Caesarean Rhapsody

Finally the Pulsar 220 DTS Fi hits the probiking outlets all over the country. Which means as of now only 7 Bajaj showrooms have it on display and for test drives. The price is a modest Rs. 85,000 (ex-showroom Delhi) as against the obscene introductory price of the Karizma. (Even now it is overly hyped for a machine that’s so dated.) Those who don’t know jack shit about biking and keep ranting “Pricier is better since not every Tom Dick or Harry can’t afford it”, I say “Shut the fuck up, cabron.”

xBHP.com has a nice article on Bajaj’s new beast. I loved the way they have kicked Hero Honda in the balls with some awesomely sharp witticisms. Go read it here.

And for all you ZMA owning Hero Honda loyalists, go shed a few tears about bike names that sound like gay watering holes and the incredibly raw deal HH has been offering you.

A software engineer’s life is not that boring. To say the least it is not without its memorable times. To start off with, softies have quite a lot of free time on their hands (on an average at least) and quite a few of them have creative minds. So naturally pranks, jokes and cheeky retorts are a part and parcel of our lives.

One such jovial post on rec.humor.funny by one Karl Heuer became the logo for the legendary BSD operating system. Beastie as it is known to the inner circle of free software zeitgeists and the little red devil to the rest, became quite the icon in the world of computer during the twin decades of 70s and 80s. But then its existance was not taken all that well by early conservative Americans. Here’s a true account by one early BSD convert from Texas.

Last week I walked into a local “home style cookin’ restaurant/watering hole” to pick up a take out order. I spoke briefly to the waitress behind the counter, who told me my order would be done in a few minutes.

So, while I was busy gazing at the farm implements hanging on the walls, I was approached by two, uh, um… well, let’s call them “natives”.

These guys might just be the original Texas rednecks — complete with ten-gallon hats, snakeskin boots and the pervasive odor of cheap beer and whiskey.

“Pardon us, ma’am. Mind of we ask you a question?”

Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.

“Are you a Satanist?”

Well, at least they didn’t ask me if I liked to party.

“Uh, no, I can’t say that I am.”

“Gee ma’am. Are you sure about that?” they asked.

I put on my biggest, brightest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader smile and said, “No, I’m positive. The closest I’ve ever come to Satanism is watching Geraldo.”

“Hmm. Interesting. See, we was just wondering why it is you have the lord of darkness on your chest there.”

I was *this close* to slapping one of them and causing a scene — then I stopped and noticed the T-shirt I happened to be wearing that day.

Sure enough, it had a picture of a small, devilish looking creature that has for quite some time now been associated with a certain operating system. In this particular representation, the creature was wearing sneakers.

They continued: “See, ma’am, we don’t exactly appreciate it when people show off pictures of the devil. Especially when he’s lookin’ so friendly.”

These idiots sounded terrifyingly serious.

Me: “Oh, well, see, this isn’t really the devil, it’s just, well, it’s sort of a mascot.”

Native: “And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot?”

Me: “Oh, it’s not a team. It’s an operating– uh, a kind of computer.”

I figured that an ATM machine was about as much technology as these guys could handle, and I knew that if I so much as uttered the word “unix” I would only make things worse.

Native: “Where does this satanical computer come from?”

Me: “California. And there’s nothing satanical about it really.”

Somewhere along the line here, the waitress has noticed my predicament — but these guys probably outweighed her by 600 pounds, so all she did was look at me sympathetically and run off into the kitchen.

Native: “Ma’am, I think you’re lying. And we’d appreciate it if you’d leave the premises now.”

Fortunately, the waitress returned that very instant with my order, and they agreed that it would be okay for me to actually pay for my food before I left.

While I was at the cash register, they amused themselves by talking to each other.

Native #1: “Do you think the police know about these devil computers?”

Native #2: “If they come from California, then the FBI oughta know about ‘em.”

They escorted me to the door. I tried one last time: “You’re really blowing this all out of proportion. A lot of people use this “kind of computers”. Universities, researchers, businesses. They’re actually very useful.”

Big, big, BIG mistake. I should have guessed at what came next.

Native: “Does the government use these devil computers?”

Me: “Yes.”

Another BIG boo-boo.

Native: “And does the government pay for ‘em? With our tax dollars?”

I decided that it was time to jump ship.

Me: “No. Nope. Not at all. You’re tax dollars never entered the picture at all. I promise. No sir, not a penny. Our good Christian congressmen would never let something like that happen. Nope. Never. Bye.”

Texas. What a country.

or “Hey hey what can I do” as we non-British folk know this song.

Led Zeppelin sang a lot of singles during the early 70s along with their massively popular album releases. The U.S version of the Immigrant song 45rpm record carried a special something on the B-side. It was a song about a guy singing about his promiscuous love interest. It’s about a girl who doesn’t stay faithful and has a fleeting interest in every guy she meets. Most people also confused the lyrics so much that they thought Plant was singing about a prostitute.

A very underrated track this. A lot of people I know haven’t even heard this. But trust me it’s a beauty of a song. A very haunting acoustic lead accompanied by a resounding bass riff. Here’s your chance in Led Zeppelin education. Enjoy!

I watched Supersize me last week. It’s a Michael Moore Morgan Spurlock (thanks JR) documentary about McDonalds and how their food is slowly poisoning America and countries that play host to the golden arches. It’s made me realize that almost all of my solid food intake is fast food. Burgers, dough nuts, pizzas, bagels, sub-sandwiches, brownies, milkshakes, the works. I know it sounds like an extended orgasm … if you’re an 8-year-old that is!

