Steaming In...

One of the positives I looked forward from my forced sabbatical was some savings. At the fag end of it, I don't see any in my account! Its as bare as it usually is. I thought at least my credit card bill would come down. Maxed out and overdrawn to the limits! If the lack of savings can be attributed to the assortment of lab tests and high cost medicines, the credit card fiasco is the sole responsibility of Valve. More specifically, Steam.

Steam is a digital game delivery platform. The best in existence. You buy a game, download the Steam client, download the game, and play. Simple enough. What makes this extra special is the fact that suppose you have a PC crash, you can redownload the game free of charge! Also, if you have multiple computers, you can download the games all of them and play! Some games also provide you with the facility of syncing the save games! Totally awesome stuff! The sad part is you will go broke from buying games.

I had never bought a legitimate game (apart from a couple of games I bought for a pittance from Big Bazaar which never worked) in my life before I joined Steam. All started on a fateful day. A typical lazy Sunday. I was going through Reddit and a thread caught my attention. Hearts of Iron II for $3.49. My interest piqued. Redditors were raving about the game. Its a grand strategy/war game were you take control of a real life nation in the Second World War and fictional era after the World War. A very complex game. Seeing the price, I decided to buy it. Sadly, the game was too complex and I didnt have enough time to invest at that point of time. Time went by and I got stuck in TVM with my laptop and nothing to keep me busy except for books. Steam struck once again!

I got enamored by Cricket Revolution and decided to buy it. $9.99. Very tough. Haven't got the heart to sit and learn it. Money not so well spent. Steam struck, yet again!

This time the game was Torchlight. Reddit as usual is the guilty party. I bought the game for $9.99. Never regretted. Its worth much more. Totally awesome Diablo like action-role playing game. I finished the main quests and now doing the sub quests. Steam struck...oh nevermind.

The holiday sales began. Amazing, amazing offers. I ended up buying Audiosurf, Indigo Prophecy, and Rome: Total War. All three together for yet another $9.99. Mercifully, my credit card maxed out. Else I would have gone for the Popcap package, Id Super Pack, Orange Box and Unreal package. Sweet deals though! In a way its good that I didn't get any high end games. My PC has apparently croaked and I can assess the damage only after returning to Bangalore.

A word on the Audiosurf. This is one of the most original and amazing games I have played in my life. Its available at an absolute steal right now. Just $2.50. In this game, you give any song as the input. The game comes packaged with tracks from Valve games like Halflife and Team Fortress 2. The game analyses the song and creates a racing track sort of thing with coloured cubes and all. The track dynamics varies with the music. You have several modes with which you have to accomplish certain things. Its very hard to describe. The game is an absolute treat to play with Motherjane songs. They are very challenging and extremely fun, even more than Lep Zepellin and Eric Clapton! A religious musical experience! Best part is its playable on most computers! Watch the following video with Bring Me to Life by Evanescence.

Little Stars

Damn you little brats from Star Singer junior! My reputation of being a tough ass cookie who listens exclusively to metal songs filled with throaty growls have been shattered! To clarify, the image was purported by folks who saw me headbang to Metallica and watch metal videos in Jukebox and Rosebowl. Fascination to black tees, unkempt hair, and torn jeans further added fuel to the fire. The image was held up by yours truly for God know what!

Not so any more!The little ones in the reality show Munch Star Singer junior have shattered that mythical me. Now my parents and my family knows that I enjoy melodious music as much as any other. Boohoo! So much for the bloody exclusivity! I have been turning up for dinner at exactly the same time as the show and does not even demand the remote to watch Cricket during the show! (Good time to be a cricket fan. A riveting South Africa-England contest, Aussies raping our Padosis...yummy time!) Later on, I am searching YouTube for the song videos and searching for the MP3. To play the song over and over again! Caught red handed multiple times! So much for the tough guy shit.

Todays show featured two excellent renditions. Anuraga lola gathri by a lad called Vishnu (the bigger one, the other small Vishnu is the best singer on TV right now!) supported by Swetha (Sujatha's daughter). Amazing song, beautifully sung. Only Yesudas could have done better than him!

The song is from the movie Dhwani, which happens to be the final movie of the great Prem Nazir. The other songs of the movie are as good, if not better than this song. My favourite is Rathi Suga Saare.

The second song was by a slightly older girl (I forgot the name), Vaasanthapanchami naalil from Bhargavi Nilayam. Once again, beautifully sang and as Sujatha commented, it would be impossible to surpass this live rendition by anyone.

Bhargavi Nilayam features some of the best songs including one of my all time favourites, Thaamasamenthe Varuvaan.
To be frank, I don't rate most of the participants in the flagship show, Idea Star Singer (or any other show for that matter!). There are some really good singers. But none of them can really give the established singers a run for their money. These kids on the other hand are truly exceptional and way more fun to watch. Just a sincere wish that none of these kids become fucked up like Britney Spears and a multitude of stars who became successful as little kids.

...

2 months...Its been nearly two months since I got locked up with whatever-this-bloody-thing. No immediate sight of respite as well. Tests followed by tests, medicines by the shit load, work life hitting rock bottom...have I seen the floor yet? The whole ordeal has started show the effect on me. Suddenly feel like a teenager all over again! Flaring up at every single syllable of my parents. Utter disdain for every body I see. The sheer helplessness of the time being wasted away with no clarity. The worse thing. More test results are forthcoming and I think there will be more tests after that! When I wanted to be a test player, I didn't mean this!

