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I kind of like San Marino's song. Yes, the lyrics are dull and it looks like the singer is dead inside, but it's almost on par with the winning song from last year. Not that any of them is any good, though, but both are still catchy.

 

Edited May 18, 2019 by thiago_simoes

[thiago_simoes 1,359]

I didn't listen to many songs, but Albania, Italy and Slovenia are some of my favorites. I wish Albania could win, though. 

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5 hours ago, konig said:

Sadly, the palestianians choose Hezbolla, so they choose to dont have peace.

Of course, because if you ask politely maybe the leaders of the country that invaded your territory could change their minds and return it to you as if nothing happened, right? Look at how Great Britain responded so nicely when asked to return the Falkland Islands to Argentina.

I mean, I don't want to be sarcastic, but I cannot help it.

This whole situation with Israel and Palestine is insane. I don't support the Hezbollah, but I'm utterly disgusted (and have always been) by Israel and the Zionists, so I don't judge the Palestinians for getting tired of being tortured, killed and expelled from their territory, so they had to choose a radical approach to combat the fascist state that invaded their territory. Nobody wins, of course.

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I'm completely disgusted with Israel. But, I mean, should I be surprised? What can you expect from them other than supporting a fascist leader again?
 

Edited April 10, 2019 by thiago_simoes

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About gymnastics commentators, I have to say that my favorite Brazilian commentator is Andrea João. She is a former gymnast who never had much success, but as a commentator she is a standout. Her personality is over the top and she often makes funny remarks (sometimes unintentionally) that crack me up. Her one liners when gymnasts fail sound hilarious for us: "the witch broke loose" (something only old people would say), "he/she was not happy" (with a strong accent typical from people from Rio de Janeiro), "he/she is very bad" (very unorthodox for commentators in Brazil to speak their minds like this). She fits the "it's so bad it's good" category very well, and by now (she's been commenting for more than 15 years) we're all used to her style and craziness. Pure gold. Oh, and once she was asked to comment after an emotional piece of video recounting the hardships faced by canoeist Izaquias Queiroz. He was very poor and he lived in a stilt house over a swamp, or something like this, and the video was very touching. When Andrea João was asked to comment, she missed the mark completely: she smiled to the camera and said "Oh, he's a canoeist, so it is so good for him that he lived up there. He had plenty of space to train." The news anchor by her side was extremely embarrassed and she kept smiling like a crazy person afterward. Hilarious.

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16 hours ago, heywoodu said:

@thiago_simoes @vinipereira @titicow Have you ever happened to watch biathlon on SporTV with a commentator named Aldo something? I have not, but I've heard it is excruciatingly bad and I'm curious how people look at it who are maybe a bit less familiar with biathlon  (my apologies if my assumption is wrong and you are in fact rather familiar with it as well  )

Nope. I've never watched a biathlon event in my life, and I don't know who this commentator is. But since no one knows what biathlon is in Brazil, I believe they would choose their worst commentator to do the job and still no one would notice. 

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6 horas atrás, Olympian1010 disse:

Happy Valentines Day

Thank you! I hope you guys had a great holiday.

As a bonus note, Valentine's Day in Brazil is not celebrated today. It is celebrated on June 12. 

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Bestmen, I get it that you live in a country with no freedom of religion and very little freedom concerning how one lives one's life. I live in a country where I am free to practice any (or no) religion, where I can marry anybody (man or woman), where women are free to choose who they marry and where they can choose to work and have a career. When I go out in the morning, I see the streets brimming with multiracial people, and people live their lives to the fullest the best way they can.

 

When one is able to see how beautiful diversity is, it is hard to go back to a miserable life where you have no freedom and where everyone is controlled by a greater force, may it be religion, or the state, or both. After this, you can never look back to a despicable life where everyone is the same and where you look in the mirror and see that you are just one more. Maybe this is why you spend so much time on this forum. For this reason, I do not wish you get banned anymore; I wish you stay here and contemplate diversity. There is always room for everyone.

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What do you guys usually eat and drink during Christmas and end of the year celebrations?

In Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro, we are influenced by Portuguese traditions, so we eat rabanada (sliced bread dipped in milk, scrambled eggs, then deep fried and covered with sugar and cinnamon) and bacalhoada (salted cod served with boiled eggs, tomatoes, olives and potatoes).

We also eat panettone (sweet bread loaf with fruits, or in some cases chocolate chips) and some families prepare rice, farofa (cassava flour mixture), roasted turkey and, my favorite, salpicão (salad mix with chicken meat, ham, mayo and shoestring potatoes). There's always some debate about adding raisins to salpicão, and it can cause fights and spoil the celebrations, lol. By the way, I'm always on the "NO RAISINS" side.

