Freelancing is the bomb

You know, I never wanted to get into copywriting or editing when I was younger, but over the last couple of years I've realised that a large portion of my work is exactly that. Obviously I've never had a problem with it on a purely capabilities basis, but it just never seemed like a job I would find particularly inspiring.

And it's not. Although it can be kind of fun sometime, which is why now that I’m freelancing I take on some editing jobs, which is working out pretty good on the whole.

And then there are the times when I get a job where I have to edit 100 descriptors for a client, and they all look kind of like this:

Barbie Musical Jewelry Box

Barbie Turns Around As The Music Plays. A Barbie Statue fits on the top of the Jewelry Box; wind up Barbie & open the drawer & Music plays! Barbie that fits on top of Jewelry Box. There appears to be 1 drawer that swing outwards & the Jewelry Box plays music & Barbie turns while the music plays.

Truly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Well I started out laughing, but now I’m on descriptor number 33, and all I can think is;

“Seriously! Are you brain damaged? How hard is it to spell jewellery? NOT THAT HARD! And even if it is... haven’t you ever heard of spell check?

Also, who in their right mind thinks that saying the same thing incoherently three times makes for a good product description? Furthermore, I think we got the fact that it’s a musical jewellery box with a Barbie on top just from the name alone.

Lastly, drawers do NOT swing outwards, they pull, that’s why they’re DRAWERS. You draw them out. It’s a pretty simple concept you know.

GIVE ME SOMETHING USEFUL HERE! Like what tune does the box play? Is the box pink? (I’m guessing yes, coz this IS Barbie after all), how many compartments does it have? What size is it?

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Sigh.... I am NOT getting paid enough for this.”

And that my friends, is precisely why I would Never Ever be a good full time editor. Thank god for freelancing. At least now I not only get to jump from project to project when one of them starts to make me feel like sticking my head in the freezer and then repeatedly banging the door, but on the whole, I earn enough to keep me in the style to which I have become accustomed.

It’s a good life :) and no, I haven’t yet cleaned up my room...

Whoosh...

I think that was the sound of my life zipping past.
I’m pretty sure I used to have one at one time... but even that is becoming a dim memory. Which brings to mind the question, why have I not been writing in here more? After all, I’m not doing anything better with my time!

Seriously.
You know what I did yesterday?
I slept.
That’s about it really.

Mind you, I actually do have better things to do with my time. But it was a grey and rainy Friday, and I just didn’t feel like it. So I didn’t.
Occasionally being a total layabout is good for you. But I’m starting to see a disturbing pattern here and I don’t think I like it.

SO! Next week I’m done with all that. I have to finish getting my room into order. We had painters redoing the entire house a couple of weeks ago and my room is still in a mess.
I was planning to use this as an opportunity to get all my junk sorted out: throw out or donated the stuff that I no longer want, box up and store the stuff with sentimental value (that I actually never ever even bother with anymore,) and reorder the stuff that I want to keep.
When you take into consideration that the last time I did this was at least 8 years (yeah EIGHT YEARS!) ago, you can imagine the herculean task set before me. I think that’s one of the reasons I don’t feel like getting to it. I did start, but it’s not one of those things you can do in one shot, and now every time I plan to get back to it I feel like there’s “Just So Much To Do!” and put it off...

Ah, my old enemy, procrastination. I guess I never really did learn anything from Morgan and Me.
[Oh, on a total aside, aren’t Stephen Cosgrove's Serendipity books fabulous? I hope someone out there other than me has read them! At one point of time I actually wanted to get a Flutterby tattoo. I’m so happy that they’re going into reprint and are available on Amazon. Although I still have mine from when I was a kid, it gives me hope that a new generation out there will have the chance to read them too!]

Anyway, to get back to the messy room debacle (and solution hopefully), I’ve finally framed my POTC and Underworld Evolution movie posters, so if I want to put them up I have to get my room into order. Should be incentive enough don’t you think?

Score!!

lol! how could you possibly fail to get a positive response with these moves?



oh, and "here's to your lovely eyes" :P

oh no!

