The Evil Empire Rises

Rallied together, the Forces of Sith have. Stronger has grown the Dark Side. Careful we must be, padowans.

The Sith has penetrated Blogger. And Haloscan. First, my profile won't get updated. Still shows old statistics. Then, the WYSIWYG editor won't load. Fortunately, the Elders had provided a non-WYSIWYG editor for fallback. Now, it is the only way to post. If only we had listened to the young one. We failed to see the pattern in this failure. And when we tried to induce Haloscan Commenting and Trackback into this blog, we got the features but all the Sacred Comments of the Golden Past were erased.

I still don't believe Morpheus. I can't be the Chosen One. But I can't watch Zion fall. (Oops! Wrong flick... See? the Emperor, or was it Agent Smith, is upto his old tricks again)

Do a full spectrum sweep of positron signatures for the cloaked Romulan Cruiser. Commander Data, debug the entire system. The future of all mankind rests on us. Battle Stations.

Brain Damnage

This one was lonely. So lonely that this one had only two friends. Both of them were imaginary. And they only used to play with each other.

This one is a very complicated person. This one is schizophrenic. Schizo. So much so that this one's split personae have their own split personae. And the subdivision could continue ad infinitum.

This one wants you to get to know a few of these personalities (although some of them have none). This one will begin with introducing all currently present:

• Technoprisoner : Technophile, technolord, technoslave, takes no prisoners


• Psycho-the-rapist : Shrinker, thinker, mind-bender, doesn't believe in 'First, do no harm'.


• Con-noisseur : Smooth criminal with a taste for the good life


• Stagger : Believes reality is an illusion caused by the absence of alcohol

And all of you better stand up to welcome them and be nice to them, always. We don't want the Other One to come here, do we? The one called Cide. Yes, simply Cide. He believes in all kinds of cide, Homicide, Genocide, Infanticide. Although he has been very busy playing Suicide.

Bloc

Soviet Bloc, East Bloc, Communist Bloc, North Bloc, Arterial Bloc...
Writer's Bloc.

Dear Readers,
Prometheus has been busy and has also been struck down with writer's block. Inspiration, anyone?

PS: Thought for the day, 'inspired' by Mark Twain...
"Man is the only animal that has or needs the concept of religion".

Ironic

An old man turned ninety-eight
He won the lottery and died the next day
It's a black fly in your chardonnay
It's a death row pardon two minutes too late
Isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
Who would've thought

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly
He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids good-bye
He waited his whole damn life to take that flight
And as the plane crashed down he thought
Well, isn't this nice
And Isn't this ironic ... don't you think?

Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you
When you think everything's okay and everything’s going right
Everything goes wrong and blows up in your face

A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of your dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
Isn't it ironic... don't you think

Trusting people - thinking they are true
Baring your soul and what it holds
Opening your heart to someone you thought you could depend on
Only to find that he’s a mere human after all
And not the friend you had counted on
Isn’t it ironic…

Life’s’ bitter lessons, betrayal of the soul…
And loves labor lost!

Anon

A Scratch

Arun Kolatkar passed away. One of his great poems that I was fortunate to read is reproduced here. Godspeed, Arun!

A SCRATCH
what is god and what is stone
the dividing line
if it exists
is very thin at jejuri
and every other stone is god
or his cousin

there is no crop other than god
and god is harvested here
around the year and round the clock
out of the bad earth and the hard rock

that giant hunk of rock the size of a bedroom
is khandoba's wife turned to stone
the crack that runs right across
is the scar from his broadsword
he struck her down with
once in a fit of rage

scratch a rock and a legend springs

C'est la vie? or C'est moi?

I'm too leftwing to be right...
I'm too rightwing to be left...
I'm so middle that I'm in the middle of nowhere...
I ask not why am I here, I ask why "here" is here.

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher wondered 'Why was my consent not sought before I was put into this world'. With due apologies to The Bard, if 'all the world's a stage and we are merely actors...' I should then like to have a word with the director.

Why am I venturing into the realm of philosophy and psychology?
Because psychologists never grow old, they always remain Jung ! (Ouch! that must've Freud the brains, eh?)

No, I was engaged in a contemplative retrospection of the past few days ('orrible, I tell you) and that made me wonder what I have so un-succintly put in my poor (pour?) French...

