More Web Goodies May 13, 2006

Since my PC is on the blink, I’ve had to resort, of late, to using any damn system I can get my hands on. However, most of these don’t have an IM or any music to listen to. For those of you who use MSN/ICQ/AIM/Yahoo! Messengers, there’s hope yet: go to www.meebo.com and sign in on your service(s) of choice, and chat easily. I love how my contact list is intact, complete with user groups too!
As for music, last.fm offers the perfect solution. Just register (a very brief process), and download thier radio player. Then, you can search for music by tags or similar artists. The quality is pretty good, and works even on 64-kbps connections, skip-free. Give it a spin!

Quick Firefox Tip April 25, 2006

As you might know (c’mon, you’re one of 5 people who read my blog), I work for Deviantart Inc., and there’s a lot of PR work involved. This means that I have to frequently visit user pages, which have URLs like username.deviantart.com. Its a pain to type this over and over again, especially since I’m used to hitting Ctrl+Enter for http://www.sitename.com (type sitename, hit Ctrl+Enter, and Firefox/IE will add the rest for you). Here’s a trick you can use for deviantart pages, blogger blogs, and anything else with a similar URL type:

• Click Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks > New Bookmark.
• In the ‘location’ field, type ‘http://%s.deviantart.com‘ or ‘http://%s.blogger.com‘, without the quotes.
• Add a keyword thats short and easy to type/remember. For deviantart pages, I use ‘da’. So, to go to my page, i simply type ‘da abe-x’ (without quotes) and hit Enter. Similarly, for blogspot pages, I use ‘bs’.

PC Nightmare! April 6, 2006

Litestep is an excellent shell replacement for Windows, with a lot of nifty features and much room for customization. A shell (for those of you…) is something like a large program that runs many sub-programs within itself. Windows runs its own shell, explorer.exe, and Explorer runs all the sub-programs, like your browser, media player, etc.
Now, I work for Deviantart.com as their Gallery Director for Skins & Themes, meaning I handle artist relations among those who create skins on this massive digital art community. This means checking out tons of skins, themes, dishing out advice, help, doughnuts, and what-have-you. Now, we accept submissions of Litestep themes, and one of them looked so good, I just had to try it. I also claim to be pretty adept with PCs, seeing as how I’ve been using them since I was this high. So I headed to the website, downloaded the installer, got my theme, and got down to work. Now, once you’ve got Litestep installed, you’ll notice a different taskbar, your windows will look different, the way you access programs will change, and so on. The beauty of this is that you can configure it to work the way you want. It requires a lot of coding, but I just wanted to see what my PC would look like with that neat theme. I allowed Litestep to replace Explorer as my default shell.
Once I applied the theme, however, the computer froze.
So I rebooted it.
Then it said I needed to download some additional software in order to get Litestep working properly. But I couldn’t do that, since my cable internet had to be logged into before I could be online. And this login box would show up only after I got past this download box, which only had the options ‘Download’ and ‘Cancel’. So I hit ‘Cancel’.
Once I cancelled, I realized that if I didn’t download that stuff, I wouldn’t see any icons, taskbars, or anything that would allow me to use this computer. I would simply have to stare at a Litestep wallpaper. And cry.
On my friend Sudhanva’s advice, I tried starting up in Safe Mode, and Last Known Good Configuration, only to find that I would still have to deal with that download issue. I resembled a mime actor depicting loss, tragedy, betrayal and dumbfoundedness all at once. A low-rank mime actor at that.
Finally, I decided to boot up normally one last time, and planned to just hit keys wildly till something worked out in my favour. I cancelled the download process that wouldn’t happen, and hit Ctrl+Alt+Del, just like I had done so many times before. Then, I had a brainwave: Task Manager > File > Run > explorer.exe.
This action opened up a folder view of ‘My Documents’. I hastily redirected it to ‘Desktop’, which had a shortcut labelled ‘Explorer as Shell’. I double-clicked, and regained my freedom, sanity, and my wonderful PC.
Moral of story: Don’t try this at home. Not for n00bs! I wish Litestep had some kind of rescue button somewhere. Would have saved me a lot of pain. Ah, well…

