.:Confessions of An Information Junkie:.

Why China won't be able to match India

2005-08-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

I came across this rather interesting article on Rediff today. For the past month or so, I've realised that things are only looking up for my country. Well, this article is a pretty interesting read.

Why China won't be able to match India

Paul Johnson, Forbes | August 24, 2005

If George W. Bush wishes to be remembered in future ages -- and what high-spirited world leader doesn't? -- he will devote much of his second term to forging close and durable links with India.

Naturally, US President Bush must seek to get Continental Europe back into the Atlantic camp. With the sun of the anti-US Jacques Chirac setting and the star of the realistic and sensible Nicolas Sarkozy on the rise in France, and with the likelihood of the pro-US Angela Merkel's taking over Germany's chancellorship from the ridiculous failure that has been Gerhard Schröder's, the Continentals are already moving Bush's way.

People power

Regardless of who is in power, Europe is becoming a small player in the 21st century. The 25th International Population Conference, which met at Tours, France in July, made some significant points as to where power will be increasingly exercised in the new century.

By 2050 the European Union's 25 member nations will have a total population of only 461 million, compared with the US' 420 million. If you subtract Britain from the European total, the US population will be significantly higher.

The makeup of the European population will be older, with far fewer in the active workforce. It is more difficult to compute output per capita half a century hence, but if present trends continue, the GNP of the US will be three times that of Europe.

In contrast, by 2050 India will have the largest population in the world -- 1.6 billion inhabitants versus China's 1.4 billion, with India's population being much younger.

Although much of the Islamic world is growing fast in demographic terms -- a matter of serious import for southern Europe in particular -- India by midcentury most likely will have a greater number of souls than the entire Muslim world. As for India's economic potential, I regard that as almost infinite over the long term.

Since China threw off the horrific and destructive legacy of Mao Tse-tung's primitive Marxism, it has done remarkably well, on the whole. It has, however, tended to concentrate unduly on old smokestack industries, with the object of gaining quick returns through cheap exports.

Needless to say, this has had appalling consequences for the environment, which China will rue desperately in decades to come. China, with estimates of about 20 million convicts, is heavily dependent on slave labor, as well as on the labor of underpaid ex-peasants who are still pouring into the industrialized coastal belt.

Back!

2005-07-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

Alright, its been a real long time since I've blogged. A lot has happened since my last post and I'm not in the mood to really elaborate on all that has happened. Well, just to keep this post short and sweet, I'll just brief you guys on wats been happening :-

I'm one month into my seventh semester.
I finally got my driving license.
I landed a job with Infosys, one week into college re-opening.
College isn't all that bad now.
Life is good.
Coldplay's new album 'X & Y' has surprisingly caught my interest.
Bangalore's still the same, except for the renovated KFC on Brigade road.

Thats pretty much about it. I really am not in the mood to write.

Cheers

Holidays : Out Of Exile

2005-05-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

Holidays have been pretty pretty boring with the exception of the visits to the local video library who never seems to let me down. It would be quite difficult to locate a video library which actually stocks up movies like 'Hotel Rwanda' and Steven Spielberg's hit tv series 'Taken'.To compound problems further, the local cable provider is involved in some financial tussle with the Star TV corporation finally leading to the exlusion of Star World and Channel [V]. Really pathetic situation to be in. Thank god for VH1 though!!

May 25th 2005 will definitely go down as a day to remember in football history. The 50th champions league final between AC Milan and Liverpool was one cracker of a match. Who would have thought Liverpool could actually pull it off ??!! English clubs are building up quite a reputation for pulling off dramatic victories I guess. 5 years back Manchester United scored two goals in two minutes to snatch the cup from Bayern Munich. Although, i'm not a big fan of the Mesreyside club, hats off to them!! Check this link out by the way.. the BBC tribute to Liverpool's star goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek ..

Du The Dudek

The new Audioslave album 'Out Of Exile' while very good, hasn't quite lived up to my expectations. In this age of bad music, they have released what would seem to be quite an exceptional musical product but this time they have some fillers on the album which was not the case with their first self-titled album. Considering the ensemble of musicians on the record, it simply just leaves you asking for much much more.

Album Review : Mudvayne - Lost And Found

2005-04-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

I got hold of the album off some mp3 site about a week before the actual release date. The album is brilliant!! Mudvayne still stick to their nu-metal roots but have found a balance between heavy and melodic. Chad Gray's vocal delivery in this album is astounding as he switches from low key choruses to loud shrieks in a matter of seconds. Ryan Martinie playing gut wrenching work on the bass is brilliant and he shines through the whole album.

People are complaining that Mudvayne have gone 'mainstream', but what's the big deal with that??!! Bands can't remain underground forever. They all want the glory, the fame and the moolah! The only thing I can conclusively say is that Mudvayne in no way have compromised on their music and haven't altered their style whatsoever to jump on board the "NWOAHM" bandwagon. Songs worth checking out are:

1.Determined (second single off the album featuring an initial gruesome drum attack)
2.Happy? (the first single off the album and the most radio 'friendly')
3.Pushing Through
4.Fall Into Sleep
5.Forget To Remember

The Net Lab At 4am ...

2005-03-25T14:36:00.000-08:00

I wake up to Lamb Of God's fiery "Laid To Rest" at 3.30 in the morning, all set to make a trip to the college net lab with the hopes of raping its bandwidth, in order to serve my selfish 'purposes' and increase my 'entertainment IQ'. Basically, I just wanted to download a lot of Simpsons episodes (put in a couple of music videos in there as well, and a couple of Fear Factory albums, and ... forget it).So, I traverse the deadly terrain separating the nearly 2 km stretch from Sapphire hostel to the Octagon on my faithful 'bike'. Trichy's bloody hot even at 3:45 in the morning. Ahh... I finally made my way to the net lab to discover

........ (Drumroll) ........
.........(Drumroll)..........

