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Champagne Conversations and Double Standards

24 Mar

Around 0100 hours, Saturday, March 12…

He: Dude, I can’t believe I drank so much!

Me: What did you have?

He: I had…*hic* four King Fisher Strongs!

Me: Yeah given your tolerance, that’s a lot.

He (slurring and stumbling): I also had, 4 glasses of champagne!

Me: Dude…

He: Yeah man. I couldn’t help myself, she was telling me to. I couldn’t say no.

Me: *sigh*Idiot.

He: Boss. Try to understand, it was her birthday! I couldn’t refuse. I rarely meet her.

Me: What does that have to do with getting sloshed?

He: I…I just….just couldn’t say no to her.

Me: Given your previous experiences with women, I’m not surprised.

He: Shush!

Me: So on a scale of one to ten, how’d you rate her?

He: Hmmm…an 8!

Me: Not more? You seem to have had a good time.

He: No man, I can’t. She’s a friend from school.

Me: So what’s stopping you?

He: No! She’s from school. So no.

Me: That was like, 10 years ago man.

He: I can’t look at her that way!

Me: Ass, you already have, giving her an 8 and all that.

He (shouting): Yeah but she’s from school! Else she’d be a 10!

Me: *facepalm*

The Cricket Survival Guide

7 Mar

Something I wrote for T3 India. Now here and unedited for your viewing pleasure:

Zombies and cricket fans have a lot in common. They’re both mindless drones lumbering around trying to sink their chops into unsuspecting folk converting them into one of their own. The difference being that one of them is an extremely real and dangerous threat. And unless there’s a zombie world cup in February it is but obvious that this is a guide to surviving the Cricket World Cup if you’re not a fan.

1.       Go off the virtual social grid: Unwire yourself from the time sinks that are Twitter and Facebook which would be replete with fans spouting their views on everything from Yuvraj’s latest squeeze to Sehwag’s hairstyle and maybe cricket as well. If these weren’t enough you’d find more than your fair share of folk who previously didn’t give a crap about the sport trying to validate their existence by posting something apparently witty about it for virtual kudos. Stay away from them too. They’ve given in to the plague. It’s too late for them.

2.       Read no evil, watch no evil: You turn into a zombie when you get bitten by one. Cricket zombies are smarter. Everything from your favourite phone brand to your choice of milk would be looking to if you could excuse the pun, milk this event for all its worth ensuring your superior cricket-free mind being contaminated by World Cup taint remotely. It’s a clever Trojan horse. The solution? Stop reading newspapers and magazines, stop watching TV and get your news via filtered ad-free alternatives like RSS feeds

3.       Rally survivors: You won’t be alone in these dark times. There will be other like-minded, kindred individuals looking for some solace from the trauma. Now would be a good time to get in touch with your friends who you know for a fact won’t be interested in the World Cup perhaps at a place that isn’t piping inane cricketing commentary. Like a quiet restaurant without a TV for example.

4.       Drinking Games: If you’re forced to watch a match. Have a shot of tequila each time a wicket falls, the batsman hits the ball, the bowler gets a dot ball, when an extra is bowled and every time there’s an ad break. This would ensure that you’d be more receptive to the sport as it would regulate alcohol consumption.

5.      House Party Protection: Cricket zombies are a cunning bunch as point number 2 would surmise. Sometimes when getting to you virally doesn’t work, they decide to be upfront and invite you to a house party to “watch the match”. This is one time where you’re allowed to be impolite and show up extremely late. Preferably after the game. And if you have the misfortune of showing up when it’s on, feign interest by resorting to the usual catchphrases like “Sachin is God” and “I wish Ganguly was still captain” this would result in the horde bickering over these two topics for hours on end. Allowing you to make a speedy exit.

6.       Kamikaze: The final solution this. It’s the very definition of suicide. If points 1 to 5 fail and you for some reason find yourself kidnapped, blackmailed (emotionally or otherwise) or held at gunpoint to watch a cricket match your only option is to shout at the top of your lungs when appropriate (at the loss of a wicket or a boundary scored) “GO MANCHESTER UNITED!”. This would result in devastation of  cataclysmic proportions with the crowd and your immediate (cricket zombie) friends losing absolute respect for you. Which would have been pretty much as existent as Diablo 3 if you had to resort to this.

