap…

Later.

 

 

Lazy Day

The last three days have been much cooler; 20°C cooler, in fact, and raining, lots and lots of rain. Yesterday when I got home from class I was saturated from head to foot.

Image – Celso Pupo/AE

Lots of damage done overnight to at-risk housing, highways, bridges, trees and flooding through the state.

I had plans today, but they have all gone by the board. My students for tonight have all cancelled, so I have a day off… again.

While I like days off, it doesn’t do much for the wallet.

I had a wonderful lunch, poached merluza with capers.  Merluza do alasca is Pacific hake. Just dump the frozen fillets in the oven try, cover with milk, pour on some olive oil, add a couple of spoons of capers and season with pepper and salt. Couldn’t be easier; a real slap-dash meal. I have a big fillet left, I might make fish balls for lunch tomorrow….

Too cool to think about beer o’clock, so I’ll just doodle on here.

Blogging right along.

Later.

Yes, well…

what can one say? It’s Saturday.

Higgs Boson Event – Wikipedia

The world is in a mess. Heat wave in US, floods in UK and Russia, violent elections in Libya and messy ones in Mexico, Higgs Boson has been discovered and nobody really knows what that means, Syria is in a turmoil and shelling Lebanon, the US have determined that mermaids don’t exist, some famous person has separated from some other famous person, Israel is threatening to bomb Iran… again, the British are hot on Barclay’s  banking scandal and promising accountability, the Americans don’t know what accountability is and Stephen Hawking is having his brain read.

What does that all mean for you and me?

Today was sunny and we had a nice BBQ.

Complacency worries me.

I changed my coffee. I have always drunk Pilão, but recently the price went above R$7/500gm, so I resorted to one of my two secondary preferences, Bom Dia Extra Forte, and now that is approaching R$7, so last week I brought Pimpinela which is a brand drunk by many Brazilians, it was still below the R$6 mark, but the stuff is bloody horrible. Won’t be buying that again.

This post started out on Saturday, but Saturday has crept along and it is now Sunday. As predicted the weather changed overnight and it is raining, which is not good BBQ weather.

Lixo has just come in, soggy cat. He got caught in the downpour, and he expects me to stroke him until he gets dry. Happiness is NOT a wet pussy. He’s got the snots now and gone off for breakfast.

I haven’t really considered blogging yet, still on that first coffee waiting for inspiration to strike; it hasn’t struck yet.

 

Official – The End of the World

Stupid freakin' little robots

Yes, it’s official.

Big Brother Brazil 12 began last night as we have been warned ad nauseum every five minutes for the past week.

While last night I managed to avoid the programme and I hope to repeat the experience tonight, we are bombarded at every ad break being brainwashed to ‘love’ the new programme. Damn, it’s enough to make you puke.

The rain has stopped, well, a little over night, but not the same deluges that have had. Unfortunately another five bodies were recovered today in Sapauaia. A whole family rushing to escape the landslide after they heard the initial rumbling managed to get into their VW Beetle, but didn’t manage to escape. Father, Mother and three kids were buried alive. Tragedies like this are becoming commonplace here as the authorities continue to acknowledge that climate changes are worsening.

Oranges are cheap in Brazil; less than 60 cents US per kilo (2.204lbs). Oranges in the US are expensive and getting more so, today they hit an all time high. The US has banned Brazilian imports contaminated with carbendazim, a fungicide, that is banned in the USA. Brazilians authorities aren’t quite so conscious about these things.

Bus fares went up 25 centavos on the first business day of the year, and I am waiting the news now, they are announcing a further increase. Well, that was a relief, the news is over, it wasn’t a fare increase in Rio but two other states.

Carnaval is winding up. Due to start on the 21st Feb. Just in case you haven’t decided where to spend February; I’ll leave you with this 30 second thought.

OMG – It’s started already

Mondays

This is the first ‘real’ Monday of the year.

Last Monday didn’t really count, it was too soon after New Year, sort of survived because the mind was still a bit numb.

But my worries for Monday were inconsequential when compared with the rest of the State of Rio de Janeiro.  The last more than a week severe rains in both Rio and Minas Gerais to the north created massive problems, cutting highways, isolating communities and towns and leaving thousands homeless.

Floods in Sapucaia

Today, after a brief respite over the weekend, the rains returned with terrible consequences. In Sapucaia on the state border the town is flooded completely.

Landslides buried houses

A landslide buried houses, so far they have recovered eight dead with another 15 people unaccounted for.

And I am worried about the trivialities that Monday bring my way.