Wanna Buy the Sugar Loaf? When you see two buses alongside one another and about-four arms on each side extended swapping business cards, passing them down the aisle on the Taus, you really come to understand commerce is the center of human activity. JOHN MILLER
Postcards from Rio My PC The thing that I love about working in Windows-95 in Portuguese is it is so easy to do things that you do not expect to happen. The other day I was wandering around the screen, and I enter some piece of software by accident, that I have no idea what it does because it is all in Portuguese. All of a sudden I got those lovely flapping wings that show your files are being trashed and removed from the system. Now I had not done a backup for about 4 weeks (I know naughty boy), and I am just watching weeks of work go flying out the window. So I just act really relaxed, calm, and ripped the FUCKING power cord out of the wall as quick as I could. This is one reason why I was such a lousy engineer. I just resort to extreme measures when the machine does not behave the way I want it to. And like, as if pulling the plug out of the wall is going to work any faster than switching the machine off. But that's the point, I do not think this way, I just imagine all those electrons are better cut off at the source. As if my files are going down the earth wire and I can catch them at the power lead and stuff them back in, and hence the pull the plug approach. Ended up! lost only about 15 files, but oh boy, using Windows-95 in Portuguese is a little challenging. And why does Microsoft not say on the front of the box: "Warning, any moron Australian who does BRAZZIL - JULY 1999
not understand Portug ese should not attempt to use this software". I t ink they assume too much. The Rio de Janeiro Zoo Ma a, the Bugs Ear (Marta's niece, Ana-Paula) and I ent to the Rio de Janeiro Zoological Gardens one Sa urday. Sounds dull eh? Read on... Ri de Janeiro Zoo is just like most other good zoos, i has elephants, bears, giraffes, monkeys (I am told th re are more monkey species in South America than aijy other continent), and some close relatives of Ron C sey from 2KY (for my North American readers sulistitute Ken Starr or Charlton Heston). Ficr it cost about 2 coconuts to go to the zoo,! like the pri e for a day's entertainment. The best way to get there is to catch the 474 bus from Ipanema. It does a wonderful tour of the city to get to the gardens that surround the Zoological Park. Next to the park is the old Imperial Palace of Rio de Janeiro, where Emperor Dom Pedro I & II used to hang out, just your average Buckingham Palace type thing with about 200 rooms, etc. The palace is now the one of the main museums in Rio de Janeiro. The park is about the size of Centennial Park in Sydney. This is family country, picnics, BBQs, kites, rug rats everywhere, fairy floss, all sorts of sweet thi gs that are not good for your teeth, plus the ubiquitous buttered s eet-corn (I love the smell, but just deadly on my constitution for s me reason). • So we go inside he zoo and the first thing you have to do is negotiate your way ast some of the most dangerous and savage animals you have ev r seen in South America. These are the professional photographers who are hawking Polaroid snapshots of you with any animal in th zoo (or not in the zoo for that matter). They use painted backdrops of nimals in the zoo for the photo of your rug rat. So you do not need t go any further, just take your kid for a photo with the animal of y ur choice and then you have seen the Rio de Janeiro Zoo. Why w ste all that valuable time in the zoo learning about animals, havin to push a pram around, kids whining at you all day, when you can ave the whole experience by just having a photograph taken fo $11. Even mount it on a plate so you can have the experience every time you feed your son or dau hter. So we buy a photograph of Ana-Paula and lea e the zoo. This ends the visit to the zoo. ust kidding. Lets check out the birds first. You hay to understand that the South American continen is home to some pretty weird animals, and bir s. Most notable the tucano (that is toucan). Now I h ve never seen a toucan in the flesh before (or we ing feathers for that matter), and some species are very rare now. Tucanos are just amazing, the col rs incredible, the beaks look like they have been ha -painted. I keep thinking of Pro Hart paintings on mmy Durante's nose (I am having a little help tonight with the cac cc:writing this section, so my typing is terrible, I will tidy up tomorr w). The Rio Zoo has 5-6 tucanos species, and a separate aviary ar a for other birds of the Amazon. Parrots of all sorts and sizes, maracan'a's (yes the football stadium is named after a bird), eagles, jaburu, owls, wow even a guy dressed as a Power Ranger in one cage (Am I really writing this stuff or getting divine inspiration. No, just my third glass of cachaca). I have not seen so many colorful birds since the previous Sunday on Ipanema Beach (not the most politically correct joke, but come and get me). Thejacare swamp is also impressive. (Does anyone know the collective noun for a collection of crocodiles, alligators? A pod ofjacares I think). The turtles and tortoises share the same swamp pen an lay about in one giant heap warming each other in the sun. (This I am told is a misconception by my resident anthropologist Tim Moulton who stopped over to share a glass of cachaca. Tortoises re cold blooded, so it does not make any differ35