Constant of Change

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to the Parliament of South Africa, on 3 February 1960 in Cape Town made a speech.

The speech acquired its name from a now-famous quotation embedded in it. Macmillan said:

The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.

I have been an errant blogger and not a very good one. I don't intend to change that.

For I am no blogger. I am or fancy myself to be a writer. I intend to continue to honour my promise to no one in particular and experiment with the blog.

But from here onwards, it shall predominantly be a voice, a thought or that oh-so-itchy obscure cultural reference.

Over this year, however it may be, I shall try to be constant through this change. I will grow bored eventually but I shall persevere to preserve this promise, to be true to myself.

You know that whistle intro to The Scorpions' Wind of Change. Yes that. I shall try to be that.

However the need to end on a joke persists, no resolution ipsum.

A TO Z

LARGER VERSION

I had time. The idea was germinating for quite some time now. It didn't take long. But I am not much of a videogame enthusiast.
Picked Meraj and Nishant's fertile, idle brains and manufactured this.

Identify the alphabet and drop it in the comments.

Week-a-pedia

Truth is for suckers, Johnny boy

Charlie Sheen as Charlie Sheen in Being John Malkovich.
I guess he is finding out now. Get your act together, man!

I saw Being John Malkovich. If you think Inception is cool, Being John Malkovich is a definite recommendation. It does not have the snazzy story-telling, the flawless action sequences and the mind-numbing tension. In fact, it does not need all those.
After watching it, my head is no longer the safe place I thought it was.

Samhain is a Gaelic festival held on October 31–November 1. The Irish name Samhain is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". The West usually calls it Halloween.

Google has put up a Halloween themed doodle or it will soon. This brings me to my favourite Halloween themed picture ever.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. I heard it today. I have been enlightened.

I ran into a couple of older Doods, at a xerox place. They had week-old beards, cigarettes idly lounging between their lips, making xerox copies of classical sheet music to play on guitars and basking in a peculiar air of 'coolness'.
I was xeroxing a final year project report.

I asked one of the guys(or was it uncle?) what they were doing with the sheet music. He said 'We are taking xeroxes'. Never felt more lame.

Finally, in my project presentation I was asked ''Why your product?''
I replied with Thomas L. Friedman's classic quote

The only reason for a new product is to make people's lives more productive, more comfortable or more fun

She said, ''This is not the right time to use a quote''.

Oh, hum. College profs- can't live with them, can't bear them.

i, zombie

They say when the day comes, the dead shall rise from their graves and walk the earth
I say that the day has passed us by; For are we not all dead?

I go to work, pleased at what a big man i am; Scorn for the beggar who soils my trousers at the junction
I like it when she falls and hurts her knee; I love it when I trip her in the rush

I know no emotion, I see no pain
We move on like happy dead men

Content in our vacant lives; Observing all with our empty eyes, seeing none
The laughter of an innocent child, the call of the wild mean nothing to me

I get home, I wash my hands
Get rid of all human contact, glue in to the network

The man died on the street; I am happy my shirt is clean
The woman was bereft in her sorrow, I m just glad for more money tomorrow

Inside me lies a forlorn kid seeking for approval, looking for a nod of assurance
Encased in my hollow shell of morality; i seek solace in mortality

We talk of killing all the time, while time kills us all the time; softly, gently, ravenously
Next morning I wake up; mumble and stumble out of bed,

unshaven, bloodshot eyes, phlegmatic; scared the kid says "he, zombie"

10 Signs that You Are a Douchebag. Yes, You!

1. You spend most of your time online correcting spelling errors without ever contributing anything substantive to the conversation.

2. You ask for the 'manager' when you realize the 8Rs. vada pav you ordered has a hair in it.

3. The hair in the aforementioned vada pav is your own. You owe your luxuriant locks to the latest fad in the cosmetic industry.

3. You comment on Facebook status updates before reading the entire post. And you always begin comments with LOL.

4. You keep complaining about how there is nothing to watch on TV, yet the only programs you do watch are CID and Rahul ka Swayamvar.

5. You are Rahul.

6. You are on TV. The Lead in the latest Saas Bahu cryathon.

7. You wear sunglasses indoors, and at night.

8. You drive a Phorun car but never have enough money to get a full tank of gas. 

9. There is no room in your Phorun car because it is full of speakers. And these speakers drive the car by creating eardrum shattering resonant vibrations.

10. And when your speakers do this, Your neck moves back and forth & You go 'dhup-chik dhupchik dhup-chik..'

Pic ME!

