Cross-posted from Neil Gaiman’s journal, his keynote speech at the Eisner Awards

Yesterday I had a killer headache. There is this lingering pain from my left ear to my left temple, which comes occasionally and forces me to suspend whatever I am doing. I guess I should have gone to the doctor’s long before yesterday, but I am lazy in some aspects ( any aspect of my life that has to do with non-entertainment, actually ). And yesterday, there was this whopper of a headache. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t open my eyes, I couldn’t lift my head or even move my jaw without having something like 20 thousand piano wires doing the cha-cha-cha in my head. With the occasional crash-cymbal chipping in (out of beat).

Enough is enough. I am going to a doctor today. I have to, so that my eyes ( I suspect it’s my eyes, they have been trouble-free so far, inspite of having been abused beyond belief for the past twenty-three years ) are safe. I did not go yesterday, because it was hurting, and I decided to get some sleep, and when I woke up, it wasn’t hurting anymore, and I decided to do something else.

Ahem.

“Something else” happened to be getting a new computer for myself. I was getting pretty desperate. Did some reseacrch with Psasi on Thursday evening, spending some time in scouring the weird cellars of Park Lane, getting to know the current prices. As usual, it’s a fish-market there, with no two shops giving the same prices on the same thing. And funnily enough, they have even stopped giving price quotations for systems. It’s a really lousy way of conducting business, I tell you. No proper customer service – everyone is given a glance and appraised as a potential customer, and only if one fits the bill, questions start getting answered. At the end of it, I had decided to stick to Shweta Computers, the place where we ( as in the REC gang) had been placing our orders since the days of yore. Finished off the day on a catastrophic note – a viewing of Qayamat at Anand. That makes it a hat-trick of brain-busters at Anand theatre, Andaaz, Hawa and now this. Faugh!

When I woke up yesterday, at around noon, the headache was gone. Most of it. And I decided to pre-pone the buying. Surprise! The guy at Shweta Computers told me that the Creative Inspire 5.1 speakers that I wanted was out of stock. A little more prying, and he says he can get it for an extra 500 rupees. That did it! Went over and checked out some of the overground shops, just asking for the Inspire speakers. Came to this shop that said they could get it in half an hour. And they did! Tentatively asked them if they could give me a quotation for a new system. Nice price. Made a quick phonecall to Psasi, and got some doubts about Intel Motherboards cleared ( The one they had suggested did not have any extra slot for a future AGP card. ) Half an hour, and it was done.

The final configuration was this – Intel P4 2.4 GHz, Intel GEsomething motherboard, 256 MB DRAM, 80 GB Seagate Barracuda HDD, Sony DVD drive, Creative Soundblaster Live! 5.1 (Value) Soundcard, Cambridge Soundworks Inspire 5.1 (5200 series) speakers. The whole thing came to 32k. I did not need a monitor, because I already had one.

I did not get any preinstalled software, and definitely no floppy drives. (I have this humongous chip on my shoulder against floppies and floppy drives. Does it make sense to have a 1.44 MB medium that costs 24 Rupees and a 700 MB medium that costs 10? ) Came home and installed and set the whole thing up all by myself….the most time, of course, was taken in setting up the speaker system. I made a goof when installing the Creative software. overwrote some Windows files by mistake ( the installer asked me if I wanted to overwrite the files. I figured they asked me “do you want to keep the files?” Boom! ) and when I try listening to music, it says it can’t detect the 5.1 speaker system, and the system hangs. Great! Control-alt-delete on the very first day of buying a computer. But then I try some fancy Comp-Sci fundu-ness ( ok, ok, I just reinstalled DirectX ) and voila, everything worked! Listened to Boys at neighbour-threatening volume, watched Night of the living Dead, played some Quake, showed off the system to assorted people ( Rishi, Mons, Abhishek, Amit et al )

The rest of the evening was spent in seeing a DVD, the only one I have – the one that came free with Chicago OST. And waiting for Saturday. The sale was due to start.

Saturday: A huge, rich haul. I ust can’t stop grinning.

My bro enjoyed his brief stay here. Most of the time, he was out accompanying ma to the hospital ( she was here for a check-up, among other things) or busy writing cds. We had a couple of debriefing sessions late in the night, when we walked out all the way to Necklace road, just swapping “life stories”. It used to drizzle often the last week, mostly at night, and almost always when we were on Necklace road, so we used to come back home soaked. ( Close-up: mom screaming at errant youngsters. Slow-motion capture: A single drop of water falling from one EY’s chin, goes “splat!” on the floor Pan: piping hot dinner ready in the kitchen. Eat your heart out, John Woo. )

I haven’t caught a cold yet, but I can feel it coming up. The occasional sniffle, the sudden twitch of the nose. ( This from a guy who, at the peak of his runny-nosedness, sneezed 43 times in a row. Or was it 45? )

Oh yeah, I haven’t said that before, he’s a teacher. He teaches Maths and Science in the same school where he passed his 12th, in Golaghat. he’s also the Scout-master there. Actually, that was why they had to leave so early, him and my ma, because he had this Scout meet from the 16th. Seems he gives all his students a DC comic each if they perform well, like solving a particularly good maths problem, or answering a difficult question in class. It was quite a weird experiment, at first, because the students did not like to read, especially stuff other than what they should be reading at school. (Isn’t that the case everywhere?) But there have been converts, all the same.