There's also a very infamous sweet, pavê (a sort of pie made of ladyfingers/sweet crackers and a mix of heavy cream and condensed milk, usually covered with chocolate or strawberries). The name pavê sounds like the expression "pra ver" (to see, look), and the biggest dad joke in Brazil is when someone asks "Can we eat it or just look at it?". 

Here are some pictures for those who are interested.

Spoiler

Rabanada

Bacalhoada

Salpicão

 

Panettone

 

Pavê

 

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15 horas atrás, heywoodu disse:

Yesterday night (but probably today again, and tomorrow when we're visiting the whole family  ), with the main part being a good-sized barbecued piece of picanha  @vinipereira @thiago_simoes

 

There was also some salad, green beans wrapped in bacon, carpaccio for starters and some sort of potatoes baked in the oven. And 'bell pepper soup' which is not the favourite of someone like me who does not like bell pepper  

 

Wow, I'm surprised you like it. I hate churrasco, barbecue or meat in general. Not a vegetarian, but I avoid eating meat as much as I can. And pleeeease don't invite me to a barbecue. Ever. And I hate bacon as well (yes, I'm a weird guy). I'm in for the baked potatoes and salad, though, and now I'm curious about how bell pepper soup tastes like.

Edit: I was going to ask if you've had sopa de ervilha (pea soup). I thought it was a typical Brazilian dish, but according to Wikipedia it is actually a typical Dutch dish! Color me surprised! You guys have very good taste. One of the few times I eat bacon is when it is added to pea soup (and the sliced sausages that go with it are delicious as well).

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by thiago_simoes

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3 minutos atrás, heywoodu disse:

I'll probably only have 1-2 full days in São Paulo though (and longer in São Carlos and Caraguatatuba, but especially in that second one I'm already promised several churrasco's  ), so I'll have to make some choices (and it's not entirely up to me), but the pastel definitely sounds like a must-try. One with cheese, one with ground meat, one with chicken, one with ham and maybe one with shrimps so I can say "I'm getting fat, I'll just not eat the shrimps one".

You can have pastel anywhere in the state of São Paulo (I believe anywhere in Brazil, to be honest). There's also an option with veggies, and another option filled with heart of palm, so there are even more ways to make your belly bigger. 

In all honesty, if you like Japanese food, Liberdade is the one place to go. But maybe I'm pushing it too hard because I'm a Japanophile myself. I've taken 2 years and a half of Japanese lessons, so it's nice to go to the restaurants there and reply in Japanese when they greet me (much to their surprise, as I'm basically a black latino man).

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6 horas atrás, AlFHg disse:

@thiago_simoes dulce de leche is something I will learn to do, one day. It should be very tasty :D

It is! There's a very easy way to do it by putting a can of condensed milk in a pressure cooker and boil it for 35 minutes (link here with instructions in Portuguese). If you want to buy it pre-made, the best brand, in my opinion, is Uruguay's Lapataia. It's worth every cent.

 

2 horas atrás, heywoodu disse:

What should I try when I'm (probably) there in March?  

My favorite thing to do there is to visit a neighborhood called Liberdade. It has lots of stores that sell Japanese snacks, cookies, drinks and candies. You can buy packs of sushi, onigiri, lotus flower root snacks (they taste really good) and drinks like Calpis and Ramune. Also, there's a street fair where you can eat all sorts of food, like takoyaki, gyoza, tempura and nikuman. I recommend eating lamen in a restaurant, too. There's a very good one, but I can't remember the name (I'll look for it).

You should also try Bolivian and Peruvian food if you haven't tried yet. I believe you've tried Mexican food as well, but if you haven't, there are some good restaurants there too. There are also nice Korean restaurants, though they are not my favorite, at all. You should also try Argentine empanadas. There's a fast food restaurant that serves some delicious ones, and I assume it will be easy to find its address online. If you want typical food from São Paulo, you have to go to the municipal market and ask for pastel (deep fried crust pie filled with either cheese, ground meat, chicken, ham or shrimps) and drink caldo de cana (sugarcane juice). 

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7 horas atrás, Olympian1010 disse:

Well the state, especially LA is home to Little Sri Lanka, multiple Koreatowns, multiple Chinatowns, Little Armenia (which constitutes one of the biggest minorities in the state), and Orange Country has become Tehran 2.0 in a few areas. LA is so diverse that our voting ballots are offered in 17 languages (and that’s just for the county).
 

So, as you can tell I take a little pride in being a Californian. That also means that I’ve exposed to a lot of foreign food, such as Korean soda, Mexico street vendor food, all types of Asian cuisine, European candy and sandwiches, Midwest barbecue, Poké, Sushi, gelato.

Looks like the paradise to me. I would love to live in a place like this. The closest place in Brazil would be the city of São Paulo. Not even Rio de Janeiro has such variety. I currently live in a "small" town with 500 thousand people. Since I was born and raised in Rio (6 million+ people), I am bored to death in a city with less than 1 million people. There's nothing to do here, and most of the families that settled here in the past came from Germany, so I'm even more bored by their style and especially their food.
 

