game on!

My TV table has started resembling my PC room - enough cabling to build a fully functional elephant hammock, and LEDs that, if not the bridge of the Enterprise-D, are at least good enough for the Reliant.
Borrowed a PS2 and picked up a second joystick, discovered a new (good) games supplier, and I'm all set for the summer vacations, had I had any. Man I miss summer vacations. Nothing I want more than, not much, just a few weeks of AC, PC, PS2, and gametime.
Do I buy a PS3? or an Xbox? Am beginning to see the benefits of a dedicated gamesystem - consoles let you switch onto a game instantly. No bootups, no switching off inessential apps, no messenger windows popping up, and no Blue Screen Of Death. On the other hand... I do need to buy an engagement ring.
Decisions, decisions...

Roommate has acquired a 3-DVD set of Mr Bean, and we have just the single TV.

I'm also converting every plugpoint into a lethal firetrap, begging for a short. Pray with me, as I appease Raiden.

anachorismization

2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's fascinating to see old movies made about the future. This was done in the (fifties? sixties?) and while being completely groundbreaking in the central premise, nontheless looks incredibly outdated when you read between the lines. When you look at all the cultural assumptions built in.

2001 is already almost a decade past. We don't have Jupiter missions, or passenger shuttles, or Clavius base. But we do have human-machine interfaces that are generations ahead. Everything is... so much smaller. Buttons. Computers. Cameras. Food trays. Furniture. Everything.

At the time it was made, the movie looked very futuristic because the cultural bias was invisible - like looking at crystal in water. Cultural bias, when seen in the culture it belongs to, is impossible to see. Half a century later, the crystal's changed color, and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Text is HUGE. Displays, labels, buttons... diagrams are 2-color. Every screen is a 14-inch, and large displays are a matrix of multiple screens. With gaps in between to prevent gaussian blur :)

It got me thinking - there always will be some rules that can hold true for all sci-fi for a long time, given where we are now.

1. No artificial gravity. The benefits far outweigh the cost. apart from the resources wasted in terms of energy, look at the wasted space! Walls, ceiling and floor should be interchangeable. Footfall had that right, at least.

2. No large empty spaces. Not even cargo holds. At the max, maybe a net system outside where the cargo containers can be moored; that much empty space is just a waste of air, light, heat. No big roomy corridors, just crawlspaces and passages. No rooms, just bunks.

3. Minimal manned EVA. Everything to be remote-controlled, waldos and VR.

4. VR, VR, and VR. When you're in space, you are the ship. You need to move around inside and outside the ship as little as possible; ideally, the entire journey should happen with you plugged into the ship systems, floating in a life-support tube.

5. No High-speed maneuvers and stunts, at least in the immediate timeline; wastes far too much fuel.
6. Aliens will not be hominid, and most probably not even bipedal. Probably not organic either.

7. Space war will last days at the very most, and will result in complete annihilation or unconditional surrender, just because each side will have weapon technology so different from the other that any faceoff will be a race to find that one tech that the other can't counter. So 'war' will not be soldiers, fighters and lasers; it'll be espionage, crackers, viruses, and decryption tech.
8. Further down the timeline, there will be only supercomputers talking to each other.
9. Time travel will be possible, but each instant it's done, the time-traveller will be in a different universe. So you can't change your past, just someone else's.
10. Everything will be cordless, wireless, and batteries will never run out.

Unlike my laptop who's dying even as we speak. Ciao.

the bears ARE real

you know how it goes, right? step on a crack in the sidewalk, and invisible bears that wait around the corner for you to do just that will appear and eat you up?

I don't believe it for sidewalks; but the bathroom is a different story.

There ARE bears hiding between the cracks. They DO eat the people that aren't careful about where they put their feet.


look at that. you can see the man being eaten. he's got a reeally scrawny neck, and the lower half of his jaw is visible; you can even see a few of his teeth, beneath the blood grimed around his mouth. he either bit his lips clean though, or they got chewed off; his ear's missing as well; a lot of blood caked on the side of his face.
as for the rest... well, it's just bear. can you see the top of the bear's head? he seems to be frowning in concentration, engrossed on apparently tearing the guy's nose off, or maybe just cracking the skull his mouth.

why can I see this, now, after six months of living in this house? maybe my left brain - right brain connections are opening up. creativity translating into cognition and articulation.

or maybe, the bears are coming to life. maybe there were there all along.

people that are about to die can see Death, the skeleton with the scythe, the girl with the ankh. does this mean I'm going to be eaten up, real soon?

Auto strike. Ahahaha.

Andheri Station at 8:30 a.m., peak rush hour.

Believe it or not.

An auto rickshaw strike today in Mumbai and Life Is Beautiful. The streets are empty, traffic jams are a thing of the distant past like a bad dream, it takes a grand total of seven minutes to reach the station... Why can't life be usually like this? When I return to home tonight I have every expectation that the streets will be equally clear.

Hopefully, this should make people realize they don't really need so many autos. And the suburbs will be as pleasant as Town, henceforth and forever... I wish.

men are dogs

and now Sandoz has unequivocally endorsed that sentiment. Check out the packaging for the men's and women's calcium tablet jars -

What can I say but Woof! Woof!

product life cycle like never before

Today, dear pagecount contributor, let me tell you about my washing machine.

My washing machine suffers from habitual and copious incontinence.

My washing machine groans like a ghoul at odd intervals.

My washing machine cannot take water on it's own, and needs to be put on a separate hose like an IV drip for every wash.

Because of this, it needs constant watching and supervision to make sure the pipe doesn't fall out and sprays water all over my comp. My washing machine, perversely, will start it's wash cycle exactly when I step out of the room in nicotine-starved frustration, with a flatulent rumble followed by a merry splish-splash, causing me to twitch violently at a crucial juncture while leaning sideways over the gas (since the matches are soaked) and singeing my eyebrows.

My washing machine needs a special support stand in order to be moved around, to be able to reach the bathroom drain.

My washing machine displays all the vibrancy of an epileptic seizure in the spin cycle. A vibrancy that knocks it off its castors and upon my unsuspecting feet, whilst partly-spin-dried clothing flies about in wild abandon.

