Paulo Seabra

Well, a few things to get out of the way before I begin. First, the episode I'm gonna talk about, that you probably already guessed from the picture, isn't considered the best. Indeed, the episode I liked most is currently ranked seventh on IMDB. Second, I only watched the show up to the third season, which obviously means I haven't watched all the episodes to know for sure that this is the best one. Third and last, this article comes more or less in continuity with another which I previously wrote, also not very laudatory of the show, which you can, if you want to, read here. The episode I wanna talk about in this article is [303]  Shut Up and Dance. The first thing I found interesting about this episode is that, in a show about very futuristic technology, it has no futuristic technology. As far as I can remember, all gadgets featured therein are real and currently available. So without the usual tech gimmick, what does the episode hinge on? Well, the theme here is black...

You heard it all by now – Game of Thrones sucked. Everyone and their aunt-girlfriend has talked about it. I won't go into too much detail about it but suffice it to say that I agree with the majority opinions, namely that the show was rushed, that every ounce of logic went out the window so as to give way to cool shots, that characters stopped making any sense, that everything the show was built on was totally forgotten, such as the political intrigue, the house allegiances, old oaths and rivalries, all that and then some. On a positive note, the dragon CGI was an ace. But was it enough to save the show? No, not really. Cool vistas, even very cool ones, only get you so far. If the story isn't any good then the charm of the visuals just wanes with each subsequent viewing. For example, as a huge fan of the first four seasons, I still often find myself rewatching random dialogue scenes from those episodes, just for the smart characters and the political complexity. But on my seco...

Estou a ler Marcel Proust pela segunda vez... Há quem diga que é comum da parte dos seus leitores iniciarem uma segunda leitura logo após a tortura que é a primeira. Quanto a mim posso dizer que seja esse o caso. Quando li este primeiro volume pela primeira vez decidi que não tinha interesse em ler os outros seis, mas depois mudei de ideias e li-os. Mas li quase como que só para poder dizer ter lido. Então o objetivo seria não mais pensar no livro mas isso afigurou-se estranhamente impossível. Surgia uma crescente curiosidade em ler sínteses ou resumos e ficava-me sempre aquela surpresa depois de ler sobre um acontecimento do qual já não tinha memória. Por isso é que me proponho agora a uma segunda e muito, muito mais demorada leitura, para que possa compreender o livro pelo menos o suficiente para dizer qualquer coisa interessante sobre ele. Em relação ao título deste artigo, do qual planeio fazer uma série, decidi usar o termo que usei porque nenhum outro me pareceu mais correto. Nã...

Não sou nenhum expert em linguística mas gosto de pensar que tenho algum know-how no assunto, até porque, se posso dizer ter um único skillset, é um skillset em palavras. Por isso é que criei um blog, no qual gostaria de receber um ou dois likes e shares. Esse tipo de frase parece-me cada vez mais comum nos dias de hoje. É engraçado ver como cada vez mais fazemos uso de palavras americanas, e digo americanas uma vez que este tipo de palavras, devido a uma forte associação à tecnologia, parecem-me universais num sentido americano mais do que britânico. A meu ver, a nossa língua demonstra alguma dificuldade em traduzir certos termos correntes, e por isso, em vez de se adaptar, deixa-se apenas consumir por eles. Cada vez mais notamos que, em conversa normal, há uma crescente necessidade de empregar termos americanos, ou então, se não se trata de uma necessidade propriamente dita, talvez seja antes um facilitismo. É simplesmente mais fácil empregar palavras americanas em linguagem corrent...

I am not a muslim. I'm not even religious. But I suppose I have slowly come to realize that old books have some wisdom in them. If anything, just the sheer size of the literature alone, both in terms of the divinely inspired or revealed texts themselves, as well as the various exegesis and philosophies written afterwards, some of it is bound to be insightful. And as such, in recent years I've started to take a more charitable approach towards religion, and while islam doesn't particularly appeal to me, there was a while when, in my second year of college, I'd read the Quran out of a semi-academic interest and I'd try to pick up on some arabic words. The book did seem eloquent, always telling old stories, revealing bits of wisdom, establishing rules and regulations and so on, all through constant verse and rhyme, something which people tend to find less exhausting than the storytelling style of the Bible. As far as arabic itself goes, it was a nice feeling to make ou...

I first heard about this show back when there were only three seasons of it. I heard of how brilliantly written and insightful it was, riddled with prophetic and haunting lessons about technology, and everyone who recommended the show made special mention of just how intense and dark it was, to the point where they couldn't stomach more than one or two episodes at a time. All very promising stuff to hear but I can't say the show lived up to any of those expectations, at least to me. I find it to be mostly over-the-top since it frequently seems to rely on shock value. And the technological questions, while somewhat insightful, seem more like a constant stream of what ifs that were impulsively brought up during the writing process and were immediately after slammed on the page without a second thought, always as an attempt to wow the viewers, often at the cost of narrative integrity. At the end of the day the show is just twists on top of twists on top of twists. I suppose in a w...

This is an awesome game. For my money it's the greatest PS1 game of all time. I played it a whole lot as a kid, though I mostly played the first phase of the campaign, and then just played free duel to discover new fusions as I farmed for starchips that I actually never got to spend. Later on, in my teen years, I managed to cheese my way through Pegasus and Kaiba with the help of my trusty Jirai Gumo and Job-Change Mirror into Summoned Skull. And that's exactly where my playthrough stayed, that is, until recently. I got a sudden urge to replay this game and in doing so, I realized that there is still a very solid Forbidden Memories community around. People are looking to figure out new stuff about the game, they are modding it, they are coming up with new self-imposed game modes, and so on. The game is a lot of fun in its own right, it's bright and colorful, it can take a good amount of strategy which makes the duels exciting, and of course, the music is amazing. There...