MetallicA...MetallicA...MetallicA

I realized that I had not put up any cover of the first band that I became a fanatic of...MetallicA.

Think whatever you want of MetallicA now but there is no denying the dizzying heights of music and showmanship they had reached in the first 2 decades of their career. Here is a cover of Bells (as Lars calls it often), a shining example that complicated chords/fast riffs/shredding solos are not a necessity for making an insanely heavy song (pretty much why I chose it ;)! FYI, the triplet part that Kirk plays is stolen from the ending of 'Fairies Wear Boots', a Sabbath song.

Oh MetallicA...how far you have fallen! It is said that MetallicA is a religion and James Hetfield is its God! It pains me immensely to say this but I am no longer a member of the church of Hetfield! Sad but True. But the Memory Remains!

Original Piece: Feart

This is a tiny little piece of music called 'Feart' that I came up with. I tried to expand it into something fleshier but nothing around it sounded good to me. So I left it as it is.

"There comes a time when your own music matters much more than covers" - A paraphrased quote by John Frusciante.

Feart

The kingdom is safe

The queen looked out of her castle window into the pouring rain. Her gaze penetrated the downpour and the dark clouds and seemed to extend beyond the black mountains on the horizon. It was a gloomy night and a dark shadow enveloped not just her but the castle and the entire city. A shadow that seemed perfectly appropriate, for her king had died only that morning. A mysterious illness that had plagued him for a year had taken his life after finally defeating him. The palace physicians said that he looked peaceful. But she could not bear to look at his dead body. She did not believe them. How could he have been peaceful leaving her behind all alone? How could he have been peaceful knowing that his vast kingdom was now without an heir? And that all his enemies had been awaiting his death to pillage and rape his beloved land. Feelings of guilt for blaming her dead king engulfed her momentarily when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her.

“Your majesty. The vazir is here”

“......Send him in”

“Yes my queen”

The vazir. He was a smart man. Loyal. He would do as she asked him to. She needed his loyalty to remain protected. She needed his loyalty to carry out what needed to be done. The oracle’s advice upon the king’s impending death seemed strange. Yet she knew better than to question the oracle. She hoped the Vazir knew better than to question her. But he would. It was his nature. She turned around in time to see him walk in.

“My condolences your highness.”

“The time for mourning will come Jafar. More pressing matters demand our attention now if we are to avoid a complete annihilation at the hands of our enemies. We need to find a new King.”

“Yes my queen.

Do you wish to name someone now?”

“No. But I do have someone in mind.”

“Who is this person may I inquire my lady?”

“He is man of many virtues and talents. I do not know his name or face or even whether he exists or not, but I am sure he is one who will protect and lead us.”

“My lady, forgive me but how do we find this man if we do not know anything about him?”

“There is a way Jafar. Send your men to all corners of the world. Tell them to seek the man who has run two half marathons till now. This man would have run his first 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 17 minutes. But the second one would take him a time of 2 hours 6 minutes and 58 seconds. And he would have achieved these numbers in the company of two of his comrades. Make sure your men remember these numbers for fate dictates that only he can save us.”

“......My lady, forgive me once again but this hero of yours happen to have at best a pace of 9:12 mins per mile and I doubt if he can be the savior that your highness makes him out...”

“FOOL OF A VAZIR! How dare you question me? Utter one more word of insolence and I will have you beheaded and buried next to my husband!”

“......my apologies your highness. I speak only with the best of intentions for our kingdom. I will send my men out immediately to find this man we need. I will keep you appraised my lady.”

“Make haste Jafar. We do not have much time.”

With the vazir bowing his head and backing away from the room the queen turned back towards the window to look at the rain. She felt as if fate was conspiring against everything that she held dear by subjecting her to such vicissitudes. She knew that she had to hold strong. Yet, she wondered if the oracle could be trusted every single time? She wondered whether or not such a man existed. If he did, where was he? She could only wistfully look at the black mountains for now.