Commandments for 2011

13 Feb

Something I wrote for T3 India. Now here and unedited for your viewing pleasure:

Commandments for 2011

Yesterday was last year. Your head’s stopped spinning, the hangover’s clearing and you have absolutely no idea as to why yourresolution for 2K11 is to save the world from boy bands. And that’s why we’re here. While we share an equally hateful disdain for manufactured sugar pop there’s a lot more worth resolving for. Read on to know what and most importantly why:

1.       Thou Shall Not Pirate: Ironic isn’t it? We use every possible excuse from high prices to Wikileaks to avoid paying for a copy of Windows 7 but would gladly sell off our firstborn to get our computer up and running after almost daily dalliances with illegal software. The same goes for games and apps. You wouldn’t like to be robbed for your hardwork so doing the same to others is criminal. Not to mention it leads to developers losing jobs and studios closing.  And if you don’t like spending a paisa then the internet always throws up a free, conscious-clean solution.

2.       Thou Shall Not Be an Echo on Twitter: This goes for a sizeable number of folk in the audience. It’s nice to show you’re all so Web 2.0 or whatever they’re calling it nowadays by having a Twitter account but if all you’re going to do is spam the damn re-tweet button 24/7/365 (366 in case of leap years) you’re just adding to the spam paradise we call the internet. Kindly cease and desist (unless you’re re-tweeting @t3_india that is, then you’re fine by us, godlike even).

3.       Thou Shall Not Be a Paying Beta Tester: Hype. It gets the better of us. Even more so when it comes to gadgets. So before you end up spending your hard-earned pennies on the latest “oPad Touch” do wait for the opinions of other guinea pigs before buying a ticket to board the hype train. With some interesting tech ahead of us and limitless updates (Nintendo’s DS line comes to mind) patience should be the virtue of saints and the gadget-obsessed.

4.       Thou Shall Not Showcase Your Lack of Literacy:  An old but perennial one this. ‘cuz typin lyk dis iz xtreemly irritatin 4 d rst of us. That and the fact that you’re not in pre-school anymore. Also your keyboard called, it’s about to euthanize your unused alphabet keys. On about the same level of vexation is the sort who TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPS, the virtual equivalent of shouting that’s made our virtual ears stone deaf.

5.       Thou Shall Photograph With Discretion:  No we don’t pictures of you getting sozzled or indulging in more than a fair bit of public displays of affection with your latest squeeze or bathroom mirror pics populating our Facebook news feed. And most of all adding a greyscale or monochrome filter to it does not make it look any better. It’s just unnecessary clutter we can all do without. Sure we can tweak our Facebook settings but that defeats the purpose of harmonious living and self-improvement doesn’t it?

6.       Thou Shall Pretend to be Tech Illiterate: “Wait, what? This is T3 isn’t it?!” asked our alert readers while turning this over to see if their favourite gadget wasn’t replaced by a copy of We Hate Machines Weekly. The fact is feigning ignorance is very useful when you have the sort of people in your life (usually relatives or friends) who have your number stored under “Tech Support” when they can’t get their “Interwebs” working or have ended up nuking their PC due to pirated software.

7.        Thou Shall Not Troll New Buyers: So your friend’s got a spanking new Android 2.1 only phone. While you’d be correct to rain on his parade by telling him that 2.2 is the new hotness it’s in pretty bad taste as not only is it impolite but it is obvious that he’s fallen prone to rant number 3 a point from which there is no redemption. That and self-realization does take its own sweet time to set in.

Games to look forward to in 2011

18 Jan

A little something I had written for the Mumbai Mirror awhile ago…

Oh yay. 2011. It’ll be the best year of gaming. Just like 2004, 2005,  2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010!

