Cynical rantings

Angry samurai

2008-08-28T00:18:00.000+09:00

おしり　かじり　虫

2007-12-23T20:52:00.000+09:00

Thats "Oshiri kajiri mushi", or the bottom-biting bug. Its an internet meme thats been hanging around me for a looong time now. Guess everyone else too. just found this picture of okm on some bread, of all things!

If its playing in Harajuku, i guess okm has finally arrived!

Also, heres a cool piggy bank .Its also sorta creepy. It chomps down on your fingers harder than you expect, i wonder why it doesnt have a nose though..

I have been spending shocking amounts of money lately. Cant bear to think about it.

Money, like water
You can see it everywhere,
Never sticks with you.

Thats 5-7-5 for you!

Back in black

2007-12-05T00:09:00.000+09:00

looong time!

But, im back in japan.
Yup, and best of all, my new teams name is "Men in Black"! Oh so apt for me, a person who always wears black.
Japans still the same, i still enjoy the food, but the cold is turing out to be a real bitch. My new office has really nice timings, and im home by 8:00 most days. So it almost seems like a rest cure for me!

Things already done:

1. Been to a linkin park concert in saitama (was awesome)
2. Been to a robot exhibition.
3. Got a suica card at last
4. Speaking japanese with everyone like nobodys buisness
5. Got a bag
6. Bought a jacket online
7. Washed my clothes (oh so sweet, this one!)
8. Got a macbook, and installed XP on it

But i dont feel like taking my camera places anymore..

Leaving Japan!

2006-06-21T23:32:00.000+09:00

So at last I begin to head home this month. Its been a little more than a year now.
The worst part of going home is that I dont have one to go to. I think of all the stuff that I have to do , again! and it bothers me no end. And to make things worse, I have to take care of all the little bits and pieces here too.

All this time, office was like home to me, thats gonna change when I get back. Also ill miss the soba, and the ocha, damn! I had always thought that my last days here would be spent travelling all around the place. Strangely i dont feel like going anyplace because of the heat. The only thing i have planned is to attend the performane of a friends soul band, that will be fun!

So I still continue the trend of not staying in a place for more than a year! goodbye same old routine. Heres to pollution, lousy rooms and sweet sweet TV that i can finally "wakarimas"!!

A life so boring!

2006-05-31T01:53:00.000+09:00

A busy working life, deadens the life interest.
A month of office<->work cycles and i dont even remember the time that I used to go on trips every weekend, sigh! Unfortunately it seems to be getting hotter every day, and lots of tiny tremors arent helping the mood any.

But, I did buy a sweet camera and some new clothes.And I started japanese classes at work.Now if I can just figure out how to send my money over to the homeland...for the new house I am buying! Yeah things seem to be moving without my realizing it, although I do realize that I will be in debt for some time to come. Helps out with the taxes though, I hear.

Lately I seem to be sleeping later and later, till I am sleeping only 4 hours a day. Gotta do something about that.

Now for the photos. A paper cutting i did over the weekend, and my kickass shuriken.

The missing weeks

2006-04-17T18:40:00.000+09:00

At last! My net is working. Turns out the router link had fused!Had to take a damn holiday, and lots of nihongo talking to set it right.
The last 2 weeks have been hell. Zombieish workload and nothing to do back home! So I watched all the Southpark episodes.. again. And then there was the marathon cooking weekend, akki rotti, chappati, some sushi, lots of tea, dosa with various pallyas. Learned that I still had it.It has been almost 2.5 months since I ate any rice i guess.

Of course there were the parties too, 3 of 'em. A farewell party with 30 people, a session with the guys and the coolest "hanami" [flower viewing] party with my team in the cemetry under the cherry blossoms. Everyone was wasted and it was a bunch of fun.

It has been 3 weeks since i travelled anywhere new. So the next week it is either o-jima island or chichibu natural preserve sometime in May. Damn the last few months money has been flowing like water. Gotta think before shelling out yen for a lot of crap that i dont really need [19 pairs of socks? more tim burton figures?]. I hate to see the stagnant numbers in the bank account, pisses me off!

