Author: karan

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Whatsup

  • Went to see Les Miserables. Not a bad performance all round, but found the amusing bits better than the emotionally-heavy parts.
  • Also went to see Wicked, which retells the story of The Wizard of Oz fantastically. Wish I could understand the high-pitched singing though.
  • Find musicals strange as ever. Why would people randomly start singing?! Resolve to go see more plays at some point.
  • Went to Oxford last week. Not what I expected, though not in a bad way.
  • Been ticking off some of the things-to-do-in-London I still hadn’t gotten around to.
  • Witnessed the protest by Project Chanology yesterday in London. Quite amusing to see all those geeks protesting (c’mon, they had a banner saying ‘lol Xenu’, and ticked the stereotype boxes of pasty, skinny, acne-fied, long hair… some effort, guys!) A couple of photos to be uploaded soonish.
  • Happy Chinese New Year! The festivities were in full force in London on Sunday (Thursday doesn’t do well for a day out for the family). Absolutely nuts, fireworks so loud I was deaf for a good couple of minutes.
  • Work as usual.
  • Going to HK for a week long business trip where I get to train users and listen to their complaints about how the system doesn’t do this or that or the other thing that the other, totally unrelated and far better resourced system does/has. Yaaaaaaaay.
  • On the other hand, my new passport will get fancy new stamp on it! Need to start filling it up already :)
  • Finished Arrested Development. While I wish it would have had more epsiodes, they worked really well within the confines and ended it in style. This is the kind of show I could re-watch over and over just to try to remember the quotes. Sufficient to say, Hermano, Come on!, I’ve made a huge mistake and Steve Holt’s double fist pump are now part of my phrasebook. In the AD style. Coz, you know, they say it differently.
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Trying not to bang on about it

As much as I have been mentioning what today is all about, it’s even less online than it is in real conversations around the office. There’s been nothing else which has been a consistent topic over the last month at least, save perhaps considerations of the future beyond today.

Today also marks my 2 year anniversary at work, which is kinda scary in itself. Sure, actual date might be the 6th, but it’s the same week, the same first Monday of February, and that counts more for me.

But back to the topic at hand. Why the constant attention? It’s all about what it means. It’s like report day back in school – it’s a reflection of how your year went, and what you got as a result. As a ‘graduate’, the number is partially arbitrary, but today is also promotions day, which is just as relevant, if not more so. There’s talk from many of quitting if various parameters aren’t met, but that’s got to be a scary step to make.

It’s not like school, where you’ll just be graduating at the end of a fixed term. It’s not like uni, where you have to tick all the minimum requirements boxes to cash in. It’s so much more vague and undefined, just as you need someone to point the right way.

Maybe it’s just me.

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Also, Portia De Rossi has still got it

Arrested Development is the most intelligent humour I’ve seen in years for an American TV show.

Lindsay: “You know, maybe if you stopped judging her, he’d trust you. Look, if you say no, you’re just going to drive him right to her.”

George Michael, walking in: “Oh hi Dad, can you drive me over to Ann’s house?”

Michael: “Nnnnnn… yeah.”

Maybe it’s just me, or maybe you just need to watch, ‘kay? How about this one (same ep):

Pastor Veal: “Oh, are you a churchgoing man?”

Michael: “I am. Sometimes. Yes. I don’t go religiously.”

Cut tragically short, though I’d swear the spirit lives on in 30 Rock. Or at least it did, before this writers’ strike (c’mon guys, we’d only just shaken the whole ‘reality’ thing off, and then you go and strike?!).

Coincidental good news, everyone: talks are underway to make an Arrested Development movie! Hooray!

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Prognosticating

Here’s a challenge for you: what will communication look like in 3 – 5 years?

Two of my housemates are currently studying Moving Image Design, and that is their design brief for a theorhetical ad for Orange (project is sponsored by Orange and winner takes home a small prize for their efforts). Last night around the dinner table we had a chat about it, and actually found it incredibly difficult to pick what would happen in 5 years.

If it was 50 years from now, there’d be no problem – you could dream up pretty much anything (within reason) and it’d sound plausible. But 3 – 5 years means it’s just beyond the technology horizon, and so requires a little bit of thought and a little bit of imagination, but within limits. 5 years ago, wireless networking was at its nascent beginnings. 3 years ago, phones were just beginning to hit their strides as multimedia devices, though it all looks pretty familiar really (remember, it was only 2005).

Before you say it, the iPhone – not that revolutionary; my dad had a touchscreen PDA 3 years ago. Sure, it wasn’t as slim or as fancy as the iPhone, but it still did (does) the whole mail, web, music, videos, and all that song-and-dance that the iPhone does (except the iPhone does it better, to be sure). Not that revolutionary.

Probably the most fun thing we came up with before we devolved into looking at funny ads on YouTube was an OLED shirt with constantly moving images, such as, for example, waves sloshing around whenever the wearer moves.

What do you reckon communication will be like in 5 years?