--------------------------
The kingdom is safe for I am the savior!
My two comrades are Golu and Buffy.
Golu and I did the half and Buffy did the full.
Good fun it was.
Some pics here: Richmond Nov 14th

Elders finally decide on when to end calendar

City of Maya, Maya Area: After a long and acerbic session of bickering the elders have finally agreed on when to end the official calendar. It has been decided that all official Mayan calendars will now end 2000 years from now instead of the previously agreed upon 4000 years. This decision was reached in order to make amends for the severe stone shortage that has been plaguing our land for over a year. Elder Tore-My-ACL says, “We are certain that our great civilization will prosper well after 4000 years. But it is foolish to waste so much stone in etching all the dates for all those years. I mean, when our great grandchildren reach 2012 A.D. they can easily get a fresh set of calendars etched and distributed. I don’t mean to sound like a pig’s testicle but why should we defray the costs of calendar etching for future generations especially during these tough times? Have you checked the price of grain lately? The tax-payers don’t need this right now! No disrespect to elder Can-Bench-200 but he acts as if ending the calendar so soon will make some pale skinned men magically appear from the east and conquer us.”

Elder Can-Bench-200 is of course the leader of the opposition who strongly advocated making the official calendar 4000 years into the future based on the arbitrary claim that the number “4000 was two times more awesome that some whimpy 2000”. At the end of the day common sense prevailed but as a compromise it was agreed that instructions (written on biodegradable papyrus) would be supplied with every calendar telling the slightly naïve citizens not to over interpret the calendar ending at 2012 A.D and how to calculate the dates beyond.

Sam Etaro

Massive(ly Anachronistic) Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

Thought Collage: Set your phaser to level 8

In case you do not get the reference (for which you should stand in front of a mirror and call yourself a PATAK), this collection is going to be entirely about Star Trek.

I used to watch a lot of Star Trek: TNG as a child, which as far as I can recall was my first exposure to situations involving ethical and moral dilemmas. (Incidentally, the other show that I found fascinating from a similar point of view was the ‘Practice’). Of course, as a child I could not fully comprehend all the subtleties of the issues being explored and whenever they veered off the pure scientific mystery (which was so much more interesting) I would get tempted to ‘change the channel’ but was invariably drawn in. However, revisiting the show has allowed me to appreciate the episodes in greater detail (in this case, I am primarily referring to 'The Next Generation’). It is a pity that being a Star Trek fan carries a nerd stigma in mainstream American culture as I am sure this discourages a lot of young kids from watching it in the first place. It would definitely be more wholesome than Keeping up with the Kardhasians (or should I have said, Cardassians. ;)..Ok…no groans allowed)

Spurred by the recent movie, I ploughed through the entire 7 seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, revisited 4 seasons of Star Trek: TNG and right now am going through Star Trek: TOS on youtube. The by-product of doing that has been some thoughts about the Star Trek universe which I shall promptly spit out.

1of4) Economy: One of the major aspects of the Star Trek universe is the lack of money. From what I have seen (and read on the net), the economy in place during the 23rd century has never been explored properly. The only bit of information that is thrown out in episodes/movies is whenever someone is talking to an anachronistic person and says the line “we don’t have money in our time” (or something similar). It seems like an idea that was incorporated because of its novelty and awe-factor but without being fully fleshed out. Make no mistake; I have no problem in suspending disbelief. I just feel that this would have been a very interesting area to explore. Personally (and unrelated to Star Trek) I am convinced that having money (or any form of currency) is an inevitable product of any economy. At the risk of oversimplification, I feel it is as simple as the fact that you need to exchange goods with others to live productively in a society (no one can be absolutely self sufficient). To exchange goods efficiently you would need an easy form of payment leading to an accepted form of currency. An economy that does not have currency is intriguing. I did do a little bit of searching and discovered something called ‘Participatory Economics’. It is nowhere mentioned in Star Trek canon that this is the model in place but I did find a website arguing that it is the closest. Talking about this economic model is digression but it makes for an interesting read here.

2of4) Cloaking: Humans in Star Trek have both allies (Vulcans) and enemies (Romulans). Although, the Starships of the humans are generally considered technologically superior, there are many episodes where a Klingon or Romulan warship uses ‘cloaking’ to out-battle the Starships. This ‘cloaking’ technology is something the Starships lack. I am willing to suspend my disbelief again but it is hard to keep forgetting that Starships which are very often touted as having the superior destructive and maneuvering capability (once the warbirds have de-cloaked i.e) do not possess this one technology. Wouldn’t an arms race (on which many uneasy truces depend on) lead to massive resources being invested in figuring out this vital piece of technology? There are only so many episodes where someone shouts “RED ALERT! Romulan warbird…de-cloaking portside” before it makes you wonder why at the end of the day the captains don’t go “Captain's log, supplemental: Was taking a relaxing bath. Got taken by surprise again. Must figure this cloaking thing out”. The interesting aspect to this is that according to at least one movie (and possibly other episodes), humans were able to capture a functioning Klingon warship. Someone surely lost their job for dropping the reverse-engineering ball!