ITS FULL!!! 30 odd comps and everyone's using them!!At this twilight hour, WTF???
I finally manage to get a seat and decided to don my Sherlock Holmes Cap(Alright that line was totally gay, but i couldn't come up with something better). A quick glance to the screen on the left and I, see a Parlis.com chat window open. The screen on the right has the photo of some decent looking hi5 member(oh yeah..who happens to be a girl). I finally arrived at a conclusion on what the problem is.
The poor testosterone starved ba**ards in my college need to get their fix for the night. It's bloody retarted. The same guys happen to be here early morning every f**kin day, ready to reprise their Casanova roles. A NITTian's Parlis.com chat transcript would be a hoot!

DesperateNITTian : "Would you be of my girlfriend?"

DesperateNITTian : "Your nickname sounds chweet "

DesperateNITTian encompassases the whole college community. It's the thambi, the northie, the NRI.. all of us!!
Its totally psychotic. The guys who actually come up with these lame messages dont even have 0.0000000000000001111 % probabiltity of scoring with a 'chick' from our college so they direct their 'charisma' to girls who might be as desperate they are. I wish I had one of those
'camera-phones' to take videos of how these guys endlessly giggle at the screen with each passing message.

The Net Lab

First the net lab and then there was the Dubai Desert Rock Show which was like a friggin success!! Sepultura and Machine Head totally rocked the place while I was chillin here in 'Rock' city. I have no idea why this place prides itself in calling it that. 'Rock' city on a travel brochure gives the impression of a big friggin coal mine or something.

The Future Of Metal (Part I) : Lamb Of God

2005-03-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to two bands a lot quite a lot for the past two weeks, which lead me to write this post. All those who have been following metal for the past decade have been patiently waiting for some band to take over the reigns of the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden. The onslaught of nu-metal had brought creativity,guitar solos and riffs to a complete halt. Alright, the nu-metal revolution did bring some good music along with it provided by the likes of KoRn, Papa Roach and later on at the start of the new millenium, Linkin Park. The latter has now lost its dedicated fan following of troubled youth who embraced their music as a source of relief. Linkin Park achieved what every other metal band had failed to do :

Making a successful crossover to the pop genre but still managing to maintain their fast decaying metal roots.

Everyone in the music industry knows that commercial success is what eludes any metal band. Of course, the pioneers in each of the hundred metal sub genres would have had their 15 minutes of fame and got their fair share of the dough that came along with it. But, is the world paying any heed to what metal reallllly has to offer?

The degradation of the genre had resulted in old-generation metalheads raising their arms in protest at the formula driven music being dished out to cater to the the zillions of Brtitney loving MTV a**holes. After much trying, the devoted metalheads couldn't embrace the nu-metal sound and were poppin Sabbath and Maiden classics in their cd changers once again. Year 2002, and metal was witnessing a change in order. The metalcore sound was slowly beginning to find a liking among the quality-starved metalheads. Thus, began the NWOAHM(New Wave Of American Heavy Metal) revolution which initially served the purpose of cleansing the metal airwaves of all the nu-metal garbage. Two years on, the revolution has not only ceased to stop but also now enjoys an ever-widening fan base. A fan base, that can filter the good metal from the bad - the time had finally arrived for the true metalheads to once again rebuild the remains of the devastated metal empire.

This post will be a four part series featuring my opinions on four of the bands who I personally feel are single handedly fighting the fight to save the face of metal. These bands have the talent and potential to reclaim metal from the hands of wretched music corporate big wigs. I am going to review one of the big metal bands across the Atlantic who are spearheading the NWOAHM(New Wave Of American Heavy Metal) charge. So without further adieu, I bring to you Melodic Deathcore giants Lamb Of God.

LAMB OF GOD

The name of the band in no way reflects the kind of music or the message their lyrics drives through your concrete brain. This severely underrated, politically charged quintuplet from Richmond are ruling the radiowaves with their simple yet in-your-face metal.

The band in its early days featured the trio of Mark Morton, Chris Adler and John Campbell who were strumming away at their guitars in Virginia Commonwealth University, making instrumentals but with no vocals to back up the blistering riffs and heavy basslines. Adler moved to Chicago and later Randy Blythe was brought on board to lend his choking vocals into this frenzy. The seeds of Lamb of God were ready to sprout but with a different name. The quartet decided to call themselves Burn The Priest. The band's live performances were getting rave reviews and in no time were the biggest metal act in Richmond. This doesn't come as a surprise though as the band exercised (and still continues to do so!) a rigorous work ethic of practising five days a week to 'keep up with the pace' of other metal acts in the Richmond area.

Mark Morton returned to the band after the completion of his post graduation and after playing together for a year, Abe decided to quit the band. Abe's exit opened the door for Willie Adler, younger brother of drummer, Chris. After a year playing together, they band deciced to call themselves Lamb Of God!! They finally landed a record deal in the year 2000 with Prosthetic Records and released their first album New American Gospel. After heavily touring to support their debut release, the band finally released their sophomore effort As The Palaces Burn. ATPM was critically acclaimed with prominent rock magazines claiming it to be the best release of 2003. Lamb Of God's third installment Ashes Of The Wake was released in mid 2004 with Epic Records and helped add some credibility to the dwindling talent-starving metal scene. Ashes Of The Wake with its crisp production, was immediately declared a metal masterpiece.

Lamb Of God are now hailed as the saviours of the American Metal scene and being constantly stated over and over in the media to be playing Pure American Metal. You might finally find a classification which can modestly define the kind of music they play. But Lamb Of God is the only band in the scene offering raw, gut wrenching, complex metal. Lamb Of God embodies everything that metal is about. They have stomped the point across that being on a huge record label need not deter a band from making quality music.