I actually dont know if this is HORRIBLE or totally brilliant!

I'm so confused now...





I'm also wondering how I didn't know about it before. Its AGES old in electro terms.

lets see how u like that...

now, i may be more of a cat person, but i really do LIKE dogs. they're great, even if they do smell. the whole unconditional affection thing is awesome. and they're almost always amusing to have around. Our dog at least; my cutie cutie taffy, who died about two years ago now; was a totally brilliant dog and a complete joy to have around.
BUT
if the idiot who lives two houses down from us doesn't figure out how to keep his bloody dogs from howling and fighting all night long i CAN NOT answer for my actions! what the HELL! how does he sleep through that racket!!

its driving me nuts. really. don't be surprised if you find out one of these days that i no longer post coz I've been taken away to the nut house.
At least I'll be able to sleep if I'm in a nice quite white room. and the padding may actually be comfortable... hmm... the lack of sleep thing is actually making me start to wonder if getting locked up would be that bad. but then, I'm sure the other inmates would be pretty noisy.
ok, i think outside life is on-the-whole preferable! at least out here i can get my hands on brownies.

LOL... i just read over everything i typed up there. and i have to say, if I ran a nut house, I think i'd be seriously considering me as a candidate.

so let me explain a little.
We have a neighbour with three dogs. Two are street dogs that they rescued, and one is a lab. Now I'm not really sure what the whole arrangement is with these, but i think the street ones aren't allowed into the house to sleep. One has some weird problems and dysfunctionality issues from before it got rescued, and now 'Blacky' barks and howls about EVERYTHING (including getting fed apparently - really! that's what the owner told my sis!).

The second street dog is an escape artiste. 'Stripey' manages to scale their compound wall, and then runs about getting into fights with the other street dogs in our colony. and into the colony garbage bin. and into other people’s houses every night.
and somehow, SOMEHOW, she always manages to have all the scuffles she has on a nightly basis, right. outside. my. window! or at least, that's how it sounds.
in fact I can hear her right now. snorfaling away, running and panting and growling and jumping and generally making a bloody nuisance of herself.

And lastly, the lab, who i think wants to be in on all the nonsense that the other two get into, is locked in the house with the peoples every night. and with the peoples is not where 'Banjo' wants to be! oh no... the peoples are all sleeping! that's not exciting at all! so what does he do? well. for the last week or so (maybe the owners are out of town?) Banjo (or at least I assume its him. it sounds like him) has been complaining every night.
right at about 2 am, as i'm about to fall into the kind of sleep where a Harley revving by my head would not wake me, that dratted lab starts up. "ooouuooh uuoohaaa hooohooohooaaa!"
seriously.
its not even like a wolfie, respectable, dignified type howl! he sounds like a 5 year old telling mommy about how the other kids wont let him play.
the first couple of times he started in on the howling it was funny (which may have been because he did it during the day), but i just can't take it anymore!

I have to be up tomorrow at 6am (and that's a story for later) but here i am, unable to sleep, coz my idiot freaking neighbour is apparently as deaf as an ninety year old man who was in an artillery unit during the second world war - or is such a sucky person, that he goes on holiday and doesn't leave someone behind to take care of his dogs during the night.

so bah, humbug to him!
and if he doesn't figure out how to shut his dogs up, I'm gonna go over there one of these nights with an air horn, break into his house, shove it up against his ear and press the button.

SUPER BUSY

And wishing i was still vela (which means footloose and fancy free for those of you who dont understand Hindi).

And GAH! i just realised this is waaay more like a tweet then a blog post. and u know how i feel about twitter....

Oooooooh!

so, credit to one of my new co-workers for sending me a YouTube link that led me to this.
And yes, I do know its in Russian.

Clicky the link and then watch the videos! way awesome...

Tvigle Media

So did you? did you see???
I have to say, Vader in a Hawaiian print shirt pretty much made my day

And for those of you who were too lazy to clicky the link, here's a teaser:




these russians are crazy *tap, tap, tap*

Stephan Pastis is a Genius!

So who here doesn't follow Pearls Before Swine? because you really really ought to.
And here's an example of why...



also, follow stephan's blog at: http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com/

What are you? 12?