The hype. It’s tiring. Video game makers need to find a different spin. Pimping each year to be the year of forever doesn’t usually work with a rational, sane audience, luckily we’re anything but. At least I’m not. If I was, I wouldn’t be boring you with my list of virtual goodness to look forward to in 2011. Or would I? Let that scheme bubble on your brain while you read on:

1.    Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PC/X360/PS3): Conspiracies? Check. Gameplay that makes both GTA and Dragon Age look pathetic? Check. Based on a legendary series? Hell yes. The franchise is known for its fantastic storyline, killer cyberpunk feel and RPG-like gameplay. From the looks of things, Human Revolution would continue the trend with some sinfully good trailers and even better gameplay footage. The very fact that you could very well go through the game without killing anyone (barring bosses perhaps) makes it even more interesting. If the internet is to be believed, see this on the shelves in March.

2.    Killzone 3 (PS3): Another old favourite this, think of it as a brutal, visceral war flick in first person but on alien planet is the best way of describing the game. And this time you’re holed up way behind enemy lines with no support. Sprinkle some magic pixie dust that Guerrilla Games use to make their titles oh-so-perfect cranked up to a zillion and you have must have title for the PS3. This should be out by end-February.

3.    Catherine (X360/PS3): Man walks into a bar. Man meets hot woman. Stuff happens. Said man gets chased by a giant pair of  hands wielding a bloodied fork. Yes, this is a video game and a quirky one at that. Pity that a release date isn’t tagged on to this horror-adventure title from the publisher that brought us Demons Souls and Persona.

4. Bulletstorm (PC/X360/PS3): It’s nice to see the guys responsible for Gears of War and Unreal branch out into more visceral gun-toting entertainment. There are over the top moves, comically large weapons and skill-shots for killing enemies in style which more or less redefine the term “slapstick violence”.  Oh and there’s a story too. Something about a drunken space pirate marooned on an alien planet or something. Not like it gets in the way of shooting a mercenary in the balls for extra points but it does add context. Look out for this in February.

5. The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings (PC): The first game was somewhat of a cult classic with the element of choice extremely well-played out as there isn’t an obviously “good” or “bad”  choice. Just shades of grey. Throw in a unique fantasy world based on the books with the same name, a kick-ass combat system and an extremely engaging story with a rumored 16 different endings make this an interesting way to make use of your PC for something that isn’t Solitaire. Check it out in May.

Rishi Alwani parasitically attaches himself to any possible gaming device . His not so secret identity has him donning the mask of the features editor at T3. He loves cookies.

So I Got Tagged…

31 Dec

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

Got so piss drunk that I needed medical attention. Had surgery. Started absolute chaos by coming up with India’s first used game business model. Not in that order.

 

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year was 1440×900 maxed out. Worked just fine. This year is 1920×1080. You tell me?

 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No! Achievement unlocked.

 

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My 8800GT.

 

5. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 24th 2010. Stopped working in Hell.

 

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

India’s first used game business model. Writing for some awesome publications. Launching Mass Effect 2 on a shoe-string budget.

 

7. What was your biggest failure?

I EAT FAILURE FOR BREAKFAST!

 

8. Did you suffer illness or injury?

lulwut?

 

9. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

Julian Assange, ’nuff said.

 

10. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

There are a few. But they all belong to my past life. So yeah. They don’t count.

 

11. Where did most of your money go?

Games. Food. Booze. Credit card bills.

 

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Mass Effect 2.

 

13. What songs will always remind you of 2010?

Poets of the Fall – Children of the Elder God

Deadmau5 – Ghosts N Stuff feat. Rob Swire

Roy Orbison – Sandman

Shooter Jennings – When the Radio Goes Dead

Mark Ronson and the Business Intl – Bang Bang Bang

14. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Extremely content in right now versus depressed as fuck last year.

 

15. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading.

 

16. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Expecting people to do what’s decent.

 

17. How will you be spending Christmas?

2011? No idea. Yet.

 

18. Did you fall in love in 2010?

With?

 

19.How many one night stands?

Over 9000!

