From now on, articles relating to Web Design and Web affairs will appear under this sub-section. The typical web design article tends to be of the problem-solution format, where the problem typically relates to (1) an issue with Internet Explorer, (2) CSS, e.g. vertical centering techniques, or (3) some oddity resulting from the buggy implementation of the wmode=’transparent’ Flash parameter in Windows Firefox…

However, as my first article, I will touch upon a conceptual issue – namely that of the Internet and Narcissism. The interested reader, who would like to pursue these issues in depth is referred to: Narcissism 101, Hypertext Nation, and The Internet Breeds Narcissim & Conceit.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Narcissism can be defined as “Excessive preoccupation with self and lack of empathy for others.” Consider the following example: An individual tweets himself (on Twitter) 20 times a day, and everytime, his blog is updated that he has tweeted himself. On his blog, he also has a plug-in which shows how many times his page has been visited, and another, which depicts in realtime, the stats of every click on his site… All the articles are about himself. You can click a share button, where you can share this guy’s site on one of the many bookmarking services. You can vote for his popularity. You are face-to-face with the largest digital mirror – showing you what a great and suave guy our friend Mr. X is…

Certainly, it is evident that Mr. X is spending countless hours on the Internet, and certainly he appreciates your visit. But are you really the intended target of his affections?

Meta-discourse – not just talking, but talking about that you have just talked – constitutes one of the defining characteristics of our post-modern life-style. Hence, meta-discourse is essentially a reflective tool – a mirror of sorts – and readily lends itself to narcissistic use. And in Web 2.0, with its multitude of social networking sites, blogs, tweets, you tubes and vimeos, we can easily construct ourselves a wondrous chamber of mirrors – far removed from the harsh realities of everyday life – realities filled with the real emotions of happiness and joy, but also with the pain of rejection, and the fear of humiliation.

Internet Narcissism can be seen as an escape. From time to time, we all need a break from reality. Yet when the need to escape becomes obsessional, when the false, some prefer virtual, reality we construct becomes our sole source of escape and drug of choice for numbing ourselves – then we are well on our way into the world of the internet narcissist.

We all have our vulnerabilities. Men may wish to be virile, while women may aim for desirability. Unfortunately, a steady diet of virtual reality – that appears ‘real’ – so much more real than our usual fleeting fantasies – will not assist us in learning how to deal with who we are.

From a practical point of view, as you consider jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon – with a blog, or tweeter membership, or you tube videos – think about what you would like to get out of it. Certainly it could be a self-gratifying experience – nothing wrong with that at all. But if you are a business, or a professional, then I strongly urge you to think about what services you will be providing. Your Web 2.0 presence is not just any virtual reality, nor should it be an exercise in narcissistic masturbation…

At its best, your Web 2.0 presence constitutes a digital extension of your values and services – an unconditionally open door, that does not flaunt, caress, cajole, or taunt with popularity – an unconditionally open door that welcomes, and makes your visitor feel comfortable, and lets them know that you are open for business.

Yes! And see if you can repeat that twenty times! The topic of this article is indeed the jolly jollies jollied by the jolly MPs of our jolly parliament for their jolly expenses using jolly pounds of the jolly tax payer. Whether it is jolly entertainment or jolly houses, the jolly MPs of our jolly parliament have found fine jollies for jollying around with the jolly pounds of the jolly tax payer. And… It is all jolly well! For the jolly rules are rather jolly, and the jolly MPs of our jolly parliament can jolly well abide by the jolly rules and still be jolly rude with our jolly tax payer pounds, and jolly them to and fro into jolly expenses rather than jolly housing, jolly hospitals, jolly roads, and jolly ethics. I jolly well rest my case…

‘Bout a week ago I went to the London Sci Fi Film Festival with a friend of mine to see The City of Lost Children – in full 35mm glory! Marc Caro, also the director of Delicatessen, was there in person for a pre-show interview. The festival director kept throwing chocolate into the audience, and a lucky guy (actually girl!) won an XBOX 360 – signed by Caro. Oh, yes then there were a couple of signed DVD give-aways too. All in all a good time – including going up and down the ‘Solid Gold’ blue neon stairs at the Apollo. Though I did not go this year, they also do an Anime all-nighter with Red Bull and Ice-Cream (from midnight to about 9 am).

This being Easter weekend, and HMV having a sale, I ended up parting with some of my hard earned cash – acquiring in return – a few DVDs… Though the official reviews of Vin Diesel’s Babylon A.D. were mixed, I must say I was pleasantly suprised!

The movie reminds me of Vin Diesel’s best movie ever: Pitch Black – an excellent horror flick that was done on a shoestring budget.

Unlike other action heroes, when given the chance, Vin Diesel can actually act – and he deals very nicely with the grim subject matter of this movie, as well as with the transformational aspects of his own character from someone who does not give a damn, to someone who is willing to give up his life.

As is the case with many post-apocalyptic themed movies, in this movie, we are reminded, by way of allegory and imagery, of the ever growing stark gap between the haves and the have nots, and of the corruption endemic in corporate and political institutions. On a tangent, one cannot help but wonder, for example, why it is that Shreddy Freddy’s pension is a matter of contract law, while firing 9000 employees – is not…

Coming back to Babylon A.D., however, the movie does have an Achilles heel – one that most movies dealing with comic book adaptations struggle with. Of course, I m talking about the portrayal of the villain(s). In particular, should the villain be a black-and-white caricature, or perhaps a tragically flawed human being? In this respect, Babylon A.D. walks a fine line. But I m glad that the movie errs on the side of caution, and avoids exaggerated caricaturisation.

