my brother is going places

Yes! he is indeed going places; very interesting places I might add... and he isn't taking me along anywhere :(

This was a recent visit,

the new look Appy Fizz

'A cool drink to hang out with' gets a makeover.

Though I've loved all their previous ads too, this one tops the charts!

calvin and jobs

When MAD magazine's Jacob Lambert (writer) and Gary Hallgren (artist) took the most imaginative 6 year old boy and replaced his stuffed tiger with a Steve Jobs doll (of Apple fame), it created some serious waves around the globe. While some described it as comic-strip murder, others found no harm done towards the original creation and applauded the effort with lols and hahas.

The 8 comic-strips are a parody on Apple Inc., its infamous owner and their much sought after marketing practices (read as tactics). Among C & H fans, Apple haters & those who got a glimpse of the ingenious creation, I really fail to understand why some couldn't see the lighter side to it.

Here is Steve Jobs, morphed from a philosophical tiger to a killer CEO, in a never before seen avatar.

while Gregory & Michael are back, still waiting for Clark & Barney

If you know Clark, Barney, Gregory, Michael and even Chris, Dwight and Bart for that matter, you're either a dedicated couch potato or an avid downloader like me. In either case, if you're aware of what I am talking about, you ought to be as excited and impatient about the next few weeks, as much as me.

The wait is FINALLY over and the Fall 2008 broadcasting has started. It has been really boring since the last few months to just sit on the computer and have nothing to do but to play arcade games. But not anymore!! Smallville returns, How I Met Your Mother returns, The Office returns, The Simpsons returns, Heroes returns, The Big Bang Theory returns, Everybody Hates Chris and Grey's Anatomy also return. There are still a few to add to the returning list. Though all these shows still have 4 - 15 days left for their new seasons to start, the run-up has already begun with House, Prison Break and Entourage, which are back on air since the last few weeks. What initiated with a list of 2-3 shows to look forward to every week, now has expanded to one with almost 14 shows with new ones getting added every few months. These sitcoms and dramas have come to be a part of my daily rut, a necessity, an essential, just like a fag for a smoker, a joint for a junkie, a quarter for a drunkard and porn for some people I know. These shows, some of them even in their 7th season and some in their 3rd or 4th ones, have all been neatly stacked within 40 odd DVDs in 2 CD albums. Each new season acts like a kick to collection obsession I realized I always sufferred from. Its an obsession I'm not really concerned about.

Downloading these TV shows is another obsession I face. In fact, its a pretty universal obsession. People all over the globe and surprisingly, even in my own city, download these shows. Its like, who wouldn't like a free meal?. To download them is free and thus they become like food for thought for people of the downloaders kin. Thanks to the unconcerned and not sought after anti-piracy laws we have in our country, I commit no crime by doing this. Atleast, I stick to foreign TV shows. I heard this incident from a friend once, a true one FYI. Oneday, the internet speeds of all the computers in his college dropped suddenly. Now here, I'm talking about an engineering college with an amazing internet speed and where almost everyone downloads stuff, right from albums to movies to TV shows to unbelievable quantities of porn (acquiring server space upto 20 GB and constantly increasing). They eventually did figure out the problem with the speeds and the reason turned out to be some guy who had consumed all the bandwidth by downloading our infamous 'K' serials. Utilizing free availabilty is something unique and commendable, while insulting the free stuff in just downright sinister and evil. Sure enough, righteousness did triumph that day, evil did lose and the guy did get an unforgettable ass kicking leaving him with lifelong physical limitations.

Getting back to the shows, surely they don't serve the 'family' entertainment value and mostly one does have to enjoy them on a tiny computer screen, many atimes even with head phones and also to mention that each of them do take ample amount of time to get downloaded, just the feeling of knowing that some or the other show is waiting to be seen on getting home after a severe study-day in college and then a long day at work and probably (and I hope) with your dinner, wipes out the day's blues in a jiffy.

While some of them are back, the rest will slowly crawl in too and soon enough there will be something too look forward to each day of the week. As the countdown for each of them is nearing an end, the anticipation is growing and the excitement is going through the roof. With Gregory House, Vincent Chase and Michael Scofield providing me the required entertainment for the past few weeks, the rest of the band wagon is soon going to join in and all I can say about the next few weeks, THEY ARE GOING TO BE LEGENDARY!!!