6 horas atrás, AlFHg disse:

They are cinnamon and cocoa rolls

Yes, cinnamon rolls! How could I forget? I thought they were filled with dulce de leche, somehow, so I thought it was strange to use this filling in Italy. 

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5 horas atrás, AlFHg disse:

Well “Ovo” is not a current Italian word, it is an archaic form of “uovo”, but after all Western Europe language are quite similar

Oh, that makes sense. In Spanish it is huevo, in French oeuf, in Romanian ou, so I thought Italian would have had a unique word too, like oufo, or something like this, so it makes sense to be uovo. In Portuguese we write ovo, and I have to say the word looks quite weird, but I can't explain why.

 

5 horas atrás, dcro disse:

 

In Croatian "ovo" means "this".

Nice! There's a Cirque du Soleil show called Ovo. It was created by a Brazilian choreographer, and she meant to make it sound different for people who speak other languages, because the word looks curious, but Croatians and Italians might not have been so enticed, after all. 

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by thiago_simoes

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56 minutos atrás, Olympian1010 disse:

Korean soda is also quite available in Southern California 

Is there any reason for that? 

In Brazil it's not uncommon to find Japanese drinks in a number of select stores. Not really surprising, since the largest Japanese population outside Japan lives in Brazil. I'm especially fond of Calpis. This thing is delicious!

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5 horas atrás, AlFHg disse:

This is Castel dell'Ovo that literally means "The Castle of the Egg"

I thought "ovo" was a word exclusive to the Portuguese language. You learn something new every day...

And the pictures are really great. Congrats!

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1 hora atrás, mrv86 disse:

I want them all! Especially the watermelon, tamarind and guava variations. There are local brands in Brazil that market unusual flavors like pineapple and tangerine too. There's even a brand that created a soda made of leaves from a Brazilian plant called chapéu de couro, a rather bizarre choice for a soda variation. The funny thing is that this drink, called Mineirinho, is somewhat popular in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

 

@heywoodu, have you drunk Mineirinho?

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1 hora atrás, AlFHg disse:

Time ago I did these for my girlfriend :D I don't think they need any presentation

What are these? They look like Swiss rolls but they were baked in a very different way from what I'd expect them to be served (like we do in Brazil). By the way, we call Swiss rolls in Brazil "rocambole".

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1 hora atrás, hckosice disse:

 

Never heard about Kofola ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofola

 

If Slovakia's idea of selling beer is having naked men on TV, I feel like moving there. 

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What's the best selling beverage (preferentially non-alcoholic) unique to your country? In Brazil we all drink guaraná, and even Fanta decided to create their own soda version of the drink.

 

 

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10 horas atrás, Olympian1010 disse:

The historic Battlefields have basically become they only first person shooters I play besides Rainbow Six Seige

I love Metroid Prime, even though it's not really a first-person shooter per se. Same thing with Deus Ex. Half-Life was good, though. I have to admit.

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3 horas atrás, Olympian1010 disse:

the last minute and a half 

It was certainly different from what I would expect. Too bad I absolutely hate first-person shooters and I would never consider playing this game.

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Bolsonaro won. This country is doomed. 

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1 hora atrás, Finnator123 disse:

Every European country should follow Hungary with immigration policies....
Globalism & Multiculturalism sucks, because it doesn't work in Europe lol

With all due respect, Hungary is a mostly conservative nation with some of the worst politicians in the world. Journalism there is seriously flawed as well, with very questionable news sources and decidedly anti-immigration sentiment fueled by yellow journalism. It's surprising that immigrants even consider going to a place like this. I imagine how desperate these people need to be in order to even consider living there. I would never. I've been going through more than enough shit in Brazil already, thank you.

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20 minutos atrás, heywoodu disse:

João Doria, found him. I suppose he's married or something? Otherwise honestly I think leaking a video is more of a disgusting act than the act itself (although I don't know prostitution laws in Brazil, I must admit), as long as he paid and everything...

It's disgusting that this was leaked. The guy and the prostitutes have the right to have some privacy. To be honest, I'm not really worried about his image. I'm worried about the prostitutes, because this country is so misogynistic that they will be the ones to blame, and God knows what enraged people will do with them. Dória defends conservative values (including the family as the basis for morality) and I'm sure a bunch of dumb and hypocritical people will say that the prostitutes are the ones who "tempted" him. As I said, this country has no limits when it comes to dumbness.
 
The funny thing is that he's married and he recorded a video with his wife by his side claiming the leaked video to be fake. His wife looked really disheartened, though, and on the verge of tears. Then, he accused his political adversary of editing the video with his picture on it. WHAT THE HELL?