Samrat Sharma

Electronic Entertainment Hegemony

So these people think that Half-Life 2 will be delayed. Although Valve hasn’t gone ahead and screamed ‘bullshit!’, they haven’t ruled out the possibility either. Maybe it will be a little late. I say, if you can wait 5 excruciating years, you can wait 15 more fuckin days. Speaking of Valve, you really should download Steam. You’re missing out on a lot of cool things, being miserly over some 550 k. Other things Half-Life related that deserve your fickle, channel flipping attention, in a humongous-wooly-mammoth-is-goading-you-in-the-’nads way are Day of Defeat and Natural Selection. Both are excellent mods, and DoD, buoyed by the success of BF1942 is even available as a standalone retail pack. NS, on the other hand has just turned two. Actually 2.0. It is so fucking awesome your puny Counter Strike filled mind cannot begin to comprehend. And don’t think I am berating CS here. As always, it remains a darling. There’s even this movie I am excited about. In short, its a feature-length film about Counter-Strike and the people who play it seriously. It even features a clan playing in the final of the CPL and how they win it. What’s good about this thing is that, it actually exposes gamers to common mass media, and a good amount of the movie actually shows a lot of co-operative, strategic play by these people, immediately serving as a vindication for kids whose parents don’t like the idea of them playing games. It’s heartening to see this thing. I hope it catches on.

So long as you’re well utilizing your phat pipe, do try out the new TRON 2.0 demo, and the demo for Empire Interactive’s upcoming “Fright Sim” Ghost Master I have heard good things. As for me, as long as there exists Morrowind, my mind shall not wander for lack of stimuli of the role playing variety, but it’s been too bloody long, and I am thirsting for a cool new computer RPG. KOTOR of course, is out, but not yet for my platform of choice. The big green box seems to have had precedence in release dates over my ivory PC box. Now I know how Mac owners felt like, waiting for NwN. Other digital recreations I am waiting for to bring emotional and mental arousal are The Temple of Elemental Evil, Lionheart, and Riftrunner. The aforementioned temple is the AD&D by Troika, the people who made the excellent, but short-lived Arcanum. Black Isle is back with Lionheart, and I am most curious to see how they implement the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system used in Fallout. Riftrunner is the most low-key of this lot, and I am a sucker for the underdog. It has an interesting story, and a much enjoyed predecessor. The wait of course seems to be long, and given the fact that I have nary an expansion pack for Morrowind, I have but no choice. Maybe I should buy that Z box…

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

As a kid, I was addicted. My dealer knew me by name. I used to get my fix weekly, twice a week, sometimes even daily. And not just low-brow offerings that catered to the most animalistic of my instincts. When in money, I also used to get some deep stuff. The mind trip ones. The habit consumed all my free cash. It got so bad, I did things– terrible, heinous things, like coming first in class and cleaning my room everyday– to finance my addiction. I have never recovered fully, and I still go and get my fix, wherever I can. Admittedly, as a poor college student, I finally knocked the habit back to some extent. But only just.

I was a comics junkie. Yes, I am 24 years old, I work in a tech company, I have seemingly important views to share on anything and everything, and I still am a comics freak. A super freak, if you will. And if you know people around me, this is not a non-sequitur. With my daily-to-visit web comic list growing exponentially, I had become increasingly lackadaisical about my hobby of late. And then I remembered the good times.

I was just like any kid, feeding his fantasies with any and every comic that the local bookshop, or firang land relatives deemed fit to keep for my consumption. DC comics were decidedly cool for a while, but soon got to my nerves with its goody two shoes renditions, and the burgeoningly geriatric lineup of heroes. Only Batman was something I invested in for a while. And that too, because the art was to kill for. I was a steadfast Marvel fan. X-Men, Wolverine, Spider-man, The Hulk, Avengers and too many more to count. They were cool, were better drawn(except when Alex Ross decided to pen DC heroes), and somehow I veered towards this literary endeavor more.

I read a lot of annoying Archie too. Indulging in a pubescent fantasy was apparently a norm, as me and many of my friends found out. But they lacked punch. They were funny at times, but were too saccharine laden to hold my interest for as long as the wry, witty and excellently drawn Asterix. I didn’t dislike Archie and his merry gang, infact I liked them a lot. I just grew out of them faster than most fantasies that other comics offered. Asterix, on the other hand, was my guilty pleasure. I liked it so much, and they were so bloody expensive, I spent money meant for clothes and fast food on them.

