Armand David’s personal weblog: technology, media, stuff and nonsense.
Hi all,
apologies for technical difficulties with the site. Will try to fix the navigation soon, but realistically shouldn’t get to it till September - there are other priorities for the time being!
Cheers,
Armand
I’ve only just got around to seeing this, and although I have been reliably informed that it has been “memed to death”, it really is very funny and if you haven’t seen a musical animated potted commentary on the current US political situation then you need to watch this.
Go!
Dear Grandma
I wish I could be there with you tonight, celebrating. I won’t bore you with the practical explanation of why I can’t; you know about my new job (which is going well, by the way).
For your 77th birthday, we put together a video for you, and I (embarrassingly) sang you a song - called “Time of your Life”. Not high poetry, perhaps, but it captured what I wanted to; the moments of a life well-lived, an absence of regrets — it was a tribute to our resident Matriarch, inexpertly phrased by a punk rock band.
Tonight, well, tonight I just wanted to remind you of your legacy. It’s easy, when looking at our family — at any family — to focus on the squabbles, the troubles, the hurts, pains and difficulties. But I tell you (to borrow a catchphrase from my Father) - and I admit this is easy to do with the benefit of 5,000 miles of perspective, but sometimes that helps — when I look at us, it’s difficult to tell the Angels from the Saints.
Your children are wonderful people - the incredible skill and dexterity of Vijayan, the force and warmth of Anthony’s personality, the power of Nirme’s compassion, the seemingly inexhaustible patience and energy of Sharmilla, Gerry’s laugh, Sushi’s tenacity, Ann’s brilliance and Johnny’s unbridled and infectious enthusiasm for life — to crudely pick one characteristic from each of your offspring. And their wives and husbands - extraordinary people every one.
I guess now is as good a time as any, Grandma, to take stock and look at what you’re leaving the world. Your amazing children and their amazing spouses have extended the legacy, passed the torch, to us now, and we carry it high: proud of who we are, where we come from, and the Grandmother who saw us all into the world. You guided us all through our earliest difficulties, and taught us the beauty and aesthetic appreciation of something as apparently simple as a pineapple tart.
I love you Grandma, and I miss you all tonight. Our family, even at its worst, but especially at its best, is an incredibly powerful force, a social phenomenon, and one for which we have you to thank.
Happy birthday.
Love,
Armand
This is the coolest thing ever!
via Qwghlmblog.
…ROCKED my little world.
Was v. enjoyable — all the characters developed well, the new ones were interesting and well performed, the CGI was further improved, and the storyline lived up to its Michael-Chabon enhanced goodness (although he wasn’t evident in the credits).
Utterly beautiful opening sequence.
And Kirsten Dunst is outstanding.
Man, Google’s made another pretty good acquisition. The Picasa photo-library stuff is really good - it’s sorted my 3.2GB of photos into nice, easy to view, edit and email albums. It’s pretty rockin’.
I bet SP2 adds ALL its features to Windows XP.
Man, am I a geek or WHAT?
Two other things: Damian and Tom have gone far to establishing The Line, which, if you’re an interesting, well-written Londoner and you want to contribute to the journalistic well-being of your fair city you should contribute to.
Also, have recently become a big, big fan of Questionable Content, an Indie webcomic. Astonishingly clever, well drawn, and compelling, and with possibly one of the best (by which I mean amusingly geeky) sidekicks ever - Pintsize, an “Anthro-PC”. Go read it. Now.
I think I’ll stop now. Blog overload!
I need a thesaurus. I said “utter” about 20 times in my last post, and I can’t be bothered to edit it.
Either a thesaurus, or a new collection of stock superlatives. I need some that are at least as good as, if not better, than the Sun.
Ok, so there’s 8,000 inane websites like this one popping up every day, but that’s not going to stop me from annoying my friends with whatever trivia, observations, or self-referential prose with limited aim that I feel like. So Nyah.
Quick three or four part blog.
Good books: Anthropology, by Dan Rhodes - a 100 stories about girlfriends, at a paragraph each, provided me with a couple of bus journeys worth of absolute delight. Brilliant and satirical, terrible and emotional, they are the story any man can empathise with. It was like a punch to my emotional solarplexus; utter genius.
Also: In the City by the Sea, by Kamila Shamsie is utter brilliance; despite being a woman and an adult, Ms Shamsie brilliantly steps into the mind of an 11-year-old boy in a slightly fictionalised version of Pakistan. Having recently read a review by Kamila of another author’s book where she said literally nothing about the content of the book, I feel obliged to do exactly the opposite here - this is the story of a boy who’s uncle, a leader in the opposition, is placed under arrest by the despot General calling the shots. It tells his reaction, his decision to “depose the President”, his conversations with a cast of lively and unbelievable characters who you want to believe could be real - The Oldest Man, Wid, Ami and Aba, Salman Mamoo, and the wonderful Zehra, who I think, had I been 11, I would have fallen in love with. The whole story is told with reference to one of the most utterly devastating but remarkably concise opening sequences ever, in which the book’s hero, Hassan Haq, watches his neighbour, Azeem, fall off a roof to his death while trying to fly a kite. A metaphor for freedom, or an illustration of death without purpose; I haven’t finished it yet, so I don’t know. So far, it is utter lyrical genius, I go through the full range of my emotions from one paragraph to the next and feel the need to read bits out loud. I’m reading it slower as I approach the climax - I can’t bear to see what happens to the heroic Salman Haq.
Filmwize: Shrek 2 - 100% as good as Shrek 1, ’nuff said. Garfield - terrible, even for a longstanding Jim Davis, Lasagna and Jennifer Love-Hewitt fan. The Girl Next Door - cringeworthy American teen trash - I liked it a lot. I think that’s enough for now.
Music: undergoing a slight indie revival - Keane, Killers, Razorlight (and yes, ok, Busted and Mcfly), have been on my playlists lately, as well as the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. Some good stuff there.
Finally: life - been busy. There’ve been some good parties lately, and I’ve met some very good new people: here’s to more, once the thesis is dealt with (I’m dealing, I’m dealing).
The Sun featured a screengrab from Shrek 2 with the headline “Chancellor of the Ex-shrek-quer”, next to a photo of Gordon Brown. Having seen the film, I concur that there is a resemblance between the honourable chancellor and Mr. Shrek and was duly amused by the pun.
Submit your puns of the week here.
Sorry for short posts. More substantial ones to follow at the weekend.
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