Why is it always blondes and Sardars who are dumb?

Before you ask, no, I'm not a Sardar or a blonde. But I find it increasingly irritating to read a dumb blonde joke or a Sardarji joke. Nearly every SMS I get these days is a joke based on Sardars.



An example :



"Sardarji was filling up an application form for a job. He promptly filled the columns titled NAME, AGE, ADDRESS etc. Then he came to the column Salary Expected: He was not sure as to what to be filled there. After much thought he wrote: Yes"



We have a couple of Sardars in our College and one of them is quite intelligent. Though I admit, I don't know any bright blondes, but that's probably because I know very few blondes.



Forget dumb Sardars. Ever played the game Grand Theft Auto 3? All the Taxi Drivers in the game are Sardars. There aren't so many Sardars in USA who drive taxis, are there? I wonder what they felt when they played the game...



Update: I had a kind of an adventure last Saturday. I've narrated it at my College Life blog, since it's something that happened on my way back from College.



A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Desires of the Heart

I quite clearly remember my mindset last year. Seeing no valid reason for the existence of this universe and influenced by the sagacity of the sages depicted in epics, I concluded that life is unreal; I lost interest in this material world. I was peacefully content, with no wants whatsoever. I never cared for worldly events.

But things aren't the way they were before. At this point of time, I yearn for a lot of things. Here's a brief list, in no particular order.

I want:

1. To get out of my college's hostel.

2. The best 128 MB AGP card money can buy.

3. A reasonably fast broadband internet connection.

4. The best portable pocket-sized MP3 player.

5. A high resolution digital still camera, bluetooth enabled.

6. A Wi-Fi enabled notebook computer for obvious reasons.

7. The best keyboard(music) ever to hit the market.

8. A violin. Any violin.

9. The money to satisfy wants 2-8.

10. To practice euthanasia on myself provided no one will miss me, there's no such thing as an afterlife, and I'm not reborn.

Actually, a lifetime supply of Pepsi and daily necessities, and a computer with a fast, unlimited internet connection, free for life, would suffice.

Anything you want?

I'm beginning to hate the Internet.

Rather, I'm beginning to hate the lack of it wherever I go. You are probably familiar with the fact that I can access the internet only once a week when I go home, if you've been reading my blogs. Even that was ruined, at least for the past 2-3 weeks. I come home for the weekend, eager to blog and check my mail, and my parents tell me that the modem is kaput. Try to connect to the net, and you get "Error 633: The port cannot be found or is busy", or something to that effect. I knew the port couldn't be busy; we had no applications which used the COM1 port. With some tweaks here and there, it started working, but not for long. As soon as the computer was rebooted, the same error message appeared when one tried to connect to the net. Doing the same thing didn't fix the modem this time. So we assumed getting a new one would solve the problem. But, the day being a Sunday, no shops open, no modem. I had to wait for another week.



Next weekend, I come home; we have a new modem, but the same problem. It seems the modem worked fine till the computer was rebooted. Obviously, I began to see a pattern here. But I still couldn't fix it.



The next weekend, i.e., this weekend, I hit the jackpot. I completely understood what the problem was. Now we have two working modems. The fault didn't lie in the modem, it was the OS. Microsoft's OS. Windows XP. Service pack 2. In an attempt to secure the internet connection with a firewall, XP had done something, which was the source of all my misery.



I want wireless internet. But that's not gonna happen, at least not now. For that to happen, there have to be Wi-Fi zones wherever I go, and I have to have a Notebook Computer, with wireless functionality. The only free Wi-Fi zone (as a matter of fact, the ONLY Wi-Fi zone, free or not) in Chennai is at the Railway Station. And I won't be visiting that place too often.



While I'm doing this, there's this guy on the phone boasting about his MP3 collection, but unfortunately he doesn't have an MP3 player, so he wants me to write some on an Audio CD. What do I get in return? I don't know. He keeps saying that he'll gimme his entire collection, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I'll have to think it over.



I'm seriously considering applying for the internet connection at College even though it's extremely unreliable and slow. Even though you can't use Yahoo Messenger. Even though you can't download any music. Even though you can't browse websites which aren't education related. I hate my life. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. At least for now.



Update: 3 weeks worth of updates at College Life. Be there, or be square.

Maybe I should get a phone with a camera...

Mobile Phone Camera day. I happened to get one for today, and this is one pic I wanted to post. Why can't we have cows away from the city like in most other countries??? (For more information regarding my attitude towards cows, read this post.)

Did I say BlogExplosion is good?

It's ok if you just want to see the hits increase, but not if you want people to read your material. I was just checking my stats. Almost all readers referred here from BlogExplosion don't stay for more than 30-40 seconds. 30 seconds is the minimum time a person should be at a blog to get credits in BlogExplosion. It's obvious that a majority of the blogging population enrolled in BlogExplosion don't want to read other blogs.