In the Indian scene, I was a huge fan of Indrajal, with their lineup of Mandrake, Phantom, Flash Gordon, and a very adult themed Garth. Never a fan, or even an acquaintance of the vulgar and violent Raj comic heroes, I read a lot of Diamond comics. In fact, I was a fan of an old farmer dude, whose only super power was that he was smart. Smarter than a computer, if you believe the creator.

Sadly, due to lack of funds, and the fact that I never could get my hands on most, I stayed away from the independent comic scene. Elfquest, Nexus, Mage, and others were beyond my reach and my pocket. With one exception.

Cerebus was an odd comic. Black and white art as opposed to full color extravaganzas. A talking sword-weilding aardvark as opposed to men wearing their undies on the outside. A Canadian comic in a market deluged with American heroes. Book form as opposed to thin longish comics. Self written and published as opposed to editor driven syndication. Cerebus came as a benevolent gift from some unknown benefactor to my school library. And I’m pretty sure no one ever read it, as it was fairly violent, anti establishment, and very very funny. My schoolmates will vouch for the fact that my school was hardly an establishment that tolerated, much less understood humor. But that is beside the point. The few that were there were in mint condition, and I was the only one who checked them out. You see, one of my favorite comic books was not only an obscure, less read comic, it didn’t cost me any money.

By an artist called Dave Sim, Cerebus is about a barbarian aardvark who talks of himself in the third person. He likes ale and gold. A lot. In the course of his story he’s been both Prime Minister of Canada and Pope. If you ever see one, just grab it with both hands, and yell for me, ok?

And I am out of comics to talk about. I could talk about how much I loved Asterix, but that would be repetition. So I’ll talk about games (duh!) next. Seeya then.

I have a dream…(The Tao of Foo – II)

Remember the IE vs. alt browsers thingy? Here are a few more linkies that might interest you:

A whole lotta nothing reviews Firebird. Its the ultimate weblogging tool too, she says.

So apparently, Buymusic.com is too good for Mozilla and other alt browsers. And heres a guy’s answer.

This is a small comparision between Mozilla and IE. And this guy is fair.

And a solution to the HR problem in Mozilla.

And since I’ve got nothing witty to post, this takes care of today. Hee hee. Am I evil or wot?

Hobos

Yup! ‘Tis true. Some people will take it too far…

Go here to get your own hobo!

Its Madness!

“To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again… A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention, and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs, and . . . oh, there are loads of rules.” – Rob Gordon, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

And thus I decided to come up with my ultimate mad mix tape. This compilation of course, may or may not suit your tastes. All I did was pick up just one song by an artist, so everybody gets a chance… Of course you may feel some songs don’t deserve to be here, and some are missing, which is criminal. Feel free to comment. Meanwhile, listen to these songs wherever you can get your hands on them. As it is my mix tape, it had to end with bohemian rhapsody…

THE BEATLES a hard day’s night
GREEN DAY when i come around
AC/DC TNT
COLDPLAY yellow
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE know your enemy
LIVE i am overcome
STING brand new day
METALLICA enter sandman
NIRVANA smells like teen spirit
DON MCLEAN american pie
PEARL JAM jeremy
JIMI HENDRIX purple haze
KORN blind
CRANBERRIES zombie
MARILYN MANSON the beautiful people
R.E.M. losing my religion
THE SEX PISTOLS anarchy in the UK
SYSTEM OF A DOWN chop suey!
LED ZEPPELIN stairway to heaven
THE ROLLING STONES paint it black
KISS rock ‘n’ roll all nite
THE SMASHING PUMPKINS tonight, tonight
BARENAKED LADIES one week
GUNS ‘N’ ROSES welcome to the jungle
VAN HALEN hot for teacher
RADIOHEAD creep
ALANIS MORISSETTE you oughta know
THE EAGLES hotel california
PINK FLOYD the wall
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN red headed woman
NINE INCH NAILS closer
QUEEN bohemian rhapsody