3of4) The Borg: After the Vulcans, the Borg are my favourite species in the Trek universe. The Borg are cybernetic creatures which assimilate other species and outfit them with technology to make them part of their collective. They do this to incorporate the species’ biological and technological knowledge into their own know-how in order to become stronger. The Borg have wiped out many races in this manner and are not to be fucked with. If one considers brute force, only one other species (Species 8472) have managed to beat the Borg. Simply put, they are the bad-asses of the 23rd century. But how did they come about? To my knowledge the origins of the Borg have not been explored at all. I find it disappointing that no writing team could come up with a plausible storyline. How about making SKYNET the forerunner of the Borg? Surely it is lazy writing but at least it is something. Or maybe it is time for me to explore my fan-fiction skills! 

4of4) Deanna Troi: Finally, my boyhood crush Deanna Troi!

Oh Counselor Troi

I was only a little boy

When I first laid my eyes on you

Your phaser was set to stun

I could neither hide nor run

For I loved you deeply and truly

But you liked William Riker

How I hated that motherf****

I knew it was in vain

Yet I yearned for you silently

I did move onto Agent Scully

I am a grown man now

And though my words might be sleazy

My love for you comes easy

So this I declare to you

You are welcome in my house

To lay down on my couch

For oh Counselor Troi

I am no more a little boy

The End!
Live Long and Prosper!

What are earthquakes to a girl's guitar?

Answer: Just another guitar cover of the solo before Californication at Slane Castle

In commemoration of Apollo 11

Open letter to Seth McFarlane (Part 2)

Dear Seth,
I thought I was done venting and railing against you here. Apparently not.
I came across this recently.

A strange feeling of serenity engulfed me when I saw it. Unlike the last time, I have no intention of amateurly using MSPaint to launch a tepid attack against you. Three simple words will do the job. And so I say this with utmost sincerity Seth.
Please kill yourself.
Thank you.

Jaanu, Mein Tujhe Chod Raha Hoon

The curious girl

Gather around kids. It's anecdote time.

4 years ago during the fall of 2005, I was a bright eyed young lad bristling with FOB-ness amongst fellow FOBs (FOB=Fresh Off the Boat). I had come to the land of the free and home of the brave just a year ago and did not have a driver's license yet. As is the case with every small town in the USA one needs a car to get around and therefore one needs a driver's license to even begin thinking about borrowing a friend's car under the pretext of going out to buy some groceries but surreptitiously taking a girl out which may or may not have ended badly. Yes...yes...that is a story for another day.

So anyway, in order to obtain the aforementioned driving license, two of my buddies and I stayed up all night studying for the test (the written one for the learner's permit and not the driving one for the driver's permit) and went to the local DMV the next morning. As the three of us stood in line trying to remember whether the state highway speed limit in Mississippi was 55 or 65 and why would one try to recall it from memory and not just read it off a sign while driving, we noticed a young girl of about sixteen staring at us blatantly. Considering that we had been in Mississippi for almost a year by then, most of us had internalized strange stares from strangers. But this young one had her eyes filled with a curiosity so intense, you would think she was watching a live re-enactment of a season finale of Lost (I went through 3 bawdy comparisons before settling on this lame one). We tried to ignore her but not before FOB-ishly acknowledging her stares in Hindi amongst ourselves. The staring match (at which she was thrashing us mercilessly) went on for about 5 minutes and I can only imagine that she used this time to muster the courage to say the next words.

"Excuse me, what are you guys?"