This isn't the case with other readers though, like readers referred from other sources like searches or other blogs. There was one reader from India, I'm not sure which city 'cause the person was browsing from a Sify Iway browsing centre or using a Satyam LAN connection (you can tell all that by using a reliable hit counter like statcounter, in case you were wondering), who was referred from Hobbes' Moron Mountain (Don't get fooled by the name... it's a must read blog if you haven't done so yet),(a very long sentence, aint it?), who actually stayed at this blog, read all the archives, and also all the posts from my other blog, for a total of TWO HOURS (Surprisingly, this person hasn't cared or doesn't want to leave a comment). I never knew my blogs were worth so much time. I've had visitors from Sunny's blog who actually leave comments(Sunny as in Sunny Melbourne, in case you haven't heard, an indescribably passionate blogger.). Then there's Whatever's Left, the funky UK music blog, giving me a frequent source of readers, not just visitors.



Tony Pierce has linked to me in the past week, (What? You don't know who Tony Pierce is? He's probably the most illustrious and true blogger of our time, though his blog does have a disclaimer "nothing in here is true". If you haven't done so already, and I would be surprised if you haven't, go read his blog!) and all the visitors from his blog stay here for at least 10 minutes.



If the world weren't filled with so many selfish people, BlogExplosion might actually be good.



Trivia - The most popular keywords people use to end up at this blog - "Why Do We Exist"/"Do We Exist".



Oh, here's wishing everyone who celebrates the festival around the globe a very HAPPY DEEPAVALI/DIWALI however you prefer to call it. Technically it's over now, though some celebrate it tomorrow also. Personally I would say avoid the firecrackers completely, but if you feel like it, go ahead!

Is anyone truly selfless?

Note : The opinions expressed in this post are purely from the mind of the author. No research has been done online or offline on this topic, though some bits and pieces are from the author's debate on the same topic at his college.



Selfish - Adj. Concerned chiefly or only with yourself.



There's no one is this world who isn't selfish, even if it's in a very small way. When I heard this statement from my English professor at college, I was shocked at first, then realized he was right, and then after deeper thinking, realized he was wrong, and thus tried to prove him wrong. Now I'm not sure who is right.



Consider this argument - If a person is truly selfless, the person should be a very benevolent & altruistic one. But why exactly are benevolent people, well, benevolent? They gain some satisfaction and sometimes even some sort of respect from others. So people are kind because they get satisfied by being so. Thus it can considered selfish, ergo there are no truly selfless people in this world.



And then consider this - Look at the meaning of Selfish. It says in the dictionary that being selfish is being concerned ONLY with one's self. An altruistic person is concerned not only about himself/herself, but also concerned about others. So technically speaking, it's not selfish.



So what do you think? Is anyone truly selfless?

Some funnies from mail

Remember what I said about gap-fillers in the previous post? Well, forget it. I just couldn't resist these I got in my mail today:



On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his

teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The

opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily

those of his parents."



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom

to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet.

So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage.

Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to

my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held

it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better

throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the

toilet a few days ago.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I was driving with my three young children one warm

summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of

us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was

reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout

from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a

seat belt!"



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Writing With Emotional Appeal



There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his

desire to become a great writer. When asked to define "great" he

said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read,

stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff

that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"



He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day,

but I couldn't find any.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



Mother had decided to trim her household budget

wherever possible, so instead of having a dress

dry-cleaned she washed it by hand.



Proud of her savings, she boasted to my father, "Just

think, we are five dollars richer because I washed this

dress by hand."



"Good," my dad quickly replied. "Wash it again!"



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Koala Bear



A Koala bear walks into a bar, sits down and orders a sandwich and the

bartender brings him a sandwich



The Koala eats the sandwich and gets up, spins around, pulls a pistol

out of his pouch, shoots the piano player, an proceeds to walk out of

the bar.



The bartender, in shock, shouts to the Koala, "hey who do you think you

are, you ate my sandwich and shot my piano player, and just where do you

think your going!



The Koala replies, "Hey I'm a Koala. Look it up."



The frustrated bartender pulls out a dictionary from behind the bar and

looks up Koala: "n. a marsupial that eats shoots and leaves."



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



I thought it was just a bear, not a Koala...

Insert catchy title here

I've made up my mind today. I've decided not to cop out of posting something other than weird news stories from around the world. No more gap-fillers, nosiree. None at all. Nope. Never.

A friend and I have invented a new game... its called SMS rap. You send a message that sounds like rap, or at least rhymes, and the receiver replies with a rap of his own. It's a really fun way to while away time when bored, or when not bored too. It's a good way to improve your vocabulary too. Spread the word! Don't forget to mention the Ranting Human taught you this! (Unless of course you get caught doing this during a class.)

Anyone participating in NaNoBlogMo? I desperately want to, but with limited access to a computer it's gonna be difficult.

I also wanted to start a comic strip, but I don't have a graphics tablet to draw my characters. It's too bad, 'cause I've already developed a great storyline.

See! I didn't cop out! I'm an honest bloke, aren't I?

UPDATE: Yes, this is another shameless plug for my College Life blog. What am I to do? This blog gets more readers than that, but that's the blog I update with lengthy posts!

Bush seems to be getting a lot of negative publicity....