Lamb of God

Official Site (Biography)
Ashes Of The Wake Review @ Metal-Observer
As The Palaces Burn @ Metal-Observer
New American Gospel @ Metal-Observer

State Of Mind : Exhausted by the loads of studying for the cycle tests and the resulting lack of sleep.

The Oakley THUMP and Russell Peters

2005-02-28T18:43:00.000-08:00

I actually have run out of stuff to read right now so I thought I'd spend sometime on this so as to englighten the rest of you 'unaware' b*tt holes... ;) ..
I came across this in a forum a couple of months back and well thought it could be used as a good basis to ease the transition to the "larger picture" I shall be shortly discussing.

OAKLEY-THUMP

The picture above features a very ugly model but some stunning sunglasses. So, what makes these sunglasses so special that they were "post-worthy"? Well its Oakley's new line of sunglasses which have an inbuilt MP3 player. Digital music eyewear???!!! Alright, so these sunglasses could serve as a good example for someone majoring in VLSI but is it necessary?? I guess its time for the millions of iPod owners(who own "conventional" sunglasses) to bow down their heads in shame. Seriously???? Is this the sign of things to come?.
It's undeniably a market where the power struggle has clearly tilted in favour of the consumer. This financial coup can lead to disastrous consequences. Alright so the Nokias and the Ericssons are conjuring up something new constantly in their laboratories. Now, does anyone of us ever stop and think how 'huge' the difference between a K500 and a K505 is??. Your loving trustworthy "brand" decides to fightback. Release a new product, hype it up and then produce a minimum of 10 models each having a slightly different variation from the other. These sunglasses are a testament to the indiscretion of the modern day consumer.
The most disgruntled sect of consumers are the tech-savvy ones. This can't be attributed to 'rapid' growth alone. Consumers are subjected to vehement and massive advertising campaigns. Slowly making us feel slightly obliged to buy the product. These sunglasses are a testament to the increasing indiscretion on the part of the consumer.
These issues would definitely have been addressed before and I'm no Amartya Sen who made some statements that is going to re-define the way the economy works. But I thought I should chip in my two cents.In my defense, firstly I would like to state that I am not some conservative hippy on some power trip who listens to Kurt Cobain's moans for morning "bhajans". My friends are going to verbally molest me if they stumble upon this post as they would find it very hard to believe that their materialistic friend really does give two sh**ts about the direction in which the global economy is heading. Well, I don't care if all the economies in the world entered recession but I do believe that the consumer should not be duped out of their hard earned money by misconstrued marketing campaigns.

"Confessions of an Information Junkie"... Why?

I have come to realise that many netizens see blogs as alternative journalism. Many can look at it this way, but blogs cannot always be legit. None the less, undeniably this will stay for quite some time to come. I really don't know what satisfaction people gain from going on ranting about thier personal lives and letting other people read their views on certain albums, movies, etc. This blog itself is just like the other million blogs that get a max of 1-3 page loads a day. But, we still keep writing. I feel that deep down inside of us, we all want to be heard. I know that's a very retarded comment to make but it seriously makes sense. Being a self proclaimed "Information Junkie", it's tough to contain your thoughts especially when not a single imbicile from your immediate environment refuses to listen to you. Anyways here are some more links regarding blogging and some more tips to help the noob blogger.

How To Write Killer Blogs And More Compelling Comments

Blogging... Blah, Blah, Blah

Russell Peters : Good Stand-Up Comedy

Another week and another downloading spree ends. I came across this interesting 45 mintue clip among one of the videos. It was this stand up comedian based in Canada of Indian origin whose name is Russell Peters. This guy's simply amazing. He rips apart at different communities with no shred of compassion. The guy's a hoot when he starts with his "motherland". Here's a link to the 45 minute clip I was talking about. Its nice to see there are some Indians who actually do have a decent sense of humour.

Russell Peters 45 minute clip

Oh yeah, I noticed that I mentioned the word "hippy" earlier in my post which lead me to do some research on hippy culture and here's a good link to explain what the hell these crazy people do and why they do it.

The Way Of The Hippy

State of Mind :Exhausted from the lack of sleep due to the enormously long process involved in moving all my music and music videos to my friend's laptop and then formatting and re-installing all essential software. I have to manage a 40 gb hard disk with a music playlist that consumes 16 GB alone.

Currently Downloading: 10th season episodes of The Simpsons
6th spisode of the first season Sex and The City.

Album Review: Jay-Z and Linkin Park - Collision Course

2005-02-24T06:47:00.000-08:00

Album Review : Jay-Z and Linkin Park - Collision Course

Just after announcing his retirement from the rap scene with his last solo album "The Black Album", Jay-Z decided to expand his already large fan base by seeking to conquer new pastures by targeting the new generation of nu-metal fans. Linkin Park coming off the success of their second studio release "Meteora" and after a strenous tour decided to get together and produce this album which many critics feared would be an atrocious mix of music considering Linkin Park's more techno-centered metal style and Jay-Z's amazingly fast flow over east coast hip hop beats.

This album will go down in history as one of the biggest musical experiments.MTV deserves credit as they managed to get both of them together for a "Mash Up" concert, but decided to record an album before they actually went live. Both artists featured on the album need no introduction. Linkin Park shot to fame in December 2000 with the release of their debut LP "Hybrid Theory" which went on to win at the Grammies in 2001 and went platinum multiple number of times in the US alone. Linkin Park's music has a massive fan following among the East Asian kids.
A young Sean Carter took the reigns of the East coast rap scene with his solo debut album "Reasonable Doubt" which was released by Roc-A-Fella records. Apart from having a stunning girlfriend(Beyonce Knowles), this man can rap with such intensity and his versatile flow has been unmatched. Before he made it big, he used to lay down guest vocals on some of Notrious B.I.G's (R.I.P) songs.