The cutting frankness and naivete of her question prompted all of us to burst into laughter and the lady seated a few chairs next to her tried to cover her face in shame (or maybe to avoid being recognized as witness in what she perceived to be a potential lawsuit). The amusement quickly subsided and we answered "Indian". This of course stoked the young one's curiosity even further and she launched into a series of inquiries about us, India, its location, its culture and more, that all three of us answered enthusiastically. She was highly amused that none of us had a license in spite of being in our early twenties. "Just how did you get around during college?" was her concern. I wasn't sure if my lengthy answer detailing the ubiquity of public transport in India satisfied her. She still wore a look of incredulity. Nevertheless she decided to move on to the next lesson in the impromptu 'world cultures' class and asked us about the language we were conversing in before. Having done this many times before, my friend launched into some of the salient aspects of Hindi while pointing out the plethora of other languages in the country. She seemed awed that all three of us knew how to speak our mother tongues apart from the national language, Hindi. And then with a look of genuine confusion she asked,

"But how do you speak to the people in the US?"

After a second of stunned silence, my friend went into a fit of laughter that was intermingled with a loud "What the fuck"! The lady next to the young one promptly joined him. The absurdity of her question when viewed against the 15 minutes of conversation she had had with us took some time to sink into her and understandably she was very embarrassed. As one would expect, she stopped talking to us completely after the incident and avoided any form of eye contact. The rest of our time at the DMV was fairly tame and all us managed to obtain a learner's permit without too much trouble (if I remember right, I had managed to pass by just one question) . We were of course eager to get back and tell the story of the curious and confused girl to all who would listen.

In retrospect, I think it was great that this girl had the very healthy attitude of satisfying her curiosity in a straightforward manner. Hopefully, something as insignificant as being embarrassed before others (and I mean this with utmost sincerity) did not create an aversion to asking questions in her.

So remember kids. Always ask questions but also think a little before doing so. Doesn't hurt. Now go do your homework.

God to take on the Flying Spaghetti Monster in epic World Wrestling Federation championship match up

In what is being touted as the mother of all fights, defending champion God is said to fight the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) who stands to challenge him for the title of creator and ruler of the universe at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas this Saturday. Hailing from the heavens above, God has held the title since time immemorial, successfully defending it from a slew of notable challengers like the Buddha (who defaulted citing reasons of non-violence), Mohammed, the 30 million tag team members of the Hindu Federation and even the Beatles (in a memorial match up that lasted for a decade).

Thanks to popular moves like the “Smiting Finger”, “Eternal Damnation” and the “Banishing Helbow” God’s fan base is much larger than that of the FSM’s which nevertheless has been growing steadily. Some supporters of God believe that FSM is nothing more than a paper-tiger opponent conjured by God-haters who need someone to act as their beacon in the demanding wrestling world. The monsters’ proponents however are dismissive of these skeptics and are confident that they will be able to steal a victory with the help of FSM’s popular moves like the “Punch of Sarcasm” and the “Carb-Overload”.

Like in every other behemoth of an event, the taunts have been pouring in from both sides. In what has been widely regarded as an absolutely atrocious pun, the FSM claimed that he was going to make God ‘omni-pain-tent’! God however did not do much better when he retorted with “that FSM motherfucker ain’t got nothing on me, except some marinara sauce”. Fans on both sides are eagerly waiting to see who wins this epic battle and which side will have to resort to cognitive dissonance.

Sam Etaro
Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

"Brother"

Brother - An original (indie) composition by Zubin.

Performed by Zubin, Golu and me. None of us felt compelled enough to edit the video so do skip to 0:55 seconds when the song begins!

How I learnt to distrust the English language

Recently, I was reminded of an incident from my yesteryears, a time when I was a young and naive 6th-classer running around the Hyderabad Public School in really short shorts and chasing girls in vain. (Sigh…some things never change. I still wear short shorts.) I had always felt that the English language was a little haphazard thanks to a number of its idiosyncrasies but mainly due to the frequent departures from phonetic spelling. As I was mildly amusing myself reminiscing about what had happened, I realized that this was one of the incidents (if not the first) that made me very wary of English.

