Sedate walking just ain’t my thing.

I’m supposed to be studying but that is obviously not happening. What I have been doing however is wasting time on the internet and other such things. I have also been running around the house.

Now when I say “running around the house” I mean running. I keep running about, jumping over chairs, bounding up the stairs and generally being a hazard. However I have not been injured.

This evening however…

I was standing in the kitchen talking to my parents. I took a step forward in a calm, measured, sedate manner… and then there’s a moment when I think the world’s suddenly tilted around and then I’m on the floor.

It seems I had slipped on some water, and while trying to regain my balance I caught my foot in this contraption the maidservant uses to cart vessels around and hence I ended up on the floor.

I discovered that I had managed to acquire a barcodesque abrasion on my right wrist and a cut on my foot. I have no idea how I got those. I suppose I got those while obeying gravity. Along the way I also managed to injure my father.

It was an interesting experience, especially since it was completely unexpected. It’s been some time since fell. The last time I fell was when I fell out of that tree at The Indian Botanic Gardens. This was more entertaining. I felt like I was flying when I fell out of that tree. This time I felt confused, as if someone had suddenly decided to change the orientation of the world and forgot to tell me.

I also burst out laughing when I realised I was on the floor in a tangled heap- the constituents of the heap being myself, The Contraption and a karai. My mother, not to be outdone, asks me “Did you fall?”. I’m on the floor in a tangled heap when she says this.

In other news- I feel old. It’s almost the end of 5th Semester. It seems like only yesterday that it was 1st Semester. It’ll soon be 2010. I left school in 2007. That’s a long time ago. 1999 was ten years ago. 1999 seems like a couple of days ago. I find it hard to think of the time period 1996-2007 as a long time ago. I can’t remember a single thing about those years. They’re all a confused mish-mash in my head. I have no distinct, individual memories of those years but those years just seem very recent.

Soon It’ll be 6th Semester and I’ll have graduated. Then it’ll be time to face life. Peter Pan has all the luck.

More In other news I have a strange desire to watch Ninja Assassin. It just looks like a cool, mindless movie. Plus it has Ninjas. How can anything be bad if it has Ninjas? (Enter The Ninja was not bad. It was hilarious!)

I have decided not to watch 2012. I shall watch Ninja Assassin instead.

Even more In other news I’m getting a blister on my thumb. I will get the posters of our Macbeth project printed. They cost only Rs.40 each. There are six of them so that’s Rs.240. I can manage that. They’re damn cool. I’ll put up some once I get the soft copies. They have come out nicely, even if I do say so myself.

Some more In other News I’ve… no that’s about it. I’ve said all I’ve had to say. Oh wait no.

Shoutout All you Lurkers… Delurk!

Yeah, that’s about it.

I shall now waste time on the internet.

Sliders and scenes

I have been really bored at home. So I decided to waste time productively by wasting it on Terragen. Here are the results

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This is a random terrain which I then edited and then played around with the sliders.

The Terrain Map is one I created. The rest are all experiments with Haze density and Atmospheric Blue Half-height.

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I then moved on to Blender 3D. I love this software. It’s powerful, fairly light on the system and is open-source freeware. But just because it’s open-source and free doesn’t mean it’s light on features. It has features comparable to high-end 3D Modellers like 3DS Max, Maya and Cinema 4D. Anyway here’s what I came up with

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The Tumblers are a set of SpinDuplicated Vertices.

The .blend file on Rapidshare

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I’d suggest everyone give Blender a try. It’s a lot of fun.

Download Blender

Also you might try out Terragen^TM Classic.

Download Terragen^TM Classic

And if you have a really powerful computer and the inclination, you might even download the Limited Freeware edition of Terragen^TM 2

Download Terragen^TM 2

Well, see you later.

The heat is making me do strange things

It’s making me play Caesar III all the time ( I am a Procurator now ).

It’s making me completely disinclined to study.

It’s making me make random stuff like this

Summer Doodle

I’m going insane. There’s no other explanation for all those retarded colours.

…But under my feet, baby, grass is growing. Its time to move on, its time to get going.

I am feeling really restless. I think I’m stuck in a rut. I want to get away from here. I want to go on a trek. I want to backpack, hitchhike and generally be king of the road.

Everything is making me want to travel. Durgapur seems a very small city suddenly. Kolkata is not appealing much.

I want to travel!

Instead I’m stuck here wondering about my endsems and listening to music very loudly.

“Hell is a place far above their comprehension: they derive their notion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an Italian and an Englishman. “

I’ve been reading Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell all over again.

My favourite part is this one…

Hell is a place far above their comprehension: they derive their notion of it from two of the greatest fools that ever lived, an Italian and an Englishman. The Italian described it as a place of mud, frost, filth, fire, and venomous serpents: all torture. This ass, when he was not lying about me, was maundering about some woman whom he saw once in the street. The Englishman described me as being expelled from Heaven by cannons and gunpowder; and to this day every Briton believes that the whole of his silly story is in the Bible. What else he says I do not know; for it is all in a long poem which neither I nor anyone else ever succeeded in wading through.

Heh heh

I went for a walk in the morning as I planned. It was an interesting walk. I walked for about forty minutes. It was a lot of fun.

I also washed my room today evening, and washed the dishes. I think boredom is getting to me.

In other news, Facebook informs me that a friend has sent me a Golden Retriever Puppy and I can “Pet him here”. I assume they mean the Golden Retriever puppy and not the Friend.

Google Trends to pass the time…

Results for Search Term “Pornography” in India

Results for Search Term “Porn” in India

The following things can be interpreted from these two graphs.

