A date tonight... with Paws

I need to catch a train tonight, but then, that can wait. I have a date with Paws, its going to be a very important evening. I am really excited about it :) I am going to pop the question!

Well, someone has to do it. For obvious reasons, he is not going to. So.. I might as well do it. So here goes..

"Who is taking home the FIFA world cup?"

For that matter why stop with Paws? I am going to have serious conversations with all the dogs, cats, parakeets and possibly any octopuses that I can find on the way to Nandanam. By the way, Paws is the pet cat of the aunty who i am staying with. (What are the chances of having a boy friend named Paws anyway)

Well, if I wanted to know who would win the FIFA world cup, you would think I have to actually watch the match for that. How technologically backward are you!? Dont you know how these matches are decided? O dear ignorant soul, read this-

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/now-a-parakeet-tips-holland-to-win-wc-2010/126284-5-21.html?from=tn

and this-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/09/psychic-octopus-paul-picks-spain

Here is the best bit: After FIFA, Nepal wants Paul the octopus to predict its political future. If you were one of those who went to cast the vote on polling day in Nepal, you must be feeling absolutely wasted, now that Paul the octopus is around
;)

Fortified with fiber

Had been taking the bus for sometime since my partner went low on battery and is being serviced back to health in the TVS service station. And since the bus driver does not trust my road sense, he does not let me sit at the wheel. That leaves me pretty jobless sitting at the passenger seat, with nothing to do other than gawk at people and posters en route to office.

So, this one poster caught my attention. It had the picture of maggi noodles and a caption that went 'The power of fiber'.

Would have suited rubicon mattress more.. still, 'power of fiber'?..perhaps thats a better tagline for the Coir board of India...or..may be plywood??

But no, the copywriter says Maggi noodles (of all things!) has the power of fiber. Come now, fiber is not your average vitamin or mineral!

Pray, somebody enlighten me. What did he mean? did he really mean fiber can give me energy when consumed? what kind of 'power' does fiber have that noodles can use, eventually worth this advertisement?

honey, I shrunk the media!

Media - a magical word. The plural of medium - the agent or instrument that communicates/conveys. While the television and newspapers and similar agents still act as the mass media, there arises a highly volatile, still powerful ‘personal media’.

Getting your writing published in any of the media was considered rare earlier. I still remember my first ever write up that was published in the daily newspaper, I had kept the cutting for a long time before I eventually lost it. The whole school was proud of it for the few days that the item appeared. And today, I write a blog and it is on the Internet!, for the whole world to see! (the whole world doesn’t want to read this rubbish, of course), but technically, it is there to be seen, whether anyone wants it or not. Something so unreachable is now available to anyone who has the interest and time. The very fact is amazing.

You cannot talk about personal media without mentioning the I-pods. These Apple’s kids are amazing and have brought lot of attention to personalising music. The other day, I saw a gadget that can play your ipod music on your car stereo, it can be used on static radios also. All you have to do is attach the transistor to the gadget which is already attached to the I pod and set it to a frequency that is empty(not used by other transmitting stations). Anyone in the radius of 50-100 feet can tune into his/her radio on the frequency that you are playing the music and listen to your music. and the people who use it, are not transmitting just music :)

Coming back to my blog, though I can call it ‘media’, it is definitely not mass media, it’s a highly personal media, I project only what I think is interesting and the things I think are important gets mentioned. Similarly I find millions of other people in this same media, they share the internet space and are part of the media.

Their views gets published, turns up at internet searches(google,msn) – this way, other people get to read it, some people who read it, think over it, sometimes act over it, and that is great. Sometimes, its not so great also. Anything that can be used, can be abused also. Internet probably is the most abused medium among all the media. The positive and the negative of this medium is the same, that it is ‘Available’. Available for use, available for abuse.

But for now, lets look at the bright side of it! Think what great things we can do with this gold mine. Viola! The media is personal

Biology anyone?

This is a doubt I have had, ever since I walked out of my biology class on that day when I was studying in 6th standard. Why do people associate love with heart??? I had grown up hearing people say things like 'love with all your heart' and 'from the depth of my heart' and similar stuff.

My teacher told me that all the heart does is circulate blood! She said it is the best pump in the world.

And all this while I had been thinking this heart is some super thing that does so much of complicated functions like loving, hating, feeling and all that jazz.. To know that it was just a pump, 'broke my heart' :(

The 'thinkers' among my friends told me that may be it was because people had difficulty associating emotions with brain and they needed something more romantic, so the heart was chosen. but lets face it, there is nothing romantic about the heart! Its not even a good looking organ. When its a question of looks, the lungs is anytime a better bet than the heart. and what about the liver, why not kidneys?

So please relieve me of my life-long doubt..tell me why you say 'heart-felt thanks' and not something like 'kidney-felt thanks' or 'SmallIntestine-felt thanks'??

Its movie time

I am sure you guys would have watched the hollywood movie "Speed" (Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. have i spelt them right??). For those who have not, it is an action drama where there is this bomb planted in a bus carrying some clueless passengers. The bomb is programmed in such a way as to blow up the whole bus if the speedometer falls below certain count (50 miles i guess), once it crosses it. So Sandra Bullock keeps driving the bus on and on without stopping or slowing against all odds on the road.

Now, I am talking about one particular shot, where the bus reaches the end of a half-constructed road. the road re-starts after an interval, and in between there is a deep space gap. In the movie, Sandra just accelarates, the bus is shown to be flying across the space and lands on the other side of the road wherefrom the road is operational.

Question: Do you think such a stunt is really possible? Since I cant hear you now, let me jus say what I think. NO way! There was a time when I thought things in motion if accelarated enough can go in a straight line even if they are not in contact with the ground. Eg: Bullet fired from a pistol. That was only till i watched this program which showed how they made this movie (Speed). The director was explaining how they could never have pulled it off no matter how they tried, because once the bus takes off from the road, it is pulled by the gravitational force from the earth deep below. So by all the glory of explanation, what the bus will do once it loses contact with the ground is- nosedive to where it is pulled from! So how did they make it fly up in the air? Simple, they elevated it.

Now that it is the end of the post, i have to give you something really interesting. Did you know that even a bullet that is fired does not travel in exact straight line in space? before it reaches the target, its altitude drops a bit because gravity pulls it down. Serious, i am not bluffing!