The Whitehawk

Yesterday, my girlfriend’s computer “broke”. Well, not the physical part, instead, it was Windows’ file system. After a couple of hours of trying to repair it but simply failing with every known method (her legit Windows XP CD simply didn’t give the “repair” option, so I ended up having to use a “backup version”.

Thankfully, all of her data seemed to be intact, however, due to the inability to hook up her computer with mine, even though we both have Windows XP computers (yeah… Microsoft is like that sometimes), and lack of time, I ended up lending her my 4Gb iPod Nano for her to backup her most important files.

I’m on “vacation” before my exams start, so I figured I wouldn’t be leaving the house much, therefore, not needing the iPod much. I was so wrong…

Yesterday I stayed over at my mother’s apartment, where the most advanced gadget there is Digital TV receiver/decoder, and today when I was catching a bus to come home, I accidentally reached for my pocket, hoping to hear some music before reaching home but my iPod wasn’t there. I sat quietly in the bus thinking to myself:

Well, it’s not that bad… I mean, this is only a 15/20 minute journey, so how bad can it get?

After 5 minutes of moving and stopping, on what seemed to be countless bus stops I thought to myself: “Wow, was this journey always this slow?“. And the fact that one in every 3 people that entered the bus had a music player of some sort didn’t help much either.
Thankfully, the journey was over, and I was home once again, listening to music on iTunes. Then I went to the coffee with a friend and neighbor, and he started telling me about some cool Manga (Japanese comics) he had downloaded. At that point I gained an urge to go over to his house and transfer them to my iPod, but then I remembered, I don’t have my iPod right now.

It has only been one day since I’ve lent it, and I already miss it a lot!

Have you ever grown so accustomed to a gadget that you now find it hard to spend a day without it?

Journal

Hello everyone, I’m terribly sorry for not posting this sooner but I simply haven’t had the time. You must be thinking that I’ve gone mad for being away from my computer for so long, but the truth is that I haven’t been far from it. I’ve been busy with the normal Christmas lunches and dinners and in all the free time I have I’ve been trying to work on version 2 of this site’s design and also playing Ragnarok Online a bit.

Until January 1st, there will be no more posts on the Whitehawk, but when it does reopen from it’s short vacation, I’ll be doing a retrospective on 2006 and tell you what my favorite moments, and things, were. Perhaps I’ll even tag a few 9rulers to do the same, so look forward to that!

I hope you had a great Christmas, and enjoy these last few days of 2006 in the best way you can. See you again in 2007!

Journal

Yesterday, the Nintendo Wii was released in Europe, and since I had reserved one, I was (thankfully) able to pick one up from the only FNAC in Madeira. When I got home, I started playing right away, and even got my mother to play it a bit (unfortunately, only the consoles arrived, no Games nor peripherals arrived yet). I thought that those moments would be some of the best, if not the best, this Christmas.

Today when I turned on my laptop, and saw a message from David Peralty popping up and saying “CONGRATS ON THE 9rules ENTRY” I couldn’t believe my eyes! I rushed as fast as I could to their network blog and there it was, The Whitehawk is in. And now I have no doubts, this is certainly the best, and most surprising, Christmas gift so far!

Now I have the arduous task of choosing two categories to put this blog in… and I’m not sure about what to choose. But all in all, I guess that I’ll choose “Anime”, since it’s one of the things I’m certain that I’ll continue about. The second category will be “Personal”. Even though I like writing about technology, most of the things I put in this blog are opinionated, therefore, I think that’s the second category that suits it best.
Technology is probably one of the categories that gives me the most “leeway” since I can write about anything slightly related to it. Hopefully, I’ll finish Version 2.0 before the end of this year
and try to focus a bit more on those categories. But for all visitors, be advised that this blog will be mostly about myself.

If you look just below the blog’s title, in very light blue (yes, I know, terrible contrast), this blog is about: Marco Jardim’s and thoughts and hobbies: exposed.

And now, even though it’s not even 11am yet, I’m going out to celebrate!

Journal, White Hawk

After many long and tortuous months of waiting for a decent technology store, FNAC, the European equivalent of BestBuy (but with a much better customer service), has finally arrived!

My father received an invitation, and so we were able to be some of the first customers on the island. FNAC is a great job that you can visit where you can watch TV, test computers, test gadgets, grab a book (from the shelves) and read it, you can even read it in FNAC’s coffee shop.

