A basic claymation exercise November 17, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Claymation.2 comments
I am sure you never saw these:
A short love story
My first claymation film
Unless you happened to be one of the unfortunate few who I somehow or the other bulldozed/bullshitted/bribed/begged/beseeched into going through these :)
When I had started my experiments with clay modelling, I was sure my claymation avocation was just history-in-the-making. Today more than a year and a half later, it is just history :(
So instead of letting that go waste, why not subject you, unsuspecting readers to some of my early forays into claymation.
Strictly speaking this is not claymation — just stop-frame animation of clay figures. Maybe the first few rungs of a tall ladder, I never did climb!
In this particular case, the camera remains constant but the subject is moved around 360 degrees. In an earlier film I had tried another technique — where the camera is moved around 360 degrees while the subject remains constant at the centre of the circle. Best seen in Matrix and Mission Impossible.
Ek tooth. Ache tooth November 7, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour, Language.10 comments
This conversation took place a little over three months ago when I had an impacted wisdom tooth surgically removed. Wincing in pain, over the next few days, I had put up a suitable ’status’ message on my email/chat. Niyam saw that ’status’ message and initiated this conversation. Proof that we indeed are a ’status’ conscious society :-p
(Even though the hehes, heehees, hahas are all original, you should see them as the equivalent of canned laughter in television comedies… if you see no humour otherwise)
niyam: ever since you’ve published your line ‘the tooth shall prevail’ my wife has developed some tooth problem and visiting the dentist everyday, and my mom also developed another problem. All Co-inciDENTALLY, eh?
me: Did they visit a doctor? My APOLLOji’s :)
niyam: heheheheheee
wicked!
when your teeth hurt, it needs GUMption to visit the dentist
me: actually it should have been –The TOOTH shall pre-WAIL!
niyam: heheheheee
yes, please change that
me: been there Daant that!
niyam: ufff!!! you and your Daante’s divine comedy
me: hehe
niyam: heheheeee
and when you need courage
you need diler
diler mehndi
me: :-) (Driller Mehndi!)
niyam: Tooth Tooth Tooth toothi iya
me: actually..it is — Toothache, toothache, toothache, tootiya….hey jamalo!
this one fits well
niyam: yup!
trust you to drill it in
me: mere Toothey drill ke tukdey!
niyam: you know the secret and the raaz of this
no wonder you are the
me: Razdaant?
niyam: Ra Howl Raaz Daant
me: :-D
me: dang! i cant even grin properly.. can’t open my mouth fully :-D
niyam: okay okay okay
time for you to get inspired for your next masterpiece at swadeshe
math teacher: what comes after 69? student: mouth-wash.
me: I have enough fodder for the next few months!
hahaha
niyam: 32 chambers of Shaw Lin: dentist report on manek shaw
heheheeee
me: haha
and what do u call teeth marks on a person’s ass?
niyam: ?
me: Butt-teesi
niyam: heheheeeeeeeeeeeee
the history of dentistry: Toothpast.
heheheheeee
me: and those guys who make tonnes of money drilling into people’s teeth?
hahaha past
Denture Capitalists!
niyam: heheheee
uff! rahul! ccchhhaa gaye
let’s have it on swadeshe PLEASE
me: hehe… lemme see
niyam: what do you call your mother’s brother in Antarctica were he a furry animal? Molar Bear
me: hahaha
What did the dog tell the bitch, to be invited to her place?
niyam: ?
me: Canine come over to your place, tonight?
niyam: yup
her address: K9, Bitch Alley
hehehee
me: hehe
Ok… whats with YOUR status message?
niyam: true.
screwed with work. this is comic relief before i go into the mince meat machine again
sigh!
ok lemme get back to work
And to all of you who have to get back to doing better things, after this “comic relief”, a very big thank you. Psst… The relief was all mine :-p
Google ads gone to the dogs September 17, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour.11 comments
This post is an instance of digressed writing — where the writer sets out to write something that’s there in his mind, but ends up writing something else.