My washing machine is an old, old man, on it's deathbed.

Had it owned large property, or even a hall-kitchen south of Boriviali, I would have been standing over it with will and pen and large, comforting smile.

"If you hate your washing machine so much," asked HR, who was just recently introduced to the joys of new-ownerhood of a brand-new IFB, "why don't you just buy a new one?"

A new machine, it is true, would be young, vibrant, and eager to please with a hint of smug superiority, like an MBA with 1 year's work ex. It will, like Sharman Joshi in Metro, take away all my troubles and resolve them. It may not get me laid as well in the bargain, but with the kind of tech Siemens is putting in it's machines these days, you never know.

But the truth is - I like this one. It's more paisa-vasool entertainment than a Mithun-da film festival. Washing day is lookied forward to with dread, trepidation, and a fluttering int he stomach weeks in advance. Jeans are re-re-re-used until they're insufferably obscenely filthy, and therefore last decades. Office shirts are guarded like Kohinoor diamonds to avoid the slightest speck of dirt. Underclothing contributes to many new species for alien scientists to discover and theorize about the evolution and origin thereof, billions of years from now, by creating independent, individual biospheres. Curtains become bulletproof with mold, mildew and dust, and that too at no extra cost. Enough electricity is saved to power rural Maharashtra for at least a week, which is why I was able to watch DishTV at the end of the Lohagadh trek while savoring a nice hot chai and ciggie out of the pouring rain.

So, such is my life and that of my washing machine.

Even talking about it makes me feel clean.

Is it not the most amazing machine you've seen?

It's lean, mean, and even ecologically green.

Other machines, they look obscene,

When compared. Wah. What a scene!

looking back

If another myself could meet me today, he would be fairly sandbagged as well.

Life has been... interesting. Most of all, in the way things have changed. I used to think, sometimes, a while back, what I would be growing into, what I would become.

The truth, as they say, is usually stranger than fiction. The 18-yr-old Ashish had some ideas about what he was going to grow up into... and not a few dark suspicions. On the whole, I think it's the suspicions that have been vindicated. But in a good way. I've pretty much gone ahead and done everything I wanted to, and got everything I'd hoped for. Then.

In the long look back - it's been almost frighteningly good. Even the bad bits have the golden glow of nostalgia around them now. Wonder if it's a case of selective perception, or actually paying attention to the stuff that mattered that's pulled it off, putting me in a life that, to say the least, rocks.

I am the...

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

discovering archetypes

Everything... begins.
This... began over an inconsideration. On a shared 30-Kbps wireless line, bandwidth is precious; and as with any limited resource, there need to be rules to manage them, to prevent the whole system from collapsing. And when the rules are broken, there are... reactions. Solutions.
.

Gaiman was unknown to me except as a co-author, the other half of a superlative fantasy-spinner. From that one book followed another, and another... and the whole exploration may have ended there, but for... a few images. Images that prompted me to risk one, just one more experiment.

It gave me a name.

And one night, when the rulebreaker was away, a parallel method was found. An alternative. A chastisement.

A revenge.

The name was, then, inconsequential. It just floated along, and was pinned to the board as an as-good-as-any candidate.

The torrent completed its download.

And on a quiet tuesday evening, I discovered The Sandman.

.
I'm only 3 stories down, and already I can feel myself being drawn into that universe. Pictures move, faint sounds, scents. Depth.

Time.

Impact.
And most of all, it's so familiar. Like a racial memory, an archetype.

The Matrix. Morpheus. Neo. The black. Everything you see is a dream, and The One is the awakener.

Stephen King's Randall Flagg. The world that had moved on. The Tower. Alternate realities.

MIB. There are hidden truths, hidden stories all around you. Nothing is what it seems to be.

Illuminati.

The Man.

John Constantine.

The face in the crowd, for just a second, that looks right at you. Eyes meet. The shock, the subconscious recognition. Then it's gone, and no matter how hard you search, you can never find it again.
Walking through them all, is the same image.
.

The Endless.

The Man In Black.

How to build a Generation Starship

Just read Mayflower II recently. it's probably been the best ever description of how a generation starship would actually work in practice, just like the Odyssey series were the best ever in the hibernation-tech travel. And if you think about it, it does make sense - unless you have a habitat the size of a continent, civilization will stagnate, degrade. You can't think in terms of weeks, months, years, even decades; can we plan centuries?

In that small a space, you have to think of not technical, not psychological, not even social issues. You have to think in civilizations. I see a whole new brand of ship's doctor coming up.

Hm - I guess I'm also beginning to see the reason for the holodeck and Deanna Troi, beyond the obvious eyecandy.

Conversely, if we have continent-sized habitats capable of interstellar travel, it makes the point kinda moot. Where do you go, when all you want is already here? Nobody would ever leave; any planet would always come a poor second to the ship itself. You could have roaming generation ships that travel to seed, and move on. Factoring in wear-and-tear issue resolution, of course. Or you could have seeders whose only purpose is to reach the next destination only to rebuild their ship, leave behind descendants, and move on.

Niven's Ringworld is a generation starship taken to the other extreme - a habitat that outclasses any source or destination at an exponential level.

Which brings us back to the Civilization Planner. We would either need supremely long-lived human beings, or Pak. Or we would need automated systems and frozen chromosomes, and independent failsafes of frozen repairmen when things went wrong.

That's possible. Shit, that's possible. We can start reaching the stars the day we have a reliable freezing tech.

Here's another alternate. One mother system that runs the ship. Multiple gene banks. Multiple equipment garages. And multiple independent modules whose only function would be to synthesize and grow trained repair personnel from the gene banks purely when the rest of the systems collapsed so catastrophically that they went out of the parameters of the autosystems. Sure, it'll take years to get the workers - but that's nothing in a journey span of millenia.

Interesting to think of what they would do afterwards, though.

Hmmm...

Gaming - the next level

Most probably a hoax, but lookit the completely awesome concept. Reality Gaming.

