Photography

There is something wonderful about photography.

There’s something about photography that makes it more something from something than the music, painting, sculpture... While obviously not literal creation from nothing, in all these arts, there’s an obvious element of deliberately forming a blank slate. A photograph, in contrast, is not a creation from nothing but a recording of something else. That is, perhaps, why so many people don’t know quite how to react to photography as an art, especially so-called “straight” photography — photography that is, in some sense, of the world as it is, rather than of a world deliberately constructed for the photograph. When the photograph is heavily manipulated, or depicts something constructed specifically for the photograph, we can immediately recognize a sort of creation from nothing. In straight photography, there’s no part of the creative process that is quite like sculpting or writing.

Given all this, I can’t exactly explain where the sense of satisfaction from creating a straight photograph comes from. I think many professional photographers feel the same, judging by interviews I’ve read, in which a jumble of different suggestions and theories are put forth, but none of them seem to capture exactly where that sense of satisfaction comes from. It exists, but in a sense it’s different from the satisfaction that comes from a "from nothing" creation like a drawing.

Trapped in the Mind

"Is there no way out of the mind?" ~ Sylvia Plath

I wish I wasn't so dreamy whenever I get time. There are some things which don't have answers.

Why is man on earth?
Why are humans so petty? Why can't we all just work together on the things that matter?
Can't you be both happy and informed at the same time?
Why does thinking too much make you feel insignificant?

Can I be younger again?

BBC Booklist

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here

bold = read
italic = owned but unread.

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series, JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. The Bible (not in its entirety)
7. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
11. Little Women, Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
13. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
15. Rebecca, Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch, George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
34. Emma, Jane Austen
35. Persuasion, Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières
39. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
41. Animal Farm, George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney, John Irving
45. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
50. Atonement, Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
52. Dune, Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
62. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
72. Dracula, Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses, James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal, Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession, AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web, EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection, Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
94. Watership Down, Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
100. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

I think thats 19/100. Would have been more with a few of Wodehouse's in there.
How many have you read?

Kerala cleans up Indian Cricket Again - IPL

The Shock

When Rendezvous Sports consortium first won the bid for the Kochi IPL team, back in late March, there was jubilation around Kerala on getting an IPL franchise. I was a bit worried though. On the dias with Mr.Modi, Shailendra Gaekwad looked a bit out of sorts and there was a real lack of harmony on the stage.

Rendezvous had just upstaged fat bids from known entities like Adani and Videocon (who has suddenly hit a cash cow, the way they're spending money on ads) by bidding for the unfashioned Kochi city for a very fashionable $333.33. For that kind of money, they could've bought an NBA franchise!

There was a very clear feeling of surprise all across the board. Even in Kerala, where the local newspapers and channels normally latch on to anything even remotely Malayalee, the press had no clue this was coming. Looking through the previous days Malayala Manorama (which is very good at finding Malayalee connections to every damn thing) had not got wind of this bid. They had mentioned Adani, Videocon, Sahara and few others as the ones leading the fray.

The Awe

This was Shashi Tharoor's first ploy. And it worked wonders. It was quite obvious from the start of the woo-ing process of the IPL bid that Shashi Tharoor would be backing any bid that would come for the Kochi team. Initially, there was interest from the Malayalam Film industry through Mohan Lal and Priyadarsan. But when they gawked at the expected bid value and left the fray.

All was quiet up until the day of the bid.

It was only after the ruccus surrounding the bid had died down that people got to know who was behind the Rendezvous Group. And boy was that a surprise. The people were :

1. Elite Group -
A company from Kerala that had been running a diversified business with hardly anything to do with cricket. They have a cheesy website too.

2. Anchor Earth
The mother-ship of the Anchor Switches brand. They're based out of Gujrat/Mumbai.

3. Rosy Blue Diamond
Its a fairly large Diamond company based out Mumbai/Gujrat. They obviously had a lot of money! They potentially have a Dubai connection here.

4. Gaekwads
The name Rendezvous is theirs. They're a fairly big and not so scrupulous business house based out of Maharashtra and the ones with (possibly) the deepest pockets of them all.

5. Shri ram Ship Scrapping Company
What is this guy doing as part of the bid?!

There were others involved in the bid, like a few real estate developers, but thats another discussion entirely. No one was prepared for this kind of a bid coming from this motley bunch of business-men, not even Modi.

The big men of the BCCI, all politics no cricket here, weren't best pleased about it. I'm surprised Shashi Tharoor didn't get wind of this and contact Tehelka and pull off a candid camera stunt. Kerala has historically been a bad place for Indian Cricket - reputation wise. The match fixing scandals of 2000 were broken in the Taj Residency in Kochi.

