Caesarean Rhapsody

I lost one of my Zippos last night. Dunno how but it happened. And now I’m blue!

Good bye dear Zippo. You served me well. I’ll miss the flame. The monotonic efficiency you lit up with every time I flicked the wheel against flint. The whiff of burnt fuel whenever I lit you after a refill. I’ll miss the weight in the little pocket of my jeans. None of the other lighters could replace you. Not even the Jack Daniels one.

Farewell dear friend. Hope the one who finds you cherishes you as much as I did.

I don’t want to sound preachy and it is a Led Zep reunion after all, but just see how much people are spending just to stand and watch the gods perform.

You know you’re a legend when people spend no less than a small fortune to attend your concert. And that too one without your star drummer. Long live rock-n-roll!

Johnny Allen Hendrix (November 27, 1942)

In his music, he lives. For his music, “we” live!

Came across a comic strip this morning. Found it funny myself. Have no clue how others react or have reacted to it. Copying the same below:

You won’t realize how catchy the tune is till you hear it yourself. Check it out here.

This also reminds me of Gracenote’s Music Map. It’s an interactive tool which shows the top 10 artists being played in almost any country of the world. Interesting eh? More interesting is the fact that decades after they passed their prime, The Beatles continue to rule the charts in about 90% of the countries.

And Linkin Park does that in India. As my Dad would say “Tcheh … useless!”

Times of India, my favorite newspaper (…not), has come out with another sensational headline in today’s edition. They say most Indian cellphone users are unaware of the Do Not Call (DNC) registry service. What irked me most were the numbers they put up. Some people were randomly chosen and asked whether they knew and had registered for DNC. Bangalore apparently has the least awareness and zero registrations, if one were to go by the poll.

I find this extremely hard to believe. Everyone in my office has registered, some even months ago. All the people I’ve asked about DNC outside of work, which probably adds up close to 100, have done so too. And I’m guessing that if these people know of the service, their families do too. So at an average of 4 people per family (excluding minors) and given that my office has 60 engineers (which gives us 160 direct contacts) we arrive at 640 individuals.

Whom did the market research firm interview for the poll? Has ToI taken enough care to verify the figures quoted by them? I wonder if the ToI staff are themselves registered.

I leave it to you to either defecate directly on today’s front page or use it as toilet paper instead.

I spoke to all 4 of them last night. Kids can be unforgiving at times and god knows I haven’t been the best relative they’ve known. But they’ve been kind to me. So this one’s for the little tykes. As I go through extreme quarter life crisis, here’s something I wish these kids for their future. Sadly there’s no better way to explain my thoughts than a song by the legendary Bob Dylan. This is Forever Young.

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous,
May you grow up to be true,
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift,
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.

Don’t blame me if you’re offended, but this one’s really funny. For all those who think Orlando Bloom is gay, or at least looks the part, here’s a rehashed video from LOTR: The Two Towers. The song is “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen (what a song, I say). Must have taken a lot of time to make this one. Enjoy maadi. And if you fail to spot the peaches ‘n’ cream here, well, get your eyes checked.

Click here to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H75GOjQNlo (embedding’s been disabled)

I don’t have many friends. Hold on, it isn’t how it sounds. I have a good circle of friends. Quite a few acquaintances too. But friends are different. They’re people you can open up to, take for granted and hit without any reason and expect a retarded giggle out of. Now these kinds, I have but a few.

All of last month, I’d been feeling down and out. Call it stress or boredom, all the same. But then as usual, there were a few friends who weren’t feeling all that great either. And when my friends are down, believe it or not, it upsets me no end. Just last weekend  I spent around 2 hours talking a friend out of a near depression. That’s when I realized one thing. Shit is universal. And it happens irrespective of how clear the big picture is to you.

Think of it as a decent breakfast after a long backpacking trip. You have, laid out before you, a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, orange preserve and coffee. Without a second thought you get down to business. But horror of horrors, you hear a sound you least wish to at the time. Your premolars, busy grinding down the toast, suddenly screech against a piece of egg shell. In your mind you curse your luck. And what happens later is what describes the kind of person you are. If you gulp a bit of that juice and leave the table, you’re probably not going to put up a fight to get what you want from life. But if you somehow force that morsel down and get right back to the chow, you’re probably going to be satisfied one day, that you at least tried.

What’s that? What if someone throws away the eggs and makes them all over again, you say? Never thought of that as an option, y’know. But then again this is about life and you hardly get a chance to start all over again in life. There might be a lot of problems a person could face. Regardless of how old, how successful, how beautiful, how caring or how learned one is. The only thing that matters is how you face it and how you rise above it.