I am sure most of you are aware of ‘contextual advertising‘. I am also sure that some of you might have come across contextual advertising gone wrong. (Here are a few examples: here (tip from Ouchmytoe) and here). That’s almost like a genre of posts in its own right, right? (Grammatic thought: Do two ‘rights’ make a wrong? :-p)
Today, when I was researching a story, I came across this ‘contextually’ served ad-group by Google!
The ‘context’ was a story about ’stray dogs’ and the first two ads are about ’sexy bikini collection’ and ‘top sexy models’! Let me throw a little challenge for you to join the logical dots between ’stray dogs’ and ’sexy bikini models’! Ok, here is a highly ’sexist’ (pun intended) attempt.
Context –> Stray dogs;
Look for synonyms –>
…Stray: Wayward, deviant
…Dogs: Canine, puppy
Look for antonyms –>
…Stray: Straight, on-track, focus
…Dogs: Bitches
Make combinations of the above –>
Got it? Ok, now don’t shoot me! I was just trying to see some reason!
(In case you did not get it: top sexy models = wayward bitches? Ok, now you also don’t shoot me! I was just trying to see some reason!)
But even that ‘reason’ fails when you look at the third ad! A Ganpati Bapa Moria ad, for a context of stray dogs? Fodder enough for some rabble rousers to take Google to task? :-p
But then Google knows best!
================================================
Oh! Before I forget. The reason for beginning this post…
Ever since I went to Korea, my senses have been heightened to any mention of the following two words in the same breath — Korea & dogs!
So I read this recent news piece (ok, it is no longer ‘recent’) about a legislator in India suggesting that stray dogs from India be exported to Korea, where they could be treated with respect. The same tandoori respect that we bestow on our chickens!
For coming up with such a brilliant win-win solution I suggest these legislators be sent on this junket to New Guinea.
What say you, readers? (Hello! Anybody there?)
Chakde India: 16 girls, SRK & hockey-shockey August 12, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Media & Entertainment.11 comments
Anything new in Chakde India? Nothing.
Would I still recommend watching it. Yes.
The movie starts with the customary disclaimer that it is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real people or events is purely co-incidental.
Now, if you consider the following as facts…
- People who run sports bodies in India are boring sarkari-types.
- Zafar Iqbal was the captain of the Indian hockey team that lost 1-7 to Pakistan in the finals of the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi.
- Yuvraj Singh was dating Kim Sharma and was the vice-captain of the Indian cricket team.
- The walls of Mohammed Kaif’s house were blackened with graffiti by vandals after India lost a cricket match.
- Women married into many middle-class families are expected to be nothing beyond good housewives.
- Many people from North-East of India do not associate themselves with India.
- Women from the North-East are subject to lewd remarks in many places in India.
- Rustic Haryanvi lines in Hindi films (remember the wrestler-goon in Khosla Ka Ghosla) and television (remember Udham Singh on Channel [V] ) are funny.
- A regular Indian team is composed of players chosen from different states.
… then Shimit Amin (Ab Tak 56) does craft a whole movie out of co-incidences alone!
The fundamental premise here, like in all sports-based films, is that audience sympathy is always with the underdogs and therefore the protagonists have to be the underdogs. Remember Lagaan, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Iqbal and recently, Ta Ra Rum Pum? (I won’t ask you, but if you also remember Awwal Number, All-rounder, Kabhi Ajnabi Thhey, you rock!) And if the underdogs happen to be women with their own respective odds, then you have a completely-on-the-side-of-political-correctness double-whammy lined up! Now top that up with Shah Rukh Khan being their mentor — and you have a triple-treat-sundae ready!
Shah Rukh as a mentor of people is a film-genre in its own right. Whether it was mentoring a gurukul of plastic love-birds in Mohabbatein, or mentoring villagers wanting their own electric turbine in Swades, or as Major Ram studying alongside students who called him uncle in Main Hoon Naa, and of course my favourite SRK-as-mentor scene from DDLJ (which I mentioned here). (Please note: any assumptions about SRK’s acting abilities are your own!)