Modi was a man shown in the media (till then) as a great businessman and smart fellow who got IPL to where it was at the time. Shashi Tharoor meanwhile had no friends in politics and had already been in the middle of a number of silly controversies. The timing of what was to be brought up couldn't have been better.

The Card

The media got wind (I wonder how) of a Ms.Sunanda Pushkar who Tharoor was to marry exactly in the middle of Dr.Manmohan Singh's tour of the Americas. Manmohan was the one who had earlier laughed off silly accusations against Tharoor in the "cattle-class" controversy. The leading man was away and the media had a week to have a field day.

The pictures of Tharoor with Sunanda (which had magically been found only at that time) was quickly added on to the news that Sunanda had a "free equity" in Rendezvous Sports. Interesting that the usage was coined anew. I can't find any references to what "free equity" means. But the use of the word 'free' sent the media into a tizzy as they drew up situations where Sunanda was getting free money as a proxy for Tharoor. Well played Mr.Modi. Great tweet.

The reality of that situation is quite simple. Sunanda Pushkar was hired as the brand manager of the company and she was to get a share of any value added to the company as a result of her work. Its a common practice in start-up companies where you will have a part of your salary pegged to the overall performance of the company. The term is called "sweat equity".

It became quite clear that Modi was under tremendous pressure to kick the Kochi bid out with a view of bringing in a more lucrative state (like Gujrat?) into the fray. The PM wouldn't be able to support Tharoor much longer and he would have to step down. The news channels were quite literally baying for his blood. The less said about Times Now the better. But on his way out he brought to the notice of the Income Tax department that they haven't been doing their jobs right.

How could it be that in 3 years someone could buy a fleet of S-class Mercs and a private jet and NOT be investigated by the I-T department for wrongdoing? As it turns out there is (unsurprisingly) a web of inner dealings relating to IPL franchisees. The documents of which are all safely stowed away in Mr.Modi's house. Modi also owns part of the Rajasthan Royals franchisee through a benamee (proxy).

I really don't care if Kochi gets an IPL team or not. I'm just happy that the gang which runs this is getting investigated at least. I don't expect much to happen. Modi is strongly backed by the Pawar lobby and he'll probably be quietly moved to the side, only to be replaced by another. Before becoming the IPL chairman where was this Modi? Why getting jailed in the US. Where else :P

After all this shit and a very ordinary IPL s3. I have decided to watch only test cricket. It more fun and there is more GENUINE excitement. Not more forced DLF-shitbags.

Right, so its been a long time since I graced these pages with my typos, so here goes!

A lot has changed in the month and more that I have been away. I got a job and got all my certificates too. Great success.

So first the Job. I have been working for just over a month at Visual IQ which is a good business intelligence platform. VIQ provides marketing analytics to its clients and is pretty good at what it does. So what am I doing there? Yes, I am working on bringing in Social Media Analytics into the mix of data we work on right now. So cheers to me. I like my job. So far so good.

So that has been pretty much the reason for the lull in posts coming through here. Of course the half eye on my other blog also has something to do with it.

Well, I just wanted to write something to get the ":Routes out of Cochin" off the top of the screen!

So Ta,

Routes to get out of Cochin City - 3

Lastly and finally. If you live anywhere beyond Aluva Town and want to avoid the Notional Highways and move at a decent pace without tension and without much traffic, this is probably the best way forward.

It helps save a lot of petrol because there is no slow moving traffic jam to get through. There are 2 railway crossings where you'll (at worst) switch off the car for 5 minutes.


View Larger Map

Routes to get out of Cochin City - 2

A very effective way to get from Edappally/Elamakkara to Menaka and back avoiding the bottleneck of the North Overbridge. Any suggestions or better ideas?


View Larger Map

Routes to get out of Cochin city

Here's a nice way to get from Menaka to Kaloor avoiding most of the traffic. This is most effective when in a small to medium sized car - too big to weave through the jam but small enough to move fast through the lanes.


View Larger Map

Indians - Privately Smart, Publicly Dumb

We Indians are a queer species. Whats most intriguing about us is that we continue to survive, and in many cases thrive not in spite of the way we are.

I recently drove 500km from Cochin to Trivandrum and back in my puny Maruti 800 and I learnt something interesting which can be best put in the words of V.Ragunathan -"Indians are Privately Smart but Publicly Dumb".

Thee is no better place than the open road to observe this phenomenon.

The first thing you notice is the road itself. While the road was being built, the engineer (who has complete responsibility for the project) is rewarded with more funds in case of a delay. This would be fine if he is to be held responsible for any faults in construction but that is not the case.

