Back to being a teenager
In precisely 2 days time i will go back to being a teenager. No wondering where i will be having my next meal. No laundry to do myself. No haggling with the maid to get menial jobs done. No status reports to the manager. All i have to go is sit in a room, watch tv, keep coming up with gourmet requests and bask in my parents affection. Absolute bliss if you ask me! Obviously somethings will have to be sacrificed for the same like booze and late night roundezvous for a few days,but what the heck, that aint too big a price to pay for a holiday in the real sense of the word.
By the way, for the uninitiated, it means that i will be going home. And home is in Delhi. And Delhi is *the* city to be in during the Diwali season. Its almost as if you can sense it in the atmosphere, that the festival is approaching. And to add to it my parents and i have also planned a nice vacation to this place called Binsar which is a located in the foothills of the Himalayas in the Kumaon region of Uttaranchal. Its an idyllic vacation spot with no tourists to speak off, only a well preserved nature park to boast off, which houses quite a few leopards, panthers and is supposed to be a bird watchers haven. I will be staying in one of those bhoot-bangla type government guest house with only the chowkidar to keep us company and regale us with his stories. This place apparently has no direct electricity connection and subsists only on a generator which is switched off at 7pm everyday. The rest house is located on the edge of a lake which is the only watering hole in miles, so hopefully i should be able to see quite a bit of wildlife. Also the Himalayas will be just an arm's distance away so i hope to keep my camera quite busy. Going with my parents means that i will be pretty much left on my own which is a wonderful thing if you're in the midst of such natural beauty. Man i can hardly wait to get on my jet plane!!
Current Music : Atreyu - Bleeding MascaraPS. If you want more info on Binsar, try this link
http://travels.ndtv.com/xtopspot.asp?topspot=Binsar&id=21
Outlook Traveller had a very nice article on places to stay in while you're in the Kumaon region of Uttranchal which is here . Makes for a very nice read.
Contain,repress ...
Think and think hard.
Try and come up with the last day in your life when somebody didn’t try and con you out of your or your dad’s ( ..or your mum’s for that matter, let’s not be chauvinistic here) hard earned money.
Umm, ok ok take 5 more seconds..
….
…
….
When was it…adolescence, kindergarden probably, right?
Not a fucking day goes by when I try and live my life and I don’t have to fight a battle, a real battle, to hold on to the money that rightfully belongs to me. Be it the cop trying to book you for some bullshit, or that sniveling autodriver who perennially will have to return empty from the destination that you’re going to, like you’re taking them to Mars or something. Hell, the worst are those freaking Credit Card salesmen who call up 5 times a day and offer a free Credit Card to you. Boy do I get scared when I here the word “free” nowadays. Its almost as if a shiver runs down my spine when they say they’re giving it to me for free. Wasn’t my last number change enough to throw them off my tracks?Where’s the catch? What am I missing? Which part of their gory connivance am I falling for? What in god’s name did I do to deserve this? Where’s the hidden charge, which will spring up on me, like Hobbes does so often on Calvin, on one bright sunny morning when I get a CC bill of some astronomical figure which will be neatly masqueraded as “Club Membership Fees”? What fucking club did I now become a member of…”The-nincompoops-who-fell-for-the-ol’-free-credit-card-trick Club” ?
You know, I somehow get this feeling that this will be stuff that people will be making Bollywood movies about in the year 2010 . In the 80s it was all about the loathsome Zamindaar who would eat bony, dhoti clad kisaans for breakfast,lunch and dinner while also trying his willy machinations on the village belle. Then came the 90s when the hero had to wage his epic battles against the corrupt, drug dealing, palm greasing, Mafiosi who always had the item girl by his side. Today is ruled by the RGV school of underworld concoctions with everybody double-crossing everybody and whoever else is left. The next big new idea is definitely going to be AB jr fighting the archetypical broken-english-speaking, back-of-the-neck-scratching, feet-shifting, dirty-jacket-wearing salesman who is trying to control his mind by selling him a free credit card. I can see it all. How AB jr will arrive from some nondescript town and make it big in Bangalore as a Software Engineer and make his cancer-stricken,bed-ridden, kyunki-saas-bhi-watching mother proud of her IIT educated son. Life will be a bed of roses till the day he gets the dreaded phone call and makes the life altering decision which will break his very soul and make him a slave of the big corporation out to achieve their goal of world dominance by enslaving the world with their “free” credit cards. The movie will obviously end with AB jr blowing up each every building of this corporation with Kareena Kapoor’s help. But after the soggy popcorn is over at the end of the movie , we simpletons will obviously go back to our conmen infested haven, knowing fully well that the autos we are traveling in have meters that show 1 and a half times the actual fare, that the cop at the corner, views us as nothing more than a wad of notes, that tomorrow when we get back to work, we will get a call again from the CC company offering us one more of their devilish schemes and that we, the spineless, can do nothing about it.
Current Music: SilverChair - Steam will Rise
My empire of dirt!
So we are in the midst of the great American consumer euphoria once again. Apple has unveiled what they are calling a "revolutionary" new product in the form of their 30 and 60 GB Video IPod. And the media is "all hail" again for the Apple product predicting heavy festival season buying for it. Just goes to show how the consumer is so easily misled by some great advertising and gaudy jingoism.
