Ok! so today apparently happens to be World No-Tobacco Day and here is a graphic piece i devised recently for the purpose. Guess i dont really have to say much in this post other than the fact that i’m just sick and tired of standing around and socializing with you smokers whilst you blow smoke into my face !@#@$!# ;P

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

option click
2005
a public service announcement conceptualized and designed by Amritraj Gupta.

Amritraj Gupta

Amritraj Gupta

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Finally!!! A fun weekend worth writing about…Ruxy decided to throw a little ’shabang’ at her farmhouse on Friday and whilst (in the literal sense) we werent exaaactly pairing up or getting high …DAMN !! it was fun! Cllck on the red arrow to view the story unfold.

A few more pics at the farm…..

With Vasim, Sachin, Saif and Anshul

Trying to figure out how to change gears

Sorry Kanchan ! .. us boys got a little carried away
Next time we will really let you ride the dunes ….. bromise !! ;P

With Saif & Vasim

Thanks Rux!!… had a magnificient time – the foooood was absolutely yummylicious !!

Ok so i am guessing this humble blog of mine has made an impact in someway … or maybe i like to assume it did.

What am i talking about !?

Well.. lets go back in time *chipmunk-like sound of rewinding video* to October last year .. when i made the first of a two part post called ‘Dubious in Dubai’ and i pointed out the fact that the logos of both ‘Cingular’ and ‘Dubai Autism Center’ were absolute carbon copy’s of each other. Have a look again …

No Alterations – No Tweaks. The DAC logo is an absolute dead ringer for Cingular. Now, as the story goes Pixel8 (fellow Dubai Blogger who works within the same group of companies or something of the sort) happened to stop by, take note of this blogpost and apparently bring it to the attention of the management and VOILA!! within 3-4 months what do we have !??

A total makeover = New Logo + New Site !
WOW ! Did i just do that !?? Was i responsible !?? eeks!

– Well whatver be the reason, i think its a wise and responsible move on their part. Corporate Identity, Branding and Copyright in general is very misunderstood and underestimated in this part of the world and its good to see such prompt action taken to rectify such an err ( whether intentional or not )

However, at the end of it all.. i am still left questioning as to which design/advertising agency might have been so stupid to do something like this in the first place !??

Although ‘muse’ has been quite busy with her grad paper presentations and yadi-yadi-ya’s .. she still managed to amuse me with her stash of goodies (as she usually does) and one of the things to come out of her little pixish of a treasure chest last weekend just happened to be .. Russell Peters

GOSH! this guy is a total riot – Canadian Desi Comedian who just has his act together. Everytime ‘muse’ would ask me to look him up – i’d push it down till later … seriously BAD IDEA !! so i suggest you all check out this funny guy RRRIGHT NOW .. else sumbady’s going to getta haart rreal baad .. ;P

Click on the image to watch a clip of him on Badmash.org

And if you cant get enough of this funnyman, i suggest you download the torrent file (from here – run it through your BitTorrent client and download the entire 45min realmedia version of this act. Sure it takes a while but its very funny and worth every single downloading byte.

I hope he visits Dubai soooon … cant wait to see him perform live!!

OK so this time retail therapy was really very much needed for my livelihood and so I finally bought it !!… i finally went out and bought myself … the ????? Apple iMac G5

Gorgeous machine and as every beautiful thing on this planet costs a leg and an arm and an uprooted toe nail (ouch) – this baby too cost me quite a BOMB ! but hey Credit Cards are always handy. — who am i kidding .. i have to make sure i pay for this system out of my next two paychecks … eeeeiiiikes !

But definitely worth it .. loaded it up with 1 Gig RAM and still have to suss out the DVD burner. Not like i dont love my G3 powerbook anymore .. its been a loyal companion for too long and am sure i’ll find a way to use it as a secondary system to make time lapse/stop motion videos or something — something that its more capable of handling with ease.

But wait! There is a down side to this story – get this .. yea !?? you ready !?? APPLE’S NEW iMAC G5 with OS Tiger launched two days after i bought this machine !!! I COULD CRY !!!!!!!!!!!! i really could !! but have had enough time since then to recover from the pain .. a little.

Click here to see the new i mac g5 - It still looks the same but its whats in the inside that matters – sigh!

Since this time i needed serious retail therapy .. i went out and bought the Sony Ericsson K700i

WHAT ??? i needed a new phone – i swear i did !!

Whats funny however is this – I knew all this time i wanted a NOKIA! No way i was going to be disloyal to the brand, so i did my research on the web, asked around and yadi-yadi-ya … all that preliminary cautious stuff you do before you are about to go in spend a few k’s on something that is perceived to be such a quintessential … as vital as the sixth element perhaps.

So there i am standing at the ‘Axiom Phone Store’ browsing blankly through the vast range of Nokias on display and for the first time i realized how similar all of them looked – so plain – so regular – so boring and mostly so ‘cellphoney’. I couldnt really relate to any of the models as an extension of myself really.

.. and then i spotted the K700i
- the salesdude sez ‘this is a nice phone’
- i think ‘this is not really what i am looking for and it still looks like a typical cellphone’
- then all of a sudden i sez ‘if im going to settle for an ordinary looking cellphone then its probably time for a change – Screw Nokia … Ericsson will have to do – Pack it up man!’

IT WAS AS SIMPLE AS THAT ! and i realized that all those months of waiting for the perfect cellphone ended up in an impulsive buy .. gosh! i must be every salesman’s target around town – i am so easy. tsk tsk tsk.

Anyway this phone has been quite nice to me so far – polyphonic ringtone that go ‘dum de dum .. you have a call .. dum de dum ‘ , a one mega pixel camera – thats always handy and a better managed addressbook which saves a little more than just phone numbers. Hoeeeever.. the response time is painfully slow and the navigation could be more user friendly – me thinks.

Oh Well ! that was my retail therapy for the month .. and with a Dhiram in one pocket and a cracker in the other i shall wait for my next paycheck or a rich uncle to leave me a countryside mansion in his will. ;P

*Sigh*
i want to go back …. i want my own apartment … i want my long walks down the river.. i want those fun parties… i want my lovely friends…. i want my ‘chilli fried rice & iced tea’ from ’spicy noodles’…. i want to walk down Bourke and listen to ‘Bonnaci and Wood’ again … i want to take Tram 22 down East Coburg … i want to laze around ‘the avenue’ on a hot summer day and eat my ‘Nasi Lemak’ …. i want to hang around the studio and watch animations all day… waaaaaaah.. i want it all back .. again and again and again ;(

Geeez!!!! Thanks Rocky! … all that talk about Aussieland the other day has just made it worse now! ;P

Dug up some pictures of the Blokes n Sheilas n Goodtimes in Melbourne – will put them up on the Flickr soon. For now, i ran some of them through this nifty little software i came across on apple.com called ‘comic life’ – it was good for a fun little experiment and i reckon its a great way to put together some of those funny pictures that you really dont know what to do with.

WARNING: I made this in one evening … so a lot of it could be much funnier and better written but anyways y’all understand ;P … THE RETURN OF THE ARSEMONKEY (Issue 1) awaits >>>

Hope you enjoyed that sudden spell of corniness!! ;P
and if you din’t ARSEMONKEYS TO YOU !!