Game puts player into trance, then evil mastermind game coordinator puts player into game. A zombie FPS is replicated in real life in a warehouse, and knocked-out players are put in. Watch them wake up, the completely disbelieving 'this-is-not-happening' look slide into near-madness when the zombies start making their appearance.

Also says a lot of how people react. It took him just a few seconds to start shooting at the people. I can't even say he's adapting to the situation because he's not taking the classic approach to zombies as popularized in hundreds of movies - i.e., zombies can be disposed of by removing the head or destroying the brain - but not a single headshot do we see. He's just opening full-on fire at anyone and everyone. Including the game coordinator, despite his obviously non-zombie look.

Maybe there is some truth in the studies that correlate violent behaviour to games; sadly, one more thing that come through all to clearly is how educational content - removing the head or destroying the brain - tends to be completely discarded in stressful situations.

gamers: catchin 'em young!

The kid on the left must be, what, three? Four, max? His head is at the same level as his controller... and he still drives better than me, with a twenty-five year head start.

The boy has a future, mmm?

Not to miss the sibling rivalry at play; the elder one on the right hogs the Xbox, while the younger is fobbed off with a PS2.

Going Postal 2.0

Can't remember the last game that made me fall off my chair laughing, ROTFL. After the failure of Quake Wars, Carmagaeddon, and Manhattan Project, I was fairly skeptical of even getting this to work... hah! Worked first time, as a pleasant surprise. No codes to hunt, cracks to download.
[Current score: Colaba Pavement 3, uTorrent 2.]
The graphics are a bit old; I remember playing the original 2D Postal back in '95, so this can't have been too far ahead, though the responsiveness of the Unreal engine is awesome. But it's a laugh riot because of the twisted, fast, and completely bonkers sense of humour that it overflows with.
'Save a Tree, Burn a Book.'
'Did you place an offering in the Donation Box? Then you are Forgiven.'
The ability to stick your shotgun up a cat's bum to use as a makeshift silencer.
The only, and repeat, ONLY, game in history I have played where I can pee on people.
The Church or Our Lady of Infinite Avarice, disgorging boomstick-toting priests to take on Osama clones.
Me getting captured by hillibillies and waking up... in the Gimp's leather suit, in his trunk.

The physics engine isn't up to HL2 standards, sadly; if you kick a corpse, there's a good chance it'll stick halfway in a wall, straight-edged and angular, until kicked again, and the 'rag-doll' effects are bit too ragdoll. Bloodsmears too smeary. Textures crude.

But is still so totally awesomely rocks. When will they build the next version with the HL2 engine?! :)

Though on a serious note, it kind of gets you thinking. This game is violent, disgusting, bloody, and disrespectful. And it's precisely for those reasons that it'll be loved by it's target audience. Even the protestors, most of the time, object on the basis of an idea, or a principle. A stereotype. Games are bad, they make you mad.

Does the human psyche actively seek out violence? Since the Deterrence principle effectively stopped war for the First-world nations, and now all nuclear nations, crime rates have been rising. I don't know if it's been directly since then, but it's close enough. Is crime - and all other forms of both real and virtual violence - a direct expression of the need to fight, and frustration at not being able to?

In primitive cultures, kids start fighting by fifteen. In more advanced societies, it's later, but the promise - and conditioning - begins from much earlier. It's only now, in the developed countries, that kids grow up knowing that, in a legitimate, socially acceptable way, fighting - violence - is not permitted, and never will be. Does that block off some outlet, some safety valve?

Notice how the US homicides graph spikes with the end of the last major war the US was involved in? I guess we'll know for sure when VR tech advances to the point that virtual violence is indistinguishable from the real. If actual crime rates drop - I'm vindicated.

In the meantime, I continue to go on a murderous citizen-hunting spree... and it's only Wednesday.

Roses are red, but V-Day is blue.

Please excuse general ranting post. But that's what I'm blogging for anyway, so if you don't like, take hike.

Feb 3rd: Order placed at Rediff.com. Delivery to be done on 14th.
Feb 14th:Not delivered.
Feb 18th:
From:Ashish Tewari
Date: Monday, February 18, 2008 03:26 PM
To: customersupport@rediff.co.in
Subject: Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Hi, I wanted to bring to your attention the following order, which was placed on Date:2008-02-07 for delivery on Valentine's Day. As of today (18th), it is still showing as pending. Should I have specified that I meant Valentine's Day 2008 and not 2009?
Order No: 4384440 Order Status :Approved
What's the next step from here? Has the cost been charged to me?
Feb 19th:
From: Support
To: Ashish Tewari Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 9:42 PM
Subject: [Possible SPAM] RE:'Rediff=008-094-395' Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Dear Ashish,
Greetings from Rediff.com With reference to your mail, we would like to inform you that the item ordered against the Order No : 4384440 , has been delivered to the delivery address.
Assure you of prompt and courteous response on all your visits to Rediff.com
Warm Regards,
PG
Customer Service
Rediff. Com
P.S: Please do not change the subject line for future correspondence .

Dear ABVP / Shiv Sainiks / Miscellaneous Lumpen Elements: Please update your calendars. Valentine's Day will henceforth be celebrated on the 19th of February, courtesy Rediff.com.

From: Ashish Tewari
Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:37 AM
To: Support (customersupport@rediff.co.in)
Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] RE: Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Delivery on the 19th for a festival on the 14th, even after the order has been booked 10 days in advance of the festival, is not counted as fulfilling customer satisfaction. You need to add a disclaimer that 'Product may be delivered up to 5 days after scheduled date' to avoid false representation and consumer court issues. I am very, very disappointed with the quality of Rediff's service. The recipient needs to receive this ON the day it is supposed to be delivered. What's the point of delivering it 5 days late? Are you suggesting that I need to celebrate Valentine's day, or a birthday, or any other occasion on the day they happen, or as per Rediff's convenience? I'm interested in hearing what is even the remotest justification you have for delivery of a Valentine's Day gift on the 19th. I may as well not have placed the order with Rediff. I have to put up with the consequences of not gifting on the 14th, then seeing my money go down the drain, and then be told that the delivery has been done late, without any apology or reason. Why should I gift flowers on the 19th of February? I already look bad for not giving on the 14th. Now an incompetent vendor screws it up even more by then doing a delivery a week later!

