For the love of action

Huge explosions , Constant rattling of gas operated rifles , the cacophony of 50 cals and 7.62 mm NATO rounds. They never cease to hold my attention . Desert Eagles , more suitable for killing Bisons than Humans ooze machismo and attitude . So addictive , that when I browse sites for information on weapons and ordinance , my mom becomes melodramatic and wonders if I will become a terrorist ( me , a glass wearing nerd sitting inside the house browsing the internet ! )

The more movies I see , the more I wonder at the sheer stupidity of FPS'es and action movies .You find the hero ( in games its you ) shooting down millions of pixels with sheer excitement . Stallone and Arnie shoot from unimaginable distances with hand cannons ( read desert eagles ) and perform physics defying stunts that would put black holes to shame. While Arnie shoots from the hip with a Minigun ( so called because its much smaller than its parent the 20mm M61 Vulcan used in aircraft) , Stallone drives a tank into a modified Aerospatiale SA 330 Puma ( read Hollywood style Soviet Croc ) creating a 20 gigaton blast , only to survive the explosion . His Rambo-ian feats are legendary surpassed only by Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee .

Arnie on the other hand is a Hercules . He rides horses onto rooftops , drives the Naval ( yes I did spell it right)Harriers , and shoots at the forehead from 100 m .To top it all is Vin Diesel , who can make a bare engine run at 200 mph . And of course , no one can forget Rajini ( and if I did I am no human at all ) the world hero . Catching bullets in a glass of juice , playing catch and catch with grenades , Shooting across the world from the Wild west to the dry districts of TamilNadu.You name it, he has done it . Heck when he got bored he even created a new web and renamed google to google.rajinikanth.com . Not even Amitabh can come close . ( Notice that I make no mention of SRK , Akshay Kumar or Salman Khan . They are nothing more than little boys, whose occupation especially the latter , is nothing more than tearing up shirts in silly fights. Rajini doesnt even soil his white dhoti . )

With the heyday of the 80's action long gone , many thought that the days of awesome action is over . Not anymore fellas , you have a lifesaver : Call of Duty , the most unrealistic shooter ever created . Not only does one survive .50 cal hits , one can even re generate health and never lose a muscle or bone . And to make it all the more unrealistic is the animated sequences shown in between the game , making it more of a personal Rambo V than a combat game . COD aint the first . That credit belongs to classics like Quake , Doom and the master of the masculine gender : Duke Nukem 3D.

With so much stupidity why does one waste hours to catch the latest action flick or get caught up in an online deathmatch for hours together ?? ?

Simple answer : fun and the adrenaline surge.

Most guys will agree with me . There is an urge in all of us , to do something bad ass and huge . The adrenaline surge of watching an action movie , takes us to a place where we fell 100 men with bare hands, a feeling of power when holding a rifle ( though in most cases it will be nothing more than mouse or a game console controller) . Indeed , from the sales of FPS video games ,action figures and the sheer multitude of online gaming servers , this is universally evident .

You wont find any self respecting guy playing SIMS 3 or cake mania . They prefer being caught red-handed kicking a puppy.With so much adrenaline to suppress no wonder we love the sheer sound of a plastic explosive .

Excuse me now , for it is time for my session of UrbanTerror online .

Circus of Insanity

Somebody makes a mistake. Maybe the thief hasnt hid his track well enough . The businessman hasnt covered his affair well . The celebrity's escapades are not clandestine . A politician got caught in a sting operation . Everytime , regardless of the situation one huge organization goes crazy , dragging along millions of people with it , the media .

Knee-jerk reactions , instaneous decisions , melodrama , shouting , expert opinions characterize the famous masala industry of this country . Unknown people from all walks of life get to face demaaanding questions , experts of all subjects from poop-cleaning to economics face the glaring studio lights ; live reports are generated by reporters instantly signing off with a "for xxxxy channel , yyzz"(thats the only thing I can hear and understand clearly in the whole 10 minutes in which they speak non-stop).

The news channels never seem to let go of the world headlines : everything makes the headlines. From the 2g scam to the decision by the press on not to publicize the bachchan's expected scion's birth .

