I guess I shouldn't have run my mouth

This is me. Its 9:17 am and as you can see, I am not very happy. I have been forced by the powers that be to go to a lottery house. Why?

Because Celesc, our electric company, has nothing better to do than to make us try to figure out each month where we can pay our phone bills.

Normally you pay your bills in a bank. Most of the time you can set them up for automatic deposit. But not in Balneário Camboriú. Each month is a cat and mouse game trying to figure out where you can pay your bill.

Some months you can pay at your bank. Most of the time you can pay at your local grocery store, except for right now, with over a half a million tourists in the city, they've decided that the only place they will allow you to give them money is at a lottery station.

Thankfully I had my Treo in my pocket and was able to take this shot of my view from the end of the line. I counted 17 people ahead of me, all with dreams of hitting the number and making it rich.


To be fair, about half of these people were in the same situation as me. Poor slobs just wanting to make sure their lights stay on, but almost every one took advantage of the situation and decided to play.

Finally, at 9:36 I hold the fruit of my fruitless labor in my hands. My reciept for $277.05 reias (about US$130). The line moved faster than I expected but it was still frustrating.

And I didn't play the lotto. If it had been Powerball I probably would have but the Mega Sena pot is still too small to get me excited enough to play. Plus I keep thinking about that fool and his money thing.

YouTube.com - BANNED IN BRAZIL

So I guess by now you have heard the uproar over YouTube and how some Brazilian judges wanted to get their names in the paper.

If this is news to you, let me fill you in. Seems that an Brazilian supermodel named Daniela Cicarelli and her banker boyfriend Renato Malzoni went on vacation to Cadiz Spain. Evidently things got a little romantic on the beach and, well, things happened. Now being a supermodel, she should realize that paparazzi would be following her around. Maybe she wanted an audience. I don't know. Don't really care but someone filmed the whole thing and then uploaded on the web.

As with everything salacious on the internet, it went from site to site until YouTube made it famous. Brazilians by the thousands were uploading and watching. Then Ms. Cicarelli got modest. YouTube was making money off her indiscretion and she wanted a piece of it. A suit was filed in a Brazilian court, she claims, by her boyfriend back in September. A Brazilian judge ordered YouTube to remove all copies of the video from their site. They did but more were uploaded. The case now goes before a panel of three judge who will decide whether or not to fine YouTube US$119,000 a day until they install filters that would prevent this video from reappearing.

Remember, this is all taking place in Brazilian courts which have no authority in the US and can't do a cotton-pickin' thing to make YouTube pay up. Evidently they were feeling a little frustrated so on Tuesday, they shut down any access to YouTube for the entire country. I know that's not nearly as heartbreaking as when they tore down the BelAir Drive In but I was trying to watch a video of a lion hunt gone wrong and was shut out because of these bureaucrats.

Thankfully, a few hours later, Supreme Court Justice Enio Santarelli decided he wanted his name in the papers as well and lifted the ban. Freedom returned to South America.

Now I know that many a West Nashvillian has done what Ms. Cicarelli and Mr. Malzone did, albeit probably at Collins Lake or off Annex down by the ferryboat, instead of Cadiz Spain. Thankfully there is no known video footage of such escapades presently on YouTube. They'd probably have to pay us US$119,000 to watch.