''No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. '' - John Donne

A very interesting observation that one.

Especially in context of ''life'' today. Or more correctly social life. The presence of this technological ether all around us has been criticized by many. They have their arguments, some of which include lack of human contact, kids changing into couch potatoes and so on.

I believe no one really cares enough anyway. The need to socialize is ingrained in most individuals in a society. This need also tends to manifest itself with the urge to express oneself.

What better to do so than with photography?
There is a very famous and oft quoted Chinese proverb that says, 'A picture speaks a thousand words.'
SO true.

Apart from a few notable exceptions, almost everyone you know has a phone. And what better way to express yourself than clicking your way through mundane life with your trusty mobile camera alongside you.
Granted, you don't have much options in the tech department. What with scratchy lenses, inappropriate resolutions and in general suckiness of cell phone cams, it is no wonder that the expressionists are befuddled.

Amidst this backdrop, Tata DOCOMO has launched Alcatel OneTouch Net phone to help you share life as you live it. With its 2MP camera and social networking features, it allows you to express yourself. And that too real quick. So, go and grab your chance.

After all, a picture taken with this phone speaks two hundred thousand words.

One Crazy Thing

A friend of mine recently asked me if there was one crazy thing in my life that I wanted to do. I was sitting on a balcony. I gave her a stock reply saying there was no such thing. Frankly, I am in the business of looking smart. There was nothing else I could have said. Well, actually I did say something.

I gave away my real answer by looking at the ledge for the briefest instance.

The craziest thing I have ever wanted to do – was jump from that ledge, 4 floors above the ground. It seems crazy in most human senses. All I wanted was to feel the soft, sweet wind kissing me gently, leaving them tousled, moving towards the Earth to rest in her loving embrace. An embrace that has such a finality that there is no adjective to describe it other than dead. And then there is death herself. Cold as a ice, waiting like a temptress. Indeed, alluring to some.

Man’s fixation with the Lady in Black is legendary. Many great literary works and artistic endeavours have been inspired by The Great Unknown. Be it John Donne’s timeless Divine Sonnet X that boldly drags Death from its pedestal to Longfellow’s The Reaper and the Flowers that tries optimism.  Death inspired In Memoriam by Tennyson, one of the finest pieces of English literature of times bygone. More recently, W.H. Auden produced ‘Funeral Blues’, one of the contemporary classics and my personal favourite. Another interesting poem is The Ballade of Suicide by G.K. Chesterton which takes a rather unconventional view to Death.

Death fascinates us. The idea of an unknown surely must tempt people (or is it just me?). We fear it. Most of us do. Death can have a pretty polarizing effect on people. Admittedly, I haven’t seen my share of the world as yet. But, I have had three light brushes. Not entirely satisfying for forming impressions. After all isn’t it just another experience? The fact that it is invariably the last one adds to the allure.

On November 22, 1963, along with Aldous Huxley, John F. Kennedy and C. S. Lewis arrived at the end of their life. The only reason for the euphemism is what Lewis said regarding Death.

Personally, I admire Aldous Huxley. On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular".

He famously said once, “A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor”.

“If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ''wandering to find home,'' why should we not look forward to the arrival?”

Both the above quotes capture humankind’s general attitude towards Death – to get over it believing that there is better to come.

But the third guy, John F. Kennedy, said it better, “The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of the final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy”.

There are many more experiences to be had. Many more crazy things to do. Miles to go before I slip on some banana peel.

Maybe, I won’t go over the ledge, after all.

Interesting, Huh?

1. John 3:16 gets all the fame but consider a few of its 'interesting' cousins like -

John 3:14
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life

Luke 22:7
The Last Supper

2. Metro Station is an American pop band, formed in Los Angeles, California.
In late 2006, the band signed a recording contract with Columbia/Red Ink.
They are best known for their Top 10 Billboard hit single "Shake It" from their self-titled debut album.
Their co-frontman Trace Cyrus is the older half-brother of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus and Mason Musso is the older brother of Mitchel Musso from Hannah Montana.
Those two met on the sets of Hannah Montana after their respective mums introduced them to each other.
One music group to look out for in the years to come.