The television media has mistakenly taken itself too seriously . From doing dignified coverage of scoops and stories , it has moved on to a style that resembles more of a saas-bahu television namely that of shock and FUD . Reporters and people shout in the studios in the name of debates . Suits with a heavy Indian accent report you the breaking news with the same 10 sec clip shown for hours .Ladies call up unknown experts asking questions and refusing answers , pretending to know something about what they are talking .

This gets worse when a homicide case is covered . The 2008 Noida double murder case is a shining example of the media's insensitivity. Not only did they disregard the privacy of the family , the entire circus roamed around the house , which might have destroyed much needed evidence , pretending to be forensic experts and giving judgements on the outcome of the case .

What amazes me is their stubborn refusal to mend their ways and their determination in not letting any thoughts or criticism get through their heads .Its like getting a new idea is like catching HIV and therefore unhealthy at all costs.

While there are some good examples , the number and the occasions in which they are displayed are too few . Also lacking from the media is a lack of critcism . Barkha Dutt has no doubt earned the ire of many a blogger for forcing a blogger to take down his article which was downright against his constitutional rights. May the stupidity of the Indian media never cease .

Being nothing more than aam aadmi , we can do nothing but watch in despair as entertainment and news becomes one , how anything and everything is blown out of proportions just to get a goddamned number called TRP to increase, how insensitivity means more profit and less privacy means more viewers. An action against this would no doubt be derided again as an attack on freedom of speech despite the fact that freedom will be attained only when these speeches finally end .

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=274157389295693&set=a.186191641425602.43044.171995166178583&type=1&theater

Dennis Ritchie co-creator of C and Unix dies at 70

Dennis Ritchie co-creator of C and Unix died at the age of 70 . Compared to the media hullabaloo and deityfing of a marketing man a week ago whose most significant contribution was a one mouse button and a device that sucked people's money and freedom , Ritchie's contribution to the world included C a language that can be said as the most important development since the Turing Machine in my opinion. C was not only a language , it was philosophy , a way to deal with problems and a beautiful way to tackle them . the Unix OS had the same principles which lead to its widespread adoption as the OS on which the internet was built and whose successors Linux and BSD still pave the way for development and innovation . Ritchie will be deeply missed by the programmer and hacker community and by a guy like me who discovered a gem that taught him what it means to write beautiful programs called The C Programming Language , 2nd Edition.

The Stereotypical Textbook

A few posts ago , I wrote about the stereotypical villain. I mentioned the appearance , characteristics and personality of such a person( if it exists). However , I believe that it is time I bring to your attention the character of a much more personal , dangerous villain we encounter in our day to day life who literally makes us pull our hair out with frustration.

They are textbooks.

Myth says there there was nary a man who had opened a textbook without the faintest bit of fear , apprehension. When one opens it , even the warmest of volcanoes turn cold . Water freezes at room temperature and people tend to Urinate the hardest.
What makes textbooks so morbid and ominous ?

1) same as the villain ... Bad Appearance.
Lets take magazines . Colorful. Glossy.Full of half-naked women with voluptuous bosoms. Cheap ? Yes. Sell like hot cakes. Sold everywhere . Popular too .Size Zero ?? You bet.
Textbooks . Cheap ? You bet. i spend more money in buying textbooks than in paying fees for the exam where i put the content of those books to use .
Colorful.Yes its so choke full of gray, black and white I get reminded of my Grandpa everytime I open it .Occasionally some textbook has a dual-color or a gradient color , prompting orgasms from book worms all over the place.

Full of half-naked women with voluptuous bosoms ?? I dont think such kind of women are inclined to read why heap sort is preferred over bubble sort.

Sells like hot cakes ? Unfortunately , with a gazillion students graduating every year ,textbooks are in great demand to memorize and vomit tonnes of shit into answer papers, prompting black market sales and robbery of the libraries.

Size Zero ?? more like Madame Dinosaur who became depressed after her 15th marriage ended in divorce . Big , fat and weighing atleast 150 kilos . And that's only Part 1.