But the best thing about FNAC, is really the service, you can walk in, do “whatever you want” (as long as you’re not damaging any material or disturbing the other customers or the staff) and you won’t have an annoying little salesmen with a tie asking: “Can I help you with anything?” every five minutes. If you lived in Madeira island, you’d understand better what I’m talking about.

So if you live in Madeira, and you like Technology, or Books, or Music or Films, FNAC is the best place to shop for any and all of those things.

Journal

Today me and my girlfriend celebrated 2 and a half years of putting up with each other. And as such we decided to something that we she really loves: eat chocolate.

So we went to one of our favorite coffee shops and decided to order something that a friend of recommended, the house’s hot Chocolate, and share it try to steal a bit of it while she is distracted. I, instead of ordering the same, decided to order coffee (I <3 coffee), which besides being equally good (for me) comes with a nice little chocolate to eat afterwards.

So we had a nice talk, she talked about the things girls usually talk about, you know, their friends, the things their friend’s boyfriends did, etc, etc. And I talked about how she should mind her own business instead
Being the nice boyfriend that I am, I decided to let her have the chocolate that came with my coffee and got up to pay before she had a chance to. Afterwards, as we were walking out of the coffee store she looked at me with a very preoccupied expression on her face, for a moment I thought something serious and troubling had happened, and then she said:

“Honey! … Did you bring the chocolate?”

I looked back at her with a blank expression just before I started laughing. She started laughing shyly and then looked inside her purse and said with a very soft voice:

“Oh… it’s here…”

It’s funny how ridiculous we can be sometimes when there’s something we really want. That’s how salesmen rip us off, but it’s also how we love, and there’s no one in this world that makes me act more ridiculously than her. I guess it’s love…

Love you Cris ***

Journal

Hello, my name is Marco, I’m 22 years old, and I’m an iPod addict.

Have you ever felt that you were connected to your iPod more than most gadgets? Well, with the exception of your personal computer, of course.

Today, just a I finished grabbing my backpack to head to college, I noticed I was missing my iPod. So I went to look at it at the places where I usually place things (at an arm’s distance from where I sit). When, to my despair, I couldn’t find it, I began looking for it at a more frantic pace.

And when I still couldn’t find it, I started looking for it in places that weren’t average, like the kitchen and living room, and I even ran to my car to see if I had left it connected to the iTrip I recently bought.

Eventually, I ran out of time, so I headed to college in my car listening to one of the CDs I burned quite a while ago, with a feeling of emptiness. I was once again reduced to a technology that was available 2 years before I was born (thanks Wikipedia).

I felt a little more irritated than usually, because I felt stripped of my daily routine of choosing which album, which artist or which playlist I felt like hearing. And instead, I was reduced to a single CD from a single artist.

At college, I couldn’t concentrate correctly in classes, the thought of where I could have misplaced my iPod kept coming back to me, regardless of how hard I tried to pay attention to all the nice numbers and calculations on the white board.

After what seemed like forever, I rushed home, not even bothering to put any music on, and restarted my search for the iPod.

Ironically, I found it exactly where I usually place it, underneath a DVD.

I guess the lesson here is: don’t misplace your DVDs.

But what I learned today was much more than that. Now I know why people have such a fondness for the iPod over all other music players, and why it continues to increase it’s sales more and more. In short, it’s because you grow attached to it. After you’ve bought a couple of accessories, or even if you haven’t, the iPod becomes the center of your digital live.

When you turn on your PC, you plug it on the dock/cable. When you get to your car, you plug it to the radio or broadcast to some radio frequency, when you’re studying, you plug it on the dock and use it as a mini stereo with the aid of the Apple Remote.

The iPod is involved with various little things of my life, because I chose to. Because I feel comfortable, and confident enough to. Sure, I know I sound like a fanboy right now, but the iPod isn’t just a music player, at least not for me.

It’s as if you don’t get used to the iPod, but the iPod get’s used to you. And now that I think about it, I wonder why the old Sony flash player I had didn’t have the same effect to me, although I found it a great gadget.

Journal

Today marks the beginning of a new month, however, that month came filled with surprises, some good, and some bad.

