Month: December 2004

If you look carefully at the word resolution, it just means “resolve to do something”. No one ever said anything about that something being good. So, I plan to make 2005 the year of superficiality and self-centeredness. Without further ado, here are my resolutions for this new year.

– Since we’ve worked long and hard on our insides (and admittedly peaked), from now on we work on the outside. The deal will be to get trim and toned (whatever that means). There will be major hair related changes, head, face and body.

– Start learning a dance and pottery.

– Start/Join a band and/or get back to practicing/learning, in earnest, vocals/an instrument.

– Make recent investments on photography things worthwile. Actually read technical things and get better, rather than arbitrarily going out and taking pictures. Start shooting portraits of people. On a related note, fix up portion of studio to actually make it a studio. In other words, work on the “starving artist” image.

– Get done with classes and such so I’m a full fledged researcher sort with no real exam style deadlines, unless of course I go ahead with the masters in math as well.

– Work my way out of this creativity rut. In other words, finish at least one major creative project.
* at least one of four books,
* learn portrait photography (as mentioned above), meet hot wannabe model chick
* figure out how to realize the comic (whose pilot and first few slides are in my head and on drawing boards around the house),
* learn a form of animation (and I’m leaning toward stop-motion animation) and exploit it,
* frequent comedy clubs more, and not just as a patron.

– Needless to say, exploit all the above to boost my image, superficially.

– No donating a third of what I make. Because I am a person, and should have needs too. If not, I should fake them.

If you stay tuned, you will see how I fared with last years resolutions. Probably tomorrow, or something.

Since I don’t understand the concept of self restraint, or bankruptcy, I now own this.

I’m so glad this happened.

I was having some issues with her weight and general friendliness. I didn’t particularly peel through the rough exterior to get a peek at her sensitive insides. Though I prided myself at being able to ‘push all the right buttons’, she was a struggle from the get go. It always seemed like so much work to get the response I wanted, and even that seemed unnatural and forced.

I was, at points, beginning to question whether the initial attraction clouded the harsh reality, she just wasn’t right for me. But a most remarkable thing has happened over the past few days. We decided to use this time off to attempt to get closer. I just knew getting away for a long weekend and spending a lot of time together will turn things around. I got to hold her close in ways and do things I hadn’t imagined possible before. It felt perfect. I got to know so much more about her than I had over all the other time I’d spent with her.

I realise how into her I am. How much the ex doesn’t matter. How special it’s capable of being if the settings are right. I am quite certain she’s the one I want.

For now, anyway.

Did I say ‘her’ all along? I meant ‘it’, my new camera. The old one, though still insanely awesome in my heart, is dead. And so begins a new dawn.

Another day, another relationship.

(Yes, I am a geek. And I need a life.)

An earthquake of magnitude 8.9 on the Richter scale (read insane panic and horror) hit somewhere in the sea near north Indonesia. That would have been OK in itself, considering the lives of a few fishes aren’t the highest on my priority list right now, but it caused Tsunami waves crashing into parts of the continent. The current death toll is over 9000 people all over south Asia, over 2000 of that in India, and over 1600 of that in coastal Tamil Nadu (read home home).

From the BBC, in India,

“More than 2000 km of southern coast swamped by tidal waves, including states of Tamil Nadu — whose capital, Madras, was particularly badly hit … water came several kilometres inland.”

I am from Madras. I have family there, people living close to beaches.

“Early morning joggers along the beaches in Madras say huge columns of water surged towards the land without warning.”

I meditated at the beach every morning around sunrise for a good chunk of my life. And no, I don’t jog.

“A nuclear reactor in the state has been shut down after sea water entered an estate housing scientists.”

Yes, we’re semi-advanced, technically.

“Bodies of fishermen are said to be strewn on beaches along the 2000 km southern Indian coastline.”

I don’t know any fisher(wo)men personally.

I know you are probably waiting all eagerly for the conclusion of my earlier science history lesson, but you’ll have to wait a little bit more. This is just too easy. And oh, if you’re so inclined to celebrate such things, Merry Christmas.

A few days ago (I don’t really remember how few), the CEO of bazee (some small Indian online store thing that claims to have made it big since being bought by ebay) was arrested (and later released on bail) for peddling porn. Since I am sure, with no real research, that the Indian laws on distributing porn are nebulous and vague, it saw no real difference between this man actually peddling anything and some random person using his site’s services to auction/sell porn.