Did you hear that Bush attempted AND succeeded at robbing a bank? Well, not Bush himself exactly. Some thief wearing a George Bush mask did it, and hasn't been caught yet. Weird choice of mask. Maybe not. Click here for the whole story.



Even pornstars don't want Bush to be re-elected! Pornstars shaved, I repeat, shaved, to support the "No More Bush" campaign. It seems that Bush has been concentrating more on bringing down pornstars rather than face the more pressing issues in the country. Read the whole story here.



Poor old Bush. He's made a lot of mistakes, he might not be a good President, but hey, he's not ALL bad, is he?



UPDATE: The College Life blog has been updated with the latest happenings.

BlogExplosion seems to be good

Considering the number of comments coming in from other BlogExplosion users on my previous post, that's what I was inclined to think. I really believed that people actually read the blog when surfing via BlogExplosion. Then I checked my stats. WHAM! In just a week, I'd had more than 300 visitors, and my total count has crossed a 1000. Even if I counted the number of people who just read my blog but didn't bother to comment, I'm sure the ratio between number of visitors and number of readers would be quite small. My theory about fake readers would be true. But at least there are a few real readers, so I guess it's worth it, since you also get to read other good blogs. So go to BlogExplosion.Com now! (By now, I mean after reading my blog.)



And Hobbes, I too am a veggie. So I'll consider your request to stop the yucky stuff.



BTW, I came across bugs, not in somebody's food, but in mine! Check out my College Life blog for more details. How's that for yucky stuff! (There's always a next time Hobbes...)

Fancy a bite of fried bugs?

If you ever have the habit of watching the Discovery Channel, Discovery Kids to be precise, you might have come across an episode of some programme where the food habits of some country were documented. One of the habits included frying cockroaches, dipping them in chocolate sauce and of course, eating them.



What if you find a deep fried bug in a packet of chips? That's what happened to Keith MacDonald from Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, Canada. Read more here.



First, it was pesticide infected Pepsi. Then it was bugged Cadbury's Diary Milk. And then libido loss causing cheeseburgers. Now this. Must be the year of contaminated junk food. Hey, it's a way to stop people from ruining their health.



Oh, and I've updated my College Life blog with a long descriptive post on my first two days in college, so check it out. It's worth it. Seriously. GO NOW!



Update: I stumbled upon a site today known as BlogExplosion.Com. Apparently, they help boost your blog's traffic without any nagging pop-ups or pop-unders. You read other blog sites and they in return visit your blog. Cool idea, but will it members actually read blogs, or just visit them for the sake of gaining more readers? I'll try this for a week or two and then give you my opinions.

Don't eat cheeseburgers if you don't want to lose your libido!

That's right, according to a woman from Melbourne. She sued McDonald's Australia claiming that she suffered a loss of libido after biting into an allegedly contaminated cheeseburger. Other than libido loss, the burger also caused depression, nightmares, anxiety, nausea, palpitations, diarrhea, shortness of breath and toothache.



And I thought cheese was good for health...



Source : United press international

Read the article here.

Yet another bomb threat...

Trring trring. Trring trring. Trring tr-.

"Hello?"

"There's a bomb on board Olympic Airlines flight 411, so don't let it take-off."

"Hello? Who is this?"

"Just a messenger."

Click.



Well, not exactly what might have happened. Once more, it was a false alert. Police confirmed nothing suspicious had been found after a six-hour search of the aircraft and its baggage. The alarm was raised on Sunday when some Greek newspaper received anonymous phone calls saying there was a bomb on the plane, Olympic Airlines flight 411 which had 300 people on board. The Greek passenger plane had to be diverted to London's Stansted airport thanks to this.



Why do people never learn??!! I know of only one bomb threat which wasn't a hoax. It was made by a man who called himself "The Bomber", in the movie "Speed". I've seen several occasions of bomb threats in my life. Almost every year in primary school, and a couple years of high school. None of them involved the blowing up of any part of my school. Talk about bad luck.



Why do these guys make fake threats??!! Perhaps they don't have the guts to actually place a bomb. Or they derive some sort of sadistic pleasure in knowing that someone fears them. Talk about weird fetishes.

Cows. Buffaloes. Whatever.

I don't fancy the colour red. So I don't wear red clothes. And I'm no matador either. So wtf should a cow/buffalo chase me??!! I didn't go in front of it and say "Hey you! Come get some!"!!



I guess temples have their reasons for keeping cows/buffaloes, considering that they're sacred and all. Take it from me - never, NEVER eat anything in front of a temple that has cows/buffaloes/bulls/animals (IF you live in India or any other country which deems it fit to have animals roaming around places of worship). Especially chocolate. Throw the wrapping material of the food you ate into the garbage, and it chases you. And they run damn fast too. Fast enough to make you jump into a highway, get insulted by bikers, and then fall into a garbage bin. Ok, maybe not THAT fast. But fast.

Iran goes nuclear...

Now why would a country defy the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Association? But they do seem to have a point... they want to use nuclear fuel developed from uranium for peace. Oh yeah, that explains those missiles they showed on BBC having the words "WE WILL CRUSH AMERICA" on them. Am I missing something here?

