Thursday, September 25, 2008

Survivor: Gabon


Another season of Survivor about to start. The last season, Fans vs Favorites, was quite interesting although none of the fans were impressive. This new season seems to have an interesting mix of people and will hopefully not be disappointing. My initial pick to win this season would be between Ken and Charlie, although I think Bob may hang around quite a bit and give us all a Yau-Man feel. And who do I think will get to be booted out first? Me thinks it will be one of the ladies, and my bets are on Gillian and Jessica.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Quote of the day


Anon:

Graduate school is like wine, it may get better with time, but feels the best only after you finish it !


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Sunday, September 14, 2008

What I want...


First read my disclaimer here.

During a family discussion on whether to bring a pet home or not:
Daughter 1: "I want a dog..."
Daughter 2: "I too want a dog..."
Mother: "I don't want a dog, I want a cow..."
Daughter 1 & Daughter 2: "Daddy, Daddy, what do you want?"
Mother: "Yes dear, what do you want?"
Father: "I want you all out of the house..."

And the question of pets was never raised again.
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Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Good at google


It may be partly due to the fact that I am very bad at coming up with one-liners but often a piece of dialogue from a book or a movie stays with me and I am left wondering how someone could come up with something that funny, or interesting (or in some cases, that dumb).

I have noticed that certain dialogues (probably) mean a lot more than what the writer intended. And sometimes they end up meaning the exact opposite. What immediately comes to my mind is Diane Keaton saying "I am good at google!" (in "Mad Money") to the person at the Employment Office who simply dismisses it with a oh-yeah-that-will-get-you-a-job stare; I guess the writer (and the entire crew) didn't realize that being "good at google" is actually a big deal.

I have seen several people struggle while searching for very simple things and they weren't computer illiterate or anything - they were just "bad at google". One classic example that instantly comes to my mind is my friend spending hours at google trying out several combinations of "two snakes winding around a knife logo" to get to caduceus (and I am really not making that up - my friend till date is called "paambu" aka snake for trying to bring down the google server with such search queries). Her wanting to use the caduceus as a medical logo (instead of the rod of Asclepius) was also funny but that would be a different rant.

Being a student and having to use several other databases and indexes apart from just Google, I guess it is pretty important that you have excellent "search-and-find" skills - which is probably why I retained this funny little piece from a rather forgettable movie.

Anyways, I will probably be posting some such interesting pieces of dialogues that I come across from now on, although for certain movies (like say Knocked up, or Juno, or even Jab We Met) it would probably end up being a pretty long post!
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Sunday, September 07, 2008

Dell and his blog


First read my disclaimer here.

One fine day, Dell woke up and found himself with nothing to do. Well, that wasn't really true. He actually found himself with a LOT of things to do, none of which he wanted to. After a lot of contemplation, he decided to start a blog.

Dell is funny in general but sometimes his jokes can really bore you to death. Also, Dell loves being the most popular person in his groups. So even before he would finish his blog posts, he would email all his friends asking them to read and comment on his blog. His friends, who were the primary readers of his blog, found his initial few posts amusing and a bit interesting. However, with time, Dell became busier (or should I say lazier) and his blog posts not only became irregular but also longer and monotonous. Needless to say Dell's readers got disinterested and soon his blog became one of those things that exist but serve no purpose.

However, Apple, one of his buddies, would keep checking Dell's blog for updates. He would constantly encourage Dell to continue his efforts and finally managed to get him to return to blogging after a year long hiatus. Unfortunately to Apple's disappointment Dell's "return post" turned out be even more uninteresting and humdrum than ever before. Apple, being a very good friend of Dell, told him exactly what he felt about Dell's latest blog post.

Although Dell has taken Apple's comments as constructive criticism, it is still left to see whether or not Dell would continue with his ways.

PS:

I shall update the story of Dell and his blog if anything even remotely interesting turns out from this scenario.

@Dell & Apple: Hi!! :P
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Disclaimer


Just realized that I haven't posted several "interesting" and "not-so-interesting" incidents for the sake of not wanting to name the person(s) involved. So, from now on I have decided to post them as fictitious happenings / stories.

I guess the persons involved will know as soon as they read the post. And, it is likely that some "potential" posts might upset someone / land me in a soup. In my defense, all I say is that these posts are likely to be exaggerated and modified versions of the truth and are only "based" on true incidents. There, that gets me off the hook, I hope :)

Btw, these "stories" would most likely be inside jokes that only the person(s) involved would "get" and enjoy. So, if you wasted your time reading one of these please don't waste anymore of your time by telling me how I just wasted your time :P
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Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Google Chrome


If my "The" roommate knows about it then it is safe to assume that you do too.

I just tried it (although not using it RIGHT NOW) and it seems pretty cool. Very bare maybe, but fast. And more than actual thing, I loved the Google Chrome comic-book (see: http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/) Although I would have loved more technical details, I have to agree that it wasn't a too dumbed down introduction. I felt that using only the colors from the Google Chrome browser for the comic strip was a nice touch.

After using GChrome I can only say that it is here to stay. Google's announcement may be premature but their product definitely seems to live up to the expectations. However, I somehow feel that THIS was the operating system that many (if not all) people thought Google would eventually come out with, to compete with Windows. I mean with Internet being ubiquitous already, and browsers being the most used software, is it too hard to imagine that soon, all computer activities will be done online? With the bulky IE still struggling to cope up with Firefox, Microsoft doesn't seem to have a ready answer to Google's next big attack so close to its hometurf. I could be wrong there, but I am definitely right in saying that interesting things are waiting to happen in the following days.

PS: What I loved most about Google Chrome (in the limited time that I have spent on it) is its taskmanager and the stats for nerds. Try it!
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