In fact, let me correct my above point. I am not interested in finding out why Rediff chooses to celebrate Valentine's Day on the 19th. As far as I am concerned, the order of a Valentine's Day Flowers was not executed. I did not order 'Flowers to be delivered on the 19th of February for no reason'. I am therefore assuming that my order placed has not been executed, and I want my order cancelled and my money back.

Grrrr.

From: Support
To: Ashish Tewari
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 10:12 PM
Subject: [Possible SPAM] RE:'Rediff=008-094-395' Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Dear Ashish,
Greetings from Rediff.com
We have received your mail and understand every reason for you being upset. We have made every attempts to deliver products on the intended date, however the same must have happened due to oversight by our enabling partners at the time of delivery.
They have attempted, but enabling partner screwed up. Interesting. Take the credit but pass the buck, in the same sentence!
We would not be able to meet the sentiment that you had intended to send along with a timely gift.
(at least, until we finish work on the rediff iTimeMachine 1.0 beta, I assume)
We truly understand the sentiments involved in your gifting. We request you to kindly bear with us this time, we are taking adequate measure to prevent any recurrence.
(by ensuring you don't have recurring customers?)
We once again sincerely regret the delay and inconvenience caused to you. We assure you courteous, prompt service on all your visits to www.rediff.com.
Warm Regards,
PG
Customer Service
Rediff. Com

And how was your V-day?

just when you thought it couldn't get any better....

Guess who turns out to be in the wrecking business!
What's next? The Delilah franchise of hair salons?
I spoke to soon. They already are.
http://www.delilah-salon.com/

Now your chaetophobia can trigger your trichotillomania. Enjoy.

Back to the womb

fuzzy

sleep-deprived lethargy

late nights

cacophonous mornings passing in a semi-dozing drift

office ac off

warm

moist air

like being back in the womb

or

would be if I were a set up quintuplets

with in-vitrio ipods

Mumbai for Maharashtrians?

Jokes apart - I'm a northie who landed up in Bombay with 5k and nothing else, not so long ago. I got a job and a pg. That grew into a career, a flat, and a relationship. My bosses, co-workers, and friends have been non-Maharashtrians and Maharashtrians alike.

I've never had reason to complain, I haven't been discriminated against, and frankly, I've had an awesome time here. But... this city is drowning in people. Local populace from the hinterland and beyond, it's bursting at the seams with too many dreams, and not enough place for them all.

I'm an immigrant.

But I WILL oppose immigration when I hang out of trains. Pay exorbiant rents. Stand in serpentine queues. Sit in traffic jams. It doesn't matter who comes here. It matters a lot that he comes at all.

Sooner or later, it's all going to come down to economical natural selection. New companies will find it too expensive to set up shop in the city, so they'll come near it - near enough to use the workforce, but far enough to be affordable. The city will grow. And grow. And grow. Already it makes a lot of sense to change your residence according to where you work. Tomorrow, companies will factor in easily-commutable residential slots as part of the package for employees. And facilities and amenities. And the city will be a collection of _____ (insert company name here)-Nagars. Campuses, in the truest sense of the word.

We can't fight it. We can just try and make it easier, without the pressure cooker situations.

boo hoo

Quake Wars won't run 'coz my AGP is underpowered. I can't upgrade my AGP card because my motherboard isn't compatible. I can't change my motherboard 'coz I then need to change my processor as well. I can't buy a 22-inch flatscreen monitor and a 7.1 GigaWorks system 'coz I don't have any games that'll justify it, and I can't buy those games 'coz my AGP won't run them.

For want of a kingdom, the nail was lost.

...and Bioshock refuses to install without an internet connection. For some reason, Tata Indicom broadband doesn't fall into Bioshock's definition of 'internet'.

can I bang my forehead on my pitiful 15-inch CRT now?

A moving story... moved!

For all my loyal fans and faithful supporters who have been avidly following my trials and tribulations at the hands of the financial capital's treatment of it's denizens vis-a-vis translocation of residences, let me serve up to you, gently warmed, a multi-course repast of the aftermath of the move - where we are now.

Starters:

The PC Room

One room has been converted into a combination of gaming centre, server room, laundromat and travel office.

A cupboard threatens to explode from the accumalated pressure of souvenirs, trekking equipment, and half a dozen knapsacks and sleeping bags so tightly rolled up they threaten to achieve critical mass. Especially R's alpine sleeping bag, the best way to picture which is to imagine a regular Kurl-on mattress somehow squeezed into a gas cylinder. I can hear it groaning and vibrating under stress, sometimes.

The rest of the cupboard looks like Lamington road, where my entire paraphenelia of electronic spares and discards, now completely indistinguishable from each other, languish in wait of the Great TurboListing Day, when they shall go up for auction on ebay.

Next to which is a desk which is not actually alive, though you may be fooled by the way it hums, moves, chuckles and chirrups to itself, is warm to the the touch and exhales gustily on your knees when you sit down; that's what comes of having a CPU, two heatsinks, and a subwoofer in one confined space. There's a small hole in the desk which the original owner had intended for a genteel 2-3 cables for monitor, speakers, etc. It looks like a Lovecraftian revenant now, with over 20 cables of assorted thicknesses, colors and tensions coiling out of it. 2 monitor, 3 ext. HDD, 1 USB hub, 1 joystick, 6 speaker, 1 mouse, 1 gamepad receptor, 1 webcam, 2 router, 1 cam cable, 1 cardreader coming out; 1 network and 1 power going in; and don't even think of the interior, where there's also 2 extension boards. It gives local network engineers heart attacks. I counted yesterday - 17 LEDs operate at any point of time. It's a bloody spaceshuttle flight deck.

And while you sit down, behind you the washing machine, if on, provides a pleasant growling, thumping, drumming background score, with the occasional merry splish-splash of overflow when the pipe falls off or the exhaust hose leaks.

