• The games people Play

    Monopoly, yup, the board game alright. One of my fave games ever, though there are some uncharitable people who call it a game that gets you bored. A couple of months back, i had bought the computer version of the game, and have been addicted since. this weekend, i finished the 15th and final level, so i thought i had to write a post on it, thereby slightly altering the ‘introspection’ scheme of things to the ‘my diary’ kind…but let me assure you that its only a temporary aberration, which shall be rectified in this post itself…
    hmm, back to monopoly, for those who are regulars, the comp version is slightly different coz there are different levels, with each level having a different objective. also some things like having to own all locations of the same color before starting construction have been bypassed, which actually makes it much better.
    as with all the games i play, i tried to find a link between me, the person, and the game i am playing…. monopoly allows you to completely destroy your opponent, using whatever cheap trick (read strategy) that you can think of, it allows you to toy with your opponent’s future and plans, and if you are real good at the game, put him in situations that will make him do exactly what you want him to do… all of which are things that get done in today’s world….but fortunately or unfortunately not the things i could bring myself to do in my current ‘love and peace to all’ avtar (which looks to be more and more a permanent state of affairs)..hehe…
    and so, do i like games like monopoly, delta force, unreal etc coz they allow me to be someone i am not, manifest myself in a form that i cannot be ‘really’… and so again, is it possible for all of us to find our own games, take out the rage , frustration, deviousness etc on the game, so that we can stop playing games on other people??
    until next time, keep playing

  • Choice of joys

    Please consider this hypothetical question – If God gave you a choice between 30 (no more, no less) years of life with only joys/happiness and 60 years of life of joys and sorrows, which one would you choose?
    that was a serious question, but this

    Should However Invoke Tickles
    Little Johnny was sitting in class doing math problems when his teacher picked him to answer a question, “Johnny, if there were five birds sitting on a fence and you shot one with your gun, how many would be left?”
    “None,” replied Johnny, “cause the rest would fly away.”
    “Well, the answer is four,” said the teacher, “but I like the way you’re thinking.”
    Little Johnny says, “I have a question for you. If there were three women eating ice cream cones in a shop, one was licking her cone, the second was biting her cone and the third was sucking her cone, which one is married?”
    “Well,” said the teacher nervously, “I guess the one sucking the cone.”
    “No,” said Little Johnny, “the one with the wedding ring on her finger, but I like the way you’re thinking.”

    and someone’s humble contribution to the Taj’s birthday –

    Taj Mahal kya cheez hai
    main to usse bhi bada mahal banaoonga,
    aree Mumtaz to marke dafan hui thi,
    main to tujhe zinda hi dafna doonga.

    until next time, bury the thoughts….

  • Bloggywood

    Bollywood – where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely getrevealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(for that matter, any ‘ollywood’ – B, H, K…)
    in the beginning, almost every movie made had a fresh storyline which made people see it. then we had formula movies, which tried to recreate the same magic as its successful predecessor, most failed, coz people could see the same thing only so many times… the search for keeping viewers happy continued.. for some time, fresh faces were the mantra, and love stories were churned out like there was no tomorrow (maybe there wasnt).but then even love could only keep interest that long..
    action, romance, mystery, sex …a time when every idea has been thrashed out , thrashed in, and thrashed inside out… then the varied treatments began… “its the same story, but my treatment is different”…. somewhere in between there was also the “for the first time in bollywood” wave, which included phirang heroes and heroines, and special effects… we also had, maybe still have movies made for the niche audience…the cross over movies…’grey’ heroes and heroines, literally and otherwise..none of this making much of a difference…..every time a fresh face is launched with reasonable fanfare, there is an interest, but itisnt sustained… there are not enough viewers, except for very rare cases…
    but yup, you are right, bollywood and the other woods still go on, movies are being made, we still watch them, but the standard of movies has reached rock bottom, and is still digging (that would explain the underworld involvement 😉 ),the chances of watching a good movie are infinitesimally small… the consolation is that there are still some who experiment, and make movies about stuffthey believe in, and that belief many a time makes the movie a success… but they are too few to change the general phenomenon………..
    Blogs- where dreams come true, where talent, if it exists, will definitely get revealed, where fantasies are lived out, where passion finds a way of expression…(rediffblogs, blogspot, blogdrive…..)
    in the beginning……………
    do we see bloggywood happening?
    until next time, keep believing, keep blogging….

  • Relative Values

    These days, i find i am ‘doing’ the things that ‘happened’ to me in childhood, to this generation of kids (perverts, mind your mind !!)..simply because i am reaching the stage of life that my relatives were in,at that time…Relatives were important initially coz of the attention they gave, and perhaps also because of the favourable comparisons (favourable to me, that is..hehe) they made with their offspring…. and it was only a sidenote that they used to give pocket money when they left….
    unfortunately, increased exposure to the material world gradually converted the sidenote to a headline..well, thats the excuse..:)..gradually their visits became important because they became a major source of revenue… i will refrain from commenting on the status of the comparisons…
    On my last visit to kerala, i ended up on the ‘relative’ side of things… quite obviously, i wasnt so naive that i couldnt understand the relatively low value of affection(for the kids, that is)… i was smug in the knowledge that, at the time of saying bye, i would be bestowing some surprise pocket money on the ‘kids’…. but i realised how ‘out of touch’ i was with the world, when hours before departure, the ‘kids’started asking me how much i planned to give them…. the only solace was that i had matched their expectations in value…at least i think i did… shudder to think of comparisons!! Innocence was not lost, it wasnt there at all!! …*sulk*
    until next time, get some values!!

  • A Reason to blog

    I think i have followed a predictable path in blogging, starting out when rediff hyped blogging in early 2003, precisely because of that reason, hype. i felt it was a good forum, still do, though some apprehensions still remain, primarily to do with the commercialisation of the medium.the next step was playing around with template, going all green after going visiting..hehe..i think the only one remaining (in my list) from that era is swb. cant help say that i still feel green when i see some of his content..:).. what, i guess, followed was a deliberate attemptto make the content interesting to readers, to put it more bluntly,anything to increase traffic!!…hehe
    it actually seems a long time ago, though we are talking only of times a year and a half back…. when i read the earlier posts objectively(as much as possible), i can actually see the person evolving with the blog (there are some who would question the particular word used..hehe)….over a period of time, the blog has meant different things to me – ego boosts, acceptance, freedom.. to name a few.
    now readers are important to me in a whole new way – like friends in school/college..to be taken for granted when around, and to be missed terribly when not around… now, posts are moments captured in time.
    for many people, images do the trick, but for me, the regular ‘picture and thousand words’ doesnt make sense in this particular context. some time later, i can read this post and understand exactly what i felt at 10.30 am on 24 sep 2004….
    at different points in time, we have different reasons for doing things, and for me, now, this is the reason to blog….
    now….weekends should start on a happy note, and thats enough reason for some
    Solid Humour, I Thought
    Here are the top eight comments made by NBC sports commentators during the Summer Olympics:
    1. Weightlifting commentator: “This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.”
    2. Dressage commentator: “This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.”
    3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: “I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.”
    4. Boxing Analyst: “Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.”
    5. Basketball analyst: “He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn’t like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.”
    6. At the rowing medal ceremony: “Ah, isn’t that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.”
    7. Soccer commentator: “Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.”
    8. Tennis commentator: “One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them…

    till next time, keep reasoning