The only respite is reading. Need to call up my roomie to fetch my books from Bangalore. I have burning money on new books when several dozen sitting unread back there in my shelf! Another welcome diversion has been the game Torchlight. Got it for 10 bucks in Steam and the best purchase I ever made! Totally awesome game. Diablo like game! Major fun and crack addictive!

My voyages through the interwebs ended up on some poetry. Mushy romantic ones at that! I liked this one...despite having no idea how I can relate to it! May be the fact that there is nobody worrying about me apart from the ones of blood!

I Worry

I worry about you- So long since we spoke. Love, are you downhearted, Dispirited, broke? I worry about you. I can't sleep at night. Are you sad? Are you lonely? Or are you all right? They say that men suffer As badly, as long. I worry, I worry, In case they are wrong.

Light but devilishly dark!
More poems from Wendy Cope are available here. Pretty good ones!


Back to work! I am restricted to doing heavy hauling at nights since my Reliance broadband connection has a paltry 2GB limit during the day. I exceeded the limit last month. A kingly 7 GB instead of the 2GB. Poorer by a country mile this new year!

Photo Blog

Saw a cool template and instantly fell in love with it! Result: A new photo blog! Check it out and subscribe! The URL is flog for a reason. I have practically flogged these photos. Other established photographers and wannabes etch the beauty of their subjects in a delicate manner. Not me! Nada! I flog them on to my canvas! See it to believe it!

P.S: All pictures are randomly shot on my mobile phone. I am too damn lazy to lug around a camera and worry about light and stuff like that. If I like it, I take it! Pronto!

Hai vasti people! Keep eating those vitamins!

Insomniac

I have an Outbrain widget on the blog. The one that allows you to click and rate the post. Very same thing people barely use! It pays for itself by inserting contextual links to posts outside the blog. Look at the link that came along with my last post: Vaginal Health: Why Do I Have Watery Discharge?

A truly WTF moment! It is pretty much contextual when you think about it. The post starts with a fuck and I guess its pretty much related. Hmm...most of the time at least you pervs! If you dig deeper, its even more intelligent! I have referenced the movie Paleri Manikyam: Oru paathirakolapathikathinte katha. The movie deals with the first (fictional) rape-murder in unified Kerala! Very relevant unless you have very different taste! I should stop before I turn this post into an innuendo fueled fuck fest!

Two days on and I can't sleep! I went to bed early. Switched off my laptop so that I don't get up in the middle of the night to check upon mails that never were.Slept for sometime. A fitful sleep. Weird dreams.

In one particular dream, I am having dinner with a lady in a fancy restaurant. No, can't remember her face! I am pretty amorous and eating little. Nothing weird so far. As I think about calling the waiter for bill, she says: I want a juice and something to eat! I am still hungry! If you can't afford from here, we can go out and eat. I wake up thinking WTF!

The second one is worse. I am standing in the front room of my home and talking to my mother. Nothing weird here, until you realize that you are watching a water ride similar to ones seen in Veega Land just next to your home. Weirder still, your mother is talking to you while she is riding it! Weirdest of all, one dry ride is in your yard and literally dozens of people are riding it. I resign myself to the sights and watch a new building next to the water ride where the school kids who came to ride are partying with beer. Suddenly, I am out of the house. A terrorist apparently has entered the ride and he is going inside my home totting a gun. I am frantically trying to devise an escape plan for my mother. Then I wake up. Go and pee few litres. Drink more water to compensate. Sleep has deserted me again. I am left thinking about moving away to a quiet place where there are very little chance of a terrorist attack. There is a promised post. I will get to as soon as I can start thinking coherently. Also, the review of Paleri Manikyam would be up soon. Hint: One of the best movies I have seen this year which is an illustrious list that includes Pazhassi Raja and Kerala Cafe.

Edit: And the outgoing contextual link for this post is...Insomnia at Menopause: Learning to Love My Inner Teenage Night Owl (Health.com) Errm! Curiouser and Curiouser! 

Random

Fuck! A bloody weekend and I cannot sleep! I should be sleeping late into the day, lazily shielding myself from the greenish glare of the sun. Greenish thanks to my curtains, which I chose and absolutely adore! Feeling a little bad about leaving to Bangalore. Its been one and a half months at home and will be two by the time I leave. Of course, everything depends on whether the Hepatitis virus manages to leave me! If I am really lucky, I could be suffering from pancreatic cancer or a rare form of liver cancer. The perils of information overload!

If I stay awake for 10 more minutes, the Pakistan-New Zealand test match will start. Watching the pakis getting pawned is sadistically uplifting! A little while later Cricket Revolution will be done downloading and I can start playing it! A neat game! You can play all sorts of shots unlike the usual hit and giggle in EA Cricket. I guess I will listen to some music on Spotify. Installed it using a UK proxy. Works like a charm! Awesome on-demand radio. Best part: It even has good quality Malayalam songs!
Loved the T20 game last night. Good to see Yuvi raping the Srilambs! Even better to see some old school Dhoni hitting which is a rare sight these days. Oh, by the way I support Telangana to an extent! Hopefully, I will get my lazy butt to write an article tomorrow. Before all the sheeple get another issue to bleat. A tweet really reeled me up: someguy Absolutely! RT @anotherguy We need to unite the country! Not divide it! Yeah right! When you get time, brush upon history and a have quick peek in the constitution. New post! Tomorrow! I am getting hot now!
Hopefully, I will be watching Paleri Manikyam: Oru paathira kolapathakathinte katha tomorrow. Supposed to be one of the best Malayalam movie in a long time!
Ciao! Drink your milk and stay fit!

Reminiscing the Classics

Check out the movie blog for the new series. First up is the write up on Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare.