Why is it that I always find myself complaining about books lately? It’s been a long time since I finished reading Manju Kapur’s Home, but put off publishing this post as I didn’t want to seem like an inveterate whiner! Also, I thought time would mellow me towards it. Fat chance! Some time ago I […]
The Invasion: Fancy an upgrade to Human.2?
Reviewing movies is not something I generally do on Writeside or Writer’s Log, but it is high time there was an update, so let’s talk about The Invasion, which I watched on Sunday. Well, anyway, the whole experience was filled with adventure and excitement. Till, that is, the movie started… After braving the rain and […]
Five lessons Doctor Who taught me
They call it the idiot box, but is it really that idiotic? Without TV there would be no Doctor Who (and Torchwood), and where would we have learnt the following important lessons: Always wear comfortable shoes for you never know when you might have to run from aliens. (This rule doesn’t apply if you are […]
The other side
“Sexy sixty”. That is what the media is calling it. But you don’t have to be a hardened cynic like me to realize that the media had sold out years ago. While almost every publication has gone to town about the sun shining out of the various orifices of this sixty-year-old nation, only one newspaper—Indian […]
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Favourite gaming heroes
We talk about book heroes, we talk about TV heroes, but why have I never thought before to make a post about my favourite gaming characters?! While it’s true that I mostly play RPGs or strategy games like The Sims where you make and develop your own characters. But you can’t really have addictively (is […]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
A journalist recently asked me what the Potter phenomenon means to Indian authors writing for children, whether it helps to decide how or what to write. The thing is, Harry Potter had long ago degenerated into a massive marketing drama that overshadowed the books’ merits, making it very difficult to judge the books in an […]
- Scratchpad
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Writer’s Log going ad-mad!
Well, as you can see, I’ve been experimenting with various advertisements on Writeside.net and Writer’s Log. I have Google Adsense and Auction Ads on the main site. There’s also Text-Link-Ads, but they haven’t managed to sell a spot on my site yet! On this blog I have Amazon ads. Recently I also signed up with […]
No wonder!
Am I the only one appalled at the campaign to vote for the new Seven Wonders? We in India are being exhorted at every turn to vote for the Taj Mahal, justified by the mistaken notion that this will uphold ‘national pride’! Correct me if I’m wrong. But where does national pride come into this? […]
Starting out tips for freelancers
Once, I got a mail through my site’s contact form asking: “Are you a professional or just a freelancer?” I got back to him, telling him that I was a professional freelancer, but never heard from him again! The point is, quite often, and especially where I live, freelancers are merely poor cousins of the […]
A Mac Safari for Windows users
For those of us who have coveted a Mac, we can now get one step closer to Mac-dom, with Apple’s public beta release of the Safari browser for Windows. This sleek, silvery browser is identical to what you’d get on a Mac OS system, and has all the usual nuts and bolts that are now […]