Why do we exist?

That question has been nagging me ever since I started thinking. At times I would wonder why we live, what is our purpose, for several days together. There were times when I would feel that there was no point in living. It always seems to me that none of us have any purpose for living in this world. We live only because we have a life. What if I was never born? If we were never given life, how would the world have been? Would there have been a world? What if the universe never existed? What if there were nothing, nothing at all? Tough questions... I wonder who'll answer them for me.



I'm a hardcore fan of the Max Payne game series, and I'm reminded of a phrase, rather a quote, a long one, from Max Payne 2 : The Fall of Max Payne, by Max Payne : "Vlad was right. There are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask 'Why me?' and 'What if?'. When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions." So I guess there is no point in asking questions like that. Everything exists, so stop asking silly questions, and live your life. That's what my brain says; at least one part of it.



Other questions that nag me are: How did the first human beings come into being? If Darwin is correct, we evolved from earlier primates, i.e., apes. But where did the monkeys come from? Where and how did our ancestors come into this world? For that matter, how did the world come into this universe? How were the planets that surround us created? How did the universe itself come into existence in the first place?



According to my high school education, the general consensus among scientists is that the whole universe was the result of a cosmic explosion, nicknamed the "Big Bang". Supposedly there was an atom, known as the "Primeval Atom", which was dense enough to contain all the parts of the universe we know, rather we think we know today. That was the conclusion derived from Hubble's Law ( (astronomy) the generalization that the speed of recession of distant galaxies (the red shift) is proportional to their distance from the observer), because most galaxies were found to be moving away from a central point. This is still only theoretical though. Maybe I should read "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.



Now for the religious point of view. If the founders of Hinduism were right, the universe was created by Brahma, the lord of creation. Then there's Shiva, the lord of destruction, and of course, Vishnu, the lord who strikes the balance between the other two, the lord of sustenance. For more information on this, visit SanatanSociety.Org . Also visit IndiaNest.Com where a connection between the modern blackhole theory and the trinity of lords is explained. I'm not too sure about other religions, so I'm not going to make any comments about them.



So why do we exist? I'm not sure, but I think it's a matter of opinion. I don't think there's one main reason we exist. But hey, that's just my opinion.

Blogger in the news!

I can't believe I forgot to mention this in my last post. Due to a series of late night programmes on television, I couldn't get up yesterday morning. In fact, I don't think I would have woken up if my mom hadn't said anything. I felt like I was chained down. But my mom used certain words to wake me up. She asked - "Do you have a blog?". I was like "Holy shit!! How did she know?!!". My mind raced with all the consequences. "If she'd found out about my previous blog in which I used my real name, I was sure to be screwed BIG TIME. But that isn't possible is it? I clearly remember deleting that blog. No... it can't be possible. Even if she read my current blog she could in no way ascertain that it was of my doing. I followed all the precautions in "What to Do When Your Mom Discovers Your Blog" by Biz Stone! Oh god I hope this isn't serious...".

After trying to get a hold of myself, I asked her - "Why?". She threw a page of the day's "The Hindu" newspaper at me. One of the articles was about how Blogger had turned Chennai into a rapidly developing Blogosphere. It had some quotes from a few Bloggers from Chennai, mostly about some business blogs. Most of the article was based upon Blogger's recent addition of Adsense in blogs, and how Bloggers could succeed using it.

I never knew it would come to this... neither did I know that Chennai was famous for blogging... I guess now there'll be more Bloggers from here.

Power failures on rainy days... the worst combo

3 hours. 3 HOURS. 3 hours of mind-numbing boredom, on Thursday evening. Why? 'cause some moron (No offense Hobbes)"accidentally" cut the power supply to the whole block where I live, coupled with the heaviest rains to hit us in over a year. Can't go outside, nothing to do inside. Except play on my trusty keyboard... with very, very low powered batteries, enough to run for 10 minutes. I learnt a valuable lesson - 10 minutes of excellent(:D) music is nowhere near enough to overpower 3 hours of heavy rains and electricity.



There was no electricity for 5 hours. But I was bored only for 3. I discovered a new method of venting my boredom. The almighty mobile phone. A Nokia 6610 is not great, but it's good enough. I had never played any game on the 6610 for more than 5 minutes, and yesterday was no better. Maybe it's time I bought a Nokia N-gage. But, no matter what the model, SMS is ever present. Being an RPG Prepaid customer also gave me the privilege of free SMSes. In those 2 hours, I achieved notoriety amongst cell phone spammers. I forwarded nearly every funny/irritating message I had received to everyone on my phone book. I have only one regret... not being able to see the look on the face of the guy I spammed most.



Now that we have full power and dry lands, I have to convince my neighbour to give me his copy of Splinter Cell... that game is phenomenal!

Chalk up another one for the Ranting Human!

The front page says it all. After a lot of diligent work, I've finally changed the header design. This one is more pleasing to the eye than the previous one...