Most of the production and mixing on the album was done by Mike Shinoda(emcee of Linkin Park). In terms of fresh vocals, the album has very few with Jay-Z just dropping 4-5 bars of new rap. Linkin Park are definitely not newcomers to the remixing genre. With their 2002 release "Reanimation" in which Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn(the DJ) managed to gather some underground DJs to mix all of the songs from "Hybrid Theory" and also threw in a couple of new songs which were previously unreleased but had been available on the Internet as demo bootlegs. The album was criticized by many in the music industry as a blatant attempt by the band to keep their popularity rating high. "Reanimation", definitely was more of a Mike Shinoda side project.

The album has successfully blended two genres which lie on opposite ends of the same spectrum. I think most of the credit should go to Mike Shinoda The man is a genius and has successfully crafted a bunch of songs which sound very crisp. The only thing I feared was whether the album would be more of a 'clash' of two styles rather than a fusion. Jay-Z simply sounds astounding.

This blend of nu-metal and hardcore east coast rap might not find many takers. The current spate of the music industry leaves much to be desired. Nu-metal's fan base has been steadily decreasing with numerous bands appearing out of nowhere and they usually offer nothing new in terms of original music and most of their music is derived from hits spawned by nu-metal pioneers like KoRn, RATM and even Linkin Park. Nu-metal was put on the map with the release of KoRn's self titled album in 1994. Ever since, this genre had a fan base that never ceased to expand till now.

The hip-hop scene is really tragic. The production on most of the new hip hop albums are good but the lyrics featured on these songs leave much to be desired. Constant howls off "Biatches", "Booty", etc can be tolerated only upto a point. Hip-hop now enjoys a larger fan base due to emerging artists like 50 cent, and the Black Eyed Peas.

I really don't know if dishing out 500 bucks for this album is truly worth it or not, cause I managed to download it. But, I think the six studio songs and the DVD would make it your while. Pay no heed to the old school metal and hip-hop fans cause they always seem to be in retro mode. This sect of music fans generally downplay anything that is new and definitely this album would be put under the microscope and torn apart, bit by bit.

Ripping DVDs and converting to DivX

2005-02-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, I am tired by the endless number of times that I have been questioned regarding the technology and the software behind ripping DVDs and their further compression to a format called DivX which is much lesser than the original size of the 4.7 GB DVD and still manages to maintain the exact same visual quality, but has to forego on sound by using MP3 compression. The codec DivX is some software which basically revolves around encoding and decoding video based around the MPEG-4 compression format. For more information on what DivX is and its birth. Check out the following link:-

What is DivX?
Divx-Digest Help Page

Now, everyone in my college seems to be astounded at the visual quality of video files encoded in DivX. The primary reason for all the limelight DivX is enjoying is the fact that a movie of say 2 hours length will give you the exact same visual quality as the original DVD it was ripped from. Now, to put all questions to rest once and for all so that all you dodos don't ever ask me again. This is how you go about ripping a DVD.

First, you have to copy the VOB files and the accompanying IFO files from the VIDEO_TS folder of your DVD. The VOB files are the main video files which are usually of 1.4 GB size and the IFO files much smaller in size contain information like the length of the movie and the breaks in the video for transition of chapters. Most DVDs come with massive protection nowadays, as the movie studios are losing out a lot on these fake DVDs manufactured in China or wherever they come from. But the good ol' programming community devised a software to break through most protections and came up with DVD Decrypter. DVD Decrypter is very simple to use and the movie will be copied to your hard disk within 15-30 minutes depending on the RAM and the processor speed of the machine.

After this is done, we have to now convert it to DivX. Now here's the difficult part. There are two programs that can accomplish this. There is GordianKnot and on the other hand there is Auto GordianKnot. Both programs are basically an integration of different components designed for different processes during the conversion process.
GordianKnot is for more experienced users who have a better idea of DVD terms like resolution and Aspect ratio. The values you enter and the choices you make will make a huge difference as to what your end result would be like.
For users who really do not want to go through the hassle of all that was mentioned above, there is Auto GordianKnot in the offering with a very simple interface. The conversion process can begin with three simple steps. First select the directory to where the DVD was ripped to on the hard disk. Choose the location and the filename for your final DivX file. Choose the size of the file(700 MB, 1400MB,... ). Add the job to the queue and start it. The whole process should take 4-6 hours again depending on whether you have a high end or low end machine. I suggest that you leave this part of the conversion process for whenever you sleep. High-end machine users can use their computer while the program is running in the background. Oh, I forgot one pre-requisite for Auto GordianKnot is that you need to have DVD Decrypter installed, as it only recognises the format in which it rips. All links for tutorials and program downloads will be given at the end of this article.

Okay then, so Peoplessss.... next time do not come and 'chaat' me asking me how DVDs are ripped and if I have the software and all that shit. I will always have the software but If you ever do need it, you have to come to my room and copy it to whatever medium you have.

Alright, now back to more 'pressing' matters. After my MSN messenger conversation with my Gulti friend in Dubai, I have decided to end the Babe of the Week post. He seemed to find it too gay or lame, I really don't quite remember. So thats it for that. I don't know, coming to think about it, it is a pain in the a$$ to put some picture up and then post something about the featured 'babe'... lol.
Check out Mental Equlibrium. There's a new post which clearly explains the split in Islam into two sects called the Sunis and the Shi'as.
At this moment, I truly am confused as to how to increase traffic to my blog. Its kinda getting pointless with me writing garbage and no one to comment on it. Some comments would be appreciated. My statcounter stats reveal that 80% of my visitors stay for 0 seconds. That's right ZERO. That really isn't very good.
Well habibis, I do not have anything more to write on. The links are for everything are given below so that you lazy f**ks don't need to go around molesting Google and in the process fry your brain looking for these programs. Links to tutorials are also listed.

