Breaking bad

This is unbelievable. You really can’t make this stuff up. Well, probably everybody on the planet with access to Internet has seen this but it’s worth mentioning. In short, this flight attendant guy flips out after a passenger refuses to remain seated, goes on to tell the passenger — and frankly everybody else on the plane — to fuck off over the PA, grabs a couple of beers and makes a movie-like exit using the emergency slide. For the whole story, click here.

Now, the only thing I have to say is that I wish I had the guts. This guy represents thousands and thousands of people who think about doing the same thing every single day of their lives. I only think he was a little modest by taking only two beers for the road, I would’ve certainly grabbed them all. I love these breaking bad stories — obviously, as long as nobody gets hurt — and again, I wish I had the guts. I’ve quit a few times already. Some of them were a little melodramatic, with some crying involved, some name calling. Once I failed to show up to work for three days and I got a call from my boss. He asked if I was planning to show up at all. I said “no” and hung up the phone on him. Failing to show up reminds of the classic story of my friend quitting but not telling the employer of his decision. After a while, the company filed a missing person on the guy and he saw himself with the police knocking on his door. Priceless…

And then, there is this video…

—

It’s been really hard to get any new TEDTalks to translate, so whatever is available I’m on it. I got lucky, though, and translated this talk by Carl Safina during TEDxOilSpill in June about the consequences of the disaster, the people responsible as well as the ones affected by it. Riveting talk available here. Translation reviewed by Durval Castro.

—

Last weekend I saw the first episode of Breaking Bad, which looks like the story of a high school chemistry teacher struggling to make ends meet and diagnosed with cancer. He teams up with the local dealer and starts making his own crystal meth. Sounds interesting. With Bryan Cranston, former Seinfeld’s Tim Whatley… He’s good.

(Update: I hadn’t posted anything for some 10 days and I saw that there were some subtle alterations to the page. It wasn’t me, and it took me a few minutes to reorganise everything)