At my age and given my smoking 2 packs a day habit, I need thought I needed to cut down on the burgers and bagels. So there you have it. Starting tomorrow no more fast food. But mind you the beer stays …

First of all, OMFG. This new Get-a-Mac ad is simply too good. I almost fell off my chair laughing at it. I like the PC-guy. He’s so forthright about his own flaws. I think one’s got to have a big heart to do something like that. Nevertheless it won’t make me change my mind. For a guy who’s about to get his hand onto a PowerBook soon enough, watching these ads makes me tremendously happy and proud of my own decision

You’ve got to watch it. If you don’t I shall deem thee a … err … whatever … just go ahead and watch it.

The CPM has been responsible for a lot of things in the past, that we as Indians wouldn’t be proud of. As a software engineer in Bangalore, I’ve met a lot of Bengalis who blame the Left for the poverty and lack of industry in their respective areas. I usually never blame anyone unless I have enough proof to do so. So I kept mum about this issue. But now they’ve gone and done it.

The Left wants to curb the entry of foreign universities in India by lobbying what is known as the Foreign University Entry and Operation (Maintenance of Quality and Prevention of Commercialisation) Bill. As Times of India puts it:

The Bill stipulates that all foreign universities coming to India would be given deemed university status. But in no case would they be allowed to open franchise universities. They would also have to seek clearance from their country about credentials and invest 51% in the Indian operation but profit cannot be repatriated.
Once registered as deemed, a committee comprising members from UGC and other academic bodies would decide if certain universities — say, of the calibre of Harvard, Stanford and other Ivy League universities — can be exempted from fee control and reservation.

Do you really think that withholding quality education from the masses will actually lead to development of our education system? Would it not be great if we didn’t have to pay through our noses to go abroad for higher studies? Wouldn’t making quality education available locally add to the coffers of our own educational institutions? It’s almost ludicrous that we elected these very people to their posts.

Been watching quite a few new series now a days. Caught my first episode of OZ last week and was totally blown away. It’s just what I want to see when I turn on the TV. Blood, gore and pain without bounds.

Another new series that’s hit Indian tubes is How I met your mother. Though the formula seems a bit over-used (read F.R.I.E.N.D.S) it’s got quite a fresh feel. And Neil Patrick Harris is to the series what David Hyde Pierce is to Frasier; the calm yet edgy fall guy. And he’s even got a cool catch phrase. “Suit up!” he says on the phone whenever he is supposed to meet Ted, the central character. I’s neither a request nor a suggestion, just an order.

Now I don’t know what you guys think of it but I think this one ranks right up there with Bart Simpson’s Aye Caramba or Eat my shorts!!

Ever since I discovered Linux way back in 1999 I’ve developed an extremely soft corner and sensitive funny bone towards humour such as this.

Ok ok … it’s a geeky hangover. Almost like a bunny on Viagra dry humping the first carrot it lays its eyes on. But this plugin is simply too good to keep to myself.

Most of us are music freaks. Rock, Jazz, Blues, Reggae(my list ends here) Hip-Hop, Rap, Trance et al. But let’s face it. Most of us have a difficult time fading into a hum in between songs trying to recall the exact words. Trust me it gets even more difficult at times when you’re in a group of people who know their stuff. A lot of them are judgmental too. And just at the right moment which is oh-so-wrong according to you, your lips start moving to a totally different song while the others are merrily singing along with the artist. And suddenly all the eyes are on you. And you wish you’d shrink a 10th of your size or be swallowed by the ground.

But wipe out those bad memories now. ‘Cos www.lyricsplugin.com is here to save you from shame. Even if you’ve fallen from grace, or so some would say, you can win back a bit of that by installing this nifty little tool that automatically fetches lyrics from the net as you play them in WinAmp or Windows Media Player.

And it fits in seamlessly with your player of choice. Here’s a screenshot of my WMP11:

One word of caution though. It uses your ID3 tag to search the lyrics online. So make sure you’ve got the correct information there else you won’t see anything. But then again the plugin allows you to add lyrics yourself so it shouldn’t really be a problem.

Trust me you won’t regret installing this one. Download it here www.lyricsplugin.com

Recently Micro$uck revealed what they call a “surface” computing screen. I’m sure you’ve got forwards galore from your friends, foes and “friandship” supplicants about this jaw-dropping new gadget that is going to revolutionize computing. As the video goes, the Micro$uckers claim that it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

But gee, why am I not impressed. Could it have something to do with the originality of the technology? Or something to do with the validity of the claim itself?

True to form, Micro$hit has yet again copied an upcoming technology from an otherwise obscure lab experiment and intro-ed it to the public much before the original creator could. Mitsubishi R&D had demo-ed this touch-screen capabiliy way-back in 2005-06 when for most of us such technology was straight out of Battlestar Galactica. However Mitsubishi kept the utility restricted to a far more geeky subject; Warcraft. Although it amazed me at the time how the characters were being selected by hand gestures and activated by voice commands, I’m sure it failed to impress the snooty buggers who use their computers for office apps, photo upload and are paranoid about viruses and cluttered hard disks. Micro$hit has hit the nail right on spot by demo-ing capabilities that address the needs of the … let’s say rather novice users.

Anywho, technology wins in the end and I have nothing to say in those terms. But surely I’d love for all to use their sane judgment and at least not give MS the full credit for this eye-catcher.

Catch the earlier video by  Mitsubishi here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFNne9WNPmM

P.S : This one may have been uploaded to YouTube.com in September 2006, but trust me I’ve seen this one way back in January 2006.