Gotta buy a new camera too..soon

A Busy Month indeed!

2006-03-26T15:55:00.000+09:00

What a crazy month this has been.

First I find out that I am gonna be here for longer than I ever planned to be. Then I learn that my project is changing and I have a bucketload to learn anew. My old friends at work all left. I start Nihongo classes from next week.Im getting used to the Japanese working hours. So thats that.

Then there was the kyoto trip, which was nice except for the weather and the insane amount of walking i had to do!
Imagestation link

And then there was the visit of shweta. A half day tour of tokyo that even the best tour operators cannot rival! [I sure planned things well].

9:30 Nippori to Ueno to Asakusa Temple+shopping
12:15 Asakusa to Shibuya Hachiko+Lunch+109+"hotels"
2:00 Shibuya to Shinjuku Station+TokyoMetroGovtBuilding
4:30 Harajuku by walk Wierdos+shops+park+rest
6:40 Yoyogi park to Akihabara Tokyo tower+Imperialpalace+Ginza from train
[Thats all they are worth]
7:30 Akihabara-Okachimachi Shops+Fish+Chocolates
8:30 Okachimachi to Ueno by walk
9:00 Keisei Nippori

Except for Odaiba/ Ginza I think this this is one of the most efficient Tokyo trip planned EVER. Especially for one that lasts only 11 hours.

Yokohama

2006-03-05T20:48:00.000+09:00

Saturday: 03/04/2006
Cost: 1500 yen
Time: 11:00AM to 7:30PM
People: Me, Sunil, Krishnamurthy, Mohan

A trip with some people along for a change.A collegue, an ex-colleague, a guy i meant 20 minutes before the trip.After we got to Yokohama stn ,and a small walk through the sogo dept store, we started on the small water trip from sea bass.We went to chinatown, which was not especially interesting, but did have some good momos. After wandering aimlessly for a few hours, I realized that I could not find a decent chinese face mask even after a long, long search, and everyone else was getting bugged . Everyone absolutely refused to eat anything there [nothing was vegetarian, non-beef, non-tasteless], so we had to eat at a Mac.

Then we went around to the colonial houses, which very pretty neat even today! I got to see a lot of cute pets here too [including a weasel!]. Then, my most favourtite part of he trip. The creepy cemetry. By this time it was evening, and the shadows were getting long. There were some crows sitting around and sqawking and it was very interesting.Everyone dragged me off, and we headed to Motomachi which seems like a quainter Ginza. The price of stuff was remarkably lower then Tokyo.

Then we moved to the International passenger terminal, which is a building shaped like a boat and even covered with a wood called ipe [supposed to last forever!]
Unfortunately all the things I was thinking of doing were explicitly forbidden! [ like rolling down the grass slopes, hanging my feet over the ledge]. Interestingly there were braille maps here!The sakura were beginning to flower already, hope they will be in full bloom by the time I go to Kyoto.

We headed back to Kamata, and had a small party and I ended the day soming home by the last train.The weather was extremely pleasant and the company of a few people on a trip was pretty nice for a change. Nice trip.

Imagestation album

Random threads of thought

2006-02-26T16:57:00.000+09:00

Weather was never an issue in Bangalore. Either is hot, or it is not. But I am learning to appreciate the weather in whole new ways. From 40C to -3C, in the span of a few months, with snow, typhoons and rain thrown in. Wind that tugs so hard you have to hold on to railings!But it does seem to be getting a little bit warmer.

Working hard for the past few weeks. Weekends arent a lot of fun either. The hunt for a suitable jacket continues.Though getting the shoes was pretty unexpected. Downloaded the GBA emulator and HAMlib, neat stuff.

I just noticed that my favourite brand of noodles is called ....

Thanks to Tokyu Hands, have been up to a lot of stuff.

The writhe and shine T-shirt from ages ago.Which needs another wash to remove the lines.

A spider web (always a favourite), though i have to get some spray and also make a spider for it. Ambition calls for a robotic one that would climb up the web strands.
Let us see if I find parts for doing that.

