earlier today i delivered a talk entitled "Visualização na “Empresa de Tempo Real"" . your guess is as good as mine. apparently it was a great hit -- brazilians love me! when they say hello, they touch and kiss me. they serve me only their finest meats, bathe me in coca-cola light, and offer me hotel-room porno.

but, i am shocked by my inability to understand them in their native tongue. every time i travel to a non-english speaking country, i encounter the same phenomenon. symptoms of my condition include:

1) overarching jealousy of little children, who, despite their mental inferiority to me (not to speak to their obvious physical disadvantages), have some sort of magical ability to weave phonemes into a useful portuguese sentence. hate em.

2) loud english. a technique usually reserved for communicating with the deaf and my parents, I find it sometimes also works with foreigners. at the very least, extreme decibels can get these people out of your face.

3) hand waving and ass shaking. no one can deny the efficacy of hand gestures as a focal point of non-verbal communications. for some reason, when i shake my ass, brazilians nod and smile. then they put dollar bills in my dental floss g-string. ole!

4) an unhealthy dependency on CNN International. ok i get it, the chinese must be handled carefully in business matters and africa is fucked. still, i can't turn it off. even now, sitting in my room working away, i can here the familiar, soft cadence of my adopted homeland.

despite our language issues, they still welcome me with open arms. they suggest drivers and hotels for my stay in rio. 'i will call caesar for you. he is a good man , with the wife and kids. he will take you to the big christ on the hill, and to the sugerloaf. you should not be scar-ed with him.'

what can i say. what can't i say! they love me in brazil.