I deliberately won’t venture into how all and what all does Chakde India not deliver. Because in our land of abundant contradictions I still believe if something can make a small difference, it is a movie dripping with clichés and stereotypes!
If people believe that a Veer Zaara can contribute more to building relations between Indo-Pak aam janta than official actions — then I won’t play party-pooper to the hope that after Chakde India the integrity of the ordinary Indian Muslim won’t be ever questioned again; that people of North-East India would start seeing themselves as citizens of India; that the girl-child in Haryana (which has one of the lowest female:male ratios in India) gets her due; that middle-class families start giving their daughters-in-law some space to fulfill their aspirations; that people from Jharkhand are no longer seen as backward tribals but recognized for what they can contribute to the country; that boy-friends become less patronizing towards their girls; that we rise above our regional-linguistic chauvinism and start thinking of ourselves as Indians first!
Go watch it.
p.s.
On the other hand, the official Yashraj Films.com website (click here at your own peril) is perhaps the epitome of traumatic navigation websites. Every module, every link you click takes 10 times longer to load (with a Flash pre-loader) than the amount of time you finally end up spending on the resultant page! Have you ever been exasperated using phone IVR call-in menus – press 1 for Hindi and press 2 for English. Now press 1 for blah and 2 for blah-blah and 3 for blah-blah-blah. Now press 1 for dang, 2 for dangg, and 3 for danggg? Grrrr. That was child’s play! On this official website I was actually scared of clicking on any link — afraid of the next loading-section countdown screen that would be unleashed on me!
Some funny signboards August 1, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour, Travel.5 comments
Some funny signboards collected over time.
Shop in Seoul, Korea:
Obviously this has a cultural context. I don’t know about other places, but in India, the little finger is sometimes used as an action-euphemism for answering nature’s call! Yeah, this was not a men’s room — just an auto-accessory shop!
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Shop very close to Jaipur on Delhi-Jaipur highway NH-8:
This signboard is dirty. Oh! Not for the pun in the syllabic-abbreviation S EK C — but the actual dirt on it!
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On the way from Shenzhen to Hong Kong:
Ahem! What in the world do they mean by Character City? So, by implication, others are characterless cities, eh?
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Shop in Coex Shopping Mall, Seoul, South Korea:
Even though this is an English word too — I read it as a Hindi word! Predictably, this shop had nothing to with India or Indians!
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On the way from Shenzhen to Hong Kong:
Ok, I shall refrain from spelling that out as this blog has a family audience too! (I mean members of my family read it :-p)
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Related:
Whether this disappointed you big time or interested you even a wee bit — you must check out eye5.blogspot.com for an awesome collection of Indian signboards by Nikhil Kulkarni.
Awesome leg…pieces July 27, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour, Travel.5 comments
Delicious!
Ooh! What a dish!
Yummy!
In most situations we would assume we know what these exclamations were for. Right?
But if you were to see the following images, you might start thinking a little differently! Pay attention to the labels.
I swear, there’s no PhotoShop kind of manipulation work involved in these above images! (Incidentally, I don’t even use PhotoShop anymore. Instead I use GIMP. You should try it too. It’s a cost-free, guilt-free and obligation-free open source software that does most of what you do with PhotoShop.)
Coming back to the subject…
So is this Korea ki goriya taking her afternoon meal for a walk, eh?
:-p
Hold on, don’t throw up! The food labels (Original Home Dog & Home Chilli Dog) were merely the result of crude translation of Hot Dog into Korean and then their cruder translation back to English!
:-)
————————————
Legnote, oops, Footnote:
It is not that all Koreans eat dogs, all the time.
It is not even that some Koreans eat dogs all the time.
Not even that all Koreans eat dogs some time.
Just some Koreans eat dogs some time.
And most of the people we met had not eaten and would not eat dog meat.
Apparently this has a direct correlation with the economic prosperity of the land — with other costlier sources of protein being available to people.
A vegetarian goes to Burger King, Korea July 18, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour, Travel.20 comments
Based on a real storie story. (Blame that typo on Aap Ka Kaa Suroor Surroor! And this one too!)
It’s all about loving your vegetables. (Blame that on Karan Johar!)