P.S - For the benefit of those who share my liking/interest/obsession and more importantly those who ACTUALLY read my blog (:X), here is the countdown list.

atleast comment a smiley when you read this!!!

we 'know USA'

When was the last time you went into a quiz about the United States of America and ended up winning it?? I did it 2 days back.

Aman and I (popularly known as each others' wingmen) went for the Know USA quiz on Monday. With no prior preparations and mere dependence on luck we participated in the quiz and ended up winning the competition. Ours was one of the 4 teams, selected from a written elimination held for 56 teams from colleges all over the city. The results of the written elimination which were supposed to be announced in the evening bought us back to the venue, but we re-visited the place only to collect our free 1 GB pen drives, which were being given to all the participants. After collecting a (pretty cool) flash drive, a (horrendous) cap, a (decent enough) wallet, a (weird) red t-shirt (all of whom had the sponsors' name plastered on it), Aman and I had a lengthy discussion about whether to stay beyond that point or not. We eventually decided to leave only after knowing the results, not because we were hoping to get selected or for curiosity sake, but because we were a bit scared to be the only participants to leave immediately after collecting our free stuff.

When the quiz master announced our names, it took us almost a minute and another friends' push to realize that we were in for the final round and had to immediately take our place on the podium. Funnily, instead of being happy for getting to the final round, our table was the epicenter for a lot of "shit"s, "duck"s and "damn"s as both of us were worried about prior commitments. We hadn't expected to be there and so we had certain plans which were difficult to delay. Only after thinking of the prizes being offered and calculating that we had a 3/4th chance of winning either one of them, we eventually settled down and decided to 'fish' everything else for the moment and just go with everything into the quiz. It was all like a dream beyond that point. 3rd after the 4th round and a clean sweep of the next round, which turned out to be one on Movies (luckily for us :) we found ourselves on the top, with a lead that became pretty difficult for the other teams to surpass.

Oh yah, I forgot to mention that we got laptops for winning the quiz :D. Properly gift wrapped and around 2 kgs, the ones we were dreading and expecting to be sucky Cubit laptops, turned out be pretty decent HP ones. This is us with our brand new machines ---- >

This victory took our tally to 2 out of 2. The first quiz we won was organized by the Rotary Club and was a sports quiz. Victory in the former one gave us 1000 bucks and individual trophies, while the later one yielded us with 46 grand notebooks... Not too bad ehh!!!

delhi belly

Leave a KFC-hungry and a beer-thirsty predator free in the capital city and this is what you get, a Delhi Belly!!! The repercussions of living in a dry state embedded with extreme vegetarian-ism are bad.

Delhi is like food and beer heaven!!! Hogging on numerous KFC burgers and emptying more lager and draught bottles in the last 4 days than I ever have before this trip, has had a very undesirable effect on the tummy. The continuous non-vegetarian food and the more than often pints have been complimented aptly by late nights, even later mornings and extended siestas. All these luxuries have not even tried to make a competent defense council to the case of the bulging delhi belly. Though its not as bad as not being able to look at my feet, but still, jeans are tighter, sleeping is longer and laziness has gone to a higher level. All of this is not implying that the 12 packs I had before were anywhere near desirable, but after the past 4 days, when I eventually gathered the courage too, I had to stop counting the packs once the figure reached 18.

With a few days still left on the holiday and no sort of physical activity on the horizon, I fail to see any respite for the delhi belly. Thinking about the amount of work that will be required to drawback the effects of Delhi's tempting eating joints and pubs, does manage to give me a few sweats, but apparently not enough to change my vacation habits. Till I reach Ahmedabad and begin the 'getting back into shape' ordeal, people back there are definitely in for a visual surprise, a pretty big one!!!

lakshya... still searching

There are good films... there are excellent films and there are the pathetic ones. Along with these, there are those which leave you in awe of them. These are the ones that wont get boring even after seeing them over and over again, those on whose DvD you wont think twice before spending the mandatory 500-600 bucks and those that don't fail to leave you with goosebumps even if you see them twice in a row. In my list of 'super movies', among numerous firangi flicks, one of them is Lakshya. 15 and watching a movie alone, for the first time, 19th June 2004 has became concrete memory strand.