My brother made me do something I haven’t done in a long time. The day we went to buy his discman at Abids, we also went to Saremisons ( easily the best stationery shop in Hyderabad. At least, the only good one I know ) He bought a couple of pens and geometry boxes for his students. And then he bought a drawing pad and gifted it to me. You’re crazy, I said. I don’t draw anymore, I haven’t drawn anything in the last four years, other than maybe the occasional doodle on notebooks. And the occasional message on T-shirts.

Guess what, the pad inspired me to sit down, last Thursday evening, and draw something. I mean, I have this beautiful white page, lots of beautiful white pages in front of me, and I need to fill them up. The first fifteen minutes was spent in deep thought (Original composition? Still life? Comics? Portrait?) and occasional hops to the kitchen (ma was cooking chicken that night). . Took the easy way out and thought about an “artistic reinterpretation”. In other words, a black and white rendering of something, since a black pen was all I had.

Three hours of dedicated “rendering”, with a short break for dinner, and I was done. And guess what! I liked what I saw. Not bad, eh? Nope, definitely not bad. Not too good either, but ok, good enough for someone who’d stopped all kinds of artistic activity. ( does Photoshop count? naaaaaaaah!)

My friends were gracious enough to echo my sentiments when I showed it to them. Or maybe they were just being kind. :-)

Is there anything as catchy as, Aiyyo, Love is full of pain, poda, love is just a strain.???

Imagine going inside a room, a big room, that’s filled with books. Books piled one over the other to the height of an average human being. Books piled together so precariously balanced that you need to weave your way through. And when you stare, and stare some more, you realise that these are books that you have been waiting to buy for like, years, and all of them are priced below hundred.

This is what’s going on at Best Book Stall. The shipment that Ahmedsir was talking about is insane. My budget is going to be blown into orbit. Would you believe me if I told you that the pile includes all of Michael Chabon’s books? All the books from the Foundation series. All Anne Rices. Loads of Philip K Dicks and Robert Heinleins and Neil Gaimans and Anne McCaffreys and Conan books and …whooof….each of them priced at 75 rupees. All classics and children’s books for 50 rupees. All the “pulp” stuff, Archer, Segal, Sheldon, Harold Robbins, Jackie Collins, Grisham at 95. The sale is due to start from Monday. Fingers crossed. I asked him to call me an hour before the sale actually starts. Already booked a lot of good stuff for myself.

Yeah. My mom left yesterday evening. My room begins to resemble its previous configuration, with myseterious piles appearing at every corner and the distinct feeling of being smaller than it actually is.

News#1: My computer is gone. I gave it to my mom because she said she wants one at home, and I felt it would be too much for her to buy one when she would be using it just for writing documents and spreadsheets. She will get a printer there, that’s all.

News#2: I am getting a new computer. With a DVD drive. And a Creative Soundblaster Live!TM soundcard, and a 5.1 Cambridge SoundworksTM speaker set. Beatzo’s descent into Entertainment hell begins. *Insert RATM guitar riffs here*

News#3: Ma left at 5:45 yesterday. At 6:10, I was in Abids, going through the new Star Wars novels that Ahmedsir seems to have gotten. Found a lot of good novels, but the icing was the invitation he made. Seems there’s a new sci-fi collection he’s acquired, so he wants me to go today and help him price the lot. He’s about to put up a sale, and he wants optimal prices. Right. First dip is what I get in exchange.
The stuff I bought yesterday:

Philip Pullman: The Tin Princess. My first stab at Pullman. Seems this book is a member of that deadly species for bibliophiles – The Multi-part Epic. So I will have to defer reading it until I get the remaining ones. Or unless madhavn can help me out with the reading order.

Carl Hiassen – Skin Tight. I have taken to buying every Hiassen book I find. That guy can make me laugh aloud.

Vonda McIntyre – Star Wars: The Crystal Star. I sometimes get confused about which Star Wars trilogies I have, it’s easy to get parts 1 and 3 of every trilogy, but tough, really tough to find out part 2. Standalone books are so much better. Reserved a lot of stuff that I will buy today or tomorrow.

A haul of Argosy magazines from 1953. Contains original stories by Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, AJ Cronin, among others. Got a set of four books for 25 rupees, feeling pretty good about it.

Sounds like a weird DJ mix….just some of the stuff you get to hear in Charlie’s Angels:Full Throttle….the background track is hyper! Smoothly moves from track to another, made me feel like a rhino on steroids.Truth be told, I enjoyed the movie, much better action and better slo-mo sequences our Friendly Neighbourhood Reloaded sequel. It keeps the laughs coming, Cameron Diaz looks ugly as usual, and manages to compensate for it by wiggling various parts of her body at right intervals. Lucy Liu cracks her fingers, cracks some heads, cracks some bawdy jokes about clientele and tackling 12 sailors at the same time. Drew Barrymore….ahem…smiles, with that odd twitch of her mouth that reminds me of Two-face. Charlie could be voiced by Hemant Birje. Yeah, touch wood.

Pink makes a guest appearance somewhere in the movie, So does John Cleese. yeah, Bruce Willis too. Demi Moore – Va va voom.

Mithunda and Rajiniannawere missing, their spirits were palpable throughout.

White Teeth is turning out to be a Black Read. The jokes keep getting tedious, and there’s no shift in plot. Ugh. I will finish it, though.

AR Rahman. Boys. Tamil cd. Rs 95. Lifestyle. Lunchtime today.

Juts got back from a session to the pre-sales people about the Loadbalancer. I love praise.