all the freshest links

Recently I switched from Bloglines to Google’s Feed Reader. While Bloglines was nice, the (still in testing) Google version is just so much better for me. I can finally open up feeds with hundreds of unread items and not have my old computer lock up for ten minutes as all the pictures load, because I can call up entires one at a time. I can go on holiday and not have to worry about the 200 entry limit. I can flag items for later viewing in a single click, and best of all, sharing any items quickly is dead easy. You can see the results of that on the sidebar of this blog’s front page if you scroll  down past “Archives” — ten of the latest links I feel are worth sharing.

Granted, I can’t editorialise on them like I do in interwubbing posts, but it’s nice to just be able to dump a few links directly from my Feed Reader onto the blog, rather than have to do the round-a-bout  way of collecting all the links and either posting them through Bloglines’s two/three steps (involving popup windows and a seperate link “blog” address), or collecting the links and posting them through my CMS’s unused ‘linkdump’ option.

There will still be interwubbing posts, but those will be more editorial. It’s nice to have the flexibility to just link to things when I have nothing to say about them.

What do you guys think of the placement? Is it too low? Should I move it up, and if so, where?

the boys are back in town


Five years ago this November, I started writing my first novel, after having written fiction actively for around a year and a half. It was called The Tale of a Thousand Savants, written for the yearly nanowrimo mass, um, thing, and like the illustration above, was never finished. I enjoyed starting it, and I enjoyed plugging away at it for the first ten days of the month, but soon I was going nowhere and personal issues cropped up that made writing a frivolous fantasy romp the last thing I wanted to do. By the end of the month I was still somewhere around 9K words, and with the deadline of December 1 rapidly approaching I was all set to give up on it.

And then a funny thing happened. I started to write. A lot. In the last four days of the month the word count went up to 34K, still far short of the 50K finish line, but nonetheless far more than I had ever written on anything, an perhaps equaling my entire output of short fiction until then. It was utterly crap, and not spell-checked (Dan and Spyder can attest to this), but somewhere along the way I had found my characters and the thing just started to write itself.

Unfortunately, those four days gave way to what has now become five years of slow, then non-existent writing output. This past year even my overall creative output has dropped to near zero (I must shamefully admit here that Dan and Spyder can attest to this fact too). I miss being myself. I miss writing, because, frankly, for those two or so years — and those four days in particular — I felt, I knew, that this was what I was meant to do. This was right.

In the past few years I’ve tried — usually around every November during nanowrimo — to kickstart my stalled writing again, but while the projects have shown promise, the writing itself felt laboured and dead.

Now I am, quite literally, at the end of my creative rope, and, as they say about low points, there’s nowhere else to go but up. So, this November I’m going to return to the project that helped me find myself five years ago. It’s a continuation of a novel, so I can’t in good conscience say it’s going to be a part of the official nanowrimo event, but I am going to give it my best shot and write at least 50,000 words in the month.

I doubt that will finish the novel. By my estimate, what I have so far is only around 1/3rd of the plot, but I’ll get there eventually. Some time before that, this picture will be ‘finished’ (i.e. coloured and polished). For now, here’s a larger version of the sketch.


Excerpts and character bios will be going up whenever I write them, and will be posted here. Let’s see how this turns out. Bring your Mars bars.

eggs and crisps and everything else


I made a quick fritatta for lunch today. I say quick because I used potato crisps instead of fresh potatoes (that version requires slicing them thin and soaking them in the egg mix). I’ve been having and making omelets this way (with crisps) ever since I can remember (my dad read it in a novel once), but now that I cleaned the oven out and got it working I can be lazy, um, stylish and just finish them off under the grill without trying (usually unsuccessfully) to fold them. It is because of this unfolded nature that I can use the word frittata instead of omelet and thereby sound even more l33t.

“What did you make for lunch today?’

“Frittata.”

“Ooh.”

The recipe is basic and very flexible. Get your egg mix ready (I did 4 eggs, or around 2 per person), so drop some milk in a bowl or a milk-shaker with salt, pepper, turmeric powder and chilli powder and add in your eggs. I like to whisk it as close to cooking time as possible so that it doesn’t sit around and lose air (if you have to beat it again it can reach a point where the resulting omelet is hard and not fluffy, which is bad).