Ah... the Vengaboys... truly a brilliant example of why I think the 90s was one of the worst eras for music.

And now, much to my amusment (read: Horror), they’re back!




Wonderful promo isn't it?

and here's the actual video...




Is it just me, or have they really really not aged well?

-----UPDATE-----
oh oh oh! Check it out!
http://www.lyricsera.com actually managed to make the song worse!
How is it possible to get lyrics so wrong?

Vengaboys - Rocket To Uranus


[Perez Hilton]
Eenie Meenie Miney Moe, this rocket ship has got to go!

[Vengaboys]
There is a house, in the heart of kings and town. 
A place that you never see.
The secret house, in the heart of kings and town, where we've been building our dream. 

Get up now, it's time to go.
Blast off, your standing alone.
It's there, I swear...
5 4 3 2 1

[Chorus]
I'm on a rocket to uranus, 
and the rocket's gonna take us, 
to the planet that'll save us.
Oh Woah Woah Woah
Fly! On a mission to a higher low,
the invitation you've been dreamin' of,
let's have a party on uranus!

There is a place,
3 billion clicks away, 
where you find freedom to all.
It's new, it's cool and the light can last all day.
Counting down, final call.

If you haven't got a thing to wear,
it doesn't really matter up there.
Come on, we're gone!

[Chorus]
I'm on a rocket to uranus, 
and the rocket's gonna take us, 
to the planet that'll save us.
Oh Woah Woah Woah
Fly! On a mission to a higher low,
the invitation you've been dreamin' of,
let's have a party on uranus!

[Perez Hilton]
Party time!
Look!
I can see it...
We're almost there.
Uranus is so pretty!
It feels like home.

[Vengaboys]
Oh woah woah woah
Fly! On a mission to a higher low,
the invitation you've been dreamin' of,
let's have a party on uranus!

[Perez Hilton]
That was a fast journey!

Vengaboys - Rocket To Uranus [http://www.LyricsEra.com]

I have to admit, "On a mission to a higher low" really does work better.

The World Lacks Balance

Gah! I feel like my brain is atrophying!
All I’ve done today is work on verifying the library catalogue. The sheer boringitude of this work is possibly on par with what I spent the majority of my internship at RAVE doing way back in... um, 2004 I think - I was given the fascinating job of inputting ALL the articles from past magazines into their online archive.

And now, here I sit, 6 years later, doing pretty much the exact same thing!
Ok, not really. But you have to admit, verifying that the books we have in the catalogue are actually in the library, and vice versa, comes fairly close.


So what I want to know is... where the hack is my bleeping intern!

No seriously!
We of the content team have been slaving over this mind numbing/scream producing job in every spare moment we have between planning our schedules/processes and getting a framework into place for this entire year (oh, and have I mentioned that we’re supposed to be launching the website that we’re in charge off on July 19? Not exactly like we’re wallowing in time here!)

Never have I missed an overly enthusiastic, butt-kissing, scut-work doing college kid more.

Sabbaticalised

Reading this blog one would think that I spend all my time on holiday... which has essentially been true for the last couple of months. So guess its a pretty fair representation!
Sooo... lets see. To catch ya'll up (assuming of course that anyone still reads this), I've been jobless since Jan. Started the year of as free as a bird! its been kinda awesome really... but now its back to work at a new company!
this is just my second week, going pretty good so far. fingers crossed, knocking on wood and all that sort of stuff that it stays that way :)

And that's about it for this post 'cause I'm heading out for a beer now... beer trumps blog!

hopefully back soon with more.

I'm BACK!

but then... maybe you didn't even know i was gone...

anyway...

back at work after ten (11? 12?) days roaming Uttarakhand, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri! pictures soon :) promise...


--------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: many moons later

so no pictures... mostly coz they're up on facebook and i cant be bothered to get them sorted and put them up here... so sue me :P
and if u read this blog and aren't friends with me on fb then its a miracle in any case! (and i ought to call the Vatican)

Look Into Pants

there are sooooo many reasons why i love this blog.
Parez should take some tips.
If you want to be snarky, this is the way to go.

gofugyourself.celebuzz.com

R.I.P MJ

The first Michael Jackson song I ever truly loved was Man In The Mirror, with Smooth Criminal as a close second.