One of the class participation exercises that my 6th class English teacher incorporated in her style was to get each kid to stand in front, facing the whole class and read aloud some paragraphs from the lesson being taught. I suppose the point was to hit many birds with one stone, the birds being public speaking confidence, fluency and pronunciation. On one of those days, it was my turn and I happily went ahead and started giving it my all (and by all I mean reading out really loud in my short shorts). I don’t remember what the story that I was reading from was but one of the lines had the word ‘food’ in it. Oblivious to the utter humiliation that was about to be heaped on me I read the sentence as “the man needed to eat some fudd before going to work” (the word fudd rhymes with stood, but with an emphasis on the d). My teacher’s sudden “what?” prompted me to stop reading amidst the background of some of my classmates giggling. I hesitantly re-read the line the same way. In what can be considered one of the cruelest acts in the history of mankind, my teacher burst of laughing right in front of everyone and after telling me the right way to pronounce the word ‘food’ asked me to go on. (If you are a gult like me, I am hoping you can empathize why I had mispronounced the word as such. When using the word in everyday gult (telugu) conversation one always seems to pronounce it as ‘fudd’, as in “fudd kottava?” which in essence means “did you have food?” and never with the elongated sound that the two ‘o’s make in ‘fooood’).
At this point, I simply wanted to stop, go back to my chair and hide my face in my bag. Unfortunately for me, my teacher did not share my feelings and simply kept looking at me as if to say “Go on Rohit. I do not see why making fun of your pronunciation in front of your entire class of human-piranhas should affect you in any way”. I had no choice but to go on clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t get worse. That ended up being one of the most inaccurate thoughts in the history of mankind. All was going well with my recitation for a few minutes until I came across the sentence “the man’s sweater was made of wool”. By the time, I started reading the sentence I had already seen the word ‘wool’ a little ahead and was trying to think as quickly as I could about the right pronunciation. Sadly, I could not be sure and I halted when I reached the word. My mind went “let’s see, both food and wool have two ‘o’s and food is supposed to be ‘foood’ and therefore wool has to be “woool”. A Vulcan would have been proud of me. Sadly, my teacher was an inferior human specimen and as soon as I said “woooooool” she snapped and corrected me. This happened a long time ago but I distinctly remember the giggling of the class at my devastating shame and all I wanted to do was run away and hide in one of the numerous hillocks that bounded the back side of our school (the ‘backfields’ we called them). Once again she gave me the ‘I-don’t-see-why-you-don’t-want-to-keep-reading’ look and I acquiesced to her instructions and my turn ended without any more blaze of glory crashes.

Needless to say my friends ripped on me for a few days (probably something along the lines of ‘Rohit is wearing his woooooooollen sweater today and is going to eat some fudd’) and then forgot about it as soon as they found something else to bother me with. Of course all was good ultimately and I learnt an important life-lesson about never to make assumptions about the mighty English language!

If you find some grammatical or spelling error in my post and say things like “Haha…looks like you weren’t wary enough of English” deduct 5 points for lack of originality! You are always welcome to rip on me for anything else!

Open letter to Seth McFarlane

Because boring sunday evenings are perfect for throwing tantrums!

---------
Dear Seth,

You are a colossal asshole and you suck!
You and the rest of the talent less idiots who pass for Family Guy writers are the world’s most formidable morons!

Enough with the shit-pile that Family Guy has turned out to be!! I used to be a big fan of the show but now I’d rather stare at my shit stew in the toilet for 30 mins than sit through an entire episode of the abomination that has become Family Guy. You guys are not even trying anymore and it is unbelievable that the show is still airing.

You started of ok dude (albeit shamelessly). When you ran up to your friends to say, “guys…I have an idea for a show. It consists of a crazy family with a stupid dad and a level-headed mom and kids who…” why didn’t any of them stop you with “That sounds a whole lot like The Simpsons you unoriginal bum”? However I gave you a pass. Thanks to Led Zeppelin, plagiarizing something to make it better is a little okay in my book. Not that Family Guy was head and shoulders above the Simpsons but whatever. It was a comedy show and it got me laughing so I was not going to hate it on principle.
Your fascination with decades old American pop culture at first intrigued me, then amused me and very soon started irritating me to no end. If you are a comedy show, you have to say something funny. Simply breaking into your obscure childhood reference does not work. If you miss your childhood so much, get some friends who grew up with you, go to a bar and reminiscence. Don’t force everyone else to join your boring party!
The vague annoyance and animosity I was feeling for your show was perfectly captured by Southpark’s ‘Cartoon Wars’. Seth Mac Farlane, that is how an intelligent adult cartoon looks like and should look like. Southpark has managed to address every legitimate and crippling criticism of your show and yet you do not have the intellectual honesty to make any changes.
Your “this is just like the time...” jokes are the worst offenders. I am not even addressing the ‘they are unrelated to the plot’ criticism that SP has levied against you. Once again, your show is a comedy show and I do not care how you spin a story as long as you make it funny. But those jokes are not even funny and they drag on for way too long. And this bears repeating, they are NOT FUNNY. When you show a clip of Peter running home to fall down mid-route and hurt him self and go “aah” for a full 1 minute, I feel like stabbing you. When you repeat the same fucking thing with Lois instead of Peter in another episode, I feel like stabbing myself.