Meanwhile chop up some garlic, onion, olives and mushrooms as I did here. You can get creative and add in all sorts of fresh and cooked vegetables, leftover meats and any stuff you have around. This is also the reason Anthony Bourdain says you should never order Seafood frittata at a restaurant’s Sunday brunch — it’s all the stuff you wouldn’t want on your plate. I like to fry the fillings in olive oil first, blacken the garlic so that it has a smoky flavour, but you can just keep it all fresh — the resulting frittata has a different flavour depending on which way you go. Once they were fried to my satisfaction I took ’em out and put some butter in the pan. Now, I’m one of the few people I know who enjoys the flavour of browned butter more than the regular stuff, so I let it get much darker than most people would. Swish it around in the (oven-safe) skillet so that it coats the side. It should get to a smoking point, BUT(!):

At this point you must have everything else ready, because now you only have a few seconds between the butter smoking and it burning, which we don’t want. Your eggs should be beaten and the filling you fried and kept aside, as well as the potato crisps (one handful per person, or one handful for every two eggs) should be at hand. Also, your grill should be started up and heating. I have done this with a ‘cold’ grill too, but the extra minute of heating-up does help and keeps a continuous cooking time for the frittata.

Place the potato crisps in the pan, spreading them out more or less evenly. Take care not to get super-hot butter on you, because it can sputter and splash. The fillings go on top of that. Try to get these evenly spread too. Finally, pour over the egg mixture (it should make a satisfyingly loud “sssshhhhh”). Now go in with a spatula and even out the thing, pull egg mix away from the sides of the pan so that runny egg mix can flow into its place. Jab at the centre bits a little to get the mixture and crisps mixed up with the egg and that uncooked egg mix is introduced to the bottom of the pan and the stuff that was frying there doesn’t burn. Cook on the stove until it looks mostly ‘scrambled’ but still has a little runny egg in there.

Sprinkle some parsley or cilantro over it. Basil’s fine too. Oregano is nice. Anything except lettuce, basically.

Place it close under a slow grill. It usually takes between 7-10 minutes until it’s done. Basically when it looks set and the bits of crisps and filling that are sticking out brown a little, it’s ready.

Remove (use an oven-mitt, that skillet handle gets hot). Place it on the stove and let it cool for a bit. That egg is still cooking and needs a minute or two to rest. Cut into wedges. Serve.


I had some leftover rice and beans and served it with that today. They actually went well together.


Previously I had served it as a sandwich filling, and that was pretty-good too.

Well, there you go. Good, old-fashioned one-pan bachelor chow. If you try it out, send me a picture.

just say nano

I got one of those nanowrimo emails again. Argh, I’m tempted. Very tempted.
Considering that I haven’t written fiction for a looong time, and that
I haven’t written fiction with the frequency needed to tackle nanowrimo
well in an even longer time, plus a bunch of other stuff that is
pending work-wise, I really should not. No. Don’t do it, Vishal. No.

Aaaaaarrrrrggggh.

the glamorous life

Look, it’s my life in pictures (only difference is I wouldn’t be caught dead at a barber).

he’s such a poster

I suppose that as a graphic designer and movie buff, it must come as no surprise that I pay particular attention to film posters. Next to trailers, posters represent the overall feel of a film best. A million interviews and sneak peeks usually end up sounding the same anyway. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a thousand words paint a thousand pictures, but when you’re trying to sell a film — in essence a big, long picture — then it’s best to cut the chatter and distill it down to an image. More often than not I find myself swayed by a good poster (my views on trailers have been made clear several times), and here’s a few that caught my eye recently, for various reasons.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a film I’d heard a lot about, yet somehow never got around to seeing, which I finally ended up doing a few months ago. It wasn’t that I was expecting something mindblowing — and it was certainly better than Corpse Bride — but it failed to make a great impression on me. This poster for the new 3D rerelease, however, impressed me because the colour palette of the image is more in tune with some of the later sequences of the film instead of the usual blue and black tones associated with the film.

It’s rare to see US film posters — even those aimed at children — which are not monotone in nature. Somewhere in the shift from the illustrated and painted posters of the 60s and 70s to the photographic ones of the 80s and 90s (and today’s photoshopped-to-death monstrosities) the posters have started to look more like the films themselves. I suppose this is good, in a way. No sense wasting a perfectly composed Robert McGinnis poster on a film that is composed mainly in gunmetal grey.

