Thursday, September 28, 2006

The New Pornographers - Use It


No video? Get the DivX Web Player for Windows or Mac.

Just experimenting with the DivX Web Player. This is way better quality then YouTube. Double click for fullscreen. And once the video has finished caching you can right click and save it no fuss. Nice song too! I've written about it before. That video is hosted at Stage6 which has seems to have videos by a lot of other indie artists.

Apologies to my Linux-based blog readers. On the other hand the .divx file pointed to seems to be an avi wrapping DivX MPEG4 video so perhaps the MPlayer Mozilla Plugin could be configured to handle the video/divx MIME type.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

So Vik book tagged me. And I wuv being tagged! Onward!

1. One book that changed your life?
Got to say The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Yes, it's preachy and long and filled with sociopathic protagonatists. Doesn't matter because the core idea, the one that gets to you once you look past the tedious three page descriptions and the one-dimensional characters is still pretty powerful and it's one we weren't really exposed to as kids growing up in socialist India in the '80s. Capitalism.

2. One book you have read more than once?
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. Because let's face it, I hate growing old. And everytime I read that book it makes me feel like I'm reading it for the first time like in did in fourth grade.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
I'm going to cheat here and choose the Collected Works of William Shakespeare. That's a fairly large and diverse set of fiction and spans humor (The Taming of the Shrew), tragedy (Othello), and gratuitous sex (Venus and Adonis). What more does a guy need? Besides the language being all funky means it's going to be a bloody struggle to read so I won't be able to finish it in a hurry even if I wanted.

4. One book that made you cry?
It's going to be bad for my tough bastard rep if I let on but what the heck, maybe the ladies will appreciate the fact that I have a sensitive side (Yeah! Right!) It was A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. That last part when Catherine is in the hospital and Henry prays.

5. One book that made you laugh?
Ah! One? Just one? My life revolves around books that make me laugh and asking me to choose one is like asking me to which one of my thirty seven illegitimate children should live. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Inscrutable Americans by Anurag Mathur, Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson (ok, not one book but who cares?), The Farside by Gary Larson (again, who cares?), The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams and I just realized that this list won't stop unless I tell it to. Stop.

6. One book you wish had been written?
A critically acclaimed bestseller in comic book format. Frankly that one breakthrough graphic novel that makes the everyman give this medium more that just a second look. There have been great graphic novels written already but none have yet broken into the mainstream and frankly it's the mainstreams great loss. I guess I look forward to the day when a freshman can enroll for Comics 101 just as he or she can for Art 101 or Literature 101 today.

7. One book you wish had never been written?
Honestly? Any religious literature. Because I'm sick of watching the bastards twist, manipulate and misquote it to fuel their fires of bigotry, hatred and ignorance.

8. One book you are currently reading?
I just finished reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud and The Book of Bunny Suicides and Return of the Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley. Scott McCloud's book is a serious examination of the comic book medium as a form of communication. I'd say it's recommended reading for anyone who's in the communications industry (Hint! hint! Vikster!) And the Andy Riley books are sick sick tomes upon reading and enjoying which you get a first class ticket straight to Hell. I have mine and I hope to see lots of you there too. (So far, it looks like Hell will be a lot more fun and interesting place than Heaven seeing as how all the people I know and love already seem to be sinning like there's no tomorrow.)

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Holy crap! This list is big. An awful lot of crap by James Joyce. People say he's really good. This book of short stories by Ernest Hemingway that's been sitting on my shelf for almost 3 years now. So much non-fiction that I feel almost ashamed: Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, Design Patterns by Erich Gamma et. al., Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley (been sitting on my shelf for years too.) In short there's this huge work of glorious human achievement out there that I have been too lazy, bored and ADHDed to read. It'll get better. I hope.

10. Tag five people.
That's easy. I-me-moi, Saket, M. Valjean, Thë Là¢ke¥ and /<0usik. Update: Also tagging DivSu who I caught up with after a long time yesterday!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Your results:
You are Iron Man
























Iron Man
85%
Spider-Man
80%
The Flash
80%
Hulk
75%
Supergirl
65%
Green Lantern
60%
Superman
60%
Robin
55%
Catwoman
50%
Wonder Woman
45%
Batman
40%
Inventor. Businessman. Genius.


Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Monday, September 11, 2006

Damn, I feel a post coming on. Now to wait patiently on this Sunday night for the words to coalesce into sentences. Hopefully this one will have more structure and form than my usual balderdash.

So, what bothers me tonight. There are some people I cannot call, cannot talk to, whose Orkut profile I don't visit, whose number has been erased. Sometimes acquaintances who don't know any better will talk about them and I'll stumble awkwardly and explain that I don't talk to them and don't talk about them and don't care what they're up to.

"But why? You guys were really close na?"

Yeah we were but things happen and people change. Heck. I've changed. People who I used to talk to everyday I haven't spoken to in years now. Sometimes it's mutual avoidance. Sometimes just forgetfulness. Sometimes you grow up and don't know what you saw in someone that long ago.

I wish I could say that I'm more mature than I used to be. That I've grown up. To be honest I don't feel that much different from the skinny guy who came here five years ago, from the shy guy from ten years ago.

I was talking to a friend yesterday (one of the old ones who I've stayed close to) about regrets. I have a few. Not too many and not to bad, but I do have them. That's life I guess, a bundle of hopes and regrets. (Damn cliché.) I must say that I learned from my mistakes though. Didn't make the same stupid ones again and again. Heck no, I made brand new ones!

It's so damn fleeting isn't it. Life. And yet I suppose we are the lucky ones. We're watching things change around us at a rate our parents didn't. Our children will be even luckier. I envy them already.

A good deal of you are married or about to be. The rest are dancing that intricate ballet that is Finding Someone. I wish you well. It's a fun dance to be sure but sometimes you fall badly on your butt and people stare. It's fun to stare. It's even fun to fall.

Did you dream when you were little? Do you dream now? Hold on to that dream because in a few years it will seem to fade away. It hasn't gone anywhere. It's just hiding around that corner waiting for you to dream it again.