3.Pearls Before Swine is an American comic strip written and illustrated by Stephan Pastis, formerly a lawyer in San Francisco, California.
It is Pastis' fifth attempt to syndicate a comic strip, the first four including Rat, The Infirm, and Bradbury Road.
It chronicles the daily lives of four anthropomorphic animals, Pig, Rat, Zebra, and Goat. Although created in 1997, it was not published until 2000, when United Feature Syndicate ran it on its website.
In one word, it is awesome. If you don't believe me, see above. Or below

4. I saw Donnie Darko yesterday(or was it the day before that?). Honestly I can't remember.
That movie falls into the category of movies that you either love or you hate. There is no in-between. This brings me to the following topic -

An ontological paradox is a paradox of time travel that questions the existence and creation of information and objects that travel in time. It is very closely related to the predestination paradox and usually occurs at the same time.
In simpler terms, an object is brought back in time, and it becomes the object that was initially brought back in time in the first place.

That means D.D. goes through the wormhole at the end, emerges in the present at ETA 28:06:42:12 to replace his old self. This time instead of walking off into the night he stays home, in bed. So, that the airplane propeller falls on his bedroom and kills him thus preventing any of the intial 94 minutes of the film from happening and also preventing the end of the world.
So, does that mean I never really saw the movie.

Note: If he had walked off, we could just watch the 94 mins. in an infinite loop till apocalypse!

A few examples of ontological paradoxes -

• A man who does not know who his grandfather is goes back in time to find out who his grandfather was. He goes to the bar where his grandmother says she met him, where he meets a woman. After several drinks, he goes to her room and has unprotected sexual intercourse with her. When he wakes up he discovers it is his grandmother he was with, becoming his own grandfather.
  

• In the climax of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione travel back in time to prevent the execution of a Hippogriff, which they witnessed only by hearing the chop of an axe (and to save their friend Sirius). They hide the Hippogriff, and the executioner, furious at the disappearance, swings his axe at the fence, creating the sound they heard previously. Harry is also eager to discover the identity of the mysterious stranger he saw earlier standing across the lake, casting a spell that saved his life. Then he realizes he was the one who did it. He is able to cast the somewhat difficult spell, mainly because he knows he can do it, having seen his future self do it.

• In the episode "Out of Time" of Heroes, Hiro Nakamura spreads the stories of 'Takezo Kensei' in the past, only to learn them as a young boy and eventually go back in time to spread them again in the first place.

5. Confucius says so much, these days that people forget or don't know Zhuangzi.

In general, Zhuangzi's philosophy is skeptical, arguing that life is limited and the amount of things to know is unlimited. To use the limited to pursue the unlimited, he said, was foolish. Our language and cognition in general presuppose a dao to which each of us is committed by our separate past—our paths. Consequently, we should be aware that our most carefully considered conclusions might seem misguided had we experienced a different past.

Zhuangzi's thought can also be considered a precursor of relativism in systems of value. His relativism even leads him to doubt the basis of pragmatic arguments (that a course of action preserves our lives) since this presupposes that life is good and death bad.

In the fourth section of "The Great Happiness" (chapter 18), Zhuangzi expresses pity to a skull he sees lying at the side of the road. Zhuangzi laments that the skull is now dead, but the skull retorts, "How do you know it's bad to be dead?"

The point i am trying to make is you can easily win arguments of the type "How Do You Know That-"

Zhuangzi and Huizi were strolling along the dam of the Hao Waterfall when Zhuangzi said, "See how the minnows come out and dart around where they please! That's what fish really enjoy!"

Huizi said, "You're not a fish — how do you know what fish enjoy?"
Zhuangzi said, "You're not me, so how do you know I don't know what fish enjoy?"
Huizi said, "I'm not you, so I certainly don't know what you know. On the other hand, you're certainly not a fish — so that still proves you don't know what fish enjoy!"
Zhuangzi said, "Let's go back to your original question, please.

You asked me how I know what fish enjoy — so you already knew I knew it when you asked the question. I know it by standing here beside the Hao."

Ramblin'

God, just my second month of trying to blog and I can't even think of anything to write!
So, I am going to do the real 'blog' thing.

First up, one of the best collection of signboards that you will find on the Internet,
Funniest top 10 signs
Check that out. I personally liked the Most Obvious One.

The past couple of weeks, I have been trying to find a movie called "Glengarry Glen Ross".

Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1992 independent film, adapted by David Mamet from his acclaimed 1984 Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play of the same name. The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate agents and how they become desperate when the corporate office sends a representative to "motivate" them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired. The film, like the play, is notorious for its use of profanity, leading the cast to jokingly refer to the film as "Death of a Fuckin' Salesman".^[1] The actual title of the film comes from the names of two of the real estate developments being peddled by the salesmen characters (Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms).

No Luck yet. But any of you loyal readers find it, give me a shout.