Walking into a theatre used to be fun just to look around at the pictures. Nowadays, not only do I have to contend with the blandness of multiplex design, but the somewhat intended purpose of that bland design — to act as a blank canvas for the promotional materials such as posters and standees to catch your attention — is lost due to the fact that the poster row is a landscape of sepias, cobalt blues, and pastels on white for chick flicks. There are definitely good uses of monotone (the Miami Vice posters spring to mind) but most of them are quite unremarkable.

On the other side of the pond things don’t seem to be faring much better. Here’s a bunch of posters for Eragon which, as I recall, is some kind of fantasy book written by a teenager. The book itself sounds interesting (although it does seem to suffer from High Fantasy Names syndrome, in which every character has some kind of unpronouncable name with either too many syllables or random use of the apostrope), but we aren’t discussing the book, its upcoming movie adaptation, or its pretty looking videogame, we’re talking posters (specifically, this one).

Let’s see… General green/brown cast: check. Principal players all lined up and looking menacingly at the viewer: check. Weapons drawn: check. Castles disappearing behind ominous atmospherics in the background: check. Bad photoshop on absolutely everyone: check. Oh, and then there’s the dragon, who seems to be bored and passing through like some kind of fantasy version of a jumbo jet at the corner of your holiday snaps.

Also, the perspective changes between cast, castles and dragon are quite ridiculous.

Am I going to see the movie? Yeah, sure. It has dragons (even bored ones are nice), John Malkovich, Robert Carlyle, Djimon Hounsou, Jeremy Irons (oh wait, he was in Dungeons & Dragons too, eeeep) and Sienna Guillory (her presence alone is enough to sway me).

Also some emo dude* and a guy named ‘Speelers’ — yeah, probably wait and see if there’s anything better that week.

*Oh, that poor boy. His name is Garrett Hedlund. If you’re Indian and multilingual, that name is hilarious. hehe.

The Eragon posters remind me of the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire posters, although some of those were quite well done  — they contain all the same elements, but the composition is certainly more interesting.

Speaking of Harry Potter, Alfonso Cuarón who directed the third (and best) Potter film has a movie coming out called Children of Men. Here’s a few posters, and these are the perfect example of a muddled, inconsistent brand image. The one sheet at the top of the page is, well, boring. It looks like it could be the poster of a documentary on the birthing process, and the copy is so generic it hurts. Must be aimed at the American market, then.

Scroll down on that same page for the teaser posters, which are much better. We’ll forgive the designers their trendy Banksy homage, because the copy is interesting and the stark design seems more in tune with what the film is about.

Living in a place that is influenced by many different kinds of media cultures, I suppose I’m in a privileged position that I get to walk in to, say, Virgin Megastore and see imported design that is aimed at US, European or Asian markets, usually for the same product (eg. three different versions of the same book) and can compare. The American one, I’m sad to say, is usually the most boring. The Asian one, regardless of its origin, is usually like the American one only with looser composition, and the European one is minimalist and crazy and takes you by surprise.

Globalisation, of course, has its flipside. I’ve talked about Farhan Akthar’s remake of Don before, and here’s the teaser poster, which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it perfectly illustrates that this ain’t your father’s Don, but on the other hand it is a lot more monotone than Hindi film posters usually are. I’ve noticed this in many of the top films this year. The fact that now nearly half or more of a film’s potential box office comes from outside India (albeit from NRIs — Non Resident Indians) as well as commerial Indian cinema’s simmering desire to make it to #1 at the US box office, is now clearly dictating the style. The films themselves are now slicker, but in aping the west they may unfortunately be adpting the bad as well as the good. Having seen the teasers for Don, one does notice a green tone to the film, but it isn’t as heavy as in the poster.

Of course, there are somethings that will always be uniquely — and terribly — Indian.

the ten thumbs of interwubbing

I was at IKEA yesterday looking for a knife sharpener and some clothes hangers (nearly typed ‘hangars’ there, which I’m sure IKEA will be stocking flat-pack versions of someday), and, as usual, spent two hours walking through the store, sitting on every couch, imagining myself inhabiting every show apartment (I quite liked this little two-bedroom number that was 55 sq. metres — unfortunately I can’t afford an apartment of that or any size for the forseeable future). I ended up with not only the (red) hangars and the sharpener, but a cute little milk foamer (it was less than a dollar, how could I resist?) — and I spent far too much time sniffing the chocolate-scented candles. I love going to IKEA even if I have nothing to buy. It’s a great, relaxed way to kill an hour and take in a steady, unrelenting stream of good, and often great design.