I just realized that it has been more than a month since i cooked myself something with oil or spices in it.Better get cracking on some chappatis or my vestigial cooking skills will wither away.

Gameboy Micro!!

2006-02-10T21:50:00.000+09:00

This has got to be the smallest gaming device ever!
I had seen this way back in october, but thought that the screen was too small.
I was wrong, the thing is packed with pixels, and damn clear. got it for 8900.
I hate the PSP, and all of sony's proprietery bullshit, besides the DS and the PSP are huge compared to this, and the SP looks stupid.FFA is a pretty good game but since its all in japanese, maybe im not getting the most out of it."kore wa nan des ka" syndrome.

Tomorrow i hunt for flash carts and then i can lay my paws on english gba roms!
I would have been impressed enough by now, but then i learn that you can play movies on this too! impresssive.

But I never could see the point of an optical reader in the PSP, thats a friggin joke.besides if i really wanted to see movies i would buy something without the memory stick and other crap,also the load times are absolutely horrible and I HATE pretentious games like the ones on the PSP, [ooh, the polygon count is sooo high.....so WHAT?]. Gimme the old mario style games anyday.

Never go mainstream is my motto, and i stick by it.

Homeless

2006-01-14T21:52:00.000+09:00

It is amazing how I find myself in wierd situations.

Prologue:
Wednesday night, 8PM, 2 C outside, I am crossing the road to my apartment and feel for my key, only to realize it is not there!I must have left it in the office, I go back and check only to find it is not on my desk. I check at both stations in the lost and found, but no luck. Then I think I must have left it in the room, and not taken it in the first place.Now the situation is..

DAY1
Issue
1. Not sure where the damn key is [hope it is in my room]
2. Need key to enter apartment to check
3. The number of the building superintendent is inside the room
4. Cant enter apartment, unless someone enters the apartment, and I can sneak in with them
5. Nobody come to the damn apartment for half an hour
So I call up a friend and sleep there.

DAY2
Problems
1. Been wearing my lens for more than 48 hours
2. No bath, no toothbrush
3. Have to go to office!
4. Still cant get the apartment guys number
5. Enter the apartment stealthily, and find my key is not in the room and it is locked
6. Sleep in an tiny,empty room in hell
7. Buy some clothes, brush and soap

DAY3
Resolution
1. Office again
2. Get number of the apartment guy
3. Get my boss to call up the guy at lunch, and arrange for a duplicate key
4. Get home, enter apartment with luck and fish out keys from my mailbox
5. Home at last!

Lessons learnt:
1. Keep key safe
2. Keep everyones number with me at all times
3. Keep a spare tootbrush and lens case in bag at all times
4. Never get used to a routine!
5. I need such "episodes" to relieve boredom!

Coming Home

2006-01-06T22:06:00.000+09:00

Fairly pleasant month. I realized that things dont have to screw up always. I was so expecting something to go wrong this time I came to Bangalore, but everything was just peachy.For starters, everything went off without any delays. Saw everyone I wanted to.Had a nice little bike trip to BR, and a fairly decent New Years.Saw too much of Greens though.Got lots of new books.

The most surprising thing was how every thing I knew remained the same, right down to the place I used to keep my toothbrush in my ex-room.On the way back I realized that I was not feeling the least bit bad about coming back. Thats when it hit me, Bangalore is not my home any more. Being adaptable has its benefits too, I guess. Where ever I can have a good time, is my home. It doesnt take anyone else, just me. Being pathologically cynical of people and their motives, the ideal place for me is where no one gives a damn about me. And what better place than where no one understands most of what you are saying, are afraid of you half the time, and you can plan great trips with no extra baggage (read people) to drag along. But I will invariably get bored soon. A year is the most I can put up with being the same way.
Better start planning ahead.

VLC

2005-12-10T21:20:00.001+09:00

Videolan Player is the best player around, and it kicks every other players ass.
It can play almost sadistically corrupted video and audio. You can check out the source too.