At nights, it's like being in a high-tech womb.

aimlessness...

miss trekking. used to give me such a calm, fresh new perspective... too many things happening now, too much to do

Runaway 2

Basically a glorified puzzle-solving game where you need to discover the sequence of using items found, talking to people, and picking up on past clues. What I really liked about this was the intensely rich, immersive experience - from music, to background sound, to conversations, accents, situations, and the extremely... fantasy-type feel. A sense of somewhere, somehow, this can happen, and a sense of being part of a bygone age and place that was fun, adventurous, and relaxed. In fact, everything that a Catalina stands for. Every time that flying boat has entered my life, these are the feelings it brings - from Duck Tales, to Commando comics, to Indiana Jones, to Tales of the Gold Monkey. Wonder if there's a message in the pattern?
At a stage right now where the story's becoming... interesting. I've outsmarted a drunk monkey, a dyslexic marine, befriended a nymphomaniacal waitress, impersonated a top secret government official, brought a cockatoo back from the dead, desecrated a witch doctor's grave, stolen a toy from a child, helped a Hawaiian kahuna rediscover his roots, taught an australian surfer to surf without waves, taught a genius idiot-savant to speak again and learn dentistry, unlocked an alien portal, and am currently avoiding a psychotic killer and a megalomaniacal renegade colonel.
The characters are awesome. Kordsmeier has references to god knows how many megalomaniacal colonels from Hollywood lore. Platoon's Sgt. Elias Grodin, Forrest Gump's Lt. Dan, Apocalypse Now's Col. Kurtz and Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. A dead Indiana Jones makes an appearance, as does an aged Baloo in a human avatar. Ehrich von Daniken is profoundly present, and a tropical Area 51. This is where it scores over Myst - Myst was too abstract, too alien, too unfamiliar. Here, you can use what you know from modern-day legends. It's an awesomely entertaining experience, and you do need to use your brains.
Let's see what happens next...

the future is now

This. Is. So Cool!

Microtechnologies as come up with an anti-theft system that talks to your mobile. That means anywhere you are, you know what's happening to your car, where it is (they have a web-interface tracker), two-way voice, GPRS and SMS-based tracking, remote arm / disarm, lockdown, and shutdown features.

So the next time someone steals your car, you can lock him in and shut down the whole works, then go over to where he is, and call the cops. And tell him what a naughty boy he's been while he waits for the cops.

Waiting for the next-gen version, which will have internal / external cam, remote control, and a large boxing glove on a spring.

gaming

Why do I game?

It eats away time, money, sleep, healthy eating, good posture, fills the head with nightmares and daydreams, opens your computer to infection risks, overwhelms my HD, and blows my bank balance in associated costs - AGPs, peripherals, networking...

yet I game. Compulsively, obsessively, incessantly. And I enjoy it. I love it. I live it.

I guess one bit of it is... escapism. The same reason you read, or listen to music, or watch movies... or plays, or art... there is a story in here, and it's long, complex, rich, and often fascinating. It's not just shoot-and-watch-the-gore-spatter; the background stories can be expansive and imaginative as any SF. When you read, you don't just look at the words; after a point, there's a direct flow of thought from your imagination to your conscious mind, with the words on the page just the occasional trigger. This can be as immersive.

Entertainment. Adrenaline. Reflexes. Will you rather play cricket on the road, on rock-hard tarmac? You also play with traffic. Or travel for an hour each way to get to the ground, after having booked it in advance, of course? Sad fact of life, but real-world play in an urban environment is becoming more and more inaccessible. And in a city, finding a safe nice place to play in is way easier than finding a nice, safe person(s) to play with.

On the other hand, you can curl up on a bean bag in an AC room, and immerse yourself for a couple of hours.

Ever done puzzles? I'm not talking about the crap that passes itself off as 'puzzle games'. Even stuff like Tomb Raider, like a lot of movies and books, require significant suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. Stand back and look, and you know that Ms Croft can get past the cunning trap in one way and only one way, and that one way has been conceived and created by Eidos Interactive long long before you came on the scene. You're being forced to walk down a corridor, wearing a chicken suit, with a pause every five seconds to sing the chorus lines from Eminem's Stan. If you don't do any of this, you die.

On the other hand, look at cheatcodes, easter eggs, and cracking. You're getting inside. Edit the default values in the config files, and suddenly all your tanks mooove like rocketbikes and fire unlimited nukes, our soldiers wear tank armour, and your buildings are invulnerable, and you yourself can fly, walk through walls, never run out of ammo, and use level 9 weaponry on level 1 minions, the poor creatures. The getting in, figuring it out, trying a hypothesis, seeing it work, applying it for a better experience - dopamine overproduction! It's a high of just using your head to make something happen!

More than that, sometime around 2 AM, when suddenly, everything clicks, and you're past the block, in the zone, on fire... it's a quasi-religious experience. Superego and id in perfect harmony for once, in perfect coordination, needing each other, working together. Higher brain functions shut down, worries evaporate, stress vanishes. It's just you and the game, in a world where none of the constraints apply. And it's amazing what a relaxing feeling it can be for the soul when all your troubles get boiled down to 2 simple counters - your health level and your ammunition level - and your hindbrain, too, believes that with all it has.

Stopping play is like... waking up, or falling asleep, depends on how you see it; between

.

.

Do you really want to quit? Y / N

.

.

and shutting down, getting up, water, roll into bed, drifting off... is a dreamlike, fugue state anyway. As soon as I slide into unconsciousness, REM kicks in almost instantly, picking up where the other side of that Y/N left off. Talk about an immersive experience - like most immersive experiences, this one sticks to you after you've climbed out. The next waking in the morning is even more disjointed.

It's an experience that extends way back in it's foreplay before the actual gameplay. The entire wandering through Fort, leafing through the pavement titles, one eye open for cops, making the selection, the bargaining, the wrapping up of the purchase in the inevitable black plastic bag, quick turn-down of the offer for porn ("saab english / hindi / double / triple / latest") and walk home; and the entire installation adventure, decoding the crack instructions written by a technically gifted but linguistically retarded cracker, and that rush when the game executes perfectly for the first time... this is entertainment that you work for, that you take risks for. Is that why it's that much more enjoyable?

That's it for now - I stocked up on Gears of War, Q4, Bioshock, and Max Payne 2 and HL2:Ep1 is still left with a little to go... have a good Winter-een-mas!

