Category: General

  • New additions

    If you were lucky enough to come by in the last couple of days, you may have noticed a brief appearance of Uniqlo’s fantastic Uniqlock on this page. It’s available as a Flash badge (2 sizes), and a screensaver, but you can test-drive the magic on their main page itself. Simply, it’s a neatly designed Flash clock, with music by the Fantastic Plastic Machine, that plays short clips of fresh-faced Japanese dancing girls every 5 seconds. They do a quirky mix of hand puppetry, ballet, and Jazz dance routines, and it’s simply mesmerizing. At work the other day, a couple of us just watched the damned clock for 10 minutes straight.

    But the Uniqlock is gone now, because it was an unwieldy size for a webpage such as this. (RSS readers, do come by now and then!)

    It’s a Web 2.0 age (Web 2,0 for the French), and this creaky old design with its non-standard, non-semantic web HTML – 382 validation errors and counting – just doesn’t have what it takes to keep the young kids entertained anymore. Why, just last night I learnt of the existence of tumblelogs! Have you heard of them? I sure as hell hadn’t! Suddenly, I understood how the great unwashed computer-illiterate masses feel, and it was the most unpleasant second of my life.

    And so, in the grand tradition we have here of overcompensation by kneejerk reaction towards uncharted waters, I give you:
    1) Larger, lovelier type.
    2) blast!

    Powered by the very nice tumblr system (Kevin Rose and Merlin Mann use it), this new channel/brand/flavor of my sangsara.net service/gift/blessing will deliver all short-form posts from here on out.

    It’s simple:
    Links, conversations, photos, tweets, YouTube videos, and short grunts – blast!
    Long meandering posts, essays, reviews, complaints and grievances – blog.

    Bonus: I’ve also added a handy link for visitors on mobile devices. It’s powered by Skweezer and trims all the fat off the blog page. Find it at m.sangsara.net.

  • A hotline phone in every home!

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    A hotline phone in every home!, originally uploaded by sangsara.

    Spotted at yesterday’s Loof sale event. The utilitarianism of communism, the fantastic plastic ur-fashion of Chinese manufacturing.

  • I choose to take this as a compliment…

    Until I can choose to take legal action, that is.

    One of my photos has been cyber-pilfered for use on a recipe site here. The recipe (in Spanish) describes a risotto that must be quite close to the awfully delicious one I ate shortly after taking the photo. If anyone translates and produces anything from the recipe, do let me know how it went.

  • Ridiculously bad ad

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    Ridiculously bad ad, originally uploaded by sangsara.

  • In Tokyo? Otaku march tomorrow!

    Are you ready for the Akihabara Liberation Demonstration June 30th? – JapanSugoi

    This is truly amazing. A coalition of Otakus from 3 hilariously named groups will be marching through Akiba tomorrow (1.5km) to reclaim the territory that is rightfully theirs. All walls between the disparate disciplines of cosplay, manga, computer geekery, and flat-out weirdness will be torn down for this historic event. Check out the pictures!

  • WOTID: Penguins

    And thus begins a new, and possibly-shortlived chapter of this blog. A new daily post entitled, Word on the Internet of the Day (Wotid).

    It lends itself very well to funny Cockney accents. Without further ado, Wotid is today is Penguins.

  • Afro Samurai DVD

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    Afro Samurai DVD, originally uploaded by sangsara.

    Pirated DVD with blurb for another movie, Ghost in the Shell:Innocence.

    Makes fantastic claims of “Final Fighting!!!” and implies entertainment AND resonance, unlike Innocence.

  • Charlie Brooker at Glastonbury

    ‘Oh good, it’s raining again’ | Glastonbury 2007 | Guardian Unlimited Music

    Here’s an entirely random list of things I hate. Mud. Rain. Inconvenience. Any form of discomfort whatsoever. Loud noises. People. People’s friends. People standing next to other people, with yet more people in between. Drunks bumping into you and being sick down your leg. Poorly maintained public toilets. Camping.You’ll find all these things and more at the Glastonbury festival, which is why it has always struck me as heck on earth.

    A man after my own heart! If you think it sounds like fun, then the next paragraph should discourage you from ever trying to get me to go someday after we save up enough money, maybe next year, maybe just before we get married and have kids – the answer now and forever, is NO.

    On top of that, I’d heard my share of off-putting Glastonbury myths. Tents bobbing in a mud-slide. Widespread trench foot. A man on ketamine eating his own hand. One of my friends swore blind she knew a man who’d been sitting in a Portaloo when some passing japester decided to tip it over, door side down, leaving him trapped inside a coffin full of foaming crap for 15 horrifying minutes; it went in his eyes and mouth. He got dysentery.