Spiderman 2 is quite disappointing

Before you get enraged, let me tell you that I am not talking about the movie. I'm talking about the PC version of Spiderman 2 the game. I have only one word to describe Activision's attempt to recreate Spidey's movie magic in the gaming world - pathetic.



Anybody who bought this game for the PC has been ripped off (I didn't buy - I borrowed). After playing its prequel, one would have envisioned Spiderman 2 having mind blowing high quality graphics. The game could have at least lived up to the previous one. But the whole engine seems to be based on much older versions of Spiderman games. The only difference being, Spiderman can now walk on the streets. Who needs to walk when you can swing and crawl walls???!!!



When I first saw the trailer of this game, I noticed that Spiderman could do awe-inspiring moves with his web, somewhat like a swinging gymnast. None of those moves are available for the PC version, but the PS2 version has it all. I heard somewhere that the PS2 version has even more levels than the PC version.



You can't even play as Peter Parker in this version. You have no combos, no special web attacks, moronic in-game missions, bad voice acting by Tobey Macguire, and worst of all, a sarcastic "guide" aiding you in the tutorial.



Probably, the guys at Activision were trying to "reach out" to those with low end computers, and also fix minor bugs in the first game like bad environment detail, and Spidey being unable to walk on the streets of New York. In the process, they forgot to detail Spidey and other main characters, resulting in a totally abominable game, losing the much needed boost from the large population of high end gamers.



I wonder what will happen when the third Spiderman movie gets out. I think that’s somewhere in 2007. Maybe they'll revert to a 2-D platform... maybe I'm being too harsh...



Or maybe I should finally consider buying a PS2. But considering that I'm short on cash, I guess my PC will have to do. Unless someone is willing to buy me one.

13 really seems to be unlucky...

The last time I had been away this long from this blog was after the message on Friday the 13th. And now, it's happened after my 13th post. Funnily enough, my Freshman year at College is scheduled to begin on the 13th of this month. That is quite creepy to say the least.



I really don't have anything to rant about, but I do have a funny incident to post here. This happened last Friday. A close friend and I, out of pure boredom, with no alternative whatsoever, were watching a cartoon show titled "Detective School Q". Near the end of the show, some guy comes out of a forest. My friend, being an ardent fan of The Matrix (Funny how this movie crawls into almost every message ) , pointed out that the guy looked quite similar to Neo.



The next instant, the guy's father called him by his name. The name sounded almost exactly like "Neo". And that's not even the best part. We busted our stomachs laughing at what happened next. The guy tells his father this - "I have a message from The Oracle". In that situation, that was quite hilarious, given the fact that an Oracle also appears in The Matrix.



I've also begun a new blog to record my next 4 years in College. Hopefully, they won't be too bad. I've also created a neat header for that blog, so check it out - College Life



(Later we found out that the guy's name was Ryu, and not Neo.)

Power implant aims to run on body heat

"Life-saving medical implants like pacemakers and defibrillators face a big drawback: their batteries eventually run out. So every few years, patients need surgery to have the batteries replaced.

Now a company in New York state is planning to tackle the problem by providing patients with an implantable power source that recharges their implant's batteries using electricity generated by the patient's own body heat." (For the full article go to NewScientist.com .)

At first, this might sound like good news. But if you think it over, you'll realise what's happening. It all started with those watches which run on body heat (are they sill in the market?). If such devices used up our body heat, wouldn't we be left feeling extremely cold? Those life-saving implants could well be the end of our lives. Of course, if they'll probably be low powered, and since our body generates a lot of BTUs of body heat, I don't think that will matter anyway.

But still, imagine a person has every known injury, and requires several medical implants. If that person is treated with implants which make use of "biothermal batteries", he would lose a considerable amount of body heat.

This is terrible I tell you! Things are happening almost exactly as they did in "The Matrix", the only difference being that instead of machines turning us into sources of energy, we ourselves are doing so. The entire human race could become batteries!!!

Comparisons Galore

Today was one of those days. What days you ask? The days when my mind goes into an unfathomable place, with scattered thoughts. Well, I'm not talking about religion or the meaning of life here. I'm talking about something more serious. I'm talking about the similarities between "The Lord Of The Rings" and "Harry Potter" (The books, not the movies).



Of course, Joanne Kathleen Rowling is quite a fascinating writer, and it must be said that she is responsible for several children to turn to books in this modern age of computing. I presume that the concept of a wizard school, and a parallel world based entirely on magic, etc. are of her own making. But there are some similarities between her creation and JRR Tolkien's epic adventure. Keep in mind, I'm not accusing her of copying from JRR Tolkien, but merely pointing out the similarities between the two stories.



Lets start with the main characters. Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter. Well, there's not much to say here, so the only things in common would be that both face a heavy burden, and have a difficult task to perform (I know its vague, but read on).



Next, the people the main characters rely on. Frodo relies on Gandalf, just as Harry relies on Dumbledore. Both Gandalf and Dumbledore are old, wise men; both of them act as a guide to the respective characters, both are good at magic.



And then there's Aragorn and Sirius. Both of them would give their lives to protect the main characters, though Sirius does end up doing so while Aragorn doesn't die in the end.