Get it here
[The 0.8.4 version]

The idea of making a skin was born when I saw a page about writing skins in XML for VLC.So after downloading the few skins on the site and seeing how it was done, I realized that it was perfectly simple.[NOTE: My stupid monitor doesnt do colors very well !]

1. Read the page about making skins.

2. Download a vlt file, change its extension to .tar.gz and unzip.

3. Observe the theme.xml file.

4. Crib about how you can make a better skin.

5. Plan a layout for the skin.

This is what takes the longest.Its very easy to miss a few important buttons.
Better make a sketch of what its supposed to look like.
Look at skins for other players to see whats good and whats not.

6. Make the skin in GIMP, [ok ok, or Photoshop],It takes some getting used to, but it is free!

7. GIMP stuff:

Increase the undo level
Make a base version without any effects [like mouseover or pressed], if something screws up, you can always get back to this.
Search for plugins to do what is needed, perhaps with a little tweaking.
Use the selection tools wisely, do NOT feather the selections as VLC might not handle alpha values != 0,1
Make a sample button and load it in an existing skin to tr it out.
Make the initial images larger than you intend to use them, you can always scale them down, the effects look crappy if applied on a small image
The buttons can be made using webdings or other symbol fonts, [unless you want to make custom buttons]
Make sure the buttons are each in a separate layer
Too many colors hurt the beholder.

8. Select the places where the buttons should be in the file and save the selection to a channel.

9. Once the image looks ready, scale it down.

10. Cut out the buttons into separate files and and export to png files.

11. Paste the other branches [pressed, mouseover] into the image and cut out the images with the SAME mask.This ensures that all the buttons are the same size, and you dont spend hours aligning them.

12. Get some free fonts from the net appropriate to the theme.

13. Write the xml file to load the buttons.

Get the window priorities right, or dragging the window will have terrible results.
Do write the tooltip text.
Dont forget to add close and resize buttons where needed.

14. Zip the files to tar.gz

15. Rename to vlt

16. Test the skin [with debug interface of VLC]

17. Remove any thing buggy.

Missing/ Open tags
Missing files
Typos
Tooltip text
Adjust the Font size/color to be visible

18. The Initial positions for the skin can be found by just aligning the bars as you like, and then check the advanced skin tab.The window positions are in brackets.

19. Play around with it till you lose interest.

Download the skin here

Aeon Flux

2005-12-04T18:02:00.000+09:00

Bad move. Aeon Flux was great as the series of small clips. An evil female in latex, with no conscience, killing tons of people,doesnt speak ..very little to dislike. And then just a few months after I learn about AF, I realize that Charlize theron is playing her!Charlize theron is nice. But not aeon flux material, here is why

AEON FLUX		CHARLIZE THERON as AF
impossibly thin		chubby
Looks wicked		Looks like an overgrown child
Crazy hairdo		My hair looks like this in the morning
Doesnt talk		Bet there will be lots of whining
Kickass costume		Lame costume, no big boots
wears black or nothing		wears white sometimes
impossibly thin		chubby

Now all that remains is to check out the movie and see if it is better than I expect it to be.After the horrible mangling of batman in the recent movies .. i shudder to think that AF will be going the same way.

Of course it is impossible for a human being to be like AF, but charlize ...? No way. Jennifer garner would have been better. Some comics do not make good movies. Next thing i know there will be a GITS movie with real characters.

Update: My worst fears are confirmned, The movie sucks so bad, that I could not make myself watch it completely. What a waste...

Trip to Takao

2005-11-26T13:03:00.000+09:00

A holiday in the middle of the week is not always good. Too little time to do anything a lot of fun. This wednesday the only viable alternative was to go to a place nearby like Takao. A small hill, 50 min from Shinjuku. I knew there wasn't a whole lot to do there so I left around 11AM.370Y from shinjuku on the Keio line and I was there.The people at the station looked like a human wall. I guess everyone else had my idea too.