IKEA, however, has nothing like this.

Somewhat along the same lines is this concept, although its applications are much more noteworthy than a (non-functional) motorcycle-styled armchair could ever be (a functional motorcycle chair, on the other hand…). However, the concept still doesn’t make a place like Dubai any more wheelchair friendly, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Completing a trifecta of strange and new things with two wheels on them, this scooter ‘mod’ is apparently from the same person who made the rocket powered VW Beetle from a while back. I must say, this one seems a tad more exciting. Put some wings on it and I’m sold.

Why do I get the feeling I’ll be seeing one of these pelting down Sheikh Zayed Road sometime soon? (Also, does it need rustproofing?)

There’s a rumour going around that Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and my favourite, Love, Actually) may be writing Bond 22, i.e. the one after Casino Royale. It’s a bit of a straneg choice, but who knows, it might work. Curtis’s writing talents — albeit in the romantic comedy genre — are phenomenal. His dialogue and characters are always memorable, so who’s to say he won’t be able to inject something brand new into the franchise that others who have been hired with a back catalog of similar action/thriller work have not been able to. One thing’s for sure, though, with Curtis writing, the lead Bond girl has to be American, and Bond has to have five supporting friends. Also, at some point during the climax the mute supervillain will turn to Bond and sign, “Your fly is open.”

Here’s the superbly designed poster for The Prestige. Is that really Scarlett Johansson? Can’t really tell. The very modern poster is an interesting design direction to take for a film set in the Victorian Era (by contrast, the Batman Begins posters were more classical looking.

Dominic Purcell is maybe/probably/hmmm/dunno going to play Bruce Banner in the Incredible Hulk project. Cool. I haven’t seen Prison Break, but I loved Purcell’s previous TV series, the criminally overlooked (and then cancelled!) John Doe. There’s no doubt in my mind that even though he may not physically look like the meek geek steerotype of Banner, he can sure bring that kind of crazed nerd mentality to the role, and also do a good job as a template for the Hulk. Here’s hoping this is true, and they don’t end up giving it to Colin Farrell or something*.

(* Were such a choice to come up, I would gladly go with ‘Something’.)

I guess that, being the cinephile and video game junkie I am, eventually I’d have to replace the 12-year-old 21 inch TV with a widescreen HDTV (waiting for CRTs, no plasma or LCD for me) and set up a proper home cinema. When that occurs, I’d much rather plonk down for one of these Open Source-powered media PCs than any of those Windows-based machines out there. Sure, I may not be able to play some PC games, but that’s what the PlayStation 3 will be for.

Do you want to teach your kids to dance? Can’t get a decent instructor for less than the cost of a small island? Very soon, your robot vaccuum cleaner may be able to do the job.

Further to last time’s mousepads with, um, ample cushioning, here’s a pad [NSFW] that may not keep your wrist comfy, but it is for a good cause. One case of a flat chest actually being more attention-grabbing than a more rounded one.

And finally, the gift for that Resident Evil fan in your life (sorry, no trendy, up-to-the-minute Dead Rising reference here).

solar power man


Here’s an illustration I did for an article on solar power a while
back. Thought I’d put up a wallpaper version. The shading on the
body is a bit crap (rush job) but I like the buildings.

the nine empires of interwubbing

Some more info on the now confirmed Wes Anderson/Owen Wilson India project. It has the kickass name of Darjeeling Limited, and will be co-written by Anderson, Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola.

Dear God, multiple geekgasms.

Simon Pegg is going to star in the film version of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which, following The Devil Wears Prada, seems to be setting up a whole new genre: the Thinly Disguised Exposé by a High-Level Secretary of Life in a Major Company Under Crazy Boss chick-lit bookflick (T.D.E.H.L.S.L.M.C.U.C.B… Toodeholslemcucob? Sounds like some sort of gyroscopic Swedish sexual dysfuntion correction device). Don’t get me wrong, I’d see any movie with Pegg in it (and regarding DWP, I may have already mentioned that Anne Hathaway = drool, therefore I’m sold), but can The Dalai Lama Wears Ecko and Condi’s first bestselling ‘fiction’ book be far behind (and will it also be called How to Lose Friends and Alienate People)??