 

20. What was your favourite TV programmes?

Entourage, The Big Bang Theory, Futurama, Archer.

 

21. What was the best book you read?

Free by Chris Anderson.

 

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Deadmau5!

 

23. What did you want and get?

A holiday.

24. What did you want and not get?

A friend. Instead I got dissed on MTV.

 

25. What was your favourite film that you saw this year?

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Took the day off. Chilled out at home. 25 years old.

 

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

More money.

 

28. What kept you sane?

Alcohol. Lots of it.

 

29. Who was the worst new person you met?

I have exceptional judgment.  Usually.

 

30. Who was the best new person you met?

Too many. Anand Ramachandran, Quickdraw, Jayesh, Lazy Govt. Lout., Aristarkhos.

 

31. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

Don’t feed the troll.

 

32. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Foo Fighters – The Pretender

Send in your skeletonsSing as their bones come marching in…again

They need you buried deep

The secrets that you keep are at the ready

Are you ready?

I’m finished making sense

Done pleading ignoranceThat whole…defense

Stuff I hate

29 Dec

Okay so maybe hate is too strong a word. Or maybe it isn’t. I can’t make up my mind. Or can I? Either way, read on and tell me.

1. The Sound of Music: A World War 2 movie without Hitler, occult or zombies? No blood, gore or gibs either?! Sounds preposterous. Then I realized it won big at the Oscars. Hilarious for a movie that has actors that can’t even pronounce their own names, let alone act.Which leads me to believe that the Academy Awards is run by a bunch of trolls. Except for the year LOTR won big.

2. DSLR Users:  Dear Camera Newbs, just because your great grandmom’s cat who passed away pawed you into its will doesn’t mean you’d waste that ill-earned money by buying a sophisticated piece of photographic equipment. But being the ignorant pile of turd that you are, you definitely will.  Heck blowing a wad of dough on one of them seems fine after we discover that all you do with it is hang it around your neck like some ancient Egyptian fertility symbol in the hopes of getting laid. That and taking 20350346436 pictures a second of a dog pissing.

3. BlackBerry Boys, Butches and Bitches: Before I get flamed for hating on what is apparently the most awesome device of the century, I bring before you transcripts of what went down at Research In Motion before they launched the mother of all annoyances:

Scientist 1: Hey let’s create a phone with superlative email support.

Scientist 2: Sounds epic! Let’s do it.

Scientist 1: Let’s add IM too!

Scientist 2: And our own variant of it usable to BlackBerry owners. Let’s call it BlackBerry Messenger. That’s always on!

Scientist 1: Yes, and you can’t switch off but only uninstall.

Scientist 2: Perfect!

Scientist 1: Dude, I think we’re on the verge of creating the ultimate stalking tool…

Scientist 2: Nonsense! Marketing will spin it so the fools will think it’s the discrete way to get booty calls.

And that my friends, is why your friends have themselves surgically attached to their CrackBerries at every possible instance. I rest my case.

4. F.R.I.E.N.D.S. : Rachel isn’t hot. Phoebe isn’t funny. Ross is a whiny little bitch who should blog (ironic yes?). Joey is a female bimbo (yes you read that right). Monica is psychotic. Chandler is okay because he likes Fallout in real life. Oh did I mention that the show has been off the air for almost seven years now? Indian TV channels please note. We don’t need this filth still polluting our airwaves. One generation of people spewing “Smelly Cat” memes and sporting the “Rachel” hairdo is enough.

The world would be a better place without these things. But who cares about that? If these didn’t exist you wouldn’t have a blog post from me would you?

Now Listening To: Feeder – Descend

Predictions for 2011

12 Dec

A little something I wrote for T3 India’s anniversary issue. Now here and unedited for your viewing pleasure:

One year from the end of the Mayan calendar aside,  here’s what to expect in 2011. Pardon the lack of accuracy in our forecast. There wasn’t an app on the Appstore to help us out.
1. Himesh comes to iTunes: Sure Apple teased us with “Tomorrow is another day. That you’ll just never forget” but let’s face it the Beatles announcement is just the place holder for this nasal singer who has the mighty legion of rickshaw driving fanboys at his side and easily singable tunes that can have the most stuck up of editors humming in no time. That and the lack of a Emperor Palpatine-like Yoko Ono figure to cause his demise make this prophecy inevitable.