Is this life? or is it just Me?

Xandrake FD unveiled

Major boost to the OpenSource Movement

Southpaw County based Xandrake Uncorporated unveiled the much-vaunted distribution that promised to put an end to all monopolistic software corporations. Codenamed Final Debut, sneak previews of Xandrake FD were first seen at last years LEFTEX.

Delivering the FD Internals address, Xandrake Uncorporated's CTO Mr. Art E. Ficial glossed over the radical departure in FD from the established Xandrake internals. "The earlier Xandrake was totally BASHed. FD heralds the first implementation of the 2-bit, processor-native, CRASH kernel. FD revolutionizes user-friendliness by moving everything from the /bin to the /box". Regular readers may recall that we were the first to report Xandrake's ramp-up roadmap to the TRASH kernel, expected by early 2007. Mr. Ficial clarified that Xandrake would meet the target date.

The Mayor of Southpaw County, Ms. Luna-Tic Leftwing announced that the county government would move en-masse over to Xandrake FD. "Our non-opensource, business-critical software runs perfectly under the Whine emulator", said Ms. Leftwing at her press conference announcing tax holidays for Xandrake.

Hotting up the distro-wars, the Asian Hotheads Software Organization (AHSO) revealed first previews of their brand new FD-beating kernel codenamed CRACCARC (Coining Recursive Acronyms Can't Coverup Asinine Ratty Comandlines) that will power Xandrake's arch rival Stymian.

Lithium :: My state of mind

I’m so happy ’cause today
I’ve found my friends ...
They’re in my head
I’m so ugly, but that’s okay, ’cause so are you ...
We’ve broken our mirrors
Sunday morning is everyday for all I care ...
And I’m not scared
Light my candles, in a daze
’cause I’ve found god
Yeah

I’m so lonely but that’s okay, I shaved my head ...
And I’m not sad
And just maybe I’m to blame for all I’ve heard ...
But I’m not sure
I’m so excited, I can’t wait to meet you there ...
But I don’t care
I’m so horny, but that’s okay ...
My will is good
Yeah

I like it - I’m not gonna crack
I miss you - I’m not gonna crack
I love you - I’m not gonna crack
I killed you - I’m not gonna crack

I’m so happy ’cause today
I’ve found my friends ...
They’re in my head
I’m so ugly, but that’s okay, ’cause so are you ...
We’ve broken our mirrors
Sunday morning is everyday for all I care ...
And I’m not scared
Light my candles in a daze ...
’cause I’ve found god
Yeah, yeah, yeah

I like it - I’m not gonna crack
I miss you - I’m not gonna crack
I love you - I’m not gonna crack
I killed you - I’m not gonna crack

Nirvana

Growing Down

A baby is the highest form of human life. Innocent. Nothing has any ‘ambiguous connotations’. Blissfully unaware of Caste, Creed, Gender, Sex (‘Gender’ and ‘Sex’ are not synonyms here). It pursues the highest goal of human life, the pursuit of knowledge.

Cut to 25 years later. Baby has metamorphosed into a ‘slutty, naughty, bitchy’ thing. ‘Gender’ and ‘Sex’ are synonyms now.

Cut to 25 years further. Middle-age mania has set in. Retirement plans and writing epitaphs are prime directives.

Cut to 25 years even further (if someone up there really hates you). Baby is now a senile wastrel, despised by those next in line.

The punch line? Any particular reason we call this phenomenon "Growing Up"?

The title stands explained...

On Marriage

A poetic repartee to the conspiracy afoot to get me married.

I Do, I Will, I Have
By Ogden Nash

How wise I am to have instructed the butler to instruct the first footman to instruct the second footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage; /
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage./
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen, /
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a woman who can't
sleep with the window open. /
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam, /
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam, /
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown, /
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the windowsill,
it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining straight down. /
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce, /
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the
immovable object and the irresistible force. /
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over everything debatable and combatable, /
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he has income and she is pattable. /

---

And a few puns on the subject.

• "Do you take this woman to be your awfully wedded wife?"



• "You may now cuss the bride"

Dedications

I expected the contents of this blog to generate response. I was not let down. But what was surprising was that the most serious response received (verbally) was over the dedications. I stand somewhat corrected and here is the rectified errata.

