Emoticons are stupid, and here's why

I hate emoticons. I think they are dumb, they are lazy, and they are completely misused. It is very irritating when people on the internet pepper almost all of their sentences with little smiley faces and winks and the one with the dude's tongue sticking out. My limited comprehension skills allow me to decipher only the most basic iterations of these devilish tools, and I become willfully blind to anything with tildes and big O's and little o's.

Pearls before swine, one of my favorite comic strips, captured my emotions about emoticons quite effectively:

Google+ and much ado about nothing

Google recently unveiled its own version of facebook, called Google plus. News organizations, always on the lookout for something sensational, touted this as the new facebook with better privacy options. As with all of its previous products, Google made this one invite-only. In any case, I have no interest whatsoever in ever using this newfangled contraption. Maintaining one social network is hard enough for me; I have no appetite or patience for another. In fact, I am seriously considering completely deleting everything on my facebook and leaving it for good. Even though I don't even use it that much, it is a huge distraction and a time sink. Maybe returning to email and phone will be good.

Google's new product raises a few questions, however. Why this irrepressible urge to one-up the other guy? Why are these tech companies in perpetual race against one other? I understand that innovation is key to growth (and ultimately profits), but sometimes you have to recognize a lost cause and concede. Apple has got the personal music player market pretty well covered, and Microsoft had to learn it the hard way. Google has so perfected the art of online search that it is foolish to spend money in R&D to come up with newer engines (I'm looking at you Bing). Similarly, facebook has a virtual monopoly on social networking in the cloud (600 million users and counting). Any new product designed to rival it has a very high chance of failing spectacularly.

But but isn't facebook the new myspace? Didn't myspace suffer a similar sad demise? Well, yes and no. Myspace arrived at a time when net users were still confused about their needs. It failed to offer complete protection against fake profiles and predatory behavior. It is not like facebook is much better in that regard, but facebook arrived with a sense of purpose. Its exclusivity (remember when you needed to have a college email address AND have someone from inside the network approve you to join? If you can't, you are too young) was a big part of its appeal. People trust it enough to post pictures of their lives and spend time searching for high school classmates, birth mothers and old flames. Just like youtube will never be dislodged from its perch, facebook is here to stay. Whether we like it or not.

Google plus, like its confused predecessor Google Wave, will be a minor player in netdom. Like the old bard said, much ado about nothing. More like google minus.

Rod Blagojevich is so infamous

That even Indian newspapers are putting his 'deeds' on the front page.

Take a look at this:

Rod: the legend of the toupee

An Indian summer - 3: Sights and sounds

A weeks since I arrived here. So I thought I would give a few tidbits about the daily routine here.

Transportation: Scooters (the Vespa kind, not the razor kind) and motorcycles are probably the most popular means of transportation here. The traffic situation is not nearly as bad as it is in bigger metropolises, but it is certainly much worse than when I used to live here. It is a problem of limited space, mostly. The roads are narrow and with construction booming, it is becoming difficult to fit all the vehicles on the road. There certainly are more cars than before. Believe it or not, Chevy is one of the more popular brands, alongside Honda, Nissan and Suzuki. Motorists, scooterists (judging by the red squiggly line underneath, this doesn't seem like a word - oh well) and motorcyclists have to share the road with the obvious - pedestrians and bicyclists - and the not-so-obvious - stray dogs. Still, it was quite a pleasure riding out on my friend's motorcycle. Nothing beats the feeling of semi-hot wind hitting you in the face. (I am serious, BTW - it is pretty enjoyable)

The auto-rickshaw (a three wheeled version of a taxicab) remains an overwhelmingly popular choice of  conveyance. Here's a picture of one:

Tricked out ride [source:fractalenlightenment.com]

Cricket: India is a place of many different languages, customs, traditions and cultures. Despite the dizzying array of differences, cricket (I did two posts explaining the basics here and here) remains the one big, glorious unifying passion. One of the few vestiges of the British colonial rule adopted enthusiastically by the country, the sport has lately been touted as a symbol of the nation's growing economic might. I will let the politicos and economicos worry about the symbolism and deeper meanings and whatnot. For me cricket symbolizes simplicity and harkens back to childhood. Find any clear space around your neighborhood, grab a bat (or two) and a ball and off you go. Even as I am writing this, I can hear kids playing with a plastic ball outside.
So it was with great pleasure that I fished out my old bat from the innards of my old room and played for a solid two hours with my friends a couple days ago. Now my friends may tell you that I suck at this great game, but I think I have gotten better with time. Besides, if sucking were ever to be a crime, the entire post-Lebron Cavaliers lineup would be in jail by now.

Entertainment: I have been spending an unhealthy amount of time playing "Uno" lately. You see, since we used to do the same years and years ago, it made complete sense to us to resume the noble practice. Each round is accompanied by an inordinate number of jeers, insults and hoots and heckles. Skips and draw fours bring out the worst in us, I guess.
Our ancient television set at home has, after many years of faithful service, decided to start phoning it in. The color scheme changes randomly on the screen, and depending on the time of the day, everything either turns red or blue. Doesn't take away from the actual scene on the screen, though, so I am OK with that. Most TV programs can be divided into the following categories: Indian soap operas, 24/7 cable news (English and Hindi), music videos and movies, cricket, and more cricket. Lately they've started airing a bunch of American shows (like Modern Family, White Collar, Family guy etc.) on a few channels. Strangely, there seems to be a lot of  "Las Vegas" on air on these channels. Here's your chance to see pre-Transformers and pre-Fergie Josh Duhamel, folks.