I live in a hot country. I know this fact, it doesn’t escape me, even locked up in my constantly air-conditioned home one needs only walk into the bathroom when the exhaust is off to be met by a cloud of warm, humid air. Still, for some inexplicable reason, I’d really like one of these radiators.

Here’s an old trick made new. The upshot of this is that it’s a service, which means that doing a bulk order for say, a promotional direct-mail campaign might be economical. Hmmmm (gears turn…)

This watch looks a bit impractical, and the paint job on the fascia is ugly, but hot damn do I want one. Granted, ideally it would play Pong and Space Invaders and be able to hook up with a wireless bluetooth headphone, but if you don’t mind running the wire up your sleeve it shouldn’t be a problem. I have to admit, though, that what I like most about the entire watch is the design of the time readout because it reminds me of some ’80s animated show like Pole Position. I’m so lame.

Finally, someone mates a hand-crank radio set to a cellphone charger and makes one of these things properly useful. The problem with hand-crank radios, to me, has always been their lack of a killer app for urban customers. Fine, it may be subsidised and designed to be used by poor people in the African bush and whatnot, but any device such as this should have a sustainable commercial presence to offset its more charitable arms. Also, the addition of a cellphone charger will not only help us more wired folk, it will be quite useful for some of those remote areas the older ones were intended for. Wouldn’t you like to be able to charge a satellite handset if you were stuck in the middle of nowhwere?

I remember these when they had anime characters on them, but it seems that like in videogames, every year brings about new innovations in realism.

And finally, something to go with those Levi iPod jeans you bought.

book thing

I’ve been tagged!

How could this happen, I just run a blog which three people visit — in blogosphere terms, I’m the equivalent of a hermit! Perhaps because of this, Dan tagged me. Also, he knows I’ve only ever read four books in my life, the spoony bard.

Just you wait, Dan, soon this will turn into one of those real blogs, the ones with the multiple chatboards and weather widgets for Botswana and pictures of random furry animals to indicate moods such as ‘obfuscated’ and ‘shiny purple’.

On to the tag meme, which, if you haven’t put two and two together by now, involves books (I’m going to try and stay away from comics as much as I can — that deserves a separate tag meme, methinks).

1. One book that changed your life: Somewhere around the turn of the century I was very depressed indeed, and utterly bored. If I wasn’t much of a reader to begin with, then at that point in time the circumstances had worked themselves in such a way that it had been years since I’d read any book, even if there were stacks of them laying around the house.

I’m not sure why I picked up Alex Garland’s The Beach when my brother brought it home from his college library, but from that moment I was suddenly pulled head first into it, and only put it down a day and a half-later when I finished it. There was a certain immediacy to the language, an immersiveness that unfortunately is still elusive to most writers. There are scores of books that paint pretty pictures and which I consider great books, but very few inject themselves into your body and soul for the duration of their pages so that you aren’t sitting in your bedroom, you’re running through a marijuana crop on some long-lost island in Asia, tanned and sweating with a ghost for a guide.

The Beach may not be a particularly great plot (straight out of an eighties B/TV movie), it may have already antiquated mid-1990s cultural references (is anyone but my generation going to understand — truly understand — the Tekken 2 Devil Kazuya passage?), but that little pile of pressed dead trees is nothing short of a teleportation device.

2. One book you have read more than once: The Magic Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton (prounced by most Indians as, of course, “Nnid BlITton”). Growing up, I never warmed to the other big Enid Blyton series like The Famous Five (who always seemed a bit, well, irritating). I barely read any books at all, and so all of my strange cultural input was relegated to late eighties DC comic books, blurry B-movies on video, Hardy Boys (Not only was Nancy Drew always on vacation thereby killing the verisimilitude, but there was also no hot teen sex. oh well.), and of course the unusual abundance of tween-targeted SF cartoons like Transformers, Centurions, Thundercats and Dungeons and Dragons that we had growing up in the 1980s (today’s cartoons are… blech, except maybe Megas XLR which has a quirky charm).

