13 April 2010, lunch time
The rest of our time in Bangalore was spent loitering around Gandhi Bazaar, for the most part. It was pretty relaxing. We got quite comfortable with the area. My pictures of Bangalore on Flickr. (Or IMG VQVZ) We also travelled to Mysore for a quick day trip. In hindsight we probably should have spent a bit more time in Mysore. There was so much to see in that area. My pictures of Mysore on Flickr. (Or IMG VQVZ) I took these notes to myself on my iPhone, hence the strange change in tense, poor grammar, and what have you.
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India 2010 | Photography
7 April 2010, mid-morning
I got to play with an iPad yesterday. The boys at Form and Method bought one for their company, and Tyler brought it over to a friend’s place to let us all have a look. It is pretty slick. The screen is really bright and looks quite nice. The viewing angle is as wide as everyone has been talking about, which makes it a great communal device. It looks like it will be well suited for faux-boardgames. The computer is very snappy. It’s a very responsive machine, which is what you want in a device you minipulate with your hands. The bigger screen makes Safari a lot more useful. All the web pages I checked out loaded fine, and loaded quickly. Several people commented on how the iPad was smaller than they had expected, Shima included. Typing is a fair bit more awkward than typing on the iPhone. I could see getting better at it with practice, but I can’t imagine typing as fast on the iPad as I do on my iPhone. Of course, you can use a real keyboard with an iPad so maybe this won’t matter too much in practice. I want one. Apparently the device will launch in Toronto on the 24th of April, though I haven’t really seen any indication from Apple that this is the case. God damn it.
Apple Computers
After a while we said good-night and left. Walking home, Rinaldi said, “Miss Barkley prefers you to me. That is very clear. But the little Scotch one is very nice.”
“Very,” I said. I had not noticed her. “You like her?”
“No,” said Rinaldi.
— From A Farewell to Arms. That’s some classic Hemingway.
27 March 2010, early morning
We travelled off to Puttaparthi from Bangalore for the day. Puttaparthi would have been just another small rural town in India if not for the fact it was home to the religious leader Sai Baba and his ashram. My pictures of Puttaparthi on Flickr. (Or IMG VQVZ) I took these notes to myself on my iPhone, hence the strange change in tense, poor grammar, and what have you.
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India 2010 | Photography
24 March 2010, early morning
We used to make shit in the country. Build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guys pocket. — Frank Sobotka
Apparently the second season of the Wire is the least popular of the lot. It’s definitely a big change of pace from the first season. All the gansters you’ve come to know and love are in the background for the most part, while the focus shifts to the plight of the blue collar American. The themes of the show seem to be very much the same. Good people are forced into bad situations. Everything is just out of reach. People in high places are usually dicks. I thought the second season was amazing. The writing is just as good as the first season, and it’s even more bleak. The four men playing the members of the Sobotka family all do an amazing job with their rolls. The second season is like a Greek tragedy.
[4] Television
16 March 2010, mid-morning
Ratio-Oxycocet is the generic version of Percocet. Its a small white tablet with TEC marked on one side and a groove on the other to make it easier to chop in half. The tablet is a combination of two drugs, acetaminophen and oxycodone. Acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol. It relieves pain and gives you liver damage if you take too much. It’s a very common drug, found in almost everything — for example, Percocet. You’ve probably had acetaminophen many times in your life. Oxycodone on the otherhand is something you hopefully haven’t had to take before. It’s a fairly powerful opioid, similar in strength to morphine. In the TV show House the lead character is addicted to Vicodin, a weaker pain killer. Ocycodone was developed early in the 20th century with the hope it would be less of a disaster than Bayer’s very powerful painkiller, Heroin. At the time Heroin was being taken off the market because it was Heroin. (Heroin is apparently 16 times stronger than morphine! What? It’s also apparently still prescribed under the name Diamorphine.) Oxycodone doesn’t work as quickly as either drug, and its effects don’t last as long, which is why it was thought it would be less likely to be abused. The time release capsule version of oxycodone is sold as OxyContin, which you may have heard of. I was given Oxycotin when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. OxyContin is apparently one of the most abused prescription painkillers in the US. (Abusing Percoet is probably a bad idea because of its acetaminophen content, though I don’t doubt people do.) The moral of the story here is that it’s hard to make an opioid people won’t try and freebase. Me? Not so much. I’m so sick of taking Percocet I spend my mornings reading about opiates and opioids.