DVD Decrypter Download

Gordian Knot Download (8.14 MB)

Auto Gordian Knot Download

AutoGK Conversion Guide

Gordian Knot Conversion Guide

Check this out. There is now a fully certified DivX player available for only $249. Here are some more articles on the DivX revolution and the future that lies for it. I recommend these articles to only those who are really bothered about DivX and can withstand 'techie' terms every 4 words.

DivX is ready for its sequel, is Hollywood?

DivX reloaded

And yeah, as most of you WOULDN't know there is always a major debate regarding which is actually the best media player out there. Sireesh, the Gulti friend I mentioned earlier told me about this player called VLC Media Player and he was telling me that it plays any file you throw at it. If a ZIP file contains a video, it will play. So everything he claimed was true. But the shocker was, it even played AVI files encoded in DivX without the DivX codec actually being installed on the system. How's that??.. Pretty darn good. But when it comes to music, I would still stick with Winamp. Nullsoft keeps releasing updates for the program and the DSP plugins availabe are amazing. But videos I suggest VLC.

VLC Media Player Download (for Windows users)

The best part about this is that now all those losers who use Linux finally have a player to play DivX files. I am not really enlightened about Codec support on Linux. But this is a hundred times better than that Kaffeine shit. But sadly VLC still doesn't have support for Real player files and Indeo Codecs. Bummer.

Oh yeah, all you men out there. Read the following article.

OUCH!!

Also came across this interesting post at another blog.

My 10 thoughts on successful blogging.

Okay, that's pretty much about it. A review on NIT Calicut's Ragam will be up soon. I had said that I would do one on Saarang and pretty much never got around doing it.

State Of Mind: Happy with the 130 k/s download speed I am getting after downloading five episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm consecutively. Also finally found a site featuring Jay Sean's album.

Valentine's Day, Firefox and Corey Taylor...

2005-02-13T13:39:00.000-08:00

It's Valentine's Day...!! Yipeee... I was so excited that I thought I'd come and download Shark Tale at 3 am :-/ . Yeah its been pretty much this way ever since I can remember. No phone calls, no romantic dinner, Nada, Zilch, Zero.... No I am not going to greet all of you a happy Valentine's because it doesn't make any sense. You only greet your 'loved' one on Valentine's .. I don't think your classmates, hostel mates, etc need to be going around wishing you 'Happy Valentine's Day'. Day after tomorrow's paper will surely carry an article about how the Shiv Sena is doing its part in upholding the Indian 'culture' by trashing some Hallmark in Bombay.

Like I said in my earlier post, I've become a big big fan of Firefox. I just found out that you can alter the way Firefox loads web pages. I found this great way to improve your browsing speed using Firefox. The 'funda' is basically that it loads more than one page file at a time. Its the same concept that most Download managers use. Oh dial-up users wouldn't find this very helpful. Broadband users who really want their web pages to load fast, I really suggest you check the following link out.

Make Firefox Faster At Forever Geek

And all those people who still are using Internet Explorer, please heed my advice. Firefox is very customizable. If you do happen to download it, I suggest you first read this beginner's tutorial.

A Beginner's Guide To Firefox

I thought I'd post the lyrics of Corey Taylor's "Bother" so that whoever it is that happens to pass by this blog can check it out. Both, the Spiderman movie soundtracks have spawned amazing rock ballads. The first one being Chad Kroeger(of Nickelback) hooking up with Josey Scott(of Saliva) on "Hero".

Corey Taylor - "Bother" (From the Spiderman 2 soundtrack)

IWish I was too dead to cry
A self affliction face
Stones to throw at my creator
Masochist to which I cater

You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on
I won't let go 'till it bleeds

Wish I was too dead to care
If indeed I cared at all
Never had a voice to protest
So you fed me shit to digest
I wish I had a reason
My thoughts are open season
For this I gave up trying
One good time deserves my dying

You don't need to bother
I don't need to be

I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on
I won't let go 'till it bleeds

Wish I'd died instead of lived
A zombie hides my face
Shelf forgotten with it's memories
Diaries left with cryptic entries

And you don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on
I won't let go 'till it bleeds

You don't need to bother
I don't need to be, yeah
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on, once I hold on
I'll never live down my disease

Corey did this song with Stone Sour which is the band he formed prior to joining Slipknot. The band started playing in 1992 and retired in 1997. So, Corey and Slipknot guitarist Jim Root went picked up the broken pieces and Stone Sour returned with their first single "Get Inside" from their self titled debut LP. "Bother" happened to be the second single and found its way to the Spiderman soundtrack.

And yeah check out this interesting article on blogging at CNET news. Link provided below:

Google blogger has left the building

State Of Mind : Totally mindf**ed due to the lack of sleep.

Curb My Enthusiasm

2005-02-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in the net lab now, pushing the little black buttons on the IBM keyboard under the rows of white tubelights which along with the 'exquisite' shade of green for the walls which really doesn't go a great way in improving this room;aesthetically atleast. Sitting and staring at the TFT screen, at this box where I am typing my post, the blinking cursor constantly shifting to the right as I relentlessly batter the keyboard, the steady increase in the download speed as I download the sixth episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' for the day. 45 k/s ... ahh now 55k/s.... Going good .. going good ...

The macha dude next to me is as 'lost' as I am.I like that look though, the look on people's faces when they are completely 'immersed' in whatever activity they are engaged in while surfing the web. And now, I quite effortlessly manage to glance at his screen, and voila!!! What do we have here? ... Our man's interests do seem to be quite different though. Hold on a second...La Habibi, La La (that was meant to be arabic).... I now have Simran's navel staring back at me. Kollywood's leading ladies definitely is not my cup of tea. Oh great he's staring at Meena's behind now. This guy needs help.