Now for the Nazgul and the Dementors. The Ring-wraiths or Black Riders and the Dementors are both clad in black, both have a deadly weapon (The Dementor's Kiss and something of the Nazgul, I forgot). Both of them remove any feeble presence of happiness.



There is one stark difference though, when it comes to the uncles of the main characters. Mr. Dursley hates every inch of Harry, but Frodo is Bilbo's favourite nephew. And also the difference in the way the Elves are projected.



Ah well, maybe with a little bit more of thinking, I'll come up with something better next time...

Some Bloggers really do abandon their blogs...

I first became a blogger somewhere in February of this year, and had 3 blogs to my name back then. Out of those 3, one had only one post, another had about 10 (it was a team blog). The third blog was something I was dedicated to; it was a kind of diary. I mostly kept track of daily happenings and activities. After a month or so, I became busy with a lot of things, and completely forgot about these three blogs of mine.

This month, before I created this blog, I was hit on the head by the other member of that team blog. He wanted to develop the blog further. After a long conference, we decided not to. But I wanted to continue my personal blog, so I went back to that diary of mine.

As I read each post, I became more and more aware of how much information I had given away in that blog. It could make some one invade my privacy (though I really don't have it anymore these days). The instant reaction of mine was to delete that blog, a reaction that I now deeply, deeply regret. I had started that blog to remember my past if I survived long enough to read it later. Now it has gone. I have most certainly given up on that first blog and my personal blog, but I'm not sure about the team blog yet.

I've recently found out that I'm not alone in the field of abandoning blogs. The new Blogger NavBar has opened the way to dozens of deserted blogs, most of them having only one post, posted way back in March or June. Many of these bloggers have just posted a message saying "Testing".

Forget old blogs. Look at the relatively new ones, the ones started in mid June to end July. Even these have just one message, testing this blogging "thingie". What happened later? Did the blogger find no time to blog? Or was it lack of interest? I guess the answer would vary from person to person. At least these bloggers should have the courtesy to delete the blogs like I did, so that someone else who really has an interest in blogging can have that url (oh boy, here I go again).

What exactly am I doing this for? Oops, wrong question. I hate answering questions like that. In fact, if someone asks me a question like that, I get angry. REAL angry. Angry enough to make someone cry or to break a piece of furniture. I feel that by blogging, my energy gets used up, and none of it is left to make me angry. Or at least I hope it does, or someone's going to be sorry...

(In case you were wondering, this is my fourth blog)

The Laughing Man vs The Ranting Human

Any fan of "Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex" would know the "Laughing Man", being the only "malefactor" whose name springs up in most of the episodes. An intriguing characteristic of the Laughing Man is his famous logo, the one that looks similar to a smiley and has "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf mutes" written around it.

The Laughing Man logo from Ghost in The Shell : Stand Alone Complex
Source : Google Images

The constant recurrence of the Laughing Man logo in the show, combined with my fascination of artistic works(:D) set me thinking... If the Laughing Man can have a logo of his own, so can the Ranting Human! And so, I commenced work on this brainstorm (yeah, right) of mine. But, as luck would have it, this brainstorm was not quite unlike the others; I didn't know what to do next!

Being a bit of a Photoshop enthusiast, I decided to aquire a picture of the Laughing Man logo and modify it to my needs... a bad idea. The Laughing Man was nowhere near the likes of me, a totally different persona. Back to the drawing board, literally.

This time, I gave it a lot of thought. I came up with a bundle of weird ideas, (not worth mentioning here) but in the end, it doesn't even matter - too much Linkin Park I guess. Actually, in the end, I DID create a logo. Check it out:

I'm not going to elaborate on how I went about doing it... an artist never reveals his secrets( or does he?)

Friday the 13th is back!!!

Ah yes, the infamous Friday the 13th. Feared by many, it's also the title of a movie series... But I think I'll stick to the date rather than the movies. There have been quite a few Friday the 13s recently: June 13, 2003, then February 13, 2004, and now, August 13, 2004 is a Friday again – enough to send chills down your spine. Here's some info I found on Indiatimes.com



"So why do people fear Friday the 13th? What makes people so jittery, even stopping them from going to work on this day? Thirteen is an out and out occult number. Apparently, witches meet in groups of 13 to receive orders from their masters and this 13th being a Friday,its a deadly combination.But is this combination really dangerous? What is the mystery and rationale behind the fear of Friday the 13th?



The myth of the dread of 13: The number 13 is dreaded by most people the world over. Hotels do not have room number 13; even the opera houses in Italy avoid this number. One reason for the dread of 13 is because it is an occult symbol, in occult it signifies the skeleton with scythe (death) reaping down men (the picture of a crowned head of a man fallen at the point of the scythe). At its back, is a female head with flowing hair parted in the centre. This is a symbol of the conception of realisation. This number indicates death, transmutation, deception, destruction, hope, faith and rebirth. In the Kabala, at number 13, arises the Emperor, completely armed to gain his empire. In fact, the occult school says, 'He who understands 13 hath the keys of

power and Dominion.'



