Flash Fiction :: Floating Away

This stuff would kill you, they told me.

I was beyond caring by then. There was no stopping me. So I closed myself in a hotel room with my supply of that ichor. I paid the staff to not disturb me for a week.

And I drank.

I drank till I puked.

Then I drank some more. There was no time to sleep after I started drinking.

By the fourth day I was rolling in my own bodily excretions and I could no longer tell the difference between day and night. I lost track of myself and drifted in a hazy state of subconsciousness.

By the seventh day, the drink was drinking me away as much as I had drank it.

When they broke open the door. I was inside a bottle.

Drowning.

Floating.

Drifting away.

From everything.

Free Android Games You Can Play On The Pot!

Grumpy Donald Duck wouldn't be so grumpy if he had a phone with games on it!

There are only two places a sane man plays video games on his phone. 

On the pot and in bed.

Today, we're going to discuss some free Android games that you can play while you're dropping krakens in the morning or in the night. 

In ancient times, human ancestors used to read newspapers or solve the crossword while pooping, some of them also read works of horror fiction to aid the pooping process, but today's generation can't poop without a phone in their hands. While most resort to tweeting away while downloading their dinner, some of us like to play games on the pot.

Now, this, is a very niche category of games. You cannot really play action heavy games that require lot of concentration as it might affect performance, I am thinking Platform Scrolling and Racing Games here. You just need some games that take up to 10-15% of your brain power so that rest of brain focuses on the task of pooping. 

We don't want tense games that make you angry and frustrate you by repetitive action. So, let's discount the popular ones like Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Cut The Rope, etc. All phones have these games. We're going to talk about some of the slightly lesser known games. Yes, your favorite game might NOT (will not) get discussed here, but you'll have to live with it. 

This is my blog, so I'll be talking about the games I've installed on my tiny lil' Xperia Mini Pro (which I might sell soon and get an Xperia P or U or S)

Anyway, the games:

1) Bubble Blast 2 - This game looks stupid at the first. But when you install it, play through a 100 or so levels, you realize that something is funny here. I mean, you're tapping and tapping on the bubbles but the puzzles get complex, it's madness! Perfect game when you want to take your mind off pooping and just poop! Did I tell you it's got about 10000s of levels. Not kidding. Each level gets unlocked when you finish previous level, and they're ALL different.

2) Block Puzzle 2 - This is strange game. I was stuck on a particular level for weeks and then I cleared some 5 levels in one go. I play this game every now and then because it's like Tetris in a box. You've to move pieces around to make them fit and those bloody things just don't fit most of the time. So it's lot of moving pieces around. And, damn, it's good mindworkout.

3) Droptrix - Another game inspired by Tetris but it has it's own unique spin on Tetris (play it, you'll know what I mean). It takes a bit to learn, do check the tutorial. Whatever you do in this one, you WILL lose this game. It's funny and strange and there is lot of flipping around of a board. You'll have to check this and find it out!

4) Defender 2 - I had a lot of fun playing Defender part 1. The magic system was fun. There was a sort of strategy involved in using some weapons first, this part 2 adds a kind of online playing experience, you've to beat another person on the same level. It's fun when you play it, I won't risk explaining it here.

These four are here. Please complain in comments how your favorite game didn't get written about here. If you'd like me to try out some games, something unique and awesome and less known game, drop a line. 

Till next time, play slow, poop slower!

This post was written while listening to Pearl Jam's Live on Two Legs, one hell of an album. You kids should get that!

Why I Stopped Subscribing to Newspapers.

Newspaper Junkies

Back in hostel I used to be a newspaper junkie. 

Every Sunday morning, I'd wake up, walk to the stationery shop outside the hostel, and buy one copy of EVERY newspaper on display. 

I kept up with the newspaper obsession for up to 4+ years after leaving college. I'd pore through the pages of articles, comics, editorials, features, everything that the newspaper had to offer.

Last year, I stopped my newspaper subscription.

There were two reasons for this. First, a slightly frivolous reason is that the newspaper guy brought me the bill for newspapers after six months. It was a big chunk of money, something you don't expect to pay for newspaper. I had some words with that fellow and decided that I'd not buy newspaper from him. I realized later that he is the only fellow delivering newspapers in my area. So that is that. 

Plus, the junk value of newspapers

The other reason is the dismal quality of news reporting in the newspapers in India. From Times of India to The Hindu and everything in between, there is just too much focus on the negative and it just didn't please me to read the news come what time of the day. I had to ask myself, do I really need to start my day with reading about all this negativity? I got the answer, NO. A big, all caps, NO. So, I gave up all and any attempts of reading newspaper till about now. And in general, I've felt more peaceful, relaxed and productive in mornings.

Now, I get my fix of news from Google. Specifically www.news.google.com which I've customized according to the news I want to read. More about Science, Technology and Health. Less about Bollywood, Hollywood, Politics or Celebrities. 

In addition, I also think that the GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) principle applies here very well. The kind of information we feed into our system (if we think of human brain as a computer), will determine the kind of output we give to the world. 