I had already devoured much of this stuff several times, I knew each and every way the mythic formulas worked and for some reason no library or shop I can recall had a copy of The Lord of the Rings around.

So, The Magic Faraway Tree was my introduction to fantasy in literature, and I think its influence is readily evident in my writing today. Ask me to come up with a movie and I’m sure to reach for the nearest plot involving an epic adventure quest along the lines of Star Wars (i.e. a tale that follows the typical mythic hero story such as Lord of The Rings or most of its High Fantasy bretheren that youngsters read), but if you ask me to write a novel, then I am going to write a strange tale featuring not-quite heroic, not-so serious protagonist in an ever-changing setting with no clearly defined villain or end to a quest. Pretty much every Savant story follows this template, and the journey from the Faraway Tree’s endless variety of realms at its summit, to Savant’s infinite dimensions, is not a far trip at all.

I probably read each of the books separately at least once, and then have read the omnibus version I picked up many, many times. Even so, it has been a while, close to eight years, in fact, since I last read it, so I probably should do that again.

3. One book you would want on a desert island: How to Survive on a Desert Island for Less Than a Coconut a Day. No, seriously, I’m a real sucker for those 50s and 60s pocket handbooks that try to teach you everything and anything accompanied by helpful line drawings. Today’s “Dummies” books seem a bit tame compared to those bizarre tomes. I have in my possession pocket books on both (Operation) Theatre Techniques and (Stage) Theatre Techniques, for instance. I love the stuff, and one of my secret ambitions is to have a small book brand that does crazy help books like that. So, yes, How to Survive on a Desert Island for Less Than a Coconut a Day.

4. One book that made you laugh: The entire Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams didn’t just make me laugh, it forged new veins of humour in my soul. If Faraway Tree was my introduction to fantasy literature, then ‘The Guide’ was my introduction to all-out humour writing. That it somehow managed to inject a perfectly good science fiction plot into the proceedings only made me love it more.

Of the entire five part trilogy, I love the fourth book, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, because it retained the humour and strangeness of the series while being mostly set on Earth (the ‘inverted house’ still makes my spine tingle). You know that bit in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie when  Elizabeth Swann says, “There will come a time when you’ll have the chance to do the right thing.”, and Jack Sparrow replies, “I love those moments. I love to wave at them as they pass by.” — Can’t confirm this, but it’s probably inspired by a Douglas Adams quote that goes, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”, which he apparently said around the time he was locked up in a hotel room with an editor and forced to finish that book.

5. One book that made you cry: Hmm. Can’t recall any book that made me actually, physically cry, but I suppose that in a weird way reading the end of Mostly Harmless made me go, “Why, Douglas? What’s wrong?” and feel very sad.

6. One book you wish had been written: One more Hitchhikers’ Guide book.

7. One book you wish had never had been written: Don’t really have strong enough feelings about any book that I don’t like, but if I had to wipe one, I’d do the whole series of Ashok Banker’s Ramayana novelisation. I’ve picked these books up many times at the bookstore, looked through them and read a random passage or two and they’re… bad. Bad. If you ever spot one of these, I suggest you do the same and tell me your reaction, because if you somehow think that the prose of these books can be considered anything close to coherent language, then please tell me how, and how many narcotic substances were involved. Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to his nine part Mahabharata.

8. One book you are currently reading: The Conspiracy, by John Hersey. It’s about the so called ‘Pisonian Conspiracy’ to assassinate Emperor Nero, but told entirely through pilfered letters and secret notes between Nero’s head of security/royal household administrator and the secret police. Once in a while he fires off a letter or three to various other arms of the royal machine to request, for instance, a hundred swans to be tehered to an ornate raft for a party, and other elaborate schemes. If you liked HBO’s ROME, then this should be right up your alley. I don’t care much for Roman politics, but this is just so well written (like ROME) that I’m enjoying it thoroughly.

9. One book you have been meaning to read: Always wanted to read one of the big two Indian epics (the Ramayana and the Mahabharata) but in Sanskrit or whatever oldest language they survive in. Ramanand Sagar television serials with their campy, over-the-top style just don’t do it for me, and as stated above, neither does Ashok Banker. I have a lot to read, all the biggies, so add things like Lord of the Rings, Foundation etc. to the list. Also, Alan Moore has written a novel, I think.