[2] Life
14 March 2010, late at night
We left Cochin early in the morning on the 25th. I was still incredibly sick at this point. I didn’t think i’d make it to the airport. Bangalore more or less cured me. The first three days there were spent loitering around and attending a wedding. My pictures of Bangalore on Flickr. (Or IMG VQVZ)
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[1] India 2010 | Photography
Me: I don’t think i’ll own a leica any time soon — if ever. It seems like a total luxury.
Rishi: Word, you might one day. Not having a license will save you from ever buying a car, which is a lot of money. You could walk around taking awesome pictures with your Leica, while everyone else is stuck in traffic.
— An email conversation, January 2008. I bought a Leica 6 months later.
Dear Ram, With all our love from the redacted folks! We miss you so, so, much. The prayer room has been converted to a shrine of vigil, anticipating your return. The tears have been often, and plentiful. Yours, The redacted Team.
— A card from my awesome co-workers
9 March 2010, early morning
I have been running I’ll iPhone You for quite a while now. The site has always been a bit of an afterthought. Even if you were interested in iPhones and smartphones and all that junk, I don’t think it was a particularly interesting a place to visit. The site had no personality.
Tumblr makes it very easy to set up a site. The sorts of sites that it is best suited for are those that are about consuming and sharing content, not producing it. I suppose this is the very nature of the tumblelog. The tumblr ecosystem is all about liking posts and reblogging. There are a few sites making content, and that content gets dispersed throughout the network. What makes tumblr so compelling can also make it so boring. There are plenty of good tumblelogs on Tumblr, but my site wasn’t one of them.
I see two problems with the site as it existed. First, it used a theme someone else made. Second, it was almost completely devoid of anything I had to say. There is nothing wrong with using themes, but I prefer sites that look unique, or at least make some attempt to try and stand out. I hadn’t edited the theme for my site at all. There were probably thousands of sites on tumblr exactly like mine. Because I hadn’t spent any time at all working on the site, I also didn’t feel compelled to post anything of substance there. The site was supposed to be my iPhone blog, but It was really nothing more than a link dump. Most of the text on the site came from the titles of the articles I linked to. I’m not an iPhone, so it’s not like linking to lots of stories about iPhones gives you any insight to who I am or what I like (besides iPhones). There was really nothing about the site that made it my own.
I’m not entirely sure why I decided to redo the blog. I suppose I have had a lot more free time these past few weeks. I added a little header to the site yesterday, and I think that will be that. I used the CSS from 1kbgrid as the basis for my own sass script, which I used to generate the layout grid CSS for this site and my new photography site. Otherwise it’s a pretty simple and plain redesign. I’ve definitely been posting more since making the change, in part because I’d feel like i’m wasting my new theme if I didn’t. Whether it’s actually a better site remains to be seen. I think it certainly looks better, anyway.
[2] Weblogs | Web Design
3 March 2010, late afternoon
In the few weeks after my accident my iPhone become quite indispensable. The iPhone is the perfect computer for when you’re laying in bed or lounging on the sofa, something I have been doing quite a bit of recently. The iPhone is portable in a way laptops can’t touch. Its small form factor can be advantageous, despite it’s shortcomings. It’s software, though simple, works quite well.
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[2] iPhone
2 March 2010, mid-morning
After Chennai we travelled by plane to Cochin, in Kerela. I was very excited about coming to Kerela: it’s the communist state in India. Sadly, after a day and a half there I ended getting incredibly sick. I don’t think i’ve been more ill in my entire life. So, I spent most of my time in Kerela in bed. My pictures of Cochin on Flickr. (And IMG VQVZ)
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India 2010 | Photography
22 February 2010, early morning
I took short little notes on my iPhone while traveling around in India. Here are the first set of notes from my first three days in Chennai, and our flight to get there. There are more images from this part of the trip on Flickr. (Or on IMG VQVZ)
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[1] India 2010 | Photography
21 February 2010, lunch time
This is what my leg looked like a few weeks ago. A car drove over my right leg. You can see where my Fibula and Tibia snapped. Now I have all sorts of metal under my skin holding everything together. It’s all kind of gross.
[9] Life
20 February 2010, evening time
The Hindustan Ambassador is an awesome car. I was expecting to see more of them on the streets of India, but they weren’t as ubiquitous as they may have been a few years back. Our driver in Chennai was saying that they have fallen out of favour, and most people know bought the car he drove. (His car was made by Tata, and I can’t recall what it was called. It didn’t look nearly as cool as an Ambassador.) I think of all the cities we visited, Cochin in Kerela had the largest number of Ambassadors on the road. I’m not entirely sure why.
The Hindustan Ambassador on IMG VQVZ.