Chillout is the new Electronica April 4, 2006

I’ve discovered a lot of great new music over the past couple of months, that can loosely be generalized as ‘Chillout’. I’m talking about downtempo world music, jazz-influenced pop, indie-rock-tinged electronica, latino-glazed-hip-hop and such. Its mostly very freestyle stuff, and I’m sure a lot of it falls under other genres too, and many movements. Still, you get the idea. Here are some artists I highly recommend (albums in parentheses):

• Nitin Sawhney (Philtre, Human, Prophesy)
  
• Zero 7 (Simple Things, The Garden)
  
• K-OS
• Air
• Bill Laswell
• Royksopp
• Cornershop
• Massive Attack
• Fiona Apple (Extraordinary Machine)
• Talvin Singh (Ha)
  

I was introduced to many of these bands by a friend from college, who is half-Nepali, half-Indian, somewhat US-bred, and well-versed in underground/dance/trance/house/groove/hip-hop and other such genres of music. Its amazing how much great music is out there, that is solely for the purpose of serving as the background score for your engaging in doing nothing. Don’t get me wrong, these artists know exactly what they’re doing; some of those I’ve mentioned above are very into fusing regional sounds with drum & bass, blips and bleeps, traditional beats and myriad strains of violin, organ, and samples. Hit up your Torrent client for some of this stuff, and I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Look up isohunt.com for ‘Pure Chillout’, a 40-track album that should give you a good idea of what I’m so excited about.

movies.metal.mornings March 22, 2006

movies

Pink Panther – Steve Martin / Directed by Shawn Levy (avoidable)
Good Night, and Good Luck – David Straithairn / Directed by George Clooney (fabulous)
Se7en – Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey / Directed by David Fincher (must-see)
Memoirs of a Geisha – Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh / Directed by Rob Marshall (good)

music
I’ve been listening to a lot of alternative metal, which is actually very straight-forward 4/4 nu-metal with a tinge of noir. Still, its good music. Also some other stuff, here’s a list:

• Dark New Day – Twelve Year Silence (good alt metal)
  
• 10 Years – The Autumn Effect (very boring)
• Lacuna Coil – Karmacode (almost as boring)
  
• Joe Satriani – Super Collosal (similarly boring)
  
• Eric Johnson – Bloom (smooooooth)
  
• Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine (simply brilliant)
  
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Howl (excellent indie-style Brit rock)
  
• Mattias Eklundh – The Road Less Travelled (solo guitar wizardry)
  
• 36 Crazyfists – A Snow-Capped Romance (inventive hardcore)
• Dave Navarro – Trust No One (alternative rock, not bad)
• Helmet – Meantime (good, angry hard rock)
• N.E.R.D. – Fly or Die (Hip-hop done right)

As you can see, a lot of therefore are therfore justified when they say, ‘I liked their old stuff better.’

mornings
I need more sleep. Waking up is over-rated. I’d rather just close my eyes, and pretend to be surfing Savage Chickens, a neat comic strip made on post-it notes. Here‘s one of my favourites from there. Good night, and good luck.

Worship her, she’s French! March 9, 2006

::Film:

Alias Betty (Betty Fisher et autres histoires)

Directed by Claude Miller, Starring Sandrine Kiberlaine, Nicole Garcia

This is a fine French film, a wonderful story told in as bleak a manner as possible. It tells of the novelist Betty Fisher, who loses her son while her mother is in town to visit. Now what kind of mother would this woman be if she didn’t replace the lost child with another one straight off the street? Betty’s mum thinks so too, and in less than a day, Betty finds herself caring for another child. The kidnapping makes the local news, which causes a lot of trouible for the actual mother’s boyfriend. Several other stories also surface, and each one is tied together with another, culminating in a grand, mind-boggling finish, one that satisfies, and also leaves one quite tongue-in-cheek indeed. Edouard Baer plays the bungling Alex Basato, a con-man living off his mistress. His character undergoes trials and tribulations of all sorts, and is sure to have you in splits.
A very well-made film, with excellent camera work and a lot of great acting. The French sure know how to tell a story!