10. Now tag five people: Considering that the three or so people who visit this blog have already been tagged, and that everyone else who I’d like to see answer these questions do not have blogs, I’m just going to leave this open. If you read this and have a blog, you’re tagged. Leave a link in the comments if you do your own, I’d love to read it, whoever you are.

man thing

Been testing out my brush pen. As someone who is too used to pressing
hard into a paper using any writing instrument, it does take some
gettin g used to, and I guess I’ve only learned around 5% of what it’s
capable of. It is a lot of fun, though, and allows you to quickly get
very evocative, flowing lines down.

This character is nobody in particular — not yet, anyway. The anatomy is a bit crap, but the face is exactly what I wanted.

the eight wonder of interwubbing

The Sin City team of Frank Miller and Robert Rodrigues are set to bring Will Eisner’s The Spirit to the screen. Miller categorically states that the film ‘won’t be nostalgic’. Great! Both directors have a penchant for highly stylised, graphic moviemaking. If they approach it like Sin City then you’re sure that Eisner’s ridiculously good panel composition will be brought over to the screen, and that the pulpy, hard-nosed style of the comic will be kept intact. If it was any other director, they’d look at all the suits and the fedoras and immediately it would be tinged with nostaliga and caricature to evoke what someone from our time would make of the period.

Who would play the Spirit, though?

Mike Mignola’s poster for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Can we get these two to work together on everything? Please?

I’ve noticed that regular action figures in store are getting much, much worse than when I was a boy. Now I know why: they’re making all the good stuff in a separate line aimed at geek adults, and charging like crazy. Look at that Jack Sparrow — does Tussauds have a better one?

Also check out the Shaun of the Dead toys (and some spiffy steampunk ray guns). I want.

Speaking of Team Shaun (Wright, Pegg, et al), here’s a poster of their new film, Hot Fuzz.

Heath Ledger’s been confirmed as the Joker in Chris Nolan’s Batman Continues, now officially titled The Dark Knight (I wonder if they’ll chicken out and re-title it Batman: The Dark Knight later). Heath Ledger has been one of my favourite actors ever since the days of Roar. You just took one look at this guy and went, “Yeah, this is a star. More, please.” Seeing his interpretation of the Clown Prince of Crime — perhaps the first actor to come to the role with no manic/crazy/funny roles in his career so far — is going to make the ride doubly interesting. So far, barring Catwoman, DC and the Warners have been treating their core franchises well (come on, they have Joss Whedon doing Wonder Woman!). Always been a DC fan myself. Also, they have the Vertigo line, and I’d give a million spandex Marvel movies for one Fables or Swamp Thing or Transmetropolitan.

What a coincidence. I was just thinking of shopping around for a render farm. Of course, with my budget, I’d be happy to afford an Intel graphics card.

Forget goatse and tubgirl (warning: do not google the previously mentioned terms), this is the creepiest thing ever. (Safe For Work, not really disgusting, just creepy.)

This device brings up an interesting philosophical point. Is delaying the reward of the candy by placing a claw game between you and it negated by the enjoyment of the claw game? Ponder this as you waste precious pr0n time trying to grab the elusive bar of Snickers.

I have a strange feeling that these models are based on the actual 3D meshes from Ocarina of Time. Not that it would in any way take away from the sheer awesomaliciousness of the work (there, I was stuck for a word. Solved it. Welcome to the world of the speculative fiction writer, kids).

Yeah, well, you’re all still just going to end up playing Scorpion anyway.

Hyper Scan! <sarcasm> Isn’t it just the coolest thing ever! </sarcasm> When I was 8-12, we left the collectible card games to the sweaty Magic: The Gathering geeks (because anything with unnecessary usage of colons must be treated so), and kept our game consoles safe and sound so that they could process Street Fighter 2 and Shining Force in peace. Nowadays everything has some kind of collectible crap and a bad anime show attached to it.

Yet another example of why Terry Pratchett is a shining example of humanity (I’m referring here to his answer, not simply the duck on his head)

On that note, I have to announce that I have a sudden, uncontrollable urge for an overcooked, salty omelet with green chillies and bits of onion just like they make it in India. It’s 3 am. There aren’t even any eggs in the house. What’s a boy to do?