Goodbye 2K5, Welcome 2K6

As the year end approaches, i am filled with feelings of nostalgia. This is the time when i take some time off from my regular routine to think about what i have achieved in the current year and what i want to do the following year. Almost every year, i end up realizing that New Years resolution is something which changes as the year progresses, just like the policies of BJP or BCCI selectors!

Personally, 2005 has been an awesome year for me. It went on pretty smooth without much hiccups. There was a good amount of learning during the first half of the year and an equal amount of unlearning during the second half ! I learnt swimming, thanks to Love Elephant's "What the Hell" philosophy. I just hope i get to swim regularly next year. This was also the year when i touched my 100th post. Quite an acheievement :) I also made some crucial decisions this year.

Wishing you all a fun filled 2006, Hakuna Matata!

Thought for New Year Eve:

Save Water, Drink Beer !

Learn German in 5 minutes!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

Handsfree

Recently i had the pleasure of using handsfree set for my mobile. I have to admit my ignorance on handsfree sets here. When i got this "headphone" accessory along with my mobile, i was under the impression that it can be used only as a headphone for the FM radio. I never really got the time or interest to explore more on the that one meter cord. A fortnight ago, i asked Love Elephant whether my "headphone" can double up as handsfree. He gave me a bad stare and gave me the gyan behind that handsfree accessory. I joined millions of other handsfree users from last Sunday, when i used my handsfree set to talk to my parents(sigh, Does this slightly remind you of A.G.Bell and "Watson i need you?"). I should say i was delighted to use that, as i can always switch to my phone calls while listening to the radio! Also, i read somewhere that it shields the brain from electromagnetic radiation, as one need not keep the mobile close to their head, while speaking to others. Well, i notice lot of people now lot of "handsfree junta" keep their mobile in their waist belt or trouser pocket, wont it affect some other vital body part??

Just curious, from what i have seen in the last 2-3 years, women use mobile phones more often than men. But i hardly find any lady using handsfree set(maybe 1 out of 100 mobile users?), any guesses why?

Now Playing: "Veerapandi Kottayile"- A.R.Rahman

Aaru

It was yet another dull gloomy Sunday in Bangalore, when four blokes decided to meet and go for some movie. Love elephant, ZZ, Abha ( A friend of mine whose nick name sounds like the awesome Swedish Band) and yours truly met at Krishna Kafe for Lunch. As usual, Abha tried his best to convince us why a Hindi movie is a better Sunday afternoon retreat than Tamil movie. In his usual style, he highlighted only the pluses of the movie "Ek Ajnabee", never even hinted the major minus point- Amitabh Bachan. Well, here i need to explain that me and LE consider Big B to be a movie-goer's repellant for various unknown reasons! Why does every goddamn movie feature AB? Anyway, Abha couldn't convince us and he walked out of the clique with a heavy heart.

After two rounds of Snooker, LE and ZZ planned to watch Aaru, featuring Surya and Trisha.Honestly, I was in no mood for a movie that day, i was about to head back, when the great LE started his emotional speech of how ZZ travelled 10+ kms just to visit both of us ,watch a movie and have lotsa fun! He even mentioned that i will be missing a masterpiece if i do not accompany him. I fell for the trap and all three of us decided to watch the action.

We then headed towards the movie theatre that screened Aaru and got black tickets(well, it was much cheaper than the regular ones in PVR/multiplex). The movie started with such jazzy graphics that LE said it was a possible Oscar nominee for this year. After first 5 minutes of the movie, the opinion reversed ! Here is a movie that escaped the eyes(rather ears?) of the censor board, the entire screenplay was punctuated with pure tamil swear words! Almost every character in the movie uttered #@#$%, !##!%&, !@#$%^&* etc at the end of every sentence! In fact, certain sentences were made up entirely of swear words :) At the end of every fight scene(there were lots of these well choreographed fights), Trisha appears, sheds tears and voila there is a song! Vadivelu comedy sucked badly in this movie. The hero and his other gang did a better comedy compared to Vadivelu. The songs weren't great either! This is perhaps 11th or 12th movie with a very similar story line and i am ashamed to admit that i have watched 7 or 8 of them !

Overall, Aaru- Duck out !

Now playing: Dead Horse by GnR

Is Google God?

Of late, i am reading/hearing so much about the impact of search engines, specifically the brainchild of Larry Page and Sergi Brin. While I was reading "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, i came across this interesting piece:

Says Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace, a new Wi-Fi provider: "If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too.

Very true indeed !!

Then today morning, while i was trying my best to while away some time, i overheard my colleague speaking on phone, he was spelling his name to someone(probably to some tele marketing bloke),
" ...yes, I as in India, N as in Needle, G as in ....as in.... Google !"

Where is God?