Yesterday, I had one of the most tiresome days of the year. I’ve been having some problems with my eyes, due to the lack of sleep I think. And I wanted to go home and rest, because I had only slept 5 hours, therefore, as you can presume, I was very tired.

Instead of catching a bus like I should have, I asked my father for a lift, since he usually goes home at the time I intended to. But instead of going home, he put me doing errands for him across various different places for an important dinner he’s organizing for the visit of the Portuguese Rotary President.

At the end, we went to the mechanic we usually take our cars to, to pay for the repairs for the yearly-scheduled revision they made. As we were coming back, my father looked at the spot where a car radio should be, which was void of a radio with a bunch of wires twirling inside it and decided to buy me a new one.

This, of course, made me really happy, and he got me one of the nicest ones in the store even. After that, when we finally got home and I thought my worries were over, I turned on my PC only to discover that the HDD had died.

So I spent the rest of the hours in the afternoon trying to ressurect it from the dead. Until I gave up, wrote the ForeverGeek articles and went to bed.

This Thursday marks the day of the dinner, in which I’ll be representing my Rotaract club, since I’m the Vice and the President is gone. So I have to read a lot of pages about Rotaract in case any questions regarding it emerge.

So this month’s goals for me are: get a new HDD (duh), improve my blogging (even I make it in 9rules or not), and to try to be more sensible about my sleeping hours.

Journal

Today I went to the Rotary Funchal dinner-meeting and met an interesting person who happened to share many interests with me, in terms of technology and art. We talked about various things, from Technology to Politics, but, the most interesting thing he said, and taught me, was about our inability to separate our opinions from white and black.

He is a painter, and as one, he picked up the menu in front of him, pointed at a water-color drawing and said something like this:

(I hope he’ll excuse me for this not being the proper order of our conversation, but I think that the message will come through in the same way)

“You can not say if this drawing is good or bad (…) however, you can say that you like it, or you can say that you don’t like it.

I, however, as an artist, can say if it is, good or not. Because I have the proper formation, and knowledge to do so.”

Then he looked at his glass of wine and said:

“Because it’s not my area, I can’t say if this wine or good or bad.”

A bit further on the conversation he explained:

“We can’t teach people what is good or bad, we can only transmit to them our knowledge. They have to decide for themselves what they like or not. People shouldn’t brand things just as black or white, because there are various shades of gray in between them.”

And he’s completely right. Most people nowadays don’t bother to look at someone or something as something different from black or white. They follow a trend, or their personal opinion, and just brand it as such.

Why?

Well, perhaps because it’s easier that way. If the trend is to say bad things about Sony, or Microsoft, then they instantly brand them as “black”, but if a few weeks later they happen to release or announce a great product they instantly go back to being “white”, despite still having all the previous flaws.

If we want to be successful in life we have to learn to distinguish the various shades of gray between the two opposites. If we can’t manage to do that we’ll just be “another brick in the wall”.

Just another small lesson I picked up from an elder. I wish there were more people like him around.

Journal

Yep, that’s my bedroom right now, leaking. And yes, that is my PC hiding under the desk, hoping it will go away… Unfortunately, as long as rain keeps pouring, the water will keep coming… thank God I’m spending the night at my mother’s apartment.

*edit* - just to make it clear, water also leaked on my bed, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone past the diaper-period.

Journal

I met what I believe was the most annoying brat ever, and he isn’t much younger than me.

For three hours, me and two others tried to answer his questions and doubts, and instead of accepting our answers, even though we gave him facts, he questioned our words.

We told him that our college was in a difficult situation right now, and if the situation doesn’t change it could very well close it’s doors in a near future. Since he isn’t worried about it (because he self-proclaimed himself as intelligent and relatively wealthy) he started claiming that we were exaggerating things even though we gave him all the reasons we could.

And it got worse when he started contradicting himself. First he claimed that our college was not under a crisis, and that things are getting better, but later he acknowledged and spoke about a bunch of facts we are all aware of that confirm how bad the situation is.

Even though he claims to be successful in his classes, I’m terrified that there naive people, such as himself, acting as representatives. He has no problem in acknowledging facts, but he has trouble perceiving them as a whole and attributing a name to them.

Oh well, I guess that it’s normal that after a couple of hours of conversation with one of these persons is enough to bring even the strongest of minds down.

Journal