So the engineer (literally) makes sure the road takes 20 years to build and will break up as soon as it rains because it ensures he can pocket the most money. He is privately very intelligent. But he fails to look at the bigger picture and as a result the country & its people look like fools to an outsider.

The next thing you'd see while driving down the National Highway (or Notional Highway) is the the number of unplanned cuttings & entry/exit points. Take an example : After a 4 lane road is built, I buy land on its fringe and build a petrol pump. Being on one side of the highway my customers are cut by half since cars on the other side of the divider can't turn into my pump.

So, being Indian, what do I do? I take a bunch of goons, and overnight, I break the divider in a convenient place so that I can do more business. I am now making more profit than my competitor down the road. But the fact that there is no yield to turn your car and the fact that the cutting might be in the middle of a blind turn - leading to countless accidents is none of my concern. Noticing his fellow petrol pump owner raking in the bucks, the competitor down the road copies me and we have 2 unscientific breaks in the divider. Privately both me and my fellow pump-owner are intelligent but publicly Indians, as a people, over the long term - suffer.

At a red light we quickly realize that the policeman is looking the other way and zoom through.

Indians spend far too much brain-power on trying to outsmart the law and gain personal gain when standing together and obeying it has far greater benefit. The people are the only ones to blame since we live in a democracy.

The reason for this besides our inherent disobedient nature is the lack of rules and controls. The rap on your knuckles when you do something wrong is too light. The people are happy because they can be privately intelligent, but they don't realize what they are doing...

Of Old men & Wisdom

Every man has a story. The only thing you can take with you to your grave is your story. Every story is made up of small instances, each with great value - like the Mahabharatha. Most of us forget many characters and rich plots because we never cared to write them down, preserve them.

I guess the fact that all four of my grandparents were either well into senility (or well beyond) by the time I could understand them has meant I have been deprived of old people and their wisdom.

A good grandfather, if there is such an expression, is someone who can remember the stories but also knows when to say them.

Movie Review - Home (2009)

Most movies which preach conservation take a "Oh look at the poor panda, its dying :(" attitude to try and convince you to do the right thing. They use the oft mis-used and mis-represented need of people to save the planet (if not for themselves) for their kids. What they fail to understand is that most of the people watching the shows aren't 40 but 14.

Home takes a different view on things. This movie manages to put in front of you not our mistakes but how we made them. While you are busy soaking up the exquisitely filmed scenes of this movie, you are left with a profound sense of guilt and a feeling of "What have we done.... ".

This movie is a visual treat, quite like the Planet Earth series, and has a bounty of aerial shots of some never seen before places & phenomenon. What really stands out is that they don't show only the good or the bad, they tell you a story. A story of how man reached where he is today and how man is upsetting the earth's fragile climate.

8.5/10 By the end, the overall impression I felt was how stupid man is. The Earth, always bounces back from any devastation - only the time it takes is longer than man has. So we aren't destroying the Earth, but only our own existence.

Home on imdb

Home on mininova

Movie Review - Paranormal Activity (2007)

To think this movie cost only $15,000 to make! In its first weekend of open release it has grossed $22million. There is a very good reason why it has made movies like Saw VI (which had the worst release in Saw history) look distinctly fake and passe.

After the first half of the movie, I reduced the volume almost to zero to somehow not get scared, but that is when I realized the real horror of the movie. It is the story and the quietness of the movie which scares you. The reality of it all, and the genuineness of the performances leaves you wondering what might happen. Unlike most supposedly "scary" movies which try to make you shake with fake sound effects and grotesque imagery, this movie plays with your mind.

I am happy I watched this movie on my laptop and not at a theater. I am also very happy I watched it in the afternoon and not at night.

Well, if you haven't already heard about it, the movie basically tells the tale of a couple who decide to use a camera to capture the ghostly/demonic/paranormal experiences they have been having at their home.

8.5/10 Simple and straightforward. Scary as HELL!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179904/

http://www.mininova.org/tor/3067454

Movie Review - Brick (2005)

A great mystery story being played out in a high school setup. There is a good deal of drugs, guns and murder against the backdrop of a suburban school.

The story is well laid out, with a lonely possessive boy (who packs quite a good punch) investigating the death of his ex-girlfriend at the hands of the drug-peddling baddies in the neighborhood.

The script is just awesome and the dialogues are packed with the fast paced wit of old detective stories (which I haven't had the privilege of watching).

Brendon (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a lonely and possessive late teenage (possibly troubled) boy who breaks up with his girl, Emily (Emilie De Ravin). 3 months on, he gets a distress call from her and decides to check on her only to find her in a sewer. What follows is a classic Film-Noir detective story which is stunning in its still-ness. So much is said in what is unsaid in the movie.