Ahh.. Yes!! This deafening silence is broken. An over-enthusiastic North Indian brother is 'groovin' to the 'tunes' of A.R.Rahman's new composition Kisna. This guy's ear drums seem to be made of some super titanium alloy because I can hear him from up 2 rows ahead. The bloody song's blaring out through his cheap Chinese earphones with max treble. No!! No!! To compound matters further, he decides to hum along now. I think I'll turn back and give the 'disgruntled' look. Great, his eyes are closed and he's begun swaying!! So, I'm now back to typing this and reading CNNs extremely biased article on how North Korea basically wagged the middle finger at the United States by stating that they possess nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush's second term doesn't seem to be going off to a good start. I am now vehemently fighting against the inner urge building up inside me to start rattling on the f**k ups by the Bush administration but decided to channel these thoughts with a little fine tuning later for another post.

One dude's walking up and down the lab, desperately lookin for a comp. He's going up to the Kisna dude. He initiates banter by blaring out the words "Abhey..Kitna time lagega?". Mr. Enormous larynx seems to be enchanted with what's on Kisna Dude's screen. Oh great, Mr.Enormous larynx who really doesn't seem to give a sh*t about the people around him while he voices his opinion on how wonderful Preity Jjinta is looking in that wallpaper.

"Woh...Veer Zaara pikcher main ulti dikh raha hai baap!!” Resist, I say to myself! I start hitting the keyboard a little harder. Tyler Durden's words from Fight Club are echoing in my head right now "We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world!!”

So I just finished reading all this crap I typed right now and I have no idea what this whole post is about but decided to title it 'Curb My Enthusiasm'. I just felt it was quite apt considering the fact I am sitting here after watching three episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, back-to-back!!
I can assure you, this post was not written with the intent of enlightening all you dimwits who happen to be reading this. The term blog is derived from 'Web log'. So I just thought, what the hell.. this is my online 'journal' right? I can writer whatever I want in my space. This is MY domain!!

Whoever it is that has managed to read this far, I'll impart some wisdom to you now. First, go download Mozilla's Firefox!! If you didn't know what that is, its another free browser. Its more like an open source project and there are many plugins, themes, etc available for download.For more information on Firefox, click on the 'Get Firefox' button on the sidebar. The browser at first glance doesn't look shockingly different, but it definitely seems to be more stable.Only downside to using Firefox is that some time has to be invested in downloading all those essential plugins like Shockwave initially.

Oh yeah I just tried out the new search engine from Amazon, A9. They have something on why they're search engine's amazing and stuff. Well, I actually have no idea on how to compare search engines but I can confidently say that the results generated from the image search on A9 are pretty accurate and also their system manages to suppress the display of duplicate images. That's pretty good.

Sticking with the search engine topic, I did not know that Yahoo! and Google had a search engine for videos. That's right!! But I did find the Yahoo! video search to be better than Google. The search results generated by Google were pretty weird.

Yahoo! Video search
Google Video search

Totally in love with song by Corey Taylor titled "Bother". Its featured on the Spiderman 2 soundtrack. Corey Taylor is the lead singer of the mammoth 9 member nu-metal band Slipknot. The song's very different from the work he does with Slipknot. His voice is much more mellow and deeper. The success of this song I think led Slipknot to experiment a little with their sound on the 2004 hit album 'Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses'. The other song I am totally feeling right now is this Pakistani song "Bheegi Yaadein" by Atif Aslam. I have no idea what he's trying to say through the song but the music's pretty good. I have to thank my Dubai-based Gulti friend Sireesh(who btw will be going for that damn Sepultura concert) for sending the song over. Long live Gmail, for allowing a max size of 10 mb for attachments.

State Of Mind : Eager to go see some more episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Happy ,cause in the midst of all this , I am getting a constant 80k/s download speed.

Oh and there's this little wallpaper I made. It's still not done, but this is the basic idea.

News From Around The Web

2005-02-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, its been quite some time since I've posted and I realised that the time for the Babe of the Week was around the corner. But I will save that for later. Just thought that I'd share some of the things in the last week which I found interesting.

Here's a stunner. Electronics Arts is releasing a game titled The Godfather, which is a GTA styled action game which follows the same storyline as that of the movie. It looks like this game has been in production for sometime and it also looks like EA has preferred to remain hush over the project. I came to know about this pretty late, as usual. While checking out one of the rap forums I noticed this post about the new EA game. I read up further on the topic at Gamespot and was surprised to know that our bloody college net lab blocks IGN. Oh and I forgot, EA has roped in the services of Marlon Brando(R.I.P), James Caan and Robert Duvall to lend the voices to the very same characters they played in the '72 hit movie. A few pre-release screenshots are below:

Read More : EA breaks Godfather's vow of silence
The Iraqi people, for the first time took part in a democratic process by being able to cast their vote which will decide the type of government and also the winner will greatly influence the way in which the new constitution is going to be drafted. The election coverage by CNN and BBC was commendable and I was surprised to see that the casualties were few in comparison to earlier estimates. The Bush administration can heave a sigh of relief for being able to conduct elections in the war-torn country. There was this New York Times Post article which caught my eye and had me laughing.

January 30, 2005 --
BAGHDAD — The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad — who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties — says he is not worried about his ties to Washington. In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city.
"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom." Fadel's predecessor, Ali al-Haidari, was gunned down Jan. 4 when militants opened fire on his armor-covered BMW as it traveled with a three-car convoy. Fadel said he received numerous threats on his life as the council chairman, and expects to get many more in his new post.
"My life is cheap," Fadel said. "Everything is cheap for my country." As Iraq prepared for a volatile election that is being watched across the world, Fadel heaped praise on the
United States.
Read More

The review of Saarang '05 Rock show will be up soon. Just been very lazy. And also Babe of the week will be posted later tomorrow.

State Of Mind: Happy to know that Narain Karthikeyan will be driving for team Jordan in the new F1 season. Karthikeyan will be the first Indian to represent his country in the prestigious league.Mesmerized by the song "The Outsider" by A Perfect Circle.