There were a couple of wimpy rides to the top, but I was walking.The way was jam packed with people, and all of them taking their sweet time to haul ass. It was the older people who were climbing fast, while the youngsters where whining away.Was topside at 1, had some sake and marshmallows in soy sauce. It was getting pretty cold by then .

There were a number of statues on the way too, small ones.
Most of them were on poles and I couldnt get a good look, though they did seem different from the usual statues.Here is one at the top, I had to literally beat people off with a stick to get him alone.There was a zoo too, but filled with "exotic" animals like elephants and squirrels. It was nice to see the cute kids being so respectable and not shreiking their heads off.The way up was too long to be a walk, too easy to be a hike.I even saw the flying squirrel or whatever in the trees though it looked more like a rat caught in the trees, but an old man was insistent that it was the flying whatsit.

The view on the way was nice, the leaves were beautiful. But on the whole Mitake was more enjoyable. I could see Tokyo too even the tower. The weather was absolutely perfect.
On the top there was some song and dance stuff going on which was quite good.But the sheer number of people were starting to get to me. On the way down I met a french family, and it was interesting that we had a limited conversation in japanese, coz they didnt speak english!I was down by 4 in Takao-san-guchi[Takao mountain entrance], and had some more sake, took a walk around takao too, but nothing else remained to be done.

On the way back a couple of Jehovahs witnesses tried to convert my heathen self, but I skillfully made my way home.

This trip was covered entirely by the coins in my change bowl.Damn thing keeps filling up with unspendable coins. I have to take another trip soon, to get rid of them!

cool new things i got

2005-11-12T23:41:00.000+09:00

First up, I did get a haircut. So I wont be reminding anyone of chewbecca anymore. For 1000 yen the nice lady at QB House sheared the wannabe dreadlocks right off. I could have made a sweater out of that hair i guess.

Secodly, I just realized that christmas is creeping up on me, what with all the lights and cartoons everywhere.Check this fella i got with my chips.

Really cute. I want to collect the rest of the set too.

And I bought a lot of stuff for myself too.
1 pair o jeans - 2900
1 kickass room slippers - 790
1 sweater- [not made from my hair] - 1300
2 brushes- 290+315

These feel heavenly. The dumbells are just to show how macho I am. Also, note the clean carpet, which has recently been rid of crumbs, hair, plastic and other biohazardous material.

I guess ill put the brushes to work tomorrow on my new writhe and shine T-shirt. Check out his site,Robert even sent me a mail! A non stuck up internet cartoonist. Very nice. Im buying all his stuff.

The T Shirt is taking longer than I bargained for, but lately I am being so lazy that i amaze myself. The cold is plotting to make me grow lazier I suppose.

New stuff

2005-11-12T23:24:00.000+09:00

well, I never thought his day would come but I have started to think of things in terms of Yen.
Last night I had a party with my buddies at work and was feeling damn pleased with myself for paying "just" 3500 yen. [Although I think we wiped out 3 acres of waterlife in that dinner].

Here are the team mates o mine.

This was at our cafeteria, where I hog my noodles.

The longest hair i ever had

2005-10-26T21:29:00.000+09:00

Yup, this is what happens when you are too cheap to go to a barbers.
But at 3000Y a pop can anyone blame me?
My heart aches when i realise that im giving people good money to take away what precious little little is left of my frazzled hair.
But still, i think im already beginning to look like rip van winkle.
So lets see how far i can strech this silly obsession of mine.

The longest hair i have now is 6 damn inches long.

This gives me a new respect for all long-haired people, i have enough trouble keeping it clean.

Now i have to find a QB House and get it done for 1000Y, thatll be sweet. lets see what those idiots do to me.

The first post

2005-10-26T09:46:00.000+09:00

I have heard a lot about this blog stuff.
But that just wasnt my way of doing things, or so i thought.
Until i found myself forgetting even the most basic stuff about my life.
Even events in the last weeks.[damn you, juvenile Alzheimer's]
So this blog is more of a memory aid.
Feel free to look around if you care to.Be warned, that most stuff may be disturbing, offensive and downright cynical at times.