I could have simply stopped watching the show instead of throwing this tantrum. But somehow with Family Guy you have managed the biggest bait and switch in the history of TV shows. Every week I am inexplicably motivated to watch a new episode in the hopes that I will actually break into a smile (I gave up on laughing a year ago) and every week I am disappointed. Yet I keep going back for ‘old-times sake’. This has been happening for over a year now and only today did I fully appreciate how much of my life I have wasted in this comedic anticipation! I deserve a kick to the head!

Your other show ‘American Dad’ is just ok. How did you even successfully pitch it? God knows why your creativity cannot take off without the impetus being “let’s start with a crazy family”, but judging by the way Family Guy has turned out, I’m betting American Dad will start stinking very soon.

Here’s a very serious suggestion Seth. Stop Family Guy completely and salvage some respect. Redirect all your efforts to American Dad and hire better writers. That way, maybe in a few seasons it can come close to being a reasonably funny show. It is tough but at least you would have done the right thing!

In conclusion I will say this.
Carlos Mencia : Comedians :: Family Guy : Cartoon shows
If this doesn’t knock any sense into your head, I do not know what will!

Sincerely,
A well-meaning hater.

PS: Your Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy also sucks. Blue Harvest was good though.

------------

It is amusing that searching for 'clouds showing the finger' on google images has such a straightforward result!

On Objectivity/Subjectivity

One of my beliefs is that objectivity is an illusion.

Objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers

Subjective: characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind

The definition of the word 'objective' invokes a notion that there are some hard 'facts' that can be perceived as being objective and the perception of such an 'objective' entity is immune to any sort of individual thought. This I feel is inaccurate. It is impossible to experience any phenomenon without individual interpretation. The general trend in determining what is objective seems to be nothing more than labeling the opinion of a 'subjective multitude' as being objective. If a majority of people perceive an object, phenomenon, or condition in the same way, it is deemed to be the objective interpretation. In any discussion that pertains to the determination of whether or not something is objective, what we consider are the opinions of others. That alone makes it highly subjective.

The most obvious manifestation of this view seems to be in the social construct of the human race. We have a number of so-called ‘self evident truths’ that are the objective pillars on which society is built. Truths like ‘murder is wrong’, ‘everyone has the right to pursue happiness’, ‘all men are equal’ and other such ideas all have an air of absoluteness that is supposed to be independent of individual interpretation. I do not agree. I strongly believe that every such idea has evolved from a collective mind of humans (from trial and error of course) and has been elevated to an objective status after societies have found them to be extremely important for the existence of a stable and steadily advancing civilization. Our day to day laws fall in the same category and are formed in exactly the same way except that most are not grandiose enough to be elevated to a higher stature. “Thou shalt wear thy seat-belt while driving” doesn’t exactly have an inspiring and divine all-encompassing ring to it.

The biggest threat to a view like this would be scientific facts (gravity, fields, forces, evolution). A common understanding seems to be that there exist cold scientific facts that are as objective as possible and the goal of any scientific endeavor is the attainment and understanding of this knowledge. At the risk of sounding like a colossal idiot I very apprehensively say that I do not agree with this view either. Throughout history, even after the age of reason, ‘scientific facts’ that were thought to have been backed by mountains of experimental evidence have been disproved (or at least revised, eg: Newton’s Laws of motion) time and again. It seems preposterous to think that at some point in time we will arrive at the final and absolute explanation of a phenomenon and such an explanation can be labeled as an objective fact.

The generally accepted notion is that the universe is deterministic, that it is governed by absolute objective laws and all of our theories and their revisions are just iterations before we end up at this “truth”. I very well understand that a majority of scientists are smart enough to realize that theories are meant to be critiqued and revised. What seems ironic to me is that a mode of thinking that does not encourage rigid dedication to any theory as being absolute has as its ultimate goal, the discovery of the absolute laws of nature. Historically, classical physics was thought to be one such absolute explanation with no improvements needed. Yet, quantum physics was discovered. Is it justified that when/if we discover the grand unification theory we will call it the ‘absolute truth’ and accept it unflinchingly? Of course, one could argue that it is just a matter of semantics, but the majority of the human population does believe in absolute truths (be it from a religious god or Einstein’s god i.e nature) which is what I am addressing.

