entirely safe and fun

Not like last time (in general, I avoid believing things said by “fun tribes of ravers” (see also here)). For real this time. The question now becomes “How many DJs in the US will think it’s hilarious to play L.A. Style’s brain-dead 1992 single ‘James Brown is Dead’? And are they right?”

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I’m writing from someone else’s computer for now.  I’ll get some pix up soon, though.  In the meantime…

Punam and I arrived in Singapore in the local morning, and decided to visit the island of Pulau Ubin, which by all accounts is the only rural area left in Singapore.  To get there, we took a taxi up to Changgi Village, where we bought noodles and had an early lunch with a growing crowd of locals.  At the ferry terminal, we caught a bumboat, a sort of Singaporean water taxi, and motored over to the island, where we rented a tandem bike to explore the island. It was an adventure — we saw every plant in the spice cabinet, a spider larger than my cell phone, and a fair helping of Singaporeans getting away from their hyper-developed home island for the day.

We headed back to the airport to catch our Air India flight to Mumbai.  Without going into a ton of detail, I’ll just say that the flight was also quite adventurous, and has no competition as the worst commercial flight I’ve ever taken anywhere.  The crew were abusive, the aircraft was poorly maintained, the food was awful, and it took two and a half hours to get our luggage off the plane (on a flight arriving at 00:30!).

Continuing the theme of adventure were our travels in Mumbai, apparently home of the World’s Most Imaginitive Traffic Situation.  I don’t think that Mumbai has any more vehicle traffic than, say, New York City, but it is aggravated by several factors:

• Pedestrians and motor vehicle operators do not acknowledge a border between the spaces they are supposed to use.
• “Defensive driving” means “taking up parts of three lanes at all times so no one can pass, except by squeezing between this car and ten pedestrians with deathwishes, which of course everyone does.”
• Vehicles drive in the left lane, except when they don’t, which is about 50% of the time.
• There are autorickshaws and 2.5+T trucks with no visibility out the back, and further with visibility out the front windscreen limited by painted-on religious and patriotic slogans; faith is a poor substitute for actually seeing things.
• Said rickshaws and trucks are brightly painted on the back with legends like “HORN OK PLEASE”, as if not featuring such a paint job might stop anyone from “SOUND HORN PLEASE” or “HONK HORN OK.”
• People occasionally stop at red lights, when they’re working.

In Singapore, it will be noted, even taxis obey the speed limit.  Mumbai is the anti-Singapore.

Somehow, we survived meeting up with my mother-in-law and our friend Martha (Krupa-auntie having flown in some weeks before, and Martha joining us from Pittsburgh), visiting relatives, and seeing some of the sights of Mumbai. We then got on a flight from Mumbai’s rather pleasant domestic airport to the former small town of Hubli, swollen of late to something like 750 kpeople, on Air Deccan.  India is blessed with a large number of budget airlines which appear to have innovated deeply on cost-cutting; our flight on Deccan was quite pleasant, if bare-bones, and tickets for the flight from Mumbai to Hubli seem to run about Rs 1500 (about $33).

Incidentally, one of these budget carriers is SpiceJet.  Their slogan isn’t “Whoever controls the SpiceJet controls the UniverseJet” (or “The SpiceJet is LifeJet”), but it should be.  “Usul has booked a big one!“

Hubli is a fine town, with one nice hotel, the Hotel Naveen.  My in-laws have been staying at the Naveen on their visits to their former hometown for as long as anyone here remembers; younger cousins call it “America-ajji’s house,” which I think is awfully cute. We stayed there, kind of, for a night before taking off to the still-smallish town of Belgaum, I think to the north-east.  The NH4 divided highway goes (among other places) from Hubli to Belgaum, and I was thinking that finally I’d be able to take a car ride with a little peace of mind.  Little did I know that even a median strip with concrete barriers isn’t enough to keep Indian drivers on their side of the road, and that “safe following distance” is as alien a concept to folks in this part of the world as “tolerable international flight.”  At one point, the bumper of our tiny Tata Indica V2 was underneath the rear overhang of a 7-ton Ashok Leyland truck, as we motored along at 60 clicks, our driver HORN OK PLEASEing and sticking his head out the window to look around said juggernaut, all the while dodging bullock carts, unattended herd animals of all sizes, feral dogs, wild pigs, fanciful (or fancifully-laden) motor vehicles unable to maintain a speed above about 30 clicks.  This went on for several minutes as he tried to figure out if there was any instant when passing wouldn’t get us all flattened.  Adventure!

In Belgaum, we attended not one, but two weddings of Punam’s relations.  Pictures will be required so I will gloss over that part of the trip for now, but I was excited to finally meet her many aunts and uncles and cousins, who until now were just names to me.  All of them were a little disappointed that I don’t speak Kannada (and for that matter that Martha doesn’t speak Kannada); this is a thing I will need to rectify before returning. But they were pleased that even the American contingent showed up for the weddings in local dress and consumed the local food with gusto. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten more idli in a 24-hour period than I have in the last day.

After a typically terrifying return trip last night, we’re back in Hubli at the Naveen, regaining our equilibrium and visiting more family before taking off for a trip up India’s west coast to Murudeshwar and Goa, after which we’ll head to Mysore and then finally Bangalore. Anyone looking to contact me should send email to my pcrc@esandf.pcom account (removing those silent ‘p’s of course); I will get my India phone number out ASAP.  More to come…

Punam and I have touched down safely in Hong Kong. The coolest thing I can say about Hong Kong, based solely on being in its airport, is that it’s my first proof that telecom is making good on its promises. I’m connected to a free wifi network, my phone just works, and I’m getting text messages as usual. Living in the future is fun!

Previous installments in this series, taking on the Great Designer Search are here, here, here and here. Card designs are after the jump.

This week, the Great Designer Search challenged us to design a rare splashy enough to be the prerelease card for a set - and also to design the entire common run in one color for that set. They’ve definitely turned the difficulty up a notch for the final test! As a bit of background, I’ve worked with my friend John to design the first set in a block (that is, a linked super-set of three sets) where we’re trying to break out of the flavor ruts of each color. In this block, Blue, traditionally a scholarly color with lots of wizardry and scholarship, is instead a color full of magical beasts, which interact with magic not like a mage might, but rather as a moth interacts with a candle. One of the themes, basically, is that Blue is dumb. Other themes of this kind: White is evil and manipulative; Green is wise and encyclopedic; Red warriors are generals as well as berserkers; Black can cooperate and nurture, in its fashion. The first set saw a Red-centered coalition of beasts, zombies, and hound-men holding fast against a magically gifted army of powerful White-aligned soldiers and mages, while drakes and leviathans annoyed both sides by constantly being wherever magic was happening. In the second set, the mana-tide that empowered the White faction has exploded and unleashed (Blue-aligned) Lovecraftian monstrosities that will force the warring parties to re-evaluate the value of their political struggle, as they face an ontological one. Most of the really nasty Blue stuff is going to be rare, but the pre-release card, The Unnamable (with a tip o’ the hat to HPL), should give a taste. Continue reading ‘NaCaDeMo, part 5’ »