7000 pictures and going !!

Todays photo with the old Canon Powershot S30.. 7000 pictures and counting.


The drooling for a digital SLR continues..

The IPod Kilo !!

Forget the nano.. I got the IPOD Kilo.

that's right. My mentor at work figured out that Musicindiaonline works through Internet explorer even at work .. we used to try with Netscape and gave up many times because of the firewall..

Looks like we can now finally listen to our favorite music by just using our laptops.



Sure, it weighs a few kilos, but all I had to do was spend 9.99 to get some nice sony earphones..

IPOD, WIPOD.. my THINKPOD will do for now !!

ps. I do love Apple products and have been known to drool at the sight of the Nano. But I have access to my laptop at all times and when I am driving I listen to what my daughter listens ...

Mitti ki kushboo . . .

Back to blogging after almost a week... thanks to some germs that kept me down for most of the weekend and the beginning of this week.

I am fully recovered now and back to my good old blogging self.

Over the last week, while lying in bed and watching SUN TV (with a few heavy antihistamines inside me), I couldn't help notice the news. There is a frenzy in Tamil Nadu over actress "Kushboo"'s comments on the Tamil woman and premarital sex !!

For those of you who are not from Tamil Nadu, or India for that matter, here is a brief glossary of terms that can rapidly bring you up to speed on the issue at hand :

India : country halfway across globe where things work differently than in United States

Tamil Nadu : A southern state where most politicians are ex-actors (they may still be acting a role even after entering politics!) or ex- movie script writers who now rile up the Tamil folk with their speeches (a.k.a dialogues) and where all actors want to become politicians. and this brings us to

Kushboo.. (literally means sweet smell) : an actress in Tamil Movies, TV serials who has been around for quite some time. Her claim to fame was that she was considered to be so ethereal that some citizens of Tamil Nadu decided to build a temple for her (literally with her statue instead of god's) in the early 1990's.

and last but not the least,

Pre-marital sex ! There will be no links provided for this section of the glossary, so the reader is recommended to go find their own web references. However, this much will be said : Kushboo has made some remark in a recent TV interview that "almost all Tamil women have had premarital sex "!!.

The response : The same people who built a temple for godess kushboo have now taken to the streets with stones and brooms and have even filed grievance cases in the Chennai High court (I kid you not folks ) !!

Mmm.. why is Kushboo's word so valuable compared to anyone else's. Why should she apologize to everyone for what she holds as a personal view. She might have had sex before marriage, and might have seen all her movie buddies have sex before marriage.. So much so, that she thinks it is an okay or normal thing to do. Why should she be dragged to court because of that. This is a general population, beating up an individual for making a "generic statement" which goes against average opinion. Where has freedom of speech gone in India ?

A lot of people say a lot of things in Tamil Nadu that used to offend me on a daily basis. I couldnt take them all to court. But what is more silly is that "Kushboo" is not some elected representative of the Tamil people, who just made a statement that goes against them. She is just an actress..

By the way, I have also been listening to ARR's music for the movie "Swades" and one of the lines in the song "Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera" (means : this land of yours )is

Mitti ki kushboo, tu kaise bulaayega ?
tu chahe kahin jaaye, tu lautke ayega !

Translation :

the sweet smell of your motherland, how can you forget ?
you can go wherever you want, but it will make you return !

and everytime I hear these words, not only do I remember the sweet smell of my motherland, but I am also painfully reminded of what is happening today with actress Kushboo..

Breaking a relationship !

I have loved her since the day I set my eyes on her.
When I finally held her in my arms, I swore to see the world through her eyes.
The way she was sensitive to my fingers, just made me go crazy.
She made everyone in the family happy, it wasnt just me.

Out of the blue, all of a sudden she blinded me, blurred my vision to a point where I could take it no longer.

I had to end our relationship and send her back to where she came from.

It has been a sad day !

:(

The Digital Rebel XT has focussing problems and has been returned !

Peace In Action !!

Last night, a teenager rang the door bell. "Must be one of those donation collecting kids", I said to myself before I opened the door. The kid, who didnt look like the honest and sincere "if you subscribe to these magazines, I get 500$ toward tuition" type kids, shocked me by saying "Hi, I am with Peace in Action. We are trying to stop the war in Iraq !".

He had the standard notepad, pamplet stuff that all "donation kids" have. I recognized the dude as a seasoned pro and told him that if I have to sign some petition to stop the war, I will be glad to do so. Then came an expected line..

"Sir, we are actually collecting money to stop the war!".

Something snapped inside me. Over the last few years I must have paid close to a hundred thousand dollars in taxes to the US government (more than 40% of our pay is taxes of various kinds by the way) and most of this money is used by the US government, to fund the war !! I asked him if it made sense for me to contribute 100,000 dollars to the government to go to war and then contribute a measly ten to stop the war !!! Told him that if only he had come to me before the war started, I could have saved myself $99990 and would have split it 50/50 with him.

He gave me the "you got me there you bastard!!" look and walked away.

What the hell are these people thinking ? Peace in Action, my @## !!