I always wanted to grow a nice full beard. All the great Unix programmers have one. Lots of mad scientists have some too. Unfortunately, my portuguese genes will not allow that. Every time I start to grow one by lazyless, I will develop a half hearted moustache, a too big goatee, and a few lost strands in my cheek — a truly pitiful sight. :-(

That sucks, I always wanted to sport a nice, dworfish beard.

This weekend I got “The Never Ending Story” for a friend of mine. This was the first “real” book I have ever read (or at least so I remember). And it is a pretty good one too. I read the portuguese translation, so when I checked the version I got for my friend (the english one), I noticed that the name of a pretty important character, the luck dragon, was different between versions: Fulchur, for the portuguese translation, and Falkor, for the english one. Now, Fulchur sounds much more mysterious, unique and fantasy-like than Falkor, which just sounds like “Falcon” with a few letters swapped in. At first I was wondering why the portuguese translator decided to change the name (since Fulchur does not sound any more natural than Falkor in Portuguese). Then I remembered that “The Never Ending Story” was originally in German. I wonder which of the two names is closer to the original one.

Also, my upper leg/lower right hip is hurting like hell since Saturday. It might be because of me being sitting for too long due to extra work this month. It sucks tons. I have a nice chair in my lab, but my home chair is not so conductive for sitting in one place for long. I’ll have to look into replacing it soon, and probably spending a lot of money in it. I didn’t want to make my decision before knowing exactly where I will be in the next 6 months.

But that is another story, to be told at another time.