So here's what happened a couple days ago.
I'm staying at my parents place these days as I'm helping them with business. I didn't bother bringing my laptop since it's not so new, and I don't have wireless. Besides, their home computer, from where I'm typing now has a pretty good internet connection. Earlier this week, I switched it on, but Windows didn't load. Neither starting windows in security mode, or last mode that was working well, nothing, nada, niente, rien, meiyou! Ups!
I don't have any computers know-how, other than using them, I also don't have much interest in computer related stuff. Unlike most of my friends, I actually never played any online video game (online card games don't count OBV), probably the only computer game I've ever played was Football Manager. I'm not a computer master, but usually I can solve whatever problems I encounter as most of the stuff are intuitive to find a solution, and formatting is a highly-eficcient last resource tool.
Since I couldn't turn it on, that eliminated asking for support through the internet to my friends. Luckily Paulo Carvalho on my cellphone contacts proved to be the key for a troublesome door. Oh, and did I forget to mention that all the procedures I had to make were with software in Chinese language? Obv it would be too easy if could fully read what the computer was saying. So here's what I had to do.
- Open the computer, take out the hard disk check if it looks in good conditions, plug all wires again - Failed
- Boot from the Windows CD - Failed
- Install Windows again - Failed, but from what my limited chinese could read apparently the hard disk was damaged.
- Buy a new hard disk, install it.
- Not find the motherboard CD, so open the computer again to check qhich model and download the corresponding drivers.
- Realize that most of the software is still not running well, update whatever I needed.
- Try to find and install all the software that the old disk had, in Chinese of course.
Other than the lost data from the old disk, which I will still try to recover when I go back to Lisbon, I did what I could to put my father's computer operational again. I was in a bit of hurry since he's coming back tomorrow. Despite my efforts, I'm pretty sure I will still be scolded, and it wasn't even my fault.
Anyway, big thanks to Paulo Carvalho for all the help and patience. I'm going to link to his blog as soon as possible, where you can watch some live stream drafts, altough the comments are made in Portuguese I'm afraid. And remember, if you're able to read new posts these days, it's in great part thanks to him!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Catching Up
I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t want to know what I’ve been doing these years, so I’ll just jump straight to the present. I arrived back in Portugal two months ago, It’s not a permanent return, at some point in the near future I will go to China again, this time for working, I already have an employment letter. What I do not have is a new Electronic Citizen card to replace 5 other old paper cards, I don’t have a Passport with enough time left, and I do not have a working Visa. Because I missed graduation day, I also didn’t had my diploma which was useful for the job formalities, but that I already took care of, gotta start somewhere.
What’s delaying me so much is that I’m not in my hometown of Lisbon, which is also the place where you take care of your burocracy. Right now, I have a temporary job, helping with the family business, which takes me most of my free time, sometimes 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s not fun, but I’m needed where I am now. This point of my life is not an optimal situation but I should be able to handle it.
Meanwhile I discovered for the first time in 10 years I wasn’t qualified for Portuguese Nationals. How did that happen? After skipping Nats since 2007 I found it sad that the one time that I had a chance to attend I wasn’t holding an invite. After no other options available, I had to play Nats Qualifiers, managing to qualify (fist pump!!!), but you can read about that in another post. Point is, I’m qualified for Nats, I’ll try to playtest a little to fight for a Top 8 slot, even if I fail, being in contention until a couple of rounds to end won’t be bad. However I would like to know whether we’re drafting 2x Roe or ZZW + ROE. I can’t just say “meh whatever it is, I’ll just draft” since I need to read the cards before the tournament to prepare, but I don’t want to waste my little free time reading cards unnecessarily.
Thanks to my workload, nothing exciting is going on, but things will change in the future.
What’s delaying me so much is that I’m not in my hometown of Lisbon, which is also the place where you take care of your burocracy. Right now, I have a temporary job, helping with the family business, which takes me most of my free time, sometimes 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s not fun, but I’m needed where I am now. This point of my life is not an optimal situation but I should be able to handle it.
Meanwhile I discovered for the first time in 10 years I wasn’t qualified for Portuguese Nationals. How did that happen? After skipping Nats since 2007 I found it sad that the one time that I had a chance to attend I wasn’t holding an invite. After no other options available, I had to play Nats Qualifiers, managing to qualify (fist pump!!!), but you can read about that in another post. Point is, I’m qualified for Nats, I’ll try to playtest a little to fight for a Top 8 slot, even if I fail, being in contention until a couple of rounds to end won’t be bad. However I would like to know whether we’re drafting 2x Roe or ZZW + ROE. I can’t just say “meh whatever it is, I’ll just draft” since I need to read the cards before the tournament to prepare, but I don’t want to waste my little free time reading cards unnecessarily.