---

Play. Evolve.

Images thanks to Ctrl-Alt-Del and Explosm.net

A moving story - the end

What a day.

I mean, seriously.

Phase 2 - the heavy, bulky furniture - successfully moved, and unpacked. The rubbish sold off. The post-move check for all the stuff left behind, done. Identified. Packed. Moved.

PC set up.

Kitchen functional.

Fridge working, even some food stocked.

Cupboards filled up.

And now - finally - I can sleep.

So tired. So completely bone-tired. But we did it. The most intense shifting experience till date, over and done with.

My roomie's room, after packing. I don't see much difference.

My room - a last look. Strange sense of - a kind of loss. We've moved on, but the room is still there - so much happened here, the last two years. Life changed so much. Everything changed... and every night, this was the room I returned to to rest.

Goodbye, A-7.

Yeah, yeah, movin story, thats right

The Island of Dr. Moreau

aka

Packing the kitchen

I remember the last time I was packing the kitchen - found a full-grown rat, complete with nest. This time around, that particular pleasant little surprise wasn't around, but it was pretty interesting even then. There's an ecosystem in the sink, and the rubbish heap moves by itself at times.

It's also fascinating what a collection of food one builds up. This is a realization that hits really hard when you realize that the fridge now needs to be emptied. In a day.

I can now either stuff myself with rotis like rock, fossilized pizza, and something red and greasy that I can't even identify anymore in a plastic jar.

Another round of luggage has been shifted; there's now a deep, stretchy ache in my forearms and shoulders, and thanks to a minor bike mishap, in one leg as well... but it's 3:30 AM, I've been sleeping four hours in the last 48, and I'm absolutely, brilliantly, completely wide awake, excited, nontired, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the works. It's fun. I should throw out rubbish more often; it's better than amphetamines.

A Moving Story continues...

Laws of Packing

1. Everything is covered with dust. Thick, grimy, cobwebby, full-body dust. The Dara Singh of Dust. Dust that's been working out and wont give up easily without a solid fight.
   
2. When a bag is closed, an item is immediately found that needs to be put in the said bag. The probability of this happening increases in direct proportion to -
   
1. The bag being locked
2. The key being misplaced
1. Corollary - the more essential the item, the higher the probability of the key being lost. In case of self-closing locks, the key has a 98% chance of being inside the bag.
3. Rubbish is infinite.
   
4. Number of available bags will always be less than amount of available stuff.
   
1. This will happen regardless of the number of bags. A Duckback warehouse will be insufficient.
5. The duster, when required, will always be at a distance of minimum 75% on the other side of the room.
1. Corollary - The distance increaes in direct proportion to volume of rubbish obstructing your path to it.
2. There are 3 exceptions to the Duster Distance Theorem.
1. The duster is under you, if you are sitting down.
2. The duster is underneath the large, heavy bag you just packed.
3. The duster is not in the room at all, but has been slyly 'borrowed' when you weren't looking by co-packers.
   

images

... had his eyes closed. Cliff thought he could see a very, very faint glow surrounding him, like a thin mist. There were tiny points of light in it.

He was still standing with his eyes shut, as if he was asleep on his feet.

'Yes,' said Cliff, 'we'll get on out there, will we? Er. Buddy?'

Buddy's eyes snapped open suddenly.

'Let's rock,' he whispered.

Soul Music

Terry Pratchett

A Moving Story, Part VI

Phase 1, round 1... done.
Minor luggage successfully shifted, ECG and blood test done, Aquaguard cleaned, cleaner identified and arranged, security guards pal'ed up, and I still made it to my office on time! And I didn't even sleep in the train!
Next - more smaller luggage shifts, and arranging for movers.

A Moving Story, Part V

Packing, round 1.
15 items.
2 rucksacks.
3 cartons.
1 large duffel bag.
4 medium carry bags.
1 small knapsack.
1 small sling bag.

What any average Great Indian Train-Travelling Auntie would normally carry.

I think it's in control. Most of it can come in a cab. I will have to entice roommate with beer to accompany me and help out with the carrying stuff up. If we can this over to the new place in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, I can dump it, freshen up, get my blood test (the insurance guy had to pick this day of all days, man) done and head to office. Do the review meeting, then back and unpack there all evening, go home, and pack the big stuff. And call a large-size tempo.

The Junking Process has unearthed 15 expired credit / debit cards, a glass model of the Burj-ul-Arab, and 3 mismatched foam earphone covers, pristine new.

And I'm tired but feelin' go-o-o-d.

A Moving Story, Part Fuckit

Where the fuck did I get so much STUFF from???!

More stationery than a kirana store, more electronics than GN United Computers and Spares across the street, and that's without even packing my comp and speakers. I mean, the photos alone have occupied an entire airline carry-on strolley-sized bag!
And my superboss is in town... which means reach office by 9:30, so no morning shifts. And coming back is as late as always. And my damn blood test had to happen on friday... which of course, being an optional holiday, has been promptly commandeered into a working day. Aaugh!
and don't even get me started on the books and DVDs. Just about half of them have filled up another 3 rucksacks. Big ones. I'm fast running out of place to put them, and the idea of actually moving them is...

You know what the trouble with being a superefficient packer is? It also makes a superefficient stocker. I've managed to pack so much stuff into such a small place, through genius-level application of inventory and space management, that taking it all out is like watching the Sorcerer's Apprentice' brooms go wild. Expect a wardrobe-related accident any day now, when I get deluged in the bursting dam of pent-up possessions.

Time for emergency measures. Starting tomorrow, every stitch of clothing goes into the washing machine. Let the dhobi can transport them on the weekend.
No more sentimentalism. It doesn't matter if X was a much-cherished gift from some long-ago girlfriend, if it doesn't work and is falling apart, out it goes.
Promise to self - once I move, I'm going on a donation spree. Books, movies, clothes - give, give, give. After flogging off as many as I can, naturally.
Stop. Storing. Boxes! Please! Billions of camera, phone, shoe, and miscellaneous other containers are emerging like ants before the monsoon. Stop being a packrat! Some cardboard cartons - which are normally subjected to such abuse they never last beyond a single shift - have GIM address labels on them. I've nursed them through 6 moves, over eight years!