What do you think about this? If you left reading newspapers would it have any effect on your life? Drop me a line in comments or talk about it with me on twitter >> @69ubar

Next post, we tackle the absence of TV in my life!

Apps, Apps, Android Apps!

Once again, I am back with another article that is not a story. I don't really care, you'll have to suffer me like this. So, we're talking about android apps. There are so many of them that it is difficult for anyone to make sense of the Google Play Store and find the apps that can rizzle yo shizzle (whatever that means). So, without further ado, here are five apps that help me be productive n shit. I own an Xperia Mini Pro running Gingerbread, but it's soon going to be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich, so yeah, apps! Here goes:

1) Zeam Launcher - I like this one of all the launchers out there, because it's simple. Does what it says, doesn't take too much space and is pretty much a no-nonsense launcher.

2) Memoires - There are many diary apps in the market, and I've probably used all of them. But I recently started using this one. Very nice interface, good choice of fonts, plus ability to add tags and I didn't see any adverts. I was using diaro earlier but have successfully made transition to this one.

3) Little Photo - When you say filters, the first thing anyone would think of is Instagram. Little Photo is not Instagram. It's just an app with LOT of filters. And in my experience with the filter apps, this beats all of them hands down. There are just too many filters in this app. All are easy to apply, the end product looks awesome, and well, you can share it on Facebook or Twitter or wherever you like later.  The interface of this app can use an uplift, but for the functionality it provides, interface can be excused.

4) Instacamera - Now, the thing with most camera apps is that you launch the app, wait a second or two for the camera to load (if your phone is fast) and then click the shutter, camera focuses and by then the moment has passed you by miles. SO, in comes InstaCamera. Put the widget on the screen, point the camera at what you want to click, tap the widget, and it saves the picture. None of that autofocus or launching camera bullshit. Even the settings for this app are a new icon in the app drawer. Great app, I love it.

5) Awesome Wallpaper - If you ask me, I love new wallpapers for my phone's screen. Some just put a smile on my face on a dull day or some shit like that. But most are well clicked pics that are minimal in nature. Now what I do here is that I download a wallpaper from this app, then process it through Little Photo mentioned above to give the wallpaper a whole different look. It looks great, looks unique and fits my idiotic sense of amusement. 

Yeah, so these are my favorite apps, I use these a lot. I hope you find these useful. 

What are your favorite apps? Drop me a line in comments, or as always, hit me up on Twitter, @69fubar

(Disclaimer: Just sharing these apps cuz I like them. No kind of monetary compensation from them to me, but if you can support the developers in anyway, please do so.)

Five Awesome Webapps!

Let's assume for a second that we're all productive people, we've got things chalked up in our head, and we need to do these things to get ahead in life, or just to move from where we are to the next screen. Every notice how in most scroller video games, the character always goes right? Right! (A disclaimer, I am not associated with any of these apps and they're not paying me money to write this, I write this because I feel it's good to share good stuff with people. Use these at your own discretion, if things don't work, use something else!)

Anyway, all that aside. Here is a list of five random web apps+browser extensions I use to make my day more productive and awesome than it already is. Because, awesomeness is not a condition, it's a habit. Here goes.

1) Thinkery :: I recently discovered Thinkery and I use it as much as I can in my browser and through the day. There is a very brilliant Thinkery extension in the Chrome App Store which I hit a lot when I am saving articles for reading later, clipping quotes off web, or just making my to-do lists. What I like about this web-app/extension is how simple and useful it is.

2) Clearly :: I read a lot of articles on web. Many times the white background and black text don't cut it and I need something more. That something more is Clearly. One click on the extension's button and an overlay converts the whole article into an easy to read format. This one is made by the Evernote team, so you can also send articles to your Evernote account, an added bonus. Find this one in Chrome App Store, also available for Firefox.

3) NowDoThis.com ::  This website does one thing and does it very well. To do lists don't get any simpler than this. I'd hate to explain this. So, check it out after reading the article.

4) www.notepad.cc :: There are many free online notepads which you can use for some instant writing. What makes this one special is ability to assign a URL, a password and sharing the note with others. Plus, go full screen by hitting F11, and you've got a distraction free text editor in your browser. Hit F11 again to exit full screen mode :)

5) Hotot! :: This is a neat little Twitter client for Chrome browser. Get it from Chrome Web App Store It's better than Tweetdeck or the twitter website. There are columns, themes and lot of retweet options as well as desktop notifications. Total win in all cases. Also, Hotot is a kind of rabbit. I think. Hotot is perfect for people who scan a lot of news, views and conduct research on twitter, this app is a solid combination of looks and powerful features. It is also very useful if you want to stalk people.

So, these are just random five out of lot of webapps, extensions, plug-ins I use, there will be more, some time later. Maybe another article about the Android Apps I use? Yes, let's see. Meanwhile, i hope you enjoy these. I didn't discuss the popular apps, just wanted to talk about some of the lesser known ones.

That's about it.

Drop a comment if you've got something to say, or catch me on twitter @69fubar

(P.S :: I was writing this article in gmail, which decided to bonk on me, had to copy past the text quickly in notepad.cc before gmail logged me out!)