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zigzackly's omnium-gatherum * |
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Like you haven't had enough of us already..
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CollaBlogs infested:
Jugalbandi;
Caferati's blog;
blogolepsy;
indi³;
We, the Media;
Son of CSF.
Now and then, when Hurree needs a holiday, i pinch-hit at Kitabkhana. Site feed: Atom or Feedburner.
We endorse, approve of, and throughly adore:
Other Thieves of our Time
Recent Posts
D Mervin Ffingir writes, and having writ, moves on: |
Saturday, October 30, 2004
This article in The Times of India: In a major security scare, an SPG sub inspector and a CISF constable were spotted riding a scooter at the IGI airport runway even as an international flight was about to take off....prompted Sepia Mutiny to observe: Since the shrine is only open in the afternoon, and only with a special permit, and the female constable was not assigned to the airport, 'm guessing that security was literally screwing around....and got us to wonder if there should be a ground staff chapter of this club.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
It all starts one quiet afternoon at the brew-pub. I'm sitting with my associate Bobby, enjoying a pint of the house ale, when Stephen Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) suddenly appears on the bar television. I can't quite describe the level of annoyance that the bald business guru brings to a room of gentle drinkers, trying to enjoy themselves while the rest of the populace is at work, but a sudden wail from a man in the far corner, similar to that of a small dog yanked forcefully by the tail, alerts everyone that something is terribly wrong. In a matter of moments all eyes are fixed in distress upon the television.And so: Vice One: Be a Drinker Vice Two: Begin with a Smoke Vice Three: Put Gambling First Vice Four: Think Oysters Vice Five: Seek Fashion First, Then seek to be Understood Vice Six: Sex Vice Seven: Abuse the Card Go read the complete text at The Seven Vices of Highly Creative People.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Blogging has already given the language a few new words. Starting with "blog" itself, and of course, blogger and blogging, going on to hybrid creations like blogosphere, blogroll, moblog, and cyborglog (glog for short). We obviously have too much time on our hands, so here's some more we thought up. (You venture capitalists can queue up on the right, please.) Collablog - a term we invented to replace Group Blog (hasn't caught on yet *grin*) Kleptoblogger - someone who uses your links without attribution Bloglugluglug - too many blogs, too little time, drowning in blogs Hobloglin - blog reader who makes mischievous comments Glob - typo on blog that the blogger attributes to dyslexia, not to too many hours spent staring at the monitor Got more?
Monday, October 25, 2004
NBC has decided to remove exterior shots of this New York City building from Will & Grace after a viewer complained its sign looked like the name began with the letter F. [Source: The BBC Comedy Blog]
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Badmash (well worth a bookmark, by the way), the Weekly South Asian Comic Strip has a hilarious new offering. Go see Dishoom. Lots of little in-jokes, cool animation. [Thanks Roma!]
Friday, October 22, 2004
Normal dictionaries wait until a word is old and stale before publishing them. They need to have proof that a word has written, published citations, or is in wide popular use.Via The spectacularly obtuse blog.
Monday, October 18, 2004
A place to go when we need to bask a little. Stirring music, smoothly scrolling supers... Oh well. Might as well confess. Just take replace zigzackly in the URL with your own name (if you prefer it formal, separate first and second name with a dot, like so :http://firstname.secondname.youaremyfriend.com/) and you get your own personalised tribute.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
From Sean Keane's Scenes From a Blockbuster Action Movie Featuring a Technology Expert With Approximately My Own Real-Life Skill Level, at McSweeney's. 'O'Henderson, nice surveillance work. The report you put together was incredible. Friends, associates, even his favorite movies and bands. We're a lot closer to finding that bastard Santiago now.'