On the good side, I've found stuff - mysterious foreign coins. My PAN card. My electric drill chuck, would you believe it? An Alfred E. Neuman poster. Neuromancer, that I was convinced was borrowed and never returned (and won't be lent out again, never fear, and don't even try). A pack of Malaysian cigars. Fifteen different adaptors, and not one, but two cordless headphones, complete with their own transmitters. 2 windcheaters.
And somehow, my external HDD has suddenly started working perfectly. I don't think it's related, but still a good thing.

I need a drink.

A Moving Story, Part III

Last time we moved, we ended up having 43 individual pieces of baggage (including a bucket full of brooms and mops). It's too much to manage. This time round, I think it'll make more sense to do couple of quick trips to the new place and start dumping bags - and emptying them and bringing it back as well.

Advantage -

• It'll do away with the need for superpacking where every available cubic centimeter is utilized, which results in superdense cartons where you have no clue exactly what has been packed where.
• It'll allow re-usage of available bags
• It'll let us set up the new place in phases, so the exhausted period post-move isn't occupied by an even more exhausting re-setup; last time, we were so pooped that stuff stayed packed in cartons for months at a time. In fact, some cartons are going today as is from the last shift.

Disadvantage -

• Multiple trips, so I need to be able to leave early enough to pack, and reach late enough (from and to office) to do a baggage dump in the morning and an unpacking exercise in the evening.
• Finding cabs willling to go short distance, with a luggage rack.
• Anyone in the Andheri West area willing to help and with a big car, and lots of free time?

A Moving Story, part II

yep, that's my room.

cartons, bags, dust, electricals, Jon Bon Jovi, and the bright clean table in the middle is where a chicken patiala rested not very long ago. It's an explosion in a psychotic warehouse, and I'm lovin' it.

All the interesting stuff i never knew I had has started turning up... and will be going on eBay soon. Advance booking open for cordless headphones and an ancient Yashica.

Another fun bit of this phase is imagining where some of all this stuff - so useless so far - will go in the new place. This tiny bulb on a bedswitch? Can it be used to make an illuminated drinks cabinet? Or how about this...2.0 speaker set? Can I wire up the entire house so I get my music in every room? I already have the 5.1 set, the old 2.1 set... and an amplifier... and lookit this, thirty feet of shielded cable... heheh.

in the watches of these dark nights...

...the most innocuous takes on... overtones.

like the laundry. close to twenty shirts hanging in the dark corridor. like a battalion of emaciated, headless corpses.

gently swaying in the wind, like they're giving a chance to let those at the back peer forward.

twitching. crowding around the door.

if I go to the loo, brushing past them all, what will I find outside waiting for me when I come back?

dead quiet... but moving. coordinated, twitchy, random movement. like a silent mob.

it's creepin me out...

moving... again

After 2 years at Veera Desai, it's time to go. I like moving. It's cathartic. A chance to leave behind all your mistakes, your messes, and start over, now that you've learned from the past. A sloughing-off of the dead skin, the ultimate housecleaning.
And while brokers, societies, landlords, and other such blots generally conspire to make it horrendous, this time around, the entire process of closure took less than a day, thanks to Harish.
And now we're the proud owners of... well, just a single key right now, but the next 6 days are going to be action-packed. Packing, unpacking, repacking, scotch tape, cartons, dust allergies, finding things you thought had been forever lost, arranging, buying stuff that had been waiting for a better setting... it's an awesomely fun experience.
Signed off with the landlord, an elderly lady who for some reason has assumed that my roommate is so junior he could be my son; a fringe benefit of the beard, I guess. Roommate naturally is frothing at the mouth.
And the celebration parties never stop.
As I look around at the awesome wasteland of debris that my room is, I can't help wondering how the fuck is it all going to be shifted.

dichotomies

you can be a boring guy
with boring friends
and a boring life

you can be a rockstar
with rockstar friends
and a rockstar life

you can be both
with no friends
and no life

from the outside.

zoning in

only way to describe it is, it's like runner high.

remember feeling this way... more than a decade ago, in my XII boards. and Macleodganj.

a moment of perfection, when everything works. not hungry, not thirsty, not tired, not sleepy. your head, your whole body, trembling with an energy so frighteningly abundant you can feel it barely contained.

everything coming together, at the right time, the right place. synapses, situations, reflexes, thought, hands, the world around you, in a perfect ballet where you can't go wrong. in some extraordinary way, you have reached a level where you can actually make the world behave the way you want it to - or where it doesn't matter how it behaves, you can handle it. easily.

like a dragonfly climbing out of the husk of the nymph it used to be, and spreading it's wings for the first time in it's like in the sun. the world just changed forever, and it's a wonderful, exciting place to be in. where there are endless possibilities, everything is - not easy, but fun. you look back at what you were, and you marvel that you could have felt like that, lived like that, once...

it's also lonely. when you try to describe it, you come across as - you can't come across. it's such an intensely personal experience, it can't be communicated. the other won't understand. at best, you can be boring.

it's an interesting thing... this is probably what someone on serious amphetamines, or in a high-altitude climb, feels like. but from outside...

work

piles of work.

piles is a good description.

 

work that looms

tottering in treacerous, terrible, terrifying, tall towers, trembling with tons of terrific trouble trapped tightly, tormented and travailed, waiting for the toil of the time-lagged tasks to transition from then to tomorrow.

 

emitting the ghastly pong of putrefied deadlines

surrounded by buzzing clouds of outlook reminders

 

while the boss sniffs around, wagging tail and drooling, searching for rats

 

and colleagues caw and peck, and fly off with a little bit now and then to squabble over while the pile teeters and wobbles...

 

and the outsourced independent parties scurry around within, living their own lives, blissfully unaware of the world outside

 

and distractions sprout in pale clumps in the shady parts, giving you dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations if you pick and eat them. Some can even kill you.

 

Such is my work. And now I shall return to it.