Paper Street February 21, 2006

I just had my midterms last week, so I decided to de-stress by catching a few flicks:

• Ira Mediyama (August Sun) – Written and Directed by Prasanna Vithanage

The first Sinhalese movie I’ve ever seen, this film captures 3 stories that show the impact of war on the daily life of ordinary people in Sri Lanka. It did that quite well, but it failed to tie the 3 stories together, something the director kept stressing on. Other than that, this film was well shot, but the pace could have been quicker and more consistent. I guess you have to be Sri Lankan to truly appreciate it.

• Fargo / Directed by Joel Coen, Starring William H Macy

Absolutely wonderful! A really well-made noir film, about a man who hires criminals to kidnap his wife, so that his father-in-law can fork over a million dollars in ransom money, which he would take his own cut from. Unfortunately, things go wrong. Horribly wrong.
Macy and Steve Buscemi put in very strong performances that make this film very special indeed. The dark humour wasn’t lost on me, and I had a blast watching this. 5 stars!

• Fight Club / Written by Chuck Palahniuk, Directed by David Fincher, Starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter

Only the best film I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen it a few times before, but this time it really hit me: this is a masterpiece, one that should be preserved, shown at high schools all over the world, translated into as many languages as the Bible, and should be thrown in with your paycheck from work (just so you don’t miss it). The book by Chuck Palahniuk is fantastic as well; I can’t say which one is more impactful.
This movie has a lot to offer to those who are looking for entertainment, flim-making ideas and inspiration, or even a purpose in life. The story is extremely well told, with scenes and dialogue that will stick to you like badly-made toffee. The tagline says it all: Mischief. Mayhem. Soap. Come get some!

Living In The Past February 5, 2006

Jethro Tull was nothing short of perfect on the 3rd of February, as Ian Anderson and Co. belted out classics from the past 3 decades that made the group a force to reckon with. The premier progressive-folk-rock outfit played hits including ‘Living In The Past’, ‘Aqualung’, ‘Thick As A Brick’ and also renditions of pieces by Bach and Mozart in their own magical style. Anderson was in top form, displaying his mastery on the flute and on vocals. A true auditory treat for the 3000-strong (or so I believe) crowd present.
Thermal and a Quarter opened the show, with a short and sweet set, beginning with Queen’s ‘Radio Ga-ga’, and moving on their originals, including ‘How Can I Get Your Groove’, ‘Bend The World’, ‘Paper Puli’ and more. A great set, but I’ve seen TAAQ do better. All in all, a great experience.
Bangalorean Deviants met up today at the second B’lore devMEET, at the Garuda Mall Cafe Coffee Day, for a cuppa and conversation, and later on, lunch at Casa Picola. Pictures can be seen here. We had a good time, and I hope we’ll meet up again soon. Feb 26th, whatsay? Deviantart.com

Whew! February 1, 2006

Well, the Forum Three Playfest 2006 is finally over. It was a great learning experience for me, scoring the music for 2 plays, plus playing a bit part in one of them. There are so many things an actor needs to keep in mind; not quite the cakewalk I imagined it to be. Anyhow, I’m sure I’m richer from the whole month-long exercise, and maybe I’ll sign on to their upcoming projects as well. Three cheers! By the way, there are a few pictures here.
Music: I’ve been listening to Charlie Parker‘s Jam Sessions, as well as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Mars Volta, Galactic, Sonic Youth and Primus. All good, all very good.
DevMEET coming up this Sunday, the 5th, at Garuda Mall’s Cafe Coffee Day. Be there, or be elsewhere! Aditya Pandya aka iamlame is expected (visiting our fair city to attend Unmaad 2006, the IIM-B fest). There’s also the TAAQ + Jethro Tull concert on the 3rd. Good times ahead!

Maria January 4, 2006

Well, Clara has been replaced, by a new Sony DSC S-60. Her name’s Maria, and she’s got similar features, save for a more petite LCD screen, and her buttons are a bit more dusky. Other than that, I love her very much. I’m going to make sure no one loses her, by taking several drastic precautionary steps, including making the current user wear a suit of velcro so as to be able to attach Maria to his/her body and not be able to misplace her.
What have I been up to? Oh, not much. Sleeping, eating, taking in a few movies (that I don’t think are worth mentioning, except for Green Street Hooligans – easily the worst I’ve ever seen). I’ll gather up my thoughts soon and write something more coherent. Till then, y’all be nice to each other.