Seem like a strange combination? Not really.

I know exactly why it’s those two, and the reason has everything to do with one of my favorite people when I was 6 years old.

At the age of 6, the bus ride back from school was always horribly long – I think it took about an hour from school to our bus-stop. I was invariably exhausted, cranky and hungry by that point.

At 6 even 10 minutes in a bus when you get sort of motion sick is pretty horrible. And with school buses, somehow the trip back home always seems longer then the trip to school.

Anyway, what does this have to do with The King of Pop?

Well, as I said, it’s all because of AJ. AJ was the one who made bus rides bearable. Although when I do the math now I realize he was only about 16 or 17, at 6 he seemed all grown up.

And I had a major case of hero worship.

He was the coolest guy I knew. He would read to my class at nap time (“Marvin K Mooney, Will You PLEASE Go Now?”), he was never too busy to answer silly questions and he always took care of me on the bus.

So although I’m pretty sure the first MJ song I ever heard was way before school (since my dad still has his MJ LPs and some of them are older then me) - the first of his songs I ever loved, was the ones AJ used to sing on the bus.

He taught me all the words to Man In The Mirror, and he used to goof around acting it and Smooth Criminal out - doing funny voices, dramatic faces, and extremely amusing break dance attempts.

And despite the fact that my childhood is dotted with numerous Jackson related memories – my dad trying to sing Bad and failing miserably (and amusingly), watching thriller for the first time (how awesome was that video?), trying to moonwalk “just like MJ”… Those two songs are still my favorites.

Even if the last decade of MJs life has seemed to consist of one sad scandal after another, there’s no way any one can deny, there will probably never be another artiste and performer quite like Michael Jackson.

More Heir Then Wit

So… I was surfing through the web yesterday in a fairly jobless fashion (despite the fact that it was a Tuesday and I was actually kinda swamped), and I came across this:

The Hermes Bicycle

Bicycle in lacquered stainless steel.

Frame, handles and saddle in Taurillon Clemence leather.

Kickstand, front and back lighting, carrier with bungy cord, mud flap and spoke protector.

$4,000.00

Can someone please explain to me why anyone would buy this???

Firstly, if you convert it, that’s about 1,88,000 INR (and to save myself the trouble, lets assume that all future prices that I dont mention in USD or GPB are INR)… let me just say OUCH!

Even thinking about it makes my wallet hurt.

Who spends almost 2 lakhs on a bicycle!!! And what’s worse… it’s covered in leather! How totally impractical is that? What if it starts to rain?

This is NOT what I would call a sensible use of money.

I guess you really know you have way more money then you know what to do with (or a complete disregard for Daddy's Dollars) when you start buying things like that.

(Oh! Check out the Hermes baby stuff while your there… now I know that most new parents can be made to buy practically anything for darling baby, but seriously! Who buys a US$930 plush horse? That’s almost 44 thousand rupees!)

So then I started to wonder, what are the really daft things out there that no one but a really filthy rich, and possibly slightly brain damaged person, would be suckered into buying?

And here are a couple of things I found.

You may have heard of a few of them before, but they were just too noteworthy not to mention.

Bling H20

(Water for the super rich and vapid)

"Comes in Limited Edition, corked, 750ml, reusable frosted glass bottles, exquisitely handcrafted with Swarovski Crystals."
Cost? US$40 a bottle. For WATER!

Weirdly enough reading the site taught me something new... who knew there were awards for water?

Oh, also, its not water for everyone... apparently "just those that Bling."



Miniature Home Chocolate Fountain
(Figured I ought to put in at least one thing which I would totally buy if I had the cash)

The Miniature Chocolate & Fondue Fountain is the ultimate accessory for every fondue lover and home entertainer.
The elegance and fun of the larger chocolate fountains can now be yours with a personal chocolate fountain of your own!