My point is that at some level even the so-called absolute scientific facts are largely ‘mass subjective’ and not purely ‘objective’. I have a belief that there are no such absolute truths and everything we make of the world around us is the result of a collective understanding and acceptance (much like the ‘Borg’ from Star Trek :P). I will admit that I do not share the confidence of the applicability of such a non-objective view of the world in the scientific realm as I have in the case of the social realm. I have a vague uneasiness about this and I cannot figure out why. Must be some ‘purpose of life’ thing!

This fruit, it has lead poisoning!

The last post has made me very disappointed in myself. All it had was just two lines. This is being dangerously close to twitter territory and that is unacceptable! I want to apologize sincerely for the transgression. I briefly became what I hate, a self absorbed asshole who thinks that his stream of consciousness is so interesting that it has to be shared with the world. In the future I will do everything possible to keep such inane and mind numbing thoughts to myself.

As some sort of redemption I want to share this cover of the simple yet beautiful Led Zepp song called “Tangerine” (or Orange for you desis :P). It is meant to be played on an acoustic but it has been more than a year since I last played on an acoustic and I need to retrain my fingers. I am at the end of a Led Zepp phase and having re-discovered a lot of their amazing songs I did not want to wait to learn and record this.

To say that Jimmy Page is a maestro is an exercise in redundancy.
Also, I will not be offended if you stop listening from the 2:47 mark!
Enjoy!

Dilemma of the Day

The problem with people forwarding you April Fool articles is that you do not know if they get the joke and find it amusing enough to share OR they really have become the fool! How does one figure out which is the case so as to respond the right way??
One of life's many mysteries!

I have a brilliant and insightful...

...post in my head. Unfortunately, the margin here is too small.

Leap of Logic

I was sitting in the sauna at my gym when this old guy enters and sits down. Within a minute he starts talking.

Him: "Was pretty cold yesterday?" (It was atypically below freezing and had snowed all day)
Me: "Yeah..."
Him: "And now it's getting a little too warm in here" (he meant the sauna)
Me: "Yeah..."
Him: "Maaan...this is like being in hell"

I nod. It actually was getting a little too hot in there.

Him: "Except, here you can walk out to cool off and come back in, but in hell there is no escape"
Me: "....I guess...."
Him: "And that's why you need to accept Jesus as your lord and saviour and reject all the other fake religions. Only through Christianity can you reach heaven. The other religions are fake because all they do is borrow from Christianity and mislead people into thinking they can achieve salvation..."
Me (interrupting him): "Yeeaah...DEATH TO THE INFIDELS" (could have been in my imagination)

Slightly amused at his awesome leap in logic, I contemplated for a brief moment about getting into a debate about religion with him. But it really was getting too hot for any sort of talk. Plus I did not want to disappoint him by letting him know that I wasn't a muslim (or anything in fact). So I cut him short and left to stand under a cold shower and wash away my sins of the day! Later I went home hungry and had a slice of delicious pizza and a cold beer. That was heaven enough for me.

Brilliant Form of Criticism

Although I personally think bashing the Bush administration has become extremely boring (and also largely irrelevant now), the clever use of the wikipedia page for FEMA to make a point is too smart to be just let go without a snapshot (Click on it).

Some Solitude

Solitude is a slow mellow song by Black Sabbath from their ‘Master of Reality’ album. As I remember mentioning once, the beauty of the song comes from the awesome solos and the flute (which I obviously do not cover).

Ozzy Osbourne is a strange man. On one hand, his on stage “occult” persona is obviously fake (which self-respecting satan worshipper shouts “god bless you all” at the end of a song?) and on the other hand he did bite off a dead bat’s head! It amuses me that someone would think the best way to impress a bunch of record executives is to (once again) bite off a live dove’s head (different from the bat incident) and the same personality could also pen lyrics that go,

You just left when I begged you to stay
I’ve not stopped crying since you went away

I guess satan gets senti too!