India 2010 | Photography
20 February 2010, early morning
You may recall that many years ago I bought a todo list application called TaskPaper, because I am some sort of Mac Indie Developer philanthropist. I enjoyed using TaskPaper, but ended up giving it up for Things. The lack of an iPhone client was one of the big reasons. (Things is also a very nice Getting Things Done application, so that probably played a part in the switch.) Recently an iPhone version of the TaskPaper was released, and I have been trying it out the last few days.
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[7] Nerd Alert | iPhone
16 February 2010, lunch time
Auto-rickshaws are little three-wheeler taxis ubiquitous throughout most of Asia. They are all over the place in South India. They are one of the easiest ways to get around a city. The only problem with them is that the drivers can be a bit sketchy, and are likely to rip you off. Your best bet is to negotiate the price of your trip before going for a ride. (I don’t think there is anything wrong with getting ripped off a little bit in India. What is a few cents to you is a big deal to them.) Autos are fun to ride in. They are open air, they feel quick, and you get a real feel for the city as you zip through it in one.
Auto-Rickshaws on IMG VQVZ
India 2010 | Photography
Time won’t give me time
And time makes lovers feel
Like they’ve got something real
But you and me we know
They’ve got nothing but time
And time won’t give me time
Won’t give me time
— Time (Clock of the Heart) by Culture Club
12 February 2010, late at night
One constant throughout most of our trip in India were stray dogs. We would find them in every city we stayed in. More often than not we’d pass a dog passed out on the ground, probably because it was so damn hot out. Indians don’t seem to have any real soft spot for the animals. Honestly, there are far more pressing things to deal with in the country than dogs without owners, regardless of how lamentable they may look.
Stray Dogs on IMG VQVZ.
India 2010 | Photography
12 February 2010, lunch time
My original plan upon returning from India was to spend the next few weeks posting pictures and stories from the trip. I think i’ll still do this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to mention that I walked into a car when crossing the street on Monday and broke my leg fairly badly. If you follow my inane postings on Twitter you might already be aware of this. If not, well, now you know. In India it was actually fairly stressful crossing the street. There are cars and bikes all over the place, and none of them look like they give a fuck that you are trying to cross the road. By the end of the trip Shima and I had got quite good at crossing the busy streets of Bangalore and Chennai. Walking into a car in Toronto is pretty stupid. I can blame my giant winter hood and jet lag to some extent, I suppose. I have a cast on my leg for the next 6 weeks, and am on crutches for the next 3 months. I’m lucky my wife is so lovely.
[7] Life
6 February 2010, early evening
You can drink water out of the tap here. That’s how we roll in Toronto. I think it’ll take a few days to get back into the swing of things. Shima is passed out. I’m pretty tired, but am trying to stay up as best I can. Carvill and Mezan are supposed to be coming by shortly with sandwiches from the Stockyards. That’s a good way to start a weak of meat.
Update the Next Morning: Shima and I walked to Starving Artist for an early brunch. It’s strange being back. Toronto has never felt more sparse. The roads are wide and empty. There aren’t people everywhere you look. I’m the only brown person on the street. No one has a moustache. We crossed the road with ease. We got to walk on real sidewalks. The air is clean. There isn’t garbage on the ground. The weather is brisk. Brunch was good.
[3] Life
5 February 2010, early morning
We’ve been back in Chennai the last few days. This time around we’ve really explored Pondy Bazaar, the area we are staying. To say it’s hectic would be an understatement. We fly out in a few hours. The flight is at 5:00AM, and we have to be at the airport at 2:00AM. We travel for more or less 24 hours when you add it all up. I think it’s going to suck. India was fun.
Life
31 January 2010, the wee hours
We have one more day in Bangalore. My parents are visiting some family friends. Shima and her dad are taking naps. I’m surfing on the Internet, something I haven’t been able to do in ages. While we were here Apple announced a giant iPod Touch, and JD Salinger died. I’ve snapped several rolls of film, which will hopefully survive the flight back to Canada. I’ve taken a ton of photos with my digital camera, some better than others. There is almost too much to see here. India continues to astonish.
Life
29 January 2010, early morning
Alive and well in Bangalore. Have been for the past few days. It looks like I probably had heat stroke, since once I arrived in the cooler Karnataka state I started to feel much better. Who knows. Bangalore is nuts. Busier than Chennai, with unbelievable traffic. People who can’t shut up about a ‘war on cars’ in Toronto need to come here and see what too many cars does to a city. It’s an absolute mess. Attended a wedding. It was hype. Going to Mysore tomorrow. Was in Puttaparthi the day before. Then back to Chennai to close out the trip.
Life