Leavin For Saarang...

2005-01-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

Okay, I couldn't think of anything 'nice' to post about and won't be for the next two days. Will be leavin for the IIT Madras Cultural Festival(Saarang) tonight. Should be a repeat of the previous year's one, but they got two kick ass bands coming this time and that is the primary and only reason I'm going for this year's fest. Oh yeah and the two bands that are coming are Orange Street, who are this mega techno rock band and Moksha, one the bands that were there from the start of the revolution of the Indian Metal Scene. The show should be pretty good though.

For more info:

Saarang

Eminem, The Phenomenon

2005-01-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, I admit that my loyalties have shifted towards heavy metal. I listened to so much hip hop that I could have written a 100 paged thesis on it. One day, me and rap had a falling out of sorts. I couldn't take it anymore, the bling blings and hoots of biaatcchesss..
I still hate all people who have this complete disliking towards this genre of music, especially cause they don't know why they do!!. I have grown up to listen to so many friends of mine expressing their distaste to this form of music. "Rap Is cRap", being the regular war cry. I haven't given up on it totally. I still listen to the ocassional good album and follow the scene, but its definitely toned down.

So, Its been ten minutes since I heard the new Eminem album "Encore" and I have come to one conclusion. This man is God! He is the best thing that has happened to hip-hop ever since the uneventful death of the Godfather of rap Tupac Amaru Shakur. I got this short biography from one of his fan sites :-

Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III,17 October 1973, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. This white rapper burst onto the US charts in 1999 with a controversial take on the horrorcore genre. Mathers endured an itinerant childhood, living with his mother in various states before eventually ending up in Detroit at the age of 12. He took up rapping in high school before dropping out in ninth grade, joining ad hoc groups Basement Productions, the New Jacks, and D12. The newly named Eminem released a raw debut album in 1997 through independent label FBT. Infinite was poorly received, however, with Eminem earning unfavourable comparisons to leading rappers such as Nas and AZ. His determination to succeed was given a boost by a prominent feature in Source's Unsigned Hype column, and he gained revenge on his former critics when he won the Wake Up Show's Freestyle Performer Of The Year award, and finished runner-up in Los Angeles' annual Rap Olympics.
The Slim Shady EP, named after his sinister alter-ego, featured some vitriolic
attacks on his detractors. The stand-out track, "Just Don't Give A fuck", became
a highly popular underground hit, and led to guest appearances on MC Shabaam
Sahddeq's "Five Star Generals" single and Kid Rock's Devil Without A Cause set.
As a result, Eminem was signed to Aftermath Records by label boss Dr. Dre, who
adopted the young rapper as his protege and acted as co-producer on Eminem's
full-length debut....

Read more

I checked up album reviews at Amazon.com and found that many customers were disappointed with this release. But, the quality of music in generally has been degrading exponentially(Okay thats an issue I will be adressing later!!). But, Eminem still managed to release a pretty good album.Okay, I agree he hasn't done anything revolutionary with this album like he did with the past two. But this album is definitely in par with his previous effort "The Eminem Show". When "The Real Slim Shady" started to 'grace' the radiowaves, I wasn't a big fan of this man from Detroit. It was a bad time for the hip-hop community as this song spawned a whole new generation of wannabe rap fans. But, upon hearing the whole album and found there a couple of stand-out songs "Stan" and "The Way I Am". These songs did not 'stand-out', I knew they were instant classics the moment I heard them. This man had potential and I was hoping one day he would realise it. Oh yes, he did!! "The Eminem Show" brought with it a more mature and controlled Eminem. The album shed some light on the other side of the new phenomenon. This album showed us that Em was a man who was torn apart and is still deeply tormented by the fact that he cannot be a role model father to his only daughter.

This Eminem album comes at a time when music and especially hip hop is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Rap/Hip-Hop songs have become hilarious. Rappers only rap about bitches,hoes and jewellery certainly does not find a liking with me. Gone, are the glorious days of West Coast gangsta rap with 2pac ruling the scene along with his other Death Row artists and buddies - Snoop Dogg and Dr.Dre . But, the rap scene has taken a hard hitting after the untimely deaths of the two greats - Pac and Notorious B.I.G.

"Encore", has definitely not deviated from the successful formula used in 'The Eminem Show' ,which I am sure his minions of fans will see as a step back towards his progression to being a hip hop legend. But what many fail to see is that the man has already achieved the status of a hip hop Titan and he has nothing more to prove to anybody.

Other news Today:

Today, Gillian Anderson, 36 married some long time boyfriend of hers who was 42. Gillian Anderson sure was a hottie in her early days with the X-Files. She was also voted as the 'Sexiest Woman On the Planet' by some magazine in 1996. I can't believe I could recollect all that!! Here's the CNN link 'X-Files' star Gillian Anderson weds.

Requiem For A Dream

2004-12-26T07:35:00.000-08:00

So about a month ago, I was in Dubai and my friend Sireesh and me were going on a ride among the sand dunes and he pops this mp3 cd into his player and this song suddenly starts playing,an orchestra but with a techno beat in the background,it was totally brilliant!!The song was simply stunning as it gave you this feeling that you were on a rollercoaster (Hi to Low..then to high...u get the picture right??!) and so I ask him where the 'F' he heard about this and he tells me that its from the soundtrack to this movie Requiem For A Dream and tells me that the movie is as good as the song.And so watch the movie we did,hooked up his laptop to the TV,popped the cd in,kicked back and relaxed as he warned me that I was in for a ride. And there I sat waiting with no idea wat i was in for...