BLACK SABBATH COVER: SOLITUDE

Omar Epps confident of being renewed contract to play Mike Tomlin

Omar Epps, who plays the popular character of Mike Tomlin (the head coach of the football team Pittsburg Steelers) in real life, said on Saturday that he is confident about his contract being renewed for a new season. His comments, made on the eve of the 43rd Superbowl come as no surprise considering that the team he has been ‘coaching’ has made it to the grand finale of the American football season this year. “I am a method actor” he says, “when I am Dr. Foreman on House I try to read up as much as I can about medicine. I am sure I can perform a simple surgery or two now. I approach the character of Mike Tomlin in a similar way. I have been reading ESPN.com everyday, have been watching John (the Steelers’ Assistant Head Coach John Mitchell) lecture the boys about football and hey, I even throw the old pigskin around now and then.” When asked about the toughest part about playing Mike, he says “It’s the pep talks before the game. Most of my lines consist of football jargon that I have got memorized but when it comes to the pep talks it can get very hard. The players look at me for inspiration but there is only so much I can do if my lines are not very good. I really have to put my heart and soul in it. Sometimes I even get carried away and improvise. And some other times when I forget lines on the field, I just cover my mouth with the playbook. That always works!”.

When asked about how he balances his normal life and two big roles, Omar mentioned that it can get very disorienting at times and that there have been a couple of occasions when he has walked into a room full of football players and shouted “HOUSE…NO”.
He however added that he wasn’t very concerned about such future mix ups as he is a little pessimistic regarding his role of Dr. Foreman. His character, he added, off late has been very uninvolved with the plots and felt that the writers jumped the shark by having him kiss ‘13’ (another character played by Olivia Wilde). He said that the Steelers on the other hand have done very well and he is very happy that the nation has embraced Mike Tomlin so well. He let slip that he hoped for an Emmy nomination if the Steelers win the Superbowl. Omar Epps has done some other movies but no one has ever heard of them so we wish him all the best as this might be his only chance.


Sam Etaro
Massive Onion Rip-Off Artist (But Not As Funny)

Thought Collage: Part VII (Stand up and Be counted)

In this one, I have a short collection of short nonsensical paragraphs.
The kind of stuff that would probably go on someone’s twitter.
But I don’t and will never twitter.
Twittering is for losers.

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As is the best way to start any day, let me begin by talking about shitting! I am a big fan of reading while on the toilet. The calm of the morning while you cleanse your body (so to speak) is highly conducive for a relaxing read. What the world (or at the very least me) needs is some sort of support structure that can easily be pulled up in front on which a book can be placed. Maybe it can be designed to even hold other stuff. I don’t have a fully formed idea in my mind yet but I cannot help feel that this is great idea. Maybe I will sketch something soon!

Here is one way for employers to increase productivity. Give your employees the option to change/swap the location of their work station every 6 months. It would be great if people could simply pack up and move to a new place as if you are starting a new job. I for one would like the novelty associated and the feeling of starting afresh that comes with it. Moreover if you hate the guy working next to your cubicle, you have to put up with him for only a short period of time instead of trying to start the next crusades!

There have been many occasions when I felt that the magnificent view that can be from an airplane window is hampered due to the miniature sized windows. An aerial view of earth is not something that can be obtained whenever one feels like it and the few chances that I get to do so, I am stuck with an iphone browser instead of an IMAX!
What do we want?
Bigger windows on planes!
When do we want it?
Whenever possible (cuz we are reasonable)

Who decided that all clocks need to be essentially 'multiplication clocks'? I am kinda tired of multiplying whenever I want to read the time. Maybe getting into dividing will help change the drudgery that is reading time off an analog watch. I want a clock like this. Who is with me? Who is?

I think my toes are useless. I think everyone’s toes are useless too. Can you think of one thing you cannot do if you had perfectly webbed feet? In fact webbed feet will help you swim faster. Most people spend 8 hrs of their day wearing shoes and in really cold places I am guessing the rest of the time is spent wearing socks. There really isn’t anything you use your toes for (fetishes notwithstanding). Plus think about all the times you stubbed them and prayed to god to take you away so that the pain ends. All in all, toes should be declared vestigial organs. I am declaring an evolutionary war on them. Women of the world, you know what to do (just consider me too even though I have normal healthy non-webbed sexy toes ;) !!
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But seriously, don’t twitter!
If you do, we can never be friends.
If you already are my friend and twitter, then ‘cutiff’!