There is quite a bit of violence and a great twist at the end.

I have always wanted to watch a genuine, serious movie based on high school life. This is pretty close to what I wanted, though there is not one shot inside a class. Maybe thats also real.

7.5/10 Watch it. Its a serious movie, so make sure you're in the mood.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/

http://www.mininova.org/tor/1765076

Rammstein - Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da

Listening to music which you don't understand a word of is quite liberating. Rammstein would be my favorite foreign language band and Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da is (on first impression) their best album to date.

They have never been renowned for their deep and thoughtful lyrics and this is, I believe, no different ( If any German folks are out their, correct me if I'm wrong).

Their music is easy to listen to and the rhythms are what sticks in your head. Lyrics have to be remembered, Rhythms stay with you forever. Its hard, smooth and fast ,and before I forget to mention, controversial.

Their single "Pussy" which was released early last month was debated endlessly thanks to the heavy use of explicit content. Personally I like their open flaunting of stupid American "Family Values". I totally loved this album. 8/10!

Keep a Copy of the Pirate Bay

As many of us downloaders were agonizing at the prospect of the impending change of the Pirate-Bay tracker and the resulting loss of all the millions of torrents on it, someone was kind enough (or crazy enough) to crawl the site and make a database of all the torrents and upload it on TPB.

I heard about it from TorrentFreak but the news about this going to happen was around for a while. All (or as many as possible) of TPB’s torrents were being moved onto the OpenBitTorrent.

The torrent itself is probably too big for me to download on my 30kB/sec download speed. 21.3GB would be big for any speed! It would take me around 2 weeks of downloading to be able to get the whole database. I wish the uploader would have split it up so that I could have kept a copy of atleast some of the torrents :P

All the same I totally appreciate the efforts. Cheers to the Anonymous uploader. And this is the LINK TO THE TORRENT !

Humbug – Arctic Monkeys

OK! This is an early birds preview of the new album by Arctic Monkeys. My tastes aren’t exactly conventional and I don’t want to speculate on whether this will go on to break any records.

So without making any sweeping judgments for you, my opinion is that the droney voice of Alex Turner sounds just as good as before. Being a sort-of fan of these guys, Yes its worth downloading.

The tracks that stand out – for me – would be Propeller and Dangerous Animals. Propeller is seriously the best track by far. I don’t understand how there can be such a difference in the quality of tracks in one album, though.

Ratings – Mine of course : 6.5/10

[edit]

Before the edit, I had a link to the torrent I downloaded it from. Within 20min of posting this I received a comment (below) from WEB SHERIFF asking me to take my link to the torrent I downloaded it from, off the site.

Being an intelligent person I have now removed the link. You can be intelligent too and download the songs online. Torrent no. 2809220 on mininova.org.

Cheers.

[/edit]

Relapse (2009)

Its been a while since I posted anything and my net connection being a pain and I have been trying to get around my books for a change. Actually getting myself to write this thing is thanks to the LiveWriter thing which is pretty neat.

Eminem’s new album was released a couple of months back.

There was a time when I used to love the Eminem songs where he used to go around insulting every other artiste I had heard of. Starting with his first big-fat-hit the Slim Shady LP. I remember hearing it blaring out of every Omani college student’s car at one point of time.

OK. He has been missing from the industry for 4 years and not many industry-folk liked the fact that one of their most marketable artistes were going on holiday. All the same, he (like all other rich people in showbiz) had drug issues. This album is something of a post-rehab achievement if you will.

The theme of a rap album is always based on the lyrics and topics. This album is based on madness and insanity. There is a fair bit of violence – but every Eminem album had that. What is missing? Humour.

I guess rap music has the ability to bring out the mindset of a person better than any other type of music. In Relapse its obvious that lousiness was the undertone. There are countless rhymes made with Vicidin (a pain-killer) and a host of other drugs. There is also an overdose of high-level chemistry and biology as well which I couldn’t really connect to, or laugh at.

The best track, IMO, is Stay Wide Awake. Though the themes are pretty much the same recurring ones, the vocalization is more effective. Yeah, that is whats actually missing. Most songs fall flat in a sense. He hasn’t put in the energy he did in older albums. Where is the screaming? Where is the emotion?

Web Development

I think I should have titled this as development of the Web, but what the hell… This sounds more familiar.

I was wondering how awesome it is that I can sit here on my bed, in the comfort of my room and talk to any person anywhere in the world. Yeah that is more to do with the telephone, I know. This concept of universal coverage was taken a step further by the net.