The ill-luck associated with the number 13 originated from the fate of Jesus as the 13th guest among his 12 apostles in the Biblical account of the Last Supper. The Bible tells us that one of the dinner guests – apostles – went on to betray Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the crucifixion of Jesus on the next day—a Friday! It was, for many years, designated the day for capital punishment and informally referred to as "hangman's day."



More Facts



• Number 10 Paraskevidekatriaphobics is the phenomenon which describes

those afflicted with a morbid fear of Friday the 13th.

• 8% of Americans won't go to work on Friday the 13th.

• Some won't eat in restaurants.

• Many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.

• Chinese and Egyptians regarded the number as lucky.

• The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged

from their vocabulary (Brewer, 18 9! 4).

• Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.

• Many buildings don't have a 13th floor.

• If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck

(Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and

Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).

• It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the

forbidden fruit.

• Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began on a Friday.



It is said

• Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams.

• Don't embark on a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune.

• If you cut your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow.

• Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck.



Friday The 13th Is Also Considered Unlucky Because...

• There are thirteen lunar months in a year, and the day Friday (named

after the Goddess Frigga) was sacred to many Goddesses, including

Aphrodite, Venus, and their African counterpart Yemaja.

• Friday is the day of the Goddess Freya and because Christian monks

considered everything associated with female divinity unlucky.

• Friday the 13th was especially unlucky since it combined Freya's

sacred day with her sacred number.

• Her number, 13, was drawn from the 13 months of the pagan, lunar

goddess-given menstrual calendar.

• When pagan votaries of Freya continued to celebrate her rites on

Friday, the Church designated her day as the day of "devil worship." "



So am I afraid? Of course not!!!!

Death : something to fear or something to look forward to?

A lot of people I know fear death. If the things in my previous post were to come true, a majority wouldn't. I think some of them fear it because they would lose their loved ones, but I feel that the main reason most people fear death is because they don't know what to expect. Many do not know what happens after death (including me). Is there an afterlife? Does only the body die and the soul survive? Is there a soul?



The way I've been brought up, I've been made to think that our quality of living in the present life is based on the good things we have done or the sins we have committed in our past life, and when we die, our next life depends on the things we have done in our present life, and so on. So that means a soul exists, to have different lives. But now I wonder, was there a past life? If there was, will there be a future life? I do not know, and I don't think anyone knows.



Some of my kin say that we will not have another life if we live an honest and well meaning present life, that we would be forever rid of a human body and be free of this cruel world. I'm not sure if that's what we have been told from days of old, or if it's just their opinion.



If there exists no such afterlife, why should one fear death? I don't know if there's an afterlife, but I still don't fear death. In fact, I really don't care whether I live or die. I can't explain why, but I really don't care. It is of no importance to me.



For those of you who do fear death, there is a book I stumbled upon on a website, called "Facing Death: Images,Insights and Interventions". The book was written by Sandra L. Bertman, who founded the Medical Humanities Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and holds certificates in grief counseling and death education. This handbook outlines how she uses the visual and literary arts to "improve our professional abilities to deal with death and dying." Her premise is that the arts provide a valuable vehicle for exploring and making bearable the prospect and fact of death.



I guess I wouldn't need that book, but I would encourage anyone who fears death to read it, a friend of mine says it's a good book. Instead of fearing death, enjoy life to the best extent possible...

Pain really is 'all in the mind'

"Doctors and nurses have known for many years that some people are more sensitive to pain than others. Now brain scans of people experiencing the same painful stimulus have provided the first proof that this is so. But the scans also suggest that how much something hurts really is "all in the mind".

"We saw a huge variation between responses to the same stimulus," says project leader Bob Coghill of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. "The message is: trust what patients are telling you."

Another article from NewScientist.com. Now this is something I truly believe in (except in the case of headaches). Many a time have I heard someone complaining that their legs hurt or their neck hurts. That would probably be due to an overdose of running or using a mobile phone for too long. But what irks me most is when someone says that they cannot bear the pain.

I can't understand why people can't bear pain, especially the mature ones. They should realize that pain is just the result of a few electrical signals transmitted by the nerves to the brain, to stop whatever it is we're doing which causes that pain. Its a normal reaction, nothing unbearable.

I've always been able to bear pain as far as I can remember (though some people complain that I have a short term memory). It doesn't take a lot of effort to bear pain, just concentration. Keeping my mind on something different works for me. When it comes to a friend of mine, he finds it easier to bear pain by concentrating on the area of pain and repeating to himself "there is no pain" (There is no spoon either).

Apropos, there is another article on the same site showing how pain can be prevented by using a method of "brain-watching", which involves placing electrodes on the scalp, ergo not yet used on humans. Imagine the possibilities. Injections would be painless for babies. People could walk barefoot over fire. And many more...

But it also has its negative aspects. More number of cowards would start committing suicide, since the fear of pain is lost, but not their fear of life. Euthanasia would become an art form, and so on.

The next time someone says they can't bear pain... I think I should send them this. Or should I?

Chances of aliens finding Earth disappearing?

