Line Rider

Line Rider is an amazing piece of Flash gaming. People have gone to crazy lengths to make the rider a skier who could win in the winter Olympics! Check this out:



- Trackback from Pogue's post.

Revenge of the auto rickshaw

TucTuc, a CNG-powered autorickshaw service is the quintessential rickshaw with a twist - it comes in different designs, and is used in Brighton, UK as a tourist vehicle (and attraction)!

Incidentally, the picture on the left is the "Burberry" TucTuc which is being repainted because Burberry filed a lawsuit against the TucTuc'ers.

Sheer madness

From the NY Times...

"The Best Buy store in West Patterson, N.J., had almost 2,000 people in line for Friday's 5 a.m. opening, many of whom had lined up starting at 8 a.m. on Thursday. ''They had turkey sandwiches,'' said a Best Buy district service manager."

I really feel sad for these losers for having missed a wonderful opportunity to have dinner with family. A blogger called Black Friday a "pagan shopping holiday". I call it insanity.

Update: For those unfamiliar with this phenomenon, "Black Friday" is the day after Thanksgiving when retailers in the US offer huge discounts at throwaway prices.

A full dosage of culture

This Saturday, we attended the South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival in DC. The festival was really well organized, well attended and we got to experience quite a feast of good movies, book readings and panel discussions. Plus, there was some star power in the form of Nagesh Kukunoor and Kiran Desai. “Dor” and “Punching at the Sun” were screened as part of the festival, followed by a Q&A. I quite liked “Dor”, and I think his style of writing/direction makes you feel buoyant and cheerful about life; and makes you believe in the innate goodness of humankind. L was even slightly disappointed that the movie had such a feel-good ending; but I was quite happy with it. He even asked Nagesh the same question, and he answered “Why not? I want my audiences to leave the theater with a good, warm fuzzy feeling”. He’s really a great guy – so creative and so unassuming. No airs, no fake accents, just sincere movie making.

“Punching at the Sun” is this year’s entry at the Sundance festival about an inner-city neighborhood in Queens and a teen’s coming-of-age story. Left me wanting for more; but I think the director Tanuj Chopra had me quite entertained in the Q&A. When asked a serious question about the teen’s father and how his character was not developed, and whether that was intentional, he started saying how it was an expression of his basic theme etc. Then he just gave up and said “Oh, actually, he just didn’t show up in the last few weeks of shooting!”

The other notables were Devyani Saltzman(Deepa Mehta’s daughter) who’s written a memoir, Tarun Tejapal (really dynamic journalist and founder of Tehelka.com with a colorful personality), and Samrat Upadhyay, whose reading reminded me a lot of “The Glass Palace”.