Week 41, 2024

We have finally watched Inside Out 2, after its release on Disney+. I have to say that I was looking forwards to watching this sequence, partly because it had been very hyped, of course, but also because being a fan of the first movie, I needed to know what Pixar planned for this follow up. I won't be talking about the plot here, except for the obvious part, which is, as Riley grows and becomes a teenager, her brains goes through an extreme makeover of sorts, making more space available for new emotions, among which is Anxiety.

Long story short is, I liked the overall movie, and found it fun and enjoyable. It's the story we have all faced when we were teens, having to cope with our own anxieties as we enter a new stage in our lives. Anxiety, I have to say, is a very likable and controversial character, stealing the scene from the first minutes, commanding everyone and everything around (poor Riley girl) — kudos to Tatá Werneck for her amusing Brazilian Portuguese dubbing of the character, by the way. Now... was I part of the writers team, I would have used the other emotions a little more: Envy plays small parts, and Embarrassment shines her and there when it has to interact with Sadness later on, but then there's Ennui. He lives up to boredom, as the most boring and less appealing of the new emotions quartet — I've repeatedly imagined him out of the movie more than once as I watched, and came to the conclusion he would not be missed at all. Also, Riley is now a teen and doesn't suffer the obvious, I mean, those platonic passions? Where's Lust or Love, at least? Maybe Ennui could have been replaced by one of them — except maybe there'd be no room left in the plot for any of them.

We have also watched another Pixar movie this week, and this was Elemental. This movie was released in 2023, whereas Inside Out 2 came out in 2024. While Inside Out 2 deals with emotions, Elemental deals with, well... elements. There's a city where water, fire, land and air citizens live, and amid their routine lives, a fiery young woman named Ember and a go-with-the-flow guy named Wade will find out water and fire have more in common than anyone could have imagined.

Now, I loved this movie. And I don't get the enormous amount of bad reviews I saw it has on Trakt. Many of these are because people say it copies a lot from Zootopia, because there's also a city, and both stories deal with society's prejudice, but hey! Elemental has a lot of originality, IMHO. It's a cute love story which teaches kids how to accept one another better — and, of course, it's Pixar, and they've nailed it again here. So if you haven't seen it yet, give Elemental a chance.

Last week I mentioned I was only two books away from my 2024 reading goal. Well, having finished Extras, the last book in the Uglies quartet, by Scott Westerfeld, brought me to 19 books and 95% of the goal. And I've also read Obvious Adams, a short, 60 page story about a man who teaches us simplicity and how being straight to the point can pay off to anyone, after I saw this post by Augusto Campos on Mastodon the other day — thus, I've reached this year's reading goal!

This gave me room to find more reading material, of course. And I've settled into starting to read The Overstory, by Richard Powers — my first book by him, after I read this sol2070's review of another book by the author, and it made me curious. I'm only 15% percent in so far, but I'm loving the way the author writes, with very detailed narratives for each of the characters' stories, who'll later, as I learned, intertwine. Can't wait.

With my goal behind me, I've also fed my Tsundoku monster a little bit more, as if it wasn't already eating a lot 😂. By this I mean that I've added Cervantes' Don Quixotero my reading list, expecting to be able to read it soon.

I have switched my two old office chairs for newer, more comfortable ones this week. This has leveled up my work from home experience!

It had been some time I wanted to do this, but couldn't, and now the opportunity came. Not only the new chairs are more comfortable, they are easier on my tired spine. I've already test run the chairs, and I'm very happy to have finally changed them and for improving my own life quality.

I am one among many Brazilians who grew up watching El Chavo del Ocho and El Chapulín Colorado, two Mexican humor sitcoms created in the 1970's by Chespirito, aired and distributed by Televisa Mexico, reaching enormous success in all Latin America... including Brazil.

I used to watch both everyday after school and also on weekends, and even after becoming an adult and knowing I was watching rerun episode after rerun episode, even knowing I already knew all the gags by heart, I kept watching them, although both shows were cancelled still in the 80's, after some major actors quit and their ratings dropped. By 2014, Chespirito died, and both El Chavo and Chapulín Colorado went off the air globally some years later, following a fight between his family and the network fought over the rights to the show.

The sitcoms remained off the air for as long as the fight was happening — a little more than 4 years. Until last September the network and the family jointly announced they finally came to an agreement. Here in Brazil, the outcome was both sitcoms would resume airing in October, and I was one of the happy people in the audience when the shows premiered again, this Saturday. I'm so happy!! 😁