Friday, October 15, 2004
The Segway, a product we'd love to check out, is fast finding a market with people who have walking disabilities, despite the fact that unlike the iBot wheelchair (another Dean Kamen invention, but marketed by Johnson & Johnson), it is not recommended or approved as an aid for the handicapped.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
A college campus is the setting for Vampire Kisses and where Bimbette La Fleur and Zig Zackly first cross paths. It’s love at first sight, but as they become closer Bimbette discovers that Zig has a horrifying secret – he’s a vampire doomed to a bloodthirsty immortality! Although Bimbette senses danger beneath his soft-spoken manner, and even after Zig himself warns her away, Bimbette is drawn to this creature of the night and loves him as she has loved no other.Nay, your humble blogger hasn't lost it. We just happened to chance upon Book By You, which apparently makes quite a decent living out of creating personalised 180-page romance novels. Here's how it goes: you pick your story, you enter details about the characters on an online form, you pay your US$30 plus postage, and bingo, you have a book starring you and your significant other. The extract above was from the demo section of one of their latest, er, books, Vampire Kisses. (They also offer kids' books, by the way, if you want take-home presents for the brat's next Happybirthday.)
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Caferati, the website, is now at the URL it was supposed to be at in the first place, http://www.caferati.com/. Please update bookmarks accordingly. Be a poppet and go to http://getaforum.com/forums/?mforum=indiawriterscaf, register, and mess around a bit. It's an experiment - a free message board facility to be part of Caferati. There are a few trial categories and fora already up, but you can add your own topics, or reply to topics, etc. Have fun. Use the Gossip topic for general faff. The other categories are self-explanatory. Nothing you do will be seen by the world, aside from your fellow bakras - er, beta testers - and anyone else you invite to check it out. Will delete the entire board later (once some feedback is in, and we have learned a bit more about tweaking the controls) and create a new one for caferati.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Monday, October 04, 2004
We'd like to point you to another subcontinent a forum on South-Asian art, film, food, literature and music. Why those and no others? It's a choice based on an excellent reason: "that is what the site's founders would like to talk about here." Quite an interesting place, from the brief while we've spent lurking in the woodwork, and what recommends it even more strongly, IOHO, is we didn't see a trace of lame desi jokes clumsily adapted from old Jewish-, Polish- and Italian-bashing forwards. Arnab, one of the site's founders, told us over e-mail that it's not just aimed at the diaspora, they hope to attract people who still live on the sub-continent as well, and encourage a multiplicity of views.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
As lit blogs get more and more powerful, it was, we guess only a matter of time before it came to this. The Virtual Book Tour has been offering authors the chance to be talk and be talked about in the blogosphere, with interviews, guest-blogging stints and the like. There's a rate card for the general tour, with guarantees and all, and even a matchmaking service, where VBT brings the less mainstream authors in touch with the blogs that are just right for them. We're consumed with jealousy. We wish we had thought of this. Ah well. Blog on, Zig, blog on. Your time will come.
Friday, October 01, 2004
And yes. Caferati launches the site with a contest. If you have any original, previously unpublished short fiction (up to 3,000 words) in English, please mosey on over to the Stories at the Coffee Table section. For those of you in Bombay, the contest formally launches this evening at 7 p.m., at the Cha Bar in Oxford Bookstore, near Churchgate. The week just past has been crazy. Haven't even had time to get the comics fix for the last five or six days. And here's the reason: Caferati - a collaboration over too much coffee is now a full fledged site. Lots of exciting plans on how it's going to grow. And of course you'll hear it here first. Your comments and feedback will be greatly appreciated. Apparently, there's something called the Page-50 Club for people who have never been able to get past the first 50 pages of a Rushdie book. Mid-Day asked a few authors "Which book have you abandoned and why?" One wonders whether the question was framed in a rather more, you know leading way, considering that Rushdie popped up in quite a few responses. (Perhaps a certain author who has been known to comment on these pages could throw some light on that, considering she was one of the respondents?) Anyway, they spoke with Mala Sen, Anurag Mathur, Ashok Banker, Manjula Padma, Anita Nair, Ruskin Bond,Sagarika Ghosh, Shobhaa De, Amitava Kumar, Farrukh Dhondy, Manil Suri, Ardeshir Vakil, and Ramachandran Guha. |
Note: [*] = The site linked to requires registration. Zig's on Twitter Follow, all ye who must know more.Words
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually produce a masterpiece. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
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