Dont get me wrong. I love the fundamentals of Apple as a company. They know how to catch the pulse of the market with some great products which though they never get right at the first attempt. Look at their erstwhile Newton handheld or how they have managed to prevent the Mac from being the superstar which it could have been. They have a great design division which regularly has pushed the boundarys of product design. They had caught the fancy of the market with a really super cool new idea in the form of the Ipod. But their steadfast refusal to listen to their consumers might just help other also-rans in the current race to turn the tables on them.
The V Ipod definitely marks a move into the right direction for this company. Infact what i cannot understand is why it took so long for them to get a video version out when in fact such PVPs( Personal Video Players) as this genre of products is called have already been in existence for over 4 years now( I bet you didn't know that now did you!! Yup blame it on the myopic vision of the so called tech gurus who have never dared to look beyond the Ipod). The V Ipod does not still address the major grouse that all the Ipod owners have had since the beginning viz.
the fact that you cannot change the battery on the Ipod without effectively destroying the product. And feature-wise the Video IPod is not even in the same class as this beauty, the
Archos AV700 DVR, which is a true portable video player. I have owned an older version of this genre the Archos JukeBox Multimedia for about 2 years now and am quite a satisfied user. Yup and you can throw the Itunes software out of the window cuz after you have this baby with you you dont need to pay and download any music vids from anywhere cuz this player allows you to hook up to any TV/VCR/VCD Player/Comp/DVD player and directly record content of it onto its harddrive.Plus whats more is that it actually acts like the TIVO that we hear so much about in the sense that you can actually set a timer and connect it to your TV and this will automatically record content at the defined time slot. Plus no need of having specific software to connect to a comp for unlike the Ipod, the Archos will hook upto your machine as easily as a simple USB hard disk. Plus this device also comes in a monstrous 100 GB version. What century is the Video Ipod coming from!!
Infact, come to think of it, Apple might actually help companies like Archos and Samsung Yepp (which uses the MS Portable Media Centre platform) by turning the customer attention towards this hitherto neglected market. But lets see whether the American consumer, for once, can go beyond the coolness factor and get the really revolutionary product!
Current Music: Strapping Yound Lad - Shitstorm
A dead issue, don't wrestle with it, deaf ears are sleeping
Songs that should only be heard when the lights of the room are out and there is absolutely no other sound that you can hear. Full concentration is a must. A drink/smoke is an optional indulgence.
1. Staind -Epiphany
2. Pink Floyd - Us and Them
3. Pantera - Floods ( The second solo of this song just kills me. RIP Dimebag)
4. Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream
5. Queensryche - Silent Lucidity
6. Pearl Jam - I'm Open
7. Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
8. Alice in Chains - Nutshell
9. Them Clones - Awaken
10. SilverChair - Steam will Rise
11. Fuel - Shimmer
12*. Massive Attack - Protection
* Thanks to SamuraiJack for making me realise my omissions.
Current Music: Drowning Pool - Think
Who knows which is which...
Some posts at
Adi's and
SamuraiJack's blog made me go back to my Inbox and pick up this. Not that i get too many worthwhile things in my inbox, but this made a good read.
They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.
You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.
One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap.
Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.
You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender! Current Music : Il Nino - Te Amo
Acknowledgements
Found this nice collection of angst-ridden photos at Otep's official site. Has some nice pics if you're in that kinda mood.
http://www.otep.com/iami/index.asp?gal=added%206-19-2005&pic=8Current Music: Slipknot - Duality
No Getting Away
Back to work after a long weekend. The powers-that-be at my company had been generous enough to give us Monday off, in keeping with their Amreekan philosophy of trying to choose strategic enough dates in the year as holidays so that we get 3 day weekends. I love these Amreekan philosophies i tell you, they are a smart bunch of people.
And what did i do during these 3 days, you ask...well nothing much really, stayed at home for a long weekend after ages i think. No vacations to sunny, beachy places or green,enchanting forests, just lazing at home, sleeping my ass off on most days and splurging on things that i had been wanting for a long time. Paid a visit to the "music" stores in the city and managed to get a decent haul. Picked up 2 Drowning Pools albums namely " Desensitized" and "Sinner" both of which turned out to be surprisingly decent albums. The vocals on both their albums are really good, considering that this band at one point of time had lost its vocalist in some accident during Ozzfest.
I also picked up Machine Head's latest album "Through the Ashes of Empires" which has a bunch of blistering tracks on it like "Imperium" and "Bite the Bullet". Machine Head is a band that I have liked for a long long time primarily cuz of their unique industrial edged sound. This band, along with Fear Factory and Coal Chamber to an extent, have pioneered this sound/genre . While Coal Chamber has now disintegrated and Fear Factory are getting back up on their feet after a few disappointing albums, Machine Head has stayed true to its sound and has been forging industrial beauties, one after the other. I am hoping that this album can match the heights of "The Burning Red" ....high expectations i know but lets hope.
Sometime back i had also purchased this album titled "The Best of Mercyful Fate". It was my last ditch attempt at trying to appreciate Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. Many consider this guy, King Diamond, to be a god among vocalists, but frankly i have never liked him too much. He has a great vocal range, i agree, i mean he can really squeal like a banshee in heat, but that itself is not enough to make a great band. I have found their songs to be quite average on the whole and King Diamond's vocals to be very very repetetive. And this album has re-iterated this fact. No more experiments with Mercyful Fate. James Hetfield can go and preach about them to the world, but they arent for me.
More about my other weekend acquisitions in due course of time.
Current Music: Pantera - Strength Beyond Strength