To all the vegetarians out there…
In a land where people are said to eat dogs, never walk into a fast-food joint and ask for a ‘hot dog’ — they might take it literally! (Ok, that was joke to kick start the post!) And offer you Tommy HighFiber! (Joke again)
To play it safe, walk into an American fast-food place. (Thought being: You have eaten at American fast-food places in India, so this would be a ‘little’ different at best!)
Then order something that meets your high vegetarian standards — a cheeseburger. (Thought being: A cheeseburger is a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger!) Then you see the line ‘…sometimes we wish we were you…’ Touché!
All you now need to do is turn the burger over. (Thought being: Maybe they have another sweet message for you over there!)
Of course font-sizes DO NOT make a difference here. The message that has to catch your eye — catches your eye! (Thought being: It’s not just beef. It’s 100% beef! ) Holy cows! (pun intended)
And then something like this…
Becomes something like this…
Out you go!
Now you understand why they say: “Have it your way!”
All this happened to a hungry young man recently!
Humour by templates – 3 :: Salary equations July 7, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour.4 comments
Disclaimer: To people who feel these humour templates lack solid punch lines: These are NOT renditions of jokes, so the intention here is NOT to have you fall off your chair and roll on the floor clutching your tummy while reading them. These are TEMPLATES — which means they provide you certain situations — which are not uncommon — and how you could almost practise/rehearse YOUR OWN PUNCHLINES, in such situations. So for me the gratification does not lie in your immediate response to these — but when sometime later in life you encounter such situations and you end up using the responses suggested here. With this backdrop of grand altruism and noble intentions let’s get on with today’s template!
Humour template – 3 :: Salary equations
When someone tells you that s/he has got an X amount of money as bonus — and that amount X in your assessment is far lower than her/his salary — your response should be of mock-delight at her/him getting double their salary as bonus.
Not clear? This should help:
Scenario
Masood: You know, my boss was so happy with my work that he gave me a bonus of Rs. 10,000.
You: Wow! That would’ve almost doubled your annual income!
Obviously the difference here has to be exaggerated. For example this would be a limp comment if Masood were indeed earning Rs. 10,000 or thereabouts as annual income!
This template is not restricted to bonuses and salary increments. It can also be customized to various other situations — in fact any situation where the other person has stated a certain amount of money.
Scenario
Deepak: I bought this Nokia Communicator for Rs. 15,000.
You: Holy cows! You spent a full year’s salary on buying that silly phone?
In these situations the assumption is that the amount of money being discussed is far lower than the annual income of the other person. However, you can try a corollary of this template too — where the amount of money being discussed is higher than your assessment of the other person’s income.
Scenario
David: Dude, that 3-bedroom flat in Versova is going to cost me almost Rs.60 lakhs.
You: Big deal! I am sure you’ll be able to make that payment with the money in your wallet alone!
David: Huh?
You: Oh! At best wait till the end of the month so you could pay them in cash with your next month’s salary!
Poor David! That was a double-whammy application of this template :)
In fact the more I think of it, such money-equating situations are there all around us. I am already thinking of a few situations where I am going to try this template myself!
So try this template out a few times, and do let me know if it was worth your money. Of course it depends on how much worth is your money to begin with!
A 5000 word fun post June 30, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Humour.6 comments
But remember, the fun lies in your imagination.
Lavatory, observatory, dormatory (dormitory)? Tiger Den Govt. Guest House, Sariska
My looo or My 1000? (The number 2 is a coincidence, right?) A shop in Shenzhen, China.
No comments from me! The fun lies entirely in your imagination :-) A shop in Shenzhen, China
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(1) No butts on the beach? Isn’t that anti-dress code?
(2) The graphic seems to suggest that fish should not smoke!! Signboard at Pattaya beach, Thailand
Appetite killer — this just when you are about to place your order! The Fifth, Food Avenue, MBK, Bangkok
p.s.
And the 5000 words promised in the post title? Don’t you know how many words a picture is worth!