Wystan Hugh Auden (21 February 1907–29 September 1973), who signed his works W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen.
"Funeral Blues" or "Stop all the clocks" is a poem first published in 1936 by W. H. Auden.
I first heard it in "Four Weddings And A Funeral"

Here is to one of the greatest poets of the English language that you may never hear of -

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Real reason for remembering him now is the alarming number and significance of deaths in 2009.
Here is the complete list - Death09.

Brittany Murphy died yesterday at 1800 GMT. I watched 8 Mile a while back and Happy Feet yesterday (6th time). I found out today.
Man, life is sure screwed up.
She still missed the magic figure, though.
33
Bruce Lee & Jesus H. Christ.
No kidding. Both died at the age of 33. (The 2nd one is more of a probability)

Do you ever get the feeling that this world is not really what it looks like?
I get that a lot of times. But not the deep philosophical feeling.
I am talking about the superficial, empty feeling you get when you see something really crazy and twisted in this puppet play.

Sometimes I think we are just some high-er school ubër nerds' Science project. He (Could it be a She?) just decided on a whim to add a little soda bicarb to the classic high school Volcano exhibit and Hey, Presto! - Earth in all its heathen glory.
Don't get me wrong.
I am not complaining about my life or anybody else.
It's just that I sometimes wish that there is some method to THE madness.
And also secretly pray that the kid does not get tired of us and give us up for something else
(which may have already happened)
OR even worse, decides to trash Project Earth completely...

Do You?

Shorts #2

Convoluted

How I Met Your Father. Ted Weds Barney.

Skynet Is Powered By Google Search.

Epitaph: He Loved The Net. 410.

Alfred Leaves Wayne Manor. Alleges Sexual Harassment.

Pi To e: It Sucks To be Square.

E-Shakespeare: To 7 Or Not To 7

God To Earthlings: “Cry More, Suckers!”

Old McDonald To Sue Ronnie For Copyright Infringement.

Last Man On Earth: How Do I Jerk Off?

Poetic

One of the greatest pieces of poetic fiction ever written
from S.T. Coleridge's
The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

And a not so poetic one

"C#":

Just like C plus plus
With garbage collection and
Some more dot net stuff

Shorts #1

self-explanatory

New genes demand expression -- third eye.

WORLD ends tomorrow. See you on Monday.

Epitaph: He loved his pet tiger more than himself.

Superman revolts: Won't wear undies outside.

Big Bang at eleven.See you there.

Bush told the truth. Hell froze.

Nevertheless, he tried a third time.

Aliens To Earthlings: “Cry no more, noobs!”

Thought I was right. I wasn't.

Lost, then found. Too bad.

Guest Post

Our guest of the day is the esteemed Dr. Camelot Sweetbread. Recognized in academic circles as an accomplished gambler, gastronome and scientist extraordinaire. He is currently visiting us for something called 'diplomatic immunity' and to deliver a lecture at The Straight Thinker's Coffee Meet in the city on "The House Fly's Migratory Patterns". So, get ready for a post on awesome randomness and please forgive the ramblings.


Firstly, for the newcomers I, Dr. Camelot, PhD, D.So and Fellow of the Order of the Peahen welcome you. Any boys reading this should try not to be baffled by the obtuse definitions and magnificent oration of My Highness. Girls should not try to read this. In my country of Rumcokeistania, we do not allow them female to read. You people should think about that.

Let us begin with a little Englis, yes. To those of you who say it is not Englis, I say ''In your mouths and noses" ! To even write that incorrect spelling is a crime.
But I am here to teach and so here goes it..

Some things you have to know -

Antarctica :
It is a place covered with white cloth in the south. It was found by the penguins through the guidance of a dancing Elijah Wood. I may be wrong but I think there is a McDonald's there. Some Nice seal burgers they got there.

Africa :
It is the place with the no light bulbs. There is no place like it they say. It was found by the Toto in 1982. People with diamonds live there. Also Leonardo di Caprio lived there. Haven't seen him for a long time. Never went there either.

Ozone :
The place in the Englis Alphabet between 'N' and 'P'.
And yes it has a hole in between it. Apparently that hole leads to Australia

Australia :
It is the place where ''I-Don't-Know'' lives. It is a land of very weird people.
Also Hugh Jackman exists there.
In Australia they say happy as this "(-:" .

That is all for today. I am afraid you cannot handle this much awesomeness.

Till next time then dC:) "The Giant Forehead With Hat"

PS. : I Don't Love You. Not One Bit.
Instead watch "The Revenge Of El Burro". Awesome movie.