Don´t bother about the plot. Roberto Carlos em ritmo de aventura, as a movie, is plain crap. Made as a big videoclip of a nationwide folk singer. But the images are pure gold. The streets are roughly at the same place, but so many things changed. One can almost smell “old town”.
At the begining the pilot, Commander Malaguti, does a one-in-a-lifetime stunt, flies the chopper thru a tunnel, not a special fx scene like Mission Impossible, but a real life take.
This is not a joke, but will be, soon. Brazilian largest online store, Submarino, is selling a DeLuxe DVD set with seasons 1-5 of the series 24, in a wood crate, complete with a dummy time bomb!
The price is fair, R$999,00, or US$464,65, roughly the same hourly price of the lawyer you’ll need to hire after the airport guys find it in your hand luggage…
Found at Cris Dias weblog.
BoingBoing reports a story about students joining the Army because recruiters told them that “We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago.” YES, Virginia, they believed it.
The whole dialogue:
“Nobody is going over to Iraq anymore?” one student asks a recruiter.
“No, we’re bringing people back,” he replies.
“We’re not at war. War ended a long time ago,” another recruiter says.
So I ask: Since death tolls are high, last month 105 troopers died in Iraq, the whole mudhole is on the frontpage of every single newspaper or website, HOW CAN SOMEONE BE STUPID ENOUGH TO BELIEVE IT´S OVER?
ALL I can think is that they´re not the sharpest tool in the box.
Will a person so alienated be really useful for his/her nation? What can he add that an immigrant, willing to serve overseas (knowing there’s a going war) in exchange of citizenship can’t?
I can´t believe it. P.T. Barnum was right. Very right. People WANT to be deceived. They don´t think real life is interesting enough. They need conspiracies, imaginary friends and lots of cool imagery.
I have a post about the mid-air collision of a 737 from Gol Flight 1907 and a Legacy business jet. I wrote about how people are vultures, asking around for pictures of the accident, with all the letters: “I want to see pictures of the dead bodies” and so on. I call them vultures, sociopaths, etc.
Well, most of the visitors skip to the comments area and ask for pictures.
In a conversation in one of my blogs, I complained about people never reading after the first paragraph of a text, and most who do it, catch nothing. Some readers disagreed. Well, I did what I had to do. Created a post using a plain obviously fake picture - two screenshots from Lost´s pilot. It´s wrong, plain wrong, Evangeline Lilly´s character is right in the front row, you can see her handcuffs. The Oceanic Air logo is visible at the tail of the aircraft, and it looks nothing like Gol´s. The number of seats is wrong, the camera described is a Casio Z750 (great little machine, I own one) using Sony MemorySticks (a big no-no), etc.
Along the pictures, a little story. I wrote it so every single detail is wrong. The number of engines of the aircraft, the explanation that when they fell the falling speed slowed, the name of the passenger owner of the digital camera taking the pictures is a friend of mine, even the Air Force Major in charge of investigations. Antonio Nelson. Rings a bell?
Well, people not only believed it, but started to spread it by mail. Today two of the largest Brazilian portals are showing the story, Terra did the homework, I was contacted by an editor. The Folha de São Paulo never reached me. Oh well, maybe someday they discover Google.
What does it all prove?
People Want to believe. Some, even confronted with the evidence. (i.e. my site claiming authorship and the whole plan unveiled) still think it MAY be real.
Not to mention that since day one THERE WAS A LINK at the end of the post leading to another entry, telling the whole story about the hoax.
I really, really don´t envy James Randi.