Spiderman-3 Review: Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Spyde(rman) May 2, 2007
Posted by Rahul Razdan in Media & Entertainment.17 comments
Just watched Spiderman-3 in a ‘paid preview’ show at the Sahara Mall PVR in Gurgaon. There is something fundamentally ‘deflating’ about a ‘paid preview’. Now contrast this with Spiderman (1) which I had seen in a ‘real’ Thursday premiere show in Mumbai! (And where I got my 15 seconds of prime time presence on Star News — my sound bites being sandwiched between celebrity-speak and vox populi.)
A quick round up.
Plus points?
Extraordinary action and thrills — living up to the Spiderman 1 & 2 standards.
Minus points?
I had like a 100 deja vu moments. Read on… (Spoiler alert!)
Spiderman gets a split-personality. Dr. Jekyl (with the famous red and blue Spiderman vardi) and Mr. Spyde (who in black spandex is un-vardi. Oops I mean unworthy!)
The villain — actually one of the villains — a special-effects marvel, is of triple parentage. Wait that’s not part of the plot. What I mean is that he has the looks of The Hulk, physical composition of The Mummy and the size of Godzilla!
A bit of Abhimaan thrown in. Professional jealousy leading to (pre)marital discord. She resents his popularity.
She even resents him publicly kissing the ‘other girl’. She says, “How could you? That was OUR kiss.” That “OUR kiss” of course referring to the famous scene from the first movie where Spiderman hangs upside down while she pulls his mask down to do the needful. So it is not only in India that a public kiss (peck, whatever) between Richard Gere and Shilpa Shetty causes so much unrest! But notice that in America the emphasis is on getting the priorities right. Pull the mask sufficiently — to only expose the lips. Why bother with frivolities like look into the eyes and all that jazz(baat).
The American onlookers reaction to anyone who’s perched on some high-up spot (which happens a lot in Spiderman) reminded me of the “arrey bhai yeh suicide kya hota hai?” “jab angrez log martey hain toh usko suicide kehte hain” from Sholay when Dharmendra climbs onto the water tank!
A bit of Raj Kapoor’s Sangam — friends in love with the same girl. A bit of Qurbani (and 20,000 other movies) — one of the friends interrupting with his own torso, the trajectory of a projectile (bullet, knife, blades, poles etc.) aimed at the other friend! And as a befitting finale, dying in the lap of his friends after a refusing-to-let-go-off-footage-crunching dying speech!
A Ramu kaka benevolent equivalent who knows some khaandaan ka raaz that sorts out some misunderstanding. Ramu kaka, if only you had opened your mouth earlier — Spiderman-2 needn’t have been made!
One of the characters loses his memory and then regains it later — both transactions (losing and regaining) contributing to the plot! Vintage Hindi cinema, right?
A perennially angry man’s anger management routine being the cause for some comic moments. Munabhai MBBS anyone? A little bit of Lage Raho Munnabhai — with villains saying “apun ko tereko sorry bolne ka hai“! (I am not quoting, just capturing the sentiment!)
There’s a scene completely lifted from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (DDLJ). Remember the song ‘Ruk ja…‘? Here Shah Rukh is played by Spider Khan, oops, Spiderman. There we had a Simran — Kajol. Here we have a simmerin’ Kirsten Dunst. (Simmerin’, Simran sounds similar, right?) The song and dance begins with the hero unexpectedly displaying his nimble finger work on the piano keys. And the rest of the dance is to annoy/rile the heroine. I won’t be surprised if Farah Khan has actually ghost-choreographed this song! Actually I would be surprised. Else either Farah’s PR, or the Indian media (not much separating the two, right?) would have left no stone unturned in shoving this news down our throats! Remember how they went berserk after her Shakira tryst?
Again DDLJ — remember SRK talking to Simran’s mom in a simranizing tone, oops, sermonizing tone? “Meri maa ne mujhe sikhaaya thha. Zindagi mein do raste chun sakte ho. Ek aasaan. Ek mushkil. Blah. Blah” That is the gyaan from this movie too — we are what we choose to be!
I left the movie with a heavy sense of DDLJ vu!