Thanks to my workload, nothing exciting is going on, but things will change in the future.
Again? Why?
That’s right, my blog is back again. I’ve decided to create a new blog for a fresh start, and anticipating some questions that you might have, i’m gonna explain some stuff.
1- The real reason why I stopped updating my old Blog was because I moved to China, and there among many other sites, blogspot is blocked. I couldn’t even read other person’s blogs, so I guess some of my potential readers who happen to live in china atm will not be able to read this, but on the other side I will be able to say whatever I want about them and they will not know (not that I’m thinking of anyone in special, don’t worry Iche and Somm). Btw, these two are real persons, they’re not Hanna Barbera cartoons, and you'll be hearing more about them at some point I promisse!
2- Why in English? Well, I just realized that (way) more than half of my social networks contacts are not Portuguese speakers. The only non Portuguese guys who could read my blog if I wrote in Portuguese would be Raphy from France (Hi Raphy!) and Raffy from Brazil (Hi Raffy!). Besides writing in English allows me to use the lame “you now it’s not my native language” excuse for all the grammatical assassinations that I’m going to commit. I just couldn’t have this kind of excuse for writting bad Portuguese, could I? However, those of you who already read some of my Portuguese writting know that it will be impossible for me to have the same level of sarcasm, fun and sillyness in English. “But don’t you worry about me, cause I’ll be fine!” – did that sound funny? Not a little bit! But I can assure you would be dying laughing if I wrote that in Portuguese. Oh well, you gain in readers, you lose in expression...
3- Creating a new blog was really the only option left to write again. You see, Magic website readers are very demanding. They don’t have time for crap, so it’s less talking and more strategy, and as much as I love swinging with an Eldrazi as much as anyone else, I don’t feel I have any useful advices, I mean even I wouldn’t want to read a strategy article written by myself.
4- As for my old blog, it started as an anonymous blog, with somehow some bits of my provate life ended up in there. After some other players like Paulo Carvalho, Gonçalo Pinto and the most visited portuguese Magic website start linking to my blog, it wasn’t too dificult to figure it out who was behind it. I’m not exactly the same person I was 5 years ago, lots of things changed, and I do mean lots. On to a fresh start.
1- The real reason why I stopped updating my old Blog was because I moved to China, and there among many other sites, blogspot is blocked. I couldn’t even read other person’s blogs, so I guess some of my potential readers who happen to live in china atm will not be able to read this, but on the other side I will be able to say whatever I want about them and they will not know (not that I’m thinking of anyone in special, don’t worry Iche and Somm). Btw, these two are real persons, they’re not Hanna Barbera cartoons, and you'll be hearing more about them at some point I promisse!
2- Why in English? Well, I just realized that (way) more than half of my social networks contacts are not Portuguese speakers. The only non Portuguese guys who could read my blog if I wrote in Portuguese would be Raphy from France (Hi Raphy!) and Raffy from Brazil (Hi Raffy!). Besides writing in English allows me to use the lame “you now it’s not my native language” excuse for all the grammatical assassinations that I’m going to commit. I just couldn’t have this kind of excuse for writting bad Portuguese, could I? However, those of you who already read some of my Portuguese writting know that it will be impossible for me to have the same level of sarcasm, fun and sillyness in English. “But don’t you worry about me, cause I’ll be fine!” – did that sound funny? Not a little bit! But I can assure you would be dying laughing if I wrote that in Portuguese. Oh well, you gain in readers, you lose in expression...
3- Creating a new blog was really the only option left to write again. You see, Magic website readers are very demanding. They don’t have time for crap, so it’s less talking and more strategy, and as much as I love swinging with an Eldrazi as much as anyone else, I don’t feel I have any useful advices, I mean even I wouldn’t want to read a strategy article written by myself.
4- As for my old blog, it started as an anonymous blog, with somehow some bits of my provate life ended up in there. After some other players like Paulo Carvalho, Gonçalo Pinto and the most visited portuguese Magic website start linking to my blog, it wasn’t too dificult to figure it out who was behind it. I’m not exactly the same person I was 5 years ago, lots of things changed, and I do mean lots. On to a fresh start.
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