I always get influenced by movies. The influence can vary from various levels of good to downright useless. With Lakshya, it was a completely different feeling. I was amazed (mouth-open amazed) through out the movie. The amazement wasn't only because of the acting, story, script etc... but also because of the theme and everything about it. I loved the movie and since the first time I saw it, it has left an undying impression. The movie was 'super' on a number of aspects... beginning from the acting to the direction, the story, the script etc and not ending... I have to mention here that I'm hardly a critic when it comes to movies 'cause I end up liking every movie that I see. But here I'm assured because with Lakshya, it was and still seems to be a general consensus. I'm yet to come across someone who didn't like the movie. Along with the various aspects that I loved the movie for, the most important one why I've started liking it even more now, is because I completely relate to what Karan (Hrithik Roshan) faced. The recurrences of the word 'lakshya' through out the first half and Karan's failure to find one, keeps reminding me where I'm right now. I find myself in Karan's place in all the situations, obviously sans the car he drives, the super-cute girl-friend that he has and obviously the part where he is a richy-rich kid. I'm sure, I am just one of the millions who saw himself in the movie in Karan's shoes, but then, its my blog and I'm writing about it, so I won't refrain from being self-centric.

If you're in your last year of graduation and if you don't have an answer to the question "So, whats the plan now?" or "What are you going to do after TY?", either isolate yourself from all sorts of socialites or find an answer quickly. Its the only question I get from everyone I meet and the answer "I've kept my options open" loses its charm beyond a point. I don't know how important is lakshya in one's life, but I do know that it has its implications. Being focused per say, is extremely necessary I assume, but what if you're not? I'm yet to feel the heat and excitement lakshya carries 'cause I'm still searching for mine. Nobody likes a question mark looming over them, but then the question mark shouldn't be answered just because you want it to go away. I believe people work the best when they're under pressure, at least I know I do and thats where I am right now. Under pressure from my family, from friends and from every other person who looks at me and tries to imagine me 5 years beyond today. Call it an excuse, call it running away, I don't want to settle on a lakshya just because I need one to answer people.

The quest for my lakshya is going on, without a doubt. Wherever I go, whomever I meet, the question mark doesn't take a break, its there and I'll keep it there till I find the most apt answer to it. TY will end in another 8 months and as one of my professor describes it "its a big bad world out there, people are waiting to kick you on your butts". The movie's punch lines says "It took him 25 years and 18000 feet to find himself". Knowing that a future in the Army is not really in bounds and that waiting till 25 years is not feasible and also that 18000 feet wont make any difference to my plans, I really hope to settle on my lakshya soon enough.

who, where and why?

I went through a lot blogs to see how others managed to kick off their blog and how I could do something different. The reason, obviously to make my blog look cooler right from the beginning. But after seriously delaying starting my blog for weeks on the plea of ‘not finding a cool enough first post’, last night I realized “whats the fuss about the first post anyways!” and decided to follow the rest of the flock by going along with who am I and why this blog?
(I added the ‘where’ in the title because just 'who and why' sounds lame!! 'who, where AND why?' sounds way cooler )

Who am I?

A combination of Clark Kent, Chandler Bing and Homer Simpson, says my Facebook about me section and I’m using it here too. Clark Kent because I’m a big superman fan and so I obviously relate to him, Chandler Bing because thats the FRIENDS character I most relate too and Homer Simpson cause I love to eat. For those who aren’t fans of Superman (understandable), FRIENDS (thats just weird, who doesn’t watch FRIENDS?) and The Simpsons (you have to watch Simpsons, its like the best cartoon ever!), I’m really sorry I can’t put ‘who am i?’ any better. For the others, I’m sure I couldn’t have made it any more simpler.

Why arbitrary articulations?

I’m a pretty expressive and can’t be without showing what I feel. Lately, relying on certain people as an outlet has bought immense frustration and so I decided to shift to another medium, a more receptive and more responsive one (I hope). Again, I could have used something like ‘my thoughts’ or ‘my expressions’ or an array of other names utilizing ‘thoughts’, ‘feelings’, ‘expressions’ and various other forms of ‘my, myself and I’, but I wanted to make it jazzier. Arbitratry Articulations sounds much cooler and eventually, its all about being cool, isn't it!