Depending on size and capacity, these cost between US$86 - 196.

Because what could possibly be more elegant then a chocolate fountain?


Charlotte Thomas Bespoke
(Sheets I would be to terrified to fall asleep on)

The most expensive bed sheets in the world - handmade, using the finest merino wool backed with hand-loom silk and thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and threaded with 22 carat gold.

I imagine sleeping on them would feel awesome, they're reputed to be the finest bedding in the world.

How much do they cost?
Well, I'm guessing the Britt sense of propriety stepped in here, because the site doesn't say.
And its also probably a sliding scale, since the sheets are made to each buyers specifications.
But each individual pillowcase is about GBP1,200, so one can only imagine.
(For the curious, that's 92,400 bucks per pillowcase).


and lastly... just coz I find it hilarious that they're just pretty flip-flops (which you could probably find for about a 100 bucks here - and probably less in fact).


Limited Edition Havaianas
(They actually cost more then the chocolate fountain!)

The Limited Edition Slim Crystel Mesh Havaianas - your avarage "bathroom chappals" with a bit of bling.

And yeah, they're probably Swarovski Crystals, but it doesn't actually say that on the product page, so who says they aren't just glass?

I sure as heck wouldn't spend over 9K (US$198) on these, but that's what they cost!

But then, even the regular run of the mill Havaianas cost about 846 bucks at the very least!

And now I'm feeling exceedingly poor and totally weirded out by the things people will spend money on.

So I guess I'll go eat lunch, and leave you with this.

Reason Why YouTube is Awesome

1) Because I would never have even heard of these guys without it.

(sadly I couldn't put up the official video for this, since they took of the embed option... but you should go check it out... freaky awesome)

somebody please explain to me how its possible to do this stuff!

2) Because watching this is totally embarrassing and hilarious… what were we thinking!!

Augh... the boyband age! I can't believe some of these guys are trying to make a comeback [and let me just say... New Kids On The Block is really really the wrong name when you're all OLD]

Other epic-ly bad cartoons from when I was young - Gem, Ghostbusters (seriously, go watch one now, you'll see what I mean) He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, CareBears, My Little Pony... can't think of any more [Thundercats and TMNT are still totally cool].

3) And because this is the kind of thing that people post

hahaha! I love how nonchalant that kanga is... hoppity-hoppity-BAM!

ouch...wonder how long it took him to find all his teeth...

Enjoy The Ride

Does anyone else still listen to Morcheeba?
Well this song is stuck in my head... the video is a little strange, but the song is awesome.
so don't get put off!

Desi

(Warning: This is kind of a serious post… and it’s pretty long too)

Recently I’ve really begun to wonder what exactly it means to be Indian.

Am I less Indian because I wear jeans? Because I don’t speak any of our languages with fluency? Is it a matter of birth? Or love for the country? Belief system? Religion?

What exactly is it that makes someone Desi?

What started me off on this train of thought was watching Bachna Ae Haseeno last Sunday.

Now I admit, I’ve always been sort of prejudiced towards Hindi movies in general, mostly because I kind of buy into the whole idea that they’re all dumb and filled with couples running in slow motion towards each other or around trees.

And yes, I do know that although that may have been true to a certain extent when I was a kid, it’s hardly the fact any longer. There are plenty of movies like that still made, but there are also lots which actually have some worth to them or are at least fun to watch.

Although it still kind of bugs me that everyone in the whole world seems to believe that Bollywood films are the sum of Indian filmmaking, completely disregarding all the other powerful Indian films that have ever been made.

But another problem for me as far as Indian movies as a whole go, is that the only language I’m fluent and comfortable in is English. And it’s a bit hard to enjoy a movie if you can’t follow the dialogue.

Ok, maybe that’s not strictly true… I had no problem watching 2 Days in Paris without subtitles, and half that movie is in French!

But I guess with Hindi movies I follow enough of the dialogue that when I can’t follow something it really throws me. And then the flow is gone and the entire experience sort of goes down the toilet.

And it’s actually somehow a little more annoying when you know that what they’re saying is probably totally pointless!