Yes, the blog is still primarily dedicated to {The Client}, and shall be till time immemorial. Period.

Suhit san, you are chosen to be relegated a few spots behind. I hope I'm forgiven, but it has to be done. {The Client} (90%) and Suhit (10%) got me actually writing, but 'propriety and fairness' aren't a trait of life.

So the corrected dedications are:

• To {The Client}, my Firstest and Bestest Friend.
• To Saidy, my brudder, my alter ego, without whom my life should be mundane.
• To Melly, the sistah gal, for having put up with Saidy.
• To Mohideen, apun ka khas dost.. for some of the coolest interface designs on the planet.
• To Suhit, yeah.. couldn't just cut you out...
• To Milind, my Friend in Misery, my Comrade at Arms.
• To millions more who have (mis)shaped me into who I am.
  

I hope I have poured oil over the storm in a tea cup (Yuck, oily tea?). 'Nuff sed and we get on with the business of writing trash.

PS: (Yes TC, here too) I would appreciate if commentors added their names to the comment instead of being Anonymous.  

Prometheus :: by Prometheus

Prometheus, the Titan, whose name means ‘foresight’, created Man and "... bade him to stand erect and turn his eyes to heaven." [Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.85]

Upon repeated requests by his brother Epimetheus, Prometheus agreed to let him distribute the Gifts among all creation. Epimetheus, devoid of foresight, distributed the gifts randomly among all creation, giving some wings to flee, others tooth and fang to kill, strength to some and speed to some. He gave them resistance to weather and provided for food that some may feed on grass and some on the flesh of others.

And what for Man? There was nothing left. Pained at this injustice toward his most loved creation, Prometheus stole wisdom and art from Hephaestus and Athena and gave it to Man. Most importantly, he stole Fire, that was till then a priviledge of the Olympians, and bestowed it upon Man. For this thievery, Zeus had him chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus where every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night as much as the eagle had devoured during the day.

Despite the tyranny of Zeus, Prometheus twice saved his life and position. The first, in the war against the greater tyrant Cronos and later by averting Zeus’ marriage to Thetis that would have resulted in a Nereid offspring destined to overthrow Zeus. Prometheus was then freed from the daily torture upon Mount Caucasus when Heracles finally killed the eagle upon the command of a thankful Zeus. Till that day, Prometheus had suffered his torture for thirty thousand years.

Though mankind dubbed him ‘The Benefactor’, Zeus never gave Prometheus the immortality of a Titan. The centaur Chiron was grievously wounded by Heracles’ arrow. However, being an immortal, he could not die though he wished for it, and would have been condemned to living for an eternity with the wound. Prometheus, the benefactor, offered to take both Chiron’s wound and immortality and Zeus consented.

However, Zeus did not release Prometheus from all binding, since he had sworn to that, but for commemoration bade him bind his finger with stone and iron. And that is why, men adopted the custom of wearing rings fashioned of stone and iron, that they may seem to appease Prometheus.

And having writ moves on...

To what? Too many thoughts, too many things clouding the system.

What does one write on a blog? Some people put poems, others write a diary. I guess I will use it like personal billboard (Environmentalists please note: No trees have been felled to enhance the visibility of this hoarding)

Yeah, doesn't it give us 'creative' types a high to make a statement like 'I'm not doing this for the hoi polloi. This is my personal work of art and I will do as I please with it'?

Maybe that is exactly what I will do. So I guess the best place to start would be to put a

Disclaimer:
'Any semblance to any person alive or living despite being brain dead it purely intentional. Any sensibilities hurt, however, are purely unintentional. No animals were hurt during the making of this blog, though some would be hurt to find uncharitable mention here.’

And a Warning, for good measure:
‘Rated R: Not for immature audiences (that rules out about half the adult population). The author disowns any responsibility in case minds are left scarred for eternity. Please exercise extreme caution as content could be hazardous. Please consult your safety authorities and use proper protective gear.’

And the Dedication:
‘To {The Client}, my Firstest and Bestest Friend, for being who she is.. and for being sweet enough to believe that I could write and that my writing would be fit for public consumption'

And

Link to the Updated Dedications

Having made the crappiest opening ever on a blog (do they have Razzies for blogs?), the Moving Finger Moves on.. to find someone or something else to finger with...