"A pioneer of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has warned that for any intelligent aliens trying to search for us, "the Earth is going to disappear" very soon. Frank Drake's point, made at a SETI workshop at Harvard University on Friday, is that television services are increasingly being delivered by technologies that do not leak radio frequencies into space. But he added that in some ways the observation is good news for SETI, as it means that the failure of Earth-based observers to detect aliens so far may be less worrisome than it would otherwise seem."



This is an excerpt from an article at NewScientist.com . I've always wondered whether there really were aliens. My father believes in them, he believes crop circles are formed by them (oh, and he's seen too many Steven Spielberg movies). There was a time, when I was a little kid, I used to think there were aliens in outer space. But do I still believe?



I'm not sure I have enough experience in these matters. There are so many people in several countries across the world, who claim all this to be hogwash. But there are an equal number of people who do believe. And of course, there are these few people who don't actually believe but claim to have seen a UFO, just for the sake of publicity.



The basic science taught to me in my school days only included our solar system, consisting of the 9 planets. In recent times, NASA has successfully landed their rover on Mars, and it doesn't seem like there are any advanced life-forms. And even with the International Space Station and other advanced telescopic devices, there has been no record of any such "alien" activity.



But the universe consists of several systems like ours, and nobody knows how many; though Frank Drake might. For he has developed an equation for estimating the number of detectable intelligent civilizations on other worlds. But that isn't my topic, so I'll deal with it later.



So how do we know for sure? Probably, we would have to wait for them to contact us, if they exist. Or we could wait for NASA and other leading space organizations to give us the details... maybe not. For government aided space organizations may already have knowledge of existing life-forms other that ours in outer space, and may be hiding it from us, for reasons only they know.



In the end, back to my question to myself... do I believe? Do I choose to believe? I don't know. If the Oracle from the Matrix were here, she would have probably told me that I've already made that choice, and I only have to understand it. Hmm... I think I'm bad at understanding things...

Matrix or Ghost In The Shell??

The Matrix showed us how artificial intelligence could mean the end of all humanity, how A.I could imprison our minds in a virtual reality, without us realizing it at all. In my opinion (and I’m a very opinionated person), the Matrix trilogy is a truly brilliant achievement by the Watchowski brothers.

Owning each DVD of the trilogy myself, I keep watching the movies over and over again. No matter how many times I see it, I’m still amazed; and I’ve always wondered how the brothers came across the idea.

It has a well-planned story, great technical aspects, and of course, the screenplay and direction is simply stunning. And the credit for these must go to the brothers. But should they be credited for the idea too?

A few weeks after I bought the last DVD of this trilogy, I came across a TV anime, called Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was really impressed with the storyline, and in every episode the plot unfurls in a very complex manner and unpredictable manner. And I couldn’t help observing the similarities between this cartoon show and the Matrix movies.

Intrigued by the similarities, I searched for information regarding which came first: GitS or Matrix? I found out that there had been a GitS anime movie, back in 1995. Stand Alone Complex was derived from the movie. The Matrix was released much later. In both movies, A.I is concerned, though the Matrix has a significantly different storyline.

Still curious, I rented out a DVD of GitS, and some of the scenes in the movie reminded me of the Matrix itself! Again I searched for information regarding any such plagiarism. I came across this website: A Matrix & GitS Comparison. It shows scene-by-scene comparisons between the Matrix and GitS.

But the author of the website simply feels that the Watchowski brothers were merely paying respect to GitS, and not copying it. I feel the same way, because as I said earlier, both have totally different storylines. So, maybe, the credit should go to the brothers…

Handwriting problems...

It’s nearly been two months since I last wrote with a pen, and now I regret it. Every word I write (except monosyllables of course), my hand and arm hurt (the fingers too). I’ve found it easier to do 15 sets of weight lifting with a pair of 20 pound dumbbells.



But I have to try, it is important that I relearn to write. I observe that the pattern of my handwriting has changed; I do not write in a pure cursive form as before. Instead, I tend to write each letter separately, in a disjoint manner. When I consciously make an effort to correct this, the words become narrower, ergo the words become harder to comprehend.



I also notice that I incline to leave a kind of margin before I start a sentence, and as I proceed to the next paragraph, this margin widens, leading to a sloping series of paragraphs. I don’t like this; quite frankly, this perturbs me.



But all these are things that I already know. What I do not know is “how”. How do I correct these abnormalities, and how do I improve my handwriting? Some would say that writing long passages would help. But I do not feel this to be true, repetitive writing merely helps one write in a straight line, which can be managed by writing in a ruled book. It doesn’t change the way a person forms letters of the alphabet.



Another common solution to this problem of mine by many would be to buy a “Cursive Writing” practice book, like the ones they use in primary schools. That is preposterous in my opinion, for using such a book is just plain mimicry; we just imitate an existing style of writing, and do not form our own style, destroying any instance of individuality we might have had.



As I finish this, I wonder: Will the era of the pen ever come to an end? Will the people of this world throw away pens forever? Only time will tell…

Gmail is here...

Google sure took a lot of time to realise the true potential of this ranting human. I got an invite to Gmail!!! Google must be glad...