 

 

Smoking your way to good health

Did you know that smoking, apart from being injurious tohealth, can also be used as an effective tool towards a better, fitter life? Here's how - with Dr. T's Ten Tips for Smoking Your Way To A Healthier, Fitter, Slimmer You.

1. If you have a sedentary job, look at the first advice any fitness authority gives - Keep Moving. Walk around. Sit, stand, stretch. And while doing this for no reason can get you classified as a freak, look at the same activities with a cig - you're a hard worker, stressed but in control, dynamic, driven. Wonders for your image.

2. Frequent legitimate breaks. If you're in a non-smoking office; so much the better; every break means at least ten minutes of getting up, walking around, standing, moving... count the calories.

3. Walking. You can't smoke in public transportation, so don't take it. Just walk instead. Billions and gazillions of health benefits from a ten-minute brisk walk every day.

4. Buying. Never buy a full pack, you'll lose the entire health benefit of getting up, walking downstairs, across the road to the corner shop, back, skipping briskly through traffic, smoke, then back up the stairs.

5. Reminder value. Once you're smoking, all those activities you thought you could take for granted will suddenly become effective reminders for you to get into shape - huffing on the stairs, seeing black spots in front of your eyes on steep climbs, altitude sickness on holidays, the works.

6. Food control - feeling the urge to snack? Smoke instead. Not only do you save the calories of the pakora you would have otherwise consumed, but the nicotine will be an effective appetite-killer, so you don't pig out on regular meals either.

7. Binge-ender; Smoking kills off taste and smell buds, so food is less tasty and alluring. The sight of that Lebanese chicken grilling in it's brightly-lit glass counter will, in time, no longer sending you into paroxysms of a feeding frenzy.

8. Shorter meals - A cig tastes the best after meals, so when you're considering tat second helping... think of the smoke instead.

9. Social benefits - Social people are happy people, and happy people are healthy people. The entire smoking subculture will give you undiluted support; borrowing, sharing, cadging, asking for lights, inviting fellow smokers (many of whom will be attractive young women) acts as an instant ice-breaker, as well as a great conversational support. Don't know what to say? Just nod and take a drag.

10. Cleanliness. Very quickly, your house will start filling up with packets, matchskicks, butts, and that all-pervasive grey ash. It'll drive you to insanity with it's sheer untidiness, not to mention asthma, sneezing fits (also assisted by the reduced-efficiency lungs you now have, another benefit) so you will be forced to keep constantly cleaning up. Massive calorie burn, as well as impressive to girlfriend / landlord / wife.

And finally, tip zero - when certain aspiring authors, after having convinced you to smoke, ask for a cigarette, don't deny them. It's healthy, trust me, in strange and indefinable ways.

Claims, investments, bills, proofs, receipts, and other such blots upon the world

Rent receipts from an absentee landlord who squeals at the thought of any trackable transaction.

Medical bills from a shifty-eyed chemist's assistant who acts like he's selling you stolen russian nuke warheads under the table.

Insurance premium receipts from a company which is still convinced you live 3 moves in the past, and will unfailingly send you everything you needed precisely 1 day after the final deadline.

Banks that want you to change login passwords, transaction passwords, One-Time passwords, secure PINs, phone PINs, CRNs, DoB verifications, all via brain-damaged, abysmal imps of CSRs that were thrown out of Hell for being too obnoxious.

Salary slips, more lost than the key to the Rosetta Stone.

and over and above everything, fluttering like Hitchcock birds, like blurred, smudged passenger pigeons, are the forms, forms, forms...

Aaagh.

SMS From 91**********

and this one came on sms. I am now fully enabled to moblog, at the rate of my operator''s premium sms charge per post! Viva la tec

Please visit www.smscountry.com

Isn't technology wonderful?

This post has been written via an email. If you're reading this, it means I needn't log into blogger anymore to post... next step, blogging on mobile.

 

...to be continued...

life goes on

the funny thing is, life is not clearly delineated chapters. my blog is losing continuity. one incident or another, floating past like dead, swollen rats in the black water. or rain-bubbles in the downpour, whatever gets you through the night

had a nasty taste of mortality when i realized more than half of my friends are married, when the conversations that used to go 'my girlfriend says...' became 'my wife says' and i saw myself slide into that inevitable cycle of comparisons - who's married, had the baby, bought the big car, bought the freakin house, whoa, started own biz, become something that has 'president' in the designation... when all this is happening now, you realize that there's been a very subtle shift in milestones.

before
learning to drive, the first cig, the first kiss, first / second / third base, college, staying alone, bike, trips, the first fight, the first drink, the first job...

then
the promotion, the engagement, the marriage, the birth, the house, the car, the foreign holiday / trip / posting...

after?
you got it. the first heart attacks, separaion, divorces. the first death.

is this what they call a pivotal moment?

we're all dogs

What Breed of Dog Are You?

My Result: Golden Retriever

No bones about it, you're a popular, fun-loving Golden Retriever. Adored by all and too cool for school, you're extroverted and enthusiastic. Your magnetic personality makes you the life of any bash. Since you're a true people-dog, you genuinely love all kinds of social gatherings. Going to parties, dinners, and other shindigs is the best way to add faces to your constantly growing circle of friends. But besides being on the social A-list, you're a confident, well-rounded pup who's definitely something to bark about. Pretty accomplished at anything you set your mind to, your sunny nature and winning ways make you one of everyone's favorite dogs. Woof!

Take this test >

I'm your favourite dog! Throw me a frickin bone here!

looking back

I was reading an Asterix yesterday, and was thinking that somehow the impact isn't the same anymore... I remember laughing out loud, ROTFLing, the works. I remembered the other comics, how they would have a larger-than-life, story playing visually in my head even as I curled up under the wooden stairs of the Hobby Corner at Janpath, browsing away, complete with backstories, sound effects, even smells and vibrations. The same used to happen with the books, the music, the movies.

But it's not the quality that's gone down. It's not my brain that's degrading, my sense of imagination and humour fading.

It's nostalgia.

The books I read today will be remembered as having the same impact, five years later.

Do you realize how rich every experience you have today is? Ask your future self. He'll remember.

Appreciate today! It's more fun than you thought it was.