Was any of this the site’s parent company’s CEO’s responsibility? Did he deserve to be arrested? Who cares, none of this is really the interesting bit, not by a long shot.

The video in question was apparently this THIRTY-SEVEN SECOND clip involving a couple of high-school (seniors?) sweethearts at Delhi Public School pleasuring themselves orally. The deal here being, they’re not legally-old-enough and the video itself was taken without her knowledge.

A FULL THIRTY-SEVEN SECOND clip.

This bloke shot his activities with his sweetheart on a PHONE and distributed the content via MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING. Here I am, in a “first world” country and everything, and the phone services aren’t that advanced, for any affordable plan. My god-damn phone can’t take a clip that lasts more than 7-8 seconds, even when I GIVE IT A TON OF RAM. And it looks CRAPPY. And I sure as hell can’t “magically send” it to anyone to save my life. Nor will they know what it’s about even if I could, SINCE IT LOOKS CRAPPY.

Seriously now, A FULL THIRTY-SEVEN seconds. Doesn’t anybody take the time to savour anything anymore? But come to think of it, that sounds about right.

Men have issues.

Like unnaturally weak jaws.

Ok, seriously, for real, now. Yes, this was taken without some poor girl’s knowledge, and there is a good chance her life (and the guy’s, and the IIT K dude who sold it, and bazee’s image, and bazee’s CEO) is going to be plagued by said incident. No really, on a more serious note, who cares? Stupid people should be mocked at. If you don’t want to be caught doing something, you don’t do it. Or be smart about it. Like LOOK AROUND. Check out the guy’s phone while you’re checking him out.

I am not really this mean a person, just WTF is going on here? After some thought, it was quite clear.

I always figured I was from some place which frowned upon simple public displays of affection, like holding hands. The thoughts/realizations that things are really extremely different and I was probably “just so undeserving” that I didn’t get to experience squat? got to me. At least I know I wouldn’t have used someone like so, capable phone or not.

And that was the only semi-serious thing in this entire post.

During random browsing, I came across the most amusing ad I’ve seen in a long time. It’s nice to see there are still people out there left with their creativity and a sense of humour.

Taken without permission from Ignited Minds.

Or I’m broken beyond repair – Part I of II.
Take your pick of post title, choice is good.

— Circa 1543, a then partially paralyzed Polish priest and mathematician, Nicolaus Copernicus published “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres). It was the birth of modern astronomy, and the first bold work which presented the hypothesis that the earth (and we) needn’t be at the centre of the universe, and everything else did not revolve around us. That we were, in fact, not particularly special in any way. He did this at a time when such statements would be decreed heretical, and the church would burn people at the stake making them.

— Circa 1623, a then blind Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei published “Dialogo sopra li due massimi sistemi del mondo: Ttolemaico, e Ccopernicono” (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican). It was a work that forcefully asserted that the (above) Copernican view on things was not just a hypothesis, but showed it to be the truth. He was “vehemently suspected of heresy” for proving and teaching these ideas, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was also forced to renounce his beliefs publicly, on his knees with his hands on the Bible. This work, among other things, anticipated Isaac Newton’s laws of motion, and led Galileo to be later regarded as the father of modern science.

— In 1618, a deeply religious German astronomer with a childhood filled with much pain and anxiety, Johannes Kepler, finished “Harmonice Mundi” (Harmonies of the world) – a series of 5 books which covered music, astrology, philosophy, theology and mysticism. Arguably his most significant achievement was the realization that the planets moved in elliptical, not circular, orbits. It included his third law, which, not an apple, led Newton to discover the law of gravitation. Previously, in 1611, he’d published “Dioptrices”, which forever changed the course of optics. In spite of all this, he was never revered, famous or rich. He was always in financial difficulty, and had to hop skip and jump between several countries because of religious upheaval and civil unrest. Kepler had dealt with fat, simpleminded wives, the early deaths of several of his children, and having to defend an eccentric mother who was nearly burnt at the stake for practicing witchcraft.

And so, being considerate to the members of our audience with ADD, I end part one of this monologue. To see where this surprisingly informative yet seemingly pointless thing is heading, you’ll have to tune into this same space sometime soon, probably tomorrow.