2. 3G comes to India: Sure it will in a more widespread fashion and rates that would drop faster than the TRPs of Bigg Boss post-Pamela Anderson and the not too under the radar cat-fighting between telcos like drunken women but there will be an obvious side-effect – a  telephone minister would resign.

3. Indian Politicians on Twitter: Just like Shashi Tharoor last year the internet will throw up some canny, publicity hungry politician wanting to  raise his or her profile. However don’t expect any controversy, just carefully managed; succinct tweets that would make Rahul Dravid’s batting seem less bland.

4. NotionInk finally launches the Adam: To the relief of many a techie rooting for the underdog the Adam will finally hit the shelves only to be outspecced and outgunned from Apple’s and Samsung’s next Retina Display and SAMOLED toting darlings making it the Palm Pre of the tablet world.

5. iPhone4 in India: Hopefully at a rate that won’t have you selling your kidney, limbs, first born and your mobile connection to own it. This will be followed by Windows Phone 7 finally launching here leading to a spate of “I’m a PC, I’m a Mac” arguments all over again. Can we meet in the middle ground? Preferably Android please?

 

6.  …and speaking of Android: Samsung, HTC and your favourite manufacturer of Android handsets will finally find a way to increase battery life so that you can tweet, check your emails, video conference, Skype, walk the dog, do the dishes, breathe and most importantly make calls without the battery dying on you in under thirty seconds.

 

7.  Big Bazaar enters the Mobile Biz: Hot on the heels of Tips, iBall, your grandmother and your cat entering the mobile phone space with super cheap handsets freshly made by suicidal Chinese workers would be our version of Wallmart wading into the already crowded pool leading to crazy price drops. The good news: an iPhone 4 knock off for under a grand. The bad news: it breaks the moment you try calling anyone.

 

8. Foxconn outsources to India: In order to lower suicide rates and most importantly, cut costs, the mysterious contract manufacturer for almost everyone from Nintendo to HP, decides to outsource their projects to India leading to a decrease of suicides, an increased productivity, greater tech leaks and of course a grand reality TV show capturing all the drama.

 

9. Less mobile phone predictions: Let’s face it, the portable space has been booming so much so that this writer’s first 43645758 thoughts on this article were all cell phone based. And even after trying to look busy writing this article to escape the proof-reading boredom of closing time he’s nowhere close to having less of them. Having said that he apologizes and promises the same won’t hold true next year. Maybe.

 

10. You will join our Facebook page: Legend has it that if it’s in print it must be true. And while this isn’t exactly number one on our list of predictions, truth be told, being marooned on a planet inhabited by nothing but lingerie models and latest tech is, but this isn’t too far down the pecking order. So join us at http://fb.me/T3India or just search for T3 India on Facebook to see what goes on behind the scenes at India’s premier gadget mag. Stalkers and irate fanboys who want to hunt down that writer who gave your favourite product a bad review are welcome too.

 

The Instagram Gallery

11 Dec

Well, at least until I figure away for things to stream simultaneously across the board. Using Flickr maybe?

Kinect. Bringing Out the Douche In Some of Us

9 Dec

How to make a product massive success in a country where your console is failing.

Step 1: Pass on killer accessory to desperate as fuck, extremely slighted show host who for some reason has quite the following on Twitter. Have aforementioned pseudo-celeb tweet about it. Ensuring that his tweet is succinctly retarded and completely unprofessional.

Step 2:  The wannabe must take care to call every replier a pirate.


Step 3: Watch as Twitter gets trolled and trolls back.

If I had a cable TV subscription I’d boycott UTV Bloomberg’s tech show. It’s a good thing I’m too stubborn for my folks who wanted me to get one.

Trolling Trolls

30 Nov

Sigh, amateurs.

 

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