I think that's enough for now. More in the next installment.

TV review: Dexter

This is one of those spur of the moment posts, where I feel an irrational surge of bravado and hope to dazzle y'all with my piercing wit and wise criticism. So here we go.

'Dexter' is a television drama that airs on the premium cable channel Showtime. Boutique cable channels like Showtime and HBO have a slight edge over traditional networks (like NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX) and even basic cable networks (like USA, TNT, FX, etc.) because they don't always have to cater to the lowest common denominator. Unlike the aforementioned lay channels, these highbrow entertainment meccas largely survive on (quite hefty) subscription fees that viewers shell out. This means that only those who want to watch programming on Showtime or HBO will pay. Being guarded from inadvertent viewers in this way also allows these networks more leeway in terms of graphic images, language and more explicit content matter like drugs or violence. Nothing is bleeped out; black bars are not needed here.

While it is true that such freedom has brought us genuine masterpieces like "The Sopranos" and "The Wire", the lack of any restrictions on content also gives show creators an excuse to show excessive violence and sex wrapped in the guise of historical lushness or avant-garde television. One look at the travesties that are "The Tudors" (a drama about Henry VIII rife with horrendous inaccuracies and laughable plot changes) and "Californication" (a drug-infested tale about a snarky author suffering writer's block) confirms this assertion.

Fortunately, "Dexter" is not one of these "we'll show you all the goods just  cuz we can" type shows. The conflict portrayed in the show is real, the tension palpable.

The main premise of the show is this: the protagonist Dexter Morgan is a forensic analyst working for the Miami police. During day he is a genial, if slightly quirky and moody, coworker who brings donuts for his colleagues and makes questionable jokes with his analyst buddies. He has a kid sister Debra who is also a detective with the homicide department. Their father was also a cop, making the Morgans a true blue blood family.

Where is the drama in that, mate? Well at night time, Dexter doubles as Batman a serial killer. Don't worry, though. He is the good kind of serial killer (if such a kind can, in fact, exist). Turns out Dexter was trained by his dad at an early age to channel his violent tendencies to do good for society by eliminating those who deserve to die. His dad Harry also taught him a code that basically says,  "Don't kill innocent people". Leaving aside the obvious moral and ethical quandaries regarding who gets to choose who deserves to die when, Dexter's increasing difficulties with maintaining two lives makes for very compelling TV.

And Michael C. Hall (nominated multiple times for a best actor Emmy) plays the hell out of Dexter. Each episode is peppered with inner monologues of Dexter and his growing bewilderment with social conventions like small talk, and Hall obviously relishes playing an emotionally empty but basically good to the core serial killer. I say this without the faintest trace of irony, because if you want to truly enjoy the show you have to buy into the "good serial killer" mantra otherwise it won't make much sense. The secondary characters need some work on the show. Sometimes they are mere props meant to support Dexter is his quest to escape the long arms of the very same law he helps uphold in the day. And people who do begin to suspect Dexter tend to die at the end of the season. To date there have been five seasons of the show (I am currently watching the fifth season), and though all have followed roughly similar plotlines (while the police is busy with other crimes in the city, someone from the department gets suspicious about Dexter. Dexter tries to evade this person and tragic shit happens, but Dexter escapes at the end), the superior writing and acting makes it worthwhile to watch this show.

So get on your butts and catch this show. You'll like it.

Watch this, ahem, killer intro to see whether you like it or not. Such exquisite detail!

An Indian summer - 2

Let's play a game. The name of this game is Where in the world is your favorite blogger?

Thank you for playing. Your favorite blogger is currently in a quaint little town called (read twice to memorize; there will be a quiz later) Vallabh Vidyanagar in the western Indian state of Gujarat. But I am sure that's like me saying that white dwarf WD 1620-26 is located alongside pulsar PSR 1620-26 A in the constellation Scorpius some 13000 light years away. (It's true. Look it up.)

Be happy, then, that I spent some time tinkering with Google Maps and GIMP (a free photo manipulation software, if you must know - sorta like photoshop for the poor) to demystify my location.

First, here is the good state of Gujarat. As you can see, it sits happily on the western edge of India, bordering the Arabian sea on the west and the south and Pakistan to the north.

Here is Vallabh Vidyanagar (if you are too tired of the long name, you can call it - as many locals do - V.V. Nagar), roughly 50 km (did I mention everything here is in kilometers, liters and kilograms?) from the coast.

UG Sports - 15: The ballad of Tim the Linecum

So unless you lived under a rock last October, you have probably heard of Tim "The Freak" Lincecum. There's something about that guy that strikes me as awesome. Maybe it's the fact that he's a power pitcher at 160 lbs or maybe it's the fact that he looks like Michael Phelps with girl hair. Or maybe it's the fact he listens to this song before every game.





This, by the way, was written by a close friend. I think he wishes to remain anonymous, but I couldn't take all the credit for writing this. He emailed me this piece saying this was his imitation of my style.