2) False Promises and assurances .
The greatest textbooks start with the following sentences.
" This book will offer you a gentle introduction into the contents ....."
" By the time you finish this book , you know what hell feels like..... "
"The language is very easy , the text concise so that monkeys like you know better than to buy a book like this "

This so reminds me of politicians and mega-villains
" I will kill the bloody hero and wash my leg with his blood "
" He will die for his arrogance and opposition" .... " I will make an example out of him""

Lies will take you nowhere . Be honest and remove that bloody preface . Atleast it will help us save a couple of bucks and 500 grams of weight.

3) Cost. for the price of a textbook , you can buy three Lamborghinis and a fit it with a nitrous kit and still have enough cash leftover to go on a trip to mars and back.
Knowledge is wealth . Plain trash made from the english alphabet is even more expensive .

4) Uselessness.
Just like villains they are just empty words. At the last minute you desperately try using your book , demanding it , pleading with it show some enlightenment .Hopeless. You will still get trashed by your opponent .


Enough of the Cynicism . What can be textbooks used for ?

Textbooks are extremely useful as weapons of mass destruction . A 1000 of them when dropped over a city can do as much damage as 10 kiloton nuke.
Textbooks are also the source of a contagious disease called Twilightophiliosis where people get hallucinations of being consorts of vampires and start drinking diluted Nerolac paint .

Old textbooks are a very dangerous source of radiation, causing sever long term effects among users and other people who come in contact with them . Always be wary of such items when you go into an old book shop.The movie Resident Evil is said to have been inspired by such an infection of ten people in an old college .

Indeed with the recent turn of events , factions of al-Qaeda and Hizbul-Mujahideen have dropped their plans on acquiring nukes and have started collecting textbooks of the Anna University and are planning to detonate it in metropolitan cities across the world . They are so dangerous that most of the terrorist who have come in contact with them are said to be suffering from terminal cancer and will commit the detonation as the last act of their life before going on meet their god.

We can conclude that unlike filmy villains , textbooks arent that useless. The easiest way to get into the Forbes 500 is make a contract with Colleges in Tamilnadu and start supplying textbooks to students.Banks are in talks with each other to delve into the prospect of offering book loans to students in lieu of their brains and kidneys . Or else if you are the taking action into hands kind who hates the world , you can make your own book bomb and drop it all over the country .

Remember , with great power comes great responsibility .

Friggin Exams

Due to impending exams , I have to spend time reading pointless stuff that would make even Dr.Sheldon Cooper vomit at the sheer amount of blasphemy.So I will be quite a break before I resume writing stuff again . Fear not , for the last bastion of freedom isnt destroyed yet. Its just taken a pee break . Enjoy your time and read better ones to stave off boredom.

A classification of music genres and fans

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Heights of Insanity

You know when you are crazy when


1.) Wake until 2 in the morning and then go into the kitchen to make a bowl of hot soup .
2.) Turn on all the fans when it is freezing and then sleep without a shirt just for the sake of feeling the raw  chillness.
3.)Walk all the way from R.S Puram to Gandhipuram via Townhall and back to R.S Puram at 
   4 in the evening  just because you are bored at home .
4.)Play 4 hours of Counter-Strike right before the day of the exam to keep away the guilty-consciousness that  washes over you when you dont want to study.
5.)Read a 500 page book cover-to-cover in 2 days when sitting in front of the teacher in the lab.
6.)Go out of the house at 10 PM to get a bar of candy
7.)Go to the library and read page no 150 of Advanced Quantum Physics despite majoring
     in software engineering.
8.)Chatting with 5 people simultaneously , 2 on facebook , 2 on gmail and screaming at your Mom live.
9.)Drinking the mil right out of the packet without boiling or pouring it in a Tumbler just because it saves you 30 secs despite  you waking up 30 min late.
10.)Doing math to calculate the Dot pixels per inch of your computer screen while walking down the street.
11.)Reading newspapers sitting near a windows in the bus, so as to not miss the editorial before dad reads it .
12.)Trying to memorize value of Pi upto 20 digits.
13.)Trying to index your notes by using a hybrid system of Letters and date of when you wrote them.
14.)Holind your laptop upside down in the bed to get better colors off the screen while watching a movie.
15.)Carefully rolling up the Wireless Router in a soft cloth while taking it from your bedroom to the Hall.




Am I alone or are there ones crazier ?? Share your experiences with me