Not only can I call anyone anywhere but anyone anywhere can see what I have put online by clicking a button. I think the fact that the net was developed in the US has a lot to do with why it has become so user-friendly.

Had it been in Europe, there wouldn’t be a universal English language which could appeal to such a large number of people.

I know it was a gradual thing, but the idea of generating your own content and putting it online for all to see must have been such a novel idea when it was first mentioned. I have a cool video that we took and I can upload it. This is really revolutionary and that all inclusive message is what makes the internet the hot-bed for communism, in my humble opinion.

This is really what Karl Marx probably thought perfect communism would be like. Where the citizens have control over everything and the big monopolies don’t really have a say in how the people use the net.

Americans have contradicted themselves in the way the net is used. On the one hand, there is the absolutely capitalist ideals of purchasing things madly which has fuelled the e-conomy. On the other there is the profusion of free technology, information and entertainment content – legal and otherwise, that is available online.

i wonder what the next big development will be…. Wonder if it will be Ubiquitous Computing – thats when things come online and you can check whats in the fridge when you are at the mall. Of course, the technology is already there, but the prohibitively huge price-tag is an obvious turn off. For it to be a success it has to be communist <surprisingly>

Me, Music and Michael

It took a while for me to understand the significance this guy has had on my life. When I first heard the news, my first reaction, I will painfully admit, was “He had it coming… “. But then in one of my day-dreams I thought back to my kiddo days.

For all the Mettallica, Linkin’ Park and Limp Bizkit songs I have heard, I know that they were all just passing phases. Their songs sound fake at best and lacked any real quality. They were somehow always second best.

Its hard to quantify what exactly the parameters are for making the list of the 2 most influential music-makers in my life. I can’t number them 1,2. They made songs which I remember and sing along with in my sleep.

They were there with me in my darkest hours of teenage life. Both literally and figuratively because I used to listen to songs when I went to bed everyday. I had a small tape-recorder which I would plug in by my bedside and would listen to the songs till I drifted off.

The first name I got as soon as I thought back. Bryan Adams. He was the first musician who I really followed. I had all his songs at one point – every one of them. He was a genius – though he was a bit old. I just generally like his voice and his songs.

Thought as I might, I couldn’t get another name. Mettalica was too commercialized and I couldn’t relate to their latest songs. Linkin’ Park was all screaming and manufactured angst. Eminem was more of the same. Limp Bizkit have made just 1 likeable album and don’t look like they are going to bring out another Choclate Starfish. Which brought me back to ol’ Michael.

I have never bought Michael Jackson songs ever. Back in the days when music was on tape and not too expensive, it was pretty weird. I loved every single one of his songs on both Bad and Dangerous. Both albums were with cousins of mine and I had copies. I danced to his songs and I sang along with them. Black or White, Smooth Criminal, Beat It, They don’t really care about us, Dirty Diana, Man in the Mirror … I guess its just that I never had to fast forward any song from his 2 albums.

Maybe if I were a bit older I might say the same about Off the Wall and Thriller. The beat of They don’t really care about us still rings fresh in my mind and as childish as it was this was the song that ran through my head during the days of anti-establishment (read school) thoughts…

Well, I think the time was right for his death whatever people may say. From a music industry PoV, MJ saved their ass once with Thriller when the sales were drooping. Now with file-sharing ending the industry as we know it I wonder who is going to save the day…

Laptop Day 3 – Why I am sad on Windows

I installed almost all the things I need on the system. Windows is not bad and feels fine. I installed all the free solutions to all my entertainment needs. I installed VLC Player for my videos. I still have to install Real Player though. I wonder why VLC can’t play .rmvb…

Then there is the one thing which I missed on my years on Linux – uTorrent! It is by a long long way the best torrent client to date. Its sad that they haven’t released a Linux version yet even though they are open source…

Songbird – a Mozilla based music player had taken my fancy on Linux and the Windows version of it is lighter and easier.

And Mozilla! How I hate IE! I actually gave IE a chance but grew very frustrated by the default settings. Maybe I should give Chrome a chance…

I’ll end by giving 2 very basic reasons about why I liked the Linux I had over the last 3 years.

1. Whenever I had an issue, I felt almost certain that someone else must have had the same problem as me. I would check on the forums and inevitably there would be a solution. When there was no solution you could post it and get an answer in under a day.

2. The best part, though, was that all solutions are free. When it came to reading of awkward formats like .djvu and .chm there were available add-ons (not even separate programs) which I could install with a few clicks (not even commands) and get the job done.

I miss both of these dearly. But anyway I guess this will do for the time being.