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.
Monday, September 27, 2004
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.
"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.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
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.
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.
Saturday, September 25, 2004
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?
Friday, September 24, 2004
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.
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
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.
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.
Friday, September 17, 2004
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!
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!
Saturday, September 11, 2004
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...
Friday, September 10, 2004
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
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.)
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.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)