• Indians in 2004 had a better vocabulary than in 2009.
• Calcuttans have a better vocabulary than Delhiites, Mumbaiites and Bhopalites
• More and more people are favoring the word “Porn” instead of “Pornography”
• I’m am extremely bored

These are the inferences that I draw from this data.

Door Talk.

My room’s door had the following things stuck on it.

• A poster of the Backstreet Boys.(It was free)
• Some motorbike cut-outs from some magazine
• Some car cut-outs from some magazine
• A copy of a cartoon I saw in India Today’s 20th anniversary issue
• An Ubuntu sticker

Now changes have been made.

• Backstreet Boys out, Charlie Chaplin in
• I’ve also stuck some of my old school ID cards on the door

I have no idea why I stuck those ID cards. But they look a bit cool, I must say.

Oh well, I’ve also gone and stuck a poster of Satch on my room’s wall.

Next to come up on the wall will be Iron Maiden.

I just realised…

Since I came back home, I have not read anything except for two Agatha Christies and Two Asterix comics. Surprising. Most of my time has been spent watching VH1,Animal Planet, THC,Nat Geo and Discovery and on the internet.

Bizarre.

Music and Myself.

Saturday I came home.

Today was Monday.

For past two days, I’ve been listening to music and watching TV.

It’s now that I appreciate my PMP. It is really great.

And also VH1.

VH1 has a couple of great programmes now. There’s one called Sunday Brunch on Sunday from 11:00 AM. It features a different artist every week. So far they’ve had Sting, Steven Tyler, Jim Morrison, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson. This Sunday it’s gonna be Madonna so I’m happy to miss it. They talk about the artist, to the artist and show concerts and videos. Quite cool

They’re having a series called “Gods of Guitar” this month. They talk about great guitarists and play videos and concerts. They’ve had David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, John mayer and Eric Clapton. The Pink Floyd episode was cool because they showed a documentary on the making of The Dark Side of the Moon. They showed how they used synthesizers, multi-tracking, adt, flanging and other sound effects on it. I wish Big Al had set that in our course instead of Quadrophenia.

Quadrophenia is good, no denying that but still, The Dark Side of the Moon was released in March 1973 and Quadrophenia in October 1973. The Dark Side of the Moon was recorded at Abbey Road Studios just like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Dark Side of the Moon would have been perfect to show the progression of sonic experimentation that he showed us with The Beatles. The lyrics of both are cool, but The Dark Side of the Moon is a shade better in my opinion.

This week they’re going to show Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Mark Knopfler and someone else whose name I forget. The whole of this week, I think plus Saturday the whole show.

CNN has a show on Iron Maiden on Saturday at 2:00 PM, I think.Check your local listings. It’s called Behind the scenes with Iron Maiden and features backstage footage, concert videos and interviews.

Nat Geo’s Air Crash Investigations are great. The way they examine everything is so professional.

Animal Planet still rocks and so does Discovery.

The History Channel has this cool series called Biography. Today they showed Al Gore. Their Jumbo Movies are also nice.

Meow FM(104.08 FM) may call itself “India’s first just-for-women radio station” but Friday to Tuesday, after 10:00 PM they play cool english songs. Friday they play Old Classics, Saturday Hip-Hop Monday Soft rock and Tuesday Pop. Sunday, they play listener requests. Friday nights they also have a band playing unplugged. One of these played a song by Susheela Raman. Nice songs. A little bird(which is big and bald) informs me that her albums are there on rapidshare and other such sites. I did not tell you anything about where to get them, understand?

Coldplay released their latest single “Violet Hill” from their new album Vida la Vida or Death and All His Friends for free. It was free till May 6th. I have the song. I’ll pass it on, if you want it.

I have to read the Iliad, The Orestia, Book Six of the Aenid, A bunch of Horace’s Odes and two books(Genesis and The Gospel of St.Matthew) and a chapter(Chapter 5 of the Book of Daniel) from The Bible. I’m leaving out The Aenid.

I wonder if I would get marks if I handed in a CD with Manowar’s song Achilles,Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts, Blind Guardian’s song And then there was Silence and Led Zeppelin’s song Achilles’ Last Stand. Probably not. BTW, listen to the songs. Quite cool, if you like that sort of thing.

Also managed to find a video of Avial’s Nada Nada

That’s all for now. Chow

Update: Google search informs me that this week, the fourth is Led Zeppelin. Hendrix and Led Zep are going to be Video Shuffle shows. Knopfler and Deep Purple are gonna be Concerts(A Night in London – Knopler, Live in California ‘74 – Deep Purple). Saturday 11:00 AM onwards.

Blender Time Again.

Okay, I should be studying for my end-sems. But then I wanted to play around with Blender again. Damn it, that thing’s addictive.
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Anyway, I decided to start off simple. No fancy organic modelling or complex Ferraris. Just a plain scene of some apples on a plate. The plate is on a glass-top table, which is on a floor.

The apples were easy — SpinDup (Blender’s Lathe tool) a set of vertices.

Follow same method for plate.

Table was a bit of a difficulty. I decided to have two different cubes for the glass-top and the rims.

Floor– just a textured plane.
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Then I decided to add lights. Lighting was not coming off right. I went to Blender’s Wiki for help on Lighting rigs. And then… I realised that my workflow was screwed. I was adding lights after materials, basically screwing up all my shaders. *Sigh*

I’ll have to rework the scene. Models will stay, I’ll have to create a spare material, assign it to the models and then read up on lighting. Then create a proper rig, and most probably ray-trace it.

Let’s see.