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27May
2008
Terzetto Slide Show

I might as well make it official. My favorite restaurant in the whole world is Terzetto. Here are the reason’s that I love Terzetto. They have a huge menu. I go often, and often like to try out different things. Each time I try something new, it turns out just as good as many of my old time favorites. They are very accommodating. Any change to a dish, and they will make it special order. Solange when she was pregnant, would invent special dishes while we drove there. Then she would describe it and they would cook it. It is simply fantastic.

When we returned to Rio, several of our friends were in town (Art Martinez, Scott Kay, Brian Wilcox, and Thomas Shang). So we threw a great dinner party. Art is quite the photo buff so he took a bunch of photos of the event, and now I’ve made a slide show of it. I’ve also added a new technology so that the photos pull out of the database and include all the people in the photo. Enjoy.

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25May
2008
ToonDoo and Portuguese

I have always wanted to find a program to make cartoons, and now I found a great one – ToonDoo. ToonDoo really makes it easy to import objects, characters and text into your cartoon. It’s done with the latest in Web 2.0 technologies enabling ToonDoo to run in any browser.

The story below actually happened to me. Move your mouse over the cartoon to see the rest.

I met this guy in Brazil (name withheld for privacy reasons) and his Portuguese was poor. The problem was that he thought his Portuguese was better than every one else’s. It was beyond annoying the strange situations because his perceptions were so different than reality. He was constantly correcting my Portuguese, which was no problem. But he was always wrong. I guess I was being pacifist, but I never said anything. Just let it slide. But then one day in a taxi with a bunch of friends, he corrected my Portuguese one too many times (wrongly again), and I just exploded. I have not spoken to him since.

For whatever reason, I made this the subject of my first cartoon at ToonDoo. I hope to make many more cartoons in the future on a wide variety of subjects.

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  1. Ele é burro mesmo. When I tell the story, people think that I am making it up. He was so adamant when the girls said No the first time. The reality is that I had to ask several more times, and each time they said No. Of course, if he speaks so damn well, why doesn’t he just say something himself?

    Here are some other gems.

    I remember getting into a protracted argument because a receptionist was filling out a form for me. And she asked my last name. I said (in portuguese), CHENG. And then this guy says No No. CHANG. We are with a lot of guys, and he will not relent. Every time I say, CHENG, he says No, and repeats CHANG. The reality is that he did not know how to say the difference between E and A.

    After I blew up at him in the taxi, I told the taxi driver to stop on the right side (lado direito), and unbelievable as it sounds. he corrects me again. No (lado direita). I asked the taxi driver who said it correct, and he confirmed me, but I still to this day think that he believes he was right.

    But it is all so strange. Speaking a foreign is humbling because you know you will never speak as well as a native speaker. Who cares whether you can speak better than some other American, when there is a whole country that can speak better than you.

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  2. Hey Rob, good one! But knowing the character involved in this story, I’d change your line in the third panel to “Vocês acham que ele é burro?” Sem dúvida!

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18May
2008
Battling the Tree

My apartment is on the fourth floor of a ten story building. When I first purchased my apartment in 2003, a good friend of mine Jamie from Philadelphia made a very prescient comment. As we were looking out over the beautiful views from my apartment, he said “Wonder what you’ll do when those trees grow a little?”

He was so right. One of the reasons that I love my apartment is that the views are incredible. I can see Christo from every room of my condo, but more importantly, I can see the beautiful Lagoa lake. It is a fantastic contrast to the hustle and bustle of Rio de Janeiro. After running the lake, it was absolutely one of my favorite things to cool down drinking an agua de coco while looking over the beautiful lake.
About two years ago, the tree was growing and beginning to block the view. Solange called the City of Rio de Janeiro every day for months. All to no avail. Eventually we gave up. But of course, the tree just kept on growing each day making my view a little bit worse.

My friend Augusto and I decided to take matters into our own hands. We went and bought a small saw, a long pipe, rope, and duct tape. Using this contraption, we would tie a branch, and slowly saw away at the branch. Once the branch fell, the rope would catch it, and then we would drag the branch in through the window and cut it into pieces. This photo represents just a small victory in the Battle Against the Tree.

This branch was actually larger than the sofa!

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11May
2008
Making a Baby Laugh!


I am now 48 years old, and I have just now found one of the greatest pleasures in life. Making a baby laugh. Perhaps it is their innocence, or the true sincerity of the laugh. But it just makes you happy and you almost automatically want to laugh along. We were in one of the nicer Asian restaurants in Rio called Mr. Lam. Solange placed two chopsticks under Teddy’s arms, and he could not stop laughing. I think that we had a better time than all the other people at the restaurant.

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7May
2008
Teddy’s Photo Shoot

Solange has been dying to have a professional photo shoot with props and lighting. So one day, she snuck out when I was on a conference call and came back with the photos from the shoot. They really turned out great. Of course, the photo studio does not give you digitals but prints. So I had to scan them in, and then make this slide show. I really have to wonder when these photographers will enter the digital age! Hey that’s it! I’m going to open up a photo studio and only use digital technology. Oh well. that’s for another day. Enjoy Teddy’s photo shoot.

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  1. I love the outfit in the photo shoot!! We are happy to see how cute he looks. We miss you guys.

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  2. Great photos, Rob. And I have some cute ones I need to send to you of Teddy smearing food all over his face while we were at Carretão.

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