Since I watched Bachna Ae Haseeno on DVD, we had the subtitles on, and actually, from a purely fluff point of view, it was kind of fun.

There were waaaaaaay too many songs (and buggingly enough, I’ve had this one stuck in my head since watching the movie).

But other then that, a lot of the scripting was pretty smart, and the humor was quite witty.

So that made me wonder, “Am I out of touch with the things that are Indian these days? And have I ever actually been in touch with them?”

When we were kids, my sis and I never actually watched any of the Indian TV shows, or at least, I don’t remember doing so. And the only reason I’ve watched any of the movies that are considered to be Indian Film Classics (Like Kabuliwalla or the Appu Trilogy) is because we were made to watch them in school.

We were brought up on a steady diet of western literature and cultural milestones, and I never actually regretted the lack of Indian influence till I started working.

Luckily my grandmoms and school managed to plant a certain amount of Indian culture and history into my head. Enough that I’ve read the Mahabharata and the Ramayana a few times, and have a fairly decent grasp of Who Came First from the Aryans to the Brits.

But does that make me Desi?

I can cook a Full Indian Meal, and if Bend it Like Beckham is to be believed, the rest should be up to God.

But I’m not in the least bit religious! In fact, although I have a firm and unshakable belief that God certainly does exist - how else do you explain the everyday miracle of life? (And if you say science I’m just going to say “and how do you explain that existing then?” so don’t argue ok?) I’m completely and totally anti-religion. In fact, I kind of believe that if the devil did exist, religion is probably exactly the kind of thing he would come up with – after all it’s been behind some of the worst problems our world has seen!

But that is an argument for another post.

So Desi… what exactly does it mean? If our politicians are to be believed, then accepting other cultures and adopting other traditions makes us less Indian.

But what I want to know is, if we hadn’t always been such an open country, if we hadn’t been willing to accept other people, learn from them, take their knowledge and wisdom and make it our own, would we be the country we are now?

No… I really don’t think we would be.

Firstly, what is Indian? How far back do you need to go before you get to the pure Indian roots? One of the best and strongest things about our country is that it’s a total melting pot.

From the Taj Mahal to the temples at Thanjavur, from Appams to Sarson Ka Saag, our country represents everyone! So really, I’m not sure that there is any one thing that’s Indian.

And adding to my idea that my life is pointless

No One reads this blog.
NO ONE!
as in... I have actually not even gotten one hit since forever! at least a month or so.
which really makes me wonder why I'm even bothering to write this.
I could of course claim that I do this for self expression (cough*as if*cough), but even I don't believe that!
well anyway...

If anyone does read this in the next few, let me ask you... do you read Foxtrot?
Because its hilarious and you should... one of my greatest sorrows is that Bill Amend only writes Sunday strips now.
But at least there's a whole bunch of fun stuff still going on here and we still have Pearls (YAY!)... which sadly does not have its own website, but can be read here.

But back to Foxtrot...
Did you crack the math code and work the Apr 19 strip out?
Because I did.
Which proves to me that I really shouldn't have failed math!
Or at least that I'm better at it then Paige.

“Do Not Forget Me Till Your Blood Is Red”

I swear I saw that written on the back of an auto last night on my way home from work… I have no CLUE what he was trying to say… but man… I can’t help but wonder… is he talking to his uptown girl? Is this some blue blooded reference? Or was that meant to be “Till your blood spills red upon the ground” which is a possibility… but frankly, kinda horrible.

Maybe I just shouldn't try to analyse it, auto sayings hardly EVER make sense…. For example, I’ve seen signs like “Trust A Sanke But Not A Gril” and “Lose Weight! Ask For Free Sample” and my personal favorite “Born To Bead” (I think they missed a gap and a B there)…

The problem is that it’s almost impossible to get pictures of these. Because even though traffic is always horrible, I will invariably be just a little too far away to take a cam phone pic. And if I DO get a pic (and in fact I do have one of the “Born To Bead” auto) its almost impossible to tell what it actually says!

But I shall keep trying!
Who knows… there may come a time when I’ll have just the right balance of funny, distance and lighting...