Yes! Peaches, with her electro-punk sound, was at the RFH. It was a memorable evening: her parents were in the audience, and… she began the show with the maxim, “I m gonna murder you tonight!”

To my right was a Spanish contingent of 4 girls and a guy. Perhaps it was the Spanish influence that lead me to read the Peaches logo – placed high up on the stage – as ‘Nachos’. But after a double take, I realized what it said. : ) On my left, were a couple of leathered up dudes. Then there was that ultra-tight-neon-blue-lycra-catsuit clad girl, who was wearing a transparent plexiglass teapot on her head. And, the twin albino Jimmy Hendrix look-alikes….

The start up acts included the lovely Charli XCX – dressed up in full Harajuku style, and the extravagant, sweet-voiced Jonny Woo…

Wow! What a speech! This is actually the first time to my recollection that a Western leader has come to Turkey and expressed interest and appreciation for Turkish culture and history as well as current issues. If people had doubts about Obama’s diplomatic endeavours, he has already done a whole lot more than ‘W’ did in his 8 years…

Yep, usually the Europeans come, strut about in their Louis 14th gait, look down and talk down, get wined, dined and then leave… Nor have I ever heard one of these other leaders live up to the shortcomings of their own nation – that takes real strength and courage to do. Nope, the others adorn their bejeweled cloak of ideals, and then are blinded by them.

Obama has shown us what global politics truly looks like. What a contrast to the tired old refrain of Sarkozy for example, “That the Turks are so culturally different… European Union … blah, blah, blah.” Well… Duh, Sarkozy, every culture except your own will be different than yours!

Obama has shown that in today’s globalising world, the tired old refrains from the past do not lead anywhere constructive. But is it fair to compare say Obama and Sarkozy – one a statesman, the other coasting along by virtue of the existing institutions – but without any deep insight into multi-culturalism, and the political challenges that globalisation is bringing. Probably not.

Obama is in a completely different league of politician and statesman.

Yes, the Russians are back!

Of course, I am talking about valves – in this case the Sovtek 12AX7WC – the cryo treated version.

The valve is definitely high gain – but you get a lot of high gain with comparatively little clip & distortion – producing a well-directed, strong, and punchy sound.

He’s finally here – President Obama arrived in the UK early this am – making it to number 10 Downing street for breakfast with ‘Gordy’ – along with a bunch of other officials. So I guess it was not a very private affair of wives & hubbies…

Ooops! Shevckenko just put in one for the Ukraine: it is 1-1 now…

OK, coming back to the matter at hand, I got a cup of green maté tea – tastes a lot like the Japanese Matcha variety – but a little more of a bitter taste.

Yes, we have really copped it – this time around. 8 years of ‘W’ has put us in for it – looks like it will be a tough ride for a while. Finance is essentially a scheme for transferring future wealth into the present. But the bastard Madoff’s & CEOs of the world, acting like, good ole’ fashioned dictators, found a way to scam us out of our future wealth – which they themselves have appropriated in the form of healthy bonuses. The irony of it is that, now we are forced to engage in public borrowing – which again means that we, or our children, will have to pay for it for years to come. The croooked bankers and CEOs ought to be jailed really…

So will Obama, ‘Gordy’, and the remainder of the pack find a way to eliminate the corporate and public corruption and lack of good governance that got us into this mess? I hope so.

Beckham! to Gerrard to Terry and it is… 2-1 England. I ll leave it at that!

Well, a quick interim review on Resident Evil 5 is in order:

In my case, this was probably one of the most anticipated games, that I had been waiting for. So having actually pre-ordered the game, and having played it for a few sessions now, I ll put my thoughts on the subject together.

Overall rating: 3/5

While the play-action and the choice of weaponry is excellent, the game is missing a couple of key elements: humour, and visual contrast. The lack of visual contrast is something that I have especially noticed on the X-Box, and I wonder if it has to do with the rendering engine. But the basic issue is one in which a number of nice and vivid colours make up a composition, and where the value of the colours are very close together, making it hard to distinguish shapes. From an arts point of view, in terms of realistic painting, the value error is a basic and fundamental mistake. However, let’s not be too hard on the game’s creators, and learning to apply realistic value is also probably the hardest aspect of painting.

On the humour end, we are missing the type of humour that in Res Evil 4 was injected by the likes of Ashley and the Trader (“Stranger, stranger, not that’s a weapon…” as he used to say). I m afraid Resident Evil 5 is, in contrast quite a cut-and-dry affair of mechanical fine-control involving a controller-pad.

There are also few save points, which is quite a disappointment, when one is short on time, or prefers to put in shorter gaming sessions.

On the plus side, the choice of weaponry is very good. The characters are well-designed, and especially the Zombies are very convincing. Both of the main protagonists come with the usual CG amenities, which in the case of Chris translates into large muscled arms, and in the case Sheva into the well defined CG bum, that was first made famous by Lara Croft.

Well… It is finally here! The new web site. It has been in the making for a while, and marks most notably my move to the WordPress platform, which I have found to be quite excellent. I had evaluated quite a few open source CMS’s – and it finally came down to WordPress versus Drupal, with WordPress emerging as the winner.

I did not consider closed source CMS’s, since I have contributed to quite a few of those in the past, and thought it was time to try an open source solution.

The present site integrates the web design/development, and arts branches of my activities – and also features a Flash AS3 media player, which, rather than using components, or skins, etc, I completely wrote from scratch. It was quite a fun endeavor, and AS3 gets my full vote of confidence – it is fast and boasts a well thought out, and well-designed OO design and implementation.

I hope that the new web site will provide plenty of interest in the shape of ideas, opinion, web downloads, and art material.

Thanks for visiting, and have a good time!