So the movie starts with Jared Leto(Harry Goldfarb) squandering with his mother Ellen Burstyn(Sara Goldfarb) over the television. Initially confusing to follow as to what is going on, the movie progresses to show that him and his friend Tyrone(Marlon Wayans) pawns the television in order to come up with some cash so they can get their stash of heroine.Yes, that is what this movie primarily deals with, drugs. Darren Aronofsky slowly draws us into the world of drugs and addiction.The movie goes on to introduce us to Harry's girlfriend Marion(Jennifer Connelly) who herself is an addict.

Sara, a widow and a loner has an obsession with a television show dealing with diet control. She then gets a call from a television network to participate in a game show. Overwhelmed by this turn of fortune, she starts taking diet pills so she can fit in her 'red dress'.

Tyrone and Harry hatch up a brilliant plan in which they make major money out of dealing out drugs on the street.Life is good. Marion and Harry are going great. The money is flowing in and Harry goes home to gift his lonely mother a television.

So..what could possibly go wrong?

And its here where the pure genius of Darren Aronofsky, shines. Employing shock techniques and interesting camera work with quite exquisitely crafted split screen sequences,he portrays the downward spiral of all four characters in a chilling manner. The whole atmosphere of the movie suddenly becomes gloomy and dark. It was an emotional assault, one would go as far as to say that it was torture to sit through it. But, one still does! Darren Aronofsky crafts the movie in such a manner that it demands the eyes and ears of the listener. Clint Mansell provides a beautiful and equally haunting score. One cannot help but feel to go out and reach out to the characters on screen and help them as their world crumbles around them.

Ellen Burstyn puts in a powerful performance, definitely the best I've seen from any Hollywood actress. It is her character that you would feel for the most. The whole cast puts in a powerful performance but who surprised me the most was Marlon Wayans. He slipped in so comfortably in this role which is very well quite different from all the B-grade comedies he does.

This movie is a raw and real depiction of drug abuse.It is intense(that would be an understatement).Requiem For A Dream is definitely not for the weak hearted.It will make some cringe, some cry and some may even throw up.But it is a strong film, and required to be seen. Although very graphic in nature, every teenager must see this film.

Cast:

Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb

Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb

Jennifer Connelly as Marion Silver

Marlon Wayans as Tyrone

Directed by : Darren Aronofsky

A Perfect Circle

2004-12-26T03:07:00.000-08:00

So, its about a week left for my fifth semester exams to start and as usual, I was far from prepared and totally frustrated with the Herculean task ahead of me, I thought I'd make my usual trip to my second home on campus,the NET LAB.Logged on and began my search for some new music and made my regular rounds of music sites and saw this album 'endive' by this band I hadn't heard before.I faintly remembered reading this name in one of the metal forums I check out so I was like "What the hell..let's give it a shot". And boy, was I glad!! The album starts with "Annihilation", and I was like "woooaahh!!", I've never heard anything like this before. And then they move on to cover John Lennon's "Imagine" and before I knew it, I had listened to the whole album and hadn't moved out of my chair. I was totally in shock cause I thought I would never survive music from a band like this, especially after spending the whole semester listening to the mammoth 9 member nu-metal outfit Slipknot. But there I was, mesmerized by this band and a vocalist who had the most chilling voice I had ever heard. And then began my journey with A Perfect Circle.....

A Perfect Circle, a modern rock outfit(actually their music is very difficult to categorise) made its debut in the year 2000 with their smashing hit album 'Mer Des Noms'. The band, headed by lead vocalist Maynard James Keenan happens to be the lead singer of Tool. Maynard vehemently denies that 'A Perfect Circle' is a side-project and it definitely reflects on every album they've recorded so far.The band serves as an outlet for Maynard's poetic side as he deals with everything from addiction to lost love in his songs. Like most of his work with Tool, the lyrics require some deep thought from the listener but in the end, turns out to be a truly gratifying experience.

Their debut album, Mer de Noms (Sea of Names in French) consists of songs whose names and lyrics themselves contain references to ancient Greek mythology and the Bible.This cd spawned hits like "Judith", in which Keenan lashes out at the unabated blind faith that people place in God.The mood of the album varies between the dark and depressing to the more peaceful and uplifting. There in lies the beauty of the album.

The year 2003, brought the release of their second album Thirteenth Step. Although, there has been no reason given by the band for naming the album so, but many among the APC fan base believe the name is derived from the fact that it takes twelve steps to completely rehabilitate an alcoholic. And the songs to some reflect the similar mood. The standout song from this album for me personally has to be "The Noose". A very chilling song in which Maynard basically makes the listener shiver.Other songs to check out from this album are "Blue" and "The Outsider".

A Perfect Circle, decided to join the bandwagon of artists in the anti-Bush parade and decided to release their new album eMotive on the day of the US elections. The album sadly did not receive any critical acclaim and also caused a fall out from their fan base. Through this album the band, basically made their stand on issues regarding war, with covers of John Lennon's "Imagine" and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?". Only two originals made it to the album which were "Counting Bodies Like Sheep to The Rhythm Of The War Drums".This I think, was the reason why the album was not well received because many believed that the songs they covered should have been simply left alone.

The lyrics in their songs are intriguing and Keenan's poetry will definitely demand multiple interpretations from the listener. Truly, one of the, if not THE best rock vocalist of our generation.This is music, not for the casual listener.But check it out if you want thought provoking and insightful music.

Line Up:

Billy Howerdel: Guitar
Maynard James Keenan: Vocals
Josh Freese: Drums
Jeordie White: Bass Guitar
James Iha: Guitar

Discography:

Mer De Noms(2000)
Thirteenth Step(2003)
eMotive(2004)

Raghu Recommends:

eMotive-"Passive"
Mer De Noms-"Judith"
Thirteenth Step-"The Noose"

Alrighty ...

2004-12-18T23:38:00.000-08:00

Okay!! finally settled on a template, but still do want to make some changes but then I just had to post just for the F of it, otherwise i wouldnt have been able to see how things were. Well, thats pretty much it for now.
Peace..