Would you like a croissant with your expresso Hemmingway?

It sure elicits a WOW. And is surely another feather in Google's innovator cap.

But I asked myself these.
Why would I want to print an e-book?
Wouldn't it go against the whole principle of it?

Yes, yes I do agree, one would want to carry a book along to places far removed from civilisation and broadband. I, for one, love reading on beaches and in trains.

But isn't that why someone spent millions of dollars and hours to invent the e-book reader for?

Yes, yes, yes, I know the feel, the smell and the character of the written word on paper is something else. One can't cozy up in front of a warm fire with a e-book reader.

But what about the paper you save? If everyone goes about printing their e-books to read it, would every story end with the death of a tree? And would something like this Expresso Book Machine mean genocide for trees?

Is buying a book today a blatant display of our disregard for the scantily clad Mother Nature?

When we are consuming so much of our entertainment and information off backlit screens today, do we really need a bookshelf?

Just questions that I asked myself.
Quite like the one about why does one need that warm fire to read the book?

Doodling goes bananas

Beer shots

Shoot your friends dead drunk with the Beer Blaster. And if you're one of those suicidal drunks, just point it to your own mouth and pull the trigger. Available without a cooling period on thinkgeek for just 22.99. Ammunition not included.

Luv Deluxe - Cinnamon Chasers

Cinnamon Chasers - Luv Deluxe (Official Music Video) from Saman Keshavarz on Vimeo.

Just because you change your pov, does the world follow suit?
Album: A Million Miles From Home
Modus Records / Koch Entertainment
Directed by: Saman Keshavarz

A beautiful shade of green

While being eco-friendly surely contributed to making the planet a prettier place, but for the longest time being environmentally conscious meant being aesthetically unconscious.
The non-vogue jute bags that would only be seen on the vegetable market runways. That too in the hands of your domestic help. The ugly solar panels that seem to fit better into your socially environmental conversations, but never on the roof of your Spanish cottage in the middle of New Friends' Colony (maybe if they were called El Solar Panels). Or electric cars in which you can go about saving the planet at a snail's pace. And look like one too. (actually this one makes sense, since traffic crawls anyways these days).
Not any more. Fortunately.
Designers. Companies. Artists. Are all climbing onto the green bandwagon. Creatively, commercially, at times even conscientiously. But whatever they're in it for doesn't matter, as long as there's something in it for the planet. Do I care if protecting the ice-caps makes someone a millionaire? I would give them my green thumbs up.
Slowly, but steadily, green is becoming the in-colour. In red, blue, pink and whatever-is-the-shade-of-the-season.

A Philadelphia company has developed solar panels shaped like clay roof tiles. Called Solé Power Tiles, (just realised, it sounds Spanish as well) it'll give your green home a quaint touch. Or the jute bag that announced that it's not a plastic bag and went from being an environment statement to a fashion one.
Even electric cars promise to go from 40-140km/hr in the next two years. And look just as fast as well. Courtesy Renault & Audi.
And with designers making it to exhibitions with their environment bit, the future does look quite pretty indeed. For instance this rain barrel by Bas van der Veer that makes it easy for you to harvest rain water. Symbolically, and very aptly called, 'A drop of water'

While the environment has always been a cause. Today it needs to become a trend to find more followers. And efforts like these are small steps towards just that. Which is why we need social influencers to join the designers, companies and artists on that band-wagon. For starters, Hollywood and Bollywood.
With one look from under his cowboy hat, with a cigarette glowing in one corner of his mouth, Client Eastwood single-handedly rode up the share price of Stetsuns by 3 points. And brought down the age of smokers by about 6 years.
Closer home, Shah Rukh Khan wandered through the Italian country-side with a backpack slung over his shoulder in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and suddenly the youth of Delhi was backpacking their way from Sarojini Nagar to Connaught Place with it.
Why can't the movies set this tribe of apes onto something more environmentally responsible? It could be that jute bag if nothing else.

Nearness

Nearness from timo on Vimeo.

It's the same ol' domino effect that we have seen in many youtube videos and created, recreated and further recreated by many ads. Just that in this one there is no touching involved.

Sweet temptation

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

That's one helluva cruel test of patience.

Electric Car

Honda Grrr meets the opening track of Jamie and the Magic Torch. Directed by Tiny Inventions. Features vocals by Robin Goldwasser and horn arrangement by Dan "The Machine" Levine. From TMBGs new DVD/CD set Here Comes Science.

Play Monopoly on your city street

Monopoly City Streets. It's a live game of Monopoly using Google Maps as the gaming board. So you can buy the street you live on, your neighbourhood, your neighbour's house and so on. I used to fight over properties like Mayfair and Oxford Street, imagine what I would do for places like Greater Kailash and Connaught Place.

Loyalty points? Or pointless?

http://www.mumbaicommunitycard.com/

An article in the newspaper made me look these guys up on the net. It's a rather interesting social model that these guys are running here. A credit card that allows you to contribute to the society every time you spend. Because like with every credit card, you get loyalty points on every transaction. But here the loyalty is not to the deep pockets of the Armani jackets of the credit card companies, rather to the society. Because these point can be forwarded as a donation to the charity of your choice. But for the some who need a more compelling reason to use the card, it also gets you discounts at select merchants.
An initiative by former IIT-ians, the card is modelled on the 'Boston Community Change' Programme where a percentage of each transaction is towards the users' favourite cause. What I found most striking about the card is that it makes you socially responsible by going through life exactly the way you always did. You could be spending on the most frivolous of things but somewhere your conscience is being redeemed.
Made me wonder about all the loyalty points I have racked up on my rather athletic credit card. I don't think I even know how many there are on it. I don't think any of us really knows. We probably don't even realise when they accumulate. And when the credit card co. sweeps it off like the annual clean-ups of roadside garbage heaps. So that we can start the accumulation all over again; again like the roadside garbage heaps.
I checked the credit card website and saw a neat catalogue of what all I can redeem it for. And looking at the the exhilarating list of things I don't need, I realised it's so easy for them to add 'Charity" to the many categories of what you can redeem. Even found a place for it. You could have "Charity" right before "Glamour & Skincare". Fits in rather appropriately; both alphabetically and conscientiously.
Or if one wants to make it more philosophical and symbolic; you could put it under the heading "Soul". And pray that some poor damsel, crushed under the weight of her perfume and her socialite obligations of attending page3 parties, doesn't click on it to get a spa voucher.
But coming back to the loyalty points, why doesn't every bank give you the option of donating these unused points? Why can't defaulting on redeeming them mean that they will be automatically donated to charity?
They could. But would they?
So if anyone reading this knows anyone in a bank, can you please ask them? Maybe they never thought of it. But hey, it's not too late.
My apologies to the Mumbai Community Card founders, if this is encroaching on their concept. But if it's truly for the community, they should be ecstatic if some credit card does let you redeem your soul.

Give this a moment

A world of paper

SCRIBE MUNDO DE PAPEL from ladies on Vimeo.

a story in sand